Have you come looking for the best game ever? In my opinion, you've come to the right place. This is a unique mix of RTS/RPG game, with great story, interesting characters (sometimes very cliche, can't hide that), epic battles, and... and stuff.

Elements:
+GRAPHICS - now some of you would probably say 'w8 w0t m8?' looking at the screenshots, but I played this game since it came out, and it hasn't aged a bit. It's still fun to watch your avatar stab a goblin to death, then send an Ice Bolt at another one for Crowd Control purposes, and let your follower warrior do that overhead smash for tons of damage. Units were quite diverse, and THOSE BUILDINGS... Elven and Dwarvish architecture is just so much fitting, I can't express that.

+MUSIC - I don't have a slightest idea who the main composer was, but give that man a cookie. Or Grammy. Dunno, maybe both. Music fits every map, let's say you're in a forest kind of area, it gives you a soothing tune, yet when the battle takes place, it changes to war drums etc.

+RPG ELEMENTS
++CHARACTER
You control a Rune Warrior (male/female, 26 faces each), a human bound to a rune of a powerful Circle Mage (in your case it's Rohen, the Ice Nuke guy), which grants you immortality for a price of eternal servitude, unless the owner of the rune gives it to you, granting you free will again (while retaining immortality). Some of you are probably already at 'woah woah woah what's the point of the game if I am immortal?'. I hastily answer: Immortal doesn't mean unbeatable. When your HP drops to zero, you respawn at a last activated Menhir (few of those stones are on every map), and some time passes so your army/some of the building could already be gone without you noticing. Now, abilities and attributes. Every time you level up, you gain 5 attribute and 2 ability points, BUT abilities require you to have certain attribute value each time you want to increase them, so forget those dreams about CON based fire mage if you want to max out fire magic. There are a lot of good builds, for starters I would propose a fighter (these ones are easier to play first time) with Heavy Armor, Heavy weapons, STR-CON, some DEX for accuracy purposes (gotta get dem damages up bruh). You can get up to level 30 in basic game, and 50 in addons, so you don't ruin a build by mistake (which is irreversable). Character transpones between addons.

++ABILITIES/SKILLS
Let me just explain what does each skill do
LIGHT COMBAT ARTS - light armors, daggers, small blunts, evade stuff
HEAVY COMBAT ARTS - hello, my name is Mr Tank, and this is Jackass.
RANGED COMBAT - pew, pew pew, pew pew pew pew, pew
ELEMENTAL MAGIC - fireballs, meteor strikes, rains of ice, basic nuker kit
WHITE MAGIC - heal stuff, buff stuff
MIND MAGIC -mage remover, mana upkeep
BLACK MAGIC - death magic (pure dps), necromancy, diseases

++ATTRIBUTES
Strength - hit stuff harder
Stamina - get hit longer
Dexterity - hit stuff instead of missing
Agility- dont get hit by stuff
Intelligence - mana regen
Wisdom - more mana
Charisma - better healing and mind magic

++SPELLS
You get spells from scrolls you drop/buy (mage trees), or automatically (warrior trees). They look great, sound great, feel great. 1v5? Berserk Rage and 2-shot every enemy. Enemy army approaching? Rain of Ice combined with archers. Own army below 20% hp? Mass healing, aaaaand it's all healed. RPG map too hard? Dominate that enemy to kill stuff for you

++STORY
It's linear, and you have 0 choices, but the plot keeps you interested, and DAYUM THAT TWIST. Characters feel like they belong to the world, voice acting is top notch, there are a lot of side quests with interesting rewards. Also, much lore, very information IN EVERY DIALOGUE.

++COMPANIONS
You get up to five rune warriors as companions, but think of them like a pair of gloves. "Oh, the new rune of a warrior, 2 STR more than current, guess who is getting replaced". They don't have dialogues, story, treat them as pawns.

