Paradox Interactive announces its first Free-to-Play (FtP) title, Dreamlords of Resurrection, a fantasy theme that will, hints the release, include long term strategic planning. (Press release: Paradox Interactive unveils Dreamlords Resurrection – Paradox Interactive.) This and future FtP titles will be released under the Paradox Connect brand. Dreamlordsis an MMORTS game (Massively Multiplayer Online Real-Time Strategy) that has been around for a few years independently.
This new Civilization version 5, due out in the fall, may be growing on me. I know I mentioned perhaps not even getting it but the self-doubts on that began immediately after writing it in a previous post. I’ll probably end up getting it, since we’ve gotten every version since the original, and Civ 4 with the Warlords and Beyond the Sword add-ons is the best iteration since then.
Not that I have a lot of saved maps but this conversion feature will please many players, especially modders. The World Builder in 5 will allow conversion of your existing maps.
Still not on board with the ranged attacks. At these scales, archers firing more than one hex away seems to us like being able to shoot arrows from Miami to Havana. But I may be willing to live with that.
Note: I haven’t played Civ 4 in a few weeks, and so no tip posts lately. We have a few things in the works. More later.
Gamespot reports on the near complete new fifth major version of the Civilization franchise at the E3 conference. Hexes, yes! I’m not too sure about the ranged combat at that scale, though.
Three screenshosts available at the first official inkling of fifth iteration of the number one all-time great strategy game, Civilization. We’ve had every one and every add-on and only the second was somewhat of a disappointment. Just…one…more…turn…
Independent gaming house Matrix Games, home of classic strategy wargames, offers a remake/redesign of what may have been the last pure carrier game offered to the wargamer, Carriers at War.
You command either the US or Japanese naval forces, with the appropriate focus on fast carriers, during World War II in the Pacific, where control of far-flung land masses made their efficient use critical. After Pearl Harbor, when Japan had an advantage in flattop numbers and until the US’s massive production capabilities came to bear, the results of these battles were touch and go. The emphasis would have been the same whether the battlewagons lost on 7 December 41 were available or not. Whoever spotted the other sooner, and better, would win. This games reflect this ingredient of luck and good scouting well. Here’s the main screen, centered on the empty watery spaces around Midway Island.
Carriers at War: Map Screen
And here’s the Task Group management screen.
Carriers at War: Task Group screen
The Matrix verison has an updated interface that fans of the old game will appreciate – for instance, use a mouse wheel to control the game clock. Mouse wheels didn’t exist in 1991. The graphics are updated as well as are the animated overhead battle scenes. It’s not 3D polygonic but it’s a colorful way of communicating your hits.
The game is stable under Vista except for one recurring spot. Be sure to save your game before adding US torpedo bombers to a coordinated strike. We had it crash there multiple times.
One flaw in the original that was not updated is the inexplicable lack of randomized start, especially with the Midway scenario. There are however, 38 different mystery variants of the Coral Sea situation. Run through them in order then start again. By the time you get around to the first one you’ll probably forget. That may be random enough.
There’s also multiplayer, which I’m pretty sure was not in the original game.
And there is no campaign game. You can’t fight the whole war. There was only one carrier game that had that, Carrier Strike, and it didn’t do it too well. But at least it tried. That game had other problems.
But the day of the pure carrier game may be over. Maybe we can get ahold of one of those recent Pacific strategy games. We’ll see.
Shall we get back to some gaming? Here we are with a front page and no game reviews. Who has time? Actually we’ve been gamed up since X-mas with the add-on to Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. It adds a lot of new items, two new character classes, Druid and Assassin, and an entire new chapter which we haven’t gotten to yet, because we still must get past ol’ Diablo his own self. We will. We’re only a 33rd level druid. Son Leo says a friend of his didn’t get past the big guy until he was at level 80-plus. last two times we encountered him we wore him down to about half his hit points. So maybe by level 50…
I was going to kick off the next post here but this is getting too long so I’ll save it for next.
Diablo II: Lord of Destruction is from Blizzard in 2001 and still in print. Not bad. A nice, calm, oblique overhead, 2D-ish game. Just my speed.
