Getting into this style of gaming. what's here/coming?

[getter77]

Well, somehow or another I'd missed the boat all these years on the turn based or realtime fantasy strategy side of things, but I'm looking to change that. I just threw down for Scallywag ( I'm the Roguelike guy) and more importantly Dominions III off of Shrapnel and now my mind is wandering about as to what all is afoot along these lines.

-I've already ordered all the Disciples stuff off of GoG
-Plan to get Warlords Battlecry III also off GoG when it is available either tomorrow or somewhere in these next few weeks---can't be much longer.
-I know I need to pick up that new King's Bounty from somewhere at some point...unsure to go for a boxed or digital copy.
-I know the upcoming King's Bounty expansion sounds swell, as does Elven Legacy, and wasn't there something Stardock had in the works aside from the Master of Magic homage? Supposedly there's a Disciples III coming at some point?

So yeah, what else is roughly current and to come? Granted, my current PC can't run any of these things, but I hope to enter into the modern computing age sometime later this year.

I've not played any of the older games I've heard people mention here and there like Age of Wonders or Heroes of Might and Magic...but my plan for older ones is to wait and hope for them to arrive on GoG due to the many benefits and that GoG is by far my favorite digital distro service from what I've tried with Steam and Impulse.

I'm not sure what made this all finally "click" in my head, but it is probably due to my having some kinda maniacal Roguelike projection onto them in terms of lots of strategic depth and such.

I didn't even bother with a Demo for Dominions III or anything...this all just went on instinct with slight wavering.

 

[Korgan]

I just threw down for Scallywag ( I'm the Roguelike guy)

WORST.
ROGUELIKE.
EVER.

Why would anyone either ask money or pay for it is totally beyond me. I removed it from inventory and felt horribly cheated.

 

[getter77]

I just threw down for Scallywag ( I'm the Roguelike guy)

WORST.
ROGUELIKE.
EVER.

Why would anyone either ask money or pay for it is totally beyond me. I removed it from inventory and felt horribly cheated.

Well, most of the reviews I came across, few as they were, made it out to be at least halfway decent. That, and given the price, chance I felt that it might go OOP, and curiosity about the editor that comes with the game, well, I figured there might be some potential there to work from. I mean, I also bought Kamyran's Eye 2 and Legerdemain to say nothing of buying all the console and handheld Roguelikes that have an English release thus far...so it must be a personal quirk and/or character fault.

 

[mondblut]

You've got Dom3? You won't need another TBS for a couple of years, don't even bother.

Never played Disciples 2, but part one was a poor man's Heroes of M&M clone, which is a worthless mainstream travesty in the first place. Between Master of Magic and Dominions there are no other fantasy TBS worth bothering with. Well, unless you count King of Dragon Pass as one. And Celtic Tales: Balor of the Evil Eye, too.

 

[getter77]

Hmm...seems to be some more older ones to hope to show up at GoG then, though I think I read somewhere, maybe here or GoG or GAF, that there was some rumored issue with KoDP to where they didn't see digital distro happening due to something about the way the game was written to use the disc.

I'm cool with variety even among variations on it, what with that being par for the course in the Roguelike world, though I want to try and avoid obsoletion situations. For example, I GUESS I would be ill served to seek out Dominions 2(or 1 as I presume it exists?) from someplace considering Dominions III same as I wouldn't want to grab Fantasy Wars if, as the devs and previews claim, Elven Legacy pretty much dwarfs it on all fronts.

What about along the realtime side of things? Or are there any that exist in some nebula between turn based and realtime?

 

[Ashery]

For real time, I'd look up the Kohan series (KAG being the first, KKoW the second). The games shine in team based multiplayer games, but, unfortunately, the community never really grew large enough to endure (Even though it lasted for several years). At KKoW's peak, there were maybe two dozen people on during prime time. Last time I signed on for a KKoW game, people were lucky if they were able to get a single 3v3 going.

