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4X Gaming / Re: Old World (Soren Johnson)
« Last post by ojsdad on Today at 03:37:53 PM »WAIT!!! You all didn't say anything about there being a play by server cloud option for multi player. Sweet!!
Recent Posts
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4X Gaming / Re: Dune: Spice Wars
« Last post by bob48 on Today at 03:15:52 PM »I have to say that at this point, its not calling to me as much as I hoped it would :-(
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Pre-Gunpowder / Re: Three Kingdoms Total War
« Last post by Gusington on Today at 02:53:39 PM »I don’t use The Twitter but your anger is almost as hot as my sunburn.
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Pre-Gunpowder / Re: Rome II
« Last post by Gusington on Today at 02:51:39 PM »*Quietly notes difficulty settings’
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4X Gaming / Re: Dune: Spice Wars
« Last post by Huw the Poo on Today at 02:39:27 PM »Some further disorganised observations.
I've restarted a couple of times due to being steamrolled because I haven't learned the game well enough yet. Evidently this is a bit of a rush game. You can't really turtle. At the start of a game you're pretty limited in the types of buildings and units you can make, and only through research and gathering resources can you get anything decent. Therefore the number one spot on your list of goals is permanently occupied with "expand". The slower you are, the bigger the advantages your opponents will have over you. For example, in the game I just abandoned my closest opponent came at me with a group of 7 or 8 armies, which I simply couldn't counter because my maximum was 4 and my only defensive structure was a missile battery which frankly doesn't really do a lot. Research can get you higher unit caps as well as better units, so it's incumbent upon you to rush up the tree to keep up with your opponents.
There seems to be a number of options available to you in general. You can invest in four different research types, only one of which is military, and I've seen more than one building providing similar bonuses, so hopefully that means you can tailor your approach to suit your playstyle somewhat. Crucially though, I don't have the experience yet to say whether you can significantly achieve victory by focusing on espionage rather than military might, for example. In fact I don't know how you even win at all - the game hasn't bothered to explain that to me.
In fact that's a criticism in general - lack of explanations. I've learned a lot of what I know by carefully examining tooltips and following breadcrumb trails. There's no tutorial at all. Since it's in early access I'll give it some latitude here but if this doesn't change by 1.0 I'll be pretty disappointed.
Another criticism is the lack of strategic zoom. Yes you can zoom in and out easily using the mouse wheel, but it doesn't follow your mouse cursor. This one is unforgivable; we've had that since, what....the original Supreme Commander? It's not a dealbreaker but it annoys me constantly and I really hope they fix it.
One final criticism for now is that all things military needs to be fleshed out a fair bit in my opinion. There's no control over armies except telling them where to go, no formations or anything like that. So once the order is given they just move in a blob, and combat occurs when one blob meets another. It's pretty graceless. And my earlier point about it being difficult to see how combat is going still stands. There's a Paradox-style outliner on the right of the screen in which you can monitor unit health, but 1) that's only your units, and 2) if you are using any more than one group of units this gets much less useful, obviously.
Overall though I'm still enjoying it, and it's still better than I expected it to be. I really need to take a game to completion, or at least a lot further than I've done until now, so that I can comment more on the fairly complex set of Landsraad intrigues, espionage, and the deeper parts of the research tree. Stay tuned!
I've restarted a couple of times due to being steamrolled because I haven't learned the game well enough yet. Evidently this is a bit of a rush game. You can't really turtle. At the start of a game you're pretty limited in the types of buildings and units you can make, and only through research and gathering resources can you get anything decent. Therefore the number one spot on your list of goals is permanently occupied with "expand". The slower you are, the bigger the advantages your opponents will have over you. For example, in the game I just abandoned my closest opponent came at me with a group of 7 or 8 armies, which I simply couldn't counter because my maximum was 4 and my only defensive structure was a missile battery which frankly doesn't really do a lot. Research can get you higher unit caps as well as better units, so it's incumbent upon you to rush up the tree to keep up with your opponents.
