Nether Earth is one of the earliest computer strategy games taking place in real time. It was released for the Amstrad CPC

Amstrad CPC

The Amstrad CPC is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom,...

, ZX Spectrum

ZX Spectrum

The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...

 and Commodore 64

Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

 in 1987. It was published in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 by Argus Press Software and re-released in Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 by Mind Games Espana S.A.

Plot

The player takes the control of the human side in a war against the mysterious Insignian race. All of the warfare is carried out by enormous military robots.

Gameplay

The player controls a flying machine which can fly over any part of the play-area. The player must build robots and give them orders to attack Insignian robots and capture neutral or enemy factories to increase production and thus aid the war effort. The ultimate objective is to capture all the enemy bases and thus win the war. Everything takes place in real-time with the action being ongoing rather than turn-based. Because the player's view of the battlefield is limited to where their flying-machine is, much of the front-line fighting is left to the machines whilst the player concentrates on building more robots. The game is displayed in forced-perspective isometric

Isometric projection

Isometric projection is a method for visually representing three-dimensional objects in two dimensions in technical and engineering drawings...

 graphics.

Remake

A freeware remake of Nether Earth was completed in 2004 and is available for download on the internet.

Another game using almost the same system, for the planetary combat, is Space Rangers 2: Dominators

Space Rangers 2: Dominators

Space Rangers 2: Dominators , released in North America with the subtitle Rise of the Dominators, is a multi-genre science fiction computer game developed by Elemental Games for Windows and first published in 2004 by 1C Company...