+RTS ELEMENTS
++ARMY SYSTEM IN GENERAL
To summon an army, you have to reach a monument on the map. There are 6 races (3 light, 3 dark), each has a corresponding monument. Fun: if you put light race next to dark race, they are going to fight with each other, regardless of your orders, so plan army movements carefully on a map with two monuments. Now, back to the topic. Once at a monument, you can first summon workers, which gather resources, and build structures for more efficient gathering, for defense, or for recruitment. You can only build structures which plans you have found - you get those during the main plot, so you can start with like 8 structures for a race on first map, and end up with 20 later on. Same rules apply to units, you start with 2 kinds, end with like 9.

++RACES
Humans - crossbow turrets, healers, mind mages, marksmen (one of best units early game)
Elves - wooden turrets, wooden buildings, ice magic, only race in the game that can produce wood (grows trees)
Dwarves - only race without turrets. Why? Defenders. Imagine an army of heavy armored dwarves throwing hammers at you. fun? Now imagine that each kill levels up a dwarf (up to +5), increasing his health and damage
Orcs - burn stuff, smash stuff
Trolls - throw rocks at stuff, smash stuff harder
Dark Elves - death magic, necromancy

++BATTLES
Up to 80 army size per side, best tactics: put dem units in a group and press H (stop). If you dont press stop, healers will not heal, mages will not cast spells, archers will move around after every shot. H is love, H is life, H is efficient killing.

+MULTIPLAYER
You can play with friends in a group of 2 or 3, but only through Hamachi since GameSpy servers are no longer in existence, but the gameplay looks like this: 3 monuments vs 20 enemy camps, survive until you can build enough defense to safely raise an army and slowly clean a map. Sounds boring, but it isn't. I played all of the 50 multiplayer maps with friends, in 2015, IT WAS SO MUCH FUN.

Now, to summarize...
PROS:
+looks great, sounds great
+complex character development system
+epic battles on RTS maps and...
+small group adventures on RPG maps
+hours of fun
+multiplayer still working
+plot
+dialogues

CONS:
-multiplayer requires hamachi
-multiplayer map can take over an hour (which is nice), but in case of disconnecting, reconnect is impossible
-easy to ruin a character if you didn't plan it beforehand

Now, should you play Spellforce? Yup. 10/10. Best game ever.

