It’s not every day that a new genre appears, seemingly full formed, but that’s how it went with Auto Chess. One minute I was waiting for the 10,000th Battle Royale or Survival Crafting clone to arrive so I could make fun of them, and the next minute people were suddenly talking about Auto Chess. I wondered–as you may be wondering now–”What the hell is Auto Chess?”
We’re Sitting Here On Vent And Modding A Little DOTA
Let’s start from the absolute beginning for those of you too scared of MOBAs–rightfully–to know that world.
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, real time strategy games were all about commanding hordes of dudes. Next came a generation with Hero Units, largely driven by Warcraft III. Hero Units were kind of like RPG characters: more powerful and better equipped than your swarm of peasants. Careful micro-management with them could swing the tide of a battle.
Some players liked micromanaging the Hero Units more than managing the swarms and building bases, which lead to Defense of the Ancients, the legendary DOTA. In DOTA, DOTA2, League of Legends, and the 10,000 knockoffs of what came to be called Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas (MOBAs), you focused entirely on managing that hero and destroying the enemy’s base by working with automated swarms of units, fighting the other heroes, and calling each other slurs over voice chat.
What If MOBAs But Not That?
So what if you liked the diverse and broad selection of heroes, the mental games of remembering which one countered which other one, the team construction, and not the frantic clicking, swearing, and slurring? Enter Auto Chess.
Dota Auto Chess is a mod for DOTA 2 that came out in January and promptly exploded into one of the most popular games on Steam. Now Valve leaped in with an official game–DOTA Underlords–and Riot has released their own–Teamfight Tactics. The name that seems to be coming forward to describe this genre is “autobattlers.”
Essentially, you strip away a lot of the hassles of a MOBA: Take out the clicking, the teamwork and coordination with idiots, the need for the reflexes of a 16 year old jacked up on caffeine and sugar. What you’re left with is essentially a multiplayer team management and building game where you make decisions, wind up your toys, and see what happens.
The specifics vary for each title, but basically you’re matched with a group of other people for a series of one-on-one matches on a map that looks a lot like a chessboard. You get a little bit of currency (usually gold) and get to buy a hero unit. The fight begins! You watch your dude fight the other guy’s dude. The loser loses some points and falls in the standings. The winner moves up or stays where they are. A little more gold (or whatever) comes in and you can maybe buy another unit or upgrade the one you have. On to the next battle!
That Sounds…
It doesn’t sound like much, I know, and it’s not the adrenaline and caffeine-fueled style of gameplay that MOBAs are known for. The hook is in the team-building. Most units have a class–like mage, fighter, healer, assassin, whatever–and there are a lot of synergies to it. Mages may be weak on their own but get a boost when other mages are on the board that turn them into monsters. A team of assassins might not last long in a fight, but fights don’t last long when they slaughter everyone in their path.
On top of that, there’s usually some other groupings at work as well. In Underlords, for example, units play well with other units of that type, so building an army of trolls or druids or humans will also have bonuses and special effects that influence how well your team does. It’s almost like a management sim for a sports game rather than an action game. You build and manage your team, track your currency, make decisions, wind them up, and see how you did.
DOTA Manager 2019
The early rounds are all about team-building and money management. The selection of heroes is random but usually based on tiers and your level. So a common hero might be cheap but relatively weak. An uncommon hero might show up in late game and be expensive. Do you gamble on the cheap unit and sink your money into upgrading it? Or do you take a few dives in the early rounds and build up a pool of gold to buy units in the late rounds (if you make it that far)?
But! You can also spend your money to reroll the selection of heroes, so maybe you want to try and see if you get a better “pull” (but will you have money to buy them?). You might get a powerful hero that doesn’t play well with your current team strategy. Do you buy them anyway and rejigger your team composition on the fly or pass them up for a lower-powered hero that can work with your bonuses?
Or! You gain EXP over time as you play and win matches, and leveling up means one more hero on the board. You can spend your currency to get a little EXP bump. Being able to throw down a more powerful hero could sweep you to victory in the early matches but then you might not be able to afford the late game heroes.
And! Even the most cunning of late game strategies doesn’t work if the RNG gods aren’t on your side. None of the theorycrafted perfect builds and synergies mean a damn thing if you keep drawing crap heroes.
However! There’s also a few itemization rounds early on and then sporadically throughout the game where you can get items that do nice things–add armor, healing, movement speed–or amazing things–make heroes of a certain type invisible for 5 seconds. These also force you to react: If you get a great item for assassins but don’t have any assassins, do you rebuild your team comp on the fly and hope for assassins or take a lesser item that works for your existing comp?
The decision-making and team-building is fun, but the real hook is learning to work with what you can get, improvising it, and learning along the way. Your powerful early game crew may get decimated by the guy who laid low for rounds building up a warchest to spend on late game units. On the other hand, an on-the-fly switch from fighters to mages might power you to victory. With only a minute between rounds, the pressure to make a decision and live with it is relentless. Take a dive in this match and save your gold for later or play hard and knock off the guy that seems he may be trouble?
Maybe the real reason they don’t inspire as much loathing and racial slurs is that games are short and, gulp, relatively casual. In League of Legends, if you’re stuck on a crappy team, you get to watch them suck it up and yell at each other for 45 minutes to an hour. Even if you’re a great player, there’s only so many scrubs you can carry, and being slowly and painfully steamrolled sucks.
On the other hand, in autobattlers, games take maybe 20-30 minutes, and you’re learning the whole time. If you’re losing, it’s over quickly and you probably picked up a new team composition or strategy. If you’re winning, it’s intense, as every decision may have game-winning or losing consequences.
Okay, Okay…
To check out Teamfight Tactics: https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/featured/events/teamfight-tactics
To check out DOTA: Underlords:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1046930/Dota_Underlords/
To check out DOTA Autochess:
This is a little bit tricky since it’s a mod. Go to Steam and install DOTA 2:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/570/Dota_2/
Then go to the Arcade page and search for Auto Chess.
