[h1]Award-winning casual strategy game classic[/h1]
Under its original name "Oasis", this game first came out in 2005 for Windows. It was so modern and unique for its time that it has not aged a bit. It is customarily described as "Civilization meets Minesweeper", but this description is incomplete because one would be equally justified to say that the game is a modern tower defense game, a genre that was beginning to emerge at the time. (I guess one could also see it as a time management game, although I am not familiar enough with the genre to state this as a certainty.)
As a casual game with depth of strategy and a combination of popular game mechanics, Oasis was a huge popular and critical success. Konami made a mobile port. The present version seems to be based on the iPad port.
Defense of the Oasis has a tutorial campaign that gradually introduces the various game mechanics. The main campaign (playable in four difficulties from easy to insane) consists of 8 countries. (After winning the 8th country, a 9th country with completely random maps appears.) The non-random countries have (random?) maps with specific features that fit the narrative for the country.
[h1]Gameplay[/h1]
As the player, you are a pharaoh trying to take control of the country. This is done by playing a sequence of 10x10 maps until you have either lost to the barbarians or won 12 glyphs. Each map consists of turn-based exploration and development followed by an automated barbarian attack with tiny real-time strategy elements. If the barbarians win, the pharaoh is dead and the game is over. To win a glyph, you must find an obelisk, which is always contained in a water square, and at least one city must survive the barbarian attack. It is possible to survive a lot of maps without winning a glyph. It appears that the number of maps is unlimited in this case.
This is not a typical 4X game, but if we wanted to describe it as one, we could say the turn-based part is eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and the barbarian attack is eXterminate.
A map always consists of three kinds of squares: plain, water, and mountains. Initially, only one square is uncovered. Everything else is hidden under fog. You can uncover a square that neighbors an uncovered plain or water square by clicking on it. This costs 1 turn. Any adjacent mountain square is uncovered automatically but cannot be used to uncover squares on the other side.
There is only one body of water, which can be a little lake, a two-square-wide river with an optional bend, or a one-square-wide ring surrounding an 8x8 island. Exactly one water square is the obelisk, which you need to find to advance in the game. However, it is usually best not to search for the obelisk before you have ensured your survival.
Mountains appear in chains, the main forms being a horseshoe and a straight line cutting the map into two parts only connected by a mountain pass. On maps with mountains, from 1 to 3 mountain squares are useful, having mineral resources that can be mined.
The majority of the map consists of plain squares. The main useful features you can find here are cities and nomad camps. The former act as towers whose population defends the map against the barbarians, and the latter provides additional followers who can be used for mining, connecting cities (so they grow faster), or assigned to cities at the start of the barbarian attack phase. When uncovering a plain square, you also get a small number of followers for each nearby city or nomad camp. This is where the similarity to Minesweeper comes in: You can use this to find cities faster.
If you spend a turn on clicking an uncovered city, you may find a treasure. The most common treasure adds a +2, +3 or +4 to the city. It is not properly explained what this does, but to me it looks like an offensive bonus for the city population. Clicking a mountain square with resources creates or expands a mine with 10 followers (or less if you have less followers available). Mines research technology over time. Each technology provides a global bonus to all cities. Again it is not properly explained what this does, but to me it appears that it works as a defensive bonus. It seems neither possible nor necessary to understand the details of this mechanic; you quickly get a good feel for it.
The barbarians attack in up to 3 waves from up to 2 points of origin. They typically enter the map from one of the four borders, at a point marked by a cairn. On some maps they start from a special point in the interior. Very occasionally they even take over one of your cities start there. Don't forget to read the map description at the beginning, which normally mentions everything that is really unusual. Uncovering the barbarians' point(s) of origin is useful because it gives you information on where they will attack first.
A barbarian attack typically moves from city to city (only uncovered cities count!) until either the group of barbarians is used up or the last city has been destroyed. After each battle, the winner (the city or the barbarian wave) gets a +1 that functions exactly like the city treasures mentioned above. This is why (ignoring city treasures for simplicity) it is usually best to put all your available troops into the first city on the barbarians' path. You click any city to place all your remaining followers there as additional population. After that, you have 10 seconds to click cities as appropriate, each time moving some followers from other cities connected by road. The minimum population remaining in a city is 10; the maximum population without any bonuses is 400. Before or during these 10 seconds (depending on difficulty), if you have uncovered the barbarians' origin you also get some information on their planned path.
If the barbarians destroy your last city, it no longer matters whether you found the obelisk, as you are not going to win a glyph. However, if this doesn't happen too often you will save your skin by means of scarab power. You get a few scarab points each time you click an empty water square or unsuccessfully search for treasure in a city. They carry over from map to map. Each scarab point neutralizes one barbarian unit.
There are many other details that make the game more interesting without making it much more complicated. For some reason I only played the demo when it first came out, even though it fascinated me enough to search for it again years later. I am very glad that I finally have the full version and can play the game to completion.
[h1]Steam Deck[/h1]
The game works perfectly on the Steam Deck. As an iPad port it is built for touchscreen operation, although the mouse emulation (or a real mouse) also works well. Either way, nothing is wonky or fiddly, and apart from the 4:3 aspect ratio the graphics look sharp and crisp as if made for the Steam Deck's built-in screen.
Overall, I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes the genre(s). Current pricing is very reasonable, even at full price. (Apparently it has never been discounted since it came to Steam in 2020!) If the game wasn't so old and the old hype long over, I would be tempted to say the regular price is too cheap.
