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The commentary seems fine, except as mentioned in the latest video you talk a bit too fast about too much stuff so sometimes it's a little hard to follow. And you'll run out of stuff to talk about at this rate. Apart from that it's great, and I love learning this kind of "in-depth" stuff about RTSs. Oh, and the commentary track was only on the left channel in the beginning so you might want to keep an eye out for that when editing.
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Jan 7, 2017 19:26
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I don't think you need to vocalize what you're doing as you do it, an explanation of why you're doing what you're doing is fine. A little silence while there's nothing going on is probably fine because there's going to be a ton of moments where there's nothing going on and that's just the nature of the genre.
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Jan 7, 2017 21:48
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As somone have said, saying why you're doing stuff is better than saying what you're doing. We can see that, so some silence here and there won't ruin the video.Cythereal posted:Then again, this is a book series where Odin is literally Santa Claus. It checks out. Both of them are all knowing old men with vision problems that demand blood sacrifice to keep the world working properly. EDIT: Oh, hey maybe that will teach me to see whether there are other pages before posting. Fat Samurai fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Jan 8, 2017 |
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Jan 8, 2017 00:09
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Also bear in mind that in future videos you may want to fast forward the base building sequences once they've gotten routine. It's good to see how they work for the first few times, but a lot of missions later on will have dead air where you're doing nothing interesting.
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Jan 8, 2017 01:27
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Oh man, this was one of my most played games back when I was younger, so I was really happy when this finally got an updated re-release. Really enjoying the let's play so far!
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Jan 8, 2017 01:45
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Thanks, everyone, for the tips and suggestions. Please do keep letting me know ways I can improve or ways I have improved that I should keep doing as I go along. To the person who suggested I be less formal by the way, I'll try (and I'll also keep trying to get slower, though this already feels unnaturally slow to me) but that's just how I talk most of the time. I really even say things like 'Let's talk about X' in everyday conversations. I've come up with a very nice plan for the next mission, and I'm hoping to post that on Monday. I'm going to post one mission every Monday evening from now on, at least until I figure out whether that's too fast or too slow.
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Jan 8, 2017 01:54
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I think you're doing fine, but then again I'm already very well versed in most of the mechanics involved outside of the Atlantean and Chinese civs, and am more interested in seeing how you tackle the missions themselves.
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Jan 8, 2017 01:56
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Melth posted:To the person who suggested I be less formal by the way, I'll try (and I'll also keep trying to get slower, though this already feels unnaturally slow to me) but that's just how I talk most of the time. I really even say things like 'Let's talk about X' in everyday conversations. I think that loosening up is something that will happen as you get more familiar/comfortable with it. Its just something to keep in the back of your mind. If you talk a certain way normally, then don't try to change that for a video. Also, I was trying to mention less about the particular words, but rather more about how you transition from one topic to the next. That particular example just stood out to me because you seemed to verbally transition from talking about unit stats to talking about unit stats  . I think that just slowing yourself down will help with those things though. I am similar in that I also generally talk fast, but through some practice I found out that I get ideas across in a much clearer and concise manner when slowing down. Your commentary might start feeling slow to you, but it takes a lot longer to process and understand what you're saying as opposed to just hearing the words. Again, we're more nitpicking you here. Your doing a great job explaining all of these mechanics I was much to stupid to understand as kid. I always upgraded my units all the way before I started to build them  , now I know that was really dumb.
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Jan 8, 2017 03:00
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If some of Age of Empires III's missions are any indication, i'm wondering if we'll see alot of quick base building to ward off a huge early enemy attack. Because I noticed that speed building was a big part of the early game of your video, like you need to have your moves set up in advance. That actually does make me wonder. Is there any mission where you can get screwed by random chance? Also, i'd like to talk about special factions in Campaigns and how they're used, but I might wait till they truly become relevant. Right now, i'll bring up how the campaign uses very special teams for express purposes to add more features to certain missions, whether it be supporting the enemy or making set pieces able to occur. The Egyptian missions are the most obvious example.
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Jan 8, 2017 04:03
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I understand the idea of tech levels but the names seem weird in a story-campaign context.
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Jan 8, 2017 05:14
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Glazius posted:I understand the idea of tech levels but the names seem weird in a story-campaign context. They make slightly more sense than leveling out of feudalism during the AoE2 campaigns. Only slightly.
