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Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

anilEhilated posted:

I said it before, it comes out of nowhere. There's no relation between the previous dialogue and Arkantos babbling about horses.
And it'd be so easy to just shoehorn it in by way Trojan cavalry or, hell, just having a riderless horse run past the camera, or mention that since the Trojans raided their stores they'd be reduced to eating their horses... Possibilities are endless here.

Iirc in the original story horses were the emblem of Troy and that was the reason that particular animal was chosen. AoM could have gone with that explanation I suppose, but fundamentally I think the part that came out of nowhere is not the choice of animal but the whole idea of deciding to sneak into the city by climbing inside a giant wooden thing and hoping the Trojans move it into the city without question in the first place.

One plus side of doing things the way AoM did is that it let them develop the setting of Atlantis a bit more. They do build off the idea of horses being important symbols in Atlantean culture a fair amount later, especially in unit descriptions for Atlantean stuff. The only thing I don't like about it is that I think Odysseus should have been the originator of the idea.



Smiling Knight posted:

While of course it "Nobody is killing me" is contrived, it worked for me because it is appropriate for Odysseus myth-wise. By that I mean, in contrast with the other Homeric heroes, Odysseus is willing (to a degree) to obscure his heroic nature -- see also his beggar disguise, which you wouldn't catch someone like Ajax dead in. Therefore, the Cyclopes episode is another incidence of Odysseus' willingness to break from heroic norms serving helping him.

I think you're giving Homer too much credit here. Odysseus is completely inconsistent about whether to unhelpfully boast of or unhelpfully hide his heroic nature -and for that matter he usually only does things like disguise himself as a beggar because a god literally flies down and tells him to and even puts the disguise on him.

I just think that not only the Homeric Greeks but ancient people in general were terrible at writing clever trickster characters.

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Smiling Knight
May 31, 2011

Melth posted:

Iirc in the original story horses were the emblem of Troy and that was the reason that particular animal was chosen. AoM could have gone with that explanation I suppose, but fundamentally I think the part that came out of nowhere is not the choice of animal but the whole idea of deciding to sneak into the city by climbing inside a giant wooden thing and hoping the Trojans move it into the city without question in the first place.

One plus side of doing things the way AoM did is that it let them develop the setting of Atlantis a bit more. They do build off the idea of horses being important symbols in Atlantean culture a fair amount later, especially in unit descriptions for Atlantean stuff. The only thing I don't like about it is that I think Odysseus should have been the originator of the idea.


I think you're giving Homer too much credit here. Odysseus is completely inconsistent about whether to unhelpfully boast of or unhelpfully hide his heroic nature -and for that matter he usually only does things like disguise himself as a beggar because a god literally flies down and tells him to and even puts the disguise on him.

I just think that not only the Homeric Greeks but ancient people in general were terrible at writing clever trickster characters.

That certainly could be the case. As Great Works of Western Canon (tm), the Homeric epics are given the benefit of the doubt most of the time, maybe more than they should be. To try and prop up Homer though, I would say that Odysseus is a transitional figure. He still has the same desires as any other hero -- fame most of all -- but is clever enough to know that you can't always just announce who you are. So he hides when he thinks its necessary (Cyclopes, Phaeacians, Ithaca with divine prodding) but the second he thinks he can get away with it, he gets some bragging in.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Smiling Knight posted:

That certainly could be the case. As Great Works of Western Canon (tm), the Homeric epics are given the benefit of the doubt most of the time, maybe more than they should be. To try and prop up Homer though, I would say that Odysseus is a transitional figure. He still has the same desires as any other hero -- fame most of all -- but is clever enough to know that you can't always just announce who you are. So he hides when he thinks its necessary (Cyclopes, Phaeacians, Ithaca with divine prodding) but the second he thinks he can get away with it, he gets some bragging in.

Fair enough I suppose


Qrr posted:


Unfortunately there seem to be a lot of balance issues with the game - "here's this specialized unit, it's normally absolutely worthless. And this one too". A shame.

Bear in mind that many of those units are merely mostly worthless in multiplayer of course. They have a niche role which is better than nothing.

