Diplomacy Is Not an Option (Early Access) preview

When revolution arises, Diplomacy Is Not an Option. Fortunately, substantial armies, siege weapons, and murderous meteors are on the table when you’re tasked with safeguarding a sprawling stronghold.

Delve into Diplomacy Is Not an Option’s tutorial and you’ll probably develop an indistinct idea of what’s to come. Here you’ll reacquaint yourself with all the fundamental duties of any respectable real-time strategy title. First, you’ll want to build housing for your growing populace. But construction, requires raw materials, so you’ll designate a spot to for a lumbermill and a stone mine. Unsurprisingly, you’ll have to feed your workers, so setting up fisherman’s huts and berry picking quarters soon follows. And if your eyes haven’t glazed over yet, you’ll be directed to erect a barracks to train swordsmen and archers, because they’re an obligatory constituent of any respectable RTS.

Yes, Diplomacy doesn’t demonstrate distinction at first. But give developer Door 407 a few additional moments and they’ll soon deliver.

Surprisingly Amusing Cinematics

Hop into the game’s campaign and you’re in for an unexpected treat. While the cinematics employ low-poly models, they deliver some unexpectedly comical antics. Here, the game’s pitiful king looks longingly out of his window, taking a swig of liquor every time a bird passes by. This wasn’t the life he envisioned, the game’s deft depiction of body language.

As his level of intoxication grows, he’s interrupted by a succession of knocks on his chamber door. The response is the same every time; the king tosses a bag of gold at his problems. But when he runs out of money and the populace resists taxation, the royal becomes an oddly tragic figure, trapped inside his stronghold, as an ever-growing mob angrily attempts to storm the castle. This is where you come in.

This is (Not) Sparta

Diplomacy Is Not an Option’s campaign tasks players with ensuring the fortress thereby protecting the melancholic monarch. At first a few disgruntled peasants will make a beeline for your structure. But stick with the game and the rebellion grows larger with each successive wave. After a few waves, this culminates in an assault that recalls the Battle of Thermopylae (adapted for the 2006 film, 300). With thousands of enemy units, a god-like perspective on the action resembles furious floodwaters threatening to engulf a dry spot of land.

Instead of the typical RTS goal of offensive dominance, Diplomacy Is Not an Option’s play is almost wholly defensive. Sure, you can occasionally send a battalion to ransack remote enemy camps, earning resources such as soul crystals or cartfuls of resources in the process. But given the persistence of the kingdom’s peasants, your main goal should be fortifying your citadel.

Assorted Options, But Don’t Expect Peacekeeping

Fortunately, Diplomacy offers an assortment of options. Initially, you’ll use wood to fence off your kingdom. The masses can slowly tear away at your fortifications, so posting archers along the tall walkways can act as a deterrent. You can build and assign units to watch towers, who fire projectiles at the invaders below. Although your ballistae and catapults are capable of long-range devastation, you’ll want to ensure each are safeguarded. Troublesome enemies can incapacitate each of them. The game even offers a bit of magic and you spend though collected soul crystals to purchase short-term dark knights or drop a meteor on a group of disobedient villagers.

There’s a research tree where you’ll upgrade your structures, and you’ll potentially harness technologies that let you replace wooden barriers with resilient stone walls. While slinging projectiles from your well-garrisoned fortress is a hoot, the current state of Diplomacy doesn’t quite let complete let loose. With a projected end of Early Access development occurring later this year, there’s still time to add the possibilities for immoral warfare.

More Sadism in my Siege Warfare, Please

Right now, you’ll have to bury the dead, otherwise your kingdom can be beleaguered with plague. But it would be delightfully fiendish to load the diseased corpses of enemies into the ballistae, attempting to cause a peasant pandemic. Hopefully, Door 407 reaches into the historical archives of the Middle Ages, adding elements like moats and boiling hot oil to slow the onslaught. When opposition is this determined and numerous, dirty tricks are an obligation.

Currently, is quite playable, revealing few debilitating bugs. Sure, pathfinding needs improvement, as catapults need to be micromanaged through areas with numerous obstacles. While the campaign brings a succession of increasingly intense challenges, constructing your kingdom from the ground up each time can feel toilsome. Both cooperative play and the ability to control the mobs would be welcome additions. Hopefully, the developer can mend the game’s handful of blemishes, because it’s hard to remember the last time a secluded king toyed with our sympathies.

Diplomacy Is Not an Option was played on PC
with review code provided by the publisher.