This is my favorite video game ever save for perhaps TF2. The scope of the game is incredible, the strategy is as multifacetted as imaginable, and the replayability is incredible. The single player AI is a little weak, but there is an active and welcoming community that it is incredibly easy to jump into. Players of all skill levels frequent the shrapnel forums (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=138) where you can talk strategy, sign up for PBEM games, and look at user created mods. There are noob friendly games starting all the time: my first game was a multiplayer one. Players join in spontaneous blitz games on an active IRC channel.
Its a pretty complicated game that takes some commitment to get into, but i've been playing it for two years and I discover new things every game. I've played Civ, SOASE, Galactic Civs II, masters of orion etc. and I have never discovered a strategic experience that even comes close to dominions.
Buy it and join the community and you won't regret it.
Disciples 2 Gold and Jagged Alliance 2 Gold are bundled for 29.99$ on steam now.
Edit: mmm nonsensical sentences.
JA2 is available from GOG for $9.99 right now. The addon pack is also available for $5.99 ($4.49 this weekend ), but personally I wouldn't bother with it, it's not all that great.
Disciples 2 Gold is also available for $9.99, so even if you buy all three games off of GOG, they're still cheaper than Steam, plus they're all completely DRM free, which has always been a major plus point for me.
But like I said, I wouldn't recommend Unfinished Business, it's just a linear trawl through some maps and relatively short.
Tactics Ogre: Knights of Lodis is like the Final Fantasy Tactics series except with a more simplified job system (which is to say you don't need gamefaqs and a spreadsheet to play effectively)...
Really? It's been a while since I played it, but I seem to recall basically needing to know about the prestige classes and their requirements from an outside source. The requirements were sufficiently arcane, like (1) have 13+ CHA, (2) kill 10 dudes with a blunt weapon, and (3) harm no squirrels, that if you just played the game organically you were only going to encounter a handful of the most powerful classes.
That's my chief gripe in general with Japanese style turn-based games, actually. I still play them, but the internal dialogue between my internal purist (just play the game, explore, have fun, enjoy the story) and min-maxer (OPTIMIZE!) rages.
Rages, I tell you.
Yeah, you're not remembering correctly. Everything that unlocks the classes is shit you should be trying to do with them anyway, like "hit multiple units with a spear" or "kill two units with one spell." The most arcane that I can think of is "Dodge three times in a row," which'll probably happen for most units anyway.
Tactics Ogre: Knights of Lodis is like the Final Fantasy Tactics series except with a more simplified job system (which is to say you don't need gamefaqs and a spreadsheet to play effectively)...
Really? It's been a while since I played it, but I seem to recall basically needing to know about the prestige classes and their requirements from an outside source. The requirements were sufficiently arcane, like (1) have 13+ CHA, (2) kill 10 dudes with a blunt weapon, and (3) harm no squirrels, that if you just played the game organically you were only going to encounter a handful of the most powerful classes.
That's my chief gripe in general with Japanese style turn-based games, actually. I still play them, but the internal dialogue between my internal purist (just play the game, explore, have fun, enjoy the story) and min-maxer (OPTIMIZE!) rages.
Rages, I tell you.
Yeah, you're not remembering correctly. Everything that unlocks the classes is shit you should be trying to do with them anyway, like "hit multiple units with a spear" or "kill two units with one spell." The most arcane that I can think of is "Dodge three times in a row," which'll probably happen for most units anyway.
That said, I don't remember there being any way in game to know some of these things. Sure, once you have a Valkyrie, it makes perfect sense that she needs a Lancer emblem which is earned by stabbing two baddies at once with a spear. Trying to puzzle out how to get there unaided for all the classes without knowing, though, doesn't increase my enjoyment of a game if I feel like I'm missing something. Or worse, doing stuff that will actually close gameplay doors to me down the line.
Maybe I just have an ingrained Western bias in my character leveling mindset. In games like Neverwinter Nights if there are prestige classes the requirements are spelled out in the manuals and the in-game help text. My lingering impression of Tactics Ogre is that the sum total of available information about the Valkyrie is something like, "VALKYRIE: Rains death from the sky... with LANCES." This was the first game I played in this series, so it may also be that a lot of it is high expectations of previously gained knowledge about the universe.
