PC Gamer’s tournament to crown the greatest real-time strategy (RTS) unit of all time has reached its semifinals, with four units remaining and reader voting closing at the end of Tuesday (BST).
In the quarterfinals, four more contenders were eliminated. Two matches were decided by as little as 10% of the vote, according to the tournament’s writers. Among the fallen are the Dolphin and the Peon.
The semifinals bracket
The writers had made confident predictions before the quarterfinals, getting every matchup right except one: the Peon was knocked out by a Mammoth Tank. The author noted that in an earlier round the Peon “utterly dominated the Glass Dragon” and drew plenty of support from readers.
In other quarterfinal results, the Mirage Tank was destroyed by Darth Vader’s Executor Super Star Destroyer, the Pride of Hiigara defeated a group of cavalry units, and the Dolphin fell to the Priest. The writers observed that spaceships in particular have been performing well throughout the tournament.
Mammoth Tank vs Pride of Hiigara
Mammoth Tank (Command and Conquer: Red Alert)
God bless these great, trundling beasts—implacable Soviet strength wrought in steel and pig iron.
Mammoth Tanks are unfathomably costly and painfully slow, but whatever. I’m convinced just one of them could probably win the entire RA1 Soviet campaign by itself.
—Joshua Wolens, Новости Writer
Pride of Hiigara (Homeworld 2)
While other ships are spitting out missiles and other little projectiles, the Homeworld Mothership is spitting out capital ships. It is both a unit and your base—an impossibly huge mobile factory that can carry your whole fleet inside of it. Its direct offensive capabilities are extremely limited, but like I said: It can spit out capital ships.
I’ve picked the Kushan/Hiigaran version specifically because of its iconic design, which for me is right up there with the Enterprise D and Star Destroyers. While it’s largely stationary in the original Homeworld (at least in the campaign), it’s fully mobile in Homeworld 2, giving it an extra dose of utility.
—Fraser Brown, Online Editor
Super Star Destroyer vs Priest
Executor Super Star Destroyer (Star Wars: Empire at War)
My colleagues have, for some reason, chosen to prioritize things like “funny voice lines” and “subtext” while proposing their favorite RTS units. Sorry, gang: you’re about to get crushed by 19 kilometers of steel and turbolasers.
This enormous Death Triangle is the ultimate wish fulfilment vessel in Empire at War, one of my favorite Star Wars games. It’s not a top-tier RTS, but it is top-tier Star Wars fantasy in game form, letting you move around a bunch of little toy ships and play out the “what if” of throwing Rogue Squadron’s ace pilots up against a Star Destroyer.
The damn thing is practically the size of Manhattan, and you can really feel that scale in the game. It makes regular Star Destroyers look like Doritos by comparison. It’s swimming with so many turbolaser batteries it can bully an entire Rebel fleet by itself.
—Wes Fenlon, Senior Editor
Priest (Age of Empires)
“Wololo.” I win.
—Jody Macgregor, Weekend Editor
Voting on both semifinals matchups continues until the end of Tuesday (BST). Readers may vote for any reason they choose rather than strictly by who would win in a fight.
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