What games are you playing now?

can you turtle effectively in COH?

I like turtling too, nothing like trying to build the ultimate fortification and watching the enemy throw itself at my defenses like a lemming. It seems any RTS I have played in the last couple years seems to be designed around the concept of anti-turtling. Been waiting to pick up COH, definitely want to give it a whirl since I'm a bonafide Relic fanboy, but I'm awaiting the right time. Like when I finally finish their last game, Dawn of War and it's expansions

@undead: You didn't like DoW? Why's that? It's bascially a simpler version of CoH set in a space-opera utlra-violent wacky-world (read: fun fun fun!). I'm asking as I just bought the plat and am having quite a bit of fun with it so far. No doubt CoH may just be the single best RTS to date, but that don't mean DoW sucks. Interested to hear your angle...

@sammie: everything I've read says "no" if you're playing multi with the exception of a few turtle-friendly maps. Against AI, I'd doubt you can't. Almost every RTS I've ever played, with the possible exception of WC3, doesn't make it impossible to turtle against the AI. However, if you've played DoW, it's very, very similar in lots of ways, including rewarding serious aggression vs. defensiveness.

Now, back to my righteous Tau clearing Kronus of all these crazy-ass f*ckers!

There have been lots of grinding in FF9 for the past 2 days. I have made sure that all my characters have all the abilities they can own at this point (half through disc 3).

chamr said:

@undead: You didn't like DoW? Why's that? It's bascially a simpler version of CoH set in a space-opera utlra-violent wacky-world (read: fun fun fun!). I'm asking as I just bought the plat and am having quite a bit of fun with it so far. No doubt CoH may just be the single best RTS to date, but that don't mean DoW sucks. Interested to hear your angle...

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I couldn't get into Dawn Of War either. As far as the RTS genre goes I could recognise it as being quite accomplished, but it still followed the basic RTS forumla of build, mob, rinse, repeat which I loathe.
And I grew up playing Warhammer 40K as the tabletop game, and Dawn Of War is just so far removed from that I couldn't get that involved or interested. 40K was an extremely tactical game and for an RTS DoW has more tactics than is usual for the genre, the feeling of classic 40K gameplay was lacking for me.

homeworld 2 was a huge disappointment to me along the lines of lords of the realm 3 but not quite that bad. the warhammer series have never in the slightest interested me even though they are supposedly good games. the setting, factions, name, etc are all important in games to me as well as the gameplay and the warhammer series offer me none of the prior. historic rts and space rts are usually the only ones i'm interested in. i very rarely ever skirmish against the computer and almost never play multiplayer. i also am not a fan of turned based strategy with the exception of some of the civ games (played warlords for 3 days i think) and most important the alltimeclassic alpha centauri. wake up sid and please remake this game. (though i think it was actually brian sullivans? creation).

hybrids like the total war series, knights of honour, and imperial glory have been huge sinkholes for time as well, since campaigns can last easily over a month. in fact i never even finished a game in the later two.

I think I'm a bit more foregiving than you when it comes to strategy games, but I know where you're coming from. It's a huge genre and is extremely hit-and-miss, more often miss, when trying to find a game. But when you do find one you like, you *really* like it and it becomes a great favourite.

What I liked about Warhammer 40K on tabletop is that the game is extremely tactical, nearly the antithesis of the RTS genre. The setting was fun too, I liked the grimness and ecclesiastical elements. Dawn Of War wonderfully rendered the setting, units and other details to a fantastic degree, but the gameplay just wasn't there. Had it been turn-based, I'd be playing it constantly.

While I loved Knights Of Honour, I understand the long campaign complaint. The problem with that game was that the win conditions are painfully precise and requires an incredible amount of fiddly management that may very well run counter to your general strategy. I've never actually won a full victory, I usually went for the minor trade victory, as by that point I'd be ready to wrap up that campaign.
Rome Total War I just started playing, and it's impressed me. The campaign component is pretty detailed, though it could use a more robust diplomatic model when dealing with the Senate, or a more rational Senate AI. In my current game, I'm playing the Julii and as such am concerned completely with Gaul, and the Senate keeps giving me missions to blockade ports in Greece or take other cities from factions I'm not at war with.

you mentioned in another post you didn't like medieval total war. were you referring to the original or the sequel. as the i thought creative assembly was on a downward slope despite many refinements since the orginal shogun. medieval 2 however i enjoyed more than any since their first outing and think the upcoming 4 campaign expansion will be awesome. viva variety.

