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LLSix posted:Anyone tried Unity of Command II? I remember enjoying the first one. The guys over on 3 Moves Ahead podcast really enjoyed it. They liked the first one too, but seemed to like the new one better. It is a slight departure from the first, but thats mostly due to it switching which theatre it was depicting.
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Dec 24, 2019 18:56
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I think the Wargame thread died. I built a pc and started going through my steam backlog, starting with Wargame Air Land Battle. Looking for some tips. I’m doing the first NATO campaign and struggling to win battles. I have to completely destroy armies over the course of multiple turns because I can never hit the victory limit in match. I find myself just hunkering down with antitank units in forests and buildings because whenever I try to take the offense I get shredded.
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Jan 19, 2020 07:07
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FastestGunAlive posted:I think the Wargame thread died. I built a pc and started going through my steam backlog, starting with Wargame Air Land Battle. Looking for some tips. I’m doing the first NATO campaign and struggling to win battles. I have to completely destroy armies over the course of multiple turns because I can never hit the victory limit in match. I find myself just hunkering down with antitank units in forests and buildings because whenever I try to take the offense I get shredded. Its a tough game and the campaigns can be very one sided, i dont have any campaign specific advice because its been so long but scouting is paramount, infantry scouts in woods with turned off weapons so they dont reveal themselves are amazing. Push one avenue with a token defence in the rest. Air is king especially vs the ai, if you can win the air war you can bomb them with impunity
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Jan 19, 2020 08:51
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FastestGunAlive posted:I think the Wargame thread died. I built a pc and started going through my steam backlog, starting with Wargame Air Land Battle. Looking for some tips. I’m doing the first NATO campaign and struggling to win battles. I have to completely destroy armies over the course of multiple turns because I can never hit the victory limit in match. I find myself just hunkering down with antitank units in forests and buildings because whenever I try to take the offense I get shredded. I vaguely remember a thing with that game where patches that tweaked unit strengths for multiplayer reasons ended up making the single player campaign impossibly hard and basically breaking it. I might be totally wrong but maybe something to check.
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Jan 19, 2020 11:05
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fuf posted:I vaguely remember a thing with that game where patches that tweaked unit strengths for multiplayer reasons ended up making the single player campaign impossibly hard and basically breaking it. That was European Escalation. It also made parts of Steel Division 1's campaign wonky, though nowhere near as bad. That's kinda the problem with the linear campaigns.
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Jan 19, 2020 11:42
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Thats a thing in all of their games, red dragon notably added aa to a lot of nk tanks for mp that drastically changed the campaign
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Jan 19, 2020 21:46
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While I'm not a fan of 'new Blizzard', I was very happy with how old Blizzard approached balance and patching in multiplayer vs singleplayer in Warcraft 3. Namely, many of the multiplayer changes were ignored in the single player. They obviously did a QA on all the changes for both multiplayer and singleplayer so they wouldn't end up with a situation like the above. I respect that.
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Jan 20, 2020 00:45
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Oh yea working mom posted:Its a tough game and the campaigns can be very one sided, i dont have any campaign specific advice because its been so long but scouting is paramount, infantry scouts in woods with turned off weapons so they dont reveal themselves are amazing. Push one avenue with a token defence in the rest. Air is king especially vs the ai, if you can win the air war you can bomb them with impunity I’ve been using scouts but didn’t think to turn weapons off. My air gets shredded quickly by enemy SAMs. I’ll give it another go but maybe the post below you is right on the balancing. I’m not too keen to try this multiplayer but I am interested in doing other games so maybe we can get a game night going here. Is the WC4 remaster soon?
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Jan 20, 2020 04:36
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FastestGunAlive posted:I’ve been using scouts but didn’t think to turn weapons off. My air gets shredded quickly by enemy SAMs. I’ll give it another go but maybe the post below you is right on the balancing. I’m not too keen to try this multiplayer but I am interested in doing other games so maybe we can get a game night going here. Is the WC4 remaster soon? Turning weapons off on them is pretty manditory, if you're using elites with manpads/AT you do have to remember to turn them back on at needed times. Air really needs micromanagement and hotkeys for fleeing, another less risky version is using arty which the ai I've never seen counter battery. For both air and arty fire pos is your friend so youre shooting in front of where a target is, more micro though. Mortars with smoke are a godsend for attacking as well, just smoke the enemy position then rush them when they move out of position. Multiplayer is a different beast, the AI will typically have more points to spend than you and can micro everything at once, but the only people still playing MP are people who've played it forever
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Jan 20, 2020 07:43
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So I hear the Warcraft 3 remake is out, if you're into that kind of thing.
