Warlock 2 and Why I always come back to Bts

Warlock 2 is a New Game from Paradox Interactive. It's fun .. and even feels like a a Civ 5 version of Fall from Heaven 2.

It's the same company who Crusader Kings 2 (which if you haven't tried it, has some fantastic Dynasty Mechanics).

So I Installed Warlock 2 on the 11th (3 days ago) and have been playing it pretty much since then

Unfortunately, I just beat the game on "Impossible" Difficulty. I say unfortunately because paradox also had problems making Crusader Kings 2 even halfway difficult.

I'll still be playing Warlock 2 for the next week or so, but much like Crusader Kings 2, it's just not balanced or difficult enough. The mechanics are too easy to break.

That's Why I always come back to Civ 4 BtS. It's the balancing, the mechanics, and the sheer replay-ability. When I open up a Turn based strategy game on "Deity" or "Impossible" I don't want to win on my first attempt. And when I lose, I dont' want it to be because of silly RnGs (but losses to RnGs are OK).

I want it to be because my strategy / tactics were not good enough to win but a player who thought through the complexities of the Game could have. Sure Civ 4 has it's flaws, but I'm crossing my fingers that Civ 6 will be the true successor.

I played Warlock 1. It was ok. I thought it was kinda hard, but maybe they toned it down a little in the new version.

Skipity said:

Sure Civ 4 has it's flaws, but I'm crossing my fingers that Civ 6 will be the true successor.

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To be honest - the way the video games industry is headed these days (dumbing-down and streamlining, mass market accessibility, online-DRM, releasing games in BETA-status and then needing three years to even get it decently palyable) I am very sceptical about that. I am starting to see Civ IV as a near perfect stroke of luck that everyone around should feel happy it actually happened. For me it's the pinnacle in strategy games and the Civ franchise - and I would not rely on ever seeing its success repeated or surpassed. On the other hand it also won't kill me should it stay that way.

Sigh, I remember when "normal, difficult, impossible" used to be called "easy, normal, hard". Or occasionally "very easy, easy, normal".

gps said:

- and I would not rely on ever seeing its success repeated or surpassed.

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While I strongly disagree with your view on digital distribution of PC games and find your views a bit myopic on the subject, I do agree with the above statement. The quality of gaming in general I think has gone done. Games just don't feel like the used to. Even games billed as "instant classics" with corporate paid reviews of "9.0" or "10.0" have left me dry. Recent exceptions probably being Paradox games, who seem to really be fan/customer friendly and not all about the bottom line.

As for DD of games, I encourage you to give it some deeper thought. While "corporations' themselves aren't always thinking of the customer's best interest, it's not with DD that they are trying to screw us over. So don't blame them for that...very pointless and misguided.

Steam, for instance, has over 7.5 million customers. That is an "asset". That does not just vaporize into thin air. If Steam were to..say..go out of business, they can sell that asset off for tons of money. I've already gone through this transition with another DD service that was bought out. DD service is never going to go away although technology may change somewhat causing a transition of sort. Smaller companies may get bought up or merged, but you will never lose your ability to access your games. This is the NOW and the Future. I disagree with your assertion that you own a "temporary license". Only way Steam disappears is if a large company comes along and buys them out. Which means buying their assets, a large part of which is their customers. Why would a company by a company like Steam only to get rid of the asset..that is illogical. It would be to take it over or merge it into their existing service, as I've already seen happen more than once with DD.

Another plus in my view with online media is no need to waste tons of resources on disks/packaging. Gaming software is truly "soft".

lymond said:

While I strongly disagree with your view on digital distribution of PC games and find your views a bit myopic on the subject, I do agree with the above statement. The quality of gaming in general I think has gone done. Games just don't feel like the used to. Even games billed as "instant classics" with corporate paid reviews of "9.0" or "10.0" have left me dry. Recent exceptions probably being Paradox games, who seem to really be fan/customer friendly and not all about the bottom line.

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Out of curiosity (because I think we are in a golden age of video games), when do you think the quality on video games started to decline?


But I too always come back to Civ4. Not that I think the game is flawless (I really would love a "Civ 4.5"), but Civ is for some strange reason completely alone in its genre and with the exception of Call To Power, have always been. So when the Civ franchise takes a turn you don't like, there's no real alternative.

The quality of today's games are great in terms of everything except presenting a truly challenging and replayable turn based strategy experience like BtS does.

RtS, Shooters, adventer, MMO and sandbox games are all better than they've ever been.

Skipity said:

The quality of today's games are great in terms of everything except presenting a truly challenging and replayable turn based strategy experience like BtS does.

RtS, Shooters, adventer, MMO and sandbox games are all better than they've ever been.

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I don't really agree with all that.

Shooters seem to me to have shifted almost completely into multi-player dependency. There isn't anywhere near the quality of plot/narrative that there used to be, because they rely on your fellow players to provide the interaction.

MMO this is undoubtedly the 'golden age' so far, because we're really just in the first age coming into it's own.

RTS I don't see anything currently on the market that is anywhere near as well done as StarCraft in terms of having a developed plot and integrated story-line. Again the multi-player aspect raises its head. There is less importance on providing a 'page turner' of a plot when you can give people achievements to chase.

Not sure how you distinguish adventure and sandbox games so I can't say anything there, but overall I'm not impressed by the current state of games.

I'm expressly anti-MMO, so that doesn't mean anything to me. If anything, I think MMOs are ruining other gaming genres. While they have their place and I'm fine that some folks like them, I hate when good titles go the MMO route.

Yep, I agree with Tim on RTS. I don't think genre is anywhere like it was. (Paradox games being an exception but they are in a class of their own). Games like Company of Heroes start going in bad direction even in the first version and COH2 seems an afterthought. DOW2 a complete waste. DOW1 was soooo good.