I meant the first Medieval, I haven't played the second.
How does it compare to Rome? Rome made a lot of improvements over the first Medieval, though I did like the board game look of Medieval over the 3D look of Rome. What I didn't like about Medieval was that it was, basically, just a territory-expanding game, there was very little in the way of diplomacy or anything like that. Rome made great improvments there, and I find managing my territories more intuitive in Rome and developed to a much greater scale.
Also, and I realise this is perverse for Total War, I do tend to make use of the auto-resolve feature for battles. In Rome it's much more fair and takes into account a lot more than in Medieval. In Medieval, the only way I could win on autoresolve is by massively outnumbering the enemy. How is that feature in Medieval 2?

Gallifrey said:

As far as the RTS genre goes I could recognise it as being quite accomplished, but it still followed the basic RTS forumla of build, mob, rinse, repeat which I loathe.

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Yeah, I can see how it's certainly guilty on that charge. But I do like the basic tactical elements (e.g. squads, leaders, heavy weapon upgrades, cover, etc.) and it seems to have a depth to the variety of units and upgrades that most RTS of the same "mass-and-crash" ilk lack. At least it seems that way at this point. Of course, I could just be blinded by the "fun factor" aspect at this early stage, which I think DoW has in spades.

Gallifrey said:

And I grew up playing Warhammer 40K as the tabletop game, and Dawn Of War is just so far removed from that I couldn't get that involved or interested. 40K was an extremely tactical game and for an RTS DoW has more tactics than is usual for the genre, the feeling of classic 40K gameplay was lacking for me.

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Have you ever tried Kohan 2? I've found it to be the only RTS that did a great job of battlefield tactics that not only work, but are essential to being good. Also has the pluses (for me, anyway) of not being too micro-heavy or BO-driven and having a more epic feel and even pacing to the battles rather than the usual spaz-fest. Still my favorite RTS of all time.

medieval 2 dispite being mainly the same engine from rome is far more evolved/refined than the leap from the first medieval to rome. its a graphics glutten though as my prior vid card could play gothic 3 with above med setting but only low setting in med 2 when in larger citys/castles. the city and castle system in med 2 is great though. the biggest improvement i noticed however was a finally halfway decent diplomacy system in game. the last campaign i played was as the moors and for a good majority of the game i was able to keep many a christian faction not only from not warring with me or calling a crusade but even some as allies! i've probably spent somewhere between the range of 150-200 hours over the last 7 months with game and had to abandon the moors not from boredom but from pleas of other games waiting to be played. still the expansion is on deck to bioshock, with the witcher sometime later so i'm up for some sweet fall gaming for sure.

i feel your pain when it comes to Lords of the Realm III, what an epic letdown that was. I even reinstalled it about 6 mos ago, determined to give it another go, maybe I was too quick to judge. Nope. Terrible game by any measure.

Reminds me of the major letdown that was Lords of Magic.

I think the grim Warhammer universe is pretty cool, but I know plenty of people that just dont "get it", they dont undestand the allure. One person I play D&D with just dismisses it outright at any mention, he thinks its the most ridiculous thing. For me, it's the mishmash of a sort of warped space catholicism of the space marines angle (which is by far my favorite of the sides), contrasted with say the cockney sputtering ramshackle Orc brutes who just crack me the f*&% up! Then there's the total nihilists in Chaos, and so on and so forth. It's just fun, the sides are so diverse and wacked out, I cant help but like it

chamr said:

Yeah, I can see how it's certainly guilty on that charge. But I do like the basic tactical elements (e.g. squads, leaders, heavy weapon upgrades, cover, etc.) and it seems to have a depth to the variety of units and upgrades that most RTS of the same "mass-and-crash" ilk lack. At least it seems that way at this point. Of course, I could just be blinded by the "fun factor" aspect at this early stage, which I think DoW has in spades.

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I agree, DoW does some great things for an RTS, I was really impressed by cover being a factor and the game mechanics of leaders, upgrades and special units was a solid implementation of the 40K rules. I just felt let-down and bored by the other RTS elements.

Have you ever tried Kohan 2? I've found it to be the only RTS that did a great job of battlefield tactics that not only work, but are essential to being good. Also has the pluses (for me, anyway) of not being too micro-heavy or BO-driven and having a more epic feel and even pacing to the battles rather than the usual spaz-fest. Still my favorite RTS of all time.

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I have not played it no, but have heard only good things about it. Consistently good things, I've just not checked it out. I should one of these days!

curiously undead said:

the biggest improvement i noticed however was a finally halfway decent diplomacy system in game. the last campaign i played was as the moors and for a good majority of the game i was able to keep many a christian faction not only from not warring with me or calling a crusade but even some as allies!

