We're playing Rise & Fall's multiplayer, against one of the programming team. One of the producers is acting as our tactical advisor, explaining the intricacies of this historically inspired real-time strategy game. Rise & Fall 's trick is to let you directly control a "hero" unit, as if it's anܫ action game.

You can first order your foot troops and cannon fodder into battle, then press "Q", and 👍z🅰oom down to ground level. Now you can personally run around the skirmish lines with a great big axe, or bow and arrow, and take out your enemy's troops with a wallop. You mad-hammer the mouse button, cutting through defensive lines like a Tasmanian devil.

And it works. Right now, 10, maybe 15, spectators are cheering as Cleopatra - in reality a programmer - is being broadly beaten about the face by Ramses (us) and his oversized hammer. It's a hilarious, gratifying sight: for a good🎃 hour our armies have scrapped around an oasis, searching for an opening.

Now she's struggling - her little character charges to the left, but is trapped. Then she surges right. No escape. You can almost see the panic in the tiny avatar. We clutch ♛our sides, almost crying with delight as we c🦄ut down the queen.

What this skirmish has demonstrated is just how a s💮ingle hero unit can transform a strategy game. We made first contact with Cleopatra early - she had scouted all the way up to the defensive towers we'd placed at one entrance to our🅷 base. It was instantly clear that this interloper was no foot soldier.