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Jan 8, 2017 05:53
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The commentary is good enough, the only issue will be the long build up phases some levels have. I love this game so I'll follow this no matter what.Orv posted:They make slightly more sense than leveling out of feudalism during the AoE2 campaigns. Only slightly. It's like Civilization, historical accuracy and common sense is just a very thin layer that's quickly replaced by the Rule of Cool, and it works better in Age of Mythology than in Age of Kings.
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Jan 8, 2017 10:43
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I've got something for you to talk in another video: you seem to play for maximum efficiency (army to pop cap and so on), what's the idea behind the numbers you use? How many villagers in average for a resource, how many villagers can pray and not be wasted manpower, what's the minimum army sizes you'd use? I know it's mostly up to the situation but there's gotta be some general guidelines; basically the I (re-)got the game to play along with the LP and I suck at efficiency. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Jan 8, 2017 |
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Jan 8, 2017 14:39
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Emperordaein posted:If some of Age of Empires III's missions are any indication, i'm wondering if we'll see alot of quick base building to ward off a huge early enemy attack. Because I noticed that speed building was a big part of the early game of your video, like you need to have your moves set up in advance. That actually does make me wonder. Is there any mission where you can get screwed by random chance? anilEhilated posted:I've got something for you to talk in another video: you seem to play for maximum efficiency (army to pop cap and so on), what's the idea behind the numbers you use? How many villagers in average for a resource, how many villagers can pray and not be wasted manpower, what's the minimum army sizes you'd use? How to handle the early game and how many villagers to have are complicated questions, and the singleplayer answers are different from the multiplayer answers. Indeed, some singleplayer maps are different from others so you'll see me take several approaches to different levels. In multiplayer, most sensible players will say you want 15-20 villagers per basic resource in the late game. Some silly people will claim that you should have 25+ for each resource, with some of the silliest saying that the Atlantean race is worthless because they can only get 75 pop worth of villagers while other civs can get 80. The first problem with this is that he's overlooking that the Atlanteans can get another 10 hero Citizens for +40 pop, thereby vastly exceeding the Greeks and Egyptians and Chinese. And by this absurd logic the Norse are the indisputable best in the game since they can have 80 Gatherers plus 40 Dwarves. But really, having more than 75 pop of villagers is going to be terrible in most games because your income will vastly exceed any possible expenditures, so most of them are worthless. Meanwhile, your population is hard-capped at like 160 on most maps unless you're crushing the opponent already, so you're really hampering your army size. And if there's one thing I am going to prove to you guys before this is over, it's that in this game a very big army can run over an infinitely rich, continuously retrained, but smaller one. If your tactics are good anyway.
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Jan 8, 2017 23:47
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Your write-ups and explanations about the game are a fascinating read, Melth. I ended up playing the heck out of this game as a youngin', though I never was much for the multiplayer. I picked up the EE and found myself getting owned viciously in any non-campaign games. This stuff should help for sure. Also, as for the commentary I'll throw in my two cents saying that I think most of it will improve with familiarity and time.
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Jan 9, 2017 00:16
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Saw the mission two video. Audio was much improved. The pacing worked out fine for me; you seemed to have just the exact right amount of content. It never seemed to drag. But as others have said, it might be a good idea to fast forward through the base-building sections in the future. One thing though is that while you gave excellent detail on much of your choices, a couple decisions went completely unexplained. First, going all toxetes and no hoplites (this one could probably be guessed via context -- AI only builds axes). Second, only walling off one entrance. You are probably waiting for a later episode for the Exploiting AI Omniscient Pathfinding lecture, though. Or least, that's about half the reason I was able to ever get through Titan. Point being, you made some choices that might be obvious to experts, but might seem counter intuitive.
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Jan 9, 2017 01:20
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Smiling Knight posted:One thing though is that while you gave excellent detail on much of your choices, a couple decisions went completely unexplained. First, going all toxetes and no hoplites (this one could probably be guessed via context -- AI only builds axes). Second, only walling off one entrance. You are probably waiting for a later episode for the Exploiting AI Omniscient Pathfinding lecture, though. Or least, that's about half the reason I was able to ever get through Titan. Point being, you made some choices that might be obvious to experts, but might seem counter intuitive. This. You don't have to go into detail prematurely, just give a one line explanation like "I'm not using any infantry because the AI is building axemen which specialise against infantry" or "I'm only walling one entrance off to abuse the enemy AI, which I'll explain in more detail in a future video".
