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Incline Hey hey people, it's the SsethTzeentach thread

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Nov 23, 2017
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I heard a lot of praise for TA but not much about TA Kingdoms, mostly not-so-great impressions


Well, Total Annihilation is one of the best RTS games ever made, and Kingdoms sucks, which makes it suck even more since it's a follow up to Total Annihilation. Kingdoms is just all around a very weird choice as a follow up; as it doesn't do any of the things that made TA interesting, and it looks worse since they couldn't pull off the more humanoid characters with the simple 3D models like they could the mechanical units of Total Annihilation.
 

Dayyālu

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Kingdoms is a mess, particularly compared to stock TA. It's not bad, it's a mess.

From what I read Cavedog hit big with stock TA, but Kingdoms was pretty much a victim of the art/storyfag department taking direct control and overshadowing refinements about gameplay. Kingdoms does feel like a storyfag RTS, without the proper weight behind it (Homeworld and Myth it ain't). The Iron Plague is an amusing expansion, but the balacing is completely out of whack and Cavedog collapsing didn't help. Particularly weird considering that stock TA had a plot with.... I dunnow, THEY FIGHT and it was all ambience. If I remember they had some fuckhuge plans for the multiplayer mode, some weird thing about persistent universes or something. I don't remember.

Pity tho, the TA model of RTS evolved with SupCom and then disappeared bar some half-failures. It deseved better.
 
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The game is quirky and clunky but I love it, one of my favourite RTS without a doubt. Possibly the most diverse and interest set of units in any RTS and highly asymmetrical factions that all play excellent. Really nice traditional medieval style artwork and some good voice acting. A long, quite fun campaign but punctuated with bizarre seemingly unfinished levels. It's a testament to its qualities that it's still so enjoyable despite its issues.

Comments on his (overly negative) video:

The flying unit issue is way overstated. Flying units do fly back n forth in avoidance (which makes them look and behave more like actual flying units than in other games) but they're also very good in groups, especially the dragons which when used correctly can become hit-and-run I Win units. A little bit of micro goes a long way.

Veruna is an extremely good race with great diversity. Kirenna can quite easily beat Thirsha in a fight. She can swim and summon her buildings in the ocean making it really easy to regroup from an attack. The Zhon swamp beasts are pretty overpowered as he says but do have counters.

The unit visuals are fairly rough at times but you'll never have trouble differentiating between unit types which is a far worse problem that many RTS face. The terrain visuals are at times quite pretty.

The units are not explained in the game but I don't consider it a problem at all. Sacrifice does the same thing and in my opinion it works - instead you have to experiment with units and their special abilities and find what works as opposed to being told everything at the outset which takes away that sense of discovery. Many of the units have interesting abilities and quirks that are satisfying to discover while playing.


If you're looking for a highly polished and tightly designed RTS there are far better choices but if you're looking for an unpolished gem with lots of interesting little details, diverse units and a really great storytelling aesthetic then I would definitely recommend.
 

Kabas

Arcane
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The ost of this game is nowhere near at the level of TA despite being made by the same Jeremy Soule. I wouldn't call it bad though.
Also, i thought those beach maps looked very pretty.
 

Catacombs

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So basically, we only need to buy and play Total Annihilation (1997) instead?
I grew up on TA. One of my fondest memories was playing on the plateau level and fortifying myself. I put two armies on the opposite corners and spam-build Big Berthas. The artillery rained fire on the invading mass, and I spent hours figuring out how to hold back the tide. Good times.
 
Last edited:

Dayyālu

Arcane
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The flying unit issue is way overstated. Flying units do fly back n forth in avoidance (which makes them look and behave more like actual flying units than in other games) but they're also very good in groups, especially the dragons which when used correctly can become hit-and-run I Win units. A little bit of micro goes a long way.

Yes, he's flat-out wrong about flying units. The heritage of TA Air spam is strong, Gunships in stock TA could clear everything in SP with no effort whatsoever.


