152 replies to this topic

[Tesunie]

Shar Wolf, on 10 April 2014 - 06:23 PM, said:

I wouldn't say that similar - I still play AOE1 and 2 though.
Also still play WC3 (would play WC2, but I no longer have the disk)- which plays more like AOE than DOW does...
(or AOE plays more like WC3 than DoW? something like that)

You make units. You have "builders". You progress through "ages/technology levels". You collect "resources". You create (and unlock/upgrade) units to protect and attack with. A lot of similarities there at least. The skin and flavor is different, and you have squads instead of individual units to command...

WC3 may be closer to AoE than DoW, but I'd say they are still related enough to be in the same family. Consider DoW to be AoE's cousin or something...?

[Alaskan Nobody]

Tesunie, on 10 April 2014 - 06:31 PM, said:

A basic description of any RTS

.........

Marack Drock, on 10 April 2014 - 06:53 PM, said:

About.. Every Strategy Game I have ever played. Rise of Nations, Galactic Battlegrounds, Civilization, StarCraft, MechCommander I and II, Command and Conquer (All from 1 to 2 all expansions) etc.

You are still missing that bit about the squad based real time strategy games, no?
The underlined one is the only one I on the list that I have played (not overly familiar with RoN or GB) that has squads instead of units as the standard - and it fails (for all of it's distinct awesomeness.) in the fact that it is not a Real Time Strategy game.

Yes you can make "squads" in any RTS - but guess what?
You can do that in DoW - while having the bonus of having actual squads

In other words it is the difference between built in VoiP that people so desperately want - and requiring the third party addons such as T3 or Skype or whatever.
Alternatively
The difference between CW built by the users (what we have in MWO now) and what PGI has promised.

Get the point?

Edited by Shar Wolf, 10 April 2014 - 07:02 PM.

[Tesunie]

Marack Drock, on 10 April 2014 - 06:53 PM, said:

About.. Every Strategy Game I have ever played. Rise of Nations, Galactic Battlegrounds, Civilization, StarCraft, MechCommander I and II, Command and Conquer (All from 1 to 2 all expansions) etc.

I'd have to disagree on this one. Each of those played well to themselves, but so many of them played as almost exactly the same as the each other with only a slight skin change for most of them.

Galactic Battlegrounds was interesting, but I found DoW to retain pieces of game play that somehow kept me coming back to it again. (I should reload this game onto my computer again...)

The version of Civilization I had was by far a different game than any of the others mentioned. Their turn based game play made things different, but I was not much of a fan for it personally.

Starcraft looks like a brother/sister game of DoW, with a different lore and story to it. I could be wrong here, as I only saw the game being played a couple of time and never owned it myself.

Mech Commander 1 and 2 are completely different from just about any of the other real time strategy games mentioned, with different mechanics and play styles. You didn't (as far as I recall) build additional units in the game. Instead, you created a team within the drop weight allowed (described as a dripship tonnage limit, which matches lore) and had to complete all your objectives with that team. It was/is a very good game still in it's own rights, but I find it to be too dissimilar to DoW, or even AoE to be able to be compared well in the same manner. (It'd be like comparing Space Marine, the PS3 game, to the Table Top game, or to even DoW. Or like comparing Battletech TT to Battletech Alpha strike to MWO (or other MW titles).)

Any statement on what game is good will always be a statement based on opinion. Not that opinion is bad, but not everyone will agree with it, for their own reasons.


What kept me coming back to DoW personally was that different races really felt different when playing them. If I got tired of playing the game, I'd just try a different race in the game, and it was almost like playing a whole new game for me. This was the defining contrast of DoW compared to many similar styled games for me. Each race really was different from the other in more than just looks or a couple of stats or different units options, but really different in play. This continued on with each expansion, as Imperial Guard have different advancements and unit/squad options from Space Marines, or Tau even... Each race had it's own perks and disadvantages to work with.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Tesunie, on 10 April 2014 - 07:10 PM, said:

DoW, one of the few different-but-equally-balanced games in existence.

That and the "psuedo-space-horror" theme and I can see how you compare SC to DoW -
Gameplay other than that feels absolutely nothing alike to me though - the whole squad thing (as minor as that technically is) did more to make the game feel like it's own thing than anything else in it though. (for me anyways )
I am sure you will forgive me for paraphrasing you on this bit.

[Tesunie]

Shar Wolf, on 10 April 2014 - 07:15 PM, said:

I am sure you will forgive me for paraphrasing you on this bit.

