Gratuitous Tank Battles

Gratuitous Tank Battles
69
Metacritic
55
Steam
47.55
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$2.49
Release date
17 May 2012
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
55 (80 votes)

Set in an alternate history timeline where World War I never ends, you are the commander of allied forces fighting right up to the year 2114.

Show detailed description

Gratuitous Tank Battles system requirements

  • OS: Windows XP
  • Processor: 1.5 GHz processor
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Graphics: 3D card with 128MB video memory
  • DirectX®: 9.0c
  • Hard Drive: 500 MB HD space

Recommended:

Recommended requirements are not yet specified.
Updated
App type
Steam APP ID
205530
Platforms
Windows PC
Mac
Similar games
Ratropolis
Ratropolis

Casual, Indie, Simulation, Strategy

$17.99 xDr: 87.77
DLC
Show all DLC
Popularity
Reviews
Write a new review
Skifff
Skifff

Not recommended. Super tedious and micro heavy. A good polished game presents the player with interesting choices at every step. Playing this game is like studying for a university entrance exam. UI is very cumbersome.

If I wanted to play this game properly I would have to enter numbers into excel for hours on end to find out what is good against what, what upgrades are better etc. etc. The game is just a huge pile of complexity and nothing else.

I want my money back

FJS102759
FJS102759

Awesome Game! Awesome Price. Nice tower defense game where you can play the attacker or defender. Lots of customization. It took a tiny bit of effort to make it work (see discussions) but more than worth it. I wish it had key mapping , but having fun playing this one.

Nomelette
Nomelette

Awesome spin on tower defense where you can also play as the attacker, design your own maps and mechs. That's right, DESIGN YOUR OWN MECHS.

Extraspecialist
Extraspecialist

Pretty darn fun towerdefence-esque game with tanks, mechs, and the ability to send wave after wave of men charging towards gun-filled trenches.

Durango188
Durango188

I love tower defense games (and games with a similar feel) and this game does not disappoint. The one twist that GTB has that I haven't seen in any other games is that you get to play as the attacker. Very quickly, you are essentially forced to use custom designs since the computer AI is quite unforgiving but that's a good thing since it requires adaptation and actual thinking. If you like tower defense games and/or Gratuitous Space Battles, get this game.

radio_babylon
radio_babylon

this is actually an anti-recommendation. i opened this game, took one look at the unit builder, closed it, and uninstalled.

gratuitous spreadsheet battles might appeal to some, but it isnt my bag.

Rascilon
Rascilon

Gratuitous Tank Battles is a polished tower defense game that offers a staggering level of unit customizability, a painless registration process, good video settings detection as well as a thorough tutorial. Both widescreen and the Steam Overlay are supported, but there is no controller support. The terrain graphics are subpar both flat and bland, but the units are 3D and the full zoom helps compensate somewhat. The music is quite well done and compliments the gameplay well. For strategists that like a deep level of customization and a large variety of scenarios with which to test them, this is an excellent purchase.

buffomounie
buffomounie

This game is pretty fun once you get the hang of it. The learning curve is a bit steep at first though. You need to stick with it until you get some of the upgraded equipment. Also, designing new units is a large part of the game - sort of like the old Mechwarrior series. But I've been having a lot of fun with it lately, and given how cheap it is, I'd say it's well worth the money.

CatDad500
CatDad500

Awesome Tower Defense game. The unit creation is the real meat of the game and the scenarios can be very challenging on the higher levels. A must buy.

Patches
Patches

Holy crap this game sucks. Massive amounts of eye strain and the mechanics are overly complicated. The game needs a massive overhaul on usability and the interface. It's nowhere near as good as GSB was.

Varaosa
Varaosa

ENG:

One of the best, if not the best tank strategy game on Steam, a simple and addictive game. Referral! :3

FIN:

Yksi parhaita, ellei paras tankki strategia peli Steamissa, yksinkertainen ja koukuttava peli. Suositteluni! :3

Xenrathe
Xenrathe

Though I really enjoyed Gratuitous Space Battles, I found this one thoroughly inferior. The customization found in GSB simply doesn't exist in GTB. There's no actual modification available, really. You simply unlock new items and those new items are, basically, always better. Whereas in GSB, you had to balance crew-size, energy, weight, cost; in GTB it's basically cost and that's it. NOT recommended.

Hootie
Hootie

Yeah I dunno, I liked space battles, but this one is whack. There was a certain mission I just couldn't get past no matter what outfit I tried. Maybe I'm just retarded.

In any case, it's a bit more involving than space battles, in the sense that you need to build turrets or send out waves of guys in real time.

