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The excellence continues
The multiplayer of Cataclysm carries on its true strength, its gameplay. Moreover, the gameplay is even more interesting in the multiplayer game. During the single player campaign you fought off your enemies from 2 separate angles at most, occasionally, you got yourself in a really bad predicament that had three. In multiplayer, the angles never stop.
We call it the 'All kinds of acolytes' formation
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A tired fleet
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Even when playing against two or three opponents, they have the good sense to pitchfork and envelop you from multiple angles. The strategic options available in multiplayer are so profound, and the players make use of it. Your multiplayer experiences might go a little something like this on Sierra.com:
You decide you want to look down the RU-heavy crystals, and rush for frigates, an easy research, but powerful with their multibeams. You get yourself into position around the crystals, and soon have 20 frigates looming around the fields of pink silhouetted by lightning in the distance. Your opponent comes in, and has but two dreadnoughts, the most powerful ship in the game, but with no support they are easy pickin's for your frigates and command ship.
The two of you start clashing, and then seemingly out of nowhere, you suddenly hear "Sensors detect siege cannon weaponry has been fired." You pause, pause, "Oh god!" you scream. Then, two translucent fields open in front of his dreadnoughts, and seconds later, the two have passed into nothingness of hyperspace. Pause, pause, a scalding white hot burst of energy appears on your screen, and you watch, as each of your frigates are immolated in a burst of energy, only your command ship survives, with all its expansions destroyed, and fire shooting from its remaining pieces. Game over.
See, you think this is a hypothetical experience, "This is what you are capable of doing on Sierra.com." No, actually, this actually happened with our first experience on Sierra.com. When we had left the battle, the only words escaping our lips were: "This game is so cool."
Acolytes out doing a Recon's job
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There are ships mixed amongst those asteroids, heading in from below.
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Options, options!
Yes, the people playing on Sierra.com don't rush, they don't spam, macro-manage, or any of the other common strategies in RTS multiplayer experiences. It's not necessarily the case because they are good people, this is probably true, but even if they weren't, they couldn't. The nature of Cataclysm doesn't really permit it. The emphasis is very much so on the tactical. It is based around wits, perception and strategy.
It's really quite amazing how many different options are available in the multiplayer game. I don't think I have ever played a RTS with this many options. There are three games types: Carpe Diem ("Seize the day" or in the actual gameplay "Seize the ship"), Bounty Hunter (get rewards for killing ships!), and I Hate Harvesting (removes the option of harvesting, which is replaced by resource unit injections at periodic times).
Once you have decided the game type, you can then define the winning conditions (capture enemy capital ship, destroy enemy command ship, or allied victory elimination.) This offers an innumerable number (9? -ed) of mix and match opportunities in the multiplayer game.
You also have the option of adding computer opponents, their intelligence and their propensity towards attacking human opponents are also adjustable. Let us not forget you can also adjust the scale of resources, how much bounties are worth, whether research is enabled or if you start with everything, if resupply crates come and numerous options. The multiplayer is a dream, and moreover, it even comes with the option of recording a demo, which you can start from midgame.
With all the options, the tactical gameplay, and the demos… how could you not love Cataclysm's multiplayer? The only problem with it is that there does seem to be a limited fanbase for Cataclysm's online play. In the wee hours of the morning, there were only 5-15 people playing Cataclysm multiplayer, during rush hour this can get as high as 50 or 100. Folks who regularly play games with smaller multiplayer followings probably don't care, but for those used to playing RTS games where matches starts literally once a second somewhere in the world, it might come as a shock to actually wait ten minutes for a game.
Ballistics Report 
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