Interestingly to me as a game designer, this problem in the campaign (and some other issues in the campaign for that matter) originate from intelligent attempts at good game design.

The reason these specialized units are worthless in the campaign is that they would only be worthwhile if the enemy massed a single unit. In which case one could just mass the counter and run them over without even thinking. That would be lousy gameplay, and in fact in this thread we already mocked the one mission where that happens.

Essentially, the AI can't always play scissors because then we'd always play rock. The solution Ensemble came up with was to have the AI almost always make balanced armies of 1/3 rock, 1/3 scissors, and 1/3 paper. There's only one problem: this isn't actually a solution at all. They probably thought it would make the player build 1/3 each too. But that's a draw. You know what else is a draw? Pure rock. Except that that has several net advantages: we don't need to spend as much on upgrades or production buildings and micro is easier.

There's a further problem. In theory pure paper or pure scissors or any mix of them would be just as good, but we're not actually playing rock-paper-scissors here. Some of these unit types are more feasible to use than others. For example, the Greeks cannot mass heroes. At most they can make 4. They have by far the easiest time massing myth units though. The Egyptians and Atlanteans cannot mass myth units in a feasible amount of time. On some missions the Norse can't do so at all. And among human soldier types, archers turn out to have several critical advantages over cavalry and infantry.

The result is that we often end up with pure rock simply being the best strategy and with most unit types being inefficient or outright worthless- despite Ensemble trying to encourage more varied armies.

Most of the obvious solutions have issues of their own. Make the enemy use just 2 unit types? This is actually an interesting idea. The result is that a one-unit mass of a particular type will enjoy a very big advantage, but at least the human has to think a second to figure out what unit that would be. And one could easily rotate the two types the AI uses chapter by chapter so that eventually the player has a chance to use just about everything. Still, any individual level will be fairly trivial once you know what to make.

Make the enemy use different, pre-defined waves? Now you have guess-and-check gameplay. Make the enemy use random waves? Now you have luck-based gameplay AND no incentive not to just mass rock and hope for the best. Make the enemy counter what the player uses? Well alright, but you either have to have the AI cheat to know what the player might have been building in the fog- which will frustrate people- or you can have the AI just counter whatever the human used the most of in recent battle. That would be fairly interesting, but it just means a smart human will use a bit of paper in a skirmish, then mass rock to effortlessly slaughter the upcoming scissors and win. That itself would get fairly repetitive, though I do admit it could be more interesting than the current system.

Disallow the units that are too strong? No one is going to like that and it doesn't solve the problem of some units being so bad as to be unavailable really. Instead we just have some units that are too good to be available. Disallow different units each mission? Well they basically do that already especially in the later campaigns. I guess it works alright, but it's not as good as a more organic solution.

To some extent I think this problem is intractable as long as your gameplay is rock-paper-scissors based. Not that you can't run into something similar without that. Warcraft 3 for example does have some units which definitely counter others, but there isn't a cyclical pattern of that at all. And in singleplayer the best option is to just mass heavy flyers every time.

When I'm making an RTS-type game I usually resign myself to the idea that there will always be some unit or tactic which will win more easily than I'd like, but things are ok as long as 1) plenty of other units or mixes of units can also viably win and 2) trickier units in the hands of experts will win more impressively than the cookie-cutter approach would.

Bloodly
Nov 3, 2008

Not as strong as you'd expect.
Multiplayer is a very different beast to single-player as well. I've been vaguely watching various bits about. Fighting the AI, it's one thing to use counters and win, but players won't engage you at all.

It tends to turn into lots of horses or equivalent and raiding, due to sheer mobility.

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer

Bloodly posted:

It tends to turn into lots of horses or equivalent and raiding, due to sheer mobility.
drat, that's a shame; this is what I ended up disliking about AoE2. Are there any historic RTS games where actual tactics come into play? Total War series, I guess...

Asehujiko
Apr 6, 2011
Cossack and it's own fantasy spin off, Heroes of Annihilated Empires*?

HoAE is on steam and cossack recently got a HD update.

*meant to be part of triology, campaign ends on a cliffhanger, trigger warning half life 2 episode 2 flashbacks.

