|
Melth posted:Yeah, the Norse are definitely really interesting. They break so many RTS conventions and I love it. My favorite bit is how they build. The Norse are, by design, really good at razing towns then quickly building their own town in its place.
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2017 05:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 06:50 |
|
|
Cythereal posted:My favorite bit is how they build. The Norse are, by design, really good at razing towns then quickly building their own town in its place. Oh yeah, it's both mechanically and thematically awesome. It goes well with their cheap, fragile buildings too.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2017 03:31
|
|
|
Fall of the Trident Mission 22: North Now with 75% less time! And no thyme at all!
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2017 02:37
|
|
|
The Norse missions are all so great. I just dislike how they put them last. The Egyptian missions are just boring compared to the Greek and Norse ones, and every time I go back to play AoM I lose interest in finishing the campaign right around the final two Egypt missions.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2017 03:24
|
|
|
Normally I'd look askance at anyone describing their actions as 'brilliant', but in this case, I'm willing to overlook it. Masterfully micro'd.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2017 04:21
|
|
|
the gatherer created sound at 2:15 is perfectly timed after that short joke
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2017 05:34
|
|
|
I'd almost say Melth timed the gatherer so that he'd sigh right after the joke, but that seems a bit much, even for Melth.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2017 03:43
|
|
|
Sordas Volantyr posted:I'd almost say Melth timed the gatherer so that he'd sigh right after the joke, but that seems a bit much, even for Melth. I find your lack of faith disturbing!
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2017 01:05
|
|
|
So what influences how fast the enemy techs up, anyhow? A fixed timer at mission start or when you accomplish certain objectives?
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2017 04:06
|
|
|
Resources, generally. Of course, it may be given some by trigger.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2017 09:50
|
|
|
As far as I can tell, the enemy never actually uses resources in campaign mode. You can kill every single villager they have and they will still produce endless floods of units. Remember mission 4 where you're told that if you destroy troy's mines and caravans they'll be hurt? It's not true at all. They will still make swarms and swarms of cavalry, the most gold-intensive units in the game, forever. Next mission is sillier yet. The enemy has 0 economy, but they will spawn 1 giant per 5 seconds from all of their temples if you attack them. It would not actually be possible to get that much food and gold even if you had a maximum population of fully upgraded gatherers and dwarves, and they've got none at all. That's not even getting into how they're spending about 100 favor per second while having no way to generate it at all. Some of the giant meat grinder battles that took me 4 or so hours to win the first time are also like that. I consumed every mine, every herd, and every other resource on three fourths of the map while killing them at a 3 to 1 ratio on Loki's Temples, yet they continued to field mammoth armies despite having like 5 gatherers total
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2017 21:38
|
|
|
Are they limited by population caps? would you be better off ensuring their villagers live and kill their houses so they can't field armies, or do they ignore that as well?
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2017 15:42
|
|
|
Reinbach posted:Are they limited by population caps? would you be better off ensuring their villagers live and kill their houses so they can't field armies, or do they ignore that as well? Checked, they ignore that (or they have such an absurdly large free population baseline that the houses are irrelevant on top of it).
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 04:24
|
|
|
The next video will take an extra week. I've beaten the next mission quite a few times, but I haven't found a way to do it spectacularly enough yet.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2017 02:06
|
|
|
The campaign AI tends to 'spawn' troops rather than 'train' them. That sounds like semantics. Think of Isis Hear My Plea; you get given them. This can break the cap and cost nothing.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2017 03:02
|
|
|
Melth posted:The next video will take an extra week. I've beaten the next mission quite a few times, but I haven't found a way to do it spectacularly enough yet. This is what I like about you and this LP. It's not enough to simply BEAT the mission. You feel obligated to DESTROY IT in AWE-INSPIRING fashion. Make an example of it, so that future missions might look upon it and despair, for they know that will one day be but a shadow of their own fate.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2017 20:45
|
|
|
Saw this LP a few days ago and binged through it. Loved this game when I was a kid and it's amazing seeing someone good at RTSes blasting through it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2017 02:01
|
|
|
Well it took ages, but I got the next episode done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbCxxHrABg0
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 14:25
|
|
|
Aren't there supposed to be special upgrades in the special Dwarven Forges of this mission? Stuff like Giant Slaying Blades?
