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Super psyched for this LP! I also picked up the extended edition, ran through the campaigns on titan. I think that both the original and Titan's campaigns are some of the best in single-player RTS history. Great and memorable map design, plenty of variety to spice things up. I would love to see the more creative strategies, when you've come up with them -- but then again, I've beaten them the traditional way myself already. Also, if you want any mythological background -- I took a fair number of Greco-Roman myth classes in undergrad, so I'd be happy to do an effort post or two on the Trojan War or general gods/heroes stuff.
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Dec 28, 2016 02:14
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Melth posted:Alright, I finished the second part with a somewhat different process. Said process may be wildly foolish in ways I don't yet understand, so I want you more knowledgeable persons to tell me if I'm leaving out something critical or am doing something destructive: I'll agree it's the worst if only because I spent years of my youth confused by the fact that it seemed to be in two places at once!
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Dec 28, 2016 14:28
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Orv posted:It gets so wonderfully, scenery-chewingly stupid that I forgive many of its very large flaws. Light story spoilers: meathead Ajax, a poetry-reciting cyclops, and the most sanitized version of the resurrection of Osiris. What's not to love? Thank you for pointing out that Atlantis was a Platonic thought experiment! Smiling Knight fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Jan 2, 2017 16:07
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Melth posted:
There is an excellent moment near the end of the Odyssey where Odysseus in disguise as a beggar encounters one of the suitors, Amphinomus. Amphinomus is actually a pretty decent guy, and Odysseus decides to warn him that it would be a good idea to skip town. Athena, however, is having none of this, and forces Amphinomus to stay and be killed. Despite being nominally on Odysseus' side, Athena really doesn't care about what he thinks or wants. He is a trophy or a particularly favored pet, nothing more. Actually, I guess this a good tangent for the overall image of the gods in Homer. Or more particularly, the Iliad. The Iliad's gods are as a rule comic relief that enforces the work's themes about mortality. The text in effect states that while the gods might be immortal and beautiful, nothing they do truly matters, precisely because they cannot die (in contrast, Achilles, who is great because he chose to die young). Most Olympian interludes are jokes: Hera seducing Zeus, causing Zeus to list off all the mortal women he's banged; Athena and Hera cattily insulting Aphrodite; Ares being a loser hated by all. Throughout the poem, the prospect of the gods entering the Trojan War in person is viewed as almost apocalyptic. Zeus sends a lot of time trying to keep his extended family on Olympus. But finally, near the climax of the poem, the gods finally do join the fray. And it's a farce. Hera breaks Artemis' bow over her knee. Athena throws a rock at Ares and punches Aphrodite in the boob. Apollo and Poseidon decide to leave and get some beers instead of fighting. It's this huge anticlimax. I think a particularly telling episode is the funeral games following the death of Hector. The Greeks hold all these competitions to celebrate. And all of our lovely gang of anti-Trojan deities decide to play favorites, intervening so that their particularly heroes win glory just as they had in the bloody battles of the previous days. My interpretation is that the gods saw no fundamental difference in the Trojan War and the funeral games; they were just arenas to settle scores and prove that they were the best. However, there are some moments where the gods do act in a more appropriate manner. During those funeral games, while the pro-Greek gods pettily pick and choose winners, Apollo and Aphrodite personally care for Hector's body (Achilles kept defiling it over and over). At the end of the day, even these particularly venal gods realized that Hector was a great hero who had earned their care and respect. And then there is Hephaestus, who comes across better than all the other Olympians. He is the only god who actually creates; first, the thrones of Olympus, and then the armor of Achilles. He is a conciliator, trying to avert conflict, even if it means earning the scorn of the other gods. And he is the only god who receives a truly Homeric battle scene. While the other divine fights are brief jokes, Hephaestus' fight with the god of the river to save Achilles receives many lines full of poetic language. Even in almost the earliest Greek text, the gods are mostly dicks. But not even in the Old Testament, vengeful father kind of dicks; they're just petty assholes. Smiling Knight fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Jan 4, 2017 |
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Jan 4, 2017 00:33