Deformed Church
May 12, 2012

5'5", IQ 81


I think single player is just too limited to offer the gameplay we'd like.

From the conception point of view, multiplayer is fun because it needs a mixture of proactive and reactive play. You need to have some sort of plan to go about when you don't have perfect scouting information, but at some point you need to work out how to fit your plan around the other guy's. An AI just churning out waves doesn't really offer the same level of engagement for the player that someone else would. "Make the AI act more like a person" isn't remotely helpful as a suggestion for improving a game, of course, but it's all I can really come up with. As long as the AI has a limited number of things it can try, there's always going to be a best strategy and as you've said, that often ends up being to go all rock, all the time. Giving the AI a huge amount of knowledge, whether via cheating or just a good array of set strategies, then requires the designing them to be imperfect, which is also a really difficult task.

Campaign mode also tends to show less of the game, in that you never really reach what would be the multiplayer endgame. Assuming you don't win a 1v1 via an early rush or something, the general progression will probably go that players can react well enough to stall the game out. As a first phase, you'd be building your fledgling economy and a few basic military units, then you'd start to specialise towards whatever your faction's unique units/tech/bonuses point you towards, and then you'd fill out your tech tree with the upgrades you skipped and can afford to stop being a cavalry civilisation and build some archers to better counter them. Skirmish also has the advantage of a wider array of win conditions - hamstring their production, their economy, just smash down the front gate and beat them in a fight, rely on counters and micro to win from behind, all viable options. Campaign objectives are generally just a binary yes or no "have you survived 20 minutes yet" or "is x hero yet" or "did you move y hero to the flag or not" rather than finding any way you can to push the opponent to the point where they can't compete with you any more and will never be able to.

Now, this is all kind of okay if you're only ever going to play it once. You won't have time to develop optimal strategies or even notice that there are some, and good designers (I think Ensemble probably deserve that here) will mix it up enough from mission to mission that even if there is a solution, it won't be the same one as the previous mission. I'm not really sure how you'd make a campaign mode that feels like a campaign rather than a series of random skirmishes or whatever, but still holds up under expert analysis. I think ultimately you just have to accept that you have to pick a target audience and aren't going to entertain everyone forever, however good they are at the game and whether they lean towards enjoying precise optimisation or endlessly new experiences.

Bloodly
Nov 3, 2008

Not as strong as you'd expect.

anilEhilated posted:

drat, that's a shame; this is what I ended up disliking about AoE2. Are there any historic RTS games where actual tactics come into play? Total War series, I guess...

Depends what you mean by 'tactics'. A unit counter system? Resources that CAN or CAN'T be raided? Production that allows for you to continue even if you've somehow been cut off from a resource? Units that CAN or CAN'T get away if you've managed to catch them once?

I mean...You cite Age of Kings. There's a reason Knights and such ruled the roost back then-they packed both mobility and power. More than this, in Age of Kings and in Age of Mythology, you can completely starve a player, utterly shut them down, if you can keep them from a single resource; Gold. Is taking advantage of this 'cheap', or 'sensible'?

Bloodly fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Feb 4, 2017

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer
I was thinking more of having to employ actual strategies. You know, use the terrain, fortifications that control the surrounding area and so on. Age Of is really just sending horsies to enemy resources while the enemy does the same with yours.

I'm not talking about strategies being cheap or not - just that it's really boring to watch when it becomes all horse raiding parties all time as opposed to actual armies clashing. I call it the Warcraft 3 problem - there's very little actual strategy when you're just trying to get a bigger blob of units than the enemy currently has.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Feb 4, 2017

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

anilEhilated posted:

I call it the Warcraft 3 problem - there's very little actual strategy

You and me. Chainsaw swords. Atop my zeppelin. Sundown tonight. No one insults my beloved and lives!

Bloodly
Nov 3, 2008

Not as strong as you'd expect.

anilEhilated posted:

I was thinking more of having to employ actual strategies. You know, use the terrain, fortifications that control the surrounding area and so on. Age Of is really just sending horsies to enemy resources while the enemy does the same with yours.

