Gamespot article on TBS vs. RTS

[Provost Harrison]

Damn, quote instead of edit...

[Provost Harrison]

Where in the name of god did this post come from?!

[Dauphin]

Deity - 36, 35 , 34.

Good work PH.

[Provost Harrison]

It was a genuine error, I remember what happened, the damn thing logged out before I had written a post, so I selected the back list to go back to the appropriate screen after I had logged back on, but went back to the wrong window and posted the message again. DOH! Meant to edit it, but instead quoted it...I didn't realise this at the time...

[Dauphin]

I believe you, though thousands wouldn't

[St Leo]

<i>It is not merely the "opiate of he masses" as Sid (mis)treats it.</i>

Yes, it is. It's just that in EU the masses get withdrawal symtoms and don't like the masses hooked on a different variety of the opiate.

[shawng1]

St Leo,

Umm, no it isn't. Because (for instance) different religions have different tech trees. Different religions have different bonuses that their religions bestow on the nations that follow them. You can only Royal Marry (and thus hope to diplo-annex) nations of the same religion. Etc.

Yes, there's the "opiate" thing too. But it is not SIMPLY that at all. And it certainly isn't swept under the rug as a legitimate historical factor, as it is in Civ.

[shawng1]

Provost,

I don't know where there's a downloadable demo of EU now. They're actually getting ready to release EU2 in a month or so, so if you wait until its out, you can get EU really cheap. Though I see it around now for $20. EU2 is supposed to let you play any nation in the world from 1419-1820. It's supposed to include more religions, and more government options. Its also supposed to let you hire privateers.



I'm going to wait until Christmas to get it, as that'll give me time for Paradox to get the bugs out. Paradox has a nasty habit of needing to release a patch to make their games truly stable.

[Dauphin]

When is EU2 out. Surely not before Christmas?

[shawng1]

Big Crunch,

Actually, last I heard (and I frequent the EU board), they are on target for a Nov 8 release. But I'm still waiting for Christmas. It'll give me time to get wound down from CivIII anyway. I won't be bored with it by then, but I won't be in "I can't play anything else" mode anymore.

[Dauphin]

Nov 8 release

Brill

[shawng1]

Provost,

By the way, you said some hate it. Some of the people here? Or some of the gaming reviewers?

Thee are two types of people who hate EU. 1) The typical "I don't want to think gamers" who consider Command & Conquer and Age of Empires "Strategy" games even though one needs about as much long-term thought to play them as to clip one's nails.

2) People who are so wedded to turn-based games that they cannot stand the thought of anything that isn't a click-fest being done in "real-time." Though in reality "continuous time" might be a better description of EU. These same people usualy dogged out another really good game, Shogun, for having RT combat in it, though in the context of that game it was perfectly blended.

Is EU for everyone? No. It's way too deep for the first crowd I mentioned. And if people are really wedded to turns (like some are really wedded to real-time) then you won't go for it either.

But in terms of depth, replayability, and pure scope, only Civ matches it on the first two, and even Civ fails to match it on the last.

Not that its a better game than Civ. Just a different game, with a lot of historical sweep in the truest sense of the word.

[Moral Hazard]

Just thought I'd add a few more thoughts here.

Concerning Shogun, the part that I really enjoyed was the RTS battles. The strategic part was done well and was a nice complement to the battles, but I felt the core of the game was in the battles. I spent alot of time in multiplayer where it was just RT.

EU, I don't hate this game at all. It is however far from one of my favorite games. My gripe centers around the fact that alot of the time you were fixing things like hunting down rebels, or maintaining other nations attitudes and ensuring your alliances were steady. I just felt that my time is gobbled up by maintainence, rather than strategy. Since I have a limited amount of time, I want to enjoy almost every minute of a game.

[shawng1]

Moral,

There are tactics for keeping the level of revolts down without a whole lot of micromanagement, there'll always be some if you're explanionist, but isn't that par of history. I always found it kind of amusing in Civ that you'd take a city and maybe a couple wimpy partisans would pop up, but as soon as you bought a Temple, everything was hunky-dory. As for alliances, I don't know that maintaining alliances isn't a strategic choice. If you try to go to war with the whole world, you'll find life a difficult thing. That's pretty historical.

I haven't found any of those so involving that they kept me from thining strategically. That is, unless I was the Spanish or the Austrians and I had to deal with the Dutch revolt. But in that case, I knew what I was getting into when I chose those nations.