The Fertile Crescent

The Fertile Crescent is a real-time strategy game loosely based on ancient history and greatly inspired by the classic titles Age of Empires and Civilization.

The player controls a settlement of early Bronze Age people ready to found their civilization, and must build a functional economy and a robust military to defend and ultimately prevail against rival tribes. The game closely resembles Age of Empires in look and feel, and employs many similar mechanics: villagers harvest resources and build various structures, some of which support the economy while others allow to train military units, unlock new technologies or allow to research permanent upgrades and improve attack, defence and other unit stats. The player also needs to build dwellings to accommodate more population, just like in Age of Empires or Warcraft II.

However, there are also key differences that make playing The Fertile Crescent a more unique experience. First, unlike the Age of Empires series, there is a constant food upkeep that needs to be maintained to supply the population. Villagers cost nothing to train, and will indeed be trained one after another at the village center unless put on a pause, but they require sustenance to be supported, making it crucial that the player keeps up a reliable supply of food by the way of farming, foraging and hunting. Similar to Age of Empires, farms can be built anywhere, but here their production will depend on terrain type, lush plains being the most suitable for farming. Should food supply be disrupted, or a large number of combat units deployed at once without enough food, a starvation meter will appear, slowly counting down to zero, at which point it's instant game over, unless food supply is reestablished.

Another unique feature is technology research (not to be confused with upgrades), which in The Fertile Crescent is modelled after a similar mechanic in Civilization. The player gradually accumulates research points, which happens the faster, the more food surplus the settlement has. With three or more points, a new technology may be unlocked in a special menu, with benefits ranging from improving efficiency of resource production to upgrading military units to accessing new units and structures. After three basic technologies have been unlocked, the player may choose to select one of three civilizations, each with its own unique sets of more advanced technologies and units. This also changes the appearance of all buildings in the player's settlement.

While it is not possible to build multiple village centers, players can expand across the map by building a special outpost structure in the vicinity of random neutral settlements, turning them to the player's control. These include settlements that can train villagers (albeit at a slower speed compared to the village center), orchards that increase food production and ancient temples that boost knowledge accumulation and research. Each settlement, as well as certain advanced structures, generates an area of effect around it that provides certain bonuses to the player's units, such as increased health regeneration rate.

The Fertile Crescent can be played as random map matches with human opponents over Internet connection, or in skirmish mode against AI opponents with several difficulty levels. A special single-player horde mode is also available where the objective is to survive against waves of attackers while building up a settlement.