General Strategy & Sim thread

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Command and Conquer Legions

If you want to hear a RTS lover get really angry about the %^&*ing over of a venerable franchise—with quite NSFW language included—Zade has you covered in this review of the latest C&C mobile incarnation:

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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKCUd6cAhPA


It's just sad.
 

Now this is how you do a TWW3 DLC. Three new lords (all with unique mechanics), 3 new heroes, 3 new hero types, many new units. Can't wait to get my hands on those thunderbarges. I was just telling Guido on Sunday that the dwarfs needed a better flying unit. And the Empire's land ships look amazing.
 

Now this is how you do a TWW3 DLC. Three new lords (all with unique mechanics), 3 new heroes, 3 new hero types, many new units. Can't wait to get my hands on those thunderbarges. I was just telling Guido on Sunday that the dwarfs needed a better flying unit. And the Empire's land ships look amazing.

I think the thunderbarge was one of the most popular unit mods, at least for dwarfs, so I'm curious how well the official version will be received.
 
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Prismata—Free Strategy Game
This is good!

I spent an hour in this 2018 freebie from the makers of that 10,000 puzzle game we discussed earlier. Very well presented, slick action and attractive graphics—and the flimsy story didn't get in the way in the first hour I played.

It's turn-based full-knowledge, so like chess in that. However, the mix of units is apparently random each game, so you can't just learn it by rote.

A perfect-information strategy game inspired by RTS, deckbuilders, and board games. Choose from three distinct technology classes and outwit your foes by snowballing your starting resources into a powerful cybernetic army. ABSOLUTELY NO PAY-TO-WIN

It's listed as Early Access, but comments say it was abandoned years ago—so don't buy the Founder's Edition unless you want to donate, it seems you won't get much for your money. The base game is free, I don't know how long it lasts, but so far looks like fun to find out.
 
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I mentioned in the other posts, but songs of syx has a demo which is essentially the full game of the previous build. So there might be enough content for you to enjoy

 

I don't know what to think about this. The trailer and description make the game seem like a potential juggernaut, but their previous game, Technicity, is very amateurish and clunky. It's hard for me to imagine this working out well, but they released a demo for Technicity, so maybe we can try before we buy.
There's a demo now. It's a bit like The Planet Crafter but is really about crafting.
 
@Brian Boru
So I tried Tempest Rising. There was no tutorial, but most of it was self-explanatory. Two things I couldn't figure out was how to select all the units of a particular type and how to make a group of different units (like a tank plus infantry). I glanced at the keybinds, but didn't see anything related to this. All I could do was select either by clicking on the unit or by dragging the mouse over a group of units.

So the question is whether you can do those things--select all units of a single type and create a group of units with various types.

Since the game wouldn't let me pause it and new enemies kept showing up, it was difficult for me to concentrate on figuring things out. Oh, I just thought of a third question. Is it possible to set formations?

I was playing another RTS on Thursday, Kingdome Wars, and it was much easier to keep my units in the order I wanted them in, like artillery in the rear.

By the way, I bought that Command and Conquer set of 12 games on Steam. If you are familiar with it, which game should I start with?
 
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Tempest Rising

I only got ~30m so far, mostly waiting for it to load and start, plus messing in menus and then the first GDI-GDF mission.

I was on easy so I didn't need any extra controls—I'll have a look at those later. If it's like C&C, to make a group first rubber band it and then press Ctrl+X, where X is a number 0-9. You can then select the group by pressing X anytime, and center camera on it by double press.

I don't remember the 'all of a type' or formations commands. Early C&Cs didn't have formations, so I usually used groups to achieve that a bit more manually—one group out front, another group behind, another at rear and/or flanks.

I'm not thrilled with the color scheme—it's all kinda dark and dull with blues and greys and browns.

game wouldn't let me pause it

I guess you mean Pause + give commands? Esc = pause. I don't think C&C ever had Pause+Command, except possibly the last one or two which I avoided or don't remember.
 

OsaX Nymloth

Community Contributor
So, which upcoming RTS are you looking for?
I had access to some early builds of Stormgate, Zerospace and Battle Aces and also played the Tempest Rising demo.

And honestly, none of those seems like a proper "replacement" for StarCraft 2 for me.

Zerospace is still too early in development and I am not fan of hero units.

Stormgate has "camps" like some MOBA game, which I am not a fan of either, but it's mechanically the closest to SC2.

Battle Aces have simplified almost everything to the point of it being almost an idle clicker with only micro from time to time being required (and having systems that actually get in the way of microing lol). Still the 10 minute limit and ease of getting into may cause it to become quite popular. No macro, no scouting, just two keys to spam units and move them across the map and react to game telling you if enemy is teching or expanding.

And then there's the Tempest Rising that looks cool, sounds cool and may scratch that C&C itch. Still, it's not SC2, a different breed of classic RTS.
 
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Wonderful 1-hour video by Zade, featuring an extensive interview with the founding programmer Greg Lane who proves to be a dream to interview—very likable, very informative, a truly passionate gamer and dev.

I always felt DR was very unfortunate back then, a fine game which unfortunately had to compete with the C&C games, the X-Crafts and Total Annihilation. Shame the dev company got removed from #2, killed any chance of a franchise.
 
Now that's more like a little empire!

Civ4 on Prince v 3 opponents on Standard-size Islands map with many small islands—of min 7 tiles—option.
I ended up with more cities off my main island than on it—15 v 14—and more than double nearest challenger on 14… city numbers are the right-most column.

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6 islands n total—one is top-left in the ice above Russia. I stayed out of trouble by not converting to any of the religions I founded, and giving in to later begging requests once I had a good tech lead.

Not all roses tho—one of my Destroyers appears to have run aground! That captain is destined for the iron mine.

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I like this setup, keeps the middle third of the game interesting after Astronomy to enable ocean sailing. Key military tech is Rifling—you can get it soon after Gunpowder, but Riflemen are 55% stronger than Musketmen!
 
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Zloth

Community Contributor
Have you (or anyone else) ever set up a city to act as a canal? For instance, if you had an Earth-like map where the Panama region was just one hex wide, you could put a city down at that point that would let ships cross from one side to the other by going into the city hex with the ship then out the other side.
 
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Civ4
chaining Forts as long as each one touches water

Sea ice will also do and water can be fresh, eg lake or inland sea—and of course Forts must be in your borders.

Ship AI

The AI for ship nav sucks—for some weird reason it'll make for land if that doesn't lengthen the journey. Even if there are a bunch of Barb Galleys clustered around the chosen spot.

Just had a Carrack [Portuguese Caravel] carrying a Settler and Longbow sunk by 2 B Galleys :sob: I clicked a safe ocean square for it to reach—without noticing it had only 1 movement point, not the usual 4. AI spent that point getting to coast so B Galleys could attack :mad:

Multi Grr! :D
 
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