What else are you playing at the moment?

[Pickly]

Got Age of Wonders 2: Wizards throne and Master of Orion 2 a couple months ago or so, and have been playing them on and off.

MoO2 has taken a bit for me to work through the interface, but I am interested in seeing how it plays. I have played some other space colonization games, but somehow managed to miss this one, despite the features sounding cool, and overall gameplay descriptions building it up quite well.

(It does sound like one of the few 4X games that includes a good amount of features and has developed them well, unlike just about all other 4X games which all some to have some big weak area, or are not well made overall. Of course, expectations can always be quite wrong on things like this.)

Age of Wonders 2 is all right for the campaign (also did the Shadow Magic campaign, so knew somewhat what to expect.), but I don't the game as much as some others.

 

[Mailbox]

Playing a little World of Warcraft right now, the latest patches and upcoming expansion have really shaped up the early game and I'm finding it very enjoyable.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

MoO2 has no real successor. I was hoping that Final Frontier, the mod that got out with BtS, would evolve to something worthy but the development stopped. Hence MoO2 is the best 4X game in space ever.

On top of that I also like to come back to M.A.X., the truest strategy I have ever seen. [there is an open source version almost finished now too].

Currently to stress me out I play World of Tanks and Battlestar Galactica Online. Two beta MMO games I really look forward too.

 

[Zongo]

And I thought I was the only one still hooken on MOO2! I tried MOO3 (ugh gasp bleaaargh) and GalCiv2 (meh) but no joy. I am still playing MOO2 form time to time...

 

[Humakty]

I tried galciv 2 earlier this year, and the problem is I don't seem to get how to set up games properly. I have some games in which I started up allied (permanently) with what was supposed to be an ennemy, others went fine... Plus combat and ship building isn't very exciting, compared to Moo2.

Age of Wonder shadow magic is very good with the unofficial patch (can't remember the exact name), plus there are a great deal of maps compatible with it. The AI can't colonize properly though, so best is to use maps already full of cities. Beware the unofficial patch breaks the campaign.

Oblivion complete edition is a blast !

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

oblivion is imho too full of issues to be truly enjoyable without a crapload of mods. if you do get it right though, it's quite possibly the best game ever. it just requires sooooo much time and effort to install everything properly, plus you need a very good pc to run it well.

aow shadow magic is excellent and it has some fantastic mods going for it, like brave new world ( personal favourite ) and children of many ages ( also excellent ) .

speaking of heroes of might and magic, what's the best one of the series?

I'm currently downloading Bully: scholarship edition and hope it's as fun as gta san andreas, excellent game that one.

 

[Jarrema]

IMHO the best Heroes game is number III, with extensions. Also, Heroes V are good, but not as good for multiplayer as Heroes 3.

There is WONDERFULL unofficial expansion to HoMM3, called Wake of Gods (WoG). And this is the best in my opinion. From the day I get it, I stopped to play "normal" HoMM3.

 

[Jarrema]

EDIT: doublepost

 

[Breunor]

oblivion is imho too full of issues to be truly enjoyable without a crapload of mods. if you do get it right though, it's quite possibly the best game ever. it just requires sooooo much time and effort to install everything properly, plus you need a very good pc to run it well.

aow shadow magic is excellent and it has some fantastic mods going for it, like brave new world ( personal favourite ) and children of many ages ( also excellent ) .

speaking of heroes of might and magic, what's the best one of the series?

I'm currently downloading Bully: scholarship edition and hope it's as fun as gta san andreas, excellent game that one.

I play HoMM only in single player, and I do think HoMM 5 is better than HoMM 3, but they are both excellent. I think HoMM 5 fixed some of the (very slight) flaws in 3.

Even HoMM 2, although outdated, was very good.

Best wishes,

breunor

 

[Breunor]

[Double post. Moderator, could you please delete!]

Thanks

 

[Jarrema]

Breunor, do you know WoG?
Before trying this unofficial expansion to Heroes 3, I was thinking that Heroes 5 are indeed better. The only problem for me was (and is) that my computer is too old and too slow for them running smoothly.
I also liked Heroes 2.
I played a lot in Heroes 4, and I like it enough to buy all expansiun packs, but I think it was the weakest part of this chain of games. For sure, it was really different, almost like not the HoMM.

 

[Breunor]

Sorry, I don't know WoG so I can't comment on it. I didn't try HoMM 4 since it got pretty bad reviews.