But somehow it's just not as satisfying. Maybe the ship porn of space battles really knocked it up to the 'playable' category.

Delance
Delance

Gratuitous Tank Battles can be an incredibly fun and rewarding game. Remember the fun it was to build your own custom ships on games like Master of Orion? GTB is a tower defense game that's like that for every single unit or turret. From the smallest cheap gun to the big strongholds, from inexpensive recruit infantry to heavily shielded mechs.

Designing the units is simple, but the management of new and older designs can be a little busywork. But this kind of complexity that usually lacks on modern games is very welcomed.

The very fact that this games plays as both a traditional tower defense game and an inverted tower defense game is a testimony to its flexibility. It's a robust selection of units with great variation of strategies you can use to beat the enemy.

At least for me, the fact that you can design, customize and name every unit in the field adds to the enjoyment and creates a very fun experience when your guys are winning a battle. It's just most interesting when that tank unit you built to be fast and strong barely makes it to the finish line.

Building units is not everything, and the battles are intense and complex.

Apart from the built-in campaign, you can edit your own scenarios, and upload and download challenges from other users.

If you like Tower Defense games or games with customization, this is a very good choice.

Lord Mortarius
Lord Mortarius

While somewhat different from most Tower Defense games, I rather enjoyed this one. I mean, come on, who doesn't like wrecking Gerry mechs with laser cannons?

nexperpectus
nexperpectus

I bought this game because I enjoyed Gratuitous Space Battles enormously. What a disappointment! This game appears to be a quick and dirty attempt to profit from GSB. You get a few maps to learn from and then nothing but the same map over and over and over, with suggestions that you should play on-line to get a better experience. Maybe I am missing something, but I can find none of the maps shown in the Steam advertisement available as single player mode in the game.

R0BIT KING
R0BIT KING

Not nearly as good as the first one. I wish that they had stuck to their old game and made another like that one. In my opinon, this was a waste of money. Not terrible, but much worse than the first one. Get Space Battles instead.

Logaritm
Logaritm

a solid game, maybe not the best i ever played but if you can pick it up during a sale it's totaly worth it.

STAY AWAY FROM THE DLC, IT'S GARBAGE AND ADDS NOTHING TO THE GAME.

Mel
Mel

What I don't understand is why is this a tower defense game? why isn't this like Gratuitous Space Battles with an open battlefield where two armies simply engage in a battle? Why won't you just deploy your units, assign behaviour parameters and see how your troops perform? Space Battles would had never been even half as succesful if it would had been a Tower defense game so I don't understand why deviate from that succesful pattern they had going with the previous game?

racercowan
racercowan

I personally enjoyed this. While the game can be a bit slow at times, it takes a while to get tedious or boring. The wide amount of options for creating unts means there's great room for variety in playstyle, and part of the tactics for this game is not just what units to send/place, but also what in what order or what combination of weapons will pair best.

The game may get a bit formulaic after a bit, but it takes a while and is great fun up until then.

MaximumTrekkie
MaximumTrekkie

I love it. And for everyone who hates it just because it's different from Gratuitous Space Battles, and base your argument on hating it on that, go away. It's simply part of the same series of games, but that doesn't mean it can't be different. Just because it's different from the last game doesn't mean it's horrible. In fact, I love it. The customization aspect of both games is great, the mechanics from both games are solid, the graphics aren't the best, but I like the art style. It seems that many people hate that it's a Tower Defense, or maybe hate the asymmetric gameplay. Personally, I like both games and have both installed.

TheFantasticFox
TheFantasticFox

The game is repetative and not that much stratagey is involved. its just build thing here, send here, repeat.

_TP_
_TP_

I don’t like GSB. So I didn’t expect much from GTB. This time I was right. This game is just plain bad. I can’t imagine someone, who will like it. Battles are slow and tedious. After starting the game I have no idea, what the hell is going on. I built couple of defense structures and then watched the battle. There are some screens for managing god knows what, however it was so unintuitive… I somehow won the first mission and then it struck me. Whoa, this is so much not fun!

Uninstall. Hide from steam library. Do not recommend.

Jackolite
Jackolite

Ok, maybe i need to have more time to discover how to use my units correctly (4.4hrs when i wrote this) and maybe i suck ass, but i can't help feel that there is just way too much going on to take in. GSB did feel like that at first but i think what kept me playing that is because i was able to distinguish better what worked and what didnt. With GTB however, it feels more like, "spam more than the enemy can handle" kind of game.

