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Charles Bukowski
Aug 26, 2003

Taskmaster 2023 Second Place Winner

Grimey Drawer

http://www.bushtarion.com

Bushtarion: A browser game from 2007 that is still here and still pretty fun!

The Manual: https://www.bushtarion.com/manual/

Bushtarion is an online multiplayer strategy war game that is played entirely through your web browser - no downloads, no java applets, nothing that needs to be installed on your PC, and no complicated 3D graphics - just pure good old fashioned gameplay. Unlike most games out there, it has both a unique core concept, and many unique features that set it apart from any competition. You'll be hooked on just how deep you can go with all the twists and turns possible in Bushtarion, as well as the friends (and enemies!) you can make from interacting with the rest of the Bushtarion community. Many real life friendships and relationships have sprung up or disappeared because of Bushtarion - but of course if you prefer, nothing is stopping you from keeping to yourself and just secretly working your way up the rankings and destroying all and sundry around you.

You play with one account, and from that account you actually run your own gardening company. The basic idea is to become the biggest gardening company around, either through clever diplomacy, crafty planning, brute force or any other methods you can use to your advantage. You can buy land, steal land from other people, develop new technologies and hire a huge variety of units that can aid you or hinder your enemies. You grow and plant seeds, and sell them for money. You have to compete against a full-blown weather system that has days, nights, seasons and years, and try to forecast the weather yourself. You can play by yourself, as well as join (or even create) an alliance that will allow you to group up with a number of other companies to work together and take down larger companies with your combined forces, or fight off the hordes of enemies together.

Bushtarion is not a "Live Game" - it is a "Tick Based Game", and Bushtarion runs a "Tick" every 10 minutes. What this means is that every 10 minutes, Bushtarion "Ticks Over" (like an engine), which takes roughly 5 seconds to do. Every time it "Ticks Over", things happen - the weather can change, armies move closer to their targets, battles occur, seeds get harvested, plants are planted and grown, developments progress, etc. etc. If you find this concept confusing - don't be alarmed, you will soon get in to the swing of things, it is not as complicated as it sounds.

You get to select 1 of 6 classes, with 2-3 subclasses per class, which opens up different units for you to purchase as troops for attacking and defending other people or your allies.

Protestor:
The protestor route is a defensive based route that is cheap and quick to develop. There are three branches where you can choose from:
Protestor-Political Mastermind: The political mastermind branch is a defensive based branch. The route has all kind of blockers like the "guru" for blocking flak and the "PoMs" (political masterminds) to block the lethal and some flak. The only unit that can really hurt this route badly is the "biker". Protestor-PoMs are very useful for alliances as they can block a lot of the incoming. This route is mainly for defensive play styles. Purchase unit: not needed, but is fun if you want to bribe other units.
Protestor-Terrorist: This branch has the early defensive units and when reaching the "Violent demonstrator" the offensive capabilities of this route will come into the game. The "hippy van" combined with the "terrorist" or even the "terrorist leader" makes this a good route for defensive and some offensive play styles. Purchase unit: recommended.
Protestor-Fanatics: This branch is one built for last tick combat. The protestor is able to deal damage to virtually anyone on the last tick. However this lethal force means the offensive is sacrificed. If you use this route attacking together with others is recommended. Also high activity is needed for this route as most of its units are for last combat tick only. Purchase unit: recommended.

Thug:
A very popular route with many people for its cheap price, quick development, and sheer simplicity. The route is an "All-rounder" on the "petrol bomber" and "nutter" branch and a "specialist" on the thief branch. Can be played well by active solo players and alliance players alike, and does not require much strategy planning. A good route to take if you do not have a very particular "play style" and want quick developments with cheap units. Also the bikers which come on all 3 branches of thugs are perfect for rush attacks cause you can send them ETA 3 which you usually avoid first tick def with. There are three branches from which you can choose:
Thug-Petrol bomber: The petrol bomber branch is a branch which is both good on offensive and defensive. It is the main thug branch, due to its abilities to cover your other lethals with "jeeps" and the rather good "petrol bombers" early in the development stage. If you don't have any experience with Thugs it is best to start out with this branch until you get more experience with the thug branch. Purchase unit: not needed, but will be a great addition to your branch as the Terrorist leader is a very nice overall lethal killer.
Thug-Nutter: This branch has its emphasis on "flak". The units are cheap to develop and to buy. The "nutters" on this branch are used to sweep alongside your "hooligans" to make sure your Terrorist leader hit the geo-thieves on the range combat ticks (in defence), and the attack dogs can be used as "cheap lethal flak" taking the losses instead of your expensive Terrorist leaders or Terrorist. Purchase unit: recommended, as you don't have any good lethal killing units on your route otherwise.
Thug-Thief: The thief branch is a specialist branch. You will get fast thieves (ETA 3), but blocking/killing flak will be a hard thing at the start. Once you get the terrorist it's a lot easier to defend against incoming. This route is perfect for rush attacks as it has many units with low eta's. Purchase unit: recommended, as you don't have any good lethal killing units on your route otherwise.

