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

[Eldritch]

Yes, SotHR had excellent voice acting.

"Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh.... Waaaarrrrppstone!"

 

[Destroid]

I gotta say though, Skaven, Orcs and Goblins make much more appealing enemies than undead.

 

[Eldritch]

Well there *are* lots of Orcs&Gobbos but unfortunately no Skaven.

Although I have to say the Undead in the game are done quiet well both artistically and conceptually. They even managed to make them quite humorous at times with the ghouls and the zombies. They're also of a rich variety of Vampire Counts and the Tomb Kings of Khemri style of armies. And the "Black Grail" was cool man. So was Nagash. The art is GREAT in Dark Omen.

But I agree nothing beats "Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh.... Waaaarrrrppstone!"

 

[nomask7]

The trolls were brutal.

 

[Panthera]

*whispery voice*

We're taking fi-ya

 

[Eldritch]

Bright Wizard: Wow, I can't *imagine* what your mamma must look like!

Troll: WaAaaAAAAAAaaaAAAAARRRRRRGH!!!!!

Bright Wizard: :Wipes away the puss and bile: LOL, that's what she said! :Burn:

 

[Eldritch]

*whispery voice*

We're taking fi-ya

When most of the slow ass infantry types constantly repeated that line it always made me go; -Yeah, Right on, you cannon fodder motherfuckers that's what you're living for -drawing fire.

I'm sure a lot of commanders irl thought the same thing when confronted with that.

 

[nomask7]

Bright Wizard: Wow, I can't *imagine* what your mamma must look like!

Troll: WaAaaAAAAAAaaaAAAAARRRRRRGH!!!!!

Bright Wizard: :Wipes away the puss and bile: LOL, that's what she said! :Burn:

As I recall, there were a bit too many of them for the wizard to handle. It was a nightmarish situation, and if I recall right, my troops took some heavy losses.

 

[Eldritch]

See, that was some beautiful C&C right there. That optional mission was hard as fuck with some guaranteed losses but the permanent cavalry regiment you get out of the whole ordeal can be considered totally friggin worth it, well, because it's another friggin cavalry regiment...

edit: Btw, have you seen Jasede's infamous Dark Omen LP here yet? If not, better check it out. It's so good it would make the Führer proud.

 

[nomask7]

I stumbled on it while looking for pix.

edit: I liked the C&C where, if you stayed to help a village or whatever, the enemy would have time to ravage some other place, assemble stronger armies there, etc., etc.... That's so basic it's amazing you can't find it in virtually any other game.

 

[Zhuangzi]

For the OP...

Disciples 2 is great fun. Highly recommended. It's not deep in any sense of the world, and you'll get frustrated with the combat eventually, but the game has a very significant instant appeal. So Disciples 3 is firmly on the radar for 2009, but it was supposed to be out last year, so who knows?

I've fallen in love with King's Bounty to the extent that I now consider it one of my top 10 games EVER (inc the likes of Jagged Alliance 2, XCOM, Master of Orion 1 etc). I guess it's basically a turn based strategy game ala HOMM with a real time quest component, but for me it was streets ahead of HOMM V.

I don't know what retail availability for KB is like where you are, but it's diabolical here in Australia. I am yet to physically see a boxed copy despite the fact that the game came out six months ago. This is where Gamersgate is very useful. I get all my strategy goodness from there.

HOMM V - the original campaign is just fucking awful. I hear this is fun in MP, but I never tried it. The Tribes of the East campaign is much better. In fact, if you want, you can buy Tribes of the East (which is a standalone expansion) and then download the campaigns for the original game + first expansion. This is all free and legal, apparently.

 

[Eldritch]

lol I've remembered you now from the King's Bounty forums.

 

[Destroid]

Kinda off topic, but you should all play battletech: crescent hawks revenge. It's got some great missions, with some limited CnC (from time to time you get to choose some different mechs that you are then stuck with, and sometimes you get to pick between 2 different missions, which will effect where you spawn and what units you spawn with on the following mission).

It's and extremely fun real time tactical game, better I feel than the mechcommander games that followed it. It gives a real good impression of the relative size and power of mechs in the game, for the bulk of it your largest mech is a 60 tonner, so when you see a 70 or an 85 its all HOLY SHIT :shock:

The level of difficulty is also pretty good (or at least was for my warcraft1 era self) but the first mission can be a real bitch, which is a bit of a turn off (tried it recently and couldnt do it lol).