When i tested out my own custom units as an attacker, i did win, but i couldn't quite make out how i did with what designs were effective and it felt like it was just all about spamming faster than the enemy can place its units down. I did see a couple of units really stand out but that was all i was able to take in and didn't feel as if they made a real impact to the game and was more about having more guns than my enemy to break through their defences.

As the defender, different story, after a solid 40mins of deciding what to put in my turrets and so forth i used them in battle, but it seems as though my theory of "the spammier the better" really came to fruitition as my enemy was constiantly fielding units that eventually meant i couldnt keep up with stopping the flow with the supplies i needed. I admit, i may have made classical n00b errors, such as not using the speed settings to help me better make sense of the battle (D'oh), and i noticed how most of my turrets were fitted into Anti-Armor roles. Maybe i just need to go back to the drawing board like i did with GSB, but honestly, after playing a few games of what felt like "the spammier the better", i saw no point and scrapped all of my turret designs.

You see with Space Battles i was able to figure out roughly where i went wrong if i lost a battle. Sometimes it was a design that ended up being obsolete with enemy designs or not being able to fill the role i intend it to. But with Tank Battles it didn't feel like that at all. It felt more like all of my units were at fault and the unit stats at the end did nothing to help me at all. I just couldn't make sense of all the information being given to me.

Though as i said at the beginning, i probably suck and need to put more time into this game for its goodness to really shine, but it felt like a real dissapointment from its Space counterpart, and besides, i have never been one for Tower Defence style games anyway as i always find the genre having little strategy and mainly focusing on who spams best. Tank Battles seems to be the same story then as always for me, just with customisation of units being a nice feature to it all.

5/10. A game that looked promising along with the customisation features but maybe that is due to my love of its space daddy counterpart. Overall, i am dissapointed, hope i can come back to this and it convinces me to change my mind.

If you love TD games, this may be for you but may not be exactly your cup of tea, and all the customisation and info that this game bombards you with may put you off in the end, aside from that, i advise you save your £6.99 (£11.98 with the DLC included) for a rainy day and look elswere.

And as for me, i am off to play GSB in order to cheer myself up by blowing alien ships up for no apparent reason, at least i can make sense out of all the chaos...oh well...

*readies plasma cannons* toodles.

caidicus
caidicus

While I mostly have no idea what's going on in this game, most of the time, I still think it'd probably be a pretty fun game for someone with more dedication than me.

I tend to get distracted by menus and stuff I'm supposed to remember, like which kind of unit/weapon does what, so this game doesn't suit me at all.

Then again, if I were the kind of guy who liked all that modifiability and such, this game would probably float my boat.

HappyTechpriest
HappyTechpriest

Ok, so I invisioned this game to be a little bit different when I first heard of it. It's still good, but has a LOT of things that drags it down.

This game puts you in the early 22nd century, after World War 1 has been going on for a LOT longer than it should have. You get to 'control' entire armies and defensive positions as you duke it out in a tower-defense like game. I still don't really get why its a TD game, but what the hell, its a game.

Pros:
- You can actually customize how your units look with paints and other parts.
- Damage system is just like Space Battles, making it familiar with GSB players.
- You can play as either the defender or the attacker.

Cons:
- Seemed a little mediocre, as GSB actually had tactics and, well, was more fun.
- The only tactic is literally just spam units until you win for the offense.
- The defences are really weak, still taking at least 10 hits to destroy a light tank, or even a light mech.

Overall, it is a decent game. It wasn't what I would have liked to be, like tanks, mechs and infantry on an OPEN BATTLEFIELD! Firing almost non-stop at eachother with lasers, machine guns and big-ass guns. I guess that I had too high hopes.

I rate this game a 5/10 (Average game). For all of the GSB fans, this is not the game you would want. It is really restrictive to how you play, as there are no real tactics and, well, it just isn't fun in the long run.

waffleofdeath
waffleofdeath

This is a fun tower defense game with loads of options for designing your own units. Plenty of fun, especially if you like to customize your forces. Buy on sale!

Hellbishop
Hellbishop

Excellent sci fi strategy game. The ability to customize every unit with all sorts of components and augmentations is a tweaker builders paradise. Reminds me of the fun i used to have designing battlemechs for the board game version of Fasa's BATTLETECH back in the 1980s and 90s. When designing new tanks, mechs, troops, turret defenses etc you have to observe how each one effects the other. You may design a walking mountain of destruction but if its engine isnt strong enough it will be running as slow as a snail giving the enemy plenty of time to tear it to pieces with laser,plasma,canon, machine gun fire among many other lethal forms of weaponery and defenses. Another cool thing about the design process is you can paint your units to whatever paint scheme you want.