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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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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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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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Impressive play! That was great fun. I'm glad that someone else appreciate's Odysseus' voice actor. The audio got desynched by the end though. Both your voice and the sound effects were several seconds ahead of the game on screen. Re: Agamemnon's general terribleness. One of the central themes of the Iliad is the question of who should rule. On the one hand, you have Agamemnon, who comes from a line of kings given their scepter by Zeus himself (never mind the last few generations of the house of Atreus have been rife with child murder, cannibalism, and blasphemy). On the other, we have Achilles, who is literally the greatest human being ever due to a complex number of mythological reasons that boil down to Zeus being fundamentally unable to keep it in his pants, even if it means the end of his divine rule. But because Agamemnon came from the right womb, he gets to be the high king, and Achilles has to do what he says. This, obviously, makes Achilles deeply unhappy with the order of things. This conflict over who should rule, the most able man or the 'lawful' claimant, is never truly resolved. Agamemnon eats some crow and makes a pretty speech about how he is the Eurystheus to Achilles' Herakles (aka the lovely loser who nevertheless calls the shots), but that's not what really gets Achilles back into the fight. Portrayals of the Iliad generally go whole hog on making Agamemnon either a joke (here) or an outright villain (the abominable movie Troy). This isn't just a modern thing; in Athenian dramas -- written centuries after the Iliad -- he's generally a total prick. See Ajax or Clytemnestra (in the latter, Agamemnon is such a nasty guy, he makes a female character who commits unspeakable crimes nevertheless heroic). While such versions are based in the text of the Iliad, I feel that there is more to his character. Within the context of Greek culture and the wider mythology, Agamemnon has understandable reasons to do things like refuse to give up his concubine, even if a priest of Apollo is asking very nicely. Most of his actions in the poem come not from malevolence (contrast: Achilles), but either out of wounded pride and (and this is just my reading) of the feeling that he has sacrificed more than anyone else on this whole campaign. He killed his own daughter to get here, gosh darn it, so he should get first share of the glory. And, needless to say, he was not a wimp who "forgot his spear" as the bio of his Age of Mythology version amusingly states. Like every major character in the poem, Agamemnon busts plenty of heads. He's just overshadowed by Achilles, Ajax, Diomedes, and the rest of the Greeks.
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Jan 18, 2017 05:27
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Astroclassicist posted:Having Athena on his side didn't hurt either (as always, see the foot race in Book XXIII of the Iliad, complete with comedy poo moment!) . Yeah, Odysseus is the sneaky, subtle guy by the standards of epic Greek heroes. He can still mow down dozens of men before breakfast.
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Jan 19, 2017 15:18
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anilEhilated posted:That's really it - the standards. Can't be a Greek hero unless you're a mass murderer (and nobleborn or a god's offspring but that's a different matter). That being said, Odysseus is an interesting character because while he does his fair share of slaughtering people, he shows some reluctance since he didn't want to be there in the first place. Hell, he even tried to cheat the draft delegation by feigning madness. His heroism at the field of battle seems like a token effort, something that has to be there - but the primary characteristic is that he's smart, something rather uncommon in mythology. In the Iliad itself, there is this interesting tension between Odysseus' reluctance to be there in the first place, and yet his seeming loyalty to the cause once he's there. He's the one who cows the mutinying men, he's the one who gets Agamemnon not to abandon the fight, and he is one of the trio sent to convince Achilles to rejoin the fight.
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Jan 19, 2017 21:05
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Artemis is worshiped in a single mission: Arkantos' vision quest.
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Jan 24, 2017 15:19
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Ooooooh boy I can't wait.
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Jan 29, 2017 06:12
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Melth posted:I think that's three people now who thought the way they came up with the horse was a problem with the script. I never had an issue with it myself so I'm curious what you guys think is wrong with it. 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.