Talk about your convergence! A match made in Halo. Good luck with that! I mean…best of luck to them. I must disagree with the commentator, though, that Microsoft was a tad reserved with its gifts. They wouldn’t want to set a precedent. Next thing you know someone sets up a Halo-themed wedding chapel in Reno an they’ll be expected to set up a warehouse next-door.
Online strategy game publisher Matrix Games has granted us a press account, so you’ll be seeing our usual as-much-review-as-it-deserves treatment of some of their titles. They distribute the efforts of independent developers as well as update and modernize fine vintage strategy titles from the halcyon days of the ’90s(?)
Well they sure don’t make ‘em like they used to and Matrix Games has been burrowing into that niche. The first title we’ll cover is Carriers at War, a game we bought back when it was new. And it seems like that was the last pure strategy Pacific Naval game ever released. Can that be?
Vae Victus (”woe to the conquered”) is the Paradox Interactive add-on to the Rome-era application of its landmark Europa Universalis strategy engine. Here’s a link to the summary of the enhancements in the upgrade.
Wouldn’t you know it that the day we’re sure to get this post up Paradox releases the first patch for Vae Victus. It’ll have to wait. We won’t have a chance to play it just yet. But from the readme it appears that the patch will merely refine and enhance the refinements and enhancements outlined below.
First off, as with all the EU titles, help comes in the form of the highly interactive roll-over information there is no in-game help or online manual. Hover over just about anything in the game interface and it will explain itself. The one drawback to reliance on this with an add-on is that any set of new features can get lost unless you know were to look for them. So read the readme and start with a run through the highly detailed tutorials, which are are more of a familiarization tool than a simulation of play.
There is an obviously smoother, less wildly combative but nonetheless deadly AI. You may find after a long successful inland campaign that a very powerful Carthage awaits you if you don’t knock them out early. It’s hard to ignore tha barbarians, the colonization opportunities and the easy tribal country pickings to the north, but you may want to force yourself.
New to the game is an extensive and engaging Senate system. You’ll spend the first few hundred years as a republic, where the Senate can be more a hindrance than a help, unless handled just right. There are factions to deal with and many of the random events effect their strength, gaining or losing seats depending on your decisions. If your Consul (a single one, not historically accurate but cleaner) is of a particular faction then some abilities will gain modifiers. The two most powerful factions at start are the Military and the Populist. But if you work on it you can arrange for the occasional Mercantile Consul or a Religious one, enhancing diplomatic and omen powers respectively.
Vae Victus: Roman Senate
Personalities, feuds and family are a bit more prominent, and you’ll want to pay a little more attention to this aspect of the game. There’s enough here that you could immerse yourself in it.
A welcome refinement is the addition of Regions. Your micro-management will be reduced, since you now have only to name and track the dux of several regions rather than a governor of each of dozens of individual provinces. Management is streamlined yes, but civil wars can be more dangerous as whole regions may now leave the fold and take the local legions with them.
Bottom line: As much of an improvement as you can expect. It’s been patched. We’ll start a new game as soon as we can.
Mount & Blade - the first of the GamersGate titles we’ll review here – is an action/role-playing game independently developed by TaleWorlds and distributed by Paradox Interactive. For what it may lack in spiffy state-of-the-art graphics it more than makes up in interesting gameplay.
You’ll start as a solitary wanderer in a non-fantasy, roughly medieval world, and from this near-naked state you can improve armor, weapons, amass followers and build yourself into a powerful warlord. The same castles through which you had trouble getting past the gates may someday be the ones to which you lay siege, and conquer.
Getting there is the challenge. The tutorials are good, and combat with blade and bow, on foot and on horseback is not difficult to learn, but putting the skills into practice in the game may prove to be an early barrier to some. It’s a little bit beyond that easy-to-learn-hard-to-master threshold, as the application of what you learn will require some hand-eye coordination. And the battles have consequences. If you ‘re defeated you may lose valuable game-time while your character is enslaved or imprisoned. And there is no option for abstracting battle results as in the Total War series.
