What video games have you been playing V: the return of the subtitle

[Hygro]

I've always wanted to have a starcraft where I could write if-then scripts for my units so that they could do cool stuff without waiting for me to click.

 

[Commodore]

Even in high-competitive RTSes like SC and WC APM can't actually cover up bad strategic play and awareness. The only thing APM does is expand the strategic options available to you. In fact in SC2, APM and micro mechanics only really become important at diamond level and above. You can breeze through the levels below that just by having good map awareness and straight up out-macroing your opponent.

There's a reason any SC2 streamer worth his salt will tell a new player to disregard speed and micro mechanics early on entirely in favor of developing macro and strategic awareness.

But even then, it's not really about strategic thinking as much as it is about memorizing build orders and map layouts. Memorization does not equal strategy. I think games like SC2 would be a lot better and encourage more strategic thinking in its players if the maps were all randomly generated instead of having set maps that people can memorize.

It's difficult for me to reconcile that with the time pressure intrinsic to any RTS.

That's why I've become more of a fan of hybrid strategy games that have a turn-based strategic map and real-time tactical battles like the Total War franchise or Sword of the Stars.

 

[jackelgull]

I've finished a civ5 campaign with the more cities mod, and boy was it a difference experience. While settler costs are still high enough to prevent settler spam especially in the early pre Liberty stages of the game, the lack of number of cities unhappiness and reduced happiness penalty for each city founded makes it possible to settle a ridiculous number of cities. As the Ayyubid empire I've carved out an empire spanning 3 continents - I have Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa. I will say though at points I felt like I exploited the AI, especially in early game, when Portugal declared war on me. Despite having a massive army, I had no way to get to them, but I didn't have to. I just checked the peace menu, and they were willing to give me a city to make peace. WTH? The same happened with Rome.

 

[sophie]

But even then, it's not really about strategic thinking as much as it is about memorizing build orders and map layouts. Memorization does not equal strategy. I think games like SC2 would be a lot better and encourage more strategic thinking in its players if the maps were all randomly generated instead of having set maps that people can memorize.

Again, no it doesn't. Build orders only really become important at the upper upper echelons of play, and that's really only because once you get to that level everybody is exceptionally good at map awareness and optimizing macro play. Even then the name of the game at the professional level is improvisation. It's not just memorizing 2 or 3 build orders and following those to the letter. It's about reading your opponent, predicting what they're likely to do based on what you know about their style, creating a plan to counter that, then scouting to gain information and making adjustments on the fly to your plan as a full picture of what they're doing begins to form. That's the first 5-6 minutes of the game. From there it's punch-counter-punch where the two try to deny vision to each other while trying to develop counterplays, control the map and dictate the overall tempo of the game. The game is ridiculously complex strategically and the best players in the world are not those who have the fastest fingers, but rather the ones who are the best at reading their opponent and adjusting on the fly to counter what their opponent wants to do. Sounds quite a bit like chess, don't it?

 

[Hygro]

One of the weaknesses of sc2 is that when players don't know a map, strategic map choices fall out of favor and aggressive, map-independent play becomes more viable. Early rushes and sneak attacks will be effective regardless of how well a player knows a map. Defense and longer, macro play requires reading the map well enough to set up advantages.

For this reason replaying the same maps ends up increasing the strategic depth, even if a more on-the-fly relationship with the terrain (i.e. randomly generated) would be a cooler competitive environment for my taste.

 

[Commodore]

Again, no it doesn't.

Yes, it does. I've done it to players and other players have done it to me, and I sure as hell am not competing at the upper tiers. It's also how everyone I know plays the game, even at lower levels because that is the most sure-fire way to win. SC2 may not be the worst offender, but it is most certainly, at its core, a twitch RTS. And the fact that SC2 and SC are so popular and sold so well is influencing other RTS makers to make their RTS games more like SC, which means more twitch RTSs.

Don't get me wrong though, I think SC and SC2 are fun games, I just don't want to see the entire RTS genre be like them because those games cater to a certain type of RTS player and making every other RTS like SC excludes a lot of other players. We are already seeing the results of this with more and more strategy gamers turning to turn-based strategy since those games actually reward the thinker and punish the rapid clicker.

I've finished a civ5 campaign with the more cities mod, and boy was it a difference experience. While settler costs are still high enough to prevent settler spam especially in the early pre Liberty stages of the game, the lack of number of cities unhappiness and reduced happiness penalty for each city founded makes it possible to settle a ridiculous number of cities. As the Ayyubid empire I've carved out an empire spanning 3 continents - I have Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa. I will say though at points I felt like I exploited the AI, especially in early game, when Portugal declared war on me. Despite having a massive army, I had no way to get to them, but I didn't have to. I just checked the peace menu, and they were willing to give me a city to make peace. WTH? The same happened with Rome.

You have a link for that mod? I really just want the reduced happiness penalty because I've been playing a lot of Civ 5 lately and the happiness mechanic is really starting to get on my nerves. It's a good idea, but it is just so stupid in the way it was implemented, especially since it is only the player that is hamstrung by happiness. AI's get "happiness cheats" so they can found a lot more cities than the player a lot faster and I absolutely hate when games compensate for poor AI by allowing it to break the rules the player has to follow.

 

[jackelgull]

Yes, it does. I've done it to players and other players have done it to me, and I sure as hell am not competing at the upper tiers. It's also how everyone I know plays the game, even at lower levels because that is the most sure-fire way to win. SC2 may not be the worst offender, but it is most certainly, at its core, a twitch RTS. And the fact that SC2 and SC are so popular and sold so well is influencing other RTS makers to make their RTS games more like SC, which means more twitch RTSs.