 

[kingcomrade]

Weee captooored it for kaaayy osss!! One thing I miss in Dawn of War 2 was the awesome voice acting.
WIIIIIIIIIIIIITNESSSSSS YOUR--- DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

 

[Destroid]

I FEEL THE WARP OVERTAKING ME!

 

[kingcomrade]

The thing about HoMM5 is that it is so easy to lose. You misjudge one neutral encounter and suddenly you lose half your army and that's it. You'll never catch up with the competition after that. It's literally impossible because of the weekly growth constraints.

I was playin some as Stronghold, my favorite race (originally it was Necropolis), was doing well about an hour in, then I attacked a stack of 19 Thors or something like that. It said Threat: Medium so I was like okay. Then it immediately teleports across the map and AoEs half my army and I went...well, as least I had autosave turned on so I can go back to last turn when I hadn't lost.

 

[getter77]

Huzzah! HoMM is coming to GoG and Gamersgate has the new King's Bounty on sale this weekend for $10

 

[Jasede]

Hm.

Shadow of the Horned Rat
-hard
-great

Dark Omen
-fun, must play after SoHR

Fantasy General
-a better Panzer General; very good

Age of Wonders 2 - Shadow Magic
-MoM-like, not as good

Master of Magic
-legendary

Lords of Magic SE
-free to download if you know where to look
-incredibly beautiful music
-fun - for a while

Heroes of Might and Magic 2
-fairly difficult
-best music of all HoMM games - incredible

 

[Eldritch]

Hey Jas, did you get SotHR to work?

 

[Eldritch]

The thing about HoMM5 is that it is so easy to lose. You misjudge one neutral encounter and suddenly you lose half your army and that's it. You'll never catch up with the competition after that. It's literally impossible because of the weekly growth constraints.

I was playin some as Stronghold, my favorite race (originally it was Necropolis), was doing well about an hour in, then I attacked a stack of 19 Thors or something like that. It said Threat: Medium so I was like okay. Then it immediately teleports across the map and AoEs half my army and I went...well, as least I had autosave turned on so I can go back to last turn when I hadn't lost.

Well, those "threat levels" are just relevant to the creature's tier and quantity. Creeping a slow T6 walker like Treants isn't of course the same thing as duking it out with friggin Thanes who can fly and AoE half your army. You've got to know what you're dealing with, Shooters and Flyers ain't got no face you see, you've got to stick it in dey pee hole.

Of course, not every faction especially in TotE have the same ease of creeping. The savage and beautiful Afternoon Elves for example have the best and fastest capability to creep because of the invisibility&destruction spells.

 

[kingcomrade]

What do you mean? I am loathe to play as elves in any game but I might try it to gain some more experience at the game. I hardly ever use spells, they don't seem to do much and mana is really hard to come by. Another reason why I like Orks. Orks is for fightin an winnan, not muckin about

edit- Afternoon elves is the faction I wrote up here a long time ago, isn't it, you remembered it and I didn't dur hur

 

[Eldritch]

Well, I meant that knowing how to creep well is very important to get good at the game and there are few things you should care about when creepin'. First of all, disregard the "Threat Level" notifier of neutral stacks because it means almost nothing. It regards 15 Tier-6 Treants the same level as 15 T6 Thanes just because they're the same tier and same population but they are definitely NOT the same as a "threat". One is a slow-moving walker who can take tank it out against shitloads of damage which has its uses in a mixed army of a hero but by themselves in a neutral stack they're easy as fuck to pwn with your hero/shooters/casters/fastflyers/non-retal monsters/one-creature bait stacks... This goes for all slow walkers or not so slow walker melee creatures. You are in luck if you find em' guarding some place important. But if you got 15 Thunder Thanes instead, you're in for some trouble. Fast flyers, shooters, casters etc. are always dangerous even though fragile and WILL cause some serious damage if you don't have access to certain dirty tricks which are better employed by certain factions. Straightforward, cheap, late-game factions like the Stronghold have a harder time with early creeping. Such factions have other qualities to make up for that which I'll mention later.

