Armies of Exigo

A Real Time Strategy Game released by Black Hole Entertainment in November, 2004, notable for its use of underground terrain, and thusly, dual-layered maps. Due to its rather generic style of gameplay it was not a financial success, despite the technical beauty of its graphics. The game dealt with the conflict between three main factions: The Empire, The Beasts, and The Fallen.

Seventy years before the game's opening, a longstanding peace was shattered by an event that came to be known as The Rage. Hordes of beastmen and their allies poured into the Human, Elf, and Gnome-run Empire, nearly destroying it, and crippling their own forces in the process. Seven decades later, the wounds have yet to fully heal. The Empire has only recently begun to rebuild itself while The Beasts, disunited and fractious, have slowly reunited under the leadership of Tyron Son of Gral, a battered war veteran who wishes to recreate the confederation of tribes that existed during The Rage, and exterminate the Humans, Elves, and Gnomes who humiliated his clansmen. In the meantime, a new threat has emerged, crawling out from the bowels of the earth. Hoping to take advantage of the discord between The Empire and The Beasts, The Fallen--an alliance of Deep Elves, extradimensional invaders, and big bugs--have come out of hiding and seek to overrun the world. The race is on to see who will dominate the future of the world of Noran...and who will be removed from play altogether.

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Tropes used in Armies of Exigo include:

• The Alliance: The Empire is an example; even more so after the ensuing Enemy Mine.
• All Trolls Are Different: Stone-skinned, stone-throwing siege units, allied with The Beasts.
• An Axe to Grind: Several Beast units, including Warriors, Berserkers, and Striders, who utilise throwing axes.
• Beast Man: The Beasts proper. Humanoid, vaguely Orc-like beings with a tribal society and a fondness for brute force.
• The Berserker: The upgrade for The Beasts' Warriors is referred to as such, and more than lives up to the name.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Princess Domina and the Void Walkers.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: The basic units of The Fallen army are all examples of this.
• Blade on a Stick: Empire Pikemen; hostile neutral Goblin Lancers.
• Blond Guys Are Evil: Lord Keran, who's actually a Void Walker in disguise.
• Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: The Boron, which provide the meat for The Beast army, are really just glorified cows.
• Carry a Big Stick: Ogres.
• Command and Conquer Economy
• A Commander Is You
  • The Empire: While more dignified than most examples, they're Spammer. Probably justified, as humans and elves are simply less physically strong than the monstrous creatures they face. They have area-of-effect buffs, experienced units get auras that raise their companions' stats, some of their units can be trained in more than one kind of building, and barracks can be upgraded to build two units simultaneously.
  • The Beasts: Brute Force/Elitist. They have the strongest melee units, but their cost is rather high.
  • The Fallen: Mario. They lack melee units, but their ranged ones are pretty durable. Have a little bit of Technical mixed in, as some of their units' attacks have a special effect on the unit they hit, not to mention some rather gimmicky special abilities, like reducing sight range for all enemy units on the map, or Void Walker's ability to temporarily shapeshift into any other unit, gaining all of it's abilities.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The computer can effectively use Priests while human characters would have a lot of difficulty doing so and their units also know the second that someone is motioning to attack them even if the attacking units are on the other side of the field.
• Death From Above: Rain of Fire, Meteor, and Earthquake (which drops a cave roof on an underground unit) are all Beast spells that cause this.
• Enemy Mine: The Fallen are defeated by an alliance between The Empire and The Beasts.
• Everything's Better with Princesses: Subverted to hell and gone by Domina, Princess of the Deep Elves.
• Everything's Worse with Bears: The Elven Dryad can summon a Dire Bear to do her fighting for her.
• Evil Sorcerer: Void Walkers, Matriarchs, Nightmares, Witches & Warlocks (pre-Heel Face Turn). Keran, Vangarath, and Domina are Hero Unit examples.
• Fantasy Axis of Evil: Present, and divided. The Beasts (and their Ogre and Troll allies) embody The Savage, with their Goblin allies as The Crafty, and Lizardmen as The Humanoid. The Fallen are made up of, well, The Fallen in the form of the Deep Elves, while the Void Walkers, Stalkers, and Beholders are what happens when The Eldritch decides to take a very active roll in the story.
• Giant Flyer: Beast Wyverns, Empire Phoenix's and Valkyries, Fallen Aerials, Stalkers, and Beholders.
• God Save Us From the Queen: Domina.
• Heel Face Turn: Dragga, Sseeth, and their respective followers.
• Hero Unit: Alric do Rei, Dunehelm Ballengere (Empire), Keran, Vangarath, and Princess Domina (Fallen), Tyron Son of Gral, Dragga Son of Tyron, and Sseeth (Beast). Other units, like The Captain of the Guard may also count.
• Instant Militia: The Beasts do this one better: by taking an axe from the Weapons' Master, Minions can transform into Warriors--and later Berserkers--on a permanent basis. Leaving a weapon at the Weapons' Master inverts the process, converting combat units into Minions.
• Knight in Shining Armour: Dunehelm Bellangere is a Hero Unit variant. The Knight, which serves as the The Empire's best ground unit, is the generic version.
• Lizard Folk: Allies of The Beasts, with a theocratic--and far more complex--social and political hierarchy than their animalistic allies. They provide three unit types: Striders (dinosaur-mounted, axe-throwing cavalry), Wyverns, and Warlocks (powerful spellcasters who can employ poisonous fog and the Reign of Fire spell, among others). Both Warlocks and Striders are invisible when they do not move.
• Magic Knight: Deep Elf Nightmares. Mounted on the backs of giant rats, these versatile spellcasters combo freezing magic with multi-lashed scourges for use at close range. They are noticeably not Squishy Wizards
• The Medic: Empire Priests.
• Necromancer: The Deep Elf Matriarch can raise Bone Warriors and Bone Archers from the dead around her. The Beasts have a more classic form: their Revive Altar can bring back slain units, enabling a player to keep their most experienced units. Priests can revive Empire units, provided that they get their fast enough.
• No Cure for Evil: The Empire have both healing units and buildings that heal everyone around. Meanwhile, the Beasts are given a hard time, as the only way for them to heal damage is to sacrifice an unit to heal others around it. Even their buildings are denied proper repairs, as part of the damage they take is permanent. The Fallen have no way whatsoever to heal themselves during battle, although they regenerate health when standing on creep generated by their buildings.
• Our Demons Are Different: Immense (as in "stands a head taller than the Ogres"), red-skinned, spike-covered beings summoned from Hell by sacrificing three Witches. They breathe fire, leak flame and lava from cracks in their skin, can teleport, summon other beings from their home dimension to join in the fighting, self-destruct when slain, dealing out damage to nearby units. The strongest unit in The Beast horde.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The Beasts' Lizardman allies have two-legged, two-winged Wyverns as air-support. They breathe poison and slow the attack speed of targeted units.
• Our Elves Are Better: The Northern Elves make up a significant portion of The Empire, providing archers, eagle-mounted Valkyries, and Dryads (druidic spellcasters). They're fairly close to the Wood Elf sterotype in appearance. The Deep Elves are Dark Elves to the core. Driven underground they want to reclaim their place, no matter who they have to hurt in the process. Major unit types include The Matriarch, The Nightmare (rat-mounted Magic Knight cavalry), and The Avenger, a walking Lovecraftian siege weapon.
• Our Gnomes Are Weirder: Miniature technicians and alchemists who provide many of The Empire's best weapons.
• Our Goblins Are Wickeder: Diminuitive, boomerang-armed, greenskinned hunchbacks, who form a part of the Beast horde. They can be mounted on the backs of Boron for greater effectiveness.
• Our Ogres Are Hungrier: Fat, disfigured, club-wielding giants allied with The Beasts. They're none too bright, slow, and awkward, but extremely powerful, and can damage multiple units at once.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Alric do Rei, head of the Mages' Council.
• Squishy Wizard: Averted with Alric, Keran, and any of the other Hero Unit mages. Played straight with the generic Mage (Empire), Void Walker (Fallen), Matriarch (Fallen), Witch (Beast), and Warlock (Beast). Excepting the support unit witches, all are Glass Cannons, capable of dealing out tremendous damage, but not taking it. Averted by The Fallen's Nightmares who can take a decent amount of punishment before falling down.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Dragga Son of Tyron.
• Worker Unit: Peasants for The Empire, Minions for The Beasts, and Harvesters and Summoners for The Fallen (the former gather raw materials, the latter summon structures from other planes).