All the games, bar the last installment, played on a hex grid, while the first game had the players' turns alternate between moving and attacking. In The Andosia War, each turn was at a 10-minute timer, both player and enemy, often forcing the player to wait in real-time for a while before the computer finishes their move.
The series also spawned a spin-off called Incubation. It was also a turn based strategy, and its characters eventually featured in The Andosia War. However, it was still quite different in tone and gameplay, focused on commanding a squad of soldiers against colonists mutated into monsters.
An updated version of the first installment's engine was used in the game History Line: 1914-1918, a World War I-themed spinoff.
This series provides examples of:
- Broken Ace: Rachel, who is renowned as a war hero at the end of Incubation, has spiraled into drug abuse by the time The Andosia War comes around.
- Color-Coded Armies: All the units of the armies had a single color.
- Easy Logistics: Played straight in the first installment, averted in the sequels, where you had to connect buildings up to the electricity grid from the main base, and send resources between buildings via pipes. Your own units would eventually run out of power from using their energy weapons, necessitating repair units to come over and recharge them.
- Face–Heel Turn: General Brett, who was on the side of Rachel in Incubation, becomes her nemesis by the time of The Andosia War.
- Instant-Win Condition: Capturing the enemy HQ will make you win the map instantly, regardless of any other conditions.
- In-Universe Game Clock: Governs the Weather of War below, as well as simply decreasing units' accuracy at night-time, unless they had upgrades to guard against it.
- Spin-Off:
- History Line is a WWI-themed spinoff using the Battle Isle 93 engine.
- Incubation is a Turn-Based Tactics spinoff, and is only loosely connected to the main game series in both story and gameplay.
- Weather of War: Battle Isle 2200 made weather effects part of the gameplay, which was carried over to next games.
- Worker Unit: The SC-P Merlin Pioneer unit in the first installment. The sequels had more.