A lot of games give terrain bonuses/penalties. And using fortifications is a standard. The thing is, those fortifications also need to be able to be taken down.

I've been playing Empire Earth 1 and 2 lately, and my thought is it might potentially provide what you're after. Especially 2, where it's fortresses are absolutely brutal murder machines, and are often required to control a province fully(The game uses an odd system of map control-the map's all divided into 'provinces' with their own names. Some might need merely a City Centre. Others will need a Fortress in addition. Buildings go up faster in regions you control properly. There are hard limits on what you can build where, and how much, so you must expand.)

Warning: The AI is known to be an utter cheating bastard, as in 'it doesn't even try to hide it'.

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer
Weird, I never realized there was an Empire Earth 2. But yeah, 1 worked pretty well in that - slower, larger-scope gameplay with mixing and matching units, none of that rushing for goldmines crap. Plus you got to nuke pikemen from time to time.

I realize handling fortification is a problem, but what I was more thinking of was a system that would reward building actual strongpoints as opposed to just spamming barracks all over the map.

Melth posted:

You and me. Chainsaw swords. Atop my zeppelin. Sundown tonight. No one insults my beloved and lives!
Hey, I like Warcraft 3. Its campaign is pretty fantastic and it was massively influential. It's just horrible as a strategy game.

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous
I like Red Alert 2. I also like Age of Mythology. I also like Empire Earth. I also like Warcraft 3.

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

my dad posted:

I like Red Alert 2. I also like Age of Mythology. I also like Empire Earth. I also like Warcraft 3.
Yes, but Empire Earth 2&3 are bad. They took out so much stuff from the game.

HannibalBarca
Sep 11, 2016

History shows, again and again, how nature points out the folly of man.
Empire Earth was a messy game, but great. Some of the best single-player campaigns around. The Expansion pack made it a bit messier, and the campaigns weren't quite as good.

Empire Earth II was a massive step down. It was still playable, but the campaigns weren't nearly as good as in the first one, and a lot of unit and hero interactions, that sort of thing, that made the first game so great are gone.

Empire Earth III is a game that I have never played and that is, by all accounts, utter garbage.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

anilEhilated posted:

Hey, I like Warcraft 3. Its campaign is pretty fantastic and it was massively influential. It's just horrible as a strategy game.

Just for that, this duel is going to be to the... I don't know, double-death or something.

Warcraft 3 was one of the most strategically deep RTSes I ever played and that's why I stuck with it so many years and got so into the multiplayer. There was so much complexity to that game at not only the tactical but the strategic level. For example, in contrast to AoE and Starcraft and most other RTSes ever made, you actually needed to make a serious choice about whether to expand and when. And how big to grow your army and when.

I'll admit that a lot of players tried to get by on cookie-cutter builds and micro (and whined as if it was unfair when I didn't), but a lot of people try to get by without thinking in every RTS. Good strategy would beat those people even if your micro was as lousy as mine.


Regarding this game by the way, fortresses and using the terrain does actually play a role in the campaign (and in some multiplayer maps). There aren't as many terrain effects from things like high ground and whatnot as there probably should be though.

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous
One very special Norse mission is all about narrow passages and building fortresses.

It's also very cheeseable thanks to a certain town center related trigger. :allears:

Mr Luxury Yacht
Apr 16, 2012


HannibalBarca posted:

Empire Earth was a messy game, but great. Some of the best single-player campaigns around. The Expansion pack made it a bit messier, and the campaigns weren't quite as good.

Empire Earth II was a massive step down. It was still playable, but the campaigns weren't nearly as good as in the first one, and a lot of unit and hero interactions, that sort of thing, that made the first game so great are gone.


I booted up 2 recently since EE1 is entirely unplayable on Windows 10 as far as I can tell :(

The hero system was just weird in it. Why the hell did they scale them differently so you have a fifteen foot tall Winston Churchill stomping around?

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

Mr Luxury Yacht posted:

I booted up 2 recently since EE1 is entirely unplayable on Windows 10 as far as I can tell :(
It should be very much playable on 10, I've played it just fine on three separate computers with it. The game does not like very high resolutions however. Try lowering the setting a little, and then a little more if it still doesn't work. It was with the GoG version if that matters.