Except for the Necrons... The Necrons could have used another balance pass. I mean, making troops for free? Not even needing a single capture point? People would just Necron Zurg (make a free unit, send it against the enemy base, make another free one while the first is moving, upgrading the first as it moves too. Rinse and repeat with constant waves of Necrons from the start of the game). Few other people can keep up with the constant attacks taking away from their attention, and resources to rebuild and replace units...

The Squad based game play did seem to be something that separated DoW from other RTS games. Sometimes, it would give you a chance to save a squad by remaking a lost trooper, instead of just losing the unit in other similar games... And I feel they did a lot to make each race play in a different flavor. And even in each race, there were different ways to play each one to give them an additional flavor change... (Tau for one, which path will you choose? Better upgrades? Or better units? Kaun'ya, or Mont'ka?)

[Alaskan Nobody]

Tesunie, on 10 April 2014 - 07:46 PM, said:

(Tau for one, which path will you choose? Better upgrades? Or better units? Kaun'ya, or Mont'ka?)

I hate that choice

Edit:
Necrons are slow enough that anyone who can produce plasma weaponry or the like (blasted Tau and their basic rifles! grrr) can toast them rather easily - in the single player campaigns at least.

Edited by Shar Wolf, 10 April 2014 - 07:50 PM.

[IraqiWalker]

Shar Wolf, on 10 April 2014 - 04:18 PM, said:

I'll try to look into those, thanks!

Hidden and Dangerous plays mostly from a third person perspective when you choose to take control of a specific soldier, However, you play as ONE squad, but control each individual member solo, you can give them orders, and switch between them. You can also give orders over the mission map to ease tactical deployment and each one is a specialist in their own right.


Commandos plays in a similar manner, except that it's always top down, and I think it doesn't have Fog of War.

[Tesunie]

Shar Wolf, on 10 April 2014 - 07:47 PM, said:

I hate that choice

Edit:
Necrons are slow enough that anyone who can produce plasma weaponry or the like (blasted Tau and their basic rifles! grrr) can toast them rather easily - in the single player campaigns at least.

I played some multi-player matches with friends. One of them liked Necrons. He showed us the Zurg move once, and then we were done with it. Good for a quick laugh...

Tau have the advantage of range. By the time the (slowish) necrons got close, the Tau could already kill a large portion of them. But, combine them with a deep striking Flesh squad (can't recall their name), and things could get messy quick from just a single "spotting" necron squad...

The computer would do the Zurg with every army. Necrons it was worse on. Of course, it could also get over the max of 20 units for the Imperial Guardsmen... something my group has never figured out how it could do. (Along with always knowing where your stuff is...)

My biggest problem with DoW was, the computer had two settings. Stupider than stupid. Or so cheating smart that it knew what you were doing and was nearly impossible for two people to take one one computer of that level. (And not to mention the computer would be able to team up on you, even if they were not on the same team, and kill you, then kill each other off... sometimes...)

[Alaskan Nobody]

Tesunie, on 10 April 2014 - 08:47 PM, said:

My biggest problem with DoW was, the computer had two settings. Stupider than stupid. Or so cheating smart that it knew what you were doing and was nearly impossible for two people to take one one computer of that level. (And not to mention the computer would be able to team up on you, even if they were not on the same team, and kill you, then kill each other off... sometimes...)

I feel you with that one - but as I have yet to play any game where that didn't describe the AI players, I'm not holding it against DoW.

The AI in the campaign always nuked my Flayed Ones before they could do anything - and I didn't have much problem doing the same to them... but that may be the AI bein stupid on me, where it was smart on you..... or something
(are you really going to make me think while fighting off this cold? You may qualify as more evil than Abaddon!)

I never had anyone to actually play against though - so my experience comes purely from playing the campaign (on easy only for the Necrons because the AI tore me apart so badly.... I had always thought of them as one of the weaker factions in the game )

....wish Soulstorm had run better though.

[Tesunie]

I kept my Flayed Ones at my base, ready to deep strike where they were needed. Then use warriors and any vehicles as needed for defense. (I'm a defensive player, who concentrates on protection first, and then crushing the enemy with a moving live of defense, which is strange as lately I've become more aggressive of a player in most any game, ready to rush in if I feel there is a need...) This lets me bolster my defenses where they become weak, till I can finish building up an army. Then, with only one squad scouting, I could then deep strike my Flayed Ones later in the game on their door step, enmass... Ripe as much as I could appart, and replace losses as the pile up. If the assault is still going on once a new squad is made to replace a dead one, I'll deep strike them in to provide continual aid.

Flayed Ones where the key to my offense/defense protocols. If I really am doing a push, I'll bring my lord over, behind my lines. Every now and again, use the resurrection abilities on fallen units, and every now and again I could have more squads than the max permitted. Helps keep the pressure on the enemy...

