The plot is strong enough fantasy to withstand casual scrutiny. Your world is known as Khaldun, and long ago, your race lived in a paradise, ruled fairly and allowed to prosper, thank the Creator. But the Shadow moved in, all hell broke loose, and you and your fellow immortals were put to sleep. Lately, you and your fellow immortals started waking up. If you can gather together and win this war, you’ll get your nirvana back.

The gameplay is faithful to the plotting. The primary characters are the Kohan, about 50 different heroes from yesteryear who have special powers and usually die last in a battle. They are joined by mortals in the form of footmen, archers, grenadiers, settlers, engineers … quite a range, really. The ability to mix and match as your technology level increases makes choosing a team quite challenging. And even if your squad is wiped out, your Kohan is an immortal sovereign. The Kohan may be "deleted" from a battlefield, but for a mere 50 gold pieces you can get ‘em back.

A Kohan hero can also be detached from the squad and allowed to roam. This gives your army a "Super Friends" kind of look, similar to old DC Comics and their "Justice League of America" collections. There’s a hero for everything, so it’s worthwhile to try them out and learn their special powers.

K:IS calls itself company-based, but it’s easier to think of the troops as squads, since there are six or seven units on the screen when they’re at full strength. Supposedly, one archer on the screen represents 50 or so on the battlefield. But I found that hard to conceptualize. During an out-matched attack your teams usually dwindle to single Heroes as the last one standing. When they die one by one, it still hurts one by one.

Balancing technology is fairly straightforward, and doesn’t need too much tinkering. The controls are especially good at telling you how fast you’re sinking. My regret was that I couldn’t upgrade all the choices presented. There were times when a barracks sounded a whole lot better than a library, but each puts you on a different path. I did get tired of starting out at the bottom so often, however.

Managing the economy is likewise simplified. You can either make sure your economy is strong, by creating gold, wood and iron at the right ratio, or you can go campaigning. A steady effort to clean out nest after nest of enemy colonies produces a nice stream of gold. That can revive a drained treasury and allow for expansion. With gold in the till, you might find the time to build an outpost at a natural choke point for blocking enemy incursions. You’d think that at some point you have to repair a draining economy. Even if you don’t, and ignore it, you may be greeted by this wonderful message: "Economy repaired." I thought that was a very nice touch, as I was engaged elsewhere and didn’t feel like tinkering.

Anyway, I like strategy games that rely on combat, not simulation. I’ve always leaned toward games that rely on an active Advisor. For example, President Bush has Dick Cheney. In the science fiction epic Dune, all the major leaders had their Mentats to keep the world running like a Swiss watch. In Civilization, a cultural advisor might pop up to tell you to build the citizens a Coliseum. Game makers would do well to remember that the players are there mostly for the combat. In this sense, Kohan excels. It’s about the fighting, definitely.

And not just Command & Conquer type fighting, either. You won’t waste mouse clicks boxing up your squads and moving them if you master the Company controls. K:IS has a fairly effective system of bonding together squads to form giant regiments. Then you just concentrate on those Company keys to move men around.

For example, companies can move in different formations, depending on what you want to do. If you’re moving a great distance, you can queue them up single-file and they’ll bypass most chances to attack the enemy. If you want a full skirmish to develop, the computer lets you group them with a single click on the skirmish icon. Suddenly, you’ve got a full formation of footmen leading the assault, with archers in the middle and your Kohan spinning spells from the safety of the rear zone. It’s awesome, and it didn’t wear out your wrist to do it.

A word of warning: Locate the Rout key early — you have to break off over-eager attacks so your men can be restored to full health. Even if they’re exhausted, demoralized and far from home, they’ll take on the enemy. So beware of times when they want to spar and you just want them to run away. It will cost you companies if you don’t, because their instinct is to fight any time their personal space is invaded.

