Globulation

Globulation is a free Real Time Strategy game where you control globus, X-shaped meat-like beings, and try to defeat the other globus teams. It can be described as StarCraft meets SimCity. It can be downloaded here.

This game averts and subverts many common RTS tropes. It's different from other games of this genre because it has no micromanagement. Instead, you have to give orders of what you want to be done and the units will do it by themselves. E.g. you may set that an inn was supplied by 4 Worker Units (instead of default 2), but at Low priority -- then first available workers will be assigned the task of bringing food there, once there will be an idle worker and no waiting tasks with greater priority, until 4 of them are doing it. When one is hungry, it'll break off and go eat -- maybe to another inn, if it was closer at the moment, had food and was not overcrowded. Or you make a War Flag zone of needed size set to be patrolled by 4 Warriors upgraded to at least Level 2 -- again, it will sit in queue waiting for eligible units not having more important tasks when it's not full. No management more detailed than this.

You can also set areas (forbidden to avoid getting under enemy turrets or preserve seed stock of crops, clear to make sure the paths between Swarm, Inn and crops aren't overgrown), but these don't even have adjustable priority.

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Tropes used in Globulation include:

• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Averted; there's no unit cap.
• Artificial Brilliance: Without this, Globulation would be impossible.
• Color-Coded Armies
• Command and Conquer Economy: Played straight with buildings, but the units are created at Swarms automatically in preset or chosen proportions, as long as food is available.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Though since all units are AI-controlled, this also works for a human player. Any Worker Unit on the map wanting a resource will know where to find it -- whether anyone explored it or not. If there's a single stone pile on the map, every worker who needs a stone will know where to beeline right from the start.
• Construct Additional Pylons: Averted, but you have to build inns to keep your units fed.
• Fog of War
  • Defog of War: One of 3 unit types is the Explorer.
• Real Time with Pause
• Separate but Identical: The only difference between the teams is the color of the globus and their buildings.
• Signed Up for the Dental: If one of the enemy globus is hungry, and sees that one of your inns has more variety of fruit than the last inn where it ate, it will change to your side.
• Wizard Needs Food Badly: You have to build inns and gather wheat to keep your units alive.
• You Require More Vespene Gas: Averted; the workers gather resources for each building. Even when you can't see them.