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Jan 29, 2020 00:39
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Mordja posted:So I hear the Warcraft 3 remake is out, if you're into that kind of thing. I felt like Warcraft III was the last good 'old blizzard' game to come out. I made a kickass custom single-player campaign for it too: https://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/to-the-bitter-end.202289/ The problem with this re-release is that it's siren call is making we want to get it and upgrade my campaign to work with it. But that would require me getting actual modelers, texture artists etc on board, since the far more complex models mean I can't just do some simple editing myself and still have it look ok. And I'd be tempted to voice-act it this time around, adding a whole massive new dimension of work to it. Plus I don't know if I can justify sinking the endless hours into this thing when I barely have time for my current projects... It hurts both to consider doing it and to consider leaving it be.
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Jan 29, 2020 04:48
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I was never a crazy fan of the focus on heroes at the time. I'm interested to go back and see if I like it any more now. It was also definitely the beginning of the end for the old style of RTS and hell, just RTS in general at least in terms of AAA budget games
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Jan 29, 2020 21:33
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FanaticalMilk posted:I was never a crazy fan of the focus on heroes at the time. I'm interested to go back and see if I like it any more now. I tend to agree as far as RTS mechanics are concerned - in addition to the usual RTS problem where one side winning a battle already puts them at an advantage over the other side in terms of resources, they added hero Experience/levels to the mix. In Warcraft III, one side doing any significant damage to the other puts them significantly ahead because now their hero (or heroes) is considerably stronger than the opponents' - all the moreso if they actually managed to kill the enemy hero in the fight. Coming back from that is hard if it even happens once, since the only way past the early game of getting more Exp is to beat up the enemy - who is now stronger than ever. At least that's the impression I get from skirmish games, I don't really play/like multiplayer RTS except co-op with friends. My custom campaign though is not an RTS, it's a RPG/action game with a hero focus, and Warcraft III's hero-centric gameplay works well for that.
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Jan 29, 2020 21:53
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FanaticalMilk posted:It was also definitely the beginning of the end for the old style of RTS and hell, just RTS in general at least in terms of AAA budget games Hard to disagree when W3 is mostly noteworthy for the non-RTS mods that spun out of it.
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Jan 31, 2020 22:58
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Soul Reaver posted:I tend to agree as far as RTS mechanics are concerned - in addition to the usual RTS problem where one side winning a battle already puts them at an advantage over the other side in terms of resources, they added hero Experience/levels to the mix. In Warcraft III, one side doing any significant damage to the other puts them significantly ahead because now their hero (or heroes) is considerably stronger than the opponents' - all the moreso if they actually managed to kill the enemy hero in the fight. Coming back from that is hard if it even happens once, since the only way past the early game of getting more Exp is to beat up the enemy - who is now stronger than ever. it's no worse than any other rts, with evenly skilled players the only way you're getting a significant xp advantage is by spending a lot of resources on units/items, which means you're going to be behind on tech. that said, the game is barely functional at the moment so don't buy it
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Jan 31, 2020 23:42
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little munchkin posted:it's no worse than any other rts, with evenly skilled players the only way you're getting a significant xp advantage is by spending a lot of resources on units/items, which means you're going to be behind on tech. Not sure I agree there - XP can't be bought with the in-game resources, the only way to get it is to (a) kill things and (b) have your hero alive. And ironically, both are harder to do if the hero has less XP. That's in addition to - not instead of - the economic and time penalties that come from losing units (particularly heroes). It exacerbates the existing problem. And yes, don't give Activition/Blizzard money, they're a pack of avaricious liars.
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Feb 1, 2020 00:17
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My enjoyment of RTSes has usually been based on how good the campaign is and on that basis warcraft 3 was a real banger. That more than anything else is what I miss from the golden age RTS games, most modern stuff just doesn't put effort into that.