There seems to be a number of options available to you in general. You can invest in four different research types, only one of which is military, and I've seen more than one building providing similar bonuses, so hopefully that means you can tailor your approach to suit your playstyle somewhat. Crucially though, I don't have the experience yet to say whether you can significantly achieve victory by focusing on espionage rather than military might, for example. In fact I don't know how you even win at all - the game hasn't bothered to explain that to me.
In fact that's a criticism in general - lack of explanations. I've learned a lot of what I know by carefully examining tooltips and following breadcrumb trails. There's no tutorial at all. Since it's in early access I'll give it some latitude here but if this doesn't change by 1.0 I'll be pretty disappointed.
Another criticism is the lack of strategic zoom. Yes you can zoom in and out easily using the mouse wheel, but it doesn't follow your mouse cursor. This one is unforgivable; we've had that since, what....the original Supreme Commander? It's not a dealbreaker but it annoys me constantly and I really hope they fix it.
One final criticism for now is that all things military needs to be fleshed out a fair bit in my opinion. There's no control over armies except telling them where to go, no formations or anything like that. So once the order is given they just move in a blob, and combat occurs when one blob meets another. It's pretty graceless. And my earlier point about it being difficult to see how combat is going still stands. There's a Paradox-style outliner on the right of the screen in which you can monitor unit health, but 1) that's only your units, and 2) if you are using any more than one group of units this gets much less useful, obviously.
Overall though I'm still enjoying it, and it's still better than I expected it to be. I really need to take a game to completion, or at least a lot further than I've done until now, so that I can comment more on the fairly complex set of Landsraad intrigues, espionage, and the deeper parts of the research tree. Stay tuned!
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The Modern World / Re: WDS’s Kriegsmarine (all coverage)
« Last post by bayonetbrant on Today at 12:16:51 PM »Designer Interview: Wargame Design Studio's Kriegsmarine
https://www.armchairdragoons.com/articles/interviews/intwdskm/
https://www.armchairdragoons.com/articles/interviews/intwdskm/
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AARs / Re: AARs for my ORIGINS "ACD presents" events
« Last post by Tolstoi on Today at 10:17:56 AM »Sounds like a great time for each session. Can a double blind game be played with one copy of SWWAS Midway, or are two copies required?
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The Modern World / Re: Microprose Naval Combat in the Missile Age
« Last post by PeterRobbins on Today at 07:43:24 AM »This is the longer 20min+ gameplay video. So far it's mostly showing ASuW and AAW. The assumption is they will work on ASW last, I guess.
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4X Gaming / Re: Dune: Spice Wars
« Last post by Huw the Poo on Today at 06:52:02 AM »It's not really comparable to Dune 2000 to be honest. It's a bit more boardgamey, whereas 2000 was a pure RTS. This game very much revolves around the regions into which Arrakis is divided. You capture a region then have an arbitrarily (but expandable) limited number of buildings to build there.
So for example, say you need more armies but you're running out of manpower. You conquer a neighbouring region then build a recruitment office there which increases manpower. Regions have natural bonuses too, so one might give a bonus to manpower production while another might have a plascrete bonus for example. And some have spice of course! It's up to you to exploit them or not.
Balancing resources is fundamental to the game. Many of your decisions are driven by resource shortages, because the resources limit your armies, ornithopters, buildings etc.
So for example, say you need more armies but you're running out of manpower. You conquer a neighbouring region then build a recruitment office there which increases manpower. Regions have natural bonuses too, so one might give a bonus to manpower production while another might have a plascrete bonus for example. And some have spice of course! It's up to you to exploit them or not.
Balancing resources is fundamental to the game. Many of your decisions are driven by resource shortages, because the resources limit your armies, ornithopters, buildings etc.
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Intel Dump / Re: Steam Summer Sale has kicked off
« Last post by bob48 on Today at 06:11:32 AM »Yep, it is good although at present I have only played the Guildmaster and not the Campaign . Certainly there is plenty to do and a lot of character development that adds much to the game. I'm very much hovering about getting the new expansion though.