what game(s) are you playing these days?

[Skanky Burns]

That it does. Nevertheless, it is fun. I've got an army of sword sisters that I have trained up from peasant women.

[Jon Miller]

DoD

JM

[hexagonian]

RTW short campaigns.

And I just fired up some AOW2 after 1-1/2 year break.

I just wrote off CotN after some games. By far, the least challenging city builder.

I've had this urge to play some SMAC, but I never get around to actually doing it.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
That it does. Nevertheless, it is fun. I've got an army of sword sisters that I have trained up from peasant women.

It looks pretty lame to me.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by hexagonian
RTW short campaigns.

I'm still getting millage out of MTW - completed the viking invasion expansion, but still have to finish the main game

And I just fired up some AOW2 after 1-1/2 year break.

i always get confused with the games that sound like this? Is this the fantasy game where you control elves in a TBS? If it is i was looking at the game disk the other day and planning to give it another go too.

I just wrote off CotN after some games. By far, the least challenging city builder.

thats sounds bad - i was planning on picking this up when i got a new pc. Did you try all the patches etc?

I've had this urge to play some SMAC, but I never get around to actually doing it.

SMAC is still fun(and challanging i find) and its one of those games i find real easy to pick up for a while then go back to later on

I'm currently getting back into Daggerfall(a break from FFE!) as i've never kept going in this game like i have with Morrowind, and Daggerfall is much better in most of the right ways.

Fire Emblem is my shinny new time sink, and a very enjoyable TBS too - reminds me of gremlin graphics 'Space Crusade' but with a DnD setting and many more unit types which is great

and always lurking not far in the background is the brain busting FM2005 - very very addictive.

[duke o' york]

This thread has gone acronym (I know, initials then! ) crazy!

[hexagonian]

Some more acronyms...

Originally posted by child of Thor
I'm still getting millage out of MTW - completed the viking invasion expansion, but still have to finish the main game

I always meant to go back to MTW_VI, as I got it right before I got RTW. But I keep getting sucked into the pretty eye-candy...

Most of my problems with RTW are tied into the clunky interface that tends to make the game drag once you get a large empire, so I stick with the short campaigns. And I can live with the weak AI because I really enjoy managing the battles.

I'm a little leery of getting RTW_BI, when it appears that Activision is releasing a patch for RTW that will address many of the AI problems - no need to get RTW_BI when I can milk more gameplay out of RTW. I will wait for a huge price markdown.

Originally posted by child of Thor
i always get confused with the games that sound like this? Is this the fantasy game where you control elves in a TBS? If it is i was looking at the game disk the other day and planning to give it another go too.

Age of Wonders II - Yeah, that's the one.

Originally posted by child of Thor
thats sounds bad - i was planning on picking this up when i got a new pc. Did you try all the patches etc?

I'm fully patched...
Don't bother - the game has a lot of problems - the biggest one is that it is incredibly dumbed-down in comparison to previous CBs. In fact, all you have to do is stare at the map, and presto, you win. I'm overstating here, but you get the idea...

Actually, the premise of CotN is sound (the gameplay is very distinct and different from previous CBs), but the implimentation of the gameplay is poor and really needs to be injected with some difficulty and variety.

Tilted Mill is now tackling Caeser IV. My hope is that they retain the 3-d of CotN and scrap everything else. And I am really hoping, because I like CBs a lot...

For me to trash a CB means that I am really disappointed in it. Thankfully, I got my copy of CotN from EB as used.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by hexagonian
edit.....

I'm fully patched...
Don't bother - the game has a lot of problems - the biggest one is that it is incredibly dumbed-down in comparison to previous CBs. In fact, all you have to do is stare at the map, and presto, you win. I'm overstating here, but you get the idea...

Actually, the premise of CotN is sound (the gameplay is very distinct and different from previous CBs), but the implimentation of the gameplay is poor and really needs to be injected with some difficulty and variety.

Tilted Mill is now tackling Caeser IV. My hope is that they retain the 3-d of CotN and scrap everything else. And I am really hoping, because I like CBs a lot...

For me to trash a CB means that I am really disappointed in it. Thankfully, I got my copy of CotN from EB as used.

And i would probably say nearly the opposite, i always felt moving this series into 3D would create more problems than it solved Still I am sad to hear its a bit of a lame duck, as it sounded very intersting.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by DrSpike
It looks pretty lame to me.

Because good gameplay is always the result of good graphics?

[Adagio]

Originally posted by child of Thor
And i would probably say nearly the opposite, i always felt moving this series into 3D would create more problems than it solved Still I am sad to hear its a bit of a lame duck, as it sounded very intersting.

I agree, many games are better in 2D than 3D. Only the companies with the capital to actually finish the game the move to 3D could make the game better, but such companies are rare

[Sava]

Originally posted by Grandpa Troll


no but I will search for it

thanks

A good site to get BF1942 and other BF2 news is http://dx.ampednews.com/

you can download mods for those games from there for free... you just have to register...

[duke o' york]

Originally post by bADGer
I agree, many games are better in 2D than 3D. Only the companies with the capital to actually finish the game the move to 3D could make the game better, but such companies are rare.

Firaxis ain't one of them.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns


Because good gameplay is always the result of good graphics?

No, because it looks lame.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by child of Thor


And i would probably say nearly the opposite, i always felt moving this series into 3D would create more problems than it solved Still I am sad to hear its a bit of a lame duck, as it sounded very intersting.

None of the problems are 3-d related. It is actually a nice looking game.

Interesting quote from one of the developers of CotN talking about the difficulty of the game...

============================
It is a design issue.

First let me say something. You can build a huge private society. One without a government at all. Is there anything wrong with that?

Oh, people will come into 'your society', find out that it is a sham, and go back to being a villager for a while. Then maybe they change their mind again and decide to become a shopkeeper- again. Basically you are just a cult figure promising one thing and delivering another.

The fact that nothing really bad happens is interesting as the ‘faux society’ is not big enough or complex enough for enough people from across all walks of life to overthrow you. It is the fact that everyone has to be angry at you at the same time that makes overthrow as rare as it is.

In the tradition of gaming I would admit that overthrows should have been more frequent. IE- A good rule of thumb is games are more enjoyable when you overcome a challenge with failure consequences.

Sidenote observation from me: They at least acknowlege what makes a good game and do not sugarcoat that..

As far as messing with the numbers, in order to make the economy work the chain of values is like some massive Rube Goldberg machine. You can't change anything without affecting the whole system. [/b]So we had to make some careful choices, and seeing as how the masses say our games are always too difficult - we erred on the side of caution. [/b]

The larger and more complex a city, the easier it is for an overthrow.

Sidenote observation from me: There is no compelling gameplay reason to build a big city in the scenarios that shipped with the game. And a playtest that is actually running on autopilot (no player input after the city is established) currently going on at the official forum site contradicts his statement.

Next time we should put the threshold controls and values in a table that can be tweaked.

If we had another six months on it, I think it would have been cool to have riots, or segments of the population that could have enraged other segments, creating a tipping point. This was far more difficult to implement than we originally thought it would, hence the comment about six months. Also, you can add that more ‘evil edicts’ involving your military forces could have been interesting. Ever live in LA?

But we live and we learn.
============================

Bottom line: The game shipped before it was done. Ever hear that refrain before???

The hope is that they are aware of this issue and will address it in Caeser 4

[Adagio]

Originally posted by hexagonian
None of the problems are 3-d related. It is actually a nice looking game.

From the screenshots I've seen Pharao looks much better, and is a much older game...