Turn-Based Tactics The Feud: Wild West Tactics

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/291840/announcements/detail/2907595185814853304

Along with all the other features of the upcoming free content patch are two new events for Saga mode.

The first is a “Trip Out West” event that introduces the Desert to Saga mode. Battles that you encounter on your trip take place in the desert maps. Also watch out for catching dysentery on your journey.

The second is the “Abandoned Mine” event that brings a new type of location that was only seen in a single-story mode map previously. In the Abandoned Mine event you’ll get to do battle in over 80 different abandoned mine setups that utilize the same new tech that allowed us to expand the map count to over 3000 in other areas.

We’ve included some shots of the mine event below.

There is just one more “small” thing we’ve been cooking up for the content patch. So keep an eye out for further updates where the final feature will be revealed!

 

[Saduj]

Have all the updates made this game any better? Also how prevalent are the quick time events?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Saduj]

I've been playing this on Saga Mode. TLDR: All of the individual parts are very basic but the game is OK if you're OK with that.

Saga Mode is about taking over the map by capturing resources using posses you recruit. There are hero characters that you either start with or who show up as the game progresses for no cost and there are four tiers of recruits you have to purchase. Lower tiers appear in the recruiting pool more often than higher tiers but it seems to improve a little as the game progresses. To give you an idea, there are five members in each posse and I currently have four posses with six hero characters. I have three tier 4, one tier 3, three or four tier 2 and a bunch of tier 1 recruits. Difference between the tiers is big enough that level 1 recruit of a higher tier is generally better than a levelled recruit of a lower tier. Tier 4 recruits are on par with or better than hero characters, at least at lower levels. Characters can come with perks or quirks and heroes have perk upgrades on their skill tree. The first two tiers of recruits sometimes have quirks that make them useless such as a 50% chance every turn to have half movement or even "you can use their first AP but the AI controls their second AP after you end your turn". You can see this before you pay for them so it is really only an issue for starting characters. Perks give passive upgrades or special abilities. Recruits advance a level by your choosing between one of two passive bonuses and each character seems to have a random tree for this. Hero skill trees have additional options that grant or upgrade perks. Each character also has an assigned weapon type and certain weapons are better than others, at least on low level guys. As an example: Tier 1 melee characters are destined to die quickly due to low HP and movement but a tier 1 recruit with a repeating rifle can stick around and be useful. The hero melee character is a beast and I imagine the same is true for tier four. Lastly, you can add items to characters that improve various stats and higher tiers can add more items than lower.

Combat is basic 2 AP system and both AP can be used to attack. Abilities are pretty much "use them as soon as available". Some of them even stack and have cooldowns lower than their duration. A few abilities are more situational but when to use them is obvious. The tech tree can grant you explosives but so far I haven't had the chance to use them. Some perks also let you lay traps but I don't have any of them either. Combat is deadly for low tier guys, who go down in 2-3 hits and things get worse for them as the game goes on and enemy posses become filled with an improbable amount of high level tier 3-4 recruits who have powerful perks (this is "unfair" but it is really the only thing that prevents the whole thing from becoming a cakewalk). If you're fighting in your home territory, you usually get an AI controlled ally to help you out. Sometimes the AI is aggressive and pulls off some nasty moves but usually it plays defense and just tries to get a kill or two before it loses. AI definitely cheats on how often the enemies can rebuild posses and the AI seems to get better horses with longer map movement more quickly than I've been able to manage. There are ways to improve the odds with tech but so far I've only had the chance to acquire one horse with added movement while the enemy posses all seem to have extra movement. All this adds up to the AI's path to winning being grinding your parties down with repeated battles so that they diminish faster than you can rebuild them. I know they said they just added a slew of maps to the game but I've seen the same maps often. The maps are also small but given the AI's tendency to retreat, this is a good thing. QTEs are optional and become available when a meter fills during combat. It is basically a chance to get a free, high damage auto hit. I'm not a fan but I use it in desperate situations. There are also enemies that have a special icon over them and they can't be damaged in cover so the only way to take them out is to flank.

