If comp-stomping isn’t your thing, Etherium unfortunately has nothing else to offer. While fighting on an Earth-like planet in a hurricanes is an interesting diversion, it fails to have much effect beyond delaying unit deployments for a few seconds. The planets themselves also play a role, as each features a separate biome and natural disaster: blizzards on the ice planets, dust storms on the desert planets, and so on. To win the game, I either stomp across the map and destroy the enemy colonies or build orbital cannons and wait while they slowly pummel the enemy space fleet until it abandons the planet. With so few available expansion slots, each upgrade built means that several others won’t be built. Add a tech center to raise the overall tech level add a refinery to boost resource collection. Instead of building a barracks or a research university to unlock new units, each colony comes with a limited number of upgrade spaces. Etherium’s most interesting idea is its upgrade system.

After making planetfall on a disputed chunk of dirt, both sides begin an arms race, constructing chains of colonies around energy-providing resource points. Like many real-time strategy games in the style of Supreme Commander, Etherium is a game about an interplanetary resource war.

Eternium pc