Procyon Lotor
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Posts posted by Procyon Lotor
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Great episode, great game. The battles are just a lot of fun and have a great deal. Rowan's point about the sticky melee is a good one, as it makes the battles feel 'real'.
Troy has the elephants figured out - charge the heavy infantry. Try to keep them in melee at all times. I have yet to successfully route an elephant.
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I got it and have played the first couple of battles from the Union side. I didn't play UG: Gettysburg. I love the interface - it's very easy to get the troops to do what you want to do with very minimal fuss. I think there is great potential for the campaign. I'd like to see more of a Panzer General style approach where your core corps (see what I did there?) is the core (ugh) of your involvement in the scenarios. Right now it seems like my corps is just a supporting actor to the much larger army. But I've only played a couple of scenarios, so that may change.
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Another "Early Access" game. I'll pass.
I get it. You all play video games as part of your profession. You most likely get free codes. You like the 'new' and 'fresh'. Something unfinished is so much more interesting to you, since it has the "potential" (= I hate that word in game reviewers vocabulary), to become what you want it to, in your heads. And a Dwarf Fortress clone "with a twist" most certainly is exciting ... to you.
I myself, prefer a *finished* game (whatever that means today - interesting discussion in itself), not something in flux.
I don't buy half-baked bread. I don't watch a writer over the shoulder, while he is still writing. I don't buy a car with three wheels. No offense.
I agree with Cold, especially in regards to this game. I bought the early access version maybe two years ago. It was never an "early access" game. It was always complete enough to provide a very fun experience for the price. It's been fun to see the iterations come along and add new things. With Rimworld, the early access process has actually been quite fun. And I say this as a guy who cannot devote a lot of time to gaming.
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Artillery has width if used as a line battalion. If used as a support company (the + signs on the left of the division designer) then it does not contribute width.
It's a lot more powerful if used as a line battalion, however, And a line battalion requires more pieces to be fully equipped. So there is a trade-off.
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. . . and my divisions were each trained to level 3 and comprised of 20 infantry battalions and 5 advanced artillery (with engineers and artillery support).
This is where that (way too hidden) width mechanic comes in. I estimate each of your super-divisions would have a width of 55 (infantry =2 width, artillery =3). When you attack from just one province, you get 80 width to work with. Each additional province gives you another 40. On defense, you only ever get 80 width. So you could only ever defend with one division at a time, and probably were never able to attack with more than 2. Your enemy, on the other had, employed divisions with width of 24. Still not optimal, but they could always bring at least 3 to every fight.
I read on the forums that you should try to keep your divisions at either 10 width or 20 width to maximize their effectiveness. I've found that to be a VERY useful guideline. Most of my French infantry weighs in at 19 width, which has been close enough.
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I don't think any of us planned to talk that much about documentation or tutorials, but when the point was raised, we all obviously realised we had a problem with it. Such is the nature of these chats! I definitely agree that it could be an interesting standalone topic though.
That's fair, and I think the free-flowing nature of your conversations is part of what makes the podcast great.
I am probably more frustrated than I otherwise would be because I think all the information you need to play the game is out there. The wiki is good, the tutorial videos are good, the forums are okay. Also, tooltips! Hover that mouse of yours over any stat that has you scratching your head, and a pop-up box will tell you most of what you need to know. There is a ton of information in those battle screens.
That being said, there are some incredibly important concepts that are not obvious or explained anywhere. For example, I just happened upon a Paradox forum post about how to build divisions. Did you know that divisions have a "width" number? Do you know how important that number is? I sure didn't, and other than having a lightbulb go off while watching a battle screen, I don't think I'd ever have figured it out. I know I'm not the only one who was clueless. I've been watching a Let's Play by a guy who seems to be a pretty good player, but he keeps gleefully creating these monster divisions with no thought of their width. How long until he figures out why only 2 divisions can ever enter an attack?
Listening to the podcast, and watching some "Let's Play's", I think that people have yet to figure out exactly how to play this game. I don't think most of us have really figured out the optimal use of the battle planner, how to use our air forces, etc. Again, I'd be really interested in having you guys revisit this in a few months (or after the first DLC).
(I'm 18 hours in. I've played France twice. The first time I struggled with basic interface issues, as well being generally clueless, and I got stomped by the Germans in 1940. My second run has been an epic blast. I almost collapsed a couple of times, but managed to turn the tide in 1941. Now it's late 1942 - Germany and Italy have been defeated, I'm mopping up Balkan fascists, and Japan is next on the list.)