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Now that sounds promising indeed! That's more what I'm looking at in a strategy game.
The Medieval 2 system specs are frightening though. Not sure my rickety old machine could run that thing. Presumably it's the battles that demand all the power, can the game be played with auto-resolve on battles and thus less demand on computer power?

yes they can be autoresolved. as i usually only play on medium difficulty battles are rather fairly autoresolved and since i usually spend so much time city building and the like i autoresolve a good number of battles. even on a lower end machine you should be able to play battles in the field no problem and the first 2 sizes of castles and cites. its the sheer volume of city structures an improvements though in the larger cities that humble most graphic cards. i've never had to toggle back and forth settings even close to as much as i did during this game. it was worth it though. the explosions are grand, smoke plumes from chimneys, etc.

curiously undead said:

yes they can be autoresolved. as i usually only play on medium difficulty battles are rather fairly autoresolved and since i usually spend so much time city building and the like i autoresolve a good number of battles.

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I'm the same way. In games like Rome Total War and Knights Of Honour, I find the battles more an irritation and interruption in my empire management, so I use autoresolve to get it over with. Also, I tend to only have an hour or so to play at one time, and in something like Rome, that could very well be one turn if a large battle is included!

even on a lower end machine you should be able to play battles in the field no problem and the first 2 sizes of castles and cites. its the sheer volume of city structures an improvements though in the larger cities that humble most graphic cards. i've never had to toggle back and forth settings even close to as much as i did during this game. it was worth it though. the explosions are grand, smoke plumes from chimneys, etc.

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Hm. Perhaps I'll keep an eye out for a super cheap copy. The demo is only a tutorial sort of battle so it doesn't show much, thus making it useless to make an assessment of the actual game.

Been playing Prey in earnest the last couple of days. I'm on the 8th or 9th level now and I'm starting to wonder why it took me so long to get this game. The atmosphere and level design are really good, and I'm enjoying the story more as it unfolds. It makes me wonder if 3D Realms can prove themselves with a game like this, then why is it taking them 10+ years to make a sequel to Duke Nukem?

JDR13 said:

Been playing Prey in earnest the last couple of days. I'm on the 8th or 9th level now and I'm starting to wonder why it took me so long to get this game. The atmosphere and level design are really good in this game. It makes me wonder if 3D Realms can prove themselves with a game like this, then why is it taking them 10+ years to make a sequel to Duke Nukem?

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Don't forget that it was started and canned 10 years ago ... I guess that is just the way of the Realms ...

Been working on finishing stuff:
DS:
- Time Ace
- Death Jr. & the Science Fair of Doom

PSP
- Brooktown High: Senior Year
- Crush
- NBA Live '07
- Scooby Doo Who's Watching Who?

Of those, Crush is the only actually 'good' game, and the Scooby game that was decent on the DS is a crappy console port on the PSP.

Now to finish all of the reviews to get to playing again ...

Having game save issues in BG2 on Mac, see if I can resolve that soon.

JDR13 said:

It makes me wonder if 3D Realms can prove themselves with a game like this, then why is it taking them 10+ years to make a sequel to Duke Nukem?

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3D Realms did not develop Prey though. Prey was made by Human Head Studios and published by 2K (Take Two). I'm not sure what exactly 3D Realms did and I'm too lazy to use Google right now . I think what they did is they started development on Prey before handing it over to Human Head so it might be that (parts of) the engine is (are) from 3D Realms but not much more (if that).
I agree that Prey wasn't too bad. It was really boring at first IMHO but got a lot better as soon as you started using the shuttles, i.e. as soon as you moved up inside the mothership and when the environments/levels started to get more diverse.
I won't be standing in line when the sequel comes out but when the price drops to ~$/EUR 29.00 I'll be grabbing a copy for sure.

Human Head Studios may have programmed Prey, but the concept, storyline, and gameplay were all created by 3D Realms. It uses the Doom 3 engine from id Software.

Have you heard something about a sequel?

JDR13 said:

Human Head Studios may have programmed Prey, but the concept, storyline, and gameplay were all created by 3D Realms. It uses the Doom 3 engine from id Software.

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Ah, that was it then. Thanks for the info .

Have you heard something about a sequel?

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Yes. Just play to the end of the game and you'll see it yourself . Additionally, there was some talk from 3D Realms' Scott Miller on the subject, too. This time I wasn't too lazy to use Google so click here (link leads to Scott Miller's blog).