Separate but Identical: Difference between revisions

* It was even worse in ''[[Warcraft]] I''. In that game even the spells, which again had different names, were functionally identical (for example "Summon Spiders" and "Summon Scorpions" had essentially identical effects), with three exceptions. First, the Cleric's Healing spell and the Necrolyte's (the Orc's equivalent of the Cleric) Raise Dead spell had different effects (and quite significant ones: these were the most important spells in the game). The Cleric could make a unit invisible (worthless when playing against the computer because [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]]) while the Necrolyte could make a unit invincible at the cost of half the unit's health. Also, the Human Conjurer's Summon Water Elemental was noticeably weaker than the Orc Warlock's Summon Daemon, but it had a (short) ranged attack while the Daemon only had a melee attack.

* Fortunately averted in the campaigns of ''[[Warcraft III]]''. The Blackrock clan which appears in two missions has a Warcraft 2 tech tree, and when the blood elves break off from the Human Alliance, the human footman is replaced by an elven footman (identical stats), and the basic ranged unit is an elven archer (functionally equivalent to the standard rifleman); the rest of dwarven and human unit positions are filled by {{spoiler|Naga}} units that are quite different from the units they replaced. Also, {{spoiler|Admiral Proudmoore}} has aquatic-themed units in the expansion.

** That being said Starcraft does at least feature three races that are quite distinct.

** Blizzard in the early planning stages wanted to have a separate UED faction but they didn't want an even number of campaigns, so they made the UED use Terran units and still have only three campaigns.

** The manual for ''[[Total Annihilation]]'' gave some blurb about how the CORE (the computer side) copied the data of their best soldiers into all their units and the ARM (the human side) responded by developing a very regimented cloning and training-from-birth program to create ideal soldiers to pilot all their units. In other words, by fighting the war for so long they almost completely converged in their methodology, despite their differing ideologies. I'm sure there's an Aesop buried in there.

** While true for the most part, the few race differences there are are some of the best units. Core's light armor doesn't have a chance against Arm light armor, and Arm heavy tanks can't hope to win against a similar number of Core superheavy ones - which the Arm side lacks. Also, there are a few standalone units like the Arm Fido, a fast guerilla bot, and the Spider, a unit that has no offensive power but is great for stealing enemy units. Oh, and the [[Humongous Mecha|Krogoth]].

** That is not only so for the Space Marines. Every single one of factions whose colour schemes can be used usually have some special way of fightning, which may also lead to such illogical situations as the World Eaters Chaos Legion, servants of the martial god Khorne, using wizards and demons of Tzeentch.

** Don't forget an Emperor's Children force sacrificing someone to summon a Bloodthirster of Khorne. That can happen too. Fun times.

** The Asians were even more of a break, with virtually no shared units or technologies.

* ''[[Age of Mythology]]'' played with this one - all factions had unique military tech trees and myth units, but shared many economic buildings and almost all non-mythological technologies.

** Similar goes for the two Latino gangs in San Andreas.

* [[Homeworld]]'s Kushan and Taiidan forces are pretty much palette-swapped units with different designs, but plays exactly the same way save for one unique unit each. Fighters defeat bombers, bombers attack cap ships, [[Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors|etc]] Justified in-story, as most of the advances along the tech tree are either back-engineered from captured enemy vessels or something new being thrown at you and your R&D guys coming up with a version of your own.

[[Category:Gameplay and Story Segregation]]

[[Category:Strategy Game Tropes]]