So I just bought King's Bounty on steam thanks to it's very high metacritic score. Now, to be fair, I've only played about 2 hours for the warrior and paladin. (2 of the 3 available classes) But I have to say this game is quite disappointing. Only 3 classes, with an interesting concept for customization, but the talent trees are excrutiatingly boring. Looking down at what I will earn next etc does not excite me. The game has no multiplayer, has only one 'side,' suffers from a lack of polish, has some pretty lame animations for some units. Every hero portrait (no options) looks like a douche bag. I'm not really liking how your leadership score limits the amount of troops you can have. There is no auto resolve option so you have to engage in a lot of tedious unchallenging battles. And other stuff.
Perhaps I am too accustomed to HoMM-type games, I don't know. I love Disciples II also. So if anyone is a super fan of King's Bounty maybe you can tell me some things you like about it, that perhaps I am being blind to, because I'm not sure I can go on with it anymore.
Tactics Ogre: Knights of Lodis is like the Final Fantasy Tactics series except with a more simplified job system (which is to say you don't need gamefaqs and a spreadsheet to play effectively)...
Really? It's been a while since I played it, but I seem to recall basically needing to know about the prestige classes and their requirements from an outside source. The requirements were sufficiently arcane, like (1) have 13+ CHA, (2) kill 10 dudes with a blunt weapon, and (3) harm no squirrels, that if you just played the game organically you were only going to encounter a handful of the most powerful classes.
That's my chief gripe in general with Japanese style turn-based games, actually. I still play them, but the internal dialogue between my internal purist (just play the game, explore, have fun, enjoy the story) and min-maxer (OPTIMIZE!) rages.
Rages, I tell you.
Yeah, you're not remembering correctly. Everything that unlocks the classes is shit you should be trying to do with them anyway, like "hit multiple units with a spear" or "kill two units with one spell." The most arcane that I can think of is "Dodge three times in a row," which'll probably happen for most units anyway.
That said, I don't remember there being any way in game to know some of these things. Sure, once you have a Valkyrie, it makes perfect sense that she needs a Lancer emblem which is earned by stabbing two baddies at once with a spear. Trying to puzzle out how to get there unaided for all the classes without knowing, though, doesn't increase my enjoyment of a game if I feel like I'm missing something. Or worse, doing stuff that will actually close gameplay doors to me down the line.
Maybe I just have an ingrained Western bias in my character leveling mindset. In games like Neverwinter Nights if there are prestige classes the requirements are spelled out in the manuals and the in-game help text. My lingering impression of Tactics Ogre is that the sum total of available information about the Valkyrie is something like, "VALKYRIE: Rains death from the sky... with LANCES." This was the first game I played in this series, so it may also be that a lot of it is high expectations of previously gained knowledge about the universe.
Or just Persuade one and oho, now you can see the requirements.
This is my favorite video game ever save for perhaps TF2. The scope of the game is incredible, the strategy is as multifacetted as imaginable, and the replayability is incredible. The single player AI is a little weak, but there is an active and welcoming community that it is incredibly easy to jump into. Players of all skill levels frequent the shrapnel forums (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=138) where you can talk strategy, sign up for PBEM games, and look at user created mods. There are noob friendly games starting all the time: my first game was a multiplayer one. Players join in spontaneous blitz games on an active IRC channel.
Its a pretty complicated game that takes some commitment to get into, but i've been playing it for two years and I discover new things every game. I've played Civ, SOASE, Galactic Civs II, masters of orion etc. and I have never discovered a strategic experience that even comes close to dominions.
Buy it and join the community and you won't regret it.
I agree completely. Looking for the ultimate in Fantasy Turn-Based Strategy that is fairly complex that after a 100 plays, you are still finding new strategies?
So I just bought King's Bounty on steam thanks to it's very high metacritic score. Now, to be fair, I've only played about 2 hours for the warrior and paladin. (2 of the 3 available classes) But I have to say this game is quite disappointing. Only 3 classes, with an interesting concept for customization, but the talent trees are excrutiatingly boring. Looking down at what I will earn next etc does not excite me. The game has no multiplayer, has only one 'side,' suffers from a lack of polish, has some pretty lame animations for some units. Every hero portrait (no options) looks like a douche bag. I'm not really liking how your leadership score limits the amount of troops you can have. There is no auto resolve option so you have to engage in a lot of tedious unchallenging battles. And other stuff.
