ChongLi

[quote]Did you try Age of Wonders Shadow Magic by email? You should (it's still a very modern and rich game, give it a try!) and then compare that to a regular but 'micro' map with actual multiplayer fights. The strategic element in my experience always beats the tactical one! Besides when both players are skilled enough the final result of the battle is pretty much previsible from the moment the armies confront each other, while the complexity of the strategy behind it can make things quite

The entire appeal of a multiplayer MoM-type game is the tactical combat against another human being. Auto-resolve pretty much ruins it for me. I'd rather have the PBEM feature some sort of system to defer all of the battles of the turn until a time when both players are online so that they can play all the battles at once.

How is PBEM going to work with tactical combat?

Cheer up, I've been through much worse in terms of betas. Take Mortal Online for example. It was so bad I had to contact VISA to get a refund on my CC. The company refused to refund me for a pre-order they hadn't delivered. I've learned my lesson. I'll never pre-order a game again. I'll probably buy Elemental when it comes out, though! [e digicons]:D[/e]

[quote]That being said, a game released in the state that MoM was in (Even after patches) today would be completely destroyed by reviewers and other gamers. Bugs like MoM still has destroy playability,[/quote] [quote]Its true. MoM is still very buggy (though in its defense, its hard to say what is caused by it or by emulation means such as DOS box, which does have some strange speed issues with MoM)[/quote] A great many (perhaps a majority)

[quote]MoM is still the best, followed by AoW 2. - SM There is 1 problem with MoM however...the AI sucked badly. [e digicons]:|[/e] [/quote] Yeah, all I really want is MoM with really good AI, all known bugs fixed - and there were MANY of them (see section 10.5) and multiplayer. One of the reasons why I think subsequent games have failed to capture what

[quote]We'll try and get it in [e digicons];)[/e] [/quote] You guys will be heroes if you can pull it off. I'm really looking forward to seeing what you guys can come up with! [e digicons]:D[/e]

I somehow doubt this game will be able to take advantage of more than 4GB of RAM, which is one of the only benefits to going 64-bit.

[quote]EU3 has been around for a good awhile. Has a fine community. I don't know if you seek out asses or they find you, but if you have a problem with a player, don't play with them. Stardock can't spend all it's time trying to hand hold players from accidently encountering someone who wants to ruin a game. There isnt' a game out there that is so handicapped and restricted that some dick can't come in and ruin it. Multiplayer is indeed a different breed of game, and if you need the perfect e

[quote]Whoever said it was a the best model? You made a comment on something you knew nothing about, and I corrected you for it. It seems strange that you would incorrectly talk about Civ IV multiplayer, even though you admitted you never actually played it, and then turn around and say you don't like it. Pretty low to make an opinion on something you know nothing about. The simul turns in Civ IV has flaws, but its meant to keep things moving faster for the human players and gives a slight ed

[quote]It's actually a good model, used in boardgames like Diplomacy.[/quote] I was commenting on the situation he described, where the AI is able to instantly react to things before the player has a chance, that is not a good model. Board games do not have this problem, for obvious reasons. [quote]Note that if one wants to nitpick, "real-time" does not exist. Even real-time games are handled by frames or simulation ticks.[/quote] A semantic straw-man. The big differen

[quote]Wel if you have never played multiplayer, I am not certain why you would try to comment on it. In multiplayer, the AI typically goes first, it reacts first. So if you have a player unit and an AI unit adjacent to one another during a period of war, that AI player is going to react before you even get a chance to click the unit. Same with religion, if a player researches a religion in the same turn the AI researches it, the AI will get the religion. If the AI is going to trade with each

[quote]Well Civ IV is clearly simultaneously turn-based. Yes, you are all acting at the same time, but there is a turn and you have to wait until everyone is done for the next turn.[/quote] I've never played Civ IV multiplayer, so that may be different. Civ IV single player is strictly turn-based, with each player having the exclusive right to move during his turn. This opens the door to abuse of the system, by using tricks such as technology brokering (trading the same tech

[quote]Oxymoron or not, I can't think of a better way to describe BOTF's combat system, or SEIV with turns set to 'simultaneous'.[/quote] I've never played those games but I've played other games with simultaneous "turns" if they could be called that. Baldur's Gate and Master of Orion 2 tactical combat are both like that, with the former being described as "real-time with pause" and the latter a "phase-based game". <a title="Time-keeping systems in games." href="http://en.wiki

"Continuous turn-based" is an oxymoron. The definition of turn-based is that each entity or player may act only when it is his turn, all others must wait. If multiple players can act simultaneously in real-time, it is not turn-based.