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Feb 2, 2017 02:29
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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. 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.
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Feb 2, 2017 21:28
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Poil posted:Nice to see you do the mission the same way I do it, not that there's much choice. 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.
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Feb 14, 2017 17:59
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Knew it was going to be a sweet video when I saw it was only 13 minutes. Nice! The Ioklos villagers "digging" is a great way of building tension. I was sure the mission was effectively timed when I was a kid. Also, one sad thing: you beat the mission so quickly that you missed the attack on Ajax's base! IIRC, it gets hit with an earthquake and either an underworld passage or a roc airdrop.
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Feb 27, 2017 18:30
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Melth posted:I can think of a bunch of games that have some totally non-gorgon monster called gorgons for some reason though. I eagerly await your next lp, in which you give Heroes of Might and Magic 3's campaigns the crushing defeat they deserve.
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Mar 14, 2017 00:40
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Those Underworld Centaurs were clearly trying to kidnap themselves some wives. They're trapped because, well, trying to steal your wife from Hades is a real bad idea.
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Mar 29, 2017 02:33
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Emperordaein posted:Actually, since it was brought up, what are the difference between the villager units of the different civilisations? I mean, with the Norse and Atlantians it's obvious, but I never thought they'd have different resource/building rates between Greek and Egyptian villagers. Egyptian laborers are slower at everything, but faster if empowered. Also, the difference between farming and other sources of food is smaller for Egyptians, encouraging them to transition to farming sooner. Norse and Greek are nearly identical; Greeks gather gold microscopically faster. Atlantean citizens are more than 2x as good at everything. Exact stats here: http://aom.heavengames.com/gameinfo/howitworks/villgatherrates. Super exciting for the Egyptian part! The maps get really fun here. Although I'm worried Melth is just too good, and so we'll not have time to appreciate them.
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Apr 16, 2017 03:14
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Ha, that serpent trick was great.
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Jun 6, 2017 13:23
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And finally we have our villain revealed: the ever-despicable Cronus! But of course, as Melth pointed out, his villainy really does depend on your source. More broadly though, have a "return of Cronus" as the plot goes against the nature of the Greek mythic cycle. Fathers are overthrown by their sons, not vice-versa. Once Cronus dealt with his dad, the Sky never tried for a comeback. Instead, if Zeus is to be defeated, it is to be by his own offspring. Both the son borne by the Titan Metis and the child of the nymph Thetis could have had the proper mystic mojo to become the next king of the gods, but Zeus nipped both of those into the bud. He ate Metis before she gave birth, and so bore Athena himself, and married off Thetis to the mortal hero Peleus so that her son would "only" be the greatest human ever, Achilles. On the other hand, Poseidon as a villain is pretty in line with the myth. He and Apollo did try to overthrow Zeus. Of course, they lost, and in punishment were forced to build the walls of Troy.
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Jun 27, 2017 03:03
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Melth posted:I dunno. Zeus is a horrible husband, but Hera is just a horrible person in every way to everyone all the time. And I can't think of a single redeeming feature she has, whereas Zeus does show that when the chips are down he actually has the guts to face giant monsters like Typhon while all the other gods chicken out and run away. Or punish various wrongdoers and so forth. She's... nice to Jason? The shittiest hero of them all?
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Jun 29, 2017 02:17
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I'm glad you mentioned and dismissed the bit of myth that involves Odysseus' bastard son coming back to killing him (and IIRC marrying Penelope and Telemachus ends up with Circe???). Poor guy spent two decades away, only one of which was sleeping with a goddess of his own volition -- give him a break! It's not like he was dumb enough to really cheese off the gods (cough Oilean Ajax cough).
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Sep 5, 2017 00:34
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Superbly done, on the whole campaign. When you sad the AI is scripted to do certain attacks, is that by looking through the scenario triggers, or trial-and-error?
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Feb 27, 2018 02:12
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