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Jan 9, 2017 04:02
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Dakona posted:Your write-ups and explanations about the game are a fascinating read, Melth. Thanks, I'm always glad to hear that people like these things, and particularly that they're interesting or thought-provoking. Smiling Knight posted:Saw the mission two video. Audio was much improved. The pacing worked out fine for me; you seemed to have just the exact right amount of content. It never seemed to drag. But as others have said, it might be a good idea to fast forward through the base-building sections in the future. And thank you for pointing that out. Since before starting the LP I've been pondering how to balance explaining everything for people who may have no AoM experience vs. not boring people with massive mechanics exposition. I've been trying to talk in detail about roughly one mechanical or strategic element per mission, plus give at least a little explanation of the hundreds of things going on (I said last mission was going to be hectic more because there were a plethora of new things to talk about than because it actually required much micro beyond the first 30 seconds). I do have a plan for when to talk about walls (mission 5, where they're quite handy and you need big ones for the first time). It's very helpful though to hear what people have questions about or plausibly might have questions about so that I don't end up taking things for granted and never explaining them. Emperordaein posted:That actually does make me wonder. Is there any mission where you can get screwed by random chance? I just finished recording the next mission and it took me no less than 23 takes, in large part due to getting screwed by random chance! There were also a couple of odd happenings that ruined otherwise good takes, like this one time my villagers just wouldn't harvest wood and instead blankly stared at the tree I kept right-clicking. Never saw that before, my only guess is that maybe there was another tree blocking their pathing or something which I just couldn't see due to the camera. And three times I made a single critical mis-click that ruined everything. But all of that was only a problem because I was doing a special speed-run strat I had concocted which had zero margin for error. Under normal circumstances, no, at least in the campaign there is basically no luck. About the only random element is enemy scouting patterns, but that makes virtually no difference since enemy attacks are largely scripted anyway. Or huntable animal random walks maybe but again, that makes virtually no difference. The only real luck based elements are certain god powers that are needlessly random. Over time, many patches removed the pointless randomness from god powers in multiplayer, but the campaign grandfathers in the earliest versions of unit stats as well as god powers. The god powers that were wholly or partly random in non-trivial ways were: Lure (targets random animals across the map over time, may also have a semi-random cap to what it targets), Curse (Affects random number of targets), Lightning Storm (Who gets hit?), Shifting Sands (Affects random number of targets), Locust Swarm (They wander randomly), Ancestors (Spawn positions are random and delayed enough to matter), Tornado (It wanders randomly), Meteor (Who gets hit?), Great Hunt (Affects random number of targets), Walking Woods (They wander randomly), Fimbulwinter (In very large games it hits random town centers), Spider Lair (Placement is random), Chaos (Affects random number of targets), Geyser (Placement is random), and Inferno (It wanders randomly). Theoretically Valor and Call to Arms also hit random targets, but YOU have complete control of who's even in the area so it's only random if you foolishly target it on a giant group instead of the people you actually need it to affect. Most of those powers are less luck-based now than they used to be. Like Great Hunt works on everything in the zone, not just a random %. And the number of people who get Chaosed or Cursed isn't random anymore (but which particular people are affected still is). Meteor, Tornado, etc. are still unpredictable though. Multiplayer/random maps do have their own special luck element in that, of course, the map is randomly generated. And the algorithm for that is very good but does still produce unfair circumstances from time to time. The most extreme I've heard of is one person having more settlements in their zone than the other fellow gets, providing a basically permanent population advantage. Random gold mine placement can also make a lot of difference. And so can stuff that isn't technically luck, but functionally is such as whether the direction you scout just happens to include really important stuff or not.
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Jan 9, 2017 09:17
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Here's a rather remarkable run of the third campaign level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3dQwDPIIbc From now on, I'm going to update every Monday evening, if not more often.
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Jan 9, 2017 23:08
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Nice job. I never realized that Scyllas were so good. I usually take Aphrodite because I prefer economic upgrades in general, and am not a fan of water and cavalry units.
