Stick War

Stick War ties every unit you field directly to a single shared resource, gold mined by dedicated miner units, which means the real early-game decision isn't which army to build, it's how many workers to sacrifice from your economy to fund one sooner.

Because pulling miners off gold duty to fight leaves your economy stalled, committing to an all-out rush only when you're confident it ends the fight quickly tends to work better than a prolonged siege that bleeds your income dry. Spells drawn from a separate mana pool are worth saving to break a stalemate rather than using the instant they're available, since timing one against a clustered enemy formation gets far more value from it. Age of War runs a similar lane-based army strategy with civilizations evolving through historical eras instead of a fixed unit roster.