(Though my defensive lines worked best with Tau, and their super long range guns. Pair up 2 fire warrior squads with a single path finder squad, and I was shooting things I couldn't technically see... Especially with Kounya path increasing their range and armor (and damage). I could win games with just fire warriors, pathfinders, and as an end game, the Drone Harbinger! I wished that was a TT model... Anyway, just send in endless drones created from the harbinger. Eventually they wear the enemy down and let you break through. Or at least distract them from your base and stall them...)

[Alaskan Nobody]

You mean there are other ways to really make use of the Flayed Ones?!
Never really helped unfortunately - both me and the AI kept a backup-line of soldiers just waiting for them to show up.

The range on the Fire Warriors was beautiful - take the extended range upgrade (good battle armor/tanks or extended range FW..... grrrr) and the only thing that outranged them (that I recall...) was the IG Artillery - the beautiful Basilisk.


Which was another hard choice - Baneblade + 3basilisk or 2 Leman Russ..... cannot have all 6.

[Tesunie]

Shar Wolf, on 10 April 2014 - 09:23 PM, said:

Which was another hard choice - Baneblade + 3basilisk or 2 Leman Russ..... cannot have all 6.

That one I'd choose the Basilisk.You keep people away from it with your infantry, and then while in the melee swirl, drop some shells in. Your shells hurt your opponent and do nothing to your troops (from what I recall) but toss them around. Also, upgrade your troops to Grenade Launchers. They tossed the enemy around, and they would have to stop and reform before closing in again on you. This could stop/delay a charge from getting to the squad, letting them shoot for a few more moments, doing that much more harm. (Like upgrading Space Marines with a mix between plasma (I think) and Missile launchers. Plasma to kill, missile to toss them around.)

You learn a lot of tricks trying to beat the computer on hard by yourself, or teamed up with even teams... (I also used almost every army in that game... which probably helped.)

[Alaskan Nobody]

If I am fighting Necrons or other "heavy" infantry - I stick at least one plasma gun in each squad - or more frequently several plasma guns at one grenade launcher.

And yeah - usually the Basilisk is the better choice - but every now and then sending the Leman Russ to back up the Baneblade works better - rather like those "counter-meta" builds that are usually garbage....unless you are fighting the meta.
(though how it relates to B-B-B-B vs B-LR-LR I cannot think right now)


Missiles I ran for a long time for the knockdown - but then my luck turned and the RNG decided it didn't like me and they kept....not working (IE flying just off or the like)

[IraqiWalker]

Shar Wolf, on 10 April 2014 - 08:55 PM, said:

(are you really going to make me think while fighting off this cold? You may qualify as more evil than Abaddon!)

I'd say he might qualify to be as equal as the evilest character in the entirety of Warhammer 40K. Honsou the Warsmith.

[SnagaDance]

IraqiWalker, on 10 April 2014 - 10:41 AM, said:

Speaking of which, what are the odds of two guardsmen not only regrouping after losing the other 8 members of their squad, assaulting a squad of wyches, and then proceeding to obliterate that entire squad? Because I saw that happen with my own two eyes. Everyone was just laughing as we watched the guardsmen survive round after round and killing 1 or 2 wyches each turn.

I can still remember a game back in 3rd Ed. where my Ork bikers had practically obliterated an IG Ratling Sniper squad, only the attached Priest was still alive. His turn came and he tried to kill my bikers with a lot of firepower but in the end 2 still remained. This was very bad for the IG player because they would open up his flank and I would be able to roll up (the remains of) his army.

But wait! He still had that Priest and he was armed with a Laspistol, which could fire 2 shots with a penalty.
So he needed to hit on 4+ but double shot so 5+, but the bikers had a dustcloud helping to cover them so that became 2 times a 6+. Roll......2 hits!

Ok, no worries, that's a S3 Laspistol vs T4 Orks that are on bikes for an extra toughness increase to 5 so that means he'll need another 2 sixes to wound. Roll.......2 wounds!

Ok, this was going ridiculous but at least I still had 2 5+ armour saves. Roll......failed.

Mr. dead-eye Priest had coolly gunned two onrushing Ork bikers. In the end helping the game end in a tie instead of a horrible defeat.

Chances of that happening? 1/6^4 * 2/3^2 = 4/11664 or a one in 2916 chance. Excellent story material.

Btw, if you like squad based combat. The Close Combat games are also rather old but really good. I've only owned Close Combat: Normandy but have heard good things about the other versions as well. You work with army groups on a strategic map where you move units into areas. Where units meet a battle occurs. If one of the fighting army groups did not move it counts as the defender and gets options for digging in and such.
You then select the units that will participate in the battle (16 units max. iirc) as chosen from the army group list (which actually gets depleted so throwing the same army group into battle after battle will grind it down.
Units consist of certain numbers of men. A sniper 'squad' is just one man, a bazooka or machine gun team is 2, a rifle group is 8 etc. Every man has an individual weapon, with individual ammo, has individual morale etc.

