SpellForce 3 Reforced + Soul Harvest & Fallen God standalone expansions

[Rinslin Merwind]

Safav Hamon fantadomat Alienman
People what are all talking about? It seems every single person played his own version of original Spellforce 3.

For example I perfectly remember how in original game I managed to win strategic mission without any base, just with my heroes. I decided to sacrifice my base because enemy spawn rate without my base was surprisingly lower than with base.

No blocking enemy base or something, just letting your people die and building in destruction while my "heroes" was storming enemy buildings - that was fucking ridiculous. I also remember that when I rushed into enemy's camp and saw no supply lines and later I saw confirmation from other people.

Apparently AI was always teleporting resources, it's just player who was bound by disadvantages of supply lines. Sometimes I cannot help, but think that maybe rts almost extinct not only because actions of EA or people being generally stupid or slow to play that kind of games, but because it's impossible at this moment of our technological progress to make AI capable of actual strategy and not only spawn endless hordes out of ass and direct them. I was hoping that devs in DLC will improve AI, but, oh well, I guess maybe in distant sequels.

 

[ArchAngel]

Safav Hamon fantadomat Alienman
People what are all talking about? It seems every single person played his own version of original Spellforce 3.

For example I perfectly remember how in original game I managed to win strategic mission without any base, just with my heroes. I decided to sacrifice my base because enemy spawn rate without my base was surprisingly lower than with base.

No blocking enemy base or something, just letting your people die and building in destruction while my "heroes" was storming enemy buildings - that was fucking ridiculous. I also remember that when I rushed into enemy's camp and saw no supply lines and later I saw confirmation from other people.

Apparently AI was always teleporting resources, it's just player who was bound by disadvantages of supply lines. Sometimes I cannot help, but think that maybe rts almost extinct not only because actions of EA or people being generally stupid or slow to play that kind of games, but because it's impossible at this moment of our technological progress to make AI capable of actual strategy and not only spawn endless hordes out of ass and direct them. I was hoping that devs in DLC will improve AI, but, oh well, I guess maybe in distant sequels.

You want this? https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/24/deepmind-ai-starcraft-ii-demonstration-tlo-mana/

 

[Parabalus]

Played a bit and it's much better than SF3 on release.

No bugs, extremely faster loading times, and the pace in the RTS part is much faster. The reworked skill trees seem better, and heroes were weakened so they can't solo the RTS part anymore.

Too bad barely any people play it.

 

[ArchAngel]

Start of this expansion is hilariously bad.
1. They kill Tahar off screen after all he has done.
2. Why is Tahar still called Corporal Tahar? Shouldn't they promoted him to General if he was in charged of Wolf Guard after the war?!

 

[Parabalus]

Start of this expansion is hilariously bad.
1. They kill Tahar off screen after all he has done.
2. Why is Tahar still called Corporal Tahar? Shouldn't they promoted him to General if he was in charged of Wolf Guard after the war?!

Did you finish it already and learn what happened to Tahar?

 

[PsychoFox]

I've just started playing the original SpellForce 3. In 2019, after years of patches and fixes, i gotta say the game is perfectly playable AND enjoyable. Wouldn't say it's the deepest RPG or RTS, but it's satisfying enough. This is not a game where you have tons of choice in shaping the outcome of the story, or building very unique characters. All of that is very limited actually. But what's there - the story, characters, and presentation, is very well done. I'd say worth a play, but definitely not a classic or anything. The only thing that really bothered me is the modern delivery of the dialogue. I mean, the characters all talk like the girls living next door from my apartment.

PS. Hearing Geralt's voice coming out of some other character's mouth is heathen/eldritch blasphemy and must be rectified with the application of an appropriate amount of fire.

 

[Parabalus]

Should play it in German if possible, like the Gothic games the original is much better than the dub.

 

[PsychoFox]

Hey that's a good idea!

 

[deama]

I like the original spellforce games more.

 

[ArchAngel]

Start of this expansion is hilariously bad.
1. They kill Tahar off screen after all he has done.
2. Why is Tahar still called Corporal Tahar? Shouldn't they promoted him to General if he was in charged of Wolf Guard after the war?!

Did you finish it already and learn what happened to Tahar?

No, I am just commenting what they tell you at the start. They say they found Tahar's body and buried him.

 

[PsychoFox]

Well that was a great idea, playing the game with German VO. I might not understand the words themselves, but the delivery sounds full of care and emotion - and quite competent. The English VO just falls flat.