Technowolf
Nov 4, 2009




Mr Luxury Yacht posted:

I booted up 2 recently since EE1 is entirely unplayable on Windows 10 as far as I can tell :(

The hero system was just weird in it. Why the hell did they scale them differently so you have a fifteen foot tall Winston Churchill stomping around?

I think you answered your own question.

WarpedLichen
Aug 14, 2008


anilEhilated posted:

I was thinking more of having to employ actual strategies. You know, use the terrain, fortifications that control the surrounding area and so on. Age Of is really just sending horsies to enemy resources while the enemy does the same with yours.

I'm not talking about strategies being cheap or not - just that it's really boring to watch when it becomes all horse raiding parties all time as opposed to actual armies clashing. I call it the Warcraft 3 problem - there's very little actual strategy when you're just trying to get a bigger blob of units than the enemy currently has.

The AOE formula is heavy on raiding more because of how ridiculously tanky buildings are rather than anything else. High level play was about fortifying your resource points so I don't get your point about there not being "strong points." Its just that in the game you hold points so that your resources can't be raided.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

WarpedLichen posted:

The AOE formula is heavy on raiding more because of how ridiculously tanky buildings are rather than anything else. High level play was about fortifying your resource points so I don't get your point about there not being "strong points." Its just that in the game you hold points so that your resources can't be raided.

Also, if there isn't raiding going on, what IS going on? As far as I can see, the alternative is that everyone sits just for 30 minutes doing nothing but farm resources and auto-train troops until they have a maximum size army.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!
I'm going to need to postpone till next week. I'm all set up for the next episode and tried to record it several times, but I've got too many technical issues I need to resolve and a ton of other stuff I need to do this particular weekend.

There are several groups of technical issues that I'd appreciate any advice (including alternative programs) on.

1) Dxtory now crashes or freezes every time I use it, whereas it didn't before. That's what forced me to switch to Shadowplay instead starting several episodes ago

2) Since Shadowplay is not capable of recording mic and game audio separately, I need to run Audacity in the background. In the last episode and now this one, that caused substantial lag whereas it hadn't before.

3) Shadowplay doesn't record the cursor, which isn't a catastrophe but is a nuisance.

4) The program I've been using for video editing (Shotcut) does the basics of what I need, but seems to have very few capabilities.


I'd definitely like to switch to a new video editing program, preferably a free one. Does anyone know any good ones?

For that matter, is there perhaps a program that would be less CPU-intensive than Audacity that I could use to record the mic?

Any other suggestions? At this point, I'm feeling like I might actually have to switch to doing post-commentary, but I really want to avoid that if I can since it feels less authentic somehow.

Edward_Tohr
Aug 11, 2012

In lieu of meaningful text, I'm just going to mention I've been exploding all day and now it hurts to breathe, so I'm sure you all understand.
Have you looked into OBS? It might work out better than Shadowplay.

That said, the tech support fort might have better advice. :v:

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!
While I'm dealing with these technical issues and other crises, here's a little screencap update.




This is the army that ultimately broke down the gates of Troy in my horseless run. Most of the actual time spent was tearing down the 16 or so towers up on cliffs to get here, for which I used about 30 Manticores plus truckloads of archers (siege units are disabled on this mission to make a frontal assault impossible, but they misunderestimated me!).

The Minotaurs are ok against Troy's cavalry, but mainly they're here because I have no other units available which deal crush damage to hurt buildings. The Manticores and Toxotes provide covering fire while they do that.




I need a LOT of production buildings since I'm taking a lot of casualties. I actually have several other piles of archery ranges and five or six temples for healing and myth unit production near the front lines too. Buildings are cheap, so it's good to make a TON of them and just keep rebuilding them closer to the lines as the battle moves.




Speaking of tons of buildings, here's my north flank. That's 4 fortresses and about 16 towers, all fully upgraded. The main limiting factor of my army on this level is population room, so I can't spare a big force to stay here and guard against scouts and attacks from the north during the main battle. Especially since Troy's Hetairoi are so souped up and Prodromoses are so useless that even a mass of Prodromoses can't win those fights easily.