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 17:49
|
|
|
I am amazed. That's all I have to say.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:54
|
|
|
You mentioned the enemy having the 'Walking Woods' power. What is that? Edit: Harald Hardrada would be gobsmacked. Samovar fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Oct 9, 2017 |
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 19:08
|
|
|
In theory, could you have avoided capturing the forge and just blitzed the last camp, or are the triggers so large that capturing the forge is unavoidable?
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 21:06
|
|
|
Huh. Apparently the last time I tried to blow up their base on this level, I must have missed a building or two. And I am mildly curious as to why you didn't bother with the Dwarven Forge's unique upgrades. Are they just too expensive/take too much time? Or do they not affect heroes or something? As for Samovar's question, Walking Woods basically causes a patch of up to... 8, I think? Trees to get up and start walking around. They technically belong to the player who used the power, but they cannot be controlled. They have half-decent hack damage, and a buttload of crush damage, with a good amount of HP, and if used on the right tree-patch, can really ruin someone's economic day. But that use of Forest Fire is pretty genius. I can't remember how early they use it, but I doubt just trying to harvest that forest first in a "normal" run of this level would be fast enough to prevent it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 21:13
|
|
|
So one very weird secret in this mission is that in the right area of the caverns, you can stumble across a bunch of workers trying to break down a wall... Which opens up to reveal a bunch of mummies, of all things, that promptly kill the workers. (You can't save them, since their death flags activate right after the tomb opening is deleted) When you kill the mummies, you can find about three relics inside their unexplained Egyptian Tomb. Are the CPU only Upgrade setups for the Myth Units only in Titan difficulty? I wasn't actually aware the CPU did things like that. Hell, I assumed that their seemingly infinite resources in some missions came from huge resource sites you can't reach on the map. It reminds me of something in Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest, when despite there being two nations with distinct classes and skills that come with them, the enemies you fight in Conquest will have skill setups that involve skills from the other nation, or even original ones purposefully designed to screw you over. Also, since I haven't figured out optimal resource gathering, what is the recommended priority of food gathering, out of the different types?
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 22:44
|
|
|
Mr.Morgenstern posted:Aren't there supposed to be special upgrades in the special Dwarven Forges of this mission? Stuff like Giant Slaying Blades? Yup, there's 3. One for damage vs giants, one for hack armor, and one for extra protection vs fire giants. But their cost (especially in favor) is absolutely enormous and not really worthwhile because they won't turn the tide. You won't win with them if you don't destroy the temples, you won't lose without them if you do destroy the temples. I'd rather have more fire giants (each upgrade costs more favor than a fire giant) because those guys will help me take down the remaining buildings much more quickly. Emperordaein posted:So one very weird secret in this mission is that in the right area of the caverns, you can stumble across a bunch of workers trying to break down a wall... Which opens up to reveal a bunch of mummies, of all things, that promptly kill the workers. (You can't save them, since their death flags activate right after the tomb opening is deleted) When you kill the mummies, you can find about three relics inside their unexplained Egyptian Tomb. Yep to the mummies! There are a bunch of fun little things to find like that in this game, most involving bad stuff happening to dwarves. Sadly the mummies are a LONG detour away and the relics there are pretty trashy ones, so it wasn't worthwhile. The AI gets scaling piles of upgrade on higher and higher difficulties. The killers here are Rampage (fair enough in that it's actually Norse, but they completely abuse it by having infinite resources) and Monstrous Rage (Unique to Hera and thus Zeus's signature thing, granting a massive damage bonus). They've got others too. And then, not technically an upgrade but a major secret way of cheating, your heroes' resistance to myth unit damage is turned off on this mission. As for resource gathering, it's complicated and the order depends on more than just gather rates. First of all, fishing starts off slow but it's still obviously worth doing because you can set it up in addition to other food sources. Fishing starts off slower than farming, but