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Strategy with emphasis on hero units

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Sacred82

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So, after playing pretty much every worthwhile PC RPG there is (from '90 onwards), I've been looking to increase my backlog. Strategy games with a bit of an RPG layer seem like the obvious choice. However, in most games I've tried, there's not much emphasis on outstanding units, which diminishes the RPG aspect quite a bit. Recently I've found out that Warcraft III should do pretty much what I want, I'm getting it next month. Maybe you know some other games that qualify as well.

Games I've tried:

MoM
HoMM III
D&D: Dragonshard
Fantasy General
Age of Wonders
Spellforce (party building sucked but the concept seemed cool)
Disciples II (found it unplayable in windowed mode)
Lords of Magic (couldn't get it to run properly)
 

Lostpleb

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Dawn of War series (skip the first unless you're really into the Warhammer 40k board game)
Starcraft II (Heart of the Swarm & Legacy of the Void expansions mostly)
Age of Empires III

You seem to have all the other good titles in your sights; Spellforce and Age of Wonders in particular are worth playing.

And Warcraft 3 is an absolute must. Originally it was not going to be an RTS, but the transition shaped the game in such a way that we are likely never going to see again. Kind of how the Infinity Engine wasn't meant for RPGs, yet gave us some of the best games ever.
 

Jokzore

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Dawn of War II definitely , the first one is more RTS than the 2nd , DoW II has very similar gameplay to Company of Heroes. Essentially before each mission you pick the 4 heroes you want to bring with you , each of them has a small squad following them and then you pew pew using different abilities and equipment you can tinker with between missions. Original campaign is OK , Chaos expansion is probably the best one and you can safely skip Retribution unless you're rly into the game or desperately wanna be a filthy heretic play something thats not SPESS MUHREENS.


edit: You can also look into Total War Warhammer, its obviously closer to Total War games more than anything else, but '' generals '' in this one are called " Lords '' and they act as very powerful units when you're doing the real-time battles , they have abilities , mounts , equipment , special lore-battles/quests etc. Theres also ''Hero' units on the campaign map they replace the usual diplomat/priest/merchant characters and during real time battles they act the same way Lords do.
 
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Ippolit

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RPG Wokedex Bubbles In Memoria Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Thea: The Awakening - your roster consists only of Hero units (~10-20). Their abilities differ greatly and everybody is able to fulfill a central role. No trash units (if you don't powergame).

Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - basically the same with even more variety between the party members. You should definitely try out this game.

Tactics Ogre - you have standard troops with basic and advanced jobs but there are also Hero units with a unique model and sometimes increased stat growth in their preferred class.
 

thesheeep

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Warlords Battlecry.
This. No better hybrid of RTS & RPG around. A bit on the budget side, of course, but the sheer amount of races and classes and the fun way to try and mix them is just
cook-gesture-delicious-food-vector-4161456.jpg
cook-gesture-delicious-food-vector-4161456.jpg
Dive-sig-ok.jpg
 

Baron Dupek

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I forgot about Armies of Exigo, should play it again some day.
What's the Kodex Konsensus, it is any good?
 

CryptRat

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Some campaigns, in particular, from HoMM4 could be closer to what you're seeking. More generally the heroes in this episode take part in combat and you can have several of them in one same party. It's not really a good episode because it's unbalanced but that's a different matter.

Fantasy General
Elven Legacy is a close game, I don't think there are more heroes but there's some freedom in unit advancement.
Considering other squad-based tactics games, Drums of war also have a few heroes and some freedom regarding unit advancement. Halfway has only unique characters but limited character advancement. The Age of fear games have some interesting unit advancement too.
 
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Sacred82

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What problem did you have with Lords of Magic? Something like this? http://steamcommunity.com/app/404040/discussions/0/135508489638246142/
nop, didn't get an error message IIRC. It just wouldn't load.

You never played Warcraft III?

I played the first Warcraft, then Warcraft II came out and somehow put me off. After seeing how MP focused Diablo II was (before the Druid and Assassin) and the ensuing hardcore and account selling antics, I wasn't exactly a Blizzard fan anymore, so I chose to ignore any subsequent games.

Ascencion to the Throne: Valkyrie

pVEcW.jpg


:abyssgazer:

Looks like Russian shovelware, what are its redeeming qualities?

Age of Wonders games are pretty hero-focused.

The original was a bit ridiculous in that its easy-peasy to create a godlike Super-Hero, especially with custom leader

Yeah I found it a bit too broken.


Dawn of War II looks good, there are a shitload of DLC though - what about those?

It seems I've snagged Warlords Battlecry III during a GOG sale, is it a good place to start the series?
 

laclongquan

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Ascencion to the Throne, Valkyrie?

It's kinda like King Bounty's, also another Russian game. Your hero running around on the screen to find battles. you can buy troops in certain events and locations. You can raise skills in level up and certain events. you actually can choose skills to raise your hero, or raise the buffs that other troops will enjoy.

You are limited in what troops you can command by skill Authority. You can choose to deploy 10 high-requirement-Authority troops like Valkyrie or Werewolf instead of 1000 dirtcheap Peasant or Militia. You can have different builds for your char based on those points: high level hero and few elit troops or massive army under a commander.