Perhaps I am too accustomed to HoMM-type games, I don't know. I love Disciples II also. So if anyone is a super fan of King's Bounty maybe you can tell me some things you like about it, that perhaps I am being blind to, because I'm not sure I can go on with it anymore.
All I can say is that most of your issues aren't ones that I can really pick up on for myself. Skills development seems fine, I don't care about it not having multiplayer, and leadership affecting how many troops you can have is part of the gameplay dynamic. The lack of polish thing I can't really agree with at all, about the only place I find it lacking is in the translation, and that doesn't bother me too much
Paladin is a more difficult class to start with though, I'd recommend mage or warrior. I also think that an auto-resolve might have been handy, but realistically, most easy fights are over quickly anyway so I never really had a problem with that. The pacing of the battles could have been tweaked a lot better, since it's very easy to run into battles way over your head. Thankfully I got that skill which allows me to assess potential battles (very weak - invincible) so that helped me and avoid accordingly.
As for what I like about it, I like the turn based combat, it struck the right balance of accessibility with depth for me. The fact that you can resolve most battles in 5 minutes was also a huge plus for me since I can pretty much stop and start where I want. The fantasy setting is vast in range and also has plenty of loopy humour to it, which I enjoy. It's also extremely well presented, the vibrant overworld captured my attention pretty much right from the start.
You guys know that King's Bounty is the predecessor to Heroes of Might & Magic, right?
With that said:
How does Elven Legacy compare to the new King's Bounty game?
How does Dominion 3 compare to Master of Magic?
(Downloading the Dominion 3 demo now, because it has an OS X version, wee!)
EDIT: Holy crap, now I understand why I hadn't heard of Dominion 3... it has an UI that would scare away most! I don't understand anything... intuitivity down the drain. I think I'll wait for Elemental from Stardock (already pre-ordered).
eobet on
Heard the proposition that RIAA and MPAA should join forces and form "Music And Film Industry Association"?
How does Elven Legacy compare to the new King's Bounty game?
I like them both, but they are very different.
Kings Bounty is a game where you pretty much wander around recruiting troops and grinding through short, numerous battles, resolving quests, and so forth. Realtime exploration, turn-based combat. It's a great game for playing in short bursts, but it can get tiring after awhile.
Elven Legacy is fun, but brutally hard. (Although, I haven't tried easy, so I don't know how much of a difference it makes). If you enjoy Elven Legacy, I would strongly recomend picking up Fantasy Wars as well. Basically, typical scenario goes like this:
1. Assemble your small team of soldiers, and place them on the map.
2. Look at your mission objectives. More objectives, including optional objectives will probably be added, but you are always playing with a time limit. (In terms of number of turns taken)
3. Proceed carefully but quickly across a large map strewn with hordes of powerful enemy units and crippling terrain.
4. Try not to put your fist through the monitor while emitting a constant stream of profanity and reloading the same turn for the 5th time.
Essentially, you have to fulfill your objectives as quickly as possible, and you can't really afford to lose many units and still complete the campaign, so you can't progress without making liberal use of the reload option. For all that, it is a very fun, strategic game, where each unit you have can gain levels and gain new abilities that allows you to specialize them in different ways.
You guys know that King's Bounty is the predecessor to Heroes of Might & Magic, right?
With that said:
How does Elven Legacy compare to the new King's Bounty game?
How does Dominion 3 compare to Master of Magic?
(Downloading the Dominion 3 demo now, because it has an OS X version, wee!)
EDIT: Holy crap, now I understand why I hadn't heard of Dominion 3... it has an UI that would scare away most! I don't understand anything... intuitivity down the drain. I think I'll wait for Elemental from Stardock (already pre-ordered).
Dominions 3 isn't the prettiest game out there. The UI isn't the best either. When you buy the game, it comes with like a 200-300 page MANUAL.
It is a very deep game. Much more then Master of Magic and say something like MOO.
If I had to compare it to any game.....I really can't think of one, because its on its own pedestal in my opinion. Perhaps a bit like the Hearts of Iron series?
