Awesome GameSpy Update!

[Leonidas]

Originally posted by DinoDoc


I'm not sure that I like that feature. Combat effectiveness is a reasonable thing to the farther an army goes into another countries territory but I fail to see any reason for the health loss. This penalty should also taper off as the civilization advances through the ages.

DinoDoc: If I read correctly, you can send supply wagons along with your invading troops which will help reduce this loss in health. . .

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Leonidas
DinoDoc: If I read correctly, you can send supply wagons along with your invading troops which will help reduce this loss in health. . .

That's part of the problem I have with it from a game balance standpoint.

The main concerns I have are below:

1) How effectively can the balance the feature to keep the Russian defenses, for example, from being completely impenetratable, especially in light of the fact that the "Russian Winters" have played such a large role in turning back invading armies from thier territory? Such a scenario sounds disturbingly like the big money maps from StarCraft.

2) How do they plan on balancing the cost/benefit raito of the "supply wagons" to allow for deep strikes into the territory of an underdefended enemy but still keep the concept of attrition in play?

3) How is attrition to be calculated?

[Grumbold]

Conversely, if you only invade "Russia" in summer, and bite off just enough territory that you can manage before winter strikes, why would you suffer any higher rate of attrition? The two examples given have been of two armies too driven to seek a decisive battle to stop when they reached the limit of their supply lines.

Is the game going to model seasons? Its foolish indulging in too much spceculation this early (look where it got us with Civ 3) but this idea of varying attrition rates sounds hard to balance. Take enough supplies and its no advantage at all, but in a RTS where it takes less than an hour to get through the ages, have you got the time to organise a logistically sound campaign before your troops are out of date? If you are getting hit with excessive attrition for attacking the town nearest the border where your supply lines ought to be relatively short then the whole thing is a nonsense, particularly if it was your town ten minutes ago and had no noticable blizzards when you owned it (although it may of course make for good gameplay...)

[Boris Godunov]

While some cool ideas, the Russia-attrition thing is a little too rigged for me. What if you're on a random map and russia is in a temperate climate? How can you justify the attrition then? It should be based on terrain, not civ.

[Kataphraktoi]

And yes, you really can play it on your lunch hour. Playtesters so far are able to go from the Stone Age to the Information Age in roughly 56 minutes, so you'll really get to feel the march of time.

just like you can get to imperial age in 20 minutes in AoK,it dosnt mean that every game will be like that. that is what the best testers can do,not what you would do in a normal game.i hope its like that at least...

While some cool ideas, the Russia-attrition thing is a little too rigged for me. What if you're on a random map and russia is in a temperate climate? How can you justify the attrition then? It should be based on terrain, not civ

the russians have INCREASED attrition,not the only civ with attrition. your right,on temperate its not realistic.you can also conquer the world in civ3 with aztec. its about fun not realism...

[Fidel]

1) the game is being rushed
2) we will be robbed for beta
3) we will borrow a cd and play to confim our scepticism
4) we will wait for gold edition to ship for 20 bucks

nothing i read here sounded very original. nothing at all.

[tniem]

Originally posted by LaRusso
1) the game is being rushed
2) we will be robbed for beta
3) we will borrow a cd and play to confim our scepticism
4) we will wait for gold edition to ship for 20 bucks

Hmm, I don't necessarily agree with this (and if anyone remembers me posting back on the Civ3 forums, they know I screamed up and down to delay release of Civ3 but they did not listen). Any way, the game has eight months till ship and they are showing a polished game at e3. Now that doesn't mean the game is near release, just that they are months ahead of where Civ 3 was the summer before release and BHG still has eight months at least until release. They might not have a beta, but they certainly will have a polished game. I think if they continue working on it, it could be a very good game - one worthy of the BR and Civ legacies.

[Fidel]

cmon, i was just joking. i mean, i gotta be a bit sarcastic once in a lifetime yin is enthusiastic