Military:
The military route is a very tactical or strategy based route very heavily aimed at offense. Not advised for solo players due to its lack of any good defensive units, and generally popular amongst alliance players as it seriously bolsters the "strong arm" of large joint alliance attacks. Can be a relatively expensive route to play. There are three branches where you can choose from:
Military-Apache: This branch of the route offers "Brute-force" offensive power. The branch is quite expensive to develop at the start but the "heavy weapons" and "grenadiers" will make up for this. Once the "striker" and "apache" are developed this route gets strong. "Striker" and "apache" are both units who are very hard to kill. Purchase unit: not needed.
Military-RPG: The RPG branch is a branch which is not very expensive. This branch aims for the faster developments and ETA's, with less emphasis on vehicles, more emphasis on tactics/strategy requiring a good combination of units. Also this branch has the route's only briber unit and has the unit with the lowest initiative. Note that this route is weak on it's last tick! Purchase unit: not needed, but can be fun if you want to bribe other units.
Military-Harrier: The harrier branch has a few cheap developments at the start which gives you units like the paratrooper. Once you get to the "ranger" you have some stronger lethals. The harriers on the route are some good robotic killers. Purchase unit: not needed, but the F117 is a very nice unit to have on your staff, it fires quick and kills a lot.

Robotics:
A very expensive and slow to develop route, but it is extremely powerful. The robotics route is a heavily armoured route. This makes it a strong route versus several other routes at many points. Robotics is probably the most used route in this game, because it is good in both attack and defence. The "cybernetic warrior" which is on all three branches is a very strong lethal unit, which does a fair amount of damage. The "tyrant drone" on this route is a feared unit as this lethal can kill loads of flak, but also hits lethal.
Robotic-Psychopathic Android: this branch is very strong. "Automotons" are the first lethal on this branch, especially at the start they are good for flak killing. The "psychopathic androids (PA)" are good for killing lethal. The PA are very strong compared to other routes early in the round, due to its low initiative it is perfect for defence and offensive. Purchase unit: not needed.
Robotic-Stunbot: The stunbot branch is the robotic branch that focuses more on defence. The stunbot is a good sweeper, making the robotic player able to stop incoming himself with a combination of small droids and stunbots. (instead of the small droid as sweeper, cause the small droid can stop more flak then hippy/yobs can). It is also one of the two branches that reaches cybernetic warrior pretty fast. Purchase unit: not needed.
Robotic-Shield Android: this branch is based on a LOT of armour, the shield droid itself isn't good at killing lethals. This branch reaches the cybernetic warrior pretty fast, but until then it will be weak. Once the cybernetic warriors are developed you can use the shield droid as lethal flak (with A LOT of armour on the shields) making this branch very hard to kill. Purchase unit: not needed.

Special Ops:
Reasonably priced route overall, with different branches suited to different styles of play, but all offering good options for solo players. The route has 2 places in which it splits branches, which combined give the route 7 possible combinations or branches to take. The first split is between "Spike Trap" (the perfect starting block for solo players very keen to defend themselves and their land), "Stealth Gardener" (which isn't revealed until ETA 2, preventing the enemy from knowing how much flak there is, due to ninjas sharing this reveal ETA), "Stealth Thief" (which whilst difficult to obtain so early on as it requires Geo-Phys Thieves to be researched first, offers a land-stealing unit that remains hidden with stealth until it reaches ETA 2 - turning the route in to the absolute best route for stealing land when combined with the other stealth units.) or you can choose the political briber and steal your enemies non lethal distractors and non lethal thugs. (Note that if you choose for the political briber you can NOT go assassins or bunkers!)
SO-Bunkers: This branch is purely based on defence. The only mobile lethal on this branch are ninjas and cloners (briber). The route is not very populair due to the fact that the bunkers aren't mobile, so when there are incoming they can't be evacuated. This route is mainly for solo players and perfect. Not many alliances will let bunker players in their alliance as they lack mobile defence units. Purchase unit: not needed, but makes the route a LOT stronger on defence.
SO-Assassins: The assassins branch is a more offensive route very much suited to land stealing and trickery. The assassins who are stealth until ETA 1 are perfect for killing the enemy you didn't like so much. Also it is hard to see what kind of units you have as most of the units are stealth. Purchase unit: not needed, but the Secret agent is very strong and a good RPG killer.
SO-Puppet Master: This branch can only be done if you've chosen for the political bribers at the earlier developments! This branch is very nice if you know how to bribe units. The only mobile lethals on this route are ninjas, the two briber variants (cloner, political briber) and armoured cars. You're able to bribe a lot of enemy units with this branch. Note that the steel wall unit will not kill any enemies, but don't think it is not doing any use - it helps provide some serious armour flak to the rest of your troops, and it does do some armour damage to the enemy to make the rest of your units a bit more effective at firing when defending yourself. Purchase unit: recommended, without the Puppet Master this route is very vulnerable to attacks.

Fantasy: Technically the newest and least documented class, the Fantasy class has 2 branches, one being the Undead and the other being Magical Creatures.
Undead: This path's goal is to create enormous hordes of skeletons, zombies, werewolves, mummies and vampires. Most of these have the ability to convert enemy units into copies of your undead monsters, ever expanding your army.
Magic Dudes: You have your wizards, sirens, etc up to your boss, Dragons. This path has strong ranged options and a very tanky unit in the Iron Golems.


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TL;DR This is a really fun game to build up forces and send them at other people to steal their resources. I've been playing with randoms on and off since 2008 and I think its a blast to play in a browser at work or in a second window or etc. I'm having a blast and if anyone else likes this style of browser wars game, please come join us. We need the fresh blood!

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