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Feb 1, 2020 00:51
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Mine was always skirmishes and mods. Then DOW2 and COH2 multiplayer, for a while. I had actually never beaten some of my favourite RTS games, COH and the Homeworld games, until last year. Only ever beat Starcraft and WC3 through fragrant cheating as a kid. Never completed a single C&C or TA campaign despite loving and playing them all.
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Feb 1, 2020 00:57
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The editor was really fantastic. Perfect combo of functionality and ease of use imo and it shows in the fact that it spawned like 3 or 4 genres. Even if the campaign is unfinished I might get the remake if people start putting out good custom maps or mods.
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Feb 1, 2020 01:17
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Starks posted:The editor was really fantastic. Perfect combo of functionality and ease of use imo and it shows in the fact that it spawned like 3 or 4 genres. *monkey paw curls*
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Feb 1, 2020 02:21
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Crosspost from the meme thread cuz a strat game’s in there and it made ma laugh
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Feb 1, 2020 02:37
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Does anyone feel like it's weird that the Age of Empires 2 has outlived and outlasted the Starcraft community and the C&C community? It's always been this weird island that's been detached from everything and it just somehow keeps going strong for some reason. I feel like all of the drama and issues that RTS communities have had over the decades doesn't apply to the AoE2 community.
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Feb 2, 2020 19:56
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SC is still going strong though? C&C basically died when EA took over Westwood, but SC2 is still one of the biggest e-sports in terms of prize money at least. See https://www.esportsearnings.com/games
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Feb 2, 2020 20:20
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Love Stole the Day posted:Does anyone feel like it's weird that the Age of Empires 2 has outlived and outlasted the Starcraft community and the C&C community? It's always been this weird island that's been detached from everything and it just somehow keeps going strong for some reason. I feel like all of the drama and issues that RTS communities have had over the decades doesn't apply to the AoE2 community. I could be wrong, but I think the main reason for that is the various re-releases and remakes and continued content by the Forgotten Empires team. And, more importantly, the fact that it's been (mostly) good and Microsoft has taken a relatively hands-off approach. E: I'd also say C&C's also kind of survived, but through its modding community, people still make stuff for those old games (and even some for the newer ones) but the focus is more on skirmish and singleplayer. Mordja fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Feb 2, 2020 |
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Feb 2, 2020 20:32
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Yeah, no games truly die anymore, but AoE2 is one of the more active retro games. Twitch viewer counts are pretty wild for some older games. AoE2 (definite edition) has ~5k viewers at the moment, close to Wind Waker (3k) Super Mario World (4k) Max Payne 2 (6k????), Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (6.1k), old school runescape (~10k); and soundly beat by super mario 64 (20k) and warcraft 3 (40k, but it just released the reforged edition).
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Feb 2, 2020 21:00
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I think AoE2 has way more people playing than watching though and I'd be surprised if SC2's daily player counts over the past 7 years can come anywhere close to AoE2's consistency (even after being split across 2 games): Also, Tooth & Tail is very underrated right now imo: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/545898904?t=0h20m37s
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Feb 2, 2020 21:38
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There are currently 300k sc2 players daily on just the 1v1 ladder, so not counting coop or single player which are even bigger. That completely and utterly eclipses any aoe2 player counts.
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Feb 2, 2020 22:00
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One thing I find kind of odd about AOE2 is that it's Star Wars version, Galactic Battlegrounds, seems to have become more or less forgotten. It's a great game that plays very similar to AOE2 (with a few key differences) and I would have thought that it would have stuck around too. I mention this because it's come up in RSF and I just happened to grab it off GOG.com for a couple of bucks in a sale last week. It still holds up!
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Feb 2, 2020 22:02
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Look up the Expanding Fronts Mod for Galactic Battleground. It's pretty good.
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Feb 2, 2020 22:03
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Samopsa posted:There are currently 300k sc2 players daily on just the 1v1 ladder, so not counting coop or single player which are even bigger. That completely and utterly eclipses any aoe2 player counts.
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Feb 2, 2020 22:21
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Command and Conquer also doesn't have it's remake/remaster yet. Sure you can get the ultimate collection on Origin, but if I recall several of them have difficulty running on Windows 10 and the servers for multiplayer are long dead.