It seems to that the key improvements in HoMM 5 over HoMM 3 is that some of the skills in HoMM3 were overpowered, it seemed best to be a might hero with expert levels in spell classes so you could cast mass spells with the might ability. HoMM 5 'fixed' that issue. Also,the whole 'go last and cast' mechanic that was dominant in Homm 3 (and Homm 2) has been improved.

There are also little benefits, like the skills seem to be better balanced. I Ihear that the factions aren't as well balanced, though, which could be a detractor. Also, HoMM 3 clearly came with more scenarios and some of the campaign scenarios in HoMM 5 are frustrating.

Best wishes,

Breunor

P.S. I can understand sticking with HoMM 3 if there is a great user made Mod and Wod is really great; after all, I'm sticking with Civ IV over Civ V because of a certain user made mod that is tremendously great (I bet you guys can guess which one that is)!!!

 

[Jarrema]

I think that you should try WoG
It is free, you can download it from severall places.
Among other things, one of its main goals was balancing skills/factions/units/schools of magic. The second goal - adding more and more diversity, so it comes with new monsters, new units, a lot of new buildings, new maps, and especially with new rules and new mechanics. There is for example whole commander system - unit accompanying your hero, who takes part in fights, and can gain skills like hero (but other skills). I love this idea. Other example - system of experience points for all units on the battlefield (I personally do not like that one)
There are dozens of options in WoG. What is very nice (for me at least) is that all options are turnable.

Me and my friends were playing Heroes 3 A LOT (for a few years, more than 5 games per week, but later about 1 game per week), and we were somewhat bored by the predominance of some styles of play, and also by repeatedeness of maps. When we found WoG, it was like a dream come true. Our games taken a new life into them, and we found that they give us even more fun than at the very beggining - we started huge tournaments

IF you try WoG, it would be very interesting for me to know, if you still think that Heroes V are better than that.

For me, the only things in which Heores V are better, are: the combat system, I like idea of it very much; the factions - there are all truly unique, but on the other hand not balanced. The result (together with poor map generator and with low number of maps) is, that me and my friends are back at playing Heroes 3 WoG (after 6 months of playing only Heores 5)


As for Heores 4: It is DIFFERENT. Really. Heroes V are a step back toward Heroes 3. I like to play Heroes 4 sometimes, when I want something different. And I believe them to be better than almost any fantasy turn based strategy besides other Heroes games and FfH.
I think that now they are cheap - maybe it is time to try them? Combat mechanics is very different in them - heroes are participating in fight like normal units, and a field of battle is rather like in Age of Wonders or Master of Magic than like in other heroes games; skills are very different from both Heroes 3 and Heroes 5. You can also have unlimited number of armies, and you do not have to lead them with heroes. On the other hand, some heroes are at their best when they are without units... This things mean that strategies are really different than in Heores 3 and 5. I must admit also, that my friends do not like Heores 4, so I never played multiplayer in them (but my friends also do not like AoW and FfH...)

 

[Cinnabar]

Ummm... Zork (going back to my roots).

And some vanilla BTS. I've been too busy to look for anything new.

 

[Goodwill]

First person shooter: return to castle wolfenstein: enemy territory.
roleplay: vanguard
Played a game of final frontier civ 4 mod the other day, and every once in awhile I relive the secret of monkey island. Aaaaargh! Guybrush Threepwood!

 

[Broken Hawk]

Ummm... Zork (going back to my roots).

And some vanilla BTS. I've been too busy to look for anything new.

Zork and other text-based games are great. I have a bunch of them archived that I should install. Can anyone recommend a good emulator?

 

[Cinnabar]

Zork and other text-based games are great. I have a bunch of them archived that I should install. Can anyone recommend a good emulator?

I assume you want to emulate x86? Then use dosbox (for windows, linux, macos, macosX...). I've never had a problem running any DOS program with it, and I've installed it on all of the above (but I'm not the person to ask about linux problems).

 

[Breunor]

Zork and other text-based games are great. I have a bunch of them archived that I should install. Can anyone recommend a good emulator?

Ahh, you young guys, I played these when they first came out!!

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Cinnabar]

Ahh, you young guys, I played these when they first came out!!

Best wishes,

Breunor

So did I (some of them). But I did the SF ones, and never got to Zork until now.

Cheers!

 

[Jabie]

I assume you want to emulate x86? Then use dosbox (for windows, linux, macos, macosX...). I've never had a problem running any DOS program with it, and I've installed it on all of the above (but I'm not the person to ask about linux problems).

I can second DOSBOX. Kudos to Abandonia for that nostalgia fix.