Have you come looking for the best game ever? In my opinion, you've come to the right place. This is a unique mix of RTS/RPG game, with great story, interesting characters (sometimes very cliche, can't hide that), epic battles, and... and stuff. Elements: +GRAPHICS - now some of you would probably say 'w8 w0t m8?' looking at the screenshots, but I played this game since it came out, and it hasn't aged a bit. It's still fun to watch your avatar stab a goblin to death, then send an Ice Bolt at another one for Crowd Control purposes, and let your follower warrior do that overhead smash for tons of damage. Units were quite diverse, and THOSE BUILDINGS... Elven and Dwarvish architecture is just so much fitting, I can't express that. +MUSIC - I don't have a slightest idea who the main composer was, but give that man a cookie. Or Grammy. Dunno, maybe both. Music fits every map, let's say you're in a forest kind of area, it gives you a soothing tune, yet when the battle takes place, it changes to war drums etc. +RPG ELEMENTS ++CHARACTER You control a Rune Warrior (male/female, 26 faces each), a human bound to a rune of a powerful Circle Mage (in your case it's Rohen, the Ice Nuke guy), which grants you immortality for a price of eternal servitude, unless the owner of the rune gives it to you, granting you free will again (while retaining immortality). Some of you are probably already at 'woah woah woah what's the point of the game if I am immortal?'. I hastily answer: Immortal doesn't mean unbeatable. When your HP drops to zero, you respawn at a last activated Menhir (few of those stones are on every map), and some time passes so your army/some of the building could already be gone without you noticing. Now, abilities and attributes. Every time you level up, you gain 5 attribute and 2 ability points, BUT abilities require you to have certain attribute value each time you want to increase them, so forget those dreams about CON based fire mage if you want to max out fire magic. There are a lot of good builds, for starters I would propose a fighter (these ones are easier to play first time) with Heavy Armor, Heavy weapons, STR-CON, some DEX for accuracy purposes (gotta get dem damages up bruh). You can get up to level 30 in basic game, and 50 in addons, so you don't ruin a build by mistake (which is irreversable). Character transpones between addons. ++ABILITIES/SKILLS Let me just explain what does each skill do LIGHT COMBAT ARTS - light armors, daggers, small blunts, evade stuff HEAVY COMBAT ARTS - hello, my name is Mr Tank, and this is Jackass. RANGED COMBAT - pew, pew pew, pew pew pew pew, pew ELEMENTAL MAGIC - fireballs, meteor strikes, rains of ice, basic nuker kit WHITE MAGIC - heal stuff, buff stuff MIND MAGIC -mage remover, mana upkeep BLACK MAGIC - death magic (pure dps), necromancy, diseases ++ATTRIBUTES Strength - hit stuff harder Stamina - get hit longer Dexterity - hit stuff instead of missing Agility- dont get hit by stuff Intelligence - mana regen Wisdom - more mana Charisma - better healing and mind magic ++SPELLS You get spells from scrolls you drop/buy (mage trees), or automatically (warrior trees). They look great, sound great, feel great. 1v5? Berserk Rage and 2-shot every enemy. Enemy army approaching? Rain of Ice combined with archers. Own army below 20% hp? Mass healing, aaaaand it's all healed. RPG map too hard? Dominate that enemy to kill stuff for you ++STORY It's linear, and you have 0 choices, but the plot keeps you interested, and DAYUM THAT TWIST. Characters feel like they belong to the world, voice acting is top notch, there are a lot of side quests with interesting rewards. Also, much lore, very information IN EVERY DIALOGUE. ++COMPANIONS You get up to five rune warriors as companions, but think of them like a pair of gloves. "Oh, the new rune of a warrior, 2 STR more than current, guess who is getting replaced". They don't have dialogues, story, treat them as pawns. +RTS ELEMENTS ++ARMY SYSTEM IN GENERAL To summon an army, you have to reach a monument on the map. There are 6 races (3 light, 3 dark), each has a corresponding monument. Fun: if you put light race next to dark race, they are going to fight with each other, regardless of your orders, so plan army movements carefully on a map with two monuments. Now, back to the topic. Once at a monument, you can first summon workers, which gather resources, and build structures for more efficient gathering, for defense, or for recruitment. You can only build structures which plans you have found - you get those during the main plot, so you can start with like 8 structures for a race on first map, and end up with 20 later on. Same rules apply to units, you start with 2 kinds, end with like 9. ++RACES Humans - crossbow turrets, healers, mind mages, marksmen (one of best units early game) Elves - wooden turrets, wooden buildings, ice magic, only race in the game that can produce wood (grows trees) Dwarves - only race without turrets. Why? Defenders. Imagine an army of heavy armored dwarves throwing hammers at you. fun? Now imagine that each kill levels up a dwarf (up to +5), increasing his health and damage Orcs - burn stuff, smash stuff Trolls - throw rocks at stuff, smash stuff harder Dark Elves - death magic, necromancy ++BATTLES Up to 80 army size per side, best tactics: put dem units in a group and press H (stop). If you dont press stop, healers will not heal, mages will not cast spells, archers will move around after every shot. H is love, H is life, H is efficient killing. +MULTIPLAYER You can play with friends in a group of 2 or 3, but only through Hamachi since GameSpy servers are no longer in existence, but the gameplay looks like this: 3 monuments vs 20 enemy camps, survive until you can build enough defense to safely raise an army and slowly clean a map. Sounds boring, but it isn't. I played all of the 50 multiplayer maps with friends, in 2015, IT WAS SO MUCH FUN. Now, to summarize... PROS: +looks great, sounds great +complex character development system +epic battles on RTS maps and... +small group adventures on RPG maps +hours of fun +multiplayer still working +plot +dialogues CONS: -multiplayer requires hamachi -multiplayer map can take over an hour (which is nice), but in case of disconnecting, reconnect is impossible -easy to ruin a character if you didn't plan it beforehand Now, should you play Spellforce? Yup. 10/10. Best game ever.