HG: What made you decide to produce a prequel instead of a sequel to Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns? How has this choice affected the development of Kohan: Ahriman’s Gift and the story behind the campaign?

Doing a prequel became an obvious choice when we sat down and discussed the stories we wanted to tell. We wanted to delve more into the history and mythos of the Kohan world, and setting Ahriman’s Gift in the year preceding Immortal Sovereigns not only allowed us to set up Immortal Sovereigns, but also allowed us to flesh out parts of the Kohan story that had gone untold. The world of Khaldun has a rich history and we are looking forward to players discovering it in this installment and in future installments.

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HG: Kohan was originally designed with a 2D perspective. Does Kohan: Ahriman’s Gift use the exact same 2D engine and if so, what graphic innovations have you brought for the prequel?

Ahriman’s Gift utilizes the same game engine as Immortal Sovereigns. The graphical improvements primarily stem from the increased experience our art team has gained from working with the engine on the previous game. Spell effects are cleaner and flashier, and the new units are crisp, beautifully textured, and well animated.

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HG: In Ahriman’s Gift, there are four different factions of Kohans: Ceyah, Council, Nationalist and Royalist. What interaction is there between these groups and how does this affect gameplay?

The major form of interaction between these groups is combat. In the campaigns, you are associated with particular factions and get to take part in the political and military conflicts that arise from their differing policies and belief systems.

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HG: Kohan, Gauri, Drauga, Haroun, Mareten, Slaan, Rhaksha, Shadow... all of these races interact in the game. How does each come into play and what particularities does each bring forth that affect how the campaign and multiplayer modes unfold?

Aside from the Shadow, the other races play subordinate roles to the immortal Kohan. The Shadow is the primary enemy of all mortal races as well as the Kohan, although the Ceyah in their bid for dominance employ the dark powers of the Shadow. The mortals such as the Drauga, Haroun, Gauri, and Slaanri are too few in number to comprise their own political force on Khaldun, so they are most often allied with or subjugated by the more powerful Kohan or more numerous Mareten. The Mareten are the only mortal race with sufficient strength to wage war with the Shadow by themselves, though they are often led into these conflicts by the immortal Kohan that many Mareten look up to as divine leaders.

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HG: The AI in a RTS is of vital importance. Kohan: Ahriman’s Gift proposes 30 different AI types. How did you achieve this and what programming feats were necessary to balance the power of all of these computer-controlled opponents?

We spent a lot of time analyzing the way that the AI worked in Immortal Sovereigns. One of the nice things about the Kohan AI is that it won’t necessarily play the same way twice, it has tendencies, but nothing is scripted. However, in laying the groundwork for a strong economy, we found that some sort of scripting or templates were necessary to make the AI competitive. So we developed “Build Templates” that the AIs could use to generate buildings that were strong economically or militarily. This allows the AIs to get stronger units out sooner. In fact, given the right situation, the AIs can build as smartly as human players. One of the other goals was to allow AIs that take over for disconnected players to pick up the ball and continue to run with it. To that end, in addition to all the other tweaks and improvements, we added /tell commands so that allies can interact with an AI player. Some of my favorite games in Ahriman’s Gift have been 2 humans and 2 AIs versus 2 humans and 2 AIs. We built 30 new AIs to take advantage of the many different strategies and tactics available in Ahriman’s Gift. Each AI has its own personality and preferences and different AIs will provide different players with a different challenge.

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HG: Kohan: Ahriman’s Gift comes with a map editor and random map generator. Will you be following up with a campaign editor? If so, will it be compatible with Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns?

Ahriman’s Gift ships with a document that takes users through a step-by-step process explaining how to create their own campaigns, using the editor and the new campaign creation tool, also included on the CD. This campaign tool can be used to create KAG or KIS campaigns, depending on which editor is used and which directory the user works out of. These campaigns will not, however, be interchangeable between products.

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HG: The heroes have been a central pillar of Kohan. Have there been any changes to their role, how will the four heroes (Xerxes Mehrdad, Syrad Amon, Martyn Kirkwood and Thora Maeson) present in Ahriman’s Gift be played in the campaign and how will the other 70 Kohans affect the overall strategy of the game?

Well, the new heroes are used in the same manner as the heroes of Immortal Sovereigns, leading companies and providing benefits to those companies. New spells and abilities have been added though, with many of the new heroes taking advantage of them. The use of these new heroes will provide players with new strategies that take advantage of these new powers.

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HG: The particularity that most stands out in Kohan is the company based strategy. There are several new units in Kohan: Ahriman’s gift, which ones stand out the most and how will these new units change the overall strategy and gameplay?

One of the most popular and powerful new units is the Shadow Knight, gained by the Ceyah faction. What is so special about the Shadow Knight is that he attacks with a magical axe that ignores the defensive bonuses of his target. This means that highly armored opponents and those backed by priests casting protective spells will no longer rule the battlefield. The Shadow Knight allows the Ceyah to go up against even the most powerful priests and heroes and still deal significant damage to the enemy. Opponents are forced to use groups of weaker units or ranged units to compensate for this new threat.

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HG: One of the innovations brought by Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns was the automated management. Players no longer had to micromanage their resources and units. Have the TimeGate developers changed this in any way and if so how will that affect the game?

All we have done in Ahriman’s Gift is retool some of the components and upgrades that make this economic model work. Some have been improved to provide the users with new build paths and economic strategies, but nothing has changed in the way the economy is handled. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

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HG: Are the developers at TimeGate Studios working on a third Kohan game (Brett Todd at GameSpot hinted they were), and if so, will the game be a sequel this time around? Will you be bringing any new innovations whether they are graphical (a 3D graphical engine perhaps?), interface oriented or simply a change in gameplay? Give us something to hope for!