Last night I was watching a Nighteline special in which they were filming hybrid animals. They had thus absolutely huge (and beautiful) liger (a cross between a tiger and a lion) as well several other species.  It was while watching that segment that it dawned on me that The Wars by Deluxware is exactly that – a hybrid between a tower defense game and a strategic game like Civilization because you have to balance your strategy between fighting against your opponent and upgrading your civilization through 6 different periods of time. The advantage is that each of them have their own unique weapons and other game elements and so upgrading from one era to the next.( You gradually make your way from the cave man era all the way into the nuclear age. )

For example, the game starts out in the cave man era and you begin my pitting your cave man against your opponent. You can gradually upgrade your cave man and even get wooly mammoths to ride, making you even more stronger. Before realizing the second component to the game I spent all my recourses on upgrading my cave men until I had several wooly mammoths and were killing my opponents as soon as they stepped out their door.

Imagine my surprise when my opponent’s cave turned into a castle and the cave men were replaced with knights in armor and carrying swords.  Before I knew what was going on they had killed all my men, my mammoths, and were destroying my base before I knew what was happening.

One of the interesting things about the game is the “secret weapon” that is available periodically.  Imagine my surprise when I tapped on it in the cave man era and say a cave man in a rudimentary wooden helicopter fly over and drop rocks on everybody.  In other levels the secret weapon might be a bomber or even a UFO.

The Wars is available in the iTunes store for the very reasonable price of $0.99 and worth every dollar.