 

[PsychoFox]

Well, even though i still think this is an okay game, ultimately i had to decide to stop playing. I played for about 10 hours and I think i'm gonna put the game on hold for now.

This game has a lot going on for it. The story is gripping and very well written, the presentation is excellent, and nowadays it's relatively bug-free. The game really shines when you are in the RPG-only mode and fighting in big, open spaces. It gets much worse when you play in the hybrid (RTS/RPG) mode though, specially if you have to fight in cramped spaces. I found myself fighting with the stupid AI and struggle with the camera and the fog of war more than being challenged by the actual quests, which really sucked. I think it's best if i just summarize the pros and cons of the game in list form:

Pros
+Good story
+Interesting characters
+Nicely written dialogue
+World-space design, overall graphics, sfx, shadows, lighting etc.
usic
+RPG skills/stats/classes (maybe a bit too simplistic but i liked it)
+Complementary abilities and classes

Negative
-Shoddy AI which gets worse in larger conflicts. The units/heroes never seem to manage to keep their distance with the enemy in check. This problem is exacerbated by the inability to set up formations. When moving my party around, my squishy mages ended up always being in the front of the party instead of the tanks, which lead to a lot of unnecessary deaths.
-Loading times are LONG (even on SSD) which really makes it all the more frustrating since you will have to reload a lot thanks to the AI.
-The narrators always narrates the loading screens. It gets really grating after the third time hearing the same paragraph being read out to you which is just crap icing on this crap cake.
-Path-finding while competent in general, is horrible in combat, resulting in units getting stuck/attacking the wrong target/or just not attacking anything at all.
-The camera and fog of war really hinder your control of the map. Really this game shouldn't have fog of war. Having to explore the map for the first time is okay but the fog shouldn't return. The fog distance is really short too, resulting in you not being able to see enemies that are only a few feet in front of you in some cases.
-The interface design is really really stupid. They decided to cramp all the important ability hotkeys in the top left corner and wasted the bottom half on character portraits and unimportant stats. This should be the exact opposite. I can't reiterate how stupid this design choice is. You have to see it to believe it.

The worst thing about these cons is how they complement each other. By themselves each of these elements are minor frustrations at worst, but together they really bring the game down.

Ultimate (at least for now) the cons outweigh the pros and so i've decided to stop playing. I know this might be beating a dead horse, but i've just come around to playing the game and i thought i vent a bit.

 

[ArchAngel]

I can agree that pathfinding is terrible during combat. Lack of formations for heroes also does not help. I noticed that your troops will put themselves in a formation where squishes are in the back so at least that is useful.
Melee troops tend to leave your other troops immediately and often end up on other part of the map if left to their own devices (usually dying to some towers they cannot hope to defeat alone).

Game needs the player to micromanage the battle instead of just watching it. I guess not everyone likes that. I noticed I can just outproduce the AI by making new troops faster then it does so I just manage my heroes and let normal units do whatever and die :D

 

[PsychoFox]

Admittedly im not the best RTS player in the world. A lot of my frustration with the game would be mended if there was a (more decent) pause option. Being able to reorient the AI would have helped a great deal. I'm surprised to hear you can outproduce the AI though. From what i understand it cheats like a ...

 

[ArchAngel]

Admittedly im not the best RTS player in the world. A lot of my frustration with the game would be mended if there was a (more decent) pause option. Being able to reorient the AI would have helped a great deal. I'm surprised to hear you can outproduce the AI though. From what i understand it cheats like a ...

Yes but you kill their troops with heroes easily. It just sends troops towards you and lets them die. Then it retreats after it lost half the troops letting you murder them with ranged skills.

 

[PsychoFox]

Admittedly im not the best RTS player in the world. A lot of my frustration with the game would be mended if there was a (more decent) pause option. Being able to reorient the AI would have helped a great deal. I'm surprised to hear you can outproduce the AI though. From what i understand it cheats like a ...

Yes but you kill their troops with heroes easily. It just sends troops towards you and lets them die. Then it retreats after it lost half the troops letting you murder them with ranged skills.

Well i haven't written the game off yet. I'll go back and try again at some point.

 

[PsychoFox]

So I was wondering, can anyone share some info on what ability scaling means in this game? When it says for example that 'Call of the Forsaken' scales with willpower, what does that actually mean?

