Thread: What are you playing? (Single-Player Games)

Following some suggestions from this thread:

Help me infect the next generation

... I've tried Warzone 2100 and Napoleon: Total War.

Warzone feels like a great game that never quite got finished. There are some rough edges to the interface which I could probably learn to deal with over time. Some of them feel like the conflict of -isms that always crop up with a port or a cross-platform effort. Others seem to me like they'd be weird and inefficient on any platform I've ever used - and I've used quite a few. The game has so much polish and promise that I'd be willing to learn the quirks.

But the path-finding and the behaviour of groups of units is comically bad. After the 4th or 5th "wrf?" moment, I quit in frustration. I'm not talking about units having a hard time finding a way across a large map. I'm talking about a unit not being able to find a path around a few friendly units sitting next to it.

So the game makes me sad. It's obvious that a lot of talent, creativity, and hard work went into it. The terrain model is great, there is well-thought-out depth and breadth. There is good music, and a real storyline. But a few small and (seemingly) easily-solvable annoyances are keeping it from the greatness it deserves.

I also bought Napoleon:Total War. I haven't played it much yet. So far it has potential.

One thing I did notice is that it looks like the combat is resolved by a probabilistic method, and that the animations are grafted in afterwards.

I first noticed this when a cavalry unit was slicing up some routed infantry. From far away it looked weird - almost like the game was glitching. Zoomed-in, the cavalry was animated riding and the infantry was animated running (or, really, clown jogging) but neither of these animated actions had anything to do with the other. Every now and then an infantry unit would fall down dead, but mostly that happened some distance from any enemy units.

My impressions could change (again - I haven't played it much yet), but in some respects the game doesn't feel very different from the cardboard-squares-and-hex-board games my uncle showed me years ago.

So it's more like Homeworld 2 - which resolved combat with a probability model - and not like the original Homeworld - which actually traced out projectiles to determine hits and damage.

This is my first Total War game, and I'd be interested in hearing tips and impressions from others.

Cheers,


AetheLove

Originally Posted by rush2049

Friendly units do not move out of the way for other friendly units, correct. (They sometime try, but only once, and not again) So if you get in a situation where Unit 1 is blocked by Unit 2, who tries to moves out of the way, but is blocked by unit 3. Then Unit 1 is stuck.

To give little pathfinding quirk; If you tell a unit to move a short diatance (4 tiles or less) the chance of them doing that perfectly is slim. If you tell a unit to move across the map they will most likely make it there perfectly. It has to do with how many 'gates' the path finding algorithm can go through. You learn to live with it.

Units do however get smarter the more experienced they are. If you notice units with more kills get a rank (first at 5 kills). Then they are more accurate, do more damage, move quicker, and pathfind better (hit their destination exactly). You can also 'recycle' a unit into a factory then the next unit that is produced from that factory will have the old unit's rank. Its pretty awesome. Later on when you get repair centers, you can assign a unit to return to repair at certain damage levels.

Also you can set patrols / fire commands / range commands on a per unit basis. To access all of this, right click on a unit.

Keep in mind this is a game from 1998/1999; and the units do not clip through each other (as much) like in some other game series (C&C, Starcraft, etc.)

I can accept that a unit surrounded by friendlies might not be able to push its way out. That's especially understandable given the age of the game - which you correctly point out. What made me quit last time was that a unit on the edge of a cluster wouldn't move to a point beyond the other side of the cluster. I had to move it back, and then up, and then over.

I'm not saying my expectations are reasonable. :)

It's a 17-year-old game, and it's (now) free. But those were my present-day impressions.

I did find out about experience, though I didn't know it also improved pathfinding. I also didn't know that recycling bequeathed rank on the next unit. Thanks for that.

I did know about right-click for assigning behaviours, but found it annoying that the menu/icons don't come up under the cursor. Right-clicking brings up options way over near the edge of the screen. They're pretty small targets. In '99 - when most monitors were something like 800x600 or 1024x768 - that probably worked ok. But my 2015 monitor makes for very small and distant targets. Fitts's law still applies.

If you had a hand in the game, then kudos. Like I said; it's clear that a lot of talent and hard work went into it.

Cheers,


AetheLove