I'll probably begin by modding all of MoM's units into the game, most likely requiring mods to the game's combat calculations to support them.

[quote]It's rather odd that I find myself defending Endofdayz, but I realy must point out that (s)he said slider S , as in one for each thing. You would have the thing being all the way not preasant at one end, and all the way presant at the other, but the strength of each machanic would also be changeable, in a way that oolean checkboxes simply cannot replicate (unless, I suppose, there were a whole lot of them for each mechanic.....)[/quo

[quote]I don't wish to start an arguement, but how would sliders, an inherently degree-based system, give you less control than boolean "on-off" switches? None the less, the point isn't how its implemented, they could make different exe's for all I care. I just think the idea should be implemented. Some like kingdom sims, some like zerg-rush's. Having that option independent of difficulty and any "AI bonus handicap" option would give players more options - always a good thing[/quote]<

[quote]While I also think that any player with a game or two under thier belt can woop the AI, theres an interesting point to be made here. Perhaps a slider not for how smart the AI is but rather how "gamey" it is. The more gamey it is, the harder it tries to stop you, to the point of being uncooperative and unnecessarily agressive. The less gamey it is, the more "realistic" it is and the more it plays like its running a nation and not playing a game. Having a slider f

[quote]Here's the easiest solution: two sliders. The first slider adjusts the AI's intelligence. The second adjusts how much of a bonus it gets.[/quote] The AI will never be smart enough to warrant such a slider, it should always be at full intelligence and any effort to dumb it down is wasted, the bonus slider is all that is needed.

[quote]CIV IV also have a good solution on the limitation of growth. The way that maintenance goes up with more cities means that you have to develop cities to pay for new ones. It is not possible to spread without thinking about consequences.[/quote] No, I hate this system. It is formally known as negative reinforcement and it accomplishes little more than stretch the game out and cause it to drag on for far longer than it really deserves. It forces the player to spend more and more

[quote]Well you want variety but parity, and sure there should be multiple factions that are roughly on an equal playing field as far as viability but not being identical. And I guess there is always the option of creating a gimp faction. I would just like to see a few of the canon factions have the odds stacked against them. Out of the dozen factions what would be wrong with 8 being relatively balanced (but still with huge variety) and then having 4 factions at varying degrees of gimpness.</

[quote]DoTA? Never heard of it.[/quote] Defense of The Ancients (DoTA) is the most played video game "mod" in the world. You should check it out, it's a lot of fun. [quote]Other great things about MOM is it's a simple game with a lot of meat and potatoes. Each building and unit brought new things to be able to do. The spell book was filled with wonderful little early spells to play with until you got to the the really monster ones. The Shadow Lord man that thing was aweso

[quote]More and more, I suspcect that a big part of my motivation for typing too much around here and wanting to play hard in the beta is some mostly-unconscious expectations management thing. Sometimes nostalgia can seem rather like a social disease...[/quote] [quote]Because I want more of this type of game made, which means I want this one to be successful. A 300 page thread full of people complaining about how it doesn't reach a standard imposed by nostalgia is not terribly helpful

[quote]In a game lik Civ IV diplomacy was handled with random factors and arbitrary dice rolls. The difficulties there were not governed by the obscure ways of the AI to handle diplomacy. The system was in fact crystal clear. It was up to the player to understand the system and then learn what the consequences of different actions would be. The difficulties of handling diplomacy in Civ IV was then just juggling with pro's and con's of different decision, choosing the option that was the least