RTS Revisiting Dawn of War

[lightbane]

I remember Dark Crusade had some awesome lore for the territories you conquered. It didn't change anything, but it was there.

 

[Dexter]

Isn't Winter Assault bunbdled with the Game Of The Year Edition? At least in my steam version they share the same folder.

Doesn't seem to be, I got the "GOTY Edition" and it only comes with one .exe and doesn't seem to have "Winter Assault":

Maybe it just installs in the same folder?

Now if you google around it seems everyone's favored campaign is the one in Dark Crusade, which has little story but has this whole big set up where you have to control a whole planet and everything you do in a map stays so if you have to fight there again all your structures will be there again. Haven't got there yet but it seems people liked it the most.

From what I understand "Dark Crusade" doesn't really have a Story, but some weird Dynamic game mode where you have to essentially play Skirmish maps over and over again (and sometimes the same several times) till you've conquered the entire map? https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000:_Dawn_of_War:_Dark_Crusade/New_features

The expansion features a "Risk-based strategic layer", a campaign including a "meta-map", similar to that in Westwood Studios's Dune games as opposed to the programmed, linear storylines of previous versions. Due to this lack of linearity, there is no plot aside from the opening cinematic; rather, as the player conquers various opposing factions the game provides a narrative specific to whom the player has conquered. If the player wins the campaign, a cinematic is played that depends on which faction the player was controlling.

The player may pick a faction to play as, and then engages in turn-based combat with the other A.I.-controlled factions. There are multiple provinces, which are conquered by fighting a regular skirmish match over them. These may either give a special bonus or supply special 'honour guard' units, which are powerful, non-trainable versions of regular units. They may only be made on the main battlefield overview screen, and, like provincial reinforcements, cost planetary requisition, a resource gained on a per-turn basis based on how many provinces the player controls. Honour guard units transfer over provinces and may be used repeatedly. There are also seven 'Stronghold' provinces that function as bases for respective factions; these are made like more traditional campaign games, with multiple secondary and primary objectives that vary from faction to faction.

Not sure if that's exactly what I'm looking for.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

From what I understand "Dark Crusade" doesn't really have a Story, but some weird Dynamic game mode where you have to essentially play Skirmish maps over and over again (and sometimes the same several times) till you've conquered the entire map?

Dark Crusade and Soulstorm have stronghold missions which play like more typical campaign missions, they got cutscenes, characters yelling over eachother, unique maps and mission gimmicks, etc.
You still got tedious skirmish matches in between but you can easily clear most in <5 minutes while strongholds can take more than an hour to beat and are what you'll spend most of your time on.
If you want something more plot driven you should look at Dawn of War 2 and it's DLCs or Battlefleet Gothic 1/2.

 

[Dexter]

If you want something more plot driven you should look at Dawn of War 2 and it's DLCs or Battlefleet Gothic 1/2.

Already played DOW2 in CoOp a few years ago while it was still a GfWL game, might get back to it later, although from what I remember so far the Gameplay is more disappointing than in the first part.

Battlefleet Gothic 2, played that during a Free Weekend and bought it after since I really liked the story and presentation (much better than say "Space Marine"). I think I'm almost through with the 2nd part after a few dozen hours and can definitely recommend it as a "dark" 40K "For Teh Emprah!" story campaign (although the fleet battles get a bit repetitive after a while), but I was intending on trying the first after I'm done with DOW.

Other 40K games I've been wondering about are Inquisitor Martyr and Mechanicus.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Dark Crusade and Soulstorm have stronghold missions which play like more typical campaign missions, they got cutscenes, characters yelling over eachother, unique maps and mission gimmicks, etc.

they're the capital regions missions.

 

[hello friend]

Dawn of War: Soulstorm, Camera mod that allows you to zoom out a little bit further, and Thunderhawk are all you need. Thunderhawk provides improved matchmaking and some bugfixes.