 

[ArchAngel]

So I was wondering, can anyone share some info on what ability scaling means in this game? When it says for example that 'Call of the Forsaken' scales with willpower, what does that actually mean?

It means that all numerical values go up as you raise that stat. Things like damage, healing value, number of targets and so on. It depends from ability to ability.

 

[PsychoFox]

So I was wondering, can anyone share some info on what ability scaling means in this game? When it says for example that 'Call of the Forsaken' scales with willpower, what does that actually mean?

It means that all numerical values go up as you raise that stat. Things like damage, healing value, number of targets and so on. It depends from ability to ability.

Yes i figured that much
Is there a source to see exactly how the attributes affect abilities?

 

[Parabalus]

-Loading times are LONG (even on SSD) which really makes it all the more frustrating since you will have to reload a lot thanks to the AI.

The loading times in the addon are about 10x faster than the main game.

There will supposedly be an enhanced edition of the main game (additions from the xpac, like new UI and talents), so it might be worth checking out then.

 

[Galdred]

I also miss the caravans going around with different supplies, I thought that was a fun and neat system.

That was a dumb mechanic, and the reason all the veteran RTS players hated it.

Switching to global resource distribution made the gameplay five times faster and it's the best decision they could have made.

I would count myself as a veteran RTS player (just a former good Dawn of War player, not a great one by any stretch of the imagination).
I have not played SF3, but to me, the Spellforce series never was aimed as veteran RTS players (who care mostly about competition, and not SP content).
The SF series always felt like a light RPG with traditional RTS elements tacked on.
I actually think it would have worked better to base the RTS part on a RPG that didn't feature base building(aka Myth, Dawn of War 2 solo campaign), because it really doesn't mesh too well with the RPG elements (first of all, because RTS are very abstract by nature, which doesn't go too well with "deep lore"), so changing the gameplay for veteran RTS players feel wrong to me.

 

[PsychoFox]

-Loading times are LONG (even on SSD) which really makes it all the more frustrating since you will have to reload a lot thanks to the AI.

The loading times in the addon are about 10x faster than the main game.

There will supposedly be an enhanced edition of the main game (additions from the xpac, like new UI and talents), so it might be worth checking out then.

Yeah i've heard that it's the case with the loadings. That's great. I might jump into that game. And if the enhanced edition really is a thing that addresses those concerns that would be wonderful. I haven't heard anything it about it myself though.

I would count myself as a veteran RTS player (just a former good Dawn of War player, not a great one by any stretch of the imagination).
I have not played SF3, but to me, the Spellforce series never was aimed as veteran RTS players (who care mostly about competition, and not SP content).
The SF series always felt like a light RPG with traditional RTS elements tacked on.
I actually think it would have worked better to base the RTS part on a RPG that didn't feature base building(aka Myth, Dawn of War 2 solo campaign), because it really doesn't mesh too well with the RPG elements (first of all, because RTS are very abstract by nature, which doesn't go too well with "deep lore"), so changing the gameplay for veteran RTS players feel wrong to me.

Yes I agree. For me, SpellForce 3 was the most enjoyable when it was RPG-only. The RTS aspect is very barebones and they have unique model expansion. The biggest problems with it is that, one, the ally AI is not all that great and requires a lot of micromanagement to be effective (which is superflous stuff on top of already having to micromanage several heroes), and two, that the AI cheats like a bastard.

I also wish they went with the DoW2 model. It *kinda* is like that with the game's expansion system (which is basically capturing requisition points and building around them), but still too much work overall.

 

[Parabalus]

Played a bit more and ran into some broken quests after the dark elf capital, guess it ain't much better than the base game in that regard.

Yeah i've heard that it's the case with the loadings. That's great. I might jump into that game. And if the enhanced edition really is a thing that addresses those concerns that would be wonderful. I haven't heard anything it about it myself though.

It's advertised in-game in the expansion, no date though.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/122387-spellforce-iii-soul-harvest-accolades-trailer-reviews.html

GameWatcher 8/10:

Building on its predecessor’s mixture of RTS and RPG elements, SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest provides an engaging recipe that we don’t often get nowadays. A stand-alone expansion in the traditional sense, exploring its 20-hour long story campaign means uncovering a plot with significant consequences alongside a handful of charismatic companions. Whether delving into ancient ruins as a party of four or leading armies on the frontlines, Soul Harvest’s unique blend of RTS and RPG is one worth experiencing.