ends up faster than even hunting when everything is fully upgraded. As long as the dock is near the fish anyway. When you get to Heroic and have both fish upgrades, strongly consider building a few extra docks near more distant fish schools. Now there are 3 other main food sources: hunting, herding (herding ALSO includes berries, chickens, cranes, etc.), and farming. Farming sucks and also requires massive resource investment, always do it last. Preferably win the map before you have to do it at all. Every farm you build represents a strategic failure on your part. Hunting and herding actually all start off at the same speed. However, hunting's Hunting Dogs upgrade is gigantic and makes it by far the fastest food source. So as soon as you can get the upgrade (which is often worth doing immediately), hunt all out and never stop until you have killed every animal on the map. Now the next thing you need to understand is that the herding upgrade Husbandry is a bit odd. It actually gives a small indirect bonus to all food sources (except fishing) by increasing your peasants' carrying capacity. For complicated reasons, this helps farming more than the farming upgrades do. It's minor for the other sources. More importantly, it grants a substantial direct bonus to gathering rate from herdable animals (and makes their food available grow much faster, which makes it a good thing to consider very early). But it does NOT help with chickens and berry bushes. Because chickens and berry bushes have no real upgrades, they actually start off as good as everything else but can then become even worse than farming. This means that if you aren't getting Hunting Dogs yet, you might well want to start with the berries and chickens. Likewise definitely use berries and chickens before herdables if you don't have Husbandry. Once you do have Husbandry there's a tradeoff between slightly faster gathering rate now vs letting the animal fatten up more. As you know, I emphasize speed and aggressive strategies so I would pretty much say eat all the herdables even before they're fattened and use the extra food to win before you need to fall back on something else. But a more conservative player would save the herdables till they're fully fattened. So to sum up: While you have no upgrades: Berries/Chickens -> Hunt -> Herd -> Farm Just Hunting Dogs: Hunt -> Berries/Chickens -> Herd -> Farm Husbandry makes things ambiguous because you're trading off maximum total food available in exchange for speed if you kill an animal before it's fully fattened. That's neither right nor wrong. cheetah7071 posted:In theory, could you have avoided capturing the forge and just blitzed the last camp, or are the triggers so large that capturing the forge is unavoidable? Oh it's WAY easier if you avoid capturing the forge. The enemy won't start sending enormous waves at you for one thing. And you don't even need to wipe out their 2 temples near the town center because that base doesn't count and it stays asleep until you get the forge. But getting the forge is one of the mission objectives, and I do all the mission objectives. BlazetheInferno posted:
Good explanation. A few other things to note though. In case it wasn't clear, the trees are permanent till killed. Their AI is really stupid, which makes them quite useless in human hands most of the time since as you said they can't be controlled. But on this mission they're a major threat because as far as I can tell the computer cheats with them and controls them to do things they shouldn't. They count as myth units, including benefiting from myth unit upgrades. So the enemy walking woods are WAY better than normal ones. Heroes are super effective against them too. BUT, they aren't weak against heroes. Because their attack speed is slow, they actually deal double their listed damage, which means their first volley can be startlingly deadly. Their vision range is preposterously large. As for this particular mission, the enemy doesn't use it at a particular time. They reach Heroic about 1 minute into the game and will then cast it the instant they have vision of that patch of forest. You've seen that scout wolf they have running around, he usually triggers it. But because his scouting pattern is completely random, it can be either a very short time or a very long time till it happens, making it annoyingly hard to predict. The result is that you can't safely push forward with your heroes because your town may be destroyed suddenly in your absence. And when you run back to defend it, you'll take massive damage which will slow your heroes from advancing anyway. For a while I tried killing all their scout wolves, but there was no way to prevent one getting through eventually since they spawn infinitely and run in unpredictable patterns with many ways out of the caves. Then I tried deliberately funneling the wolf to the trees immediately so I could just get it over with when my heroes were close to home anyway. That wasn't a bad strategy, but my girlfriend's idea of just burning the place was way better. I should have thought of it myself since I'd already noticed that the AI only ever cast it on that particular patch of trees.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2017 03:37