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Jan 9, 2017 23:42
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Well drat. That was fast. I hear what you're saying with Scyllas but Krakens will always be the cooler scourge of the sea. Plus the rest of Dionysus kind of sucks with a myth unit that levels up and a god power that does not benefit your big myth units. e: Thinking of counters, IIRC there is a lategame upgrade accessible to everyone that gives ships bonus damage to myth units but I have no idea how effective that is, plus it comes an age later. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Jan 9, 2017 |
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Jan 9, 2017 23:43
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I don't know why, but I really like Arkantos' voice actor.
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Jan 10, 2017 07:49
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Funny thing about the two-age jump, it's the cornerstone of boom play in AoE2. The goal is to spend the least time in feudal as possible, since time in feudal is time you're not building new town centers, and you can get your initial villager population in dark. If you can time it correctly, you immediately start putting new resource drop offs and villager production on every available resource deposit.
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Jan 10, 2017 09:25
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Fast Heroics are also a concept in AoM, though they're mostly done by a select few gods, for very specific purposes. A very good Isis FH can clock in around 6:50 (I think that's right, it's been a while. It's under 7:30) and lead to a really ugly situation for the enemy players because of the power of migdol (egyptian castle) units.
Orv fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Jan 10, 2017 |
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Jan 10, 2017 13:06
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Migdol Units  Massed chariot archers
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Jan 10, 2017 13:55
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Orv posted:Fast Heroics are also a concept in AoM, though they're mostly done by a select few gods, for very specific purposes. A very good Isis FH can clock in around 6:50 (I think that's right, it's been a while. It's under 7:30) and lead to a really ugly situation for the enemy players because of the power of migdol (egyptian castle) units. Yeah, I alluded to Egyptian FH when I was talking about beating Petsuchos and so forth I think. There's a distinction between Fast Heroic and 'straight tech' though. Most FH play I've seen in AoM still involves spending substantial time in classical to get upgrades and build more villagers and this and that. (Egyptians love the safety of their free Classical towers for one thing). But on this map I clicked Armory the second I got to Classical and had multiple people work on it, then clicked Heroic the second the armory finished. That's more like the WC3 strat I was thinking of where Night Elves in particular liked to upgrade their Tree of Life to a Tree of Ages, save up the 200 wood and 300 or so gold needed during the 2 minute or so upgrade time, and then immediately click the button to upgrade to Tree of Eternity the instant the first upgrade finished.
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Jan 10, 2017 16:47
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I mean let's be real here, gently caress Night Elves and everything they stand for. But yeah, typically you want to have a strong economic base in AoE/AoM even when doing a FC/FH, since ideally you want to still be interacting with your enemy during your boom. Nobody wants to get flushed.
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Jan 10, 2017 16:53
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One nice little thing in Scratching the Surface is that the Armor of Achilles relic can always be found outside the walls of Troy. In the "canon" legend, after Achilles is killed by Paris and/or Apollo, the Greeks have to decide who is honored by receiving his armor. Big Ajax/Telamonian Ajax/Ajax the Greater, our big-shielded friend, thinks that the armor should go to him. He is both Achilles' cousin and the greatest remaining warrior among the Greeks. Odysseus, however, also puts forth a claim. As is only appropriate, they decided to solve things with a speech competition (a remarkably poor decision by Ajax). Ajax makes his case first, saying the obvious things: he's tough, he saved the Greek ships when Achilles was in his tent, and Odysseus is a sneaking talky man who uses a bow. Odysseus' response is that actually, he should get credit for everything Achilles accomplished, because he was the one who found the hero hiding as a woman and brought him to Troy. The Greeks decide to award the armor to Odysseus. Infuriated, Ajax commits suicide. This story, or the end, is told in Sophocles' Ajax. In this play, Ajax is a tragic figure, an indomitable warrior cursed by the gods (on the earlier topic of gods being dicks: Athena drives Ajax mad, making him slaughter sheep which he believes to be Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Odysseus. Athena then brings Odysseus to gloat at his rival's madness. Odysseus, however, is saddened to see a great hero brought low). Ajax fundamentally cannot handle an ambiguous world in which allies become enemies and enemies allies. I would recommend folks give it a read; it goes fast and is quite powerful. Impressive episode! I can't believe that Scylla have a 5-second training time. That's nuts!
