The resurgence of the genre is, in every respect, a good thing. RTS gaming had fallen into the terrible state where it was trapped by its own success. Titles like Dune 2, Command and Conquer, Warcraft and so on had so tightly defined the genre that pretty much every RTS for the next five or six years was more or less the exact same game with a different set of sprites.

Oh sure, eventually developers started playing with 3D maps, but for a while there the biggest positive in an RTS review was bound to be something like "great unit variety" or "intuitive camera controls".

So what has brought about the resurgence? Developers seem to be more willing to push the boundaries. They seem to have realised that simply exploiting the latest graphics chips to provide eye-candy doesn't cut it anymore. In short, they are finally focussing on introducing challenging game-play and new concepts to the genre. Concepts such as strategy.

Kohan's strategic focus and feel is apparent in everything about the game. You build towns, not buildings. You recruit companies, not soldiers. And you never have to chop down a single tree to do it. "What!?" you cry, "that's not an RTS!" Let me explain. But first, some background ...

The creator of the universe gathered his most trusted angel-things around and said "design me a world." Two did. One plan wasn't very good, so he went with the other one. It turned out okay, but to make sure everything ticked along he created a master race - the Kohan - which would be custodians of the new world.

But something went wrong. Some of the Kohan went bad and there was not one, but a series of Cataclysms. That's where the ground shakes and there is lightning, apparently. Lots of Kohan - including you, a Kohan named Darius - died.

Fortunately for the Kohan, you are Immortal Sovereigns. You don't actually die, you go back into a gold amulet like a genie back into its bottle. When someone finds an amulet they can awaken the Kohan and you are back ... only you won't remember anything.

Your mission is to remember what happened, and stop it (the Cataclysm) happening again ...

Well, that's the story anyway. I reckon most people buy RTS games for reasons other than the story, though, so I'll move on to the building and fighting.

As the genre demands, the game is inevitably focussed on building an economy, and fighting a war. In Kohan, though, these basic ideas are modelled at a higher, more strategic level than is usual for an RTS.

Towns are a single economic object. You can add features to the towns by 'building' structures (they don't alter the appearance of the town on the map), and by creating companies of settlers you can strike out and build new towns from scratch.

That's right - not individual settlers, but a company of settlers. You won't be building individual townsfolk to chop your wood, grow your grain and take out your trash in this game. In fact you won't build any individual units.

Instead, towns allow you to create companies. Companies consist of four frontline troops of like type, two optional support units, and a captain. The available troop types depend on the race of the town and the structures in it (such as a barracks or church), but include various flavour of foot soldier, cavalry, and archer as frontline troops, and numerous clerics, wizards and rangers as support units. There are also special purpose units such as engineers who can build forts and mines, and do a pretty good job of fighting as well.

There are three Kohan 'factions', plus a number of other races on the world of Kaldun, and by taking over their towns you can also get access to their units.

Once you buy a company, and it has built up to full strength, it will be represented by a group of up to seven fairly traditional looking RTS sprites on the map. They will fight and take damage individually - but you will only ever control them as a single whole company.

The broader scale of the model used in Kohan is also reflected in the treatment of resources. Resources aren't mined or gathered in the traditional RTS way, where peasant units are assigned to resource gathering or growing tasks. Instead, building structures such as a blacksmith or quarry within a town delivers a resource stream. Once you have built the basic structures, there are choices of upgrades available which can deliver additional resources, sell off surplus resources, or deliver a special benefit to the town such as a guild reducing construction times. Four resources are created through town structures: iron, wood, stone, and mana. Iron, wood and stone are fairly self-explanatory - mana is used for spell casting by various magical units, and is 'created' through churches and libaries.

Management of resource flows is made easy by a surplus/deficit display line across the top of the screen. For each of the four resources, the display shows the number of units over or short of current consumption that you are presently producing. This is extremely handy, because it means you can see at a glance exactly what aspect of your economy you need to develop or where you have surplus production you can exploit. It also means you can see what is costing you money.

This is because a production deficit is automatically made up by purchasing the resource you lack. So, if you don't have enough quarries, you can get by as long as you have enough gold.

Gold is actually the only resource that you 'spend', though the other resources are constantly consumed by units and structures. You use gold to purchase resources (automatically) and also to buy structures, upgrades, and new companies.

Gold is generated in a number of ways. The most basic way is through taxes. Each of your towns delivers a basic gold income which grows as the town grows. You can also construct markets and export upgrades to sell off surplus resources for a gold boost. You might also capture a small fortune when you destroy a monster lair. Finally, gold can be gathered from occasional gold deposits you might find on the map.

Okay, so I lied about there being no mines in the game. There are gold, iron, stone and even 'ironwood' deposits lying around on some maps. But they're a bonus - not economically crucial. Okay?

If you are lucky enough to find a resource deposit, it is not enough to simply construct a mine. You must make sure that the mine is within your Zone of Supply. Zones of Supply are one of the most important strategic concepts in this game. There are other zones too - Zones of Population, Zones of Control - but supply is the key.

Each town or outpost you construct is surrounded by a Zone of Supply (ZOS). The size of the ZOS depends on the size of the town. If a mine is within a ZOS, its production boost can be transferred to your coffers. If it isn't, it just sits there on the map flashing until you notice.

But ZOSs are really important because they also resupply your armies.

For as long as a company is stationary ('resting') in a ZOS, it will replenish its combat losses. Even if it fled from batlle with only 1% of its captain's health left, if it made it back to safety it will reasonably quickly return to full strength and retain the experience that it got its butt kicked so galantly for.