Sound effects are brutal with the screams of infantry dying in agony as giant flamethrower type canons burn them into charred flesh or machine gun fire creates a field of dead bodies lying in pools of blood. All the while the battle cries of those still living permeate the carnage filled air with combat rage. Giant mechs stomp the ground below them with thundering earth shattering effect. Titanic tanks the size of Keith Laumer's BOLO units crush all with their mighty treads as they blast away at long range with their world destroying arsenal of weapons.

Graphics are very well done with a rpg board game feel to them similar to Steve Jacksons CAR WARS with an impressive level of zooming in where units do not lose their level of visual detail. Seeing trenches filled with the dead bodies of infantry in pools of blood definitely gives off a visceral thrill of massive carnage reminding me of the war scenes in the future in THE TERMINATOR. Tanks and Mechs burn in smoke trailed flames and show battle damage as they annihilate all in their path to reach their goal.

Game play comes in two forms where you defend or attack. I have never played a tower defense game before but that is what this is supposedly called though to me it reminded me more of mech combat in CYBER EMPIRES by Silicon Knights back in the 1990s where you destroy or defend against waves of enemies. Here the goal is to defend against waves of enemies or acttack while fighting your way across the map to exit thus reaching a certain victory score once enough surviving units have exited the map. This may sound easy but one of the coolest and incredible things about GRATUITOUS TANK BATTLES is its adaptable ai where the game adjusts its combat to your play style constantly changing to your new tactics. All the while the ai never feels like its cheating. During battles you may also end up getting supply drops allowing you to get things like free supply trucks into the field which will add huge amounts of victory points if they make it across the battlefield.

GRATUITIOUS TANK BATTLES if your into designing units and then sending them off to battle to see how they will destroy or be destroyed then this is the game for you.

goodfella
goodfella

Extremely fun! I love the feature of being able to design your own units. Although this game does get boring eventually, it is still worth buying and you will thorougly enjoy it!

Also, try not to grind easy levels too much- it can ruin the fun!

Emily Faraday
Emily Faraday

One of the worst tower defense games I've ever played, made worse for the fact that you have to pay for this shiny turd unlike the dozens of better free alternatives.

Graphics are decent but gameplay mechanics are awful.

VK_Lethal
VK_Lethal

I tried it in 4 or 5 Different pc's just to end up with a dialog box, giving an error box, "the filename directory name or volume label syntax is incorrect". Forget that anyone or developers ever gonna help you to work around this. There is no guide, nothing to show how to run this game. My hours are just because I left running game open with that error message.

And to the worse, I actually paid 8$ for an error message. What is wrong with this world !!

Kikibreeki
Kikibreeki

DO NOT BUY. this game is definatly gratuitous, but in ALL the wrong ways! It's poorly programmed, files get corrupted to easily, it feels rushed, adn above all the exsessive fatal errors! like, DEAR GOD, somone start up a funeral cause this **** is dead! like, who in thier right mind would want to buy a broken game? I know you're smart enough not to! I'm trying to save you money here so, DO NOT BUY.

ThePCGamer
ThePCGamer

DISCLAIMER: This is a first impressions review, and NOT a full review, if you want a full review, then please read better reviews then mine

Gratuitous Tank Battles is a game developed by Positech Games, the same people behind the Democracy series

In Gratuitous Tank Battles you fight in the future on planet Earth trying to survive the onslaught of enemies heading your way. The game's style is that of build and run, which is; you go into battle against a fleet of enemy ships, you place your tanks in a layout, you program orders, you click 'Start' and you wait. If you wipe out the enemies, you win!

There is a set amount of great game mechanics there, and a pretty extensive customization range. The game also offers great visuals too, especially for a 2D game and there is a lot of strategy involved when planning your attack

Gratuitous Tank Battles is a fun game to play in short bursts!

RECOMMENDED :)

DT76
DT76

The pseudo-sequel to GSB patches up a lot of things that its predecessor didn't do as well. You now have to equip something in every slot of your models, you can customize their appearance much more, the battles are asymmetric and you have to control things instead of passively watching, and the different maps provide a lot more variety than the void of space. I would recommend it more highly except that the battles take so darn long. I'm sitting there for 15, 20 minutes or more, either fending off waves of enemies or throwing my troops into the grinder, and there's still half the mission to go. It feels more slog than fun, sometimes. It just… lacks something, some ineffable quality that other TD games have.
Also, the unlock system was partially better in the previous one. I'm many games in, and most of the way done with the campaign, but there are still bunches of things to be unlocked. The other one gave you points for every victory and you could just buy the things you wanted in the store (often several for a good-scoring mission), but this one gives you one scripted thing and a choice between 2 other equips after each fight. This is good in that the scripted ones ensure you get the important stuff first, but bad in that it takes a lot of missions to unlock everything.
Jury's still out on the balance, but it's replaced its predecessor's "here are 5 equips that vary slightly from each other" for any given category with "here's a small, medium, and large thing - what'll it be?". That, combined with the fact that attacker and defender use almost the same gear, means that I'm skeptical of the potential variety. Will have to play it more.

