To be honest, I thought the story got off to a jarring start, since the prologue didn't paint the pirate side as even remotely sympathetic, and then the game abruptly drops you into the role of a pirate and expects you to suddenly accept that their side are the good guys. I liked how things picked up afterwards though.
Love this game for the precise reasons Game_Sniper hates it: You can't always win by using brute force and the same strategy over and over again.
You can just keep using massed artillery and barracks and losing over and over again and then whine about "Extremely unfair levels" like a moron, or you can do what the game is obviously trying to force you to do, which is to step outside your comfort zone and try radically different strategies.
The falconer ability is a bit annoying though: The actual radius of effect is substantially smaller than the green circle that appears when you hover over the ability.
 "Protector")
 "Frontier")
 "RPG Shooter: Starwish")
 "Monster Arena")
 "Kingdom Rush Frontiers")
 "Incursion 2: The Artifact")
 "One Step Back")