The Adhara War

The Adhara War is a turn-based strategy game with action combat. It is set in the Clamshell Expanse where the Neoterrans, the descendants of humanity, settled. After finding old ruins on the planet Adhara, they managed to build space gates - which caused them to meet the Hegemony, an alliance of multiple alien races. The Hegemony claims ownership over Adhara which eventually leads to a declaration of war. Now the fate of Adhara lies in the hands of the Guards, basically an AI network taking command over the war effort, who fight against the Hegemony.

On the strategy map (a 5x7 grid), both factions move in turns. The overall goal is wiping out the different faction completely. To do so, the player requires resources which are earned by assimilate planets which produce a certain number of resources each turn. Those are not only used to build additional ships in the homebase, but also platforms on any owned grid: jammers (disable special abilities of enemy vessels during combat) and shipyards (used to repair and build ships). Additionally refineries double the resource production of a planet. Each ship can move a certain number of grids each turn and capturing a planet only means to occupy the grid for one turn.

When two hostile ships meet, action combat begins. The goal is is to eliminate the opposing ship by shooting the primary/secondary weapons as well as using abilities. The equipment changes from ship to ship, for example the destroyer has a standard energy weapon, a secondary seeker missile and a shield which absorbs energy damage. To move a ship forward, the player needs to hold one gamepad stick in the same direction as the ship faces; rotating the stick (also available during movement) also rotates the ship. Only a few Hegemony ships can aim independently from the movement direction with the second stick. In this phase it also becomes important on which grid combat takes place: anomalies have properties (e.g. less energy damage) which affect both ships.

Besides the ship abilities, there are also other differences between the two factions. Most importantly, the Hegemony has a space gate as main base and random reinforcements come through it. It can only be destroyed by constructing and using a special ship (basically a bomb). The skirmish game mode allows to set up an action match without the strategy part.