For single player, the campaigns aren't that great (And in KKoW, you actually get into bad habits during the campaign) and the standard ai's are laughable. Custom ai's, however, can make up a large part of this weakness and can actually be used to help train you for online play. Once you get past the learning curve, however, the ai's don't stand much of a chance unless you give them huge bonuses. The learning curve can be a bit steep, so even if you only use the custom ai's, you'll still get to see almost all the game has to offer.

After playing KKoW off and on for so long, I can't really enjoy most of the more standard rts designs (Starcraft, etc.).

The economy is incredibly simple at first glance, but actually has the perfect amount of depth. There are five resources: gold, stone, wood, iron, and mana. Gold, however, is the only one that accumulates. The others, if positive, are simply wasted. Gold is used for all construction and recruitment and, on occasion, upkeep, while the other four are only used for upkeep. If any of the four upkeep resources are negative, there'll be a deduction on your gold income (-2 for stone, -3 wood, -4 iron, -5 mana) based upon how far in the red the resource is.

A basic hypothetical situation: Upgrading a human blacksmith (normally +6 iron). Do you go for the additional production upgrade (+12 iron) or the export (+4 iron, +24 gold)? The former has a weight of 48 gold while the latter has a weight of only 40. Beyond that, however, if you have no exports and a huge military, what happens if a large percentage of your companies get slaughtered? You're stuck with a massive surplus of resources and a very meager income, ie you'll be slaughtered by your opponent before you have enough gold to recruit your force back. But then you have the other extreme: What if you're planning on recruiting units worth 12+ iron and have a healthy gold income? It'd be foolish just to build an export because it'd bump your already healthy gold income up higher if you wipe. It's all a balancing act.

As far as combat goes, all units are organized into companies and if a single unit in a company survives, the company will slowly resupply to full strength when in a supply zone (Near outposts and towns). A company in KKoW consists of four frontline, two flank, and two support slots (The frontline and flank slots can't hold different unit types, ie all four of the frontline troops have to be the same). Any bonuses a unit gives, either via an innate ability or spell, apply only to that individual company. For instance, pikemen provide cavalry foe, which gives every unit in the company +5 melee damage vs cavalry and clerics cast blessing which, if memory serves, gives +3 attack and +2 defense and also cast a group heal...thinking 35hp and 0.5 morale, but am likely off in the exact numbers. Note that while there are no physical resources used in resupplying a company, the time cost can be huge. Maps (3v3 or 4v4) are often lost when one player overcommits to the defense of one of his towns. If you send everything you have to defend a town and fight until the bitter end, unless you've inflicted heavy casualties on your opponent's side (ie forcing him to wait and resupply), he can easily press his advantage and roll your entire side due to none of your companies being able to put up a fight at 10% strength. Or, better yet, he can interrupt your supply with only one or two light infantry companies while the core of his army resupplies.

What should also be mentioned is that the player has almost no direct control over the combat between companies. When engaged, you have two options open to you: Rout and "run." Rout is pretty much self explanatory: You have no control over the exact spot your troops will rout to (They generally go as far away from currently engaged enemies as possible, but a good player can easily setup an ambush for routed companies), each unit moves at its top speed (Your light cav won't wait for your heavy inf, for instance), and units won't wait around if their captain is stunned/rooted/etc. The "run" command is just the opposite. The "run" command is how flanks are pulled off, and while flanking provides no direct bonuses (There is no morale penalty for being flanked that I'm aware of and there's no bonus damage), flanking is, to put it simply, fucking huge. One of the main differences between a vet and a semi-vet is their ability to flank.

Err...I'll stop this wall of text here, even though I've not even finished covering the basic concepts of the game...morale, experience...heh...

KKoW and KAG demos are easily found, although if you take to the high seas, good luck finding a working version.

I'd do an LP, but the genre doesn't suit LPs very well.

 

[getter77]

Hmm...also interesting!

Dominions III just got patched this morning to boot---nice sounding patch from the look of it.

Also, since I somehow just now noticed it, I went ahead and grabbed the free download Shrapnel provides ofa game called Conquest of Elysium II---thoughts? The description makes it sound like something of a precursor to Dominions III yet different enough to exist within itself.