I grew up on TA. One of my fondest memories was playing on the plateau level and fortifying myself. I put two armies on the opposite corners and spammed built Big Berthas. The artillery rained down fire on the invading mass, and I spent hours figuring out how to hold back the tide. Good times.

The fact that TA's artillery is affected by gravity is amusing. I do remember even a campaign mission where you start in some kind of canyon and the enemy long-range artillery can't reach your base, but when your units crawl over the edge it becomes a turkey shoot.


If I can sperg a bit, maybe there are reasons why TAK flopped. Again, if I remember right, Chris Taylor wasn't involved in TAK, explaining some of the problems in faction/unit balance (that are also present in TA, but a bit heavier in TAK). Also, enviroment. TA had to deal with a fairly inferior opposition and it was honestly flat-out superior (TA is 97, right?), in full Warcraft-clones era and the incoming C&C Tiberian Sun will prove a messy game. TAK had to deal with Starcraft.

And I can't find what the fuck I meant with the "persistent universe" thing. Maybe I remember wrong and Cavedog wanted to do a Battlenet clone. I can't find much info on TAK online, unsurprisingly enough.
 

jackofshadows

Magister
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
4,487
I had to start my PC like that(with a screwdriver) for a while when I didn't have a case :M
My gorgeous Silencio 550 case has 1 problem: power button there towards the top so after some *snacks eating* time (maybe a year or so) it got stuck, so I fixed it but it got stuck again and again, and I was kinda drunk that day once, so I went to fix it and slightly ripped off the power wire from the button.

Since then I turning it on by connecting wires like the hijackers in movies which is impressing some guests from time to time.
 
Joined
Nov 23, 2017
Messages
4,010
Kingdoms is a mess, particularly compared to stock TA. It's not bad, it's a mess.

From what I read Cavedog hit big with stock TA, but Kingdoms was pretty much a victim of the art/storyfag department taking direct control and overshadowing refinements about gameplay. Kingdoms does feel like a storyfag RTS, without the proper weight behind it (Homeworld and Myth it ain't). The Iron Plague is an amusing expansion, but the balacing is completely out of whack and Cavedog collapsing didn't help. Particularly weird considering that stock TA had a plot with.... I dunnow, THEY FIGHT and it was all ambience. If I remember they had some fuckhuge plans for the multiplayer mode, some weird thing about persistent universes or something. I don't remember.

Pity tho, the TA model of RTS evolved with SupCom and then disappeared bar some half-failures. It deseved better.

The guy that created Total Annihilation had left Cavedog before Kingdoms to form Gas Powered Games...who a decade later would be the ones to make Supreme Commander.

War Winds, Warzone 2100, Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim, Myth I guess...the RTS genre is littered with the corpses of those that fall slightly outside the mold of Dune 2 & Command & Conquer.
 

Ezeekiel

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 19, 2016
Messages
1,783
A few years ago I got the TA bug again and there were still people organizing multiplayer leagues iirc.

SupCom 2 was an interesting effort, but it always crashed for me after a while and it still does with a completely different pc.
 

baud

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Joined
Dec 11, 2016
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RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
A few years ago I got the TA bug again and there were still people organizing multiplayer leagues iirc.

SupCom 2 was an interesting effort, but it always crashed for me after a while and it still does with a completely different pc.

SupCom 2? The one made for consoles? The first SupCom was fun, but I found the second inferior
 

PrettyDeadman

Guest
1 hour 20 fukken minutes??? That's one heck of a review.
It's not even a full review unfortunately. He gated the rest of review under ???likes??? or smh. Told he will unlock it if people will show enough interest (as him to review the rest of dlcs).
 

Kabas

Arcane
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EXE3oE4X0AMtynX
EXE5b30X0AArPy0

That's some nice artwork
Artist twitter - https://twitter.com/Jack_Burton27
 

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