Not sure about Armada since I've never played that game but if you've ever played or seen gameplay videos of Littlest Pet Shop PC edition, Demigod is pretty much EXACTLY like that. Where you can dress them up in different clothes and items and visit different shops and stuff. You only control your one Demigod unless you are a general type in which you may control up a few minions. You even build up points (or gold) just like in LPS as well. Demigod is basically the response to 'How could we make a sequel to the Littlest Pet Shop?'

They are not similar at all. It's not like any of the games you listed, actually.

In Demigod, you (mostly) control just your Demigod, of which you currently have 8 choices: fallen angel guy with crossbow (Regulus), nasty poison dog thing (Unclean Beast), the walking castle (Rook), undead mage (Torchbearer), walking suit of armor (Oak), evil plantsy/fairy thing (Queen of Thorns), girl on tiger (Sedna), and vampire (Lord Erebus).

The first 4 are classified as Assassins, they tend to have more damaging skills and direct damage.

The latter 4 are Generals, which tend to have more buffs and support skills, and in addition each General has their own unique minion type and they are able to buy 3 other minion types in a shop. These minions are the only things you can control like another strategy game. You can select them, tell them where to go and what to attack, etc. Assassins do not get minions at all.

The basic gameplay revolves around you controlling your lone Demigod (with minions if you're a General). There are AI "creeps" periodically coming out of the portals on both sides which you kill for experience, a little bit of gold. Of course, killing enemy Demigods gets you that too. With experience your Demigod levels up, and other than basic stats increases s/he becomes able to put skill points into the various skills available. For example, Regulus can put points in a Snipe skill (long range attack that does more damage the farther away the enemy is), Mines (throws some mines on the ground that blow up when something walks over them), Angelic Fury (adds damage to each crossbow shot but drains mana), Mark of Betrayer (puts a debuff on the enemy Demigod that causes them and all their allies nearby to take damage when they try to use a skill). Then there's passive skills, like longer range attack, chance to slow on each shot, chance to plant tracking bug that lets Regulus and his team see the tracked Demigod inside the fog of war, etc.

Each Demigod has unique skills, most of them have 4 active ones that you control the use of, and the rest are passive. Notable exceptions are Torchbearer and Queen of Thorns, they have 2 forms so they have 6 activated abilities (one slot is used for the form switch, so that leaves 3 per form). Torchbearer has Ice and Fire forms, Ice using interrupts and freezes and fire focusing on damage. Queen of Thorns has her "open flower" form which is more offensive with AoE attacks and such, and "closed flower" which gives her bonus armor and opens up her summoning and defensive skills.

There are a few different game modes, from killing x number of enemy Demigods to holding flags (flags exist in all game types though their numbers vary by different mode, and they provide bonuses while held such as extra xp gain, more health, faster health regen, etc) to destroying the enemy citadel.

There is no base building, your team's base comes "prebuilt" with a Citadel which you can buy upgrades for to improve towers (your irreplaceable defenses), your team's creeps, gold incomes, death penalty reduction, and unlock new creep types for reinforcements. Then there's a shop where you buy items to equip your Demigod, things like helms that increase mana regeneration, or chest armor that increases armor and life regeneration to boots that make you run faster or gloves that make you attack faster.

Things like that..

Thanks for the details and the time to write it. This helps a lot. I am actually more interested in the game now. I will not be able to buy it for the moment but look forward to it in a few months. What do you guys recommend, purchase the game at a store or get it thru Impulse? Either way I'm fine with it.

Stardock gets all the money from an Impulse buy, and only about $19 from a store buy. You can also get the box shipped to you (and the CE if you want it, which has some posters, MyColors theme at some point, and a Rook miniature). And you'd need to register the game on Impulse anyway for updates and multiplayer, so you might as well just get it from SD directly.

Speaking of multiplayer, since I didn't make it explicitly clear.. there is no single player campaign. It's mainly a multiplayer game. Single player has skirmish which is like skirmish in any other RTS, you pick map, teams, settings and play with AI and there's a Tournament mode where you just pick your own Demigod and the game creates a tourney for you to play on 8 maps with varying game modes and teammates. So that's the extent of single player. Worth a note

Thanks again for the info. You should work for Stardockas a customer service rep for the Demigod dept, if you don't already.

Hows about some points for Annatar here Stardock?