Dragonshard Preview at GameSpot

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Dragonshard and Dungeons & Dragons Online everywhere, a must have. If GameSpot has Dungeons & Dragons Online, then Dragonshard must also be there. It discusses the build-up system, the factions and the world of Eberron itself. And here's a clip for you:

The city grid is the system that Dragonshard uses to let you build up a base. Like in most real-time strategy games, you'll build out this base to help you grow your armies and access top-level technologies. But unlike other strategy games, Dragonshard has no tech tree--you can build pretty much any building in any order you want. Also, buildings don't produce units. So, within a city grid (which includes a central keep), you can build up to 16 different buildings of any kind you choose. Liquid has apparently decided to change one aspect of cities we reported earlier--buildings will no longer give bonuses to other nearby buildings (apparently, some testers found it was too confusing). Instead, creating more buildings will let your captain units gain more and more experience levels. And overall, the open-ended nature of the city grid will still allow you to build out your armies in pretty much any way you wish.

When you're adventuring, you'll want to take along a well-rounded force that includes unique top-level units called champions (which do not gain experience levels but can pick up an entire armory's worth of weapons and armor over the course of the campaign), along with midlevel units known as captains. Captains can gain experience levels and they also recruit soldiers, which are bottom-tier units that will make up most of your armies, at least aboveground. As you may remember from our previous coverage, Dragonshard will take place in the Dungeons & Dragons world of Eberron, which has both an overland map and subterranean caves. In the overland, you'll want to explore and conquer as much territory as possible by claiming expansion points (which then free up a mini city grid with four slots for buildings), by taking control of power points that grant special bonuses, and by seizing deposits of crystal shards (one of the game's key resources). Interestingly, whenever crystals are fully depleted from the overland, the world of Eberron will experience a "shard storm," a spectacular storm in which new deposits of crystals come crashing to earth. You'll also be able to take on various quests in the single-player game that may be two-sided, like one in which you may choose to aid either a group of ettins (huge, two-headed monsters) or a group of duergar (a race of evil dwarves). But while aiding one group will earn you a new set of allies on the battlefield, it will also immediately make the other group hostile to you.

Go to GameSpot to see the rest.