In general, I think most newer games are all flash and little substance. At least we will always have Civ IV and Paradox.

gps said:

To be honest - the way the video games industry is headed these days (dumbing-down and streamlining, mass market accessibility, online-DRM, releasing games in BETA-status and then needing three years to even get it decently palyable) I am very sceptical about that. I am starting to see Civ IV as a near perfect stroke of luck that everyone around should feel happy it actually happened. For me it's the pinnacle in strategy games and the Civ franchise - and I would not rely on ever seeing its success repeated or surpassed. On the other hand it also won't kill me should it stay that way.

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I completely agree!

Civ 4 did have its share of bugs when it first came out, and required some patching, but it was still a great game and very playable in vanilla. There was also something of a multi-year evolution, via Warlords and BTS, which I think has been carried on to near-perfection by K-mod. I wouldn't play vanilla these days, but I think Civ 4's strength was its ability to evolve.

We can always hope that something as good will come out. Civ 5 was a disaster (I think I still have it installed, but I haven't played it for years, because it's just boring), but all the other Civ games have been good (apparently - actually I haven't played 2 or 3), so maybe 5 was just an anomaly?

Warlock 2 is a very fun game, but still too easy on impossible difficulty.

Windsor said:

Out of curiosity (because I think we are in a golden age of video games), when do you think the quality on video games started to decline?

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The height of home video gaming was when the Super Nintendo was king.

I believe the introduction of the Playstation is around when the decline began, as IMO, that's when developers started sacrificing gameplay for beauty.

lymond said:

As for DD of games, I encourage you to give it some deeper thought. While "corporations' themselves aren't always thinking of the customer's best interest, it's not with DD that they are trying to screw us over. So don't blame them for that...very pointless and misguided.

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I've given it a lot of thought over the years as I have seen many copy protection schemes come and go. Many of the advantages of DD (achievement, online-gaming, DLC, patching, you name it) could be offered without Online-DRM and constant spying on the customer. Also it could be offered as an option to physical data media. But the way total controll and dispossession of content is forced upon customers by platforms like STEAM (especially if you buy a game disk and then also have to register to STEAM and dowload the whole stuff that basically should be on-disk) is inaccptable to me. And the massive online backlash Microsoft encounterd when they tried stuff like that for the XBOX ONE shows I am not the only crazy person that has problems with that practice...
Feel free to disagree if you want.

lymond said:

Steam, for instance, has over 7.5 million customers. That is an "asset". That does not just vaporize into thin air.

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We'll see. I've also seen many companies going down over the years. And what assets do they really have? The games themselves are property of the game companies. They can't just sell them off when they go bancrupt. STEAM is just a distribution platform, it's a retailer.

lymond said:

Another plus in my view with online media is no need to waste tons of resources on disks/packaging. Gaming software is truly "soft".

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Ever though about how much energy it costs to download 100 GB from the other side of the world? Especially if you allready wasted the ressources by buying the STEAM-game on a totally pointless DVD and have to download it again? Makes your "plus" seem rather weak...

MyOtherName said:

The height of home video gaming was when the Super Nintendo was king.

I believe the introduction of the Playstation is around when the decline began, as IMO, that's when developers started sacrificing gameplay for beauty.

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Papers, Please
FasterThanLight
FrozenSynapse
Battle of the Bulge
Minecraft
Rouge Legacy
All the board games ported to the iPad
And the list goes on and on and on...

Digital Distribution, crowdfunding and the iPad have opened the gates for smaller developers. Developers the size we where used to in the SNES era.

So now we have the big AAA-titles which we didn't back in the early 90s. We got the mid-tier developers and we got the indie scene.

Note that both Jon Shafer and Soren Johnson have started their own studio to create the games they want to make. Both will prioritize gameplay over beauty. The times you miss are back. The difference is that you're not a 10 year old anymore.

I would say that the casualization of the market started with Blizzard and World of Warcraft.

I think at that point the whole gaming market started to transform.

Just out of curiosity I bought in last month BG:EE and BG2:EE and just try to compare these 2 jewels with for example Dragon Age:Origins and Dragon age 2 (DA 2 was worst game I ever bought from Bioware). yesterday I saw trailer for Dragon age Inquisition and I am 100% certain I won't buy it.

It's obvious I am not the target audience of Bioware games anymore.

I actually have hopes in the indie part of industry and kickstarter campaigns. Some of them seem to me more like scam, but I am 100% sure there will be things worth the money and the GAMES will return, but not with market oriented big companies, that one is obvious.

Todays big market is about big sales for lowest denominator and that's why the niche audience of gamers (let's face it...we were always kinda niche, small part of population) has to satisfy themself with smaller companies.

^^

You might be very interested in Pillars of Eternity:

https://eternity.obsidian.net

Being made by Obsidian, 100% 2D inspired by BG, Planescape Torment and Icewind Dale.

Skipity said:

The quality of today's games are great in terms of everything except presenting a truly challenging and replayable turn based strategy experience like BtS does.

RtS, Shooters, adventer, MMO and sandbox games are all better than they've ever been.

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Hmnn. Interesting. Apparently we have a vastly different different opinion of the definitions of "quality" and "great". I will agree to disagree with you in this regard .

bhavv said:

^^

You might be very interested in Pillars of Eternity:

https://eternity.obsidian.net

Being made by Obsidian, 100% 2D inspired by BG, Planescape Torment and Icewind Dale.

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Interesting link. Baldurs Gate and Torment were epic names in the RPG category, and I spent copious amounts of free time (much to my significant others chagrin) playing them. If indeed they could actually deliver such a game, it would truly be epic.