Ed. So, after coming back to it for a while, I don't think my views have changed. It still feels like your decisions are mostly dictated by the map and your budget, not your overall battle plan. There's room for creativity in unit design and deployment mixes, but the fact that you can only put guys/turrets/support structures in pre-defined places really limits how you can play the level. For the attacker, it's even worse, since you have to send your troops down specific routes, and they always seem to get snarled up by traffic jams. The game lacks any realism in having wrecked tanks block your way, but injured ones at the front of the line will still slow you down. The attacker is supposed to have the advantage at the start, since they get more cash more quickly, and the defender later, since they never run out of income and keep all their non-destroyed defenses on the board. However, it really feels in most maps like the defender has an overwhelming advantage from the get-go. With the right placement of troops and turrets, they can get such a volume of fire in one spot that your line of vehicles, advancing single-file, will get picked off one at a time before they have a chance to do much damage. And if they have a repair yard nearby, what little damage you do inflict will be fixed in no time. Perhaps I just haven't hit on the right combination yet, but this seems somewhat shallow to me, as the first one did.
It's still not a bad game, and worth exploring for a while if you enjoy this type of thing. There's a lot of replay value to be found in the maps and the asynch multiplayer skirmishes.

Strange Payne
Strange Payne

Gratuitous Tank Battles Review - Raymond KT

Mind you, I just don’t like tower defense games. Pricing at the same as Torchlight1+2 combined is ludicrous. I mean the game is alright, it's your default tower defense game with inferior graphics. You get literally thousands of those for free on any flash site. Would consider trying it yourself on a sale. But don't spend more than 5 bucks on this. Not that good and from what I've seen on the internet the creator is extremely arrogant. Offputting

shockhall
shockhall

I can not make any of this work.

escape goat
escape goat

Gratuitious Space Battles is awesome, this game is not really worth playing though.

2nd Class Janitor - Wilco
2nd Class Jani…

Tags: Tower Defense
Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library

TLDR: Finnicky. Crowded UI. Serious and dry military tower defense with a lot of brown and drab tilesets. Uses fairly standard mechanics. Servicable at best.

Seems to be a micromanagement oriented tower defense game, with everything coming across as distant, sterile, and monotonous. Has this flash game quality to the sprites as well that fail to give a positive impression, and that tycoon/spreadsheet managenent style UI.

There are a fair deal of decent tower defense games, from ones where you join in first person such as Sanctum or Orcs must Die or classic but well presented such as Kingdom Rush. Gratuitous Tank Battle just feels redundant. Removing permanently for declutter.

Unhinged Javelin Missile
Unhinged Javel…

It's truly nothing more than a tank tower defense with the 'Gratuitous -Vehicle- Battles'. Nothing like the Spaceship one I played as a kid. Don't pay cash for this, Honestly play like...I don't know. Bloons or something and you'll have more fun with it.

DesuVults
DesuVults

I haven't played it for long since when I tried to customize a unit you can only really change the colours, and the models only come in different gun presets, if you are expecting anything like the spaceship version but just TD styled, you are greatly mistaken, the only customization here are stats and colours.

☕TeaDrinker
☕TeaDrinker

A genuinely original take on tower defence. Lets you play as the attacker as well as the defender, and you can upload your attack online so players can try to defend against it. Rather buggy, but you can hardly blame the dev for giving up on the game considering how little attention it got. It really deserves to be given a chance. At least try the demo.

Vazzaroth
Vazzaroth

I thought I was going to be making my own custom tanks (and maybe mechs) and programming their behavior for open battle but it was some kind of tower defense that you could play in a browser right now with an "attacker" mechanic that isn't really innovative or even fun honestly.

Appreciate the work put in here, but I think the game just simply fails at being fun.

TwoStones
TwoStones

Perfect as it allows to also play reverse turret defense - send vawes of units against a defending AI! You can design your own units and even color each part of the unit. Game works as a charm, no issues at all. Still very replayable and funny.