 

[mondblut]

Yeah, it's a precursor to first Dominions, a very early 90s-style game. Think Warlords or something. Not as epic as Dominions obviously, but pretty fun to waste a few spare minutes on a couple of turns.

 

[Trash]

Don't forget about Age of Wonders 1, 2 and AoW: Shadow Magic. All three are awesome games that should work on a windows pc. Other than try to get Master of Magic to run on dosbox and you are pretty much set in the way of fantasy strategy games.

 

[JarlFrank]

Supposedly there's a Disciples III coming at some point?

Yes, it is. It's coming this year probably.

 

[JarlFrank]

Don't forget about Age of Wonders 1, 2 and AoW: Shadow Magic. All three are awesome games that should work on a windows pc. Other than try to get Master of Magic to run on dosbox and you are pretty much set in the way of fantasy strategy games.

Also, this. This stuff is good.

About Dominions 3: I've tried it before and didn't like it. Be sure to read the manual before playing in order to learn all the gameplay mechanics. And if you don't like i the first time you play it, try again. I tried the game again one or two weeks ago, and I've been playing and enjoying it regularly since then. It's a really interesting and complex game. Hard to get into, but when you've gotten into it it's a blast.

 

[getter77]

Yep, I'm hoping AoW and such arrive on GoG one day in the future...though I guess they might well be on other digital distro services already? What would be the best digital distro source for King's Bounty if I wind up deciding to go that route instead of a physical copy?

For some reason I don't think I'll be too daunted by Dominions III, well, more than the usual Roguelike like of things when suddenly there's a ton to bear in mind and become familiar with. My habit in situations like these to get a feel for scope is to read the manual, THEN read the patch changelog in chronological order so I can wrap my head around what aspects are actively being tended to, which not, and the general flow of everything---then I embark and see how it all shakes down for me. There's a learning curve to most everything, just depends on how long it takes with effort being put in.

Really do appreciate all the feedback thus far folks---always a bit awkward to stumble into a genre that's been going on for so long out of the blue like this.

Shrapnel order shipped out this morning, which is a pretty good turnaround time, so hopefully it'll at least be here to peruse somewhere in the next week or so.

 

[Ashery]

Forgive the rather dry Kohan post...Loved the game and was bored as hell last night, heh. Just be glad you were never present for some of the 2+ hour long discussions I had with a friend of mine about the minute details of the game ;p

Anyways, here's the KKoW demo: http://www.fileplanet.com/145846/140000 ... an-II-Demo

And the KAG demo: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/koh ... 12624.html

Graphics wise, most Codexers would probably prefer KAG over KKoW, but the former is far less forgiving and has a significantly steeper learning curve.

Also, I'm not sure about the KAG demo, but I know the KKoW one had multiplayer support, so if some people want to try it out, I'll grab it myself.

 

[getter77]

Hmm...looking briefly on gamefaqs, I see a Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns. It seems to be the starting point for all things Kohan---how does it jive with KAG and KKoW?

Was their some retail release that bundles up all or some of the Kohan series? Checking the digital retail sites I know of yielded nada on anything Kohan or Age of Wonders related for instance....guess they haven't made the jump yet...

 

[Ashery]

Hmm...looking briefly on gamefaqs, I see a Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns. It seems to be the starting point for all things Kohan---how does it jive with KAG and KKoW?

Was their some retail release that bundles up all or some of the Kohan series? Checking the digital retail sites I know of yielded nada on anything Kohan or Age of Wonders related for instance....guess they haven't made the jump yet...

KAG is the stand alone expansion for KIS, so KIS, while technically being the first Kohan release, essentially died wrt online play once KAG came out.

Not sure if any of the Kohan games are available via digital distribution...

 

[Eldritch]

GoG

INCOMING giant wall of advice which contains no bullshit and lots of boorishness.