So you have a rifle squad with a support machine gun? Making lots of long range fire with that MG might leave it without ammo for when things get close and nasty, leaving those troopers with back-up pistols or something. Troopers that run out of ammo might pick up weapons from killed friends or even enemies. Troopers can be pinned down, flee when broken or even entirely desert. While they may be rallied by simply reaching cover and staying there safely for a while or encountering one of your command squads that order them back into the action.

Damn, describing the game has made me want to play it again! Better try and see if I can get it to run on Windows7. Need to get some of those 1st Airborne troops into heroic battle again or maybe need the challenge of using understrength units of low morale Ost Truppen to try and hold the beaches until better army groups arrive from the hinterlands.....

[IraqiWalker]

SnagaDance, on 11 April 2014 - 12:40 AM, said:

Great post.

That priest was definitely blessed by the emperor that day.

On the other hand, I've never heard of the Close Combat series, I will definitely look it up.

[SnagaDance]

Do check out the series!

I've forgotten to add that each map area has a specific battle map and that the direction from which you come determines which side you deploy on. Based on the average troop quality of a battle group you might have more or less area for deployment in a meeting engagement (if you're an actual defender you usually have most of the map).
Maps also 'remember' any damage. So craters from mortars, bombers or naval support fire remain in play. As does damage to buildings, tank hulks etc. so when you fight several times on a map it will become more and more a war zone.

Maps have multiple objectives on them (a church steeple, the top of a hill, that glider from which you have a great field of fire etc.) and capturing them all makes you win a battle and push out the enemy army group. You have 15 minutes (RT, but pause-able for toilet breaks etc.) in which to accomplish this but often this is not enough time. Maps tend to be fairly big and having your troops run through the open to get all objectives quickly is usually a death sentence, oh they also can get fatigued, undermining their combat effectiveness but I digress.
So what you do is that you often try to capture positions in a steady forward push to keep your force concentrated, intact and able to engage the enemy. The points that you capture determine your starting positions for the following day's fight when you can reassign new teams to fight in the combat. So if you took about half of the map with mostly rifle teams you might need have to take the other half by assaulting an enemy strongpoint. So you might need mortars for suppression, and mg's or snipers, or field arty, and couple these with some battle hardened assault groups toting mp's and flame throwers. Or you encountered tanks and need bazookas or anti-tank guns.
What IS important is that you end a day's fight with the majority of the cap points. This will get you declared the winner of that days fight which helps with morale and also with things like next day's starting positions and how much ammo you are resupplied with. Oh yes, there is a rather simple resupply system. Some map edge areas count as supply dumps and you basically need to be able to draw an uninterrupted line from a dump through friendly map areas to your battle groups.

The game works with LoS for spotting enemies and also has 3d terrain (but all seen from above), so your troopers are actually able to make use of ditches, shell craters, rubble etc. and automatically do so. It also means line of sight might be blocked. That nice bunker might cover a good portion of the beach but is absolutely useless for seeing an enemy team flanking it for instance.

And did I mention smoke grenades? Or strafing fighter planes? The way you each day get a few map sector assignable support options like artillery or a mortar barrage? OR, or, or.................

[Tesunie]

Marack Drock, on 11 April 2014 - 07:17 AM, said:

Galactic Battlegrounds I liked for its variety of races:
Gungans
Empire
Rebel Alliance
Republic
Confederacy
Trade Federation
Wookiees
Royal Naboo

Yup, I recall that from MC2 now that you mention it. I tend to use salvage and Repair abilities for those points. And I believe it was a set point going in? Anyway, not exactly the same, but I get your point.

DoW races:
Space Marine
Ork
Eldar
Tau
Necron
Imperial Guard
Battlesisters

Looks like almost the same variety of races... and I felt that DoW races were more distinguished from each other than GB races where personally. (My opinion of course.) GB also played more like AoE than DoW did as well, which having crystal and other resources one had to grab.

Personally, I loved Sins of a Solar Empire and Homeworld as far as RTS games went...

[Alaskan Nobody]

Tesunie, on 11 April 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:

Personally, I loved Sins of a Solar Empire

I still pray every day for Sins2.

Been working lately on getting some good walpaper-quality screenshots from that game - but we are getting off topic!

[IraqiWalker]

You know what I forgot? One of the better squad games, Soldiers of Anarchy. As far as post-apocalyptic games go, it's a top contender