|
|
|
Melth posted:Yep to the mummies! There are a bunch of fun little things to find like that in this game, most involving bad stuff happening to dwarves. As much as I love watching you crush this game, driving it before you, basking in the wailing and lamentation of its women, I'd also really be interested ins eeing some videos detailing all these fun little easter-eggs and worldbuilding/fluff bits on maps. I seem to recall Warcraft 3 also having a lot of it. Little details like this do a lot for charm and flavor, if ya ask me.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2017 08:19
|
|
|
I'd like it see it shown off the way Cannibal9K did for the Talos Principle, little compilations of easter eggs that didn't come up during gameplay at the end of each major zone(in this case the end of campaigns would be appropriate I think)
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2017 13:53
|
|
|
Ragnarok lives up to its name pretty well, I'd say. Usually it's a bit underwhelming but that really feels like all-or-nothing end-of-the-world stuff.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2017 04:02
|
|
|
The clock just struck midnight, so here's the next mission! Not From Around here
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2017 07:02
|
|
|
Melth posted:The clock just struck midnight, so here's the next mission! You never even showed the giant...Giant army. Next time there's a big red blob on the minimap and you have the time, please give us some indication of what the gotcha moment consists of.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2017 10:56
|
|
|
Nuramor posted:You never even showed the giant...Giant army. Next time there's a big red blob on the minimap and you have the time, please give us some indication of what the gotcha moment consists of.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2017 13:21
|
|
|
So when I replayed this mission recently on my Moderate run, I put my troops to work on slowly chipping down the wall. Unfortunately for me, I forgot about the Giant Army spawning on the health percentage of the wall. And I hadn't made Siege Weapons yet. This lead to an absolute mess of a battle where the decimated remains of the army dragged Skult and the Flag Bearer to the end. A few notes: On Moderate, you start out with Heavy Hoplites. Titan seems to downgrade them for some vain attempt to make the mission harder. Also, there's a clever bit of foreshadowing in this mission that you'll pick up on during a second playthrough. The god you're worshipping for this mission.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2017 13:53
|
|
|
Melth posted:The clock just struck midnight, so here's the next mission! I sure hope that this is live commentary, because otherwise, there's not much of an excuse for saying cleverer and fragiler (About two minutes in, then give a couple seconds or so for fragiler) and not editing it out. (It's really a sign of how incredibly boring this mission is that I'm picking apart your English instead of observing in awe at your strategic genius.)
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 01:49
|
|
|
Is it ever a concern or an advantage in this game to chop down enough forest that you open a path for yourself or your enemy?
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 03:20
|
|
|
Glazius posted:Is it ever a concern or an advantage in this game to chop down enough forest that you open a path for yourself or your enemy?
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2017 11:22
|
|
|
Here's episode twenty fi- oh it's over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYJwhAw3rBI
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 05:12
|
|
|
That was...anticlimactic. Beyond that I'm constantly surprised at how simple most of these mission objectives end up being. Is this usual for the RTS genre, or are things more often along the lines of Starcraft (ie, wipe out an enemy base or few)?
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 05:27
|
|
|
Is this the mission that dethrones Tug Of War as the shortest, or is there one shorter still to be found later?
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 05:33
|
|
|
So, uh... was this meant to get you used to how the Norse armies operate, or?
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 05:54
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 06:50 |
|
|
Sordas Volantyr posted:Is this the mission that dethrones Tug Of War as the shortest, or is there one shorter still to be found later? I think Jackal's stronghold is still shortest, at least Melth's version of it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 06:04
|
|