In fact, one of the best features of Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns is the use of different Zones. Units have a Zone of Control that is like their "personal space." When your fighters are near their home, or near an outpost, they are considered in the Zone of Supply and can be rebuilt, even if they’re down to their Kohan. This is an awesome upgrade. You don’t waste mouse clicks setting each unit to rebuild; it’s automatic. When the enemy rushes your squad, as long as the defenders are in their Zone they will have a wonderful defensive advantage.

This is where some of the strategy comes in. If you don’t want to fight your enemy on his home turf, you have to lure him out away from his spider’s nest or mound. Some of your units have a big advantage in the forests, although archers are less effective with all those tree trunks and branches. But again, this is good stuff. There’s more to this game than building up an awesome standing army and rushing your foe.

The maps are well developed, if a bit repetitive. There are enough tight valleys and narrow passages to set up cities or outposts directly in the path of invaders to slow them down. And another nice feature is the use of militia that automatically comes boiling out to take on invaders that enter the city or outpost’s Zone of Supply. So you can be fighting in one quadrant while the home boys take care of any stray spiders. That reduces your mouse-clicks some more. And it just makes sense to have a militia ready to repel boarders.

Another example of saving on your mouse finger: Troops left to stand around will get busy digging in. After a small amount of time, otherwise unoccupied troops will entrench, increasing their defensive strength. Without going through three menus and giving each icon individual attention, they know what to do. Give them more time, and they fortify themselves further and have a big advantage. No more of that lame AI crap where an enemy can sneak right past your lounging troops. Once their Zone is pierced, they’ll fight.

Kohan forces you to do a lot of exploring, which means you blunder about in the blackness until you bump into something interesting. There are ruins, amulets, gold deposits, iron mountains and other treasures littered about. If you get too far away from home, you might start wondering about sending out a settler unit or an engineer unit to expand your reach. Settlers can start a city, while engineers can construct a smaller outpost, build a mine, or repair flaming or smoking settlements. This extends your Zone and allows you a sanctuary to re-energize battle-weary units.

Here’s a numbered list of further pros and cons:

1. I liked being able to speed the game up to 400 percent. But I had to reset the speed every time I began a new level. So each time I started a game, every time I loaded up something new, I had to go to the Options screen. That got really old.
2. Tutorials were good. I had to restart them a few times when I did something wrong. I wasn’t sure how I did it, but I managed to blunder off the "happy path" of the lesson. Nevertheless, I definitely recommend the tutorials. They’re well done and get you started fast.
3. The interface is excellent. None of the nits I initially wrote down stood up over time. I found it easy to figure out and rarely in the way.
4. Graphics are good, not great, at 1024x768, with a three-quarters overhead view. Individual character animations were very good, and static hero art was exceptional. The city icons could use some inspiration.
5. Engineers are crucial. They build mines, repair damaged structures and construct outposts, expanding your realm. But they’re not much of a front line, and they have to be on the front line in order to engineer.
6. This game has good details. The sound of a single coin in a tin can when you run out of money is utterly realistic. Fireballs are full of thunder and rumbling. However, the unit responses when you order them around get annoying, and it would be nice to disable "What would you have of me?" from the female Kohan after hours of play.
7. K:IS is full of little characters running around. They tended to thrust aimlessly sometimes, and should be more directed. At times they seem a little cartoonish, but they have good detail. And its kind of fun to hear the engineers set at 400 percent speed as they tattoo a mine into place.
8. The horses leave a nice skeleton when they decay and rot away, but they need a better range of walking, trotting and galloping motions.
9. Morale is an important factor. Having a Kohan in charge increases your morale, as does success in battle. Low morale makes your unit easy to rout.
10. The Save mechanism is quite good. The delete key made it easy to clean up a growing list.

When you throw in features such as fully-developed multiplayer code for LAN or Internet, a thriving online community, availability of cheats, a random map generator to extend gameplay, and the ability to replay your latest conquest via movies, K:IS really sets a high standard.

This game is very easy to like, and complex enough to inspire lengthy conversations delving its depths. There are tough spots to get past, and thinking is required. Like the name says: Strategy First!