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I think the topic of "How Do We Learn Games?" would be an interesting one. Manuals vs. wiki vs. tooltips vs. "Let's Play" videos on youtube, etc. I'd just rather the topic didn't take up so much of this particular episode. Essentially, the first half hour of this episode was a complaint about how Paradox expects gamers to learn their games, followed by complaints about game systems that boiled down to "I don't know how this works." I make this criticism as a big fan of you guys. You have a much better HoI4 episode in you. I hope you come back to it in the future.
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I can only comment based on games I've played, but I'd say EUIV. A combination of the mechanics, diplomatic options, and the sheer number of countries involved makes EUIV diplomacy a very involved process.
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Great episode. I've played Civ from the beginning, and probably owned every expansion along the way. I had forgotten how jacked up the early Civs were. In Civ 2 and 3, I remember agonizing over overflow-avoidance. I remember ICS (Infinite City Spam), which was still a viable strategy in Civ 3, even with corruption (though I can't fathom why you would WANT to play that way). Like Rob, I found myself reminiscing about gigantic apocalyptic endgame wars in Civ 2, and wondering whether I would even have the patience for that now. Probably not.
Anyways, classic episode!
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"staint" is my new favorite word
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I think the difference is of degree, but it's of such a degree that it becomes a difference in kind, especially in the context of historical wargames. We just really have no idea how ancient warfare worked. We know how Napoleonic warfare worked. We don't really know the make-up of the ancient armies or their deployments for battle. We do know the makeup of Napoleonic armies and their deployments. Etc. The difference of degree is such that instead of arguing over the details, we are arguing over the basics.
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How powerful is your laptop? You can't go wrong with Civ V if your computer can handle it. On my older laptops it is too much of a hog.
I'd nix Wargame because I personally hate playing RTS's on a laptop.
So I'd probably go with Unity of Command.
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I'm listening to the episode now, and it's really good. Thanks for answering my (admittedly kind of obnoxious) question!
As a marketing thing, I have to think that being able to ask the questions is more enticing than being able to listen to the show, and if you make the show free for all it will advertise that perk to potential backers.
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I think the advice was either (1) Start by automating everything and just controlling a single ship, then slowly roll back the automation as you get more comfortable; or (2) turn off all automation and take the plunge.
I played it years ago, and I found that it helped to be very mindful about what I automated and what I didn't.
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This game is great! I don't even know where to begin, or how to explain why. All the pieces work? It dynamically generates interesting stories (see the dragon-slaying story above)? The levelling and meta-levelling is cool?
Anyways, this game is great!
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+1 to the thought that backers get to ask questions, and the episode can be free to all.
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I am getting kind of excited about this game.
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I get an e-mail.
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If my wife asks, Patreon is some kind of credit protection service. Okay?
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Great episode, and a great strategy gamer cross-over bringing Quill to the podcast!
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I bought and played Rule the Waves, and I really like it. It's the game version of the book Dreadnought, but with more war.
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I think there are two options out there: (1) Strategic Command WW1: The Great War, and (2) Commander: The Great War. There is a demo you can download for #1. I played that demo and have wanted to revisit the whole game, but I haven't had the time. I bought #2 for the iPad, and it's a pretty solid game. It doesn't do a great job with the Schlieffen Plan. I say that because as the Germans I have never been able to do as well as they did historically, even on easy levels. While that may be due to my lack of skill, I felt it was more due to the game itself making a quick victory in the west a near impossibility. Despite that, it's a very entertaining strategy game, and it does a good job presenting the grand strategic decisions from that war.
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I want to thank you guys for picking my question. Your answers were fantastic. You are the man, Bruce! Not just for the great answer to my question, but also for listening to the Hardcore History podcast. His WWI series was A++.
The whole show was great.
Three Moves Ahead 537: Humankind
in Three Moves Ahead Episodes
Posted
I agree that the tech tree is . . . bland. And religion is an appendix of a mechanic.
I think the combat system is fantastic. The 1UPT mechanic of Civ V, Civ VI, and Old World never quite engages me. The "zoom in tactical battles" of Age of Wonders et. al. are fun for a while, but seem to take too much time and are only occasionally interesting. The Humankind system, with terrain, 3 rounds per turn and multi-turn battles, reinforcements, etc, is really cool, and hits the sweet spot between detail and time consumption. This is the first Civ game where the military strategy might be my favorite part, and I've played them all since Civ I.
I really appreciated the conversation about optimal game settings. A lot of these free-form strategy games play *very* differently depending on the settings - difficulty level, landforms, size, pacing, and number of opponents. I'm playing Empire, Large World, Random Landforms, Normal Pace, but with 10 opponents. I'm not winning, but I'm having a great time, and I'm under a ton of pressure from the AI throughout. My first games, on the default settings, were quite easy and quite boring. There have been past 3MA episodes where I've been frustrated that one of the panelists complains about something that can be easily addressed by adjusting the game settings. It was good to hear that conversation play out in this episode.