I never caught Fantasy General back in the 90s but I will probably pick it up to play one of the original Advance Wars type games (whatever the kids call them these days). Graphics are just barely passable, and though I couldn't get sound to work in the demo (apparently I needed vdmsound running), I hear the music is excellent.
Tim James on
0
DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
its pretty old at this point, but warlords 3 is really fun
I've actually been thinking about ordering up a copy of Warlords II Deluxe from SSG. I've totally loved the copy of Complete Carriers at War I got off of them about a year ago. That shit is older than the internet, but still a completely awesome game.
its pretty old at this point, but warlords 3 is really fun
I've actually been thinking about ordering up a copy of Warlords II Deluxe from SSG. I've totally loved the copy of Complete Carriers at War I got off of them about a year ago. That shit is older than the internet, but still a completely awesome game.
I still hope Warlords DS will slog through to completion (and, you know, actually be good.)
Age of wonders - got everything.
Dominions 3 - might have weak ai, but will provide much entertainment so long as you dont read guides on how to ruin it.
I should mention it's as complex as you want it really. You can use mindless strategy reasonably well without any knowledge of the game too.
Warlords 3 was good? I think I look one look and bailed on it. I so loved 2 before they tried to get technical. Be nice if that DS version wasnt just a pipedream.
So...Age of Empires III, Battle for Middle-Earth II.
Are either of them worthwhile? I know that both are dwarfed by a lot of other, better games, but I can get both of these for pretty cheap, so if they're decent I'll probably go ahead.
Are either of them worthwhile? I know that both are dwarfed by a lot of other, better games, but I can get both of these for pretty cheap, so if they're decent I'll probably go ahead.
Age of Empires 3 is solid, but super-old school. Like, game reviewers were griping about it being old-fashioned when it came out 4(?) years ago. It's probably the most fun you can have chopping trees, researching obscure economic techs and throwing hordes of units at the enemy, though. It's a very polished game, despite it's flaws. I can say I enjoyed the expansion civs a lot more than the vanilla ones, though--they were a lot more creative and different from each other. I'd suggest playing the demo first to test your tolerance for back to basics RTS gameplay.
BFME2 is a lot more...uneven. It has great ideas and terrible ideas all wrapped up in the same package, along with persistant glaring balance issues, but it is fast paced and good looking (lots of explosions sending units flying in all directions, plus War Trolls!) and has a lot of variety with all the different factions and heroes and such. It also has some fairly unique features, like the War of the Ring Mode and an indepth hero creator. I don't think I can recomend it at this point, though. I reinstalled recently and then went online to see what changes had been made in the last few years since I played it and...EA pretty much dropped all support and ran away screaming, to the point that the expansion received only a single incomplete patch.
I will say it's a more evolved game than Age of Empires 3, but that's not saying much compared to newer games.
Ah, almost forgot. Worst part about Age of Empires 3 is the AI. I mean, stupid AI is a trademark of the genre and all, but the AoE 3 AI does nothing but thirst endlessly for the blood of your peasents. No sacrifice is too great, no obstacle too daunting, not when the rich porkladen blood of farmers is so close that he can almost taste it.
BFME 2 is similar, actually. You have farms instead of farmers, but they will be ruthlessly attacked at every oppourtunity, no matter how far out of the way they are.
Warlords 3 was good? I think I look one look and bailed on it. I so loved 2 before they tried to get technical. Be nice if that DS version wasnt just a pipedream.
i never played 2 so i cant really compare them. warlords 3 is one of my all time favorite games though, so i'll give it a solid thumbs up.
So I just bought King's Bounty on steam thanks to it's very high metacritic score. Now, to be fair, I've only played about 2 hours for the warrior and paladin. (2 of the 3 available classes) But I have to say this game is quite disappointing. Only 3 classes, with an interesting concept for customization, but the talent trees are excrutiatingly boring. Looking down at what I will earn next etc does not excite me. The game has no multiplayer, has only one 'side,' suffers from a lack of polish, has some pretty lame animations for some units. Every hero portrait (no options) looks like a douche bag. I'm not really liking how your leadership score limits the amount of troops you can have. There is no auto resolve option so you have to engage in a lot of tedious unchallenging battles. And other stuff.