AusGamers 8/10:

Overall production values are great with all dialogue having accompanying voice acting and when talking to NPCs you’re often presented with several dialogue choices - many of which expand the world’s lore and current events. With several quality of life and mechanic upgrades from SpellForce 3, Soul Harvest is an enjoyable experience that scratches both the RPG and RTS itch. A blend that still feels unique to this series, and one that continues to impress all these years later.

GameSkinny 8/10:

At the end of the day, I'm also assuming that all this difficulty stuff won't matter to a lot of you, because the game really is great, and worth playing no matter whether you're a fan of the series, a fan of real-time strategy games, or even a fan of role-playing games.

It's unique, fun, and challenging in all the right way. And hey, if it stresses you out, you'll know early enough.

IndianNoob 8.6/10:

SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest is a fitting sequel to SpellForce 3, and is a marked improvement over the previous game. The perfect balance between real-time strategy like Age of Empires while managing the equipment of your characters like Divinity Original Sin makes this game a joy to play through. I highly recommend getting it. The full price is ₹980, which is a very good price for the content offered in the base game. There’s also mod support to extend the game into the direction you wish. Get the game. Highly Recommended!

 

[JarlFrank]

Apparently AI was always teleporting resources, it's just player who was bound by disadvantages of supply lines. Sometimes I cannot help, but think that maybe rts almost extinct not only because actions of EA or people being generally stupid or slow to play that kind of games, but because it's impossible at this moment of our technological progress to make AI capable of actual strategy and not only spawn endless hordes out of ass and direct them. I was hoping that devs in DLC will improve AI, but, oh well, I guess maybe in distant sequels.

Age of Empires II HD has a pretty decent AI that can be a challenge even to experienced players because of how effectively it does its build orders, uses its resources to build units constantly rather than floating big amounts of them, and keeps pressuring the player with raids early on.

It can also be cheesed by, for example, building towers near the enemy resource camps. They won't know how to deal with it and will keep sending villagers to die under the tower's arrow fire.

Other than that it's an excellent AI that plays the game well without a single cheat. You can sabotage their economy and win out by keeping them from having any resources.

Relying on magical resource gains out of nowhere for AI is a stupid cop out for devs who are too lazy to bother with proper AI programming - or, heck, even just scripting simple AI behaviors. RTS economies aren't so complex you can't just use scripts as a bandaid for the AI. It would definitely be a better and less noticeable bandaid than giving the AI cheat codes.

I haven't played SF 3 yet (but it's on my wishlist, gonna buy it once my backlog has been whittled down a little), but I assume the economy is based on villager units collecting resources and carrying them back to base.
Simple hacky scripts like "If villagers < 10, build villagers until amount = 10, send 5 to food, 3 to wood, 2 to gold" would be enough to keep at least some semblance of a working economy if your AI is too dumb to handle it dynamically. This kind of script could guarantee a steady resource influx, because you know how many resources per minute each villager will collect, so if you give the AI a simple script like this you can control exactly how many resources it will gain. You can even do some mild cheating by adding higher resource counts to enemy resource harvesting spots (say, the average gold mine has 1000 gold in it, but the one in the enemy base has 3000). That way the enemy would get a bonus in a war of attrition, but you could still win by attrition or sabotaging the economy by killing villagers.

Since it is so fucking easy to hack together an AI that can keep a basic eco going, I don't think the issue is dev incompetence. Heck, the improved AI of AoE2 HD compared to the vanilla AI was programmed by a dev team that originally started out as modders. If modders can do that, a team of professional programmers can, too.

The issue seems to be one of creating artificial difficulty, and laziness of level design. If the AI operates under the same rules as the player, the levels must accomodate the AI as well as the player. Sufficient resources have to be placed in the vicinity of the AI base so they can keep an economy going. If you just let the AI cheat, you don't have to give a fuck about resource placement. A gold mine wouldn't make sense in the middle of the enemy's walled city? Just leave out the gold and give them an invisible source of income, problem solved. Also, by making the AI cheat you create artificial challenge that can be easily scaled with difficulty levels. Lower difficulty levels give the AI a lower resource trickle, while higher difficulty levels give them a huge bonus. So easy and hassle-free, much easier than adjusting the AI's behavior or modifying the amount of resources on the level based on difficulty!

Here's a video of the original Age of Empires 2 AI fighting the HD version's AI:


No cheating, no free bonuses, just AIs playing the same legal way players do.