Ok,

I have to say OP you got some disturbingly strange infatuation with the GoG. Why do you insist on waiting on getting even the most insanely mandatory classics which either have been abandoned by their developers or just have dead developers to appear on the GoG while you can download them from various major torrent sites bundled with excellent mods and patches lovingly added by the fans of the games who've uploaded them there so you can stop being a faggot and finally play heroes of might and magic fucking 3 ??? Why are you doing this to yourself WHY WHY WHY Why

Ok, on a more serious note, some of the games you must be playing, especially Age of Wonders:Shadow Magic have lots of great mods that turn an an already awesome game into all shapes and kinds of more awesome, (check out the "Master of Magic clones are cursed" thread for more information) are conveniently bundled in some torrent in the bay where the pirates dwell, which includes 10+ mods with various versions you would have to wrack your eyes and brain trying to hunt down on the net. (It is an old game and these things aren't exactly hosted by lotsa big servers with names like "filefaggot" etc.)

What's here, well...

The Heroes of M&M series: This legendary series is perfect for you to introduce your ass to the genre blablablabullshitcliche. How come you never played any of the fucking heroes games man, what were you doing all those years, sucking dick?

Start with Heroes II, it's more simplistic than III thus actually better for a beginner. Also has such a strong atmosphere of all things heroes. From the cheesy opera to the beautiful cartoony sprites it's nothing but adorable. Excellent game.

Then jump right into Heroes III which is just bigger and better in every conceivable way. Heroes III is p. much the swan song of the series, I recommend you remove the "Heroes III Complete" bundle from the Inventory. And please don't go into some internet faggot mode whiteknightin' teh good fight against the evils of piracy because 3DO and NWC are both DEAD. So you really aren't stealing even though nothing physical is being removed from an inventory. Because there is no inventory. There is no Matrix.

There is no Heroes IV.

Ubi/Nival's Heroes V? I say buy the stand alone "Tribes of the East" expansion only. It's the latest expansion with the most impressively improved gameplay it's barely comparable to the previous expansion and the original game. Yeah, you'll only have one campaign but there really is no worthwhile campaign in all of the HeroesV games. I guess Russians just suck at storywriting. At least for us. Just get TotE and just enjoy the good gameplay, play multiplayer etc.

You did good ordering all the Disciples games. The Disciples series strong points is it's excellent campaign, story, atmosphere, more atmosphere, insane atmosphere and mind blowingly beautiful art style. The gameplay is rather simplistic resembling Ogre Battle somewhat, good enough in the campaign and maybe in short, fast paced multiplayer sessions with 2 or 3 friends. Forget about playing the skirmish like "scenarios" because the AI really REALLY sucks. Zero challenge. The simplistic gameplay could also feel repetitive after a while but trust me that the long long campaigns and the atmosphere, trying out different factions, cool units and stuff will keep you occupied for a long ass time.

What's coming? Well, there is pretty much just one thing and ITZ coming.

The Russkies are making Disciples III (.dat and Akella). The art direction is pretty worthwhile for the Disciples series imo and they seem to be greatly improving the gameplay of the previous games. The dying Strategy First sold all its rights to the Russkies with the condition that the Russkies are bound by law to actually release the game, when they've released it it's all Akellas property. Both the Russian and the English version are going to be released in Q2 2009. This is actually my most expected game of '09.

Also as mentioned Kohan is cool, Dominions is cool, but for some really awesome blast from the past, 2 games:

Master of Magic.

Lords of Magic "Special Edition".

MoM needs no introductions but LoMSE is a reaaally overlooked gem which makes me nerdrage all the way when the subject comes out (about *this* style of gaming) when I see it almost never mentioned. A game from Sierra/Impressions (The guys who also made the Lords of the Realm games) with also a great atmosphere and even greater gameplay ideas if fully implemented at the time, would have rocked the entire industry in my reckoning. GREAT game. Just find it, and play it.

Also Warlords:Battlecry III sucks. Don't even bother.

:drunkpost:

 

[getter77]

Some good stuff in that post Eldritch.

Truth be told, it had not occured to me to seek "mega-bundle" type things out in spots like ya mention. If nothing else, I probably should go ahead and grab what mods/fan patches are out there just in case they disappear from the internet at some later date and they shouldn't take up much HD space.