Instead, this lone Prodromos aggroes the entire wave of Hetairoi and lures them around to the south side of the forts. By the time they realize they're almost all dead, they have no chance of running back the other way alive.

The temple nearby lets my Prodromos heal up so I can rinse and repeat.

Just in case of some kind of SNAFU, I spawned my underworld passage there and near the Trojan gates so that I can bail my army back here if need be.

Apollo is nearly essential for this strategy. Healing temples, Underworld Passage, Manticores, and powered up archers are all great here.




It took a couple of waves after I broke through the gates, but I destroyed their production buildings. This is just about all they have left.




So now I can run my army freely through the defenseless town, trampling the guards my 3 heroes were supposed to deal with alone. The Green 'Troy Civilians' cannot be attacked, so I can't explode this wonder.




I haven't started building the horse...




And yet here it is already inside the city! A mystery for the ages.

If you then destroy the final fortresses, the standard ending cinematic of Troy getting wrecked with meteors plays.

If you instead complete the horse, part 2 of the mission begins as normal with all your units being deleted. There are no guards if you killed them, but Arkantos will still advise you to sneak by their corpses. Since the gates are already down, you can't destroy the gates. Which means there is no way to summon Agamemnon's army or get your meteor powers (I painstakingly tore down a section of the 100x stronger wall just in case, and that doesn't summon them either). So you have to beat the surviving forts with just your helepoli.

One thing I didn't try is what happens if you break into Troy through the northwest gate instead of the main one. I didn't try it because there are double the number of towers to chip down with archers, which would be a REALLY boring slog of autoattacking and autotraining replacements for hours while you fend off raids on the other side. Also, there wouldn't be a good chokepoint to set up masses of towers and forts at in the east. Still, I'll bet I could do it.

Timeo Danaos et arcūs ferentes!

Melth fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Feb 7, 2017

SIGSEGV
Nov 4, 2010


Do you still have to complete the horse to complete the win conditions or can it be skipped entirely?

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

SIGSEGV posted:

Do you still have to complete the horse to complete the win conditions or can it be skipped entirely?

Entirely skippable, just wreck the fortresses. It's always the case in this game that just doing the final mission objective (even if undiscovered) will be a win. Which is why I keep mentioning that for my main line runs I'm always going to do every objective in order.

Cartoon Violence
Oct 30, 2012

Stop being such goons, you CLODS!

I just wanted to post and say this LP is fantastic so far and I've really enjoyed it. Your playing is at a level higher than I've ever seen, and I'm having so much fun seeing a game that I spent a large part of my teenage years playing again with new eyes.

Calax
Oct 5, 2011

I always thought the idea for the Horse was that Poseidon really REALLY likes horses, so the model of the horse was built for the purpose of asking for a safe ride home (or at least for the Trojans to think they were asking for it). And the reason Odysseus got a bit lost was because of his idea offending Poseidon.

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer
Well, Odysseus did offend Poseidon but it had more to do blinding his son Polyphemus.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

anilEhilated posted:

Well, Odysseus did offend Poseidon but it had more to do blinding his son Polyphemus.

Also the Homeric Greeks were TERRIBLE navigators. I mean in the stories Menelaus sets out from Turkey to Greece and winds up in Egypt. Other people end up west of Italy.

Now I think they exaggerate their incompetence in those stories, but the Greeks were really lousy sailors by Mediterranean standards for about a thousand years.


Cartoon Violence posted:

I just wanted to post and say this LP is fantastic so far and I've really enjoyed it. Your playing is at a level higher than I've ever seen, and I'm having so much fun seeing a game that I spent a large part of my teenage years playing again with new eyes.

Thanks! I'm always glad to hear people are enjoying these crazy things.


Oh, and I have been trying to upload the next video for 4 hours now and it's at 30%. So... might take till tomorrow to actually be online, but it IS finished and ready.

Silvergun1000
Sep 17, 2007

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
Just want to chime in and say I'm loving this LP so far and watching you take this game apart is a delight.

