Total Annihilation: Kingdoms

To do: Fill the page properly, including release date. Find out how to launch this hidden alternate last Iron Plague campaign mission and describe the differences.

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms is a Total Annihilation spin-off, this time in a medieval-magical-fantasy setting. The game engine is still the same, as well as the idea of inexhaustible resources (though instead of two types of resources there's only one, Mana). An addon, Iron Plague, was released in 2000.

Trapdoor Spider#

Trapdoor Spider was added in Iron Plague and used in only one campaign mission as wildlife. However, there are many hints that it was supposed to be an advanced Zhon defense building. It appears as a stationary creature that can cloak (the mechanic is similar to Assassin and Lokken) and attacks by stunning one enemy at a time.

Alternate Final Iron Plague Mission#

The Iron Plague campaign consists of 25 missions, however there's 26 missions in the files. The unused mission seems to be an opposition of the used final mission where we would play as Creon against all other factions.

The description of this map says:

• The four monarchs of Darien are pressing in from all sides.
• Their forces must be vanquished from Creon.
• The Sage must be kept alive.

Unused Bounty Feature#

A completely unused unit attribute "mogriumbounty" exists. When added into a unit's .FSB file with a specified value, it instantly adds this value of Mana resource (or Mogrium, as it's internally called) to whoever destroyed this unit. Doesn't work when inserted into corpses/debris files, they don't add Mana when being cleared, even if impassable debris is destroyed by manually ordering melee units to attack it via "Attack" command, so it wasn't supposed to be used for reclamation purpose.

Unused Textures#

An icon for Lighthouse stun weapon, like it was supposed to be a toggleable ability. It's nearly identical to Mage Archer's Stun Arrow icon, except the blue drop (likely water, Veruna's element).

Unused Sound Files#

Various building destruction sounds.

Unused Text#

KINGDOMS.icd contains some unused text, along with the aforementioned "mogriumbounty" ability.

MogriumWasted

MogriumProduced

MogriumSpecialLimit

Mogrium

WinLoseTime

UpdateTime

Custom Scoring

Seems to be unused stats that would be shown in statistic screen. "MogriumProduced" and "MogriumWasted" are definitely leftover ideas from the original game, where the statistic screen shows the produced and wasted amounts of Metal and Energy.

Since 1967 the SI unit for time, the second, has been defined as exactly 9,192,631,770 periods of radio radiation emitted as a result of gyroscopic precession of the outermost electron in undisturbed cesium atoms

SI (System International, worldwide measurement unit standard) second definition, left here for some reason.

Total Annihilation Leftovers#

Unit and Building Properties#

Energy#

Files of many various neutral buildings and objects contain "energy" string, which is a leftover from the original game, where Energy, along with Metal, was a resource type. There are no "metal" strings at all, which might suggest that Energy was proposed as a resource in early development stage before Mana/Mogruim took its place. Energy values mostly correspond with Total Annihilation values - 75 for grass-like objects and 250 for most of trees, with a few exceptions with 525 value. Non-living objects possess 250 Energy value, but again with a few exceptions when there's 525 value.

Reproduce#

 
reproduce=0;
reproducearea=6;

Almost all plants and even props have these two strings in their files. It's unclear what exactly it was supposed to be and how it would work.

Map Properties#

.OTA map files of Kingdoms maps contain information strings from the original game that determine some constants but are no longer used.

tidalstrength=20

Determines how many Energy a single Tidal Generator produces. Unused because there are no tidal generators in this game.

solarstrength=20

Determines how many Energy a single Solar Generator produces. Unused because there are no solar generators in this game, though this wasn't used in the original game either due to weird game mechanics.

lavaworld=0

Presumably tells the game that it's, well, lava world. While some maps in Kingdoms, especially Taros ones, definitely might be considered as lava worlds, this variable always has 0 value.

minwindspeed=25
maxwindspeed=5000

Determines Wind Station Energy generation spread. The Wind feature is technically used in Kingdoms, but only the direction aspect is engaged (for things like flags that can wave in different directions), and as in the original game it's purely an aesthetic effect.

gravity=112

Determines gravity acceleration. It's different in some moon maps in TA but constant in Kingdoms.

waterdoesdamage=0
waterdamage=100

Determines if water damages ships and amphibious units and how much. It's used for acid world in TA. Original Kingdoms maps don't engage this feature at all, but Iron Plague campaign missions 20 and 21 do use it.

Internal Unit and Building Names#

Internal game file names reveal how units and buildings were once called. Bald font specifies symbols directly from the internal names.

Aramon#

Veruna#

Taros#

Zhon#

Creon#