Don't get me wrong though, I think SC and SC2 are fun games, I just don't want to see the entire RTS genre be like them because those games cater to a certain type of RTS player and making every other RTS like SC excludes a lot of other players. We are already seeing the results of this with more and more strategy gamers turning to turn-based strategy since those games actually reward the thinker and punish the rapid clicker.



You have a link for that mod? I really just want the reduced happiness penalty because I've been playing a lot of Civ 5 lately and the happiness mechanic is really starting to get on my nerves. It's a good idea, but it is just so stupid in the way it was implemented, especially since it is only the player that is hamstrung by happiness. AI's get "happiness cheats" so they can found a lot more cities than the player a lot faster and I absolutely hate when games compensate for poor AI by allowing it to break the rules the player has to follow.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429105547&searchtext=more+cities

Unfortunately this mod comes with the complete package so you can't choose only one of the buffs and ignore the others. If you're a city spammer like me and love the biggest maps possible (I have the Huge Earth map that is used in CivBattleRoyale) this is necessary to fill all the spaces.


And here's a picture of my beautiful Ayyubid Empire.
http://i.imgur.com/gTh5OQU.jpg

 

[Ajidica]

My campaign as the Western Roman Empire in Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion is failing miserably as my sole field army in Italy found itself unable to deal with the near simultaneous arrival of the Ostrogoths and Huns near Ravenna while the remnants of the Vandals were kicking around in Aquitaine.
I'm thinking about restarting and not trying to hard to keep the Empire together. As long as I control Italy, Carthage and the Mediterranean coast -which tend to have pretty decent public order- I can let the rest of the Empire rebel and deal with the unhappiness by exterminating the population and getting all of my incompetent family members out of the cities and get them killed so the game will generate better adoption candidates for me. With a smaller Empire and better generals I should be able to run higher taxes and hopefully have generated a buffer zone for the Huns, Ostrogoths, and ERE to run into in Pannonia and the Balkans.

I really miss the ability in Attila Total War to send my useless family members into a death-or-glory charge. Honorius may have been an incompetent boy-emperor but in my world he ended up being a grizzled general who strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies but should be kept as far away from a friendly city as possible, lest his stupidity become contagious.
Having played both recently I wish that Attila had kept the simplicity of Rome's empire management and flexible family members. Family members in Rome feel more like people with a fun selection of traits that leads to some fun role playing moments. (Like my one general who gave his troops a whopping -12 morale) due in no small part to having a shrieking harpy as a mother in law and being a ****olded husband.

 

[cardgame]

yeah they really have taken steps backward unfortunately.

 

[Hygro]

My campaign as the Western Roman Empire in Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion is failing miserably as my sole field army in Italy found itself unable to deal with the near simultaneous arrival of the Ostrogoths and Huns near Ravenna while the remnants of the Vandals were kicking around in Aquitaine.
I'm thinking about restarting and not trying to hard to keep the Empire together. As long as I control Italy, Carthage and the Mediterranean coast -which tend to have pretty decent public order- I can let the rest of the Empire rebel and deal with the unhappiness by exterminating the population and getting all of my incompetent family members out of the cities and get them killed so the game will generate better adoption candidates for me. With a smaller Empire and better generals I should be able to run higher taxes and hopefully have generated a buffer zone for the Huns, Ostrogoths, and ERE to run into in Pannonia and the Balkans.

I really miss the ability in Attila Total War to send my useless family members into a death-or-glory charge. Honorius may have been an incompetent boy-emperor but in my world he ended up being a grizzled general who strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies but should be kept as far away from a friendly city as possible, lest his stupidity become contagious.
Having played both recently I wish that Attila had kept the simplicity of Rome's empire management and flexible family members. Family members in Rome feel more like people with a fun selection of traits that leads to some fun role playing moments. (Like my one general who gave his troops a whopping -12 morale) due in no small part to having a shrieking harpy as a mother in law and being a ****olded husband.

I'm so glad I read all of that

 

[dusters]

Any decent old school shooters that run on win 10?

Quake 2/3 without it's strafing look meh. Wolfenstein 3d doesn't run on win 3.

I consider trying doom 3 next.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Any decent old school shooters that run on win 10?

Quake 2/3 without it's strafing look meh. Wolfenstein 3d doesn't run on win 3.

I consider trying doom 3 next.

I'm currently playing through Star Wars Republic Commando on Windows 10 64 bit.

 

[Omega124]

Any decent old school shooters that run on win 10?

Quake 2/3 without it's strafing look meh. Wolfenstein 3d doesn't run on win 3.

I consider trying doom 3 next.

DOSBox?

 

[dusters]

DOSBox?

Thought it doesn't work since Win 10 is 64bit? Haven't tried tbh.

 

[Takhisis]

@dusters: OpenArena?

 

[dusters]

@dusters: OpenArena?

Looks like a community UT remake. That's good, thanks.

 

[Kyriakos]

Half life?

(actually, i have never played any FTP, apart from some -- -- CS at web cafes a decade ago...)

 

[dusters]

I have played every single installement from Halflife to Halflife 2 ep3, including Of, Blue box etc. Definitely Half-life is a game to show your kids, it's great enough to be played in 2020s even with 90s graphics.

 

[Omega124]

I have played every single installement from Halflife to Halflife 2 ep3, including Of, Blue box etc. Definitely Half-life is a game to show your kids, it's great enough to be played in 2020s even with 90s graphics.

So Episode 3 did come out, but only in Latvia?

How does it end Dusters? Was it worth the weight?

 

[dusters]

Erm, I guess I'm writing from future, nevermind me.

And yes, it is good.