SpellForce 3 - RTS/RPG with good writing - now with Soul Harvest standalone expansion

Reloads are fast enough. It's the initial load when you are creating the level takes a while. Also sometimes when quitting the game while in-game it will load to cleanup the files.

 

I'm certainly enjoying the beta / demo. Game should be a no brainer for anyone who likes old-school RTS style games with well done RPG elements.

 

That is no problem,the codex exist for that. Alt tabing is an old school skill.

 

You can try this game for free on GOG this weekend in case you've missed the beta on Steam.

https://www.gog.com/game/spellforce_3_free_preview?pp=cb4e5208b4cd87268b208e49452ed6e89a68e0b8

 

The video looked really cool.... until the two armies clashed and the front cavalry turned around for some reason

 

I liked the dual-wielding guy practicing on a dummy while an explosive battle raged about thirty feet away.

 

I tried the GOG demo for 5 minutes before I had to go out and the map looked pretty. I see the ridiculous load time has been mentioned. The abilities the 2 characters have are a bit samey. I like that they aren't highlighting interactable objects in the environment. The UI is a bit unintuitive at first, but I'll see if that's a problem coming from me. Regenerating health and color coded loot is decline.

 

How do you sacrifice people at the altar to charge the keystones? It's greyed out no matter how many of my men I push in its radius.

 

I have a regular SSD and had no problems with the loading times. It probably takes a while if you are still using a regular HDD. I feel that the regenerating health adds another layer of gameplay, like you can try to pull back from fights, then maybe heal up a bit and strike again. Some people will like it that way, some don't, but I don't see it as a dumbed down thing at all.

 

Finished it, the sacrifice thing was a bug that was fixed by saving and reloading. All in all, I kinda liked it, especially when the AI sent wave after wave of soldiers when I attacked one of its main bases, I hope it's always this aggressive. I sucked at controlling heroes properly, mainly using the spellcasters, but I also didn't try to find out how to change active abilities (if you can change them in combat at all). I see the RTS part devolving into death-ball tactics, however, the basic soldiers are all samey and incentivizes massing them. The game says there's some rock-paper-scissors thing going on, but I didn't notice anything like that as my death-ball was ravaging the whole map regardless of anything. I'm going to pirate it when it comes out to see if they are going to build up on the things shown on this map or if they chose this one because it's the best of the lot.

You are very on-rails with the story, though, I tried both not sacrificing my soldiers and doing it and it all led to them being sacrificed, I also didn't want to give the artifact to the very obvious traitor (it's obvious the moment you meet him), but the game forced it anyway. Kind of left a bad taste in my mouth, but I know I can't expect anything more, even though there's an RPG part to this RPG/RTS hybrid.

 

Any comment on the RPG mechanics? Such as how leveling worked, if you can put points into attributes or if you have any perks/talents/skills?

 

You don't get to customize a lot in the demo, the characters you are given only have access to specific trees. They do have attributes you can spend points in as you wish. What I can gather is that it's a bit MOBA-y, in that heroes get 3 active abilities tied to keybindings. I don't know if you can change your active abilities in combat or only out of combat. Don't expect a deep RPG or deep RTS experience, it's kind of a watery mix between the two that doesn't do either one well. Like Spellforce has always been.

 

Now i will go and wank!

 

Oh, I forgot to ask, how is the building construction done? Is it like in the first two games where you had rune monuments that allowed you to summon peasants to build things? Or is it more like warlords battlecry wherein the hero himself can construct buildings?

 

Hero construct the initial outpost, then your peasants do the rest.

 

You don't control your peasants directly anymore, they spawn automatically from your outposts ready to do work you assign them. The amount of workers varies depending on how much you've upgraded the outpost. Heroes and some kind of special unit can construct outposts on specific spots.

 

Specific spots? Are these spots abundant or?

 

I guess it will depend on the map, but since the map was yuuuge (still felt cramped in the end, though, the buildings are humongous and it's kind of clunky controlling your entire army through it) in the demo the spots were many. I'd say too many. I know what they are going for, splitting your army between your outposts and harassing the enemies' outposts with skirmishes, but that kind of play requires either multiplayer or a very, very good AI that will attack you from different directions. Like I said, though, I predict at least the campaign to devolve into death-balls quite frequently.

 

It's out! I don't have time to play it today so I'll wait and see if there aren't any crippling bugs / technical issues and get it tomorrow if all seems to be fine.

 

FFS! Too many games, too little time.

 

I am "acquiring" it now, will update my thoughts on it when I try it. My expectations aren't high, though.

 

So many games I don't even have time to pirate them. And they are not under Jowood anymore. I still remember how I created a text file in game directory, wrote licence number into it, to avoid losing it, and the game said "you have problem with installation". Of course by moving the text file to different directory than the game, solved the whole problem.

 

I'm kind of poor atm. Have to wait a little.