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Feb 2, 2020 22:49
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1000 Brown M and Ms posted:One thing I find kind of odd about AOE2 is that it's Star Wars version, Galactic Battlegrounds, seems to have become more or less forgotten. It's a great game that plays very similar to AOE2 (with a few key differences) and I would have thought that it would have stuck around too. AoE2 has held up for the most part because it has a high potential complexity while being relatively balanced. As much as I loved WC3 it had some rough issues when you started getting competitive and while AoE2 is far from perfect it does better than almost any other RTS at almost every aspect of it being competitive. Coupled with a pretty easy entry-point compared to say, WC3 hero micro or SC2's potential for extremely intensive macro and it can maintain and even replace its player base a lot easier. I mention balance so prominently because Galactic Battlegrounds, aside from being one of hundreds of IP knock-off games that probably wouldn't have survived even if it was good, is extremely unbalanced. It's not the worst RTS balance ever but if you start picking it apart it feels a lot like a mod made by people who wanted to make something cool - which they succeeded at, I also picked it up the moment it came up on GOG - rather than something that was made by experienced designers.
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Feb 2, 2020 22:54
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Starks posted:The editor was really fantastic. Perfect combo of functionality and ease of use imo and it shows in the fact that it spawned like 3 or 4 genres. I remember a real fun mod/custom map that was called ice troll tribes. In it there was several different teams of about four or so players each. Each team was a tribe. Each player controlled only one troll, and you had to forage for food, keep warm by assembling a bonfire from materials found in the wilds, and be on the look out for the other tribes on the map. Basically a survival game way before survival games became cool.
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Feb 2, 2020 23:06
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:Command and Conquer also doesn't have it's remake/remaster yet. The original servers are, but the community-run ones are online and active. Currently about 700 people online, all the games up to TS (I think) are downloadable of their site too. https://cncnet.org/
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Feb 2, 2020 23:08
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Orv posted:AoE2 has held up for the most part because it has a high potential complexity while being relatively balanced. As much as I loved WC3 it had some rough issues when you started getting competitive and while AoE2 is far from perfect it does better than almost any other RTS at almost every aspect of it being competitive. Coupled with a pretty easy entry-point compared to say, WC3 hero micro or SC2's potential for extremely intensive macro and it can maintain and even replace its player base a lot easier. Can you give some examples of how Galactic Battlegrounds is unbalanced? And how AoE2 compares? I'll be the first to admit I'm far from a competitive gamer and I never play on harder difficulties (or multiplayer for that matter), but I've never felt that there were big balance issues between the various factions, or that there was a big difference between SW:GB and AoE2.
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Feb 2, 2020 23:11
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I spent a decent chunk of my childhood playing Star Wars: Force Commander and I'm willing to bet that game was trash tier but if someone could just confirm that for me I'd really appreciate it
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Feb 2, 2020 23:14
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GyverMac posted:I remember a real fun mod/custom map that was called ice troll tribes. In it there was several different teams of about four or so players each. Each team was a tribe. Each player controlled only one troll, and you had to forage for food, keep warm by assembling a bonfire from materials found in the wilds, and be on the look out for the other tribes on the map. Basically a survival game way before survival games became cool. This sounds awesome
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Feb 2, 2020 23:17
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1000 Brown M and Ms posted:Can you give some examples of how Galactic Battlegrounds is unbalanced? And how AoE2 compares? There's a few standouts but admittedly it has been a bit. The major ones I remember;
I'll be totally honest though and say that while I don't think GB would have survived as a competitive game the way AOE2 has, the bigger issue is that AOE2 was already there and while I love GB for what it is and what it does, it's very much a comfort snack food kind of thing and that probably killed it more than anything. Orv fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Feb 2, 2020 |
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Feb 2, 2020 23:26
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Orv posted:meanwhile Gungan vehicles fall over to a light breeze. Klaus88 posted:Look up the Expanding Fronts Mod for Galactic Battleground. It's pretty good.
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Feb 2, 2020 23:35
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Orv posted:There's a few standouts but admittedly it has been a bit. The major ones I remember; Yeah, that makes sense. I've noticed a few things like that (like how the Republic can crank out troops faster than anyone else once they're fully upgraded, and how annoying air can be since you need AA units that are otherwise useless), but as I say I'm not a competitive player so I guess I just never thought that kind of thing was a massive issue. I dunno, I guess I would have thought that "AoE2, but Star Wars" would have been enough for SW:GB to have stuck around at least a little.
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Feb 3, 2020 00:08
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