S.W.I.N.E.

S.W.I.N.E. (or, to give its full name Strategic Warfare In (a) Nifty Environment), is a small quirky RTS game, and the gameplay precursor to the serious-if-shortlived Codename Panzers series. The basic plot of the game is that the Pigs' military under General Irontusk overthrow the old Republic, and then invade the Rabbits.

The Pigs have German Accents and the Rabbits are French. This has some clear implications.

Tropes used in S.W.I.N.E. include:

• Abandonware: During Christmas of 2006, Stormregion made the game free. Stormregion itself has gone defunct.
• Artificial Stupidity: In the campaign, computer simply waits for your units to appear, and then blindly charges at them. If it ever makes any deeper tactical move, it's a scripted event.
• Awesome but Impractical: Air strikes cost money that could be spent on additional units or upgrades.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Rabbits are peaceful and democratic, but if forced to, they can fight as well (if not better) as Pigs.
• Big Bad: General Irontusk.
• BFG: The Rabbits' Moving Fortress class unit is even named 'BFG'. Moving Fortresses launch giant, slow-moving shell that deal massive Splash Damage.
• Blood Knight: Many vehicle drivers act like this in their soundbites when given orders.
• Boring but Practical: Basic tanks and scouts may seem uninteresting, but are in fact the most useful units in the game.
• Civil Warcraft: Happens only once, in the first mission of the Pigs' campaign, where player leads National Pigs Army against forces loyal to the Republic.
  • Also happens courtesy a bug during the Rabbit campaign, where the Pigs call in some rocket launchers, and someone likely forgot to set it to spawn the Pig version.
• Cosmetically Different Sides: Averted, but just barely. While most units are functionally identical on both sides, the Pigs' main battle tank has slightly more firepower and top armor, while its Rabbit counterpart is faster and more fuel-efficient. Each faction also has one unit with no opposing counterpart; the Pigs have a Heavy Tank while the Rabbits have Tank Killer vehicles.
• Death From Above: Air strikes, artillery, rocket barrages.
• Do Not Run with a Gun: Averted. Almost every unit can shoot while moving, which is an important gameplay mechanic: strong but slow units may have problems targeting and/or hitting a fast-moving enemy. The only unit which has to stop in order to fire are artillery.
• Easy Logistics: Averted. In order to remain effective, your army needs a supply of ammunition, fuel and armor repairs, which come in the form of trailers that you haul around with unarmed and unarmored tow trucks. All supplies are finite and expendable, and a lack of supplies can cripple or disable an army.
• Everythings Better With Bunnies
• Everything Is Messier With Pigs
• Faction Calculus: 2 factions; slightly subversive Rabbits vs slightly powerhouse Pigs.
• Fragile Speedster: Scouts and Tank Killers.
• Fun with Acronyms: The title, of course.
• Glass Cannon: Artillery, rocket launchers, Tank Killers.
• Only Mostly Dead: If a unit's hitpoints are reduced to zero, it turns into an immobile wreckage, that can still be fully repaired and restored. However, one more hit and the wreckage is irreversibly destroyed.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: This is what happens when you have all the units in the game voiced by large hams.
• Hurricane of Puns: EVERYWHERE.
• Infinite Supplies: Averted completely. Units have limited ammunition and fuel, that needs to be replenished. In later missions, you have no chance of survival without vehicles towing supply trailers. Even supply trailers run out eventually in the longer or more intense missions, and you need multiple trailers to see you through.
  • Usually played straight in multiplayer.
• Initialism Title: Though what exactly the initial stood for wasn't revealed until around 2008 on the long gone Stormregion forums when someone asked what "S.W.I.N.E." stood for, and a developer responded.
• Jack of All Stats: Basic tanks.
• Killer Rabbits: An entire army of 'em.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Rocket launcher units can fire many rockets in one salvo, at the cost of reduced accuracy compared to their standard piecemeal fire mode, and at the cost of expending their ammunition stores more quickly .
• Made of Iron: Units in SWINE take a really long time to die. It's done intentionally to give the player a chance to micro manage.
• Mighty Glacier: Mortars, and the Pigs' Heavy Tank, and to the most extreme extent, Moving Fortresses.
• Petting Zoo People: The Rabbits and Pigs.
• Point Defenseless: Stationary defense turrets in campaigns pretty much serve as nice decorations for enemy bases. Unless they're antiaircraft guns, which are capable of firing, and will shoot down your bomber and/or helicopter, meaning you can't use either for the rest of the mission.
• Resources Management Gameplay
• Spiritual Successor: Codename Panzers took many of SWINE's gameplay tropes, and distilled them, resulting in similar gameplay but a vastly different setting (Comedic Faux-WWII for... actual World War II.)
• Stone Wall: Tanks become this when they activate their entrenchment; they become immobile while raising their armor considerably.
• Tank Goodness: There is no infantry in this game, and would have to wait until Codename Panzers to show up.
• Veteran Unit: Units gain experience from dealing damage to the enemies and can acquire "veteran", later "elite" status that improves their stats. It also changes their looks, adding more bling and kill markings while also making the unit look more used and worn-out. Even ostensibly unarmed units like command cars and mine layers can gain experience from the damage dealt indirectly by their air strikes or mines.
• A Worldwide Punomenon