Looking at Steam and Gamersgate, I see they've got that part of HOMM V you mention, as well as a 3 pack of all of HOMM V, along with stuff like King's Bounty and the like...so I guess the sensible thing to do on the more recent fare they have is to grab it off gamersgate. Not got anything from them before, but I've heard they've improved over the last couple months.

I missed out on the earlier Heroes games for the same reason as I did most PC games---didn't know to look, knew of no news sites raising awareness back then, and didn't have access to a PC outside of a library or some such. I do need to learn my way around DOSBOX at long last though, think I found a good tutorial so it is just a matter of getting around to it I suppose, though it sucks that Underdogs is "gone".

As to liking GoG/not being in a hurry, there's some reasoning behind it on my part. On the one hand, for most of the newer games, I simply don't yet have an adequate PC---though I aim to change that later this year. GoG wise, I like the convenience of having something available to me easily enough without having it on my HD as I've way to little space but lately I'm clearing it all out. I'm also just fond of the way GoG does business in terms of good pricing, no DRM, and they try to inform on mods and such via either staff or user community.

I do need to dig through that MoM clone topic...

 

[thekdawg21]

Dom3 is absolutely incredible, but single player against the AI falls very, very, short.

 

[nomask7]

Not sure why no one mentioned Dark Omen. It's probably the best single-player fantasy strategy game I've played.

Here is how to get it to work on XP:

http://en.dark-omen.org/dark-omen-and-windows-xp.html

I can't give personal guarantees, since I didn't follow that advice, and can't remember how I got it to work.

 

[Eldritch]

Not sure why no one mentioned Dark Omen. It's probably the best single-player fantasy strategy game I've played..

Indeed, ze nazi is ein mensch of good taste. OP mostly listed turn based games in his post so I guess we missed the "real time or turn based" part. If so, I'd also suggest the excellent "Myth" series with Myth:The Fallen Lords first and Myth II:The Soulblighter second to play. One of the best fucking atmospheres I've ever seen in any game. Definitely THE best story&campaign evarrrr.

I'd also suggest the "Shadow of the Horned Rat" which is the prequel to Dark Omen.

http://www.oldgames.sk/en/game/warhamme ... orned-rat/

Here's what's possibly the only working link on the entire internet from dj oldgames...

P.S.

getter77 have you received my answer to your PM? I think there were some problems with the sorcerers servers or something it kept giving error messages when I tried to submit it.

Also, -QUESTION; *Dwight Shrute* Is it okay if I give direct links to a couple of old game torrents in the bay where the pirates dwell? I'm pretty sure I once saw Taluntain freak out at some piratebay links so I don't wanna do something inappropriate here.

 

[getter77]

Yes, I got your PM's though I also had trouble sending off any reply...thanks.

More games to look into and consider...many thanks.

 

[Destroid]

Does dark omen have significant improvements over shadow of the horned rat? I have played the latter and found it excellent.

 

[Eldritch]

Well, if you liked SotHR then you should immediately remove the game from the inventory and seclude yourself in some place nice and quiet to enjoy the ride.

Because,

-it's prettier
-some might say even harder if you don't resort to replaying the most difficult missions too much and accept some losses.
-the interface is better imo.
-really good atmosphere with some delicious c&c.
-the multiplayer is... fucking awesome and I think there are still people actively playing it somewhere on the net.

 

[Eldritch]

Oh and the 3D map. Geographical factors affecting the combat nicely in every aspect. Warhammer style.

EDIT: It *has* been a long ass time since I've played SotHR though, so take my words with a grain of salt to some extent. I am going to replay it soon though now that I've found an excellent working copy from dj oldgames for Jasede to make him do a SotHR LP.

 

[nomask7]

Does dark omen have significant improvements over shadow of the horned rat? I have played the latter and found it excellent.

Did it have voice-acted dialogue? I just tried the game for the first time and didn't notice any (tried it just to see if the battle worked, skipping through other screens). Dark Omen has probably some of the best voice-acted dialogue in any game or film ever, so I'd say that may be an improvement. The music is really good too, and so is the atmosphere as a whole.