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Jan 10, 2017 17:38
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Orv posted:I mean let's be real here, gently caress
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Jan 10, 2017 18:33
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anilEhilated posted:Fixed that. Anyhow, gamey strategies like that are why I never really got into RTS multiplayer - thankfully AoM has a good, long campaign for me to slowly turtle and linearly progress through. Until you get to the Norse campaign, at least. The Norse are all about blood for the blood gods and sneer at concepts like "strong defenses."
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Jan 10, 2017 18:35
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Cythereal posted:Until you get to the Norse campaign, at least. The Norse are all about blood for the blood gods and sneer at concepts like "strong defenses." I mean, it also does have one the most "pure defense" missions as well. Honestly, the game does a great job of mixing up time pressure, defense, and small-scale micro missions.
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Jan 10, 2017 18:40
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HannibalBarca posted:Migdol Units BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
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Jan 10, 2017 19:37
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Impressive, I aways did the brute force approach and was a terrible grind. Also, I loving love the water myth units.
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Jan 10, 2017 19:48
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Cythereal posted:Until you get to the Norse campaign, at least. The Norse are all about blood for the blood gods and sneer at concepts like "strong defenses." I find that on Titan difficulty defense is essential in the Norse campaign, at least on a lot of the missions. I would characterize my usual strategy on serious campaign missions as 'aggressive defense'. I rush out to smash a few enemy groups before they're ready and lay claim to key territories, but then focus hard on defense at my newer, better borders. anilEhilated posted:Fixed that. I too have a deep loathing for elves of all kinds! Smiling Knight posted:One nice little thing in Scratching the Surface is that the Armor of Achilles relic can always be found outside the walls of Troy. I never knew about that; that's great! And thanks for recounting the rest of that myth; I was hoping to but barely even had time to squeeze in a mention that Ajax is supposed to be dead. anilEhilated posted:Well drat. That was fast. It's called Heroic Fleet and it makes ships do +50% damage. Which is still mostly worthless given how huge myth unit armor and HP is and how cheap they are compared to other ships even. The reason I didn't mention it though is that it doesn't actually exist in the vanilla game. It was added in the expansion to fix there being no counters to Scyllas and Krakens and so forth. But it's just not good enough for that purpose.
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Jan 10, 2017 20:12
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On fire giants posted:Sidenote, it won't even activate vs heroes A ways back, but...aren't Heroes entirely immune to most myth units effects? Like they will not trigger no matter what?
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Jan 10, 2017 21:43
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Bloodly posted:A ways back, but...aren't Heroes entirely immune to most myth units effects? Like they will not trigger no matter what? Almost! Most myth unit effects will not activate when targeted on heroes. But the area of effect ones CAN affect heroes if you activate them on a human soldier standing right next to the hero or whatever. Not that this usually matters since the damage will be greatly reduced and such.
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Jan 10, 2017 22:05
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For reasons shown in this video, Dionysus is I feel one of the least balanced god choices in this game. If you're planning to do any serious fighting at all in the heroic age and you have access to Dionysus, it's hard to justify not taking him. Hydras and scyllas are terrific myth units, bronze is a great power, bacchanalia isn't a bad perk (small, but universally applicable), and he comes with the Greeks' heroic age naval myth tech. Plus if you're into cavalry, he has a bonus for that, too. Aphrodite is justifiable if you're not on a naval map (or you're Hades and therefore don't have access to Dionysus) and aren't doing serious fighting, as her benefits are all economic and the Nemean Lion isn't a bad myth unit. But Apollo... I always have a hard time choosing him. He offers a lot of benefits, few of which (Sun Ray benefits his myth unit) have anything in common. He's part of the Hades archers from hell strategy, and none of his benefits are bad, but I feel what he offers just isn't worth it compared to Dionysus and Aphrodite.
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Jan 10, 2017 22:43
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Dang, that is some ridiculous sea rampage. I suppose it needs some units already out there to power the Scyllas up for maximum tidal roll?
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Jan 11, 2017 04:41
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Its cool seeing this game I dicked around with as a kid being dissected and utterly steamrolled by someone who knows the mechanics as well as you do. Great LP so far.
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Jan 11, 2017 05:05
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You don't want to fight mission 3 on Titan regularly. I'm not even convinced you can. The 'initial attack' is something like 8 Hippikons, 4 Bull Minotaurs, a bunch of hoplites, and Shades. God knows if it keeps that up.
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Jan 11, 2017 10:36
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