The Angsty Afternoon Elves of the Dungeon faction has expensive but mostly fragile units which most of them aren't that useful in most areas and with some of them sucking completely like Minotaurs, and only a few really powerful/expensive dudes that are key to the faction. Their hero isn't geared towards bolstering their Attack/Defense etc. combat capabilities of their creatures either. But the Warlock hero is the bread and butter of the faction. The main playa. Teh top dawg. Most creatures of that faction are a bunch of faggots to serve as meat-shields to allow the Warlock to do his/her thing: Casting devastating DD spells for as long as you can. Warlocks can get ridiculous amounts of spellpower and just enough mana to use it when built/geared right. They are awesome with Destruction spells. If you don't recklessly use spells for everything and save it for moments when you really need it and use the map objects/hero abilities/towns to replenish it Mana isn't much of a problem. Especially late-game. Warlocks devastate armies by themselves but their creatures kinda suck and are expensive. Quite unlike the overall good butt-kicking Orkz. The Dungeon has few really powerful key units that are VERY important and are the saving grace of the faction.

The non-retal hit n' runnin' Blood Fury bitchez are good against hit-running the fuck out of slow walkers or hitting/blocking shooters first turn if you got tactics or some speed boosting stuff. But they're fragile as fuck and textbook glass cannons. What's really important for creeping are the "Stalkers". (LOL) The alternate upgrade Tier-1 guys who can turn invisible for 3 rounds and can't be targeted by the enemy if they don't attack or come in one hex near of the enemy. Against powerful damaging but fragile Shooter/Flyer/Casters you field only these guys optionally with the also invisible T6 alt. upgrade later, you turn invisible with the crazy initiative and blast those bitches with your defense ignoring awesome DD spells. Mop up the survivors if there are any left with the uncloaked Stalkers/Mistresses.

This faction might have the most extreme ease of early creeping but others with decent shooters/fast units etc. can also be considered good early creepers. The dirty tricks can allow these factions especially the Afternoon Elves the necessary early resource boost they need to feed that insatiable resource whore of a town. A faction like Stronghold has a harder time with early creeping but their creatures and abilities are awesome and not that expensive, so they must suck it up in the early game and accept some losses but PWN in the late game with their tough motherfucking creatures and excellent abilities. That Blood Rage powered damage reduction stuff is fucking indomitable. They just don't die as long as they keep fighting. Early game losses aren't as devastating to them as the expensive Dungeon/Academy. They can even afford to postpone attacking powerful creeps a bit later if they don't absolutely need their stuff. Just build up a bit more and return or use one-creature bait stacks etc. I'm not exactly a Stronghold Expert. Also use that logistics expert bitch as your main superhero. The Necro doesn't even give a fuck about losses from creeping because, well... They're Necro. What I like about Heroes V is that playstyles are really different and they all equally have a chance to work for winning in the end if you play it right.

P.S.- I really liked the Afternoon Elves T-7 upgrade of the Rainbow Dragon who had the special ability to come out of the closet- and explode... I think it was the "Closet Dragon".

 

[Jasede]

Hey Jas, did you get SotHR to work?

Not enough time yet.

 

[kingcomrade]

Destruction spells, eh? I really haven't played any of the HoMM games beyond some dabbling and haven't really figured out how to use spells well. I did read that Acadamy is fucking ridiculous with Dark Magic though, the closest the game has to game-breaking imbalance.

Back when I played Necropolis in the vanilla game I found a way to steamroll enemies. I actually wrote the guide to Necropolis that's one one of the big heroes sites, even though it's incredibly out of date now. Basically my strategy revolved around: Abusing Raise Dead (back when it let you keep your creatures rather than having them die off again at the end of the battle), massing Skeleton Archers (I think I've posted screenshots of 2 stacks of 900 or so skeleton Archers), and abusing...Vladimir, I think. I forget, one of the heroes was just awesome. I also never even bothered to buy ghosts since they were expensive and died quickly, even with their 50% evade and basically focused on an army of skeleton archers shielded off from melee by Liches and Zombies, and having the wtfpwn vampires run around murdering everything.

I tried Kohan 2, and while I adore the resource/upkeep system and city building system, I found that the actual combat part of the game was a bit lacking. I don't think not being able to control your units in battle was a good choice, especially when half the time your army will decide it needs to kill a gold mine while 2 fortresses with full unit complements of archers are wailing on them. The voice acting is SO BAD IT HURTS ears bleeding.

By the way, did any of you ever play Rise of Legends? I think it's a really fun game, but I only like one of the factions (and I think while the Alien Aztecs were a funny idea, they should really have gone with something else) and was pissed off that the final upgrade to musketeers gives them a melee attack that does like twice the damage of their guns. The whole point of musketeers is that they have guns, and guns are a bowl full of AWESOME.

 

[getter77]

Anybody ever spend any time with a game called Birthright: the Gorgon's Alliance? Thoughts on it?

Gonna grab Fantasy Wars off gamersgate in a bit for that sweet $8 deal.