Perhaps I am too accustomed to HoMM-type games, I don't know. I love Disciples II also. So if anyone is a super fan of King's Bounty maybe you can tell me some things you like about it, that perhaps I am being blind to, because I'm not sure I can go on with it anymore.
I think I understand exactly what you're saying, Toastmold. I'm a pretty hardcore HoMM fan, and I bought King's Bounty on it's release day and had all the same complaints about it. I slogged through 75% of the game and then shelved it for a while. The idea was cool, the game itself seemed to have it's flaws. Well, later a friend of mine started playing it again and I'm one of those people who likes to play the same games at the same time so we can talk about it. So I started up again too. I went into the King's Bounty forums to freshen up and perused the "Tips" and such to get reaquainted with the game. I learned a lot of stuff, even after making it so far into the game. I think it was the Heroes mindset that may have made a lot of the game seem pointless. The resources that seem abundant in the early stages of KB will be very scarce later, then all the decisions you made while spending them will really start to matter. The skills that don't SEEM very good actually ARE. In KB there is a finite amount of everything (runes, troops, enemies, artifacts), unlike Heroes. It's easy to not notice the difference until you actually hit a wall in the game because you learned every spell (spent all your crystals), or you neglected picking the Learning skill ('cause it sucks in Heroes, right?). It's hard to put a finger on exactly the right words to convey this idea, but essentially it boils down to this: In HoMM, the best strategy is to spend resources quickly and take on big fights as early as possible to get bigger rewards that will inevitably lead you to out-pacing your opponents in XP, artifacts, higher level troops, etc. In KB the strategy is to spend as little as possible and lose as few troops as you can along the way, being the most efficient warrior, not the strongest. At the end of the game you are scored on how quickly you beat the game, how many troops you lost in battle, and how many quests you completed. The tendancy of us HoMM players it to buy huge stacks of troops and slam them into the difficult fights as early as possible, then go rebuy them afterward. While we think we're getting an early lead, it's not the case, we are actually earning a terrible game score with this strategy.
I recommend starting up another game, set the difficulty to Hard or Impossible, and play the game trying to lose as few troops as possible. You'll know you're doing well when you can take on "Very strong" enemies without losing a single man in battle.
Posts
This is my favorite video game ever save for perhaps TF2. The scope of the game is incredible, the strategy is as multifacetted as imaginable, and the replayability is incredible. The single player AI is a little weak, but there is an active and welcoming community that it is incredibly easy to jump into. Players of all skill levels frequent the shrapnel forums (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=138) where you can talk strategy, sign up for PBEM games, and look at user created mods. There are noob friendly games starting all the time: my first game was a multiplayer one. Players join in spontaneous blitz games on an active IRC channel.
Its a pretty complicated game that takes some commitment to get into, but i've been playing it for two years and I discover new things every game. I've played Civ, SOASE, Galactic Civs II, masters of orion etc. and I have never discovered a strategic experience that even comes close to dominions.
Buy it and join the community and you won't regret it.
JA2 is available from GOG for $9.99 right now. The addon pack is also available for $5.99 ($4.49 this weekend ), but personally I wouldn't bother with it, it's not all that great.
Disciples 2 Gold is also available for $9.99, so even if you buy all three games off of GOG, they're still cheaper than Steam, plus they're all completely DRM free, which has always been a major plus point for me.
But like I said, I wouldn't recommend Unfinished Business, it's just a linear trawl through some maps and relatively short.
Yeah, you're not remembering correctly. Everything that unlocks the classes is shit you should be trying to do with them anyway, like "hit multiple units with a spear" or "kill two units with one spell." The most arcane that I can think of is "Dodge three times in a row," which'll probably happen for most units anyway.
I guess. Looking the emblems over now, none of them seem too bizarre.
That said, I don't remember there being any way in game to know some of these things. Sure, once you have a Valkyrie, it makes perfect sense that she needs a Lancer emblem which is earned by stabbing two baddies at once with a spear. Trying to puzzle out how to get there unaided for all the classes without knowing, though, doesn't increase my enjoyment of a game if I feel like I'm missing something. Or worse, doing stuff that will actually close gameplay doors to me down the line.