Not sure what the best way to get Thunderhawk is these days, some quick googling turned this up.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I enjoyed the original DoW. Yeah, it's easy, but the game was tops. Honestly, voice acting was the best I'd seen from a game in a LOOOOOOONG time.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

We. Must. Kill!
Enemies... Need. More. Enemies.
Rrrrrah! When do we attack?

It is better to die for the Emperor than live for yourself.

The Emperor protects.


almost every phrase is as iconic as "Go! Go! Go!"

 

[lightbane]

The stronghold missions were the best, especially the dialogue, doubly so with Orks and Necrons.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Gorgutz was always a favorite.

Edit:
(70) Winter Assault - Gather Da Clans! - YouTube

 

[Dexter]

almost every phrase is as iconic as "Go! Go! Go!"

You forgot "I fear no evil, for I am fear incarnate." and "Burn the Heretic. Kill The Mutant. Purge the Unclean."

Sometimes short and to the point is good.

 

[Jaedar]

Maybe it just installs in the same folder?

Winter assault is a proper old school expansion, so it does install in the same folder as the base game, and you can't just have winter assault installed (unless steam does something fancy). DC and SS are standalone expansions.

Not sure if that's exactly what I'm looking for.

If you like dawn of war, you should give DC campaign a try. There really aren't very many straight up skirmish missions once you get down to it, especially if you are fine with not getting 100% map ownership.

 

[baud]

Maybe it just installs in the same folder?

Winter assault is a proper old school expansion, so it does install in the same folder as the base game, and you can't just have winter assault installed (unless steam does something fancy). DC and SS are standalone expansions.

Not sure if that's exactly what I'm looking for.

If you like dawn of war, you should give DC campaign a try. There really aren't very many straight up skirmish missions once you get down to it, especially if you are fine with not getting 100% map ownership.

For the DC campaign, in addition to the strongholds assault, there's a few maps that play differently, like one where you can't build anything and have to make do with a massive force, another where you have to capture servitors scattered around the map and one where you have to kill x (maybe 200) enemies to win.

 

[Dexter]

Maybe it just installs in the same folder?

Winter assault is a proper old school expansion, so it does install in the same folder as the base game, and you can't just have winter assault installed (unless steam does something fancy). DC and SS are standalone expansions.

Yeah, I'm done with the Campaign from the main game and moving on to Winter Assault now. After I bought the "Master Collection" pack, Winter Assault was a (80MB?) install, if that. And most of what's used seems to be with the main game install. Dark Crusade is a 4.21GB and the other one a 5.37GB install.

The only mission I had a bit of trouble in the Main game campaign with on Hard where I had to Reload is "Unholy Ceremony", and that likely because I overextended, didn't expand in the right directions in the beginning and tried attacking the middle and I was a bit tired at that point. Last two missions were easy, didn't even need to build any units to defeat the final boss.

 

[catfood]

Play Final Liberation.

 

[Baron Dupek]

This unification shit seems a bit of a clusterfuck

Sounds like most (all?) big mods for Dawn of War, not sure if that also apply to Company of Heroes mods too.

 

[Dexter]

Winter Assault is definitely the more tightly "designed" Campaign, but it has mostly kinda annoying, gimmicky missions, The first has you have an easy time or a hard time depending on if you decide to attack on one or both sides, the second has some long serpentine pathways and pathfinding issues with a lot of units.

Third mission where you have to protect the Eldar was the hardest. But only because of the mission design that can fuck you and takes away control from your troops. If you try to do what the "Objective" at the beginning says in the hope of going undetected? Good luck fighting the rest of the game with 2-3 barely surviving Eldar Squads. You have to not move them at all and Upgrade/build as many as you can. Does the Cutscene at the end of the 2nd Warp set in with a lot of troops either left behind at the old base or in the Warpway? Tough luck, buddy. Have fun beating the map with only the Imperial troops. Took a few tries until getting it right.

The fourth mission with the Imperials expects you to play in a very specific, sneaky, non-prescribed way or is otherwise almost impossible. I dno how many times I restarted because I got overrun like 2-3 minutes after the map starts because the convoy you're supposed to escort automatically runs right into the enemy horde. Fifth mission seems to depend on which faction you finish the fourth mission with (you can switch between Imperials and Eldar). The final mission is either ez pz if you wait with building any reactors till you've upgraded your base and done everything else or hard if you start right away like the objective tells you.

