Alien Legacy is a strange pseudo RTS but completely unlike any RTS I’ve ever seen. Technically it’s turn based but the turns click over automatically and the game has a speed control that sets how quickly the auto-turn cycles from 1 to 9.
The background is that you play as the commander of a human colony ship that has been sent to the Beta Caeli system to try to build a new home to the human race who was on the brink of annihilation at hands of an alien race called the Centaurians. Decades after your ship, the Calypso, left Earth a newer faster ship, the Tantalus, was sent to the same system. Owing to their better engines getting them to Beta Caeli sooner, you receive orders while en route to rendezvous with the Tanatalus’ crew and act as subordinates to their colonization efforts which will have been in progress long before you reach Beta Caeli. Unfortunately when you arrive there’s no sign of the Tantalus.
The game play is managing resources among the colonies you set up, exploring the system searching for clues about the Tantalus’ where abouts, and dealing with a wide variety of threats that can impede your progress or even endanger your settlements either with researching new technology or brute force with fighter crafts. There’s no real combat system though, instead you send ships out on combat missions and then they roll dice in the background to see how well they do at their mission.
It’s a race against time and unknown dangers to establish humanity’s future! And should you fail, your crew may be forced to deal with you and install a better commander for the sake of humanity.
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