You mentioned you love Warcraft 3, would there be any merit to you doing an LP of that at some point? I have no idea if the campaign is a reasonable challenge on the hardest difficulty or not, but I have fond memories of that game as well and it would be great watching somebody as good as you take it apart.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!
I can neither confirm nor deny that I spent three hours making my beautiful new 'Melth' emblem. Oh and as a sidenote, the next video is done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROHAjZwh4WI

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

Nice to see you do the mission the same way I do it, not that there's much choice. :v:

Interestingly Warcraft 3 changed centaurs from drunken Greek thugs to bloodthirsty steppe nomads and the Heroes of Might and Magic series followed suit from the fifth game onwards.

Melth posted:

Also the Homeric Greeks were TERRIBLE navigators. I mean in the stories Menelaus sets out from Turkey to Greece and winds up in Egypt.
:psyduck:

"We sailed to Turkey by having the coast on the left side of the ship so to get back the coast should definitely be on the left side of the ship. :downs:"

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer
I like the way this mission actually lets you train some reinforcements, giving you some more illusion of strategy. Too often the walky missions in RTS games turn into puzzles where the only way to win is finding the intended path through enemy forces.

edit: Actually, I think the upgrades changing myth unit looks is only a thing in the enhanced version - I sure as hell don't remember it from vanilla/titans.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Feb 14, 2017

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous
No, it's a normal version thing. Sometimes it's a subtle change, but it's always there.

Darkest Auer
Dec 30, 2006

They're silly

Ramrod XTreme

Melth posted:

Also the Homeric Greeks were TERRIBLE navigators. I mean in the stories Menelaus sets out from Turkey to Greece and winds up in Egypt. Other people end up west of Italy.

Now I think they exaggerate their incompetence in those stories, but the Greeks were really lousy sailors by Mediterranean standards for about a thousand years.

Part of that is that basically everyone has hated/feared/despised sailors since the dawn of time. The sea's a dangerous place and how can you trust someone who voluntarily goes to foreign and strange places? If you're at all interested in how naval trade developed and influenced the world I highly recommend The Sea and Civilization.

Anyway, I'm very much enjoying this LP and the history chat in the thread.

Smiling Knight
May 31, 2011

Poil posted:

Nice to see you do the mission the same way I do it, not that there's much choice. :v:

Interestingly Warcraft 3 changed centaurs from drunken Greek thugs to bloodthirsty steppe nomads and the Heroes of Might and Magic series followed suit from the fifth game onwards.

:psyduck:

"We sailed to Turkey by having the coast on the left side of the ship so to get back the coast should definitely be on the left side of the ship. :downs:"

Tbh, in some versions (really dumb versions) Helen actually spent the entire Trojan War in Egypt. The gods replaced her with a cloud/illusion. So Menelaus getting blown off south is actually him being "rewarded" by finding his bride.

Astroclassicist
Aug 21, 2015

Melth posted:

Also the Homeric Greeks were TERRIBLE navigators. I mean in the stories Menelaus sets out from Turkey to Greece and winds up in Egypt. Other people end up west of Italy.

Now I think they exaggerate their incompetence in those stories, but the Greeks were really lousy sailors by Mediterranean standards for about a thousand years.


That's a rather unfair view of Greek navigational skills - though ancient ships could sail against the wind to an extent, everyone prepared to sail with the wind behind them.
Thus ending up in Egypt is not unreasonable given the prevailing winds of the Eastern Med - and why traders returning to Greece went along the Levantine coast before crossing back to the Aegean

Astroclassicist fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Feb 14, 2017

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Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Smiling Knight posted:

Tbh, in some versions (really dumb versions) Helen actually spent the entire Trojan War in Egypt

Herodotus believed some dumb stuff, yeah. The best part is how arrogantly he'd say that the crazy stuff he believed had to be true and that anyone with any sense could see it. Like his bizarre explanation of the Nile's annual flood where he rejects a couple of stupid ideas about it, then rejects the truth too. And then says that clearly the annual inundation happens because winter storms blow the sun off course to the south to go over Egypt and the sun attracts water to follow it and thus the Nile floods.

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