Compared to the original 1.0 this version has vastly improved balance and AI behavior, fixes to some bugs and other issues and makes the base defending against workers much more noob-friendly (not that it helped anyway -lol).
Comparing to queen based versions it's still hated for the ability of attacking bases. And even though I worked quite a bit on it, it still doesn't have all the gimmicks of the queen based versions, but the game play reaches unmatched professionalism since despite a good balance you can't just spam whatever units you want. And even though there's no 'Silo' early pushing can still be rewarding because temples are not bulwarks that withstand ages of heavy punishment and there's only 2 Boom's per team, so each Boom down is a great success.
Defensive structures also play a much more important role.
remaining Problems:
- Specials too cheap when there's more than 4 players (next in line to be fixed)
- Sometimes the AI decides to pick a few units and attack player bases with it (suggestions?)
- Lurkers stop shooting about 15 minutes into the game (exact time varies; suggestions?)
- Tanks often don't use siege mode (guess I'll never be able to fix that one)
- Single race vs. single race still not perfectly balanced due to exploitable weaknesses of each race
- Noobs panicking and not realizing that teamwork is key in defending against worker atks
To anyone who hasn't heard of Desert Strike before:
It's a very fun spawning map where each building you create increases either your spawn or your income. The goal is to overwhelm the enemy temple.
While similar to Sand Castle Wars (but much simpler) it's basically a remake of CASTLE FIGHT by theleo_ua.
But aimed to look and feel professional so it both appeals the veteran UMS player as the average b.net guy.