Plenty enough of the postings on youtube.com and the trailer below will give a good idea of how fighting in the tactical screens goes…
So except for the above comment and the tip below we’ll say no more. For those who wish to devote the time and who are not debilitated by 3D action-game vertigo, like yours truly, the investment is well worth the effort, since the premise is unlike any other game, and the execution is admirable.
There’s more to the game though than the fighting.
There have been other story-style set-ups in other games but this one works better than any we remember. The handful of questions about your upbringing and misty past create your character’s background and lead right into the skills screen, with point bonuses based on the answers given. After the skill screen you get to decide what the character looks like, with some simple decisions about haircolor/style and facial shapes and sizes, and sliders to draw the features along a range between extremes. Play more than one game and you’ll have to go out of your way to make one character looks the same as another.
After that you’re placed on the strategic map, armed with little more than your wits, some food, a horse, a sword, a bow and just enough scraps of clothing to maintain modesty. This map is in three dimensions and can be zoomed and rotated, but its graphics are flattish; it’s not designed for much more than deciding what your next move will be. On the map you’ll see the castles and villages in the area, the major terrain features that may affect your movements. You will also see – and often, have a chance to avoid – other roving bands – various varieties of thieves and thugs, as well as warbands belonging to the local chieftains.
Mount & Blade Strategic Map. Use the Training Field for in-game practice.
You will also be able to enter a training area In the game where time is taken but your efforts may be rewarded by minor skills increases, and more importantly, after leaving the tutorials behind, you can continue to refine your own real-life skills. handling a sword or bow on foot or horseback.
The controls for weapons-handling are fairly straightforward and simple – for the sword, left-click to start your wind-up and left-click again to swing. On horseback though, everything changes, because you also must control the horse:
Tip: When on horseback in the tactical screens, movement and facing of the horse is controlled by the WASD key combination just like for the character alone on foot. Facing of the rider is controlled by the mouse. When on horseback and wielding a sword, you’ll need to maneuver with fingers of the left hand on the WASD to as close as possible to your target, while at the same time facing the rider and timing the mouse-click swing just right. Avoid some initial frustration around how to best achieve a hit by paying attention to the position of your mouse cursor with relation to the center-line of the horse. Your rider will swing to the opposite side of the side where the mouse cursor rests. So if your target is on the horse’s right side, you must be facing right, yes, but your mouse cursor will have to be to the left of the center of the horse to allow your rider to swing on the right side. And vice versa.
In the villages talk to any villager to get a general idea of the village’s prosperity but you’ll go to the Village Elder for any quests. Hover the mouse over the Elder himself for a handy meter showing his attitude toward you.
Mount & Blade: Entering a village
Through the Village Elder you can take on the offered tasks, or not. If you take them on you don’t have to execute them in order but they will have time limits. You may be asked to get some wheat for the village or perhaps teach the villagers to defend themselves and help them to fight marauders a la the Seven Samurai-Magnificent Seven-Bugs Life movies. The villagers will learn from you if you have mastered the skills yourself. And eventually, when you take this task, you will be faced with the reappearance the bandits, and your trained villagers, with you as their leader, will have to fight. You may also get different types of tasks from a prince of a castle, such as collecting taxes from a nearby village. In this quest you will earn part of the taxes you collect as a commission, which can be quite lucrative. Also the villages and castles will be where you recruit your followers, trade for food and weapons and pick up information about the local conditions.
Though the graphics on the strategic map are merely adequate this is where you’ll receive reports of the regional political situation – who’s at war with whom. On the tactical map the character figures are not as life-like as you’d expect in this day and age but the landscapes are stunning. Athough some of the hilly regions seem a little pointier than normal.
Audio-wise the effects are adequate but effective. Riding a horse can be fun and your mount will be quite responsive, with whinnies and snorts when appropriate; the sounds of walking, then trotting, and then galloping hooves will be feedback on speed.
Conclusion For those with an interest in 3-D non-fantasy, Middle-Ages role playing action, though the sword fighting and horseback ridng may require some mastery of hand-eye skills to do well, a look at Mount & Blade would be well worth considering.
Free to Play, FtP, Gaming, MMORTS, games, strategy | bshears September 2, 2010 | 
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