Strategic layer is completely broken. I'm pretty sure resource placement is random, but I have tons of some resources and shortages on others. Money is the big limiting factor. Trinkets, recruits, horses and the good tech upgrades all cost money and the supply is very limited. Tech advancements fall into two categories: First is "take it because it doesn't cost money and I have a ton of the required resources". And then there are expensive ones that you need to save for, which is tough if you also want to spend cash on good recruits. Tech can help with production (only the extra money ones matter), combat effectiveness, recruit/horse pool, access to extra mission types, access to explosives and various other stuff. Alot of the tech doesn't really matter and only thing that keeps the strategic layer from being useless is the shortage of cash. You defeat an enemy faction by successfully attacking their home town four times and there will always be decent defenders present even if there is no enemy posse at home when you show up (not sure if you get the same, but my educated guess will be that if you fail to intercept an attacking force, you get shitty defenders). There are also random events you can see on the world map - extra resources, injuries, bandit attacks, hunts (these are boring but give your party XP), etc. Edit: There may be some towns on the map that allow you to convert extra resources to cash but I haven't seen them in my game. This would make the entire game much easier.

If this sounds bad to you, you'll probably be bored with the game. The only challenge really comes from getting worn down and having to defeat superior posses with sub optimal parties. I'd say the game is OK for someone who likes the underused setting and just wants a new light tactical game.

 

[Saduj]

Played through the story campaigns on Normal (you have to complete the 1st campaign before Hard unlocks anyway). I would recommend it only if you're looking for something with brief tactical missions you can finish in 10 mins or so each just to pass some time. The AI in the story missions seems to perform better than in Saga mode. It will try to flank, focus fire (especially on wounded characters) and generally tries to have its units close enough to cover each other. Once in a while a unit will waste a turn running in circles or one will charge in alone and die but that is the exception. Even in the easiest campaign playing on Normal, having a character go down during a fight isn't a rare thing (there is no penalty for this in the story missions). But if you keep your units together so that they can support each other, it is hard to lose. First campaign was easy. 2nd campaign is the most difficult but mostly due to "cheating" in ways I don't like. There are the "guardian" units that can only be hit from the flank and, in some situations, the game decides that the only "flank" is directly behind the unit. The thing that really bothered me is that enemy weapons seem to have much longer range than your weapons of the same type in the later missions. The 3rd campaign is somewhere in between the other two - no guardians or range cheats. Haven't tried it yet but I imagine that "Hard" would pose some real challenges but my guess is that it accomplishes this through buffs that are unavailable to the player.

Also, I'm convinced that the game doesn't properly display the % to hit. Just as an example: A 51% to hit through heavy cover will almost never land. But I've hit three 47% chance to hit in a row on a flanked character. I know it could be random chance but having played the game a fair amount, I'm pretty sure something is off.

As for Saga mode, I had to abandon the game I was talking about in my previous post because one enemy faction has a posse I just can't beat. Seven characters (player max is five) and they are all maxed levelled heroes and legendaries. Not sure what other buffs they have but they rarely miss and do massive amounts of damage. And some of those legendaries that can one shot my lower tier guys are "guardians" who can only be hit from the flank. They can also travel in tandem with another posse, occupying the same hex on the map, which the player can't do. My best squad gets ROFL stomped by these monsters. Even if I made an all-star squad of my best five guys, which would involve wasting a dozen turns or so bringing everyone home, I doubt I could defeat the AI's Magnificent Seven. From what I've read on the Steam forum when a player inquired about something similar to this, the AI factions don't play by the same rules the player does - which is good because the AI frequently fails to take resources it could easily grab. The AI gets more powerful by winning fights, not by holding resources. Defeating enemy posses will weaken the AI factions and you can kill their levelled characters. But heroes don't die and legendaries have a much higher % to be wounded than dying after going down in combat. So once a faction recruits an army of legendary units, those units are going to be around and continue to level for the rest of the game. I think what happened in my game is that one AI faction was winning fights against the other AI factions early on through luck. Then it started winning every fight because it had access to better guys. And because it was mostly fighting the other AI factions, I wasn't beating up on it and weakening it. So by the time I started encountering posses from that faction, it was too late. May give Saga another try some day but for now, I'm moving on to Stirring Abyss.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]