The battlefield and overworld environment is 3D as you can see.
pVEcW.jpg


AoTV is actually a remake game of its slightly older sibling AoT with the character running around on screen is a male. But this time the Russian want to strike at the heart of gamer by getting a nekkid amazon, and then tattooed amazon running.

Why did I abandon it? At a point in time the story has the girl change to the tattoo version instead of nekkid figure. What the hell, right?

Biggest problem? Lack of polishing in many aspect.
- take quest, for example. You have a quest where you get an NPC joined as a pretty good hero unit. There is no indication if you can get him to level up more if you skip having him leaving for greener pasture.
- Take levelup. Your wolf companion can rank up at certain point but it's hard to guess where and when.
- The English forum is just dismal. Very lacking in English communications between fans, and with devs.

EDIT: NOTE to fucking self
Belcanzor said:
By the way, remove the tattoos can be easily done just copying the original dds without tattoo over the other you char receive after you pass the warrior test.
 
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Yeah I found it a bit too broken.

Well without careful play you WILL be overwhelmed by sheer numbers of powerful units and ballistas. Level-1 shit will just get megarekt en masse, althrough ranged units might soften you for the big boys.

AI leaders and heroes also tend to be on the overpowered side because the AI gains XP from sitting on its ass (especially at higher levels). Campaign maps all use leader heroes, and they will doubtlessly have huge armies of goons along.

There's some shit that properly employed can kill even super-heroes stone cold dead. Nature Elementals, enchant-buffed warlords and other imba melee units, anything with high attack and lightning/cold dmg, anything with entangle attack, buffed ballistas, Dragons (who can just keep flying and breathe stuff on your head), Air Galleys, anything with stun first attacks, Invoke Death (small chance tho because original AOW makes it hard for touch-based attacks and spells to succeed), Spectres and other physical immune units like Air Elementals (if your hero lacks a damage type capable of hitting them).

You could finish the campaign (or any map really) later on by simply sending your leader on a one-man mission to kill the enemy leader, but unless you get lucky it will become pretty much a coin toss context, or the enemy will cast something that stuns you (like entangle), then he and his friends will take turns raping your ass.

AOW series have some rapetastic maps, through. Like Hall of Heroes and Valley of Wonders in AOW. The final map in Shadow Magic is made of rape.
 
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Reminder that Orcs in AOW are the fucking master race.

Lvl1 Ranged: Meh archers.
Lvl1 Melee: HUEG dmg swordman, one of best infantry units.
Lvl1 Special: Melee poisoner.
Lvl2 Priest: Meh. Storm priests are far better.
Lvl2 Cavalry: Badass heavy cavalry with 4dmg, charge attack means anything lvl1 dies, sometimes one-shotted. Brutal.
lvl2 Ballista: Shredder Bolts that fire death-enchanted bolts.
Lvl3 Elite Infantry: Slow, low res to magic, round attack + lvl4 melee stats.
Lvl3 Flyer: Doombats are meh.
Lvl3 assassin: Meh.
Lvl4: Red Dragons are bullshit - you can just fly above and burn everything.
 

Don Peste

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Armies of Exigo

how does it compare to Warcraft III?

I'm definitely getting the latter but still curious
I played the demo 13 years ago. I would say it's a decent game. You may want to ask pippin:

Armies of Exigo is p. fun, but it's more of a Warcraft 3 clone than a crpg.
It's a better WC3 than WC3, actually. It has multilayered maps, kind of like that DND game Dragonshard. I remember it as a very fun and beautiful game.

Speaking of Wacraft clones there's Rival Realms, which is more like a Warcraft 2.5 type of game. Every unit had levels, stats and even an inventory. However I wouldn't say it was any good... It had some really confusing difficulty spikes, especially when you weren't allowed to have a base. I still played it a lot back then.

76099-rival-realms-windows-screenshot-the-elf-race-already-in-troubles.jpg


Foto+Rival+Realms.jpg
 

pippin

Guest
Sadly that's mostly what I remember. I do think it was a "bigger" Warcraft 3, and you could go into dungeons and whatnot. I also played it around the same time you did. There's a handful of gameplay videos on youtube.
 

Norfleet

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Jun 3, 2005
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Lvl4: Red Dragons are bullshit - you can just fly above and burn everything.
And that was the best part. Burninating the countryside! Burninating the peasants! Burninating all the people, and their thatched-roof cottages!

It's particularly cruel when you park them on top of buildings so nothing can even attack them, and then burninate everyone who tries. And all was laid to burnination.
 

Lostpleb

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Armies of Exigo is p. fun, but it's more of a Warcraft 3 clone than a crpg.
It's a better WC3 than WC3, actually. It has multilayered maps, kind of like that DND game Dragonshard. I remember it as a very fun and beautiful game.

Speaking of Wacraft clones there's Rival Realms, which is more like a Warcraft 2.5 type of game. Every unit had levels, stats and even an inventory. However I wouldn't say it was any good... It had some really confusing difficulty spikes, especially when you weren't allowed to have a base. I still played it a lot back then.

76099-rival-realms-windows-screenshot-the-elf-race-already-in-troubles.jpg


Foto+Rival+Realms.jpg
Now I really want to try those games, but neither are on Steam. They're not even on GoG! :negative:
 

Lostpleb

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So?

SO?!

My bad for expressing enthusiasm at the idea of playing a new game on the Codex! I'll stick to zionist conspiracies, tranny pictures and nigger memes from here on out.
 

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