Maybe I just have an ingrained Western bias in my character leveling mindset. In games like Neverwinter Nights if there are prestige classes the requirements are spelled out in the manuals and the in-game help text. My lingering impression of Tactics Ogre is that the sum total of available information about the Valkyrie is something like, "VALKYRIE: Rains death from the sky... with LANCES." This was the first game I played in this series, so it may also be that a lot of it is high expectations of previously gained knowledge about the universe.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
Perhaps I am too accustomed to HoMM-type games, I don't know. I love Disciples II also. So if anyone is a super fan of King's Bounty maybe you can tell me some things you like about it, that perhaps I am being blind to, because I'm not sure I can go on with it anymore.
Or just Persuade one and oho, now you can see the requirements.
I agree completely. Looking for the ultimate in Fantasy Turn-Based Strategy that is fairly complex that after a 100 plays, you are still finding new strategies?
This is your game.
All I can say is that most of your issues aren't ones that I can really pick up on for myself. Skills development seems fine, I don't care about it not having multiplayer, and leadership affecting how many troops you can have is part of the gameplay dynamic. The lack of polish thing I can't really agree with at all, about the only place I find it lacking is in the translation, and that doesn't bother me too much
Paladin is a more difficult class to start with though, I'd recommend mage or warrior. I also think that an auto-resolve might have been handy, but realistically, most easy fights are over quickly anyway so I never really had a problem with that. The pacing of the battles could have been tweaked a lot better, since it's very easy to run into battles way over your head. Thankfully I got that skill which allows me to assess potential battles (very weak - invincible) so that helped me and avoid accordingly.
As for what I like about it, I like the turn based combat, it struck the right balance of accessibility with depth for me. The fact that you can resolve most battles in 5 minutes was also a huge plus for me since I can pretty much stop and start where I want. The fantasy setting is vast in range and also has plenty of loopy humour to it, which I enjoy. It's also extremely well presented, the vibrant overworld captured my attention pretty much right from the start.
With that said:
How does Elven Legacy compare to the new King's Bounty game?
How does Dominion 3 compare to Master of Magic?
(Downloading the Dominion 3 demo now, because it has an OS X version, wee!)
EDIT: Holy crap, now I understand why I hadn't heard of Dominion 3... it has an UI that would scare away most! I don't understand anything... intuitivity down the drain. I think I'll wait for Elemental from Stardock (already pre-ordered).
I like them both, but they are very different.
Kings Bounty is a game where you pretty much wander around recruiting troops and grinding through short, numerous battles, resolving quests, and so forth. Realtime exploration, turn-based combat. It's a great game for playing in short bursts, but it can get tiring after awhile.
Elven Legacy is fun, but brutally hard. (Although, I haven't tried easy, so I don't know how much of a difference it makes). If you enjoy Elven Legacy, I would strongly recomend picking up Fantasy Wars as well. Basically, typical scenario goes like this:
1. Assemble your small team of soldiers, and place them on the map.
2. Look at your mission objectives. More objectives, including optional objectives will probably be added, but you are always playing with a time limit. (In terms of number of turns taken)
3. Proceed carefully but quickly across a large map strewn with hordes of powerful enemy units and crippling terrain.
4. Try not to put your fist through the monitor while emitting a constant stream of profanity and reloading the same turn for the 5th time.
Essentially, you have to fulfill your objectives as quickly as possible, and you can't really afford to lose many units and still complete the campaign, so you can't progress without making liberal use of the reload option. For all that, it is a very fun, strategic game, where each unit you have can gain levels and gain new abilities that allows you to specialize them in different ways.
Dominions 3 isn't the prettiest game out there. The UI isn't the best either. When you buy the game, it comes with like a 200-300 page MANUAL.
It is a very deep game. Much more then Master of Magic and say something like MOO.
If I had to compare it to any game.....I really can't think of one, because its on its own pedestal in my opinion. Perhaps a bit like the Hearts of Iron series?
I've actually been thinking about ordering up a copy of Warlords II Deluxe from SSG. I've totally loved the copy of Complete Carriers at War I got off of them about a year ago. That shit is older than the internet, but still a completely awesome game.
I still hope Warlords DS will slog through to completion (and, you know, actually be good.)
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
Age of wonders - got everything.
