Gameplay involves expanding from one's starting Garrison in order to secure mining areas, and then either destroying your enemy's bases or destroying his capacity to fight (through economic warfare), much like a conventional Real-time strategy game. However, due to Allegiance's combination of RTS and space sim elements, some reviewers classify Allegiance in a genre of its own. Like an RTS, there is a commander who builds bases and miners, harvests resources and comes up with strategies for defeating foes. On the other hand, instead of the individual units being controlled directly by the commander as in other RTS, they are controlled by his teammates directly.
Aside from the single Garrison which all teams start with, new bases are built on asteroids by constructor drones which the Commander purchasing by using the team's credits. Asteroids are scattered throughout sectors which are interconnected via Alephs, wormhole like structures floating in space. These bases may be simple outposts used for launching attacks or defending ground through to advanced Technology Bases which allow development of new ships, weapons, and upgrades.
Depending on the technology path your Commander has chosen you might fly stealth craft, which are designed for destroying drones such as miners and constructors, or you might fly the interceptor, the king of defense and short-range dogfights. Destroying enemy bases requires the use of Bombers, and Scouts spot enemy movements, repair friendly vessels, and can even deploy minefields to devastate and delay an enemy attack.
In order to accumulate credits a commander builds miner drones to harvest Helium-3 from rare helium-rich asteroids, typically four in a sector. A particular emphasis is placed on miners, with the survival of friendly miners and the destruction of enemy miners critical to a team's success.
A typical game lasts between thirty and forty-five minutes, although games of more than two hours in length are not uncommon.
Allegiance has a reputation for not being an easy game to learn, even with its simplified flight model. It has a complex control scheme and a heavy focus on teamwork, tactics and player co-ordination. One must know your ordnance and, more importantly, know where to be and what one should be doing there (aka Situational Awareness). Given the enormous amount of factors to reckon with, it takes the average player somewhere between three and six months to firmly grasp the game.
Teamwork
Allegiance is a difficult game to get into and is not for every gamer. The flight model is simple and if you've played any flight sims that will be easy to get the hang of. The HUD and targeting is pretty simple too and it's not difficult to lock onto an enemy and start shooting at them.
The difficult part is learning how to work with your team. The community has written two training programs for beginners:
- Cadet I - this is designed for people that have just downloaded the game. It takes you from raw recruit to someone that can be useful in most situations. It contains enough information and strategy guides that 3 weeks are allocated for users to get through it comfortably.
- Cadet II] - designed for people completing Cadet I. It takes you from a novice to a decent player. It expands on all the topics covered in Cadet I and introduces many new topics, such as advice on piloting the medium and heavy class ships. It is an 8 week course.