Also started playing Dawn of War II again in CoOp on the "Captain" difficulty. I barely remember anything, since the last attempt was like 10+ years ago. It's fun enough, reminds me of the StarCraft II campaign with the planet map, travelling between them, "events" happening all the time, party banter between missions as the story progresses and Cinematic movies etc. playing very often. But it ain't really an RTS, more of a squad management game/light ARPG hybrid where in CoOp every player gets to control two squads.

Got some questions that I didn't find any obvious answers for so far:
- Can your inventory get full or does it just keep expanding?
- Are there any important/secret missable things like missions to look out for or non-obvious points of no return, where one should do other missions first?
- Is there any way to make the UI larger/scale at 4K? Also have an "issue" on rainy missions where you can lose track of your mouse cursor, because it's so small that I think is related to this.

 

[Jaedar]

- Can your inventory get full or does it just keep expanding?

Iirc it just keeps expanding, but you get xp for trashing wargear?

- Are there any important/secret missable things like missions to look out for or non-obvious points of no return, where one should do other missions first?

Iirc no.

 

[Dexter]

Btw. one of the things to praise the first "Dawn of War" for is the settings regarding Persistent Bodies/Scarring.

At the end of the map it actually looks like a battle took place there with the terrain being deformed from shelling and untold amount of corpses lying strewn about. Does any other RTS game do this?

 

[Baron Dupek]

Speaking of that mission in Winter Assault, where you have to protect Eldars going through their warpgates - for some reason control points income was strangely hindered despite decent number, +89 or +110 or something like that? but it felt like you just started in skirmish match.

 

[what am i doing]

Btw. one of the things to praise the first "Dawn of War" for is the settings regarding Persistent Bodies/Scarring.

At the end of the map it actually looks like a battle took place there with the terrain being deformed from shelling and untold amount of corpses lying strewn about. Does any other RTS game do this?

Supreme Commander. Actually it goes a step further, since you are using robots, you can reclaim battlefield wreckage and use it to boost your Mass supply, so it actually has a very important gameplay purpose and isn't just for looks.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

DoW was my first entrance into the 40k world actually. Loved it. The game was awesome and the way Angelos executed Isidor was just great.

(70) Dawn of War - Even the Gods Know My Name - YouTube

 

[lightbane]

Btw. one of the things to praise the first "Dawn of War" for is the settings regarding Persistent Bodies/Scarring.

At the end of the map it actually looks like a battle took place there with the terrain being deformed from shelling and untold amount of corpses lying strewn about. Does any other RTS game do this?

Supreme Commander. Actually it goes a step further, since you are using robots, you can reclaim battlefield wreckage and use it to boost your Mass supply, so it actually has a very important gameplay purpose and isn't just for looks.

Damn, that look after a heavy battle was awesome. The classic Total Annihilation did that as well, and it was even more important since due the 2d map, fallen units could be used as cover (or unintentional obstructions!).

 

[Mark Richard]

At the end of the map it actually looks like a battle took place there with the terrain being deformed from shelling and untold amount of corpses lying strewn about. Does any other RTS game do this?

The Men of War series goes one further, with dynamic terrain deformation having gameplay applications. Damaged buildings, destroyed tanks, and bombed craters all become a new source of cover and concealment. In terms of the aesthetical value though, each battlefield looks like it's been absolutely devestated. By the end there's kinda this sense of 'I won... but at what price?'

 

[Norfleet]

Damn, that look after a heavy battle was awesome. The classic Total Annihilation did that as well, and it was even more important since due the 2d map, fallen units could be used as cover (or unintentional obstructions!).

Or intentional obstructions, in the direct opposite of the Zapp Brannigan tactic. If an enormous horde of enemies filed directly into your death cannons, pretty soon their advance would be clogged by their wreckage.