Dominions 3 - might have weak ai, but will provide much entertainment so long as you dont read guides on how to ruin it.
I should mention it's as complex as you want it really. You can use mindless strategy reasonably well without any knowledge of the game too.
Warlords 3 was good? I think I look one look and bailed on it. I so loved 2 before they tried to get technical. Be nice if that DS version wasnt just a pipedream.
Are either of them worthwhile? I know that both are dwarfed by a lot of other, better games, but I can get both of these for pretty cheap, so if they're decent I'll probably go ahead.
Age of Empires 3 is solid, but super-old school. Like, game reviewers were griping about it being old-fashioned when it came out 4(?) years ago. It's probably the most fun you can have chopping trees, researching obscure economic techs and throwing hordes of units at the enemy, though. It's a very polished game, despite it's flaws. I can say I enjoyed the expansion civs a lot more than the vanilla ones, though--they were a lot more creative and different from each other. I'd suggest playing the demo first to test your tolerance for back to basics RTS gameplay.
BFME2 is a lot more...uneven. It has great ideas and terrible ideas all wrapped up in the same package, along with persistant glaring balance issues, but it is fast paced and good looking (lots of explosions sending units flying in all directions, plus War Trolls!) and has a lot of variety with all the different factions and heroes and such. It also has some fairly unique features, like the War of the Ring Mode and an indepth hero creator. I don't think I can recomend it at this point, though. I reinstalled recently and then went online to see what changes had been made in the last few years since I played it and...EA pretty much dropped all support and ran away screaming, to the point that the expansion received only a single incomplete patch.
I will say it's a more evolved game than Age of Empires 3, but that's not saying much compared to newer games.
Ah, almost forgot. Worst part about Age of Empires 3 is the AI. I mean, stupid AI is a trademark of the genre and all, but the AoE 3 AI does nothing but thirst endlessly for the blood of your peasents. No sacrifice is too great, no obstacle too daunting, not when the rich porkladen blood of farmers is so close that he can almost taste it.
BFME 2 is similar, actually. You have farms instead of farmers, but they will be ruthlessly attacked at every oppourtunity, no matter how far out of the way they are.
i never played 2 so i cant really compare them. warlords 3 is one of my all time favorite games though, so i'll give it a solid thumbs up.
I think I understand exactly what you're saying, Toastmold. I'm a pretty hardcore HoMM fan, and I bought King's Bounty on it's release day and had all the same complaints about it. I slogged through 75% of the game and then shelved it for a while. The idea was cool, the game itself seemed to have it's flaws. Well, later a friend of mine started playing it again and I'm one of those people who likes to play the same games at the same time so we can talk about it. So I started up again too. I went into the King's Bounty forums to freshen up and perused the "Tips" and such to get reaquainted with the game. I learned a lot of stuff, even after making it so far into the game. I think it was the Heroes mindset that may have made a lot of the game seem pointless. The resources that seem abundant in the early stages of KB will be very scarce later, then all the decisions you made while spending them will really start to matter. The skills that don't SEEM very good actually ARE. In KB there is a finite amount of everything (runes, troops, enemies, artifacts), unlike Heroes. It's easy to not notice the difference until you actually hit a wall in the game because you learned every spell (spent all your crystals), or you neglected picking the Learning skill ('cause it sucks in Heroes, right?). It's hard to put a finger on exactly the right words to convey this idea, but essentially it boils down to this: In HoMM, the best strategy is to spend resources quickly and take on big fights as early as possible to get bigger rewards that will inevitably lead you to out-pacing your opponents in XP, artifacts, higher level troops, etc. In KB the strategy is to spend as little as possible and lose as few troops as you can along the way, being the most efficient warrior, not the strongest. At the end of the game you are scored on how quickly you beat the game, how many troops you lost in battle, and how many quests you completed. The tendancy of us HoMM players it to buy huge stacks of troops and slam them into the difficult fights as early as possible, then go rebuy them afterward. While we think we're getting an early lead, it's not the case, we are actually earning a terrible game score with this strategy.
I recommend starting up another game, set the difficulty to Hard or Impossible, and play the game trying to lose as few troops as possible. You'll know you're doing well when you can take on "Very strong" enemies without losing a single man in battle.