Kohan II: Kings of War, WH 40K: Dawn of War, Rome: Total War

[Talorc]

Thats a HEAP of War in coming out in the next WEEK!

This is quite unfair, as I want to play all 3 ;-)

Im slightly leaning towards getting WH40K first - its demo was much more fun than the Rome Total War demo.

But then again - the Rome Total war demo only featured the combat engine - and the strategy layer was what was most fun (for me) in Medieval Total war.

Kohan II has a demo coming out Monday. I really enjoyed the first Kohan(s), but I suspect the production values on the art etc wont be as good as Rome or WH40K. But the gameplay is probably good - already got 2 favourable reviews.

So I really dont know which one to get first ;-) It will probably end up being WH40K, and I slowly pick the other 2 up as I finish WH40K.

Anyone one else have a preferred flavour of war?

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Kind of a hard pick for me, too. I really liked Kohan, but a lot of fans who were in the beta say Kohan 2 is mostly a dumbed down Warcraft 3 clone instead of a true successor. I'll have to check out the demo. I thought the WH40K demo was pretty fun, so I imagine I'll pick that up. I really liked Shogun: TW, but I haven't really kept up with the series, so I'll probably wait for Rome: TW to hit the bargain bin.

 

[Flink]

I was very impressed by WH40K:DoW, I can't wait for the full game.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Whoever those 'fans' are, they are complete liars.

Suffice to say that I've managed to play Kohan 2 and it's not dumbed down in any way. In fact, they've added quite a few new features into the game and one of the major changes is that you can't build towns all over the place. It was easily the most exploited part of the original Kohan. In this game, there are designated spots on which to build cities, but you can construct forts anywhere you want. Resources on the map do not have to be in a sphere of influence anymore for your engineers build mines on them.

It is indeed a true successor to the Kohan series and the AI is actually a dangerous opponent now. While before it was possible for a player to go up against multiple opponents, it'll be one hell of a challenge to do that in Kohan 2 and it's not even possible to do a 1 v 3+ on the higher difficulties anymore.

I don't know where you read that it was a "Warcraft 3 clone" but it certainly is not. Companies are still the main focus of the game and cities still have a limited number of constructable buildings, and there are no peons of which to manage.

Are you sure you are even talking about Kohan 2? It sounds to me like you have Armies of Exigo mixed up with Kohan 2. Armies of Exigo is a pure Warcraft 3 clone, except your units die really fast and the AI sucks though the graphics has got to be some of the best I've seen.

As for Kohan 2's graphics - they can't compare to Dawn of War. The buildings are slightly better than the buildings in Age of Mythology series. Rise of Nations still looks better but is in my opinion an inferior strategy title to Kohan 2 due to its focus on resource gathering over tactics and strategy. The character units and monsters in Kohan 2 are as detailed as all the ones in Temple of Elemental Evil, so they aren't ugly like the units in Age of Mythology. They're in fact very well done. The terrain is decent, with nice touches here and there with sea sponges and weird looking plants.

 

[Sheriff05]

Yeah, well I beta'd Kohan II and I just couldn't get into it..the "look" of the game it's nowhere as cool and they took away some cool features to *cough* streamline the mechanics. The "charm" of Kohan and Kohan: AG was gone for me. I be interested in what others here think of the demo. I'm passing on Rome:TW for the same reasons
M:TW was cool but eventually the strategic map gets way more interesting than the actual battles which for me, bog down with macro managment tedium. Without a strong interest in the battles I might as well go with Crusader Kings. I am actually holding out for "The Battle for Middle Earth" as a rts/strat game which looks pretty cool but as with all highly commericalized products it's always a crap shoot wether it will suck or not. There is also a pretty cool looking medieval strategy game called "knights of honor"
That is reminding me of suped up- modern version of Lords of the realm II.
That comes out in the EU on Oct 1. So at least in strategy genre there is some decently looking games coming out unlike the intellectual and creative bankruptcy of the CRPG genre.

 

[FrankHorrigan]

Being a huge M:TW fan i was a bit disapointed by the R:TW demo.. however, ive since downloaded the utility that removes the scripted Trebia battle and lets you replace it, map, troops etc with those of your choice and im now alot less worried about the final product. They just chose a very poor demo, so if anyone reading this is put off the game from the demo like i was, try a modded demo and you should be less concerned. Kohan i couldnt be bothered with, DOW ill buy, but R:TW comes #1 for me.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Pyro Studios is also in the midst of developing a Rome: Total War-like game entitled Imperial Glory, which is set during the Napoleonic Wars era and the conquest of the new world. It even features ship to ship combat involving boarding.

There's a preview of it at IGN: http://pc.ign.com/articles/548/548142p1.html

They might be able to create a Civil War game with it, too.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Whoever those 'fans' are, they are complete liars.

....

I don't know where you read that it was a "Warcraft 3 clone" but it certainly is not. Companies are still the main focus of the game and cities still have a limited number of constructable buildings, and there are no peons of which to manage.

It was the people at the Timegate boards I saw complaining. I wanted to get an idea what it was like before buying it. WC3 clone did come up repeatedly, though probably they meant it less literally than you're taking it. Like Sheriff mentioned, I think the "streamlined mechanics" were probably what turned people off, and it does concern me.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Well, don't take it literally. It's nothing like Warcraft 3. They're probably just pissed off because they can't employ the strategy of 'building 500 castles on the map for unlimited resources' anymore.

 

[Sheriff05]

Well, don't take it literally. It's nothing like Warcraft 3. They're probably just pissed off because they can't employ the strategy of 'building 500 castles on the map for unlimited resources' anymore.

Funny, I played Kohan a shitload and the number of castles you can build is limited to the number of zones of control that each created castle sets on the map, even on the largest map there was never close to "500". I can't think a multiplayer game I played where I had more than dozen as the micromanagment got too high. One of the great things about Kohan was the games were controlable and the game mechanics allowed team games to really shine.
Part of the reason why people think KoW sucks is they changed the way zones work across the board. In the quest the "streamline" the game they of course dumbed the fucker down to I guess appeal to Blizzard Fans? While I can't imagine it being quite WC3 ( I wouldn't know) they definitely updated the game to where it doesn't appeal to the core fans, (Hmm see any patterns there?) of course if you like Blizzards schlock or the run of the mill RTS fare you should love KoW as where the original was quite innovative the sequel is hardly. There were a few features I really liked in the Beta but the good outweighed the bad and even thou I only played a very early build my guess would be that in the spring of 2005 KoW will be long forgotten there will still be a good number of people at any given time playing Kohan and Kohan:AG.

 

[Sol Invictus]

You do realize that in the original Kohan what most people did on big maps was simply to build cities to create zones for themselves, don't you? It was either that or attaching a pathfinding to your company and rushing everything.

 

[Sheriff05]

You do realize that in the original Kohan what most people did on big maps was simply to build cities to create zones for themselves, don't you?

Have you fucking even played the game?, thats the whole point and no one ever had "500" castles you're talking out of your ass.

It was either that or attaching a pathfinding to your company and rushing everything.

I have Kohan:AG currently on my rig and I don't know what the hell that even means?
You can't rush in Kohan the way you can in most RTS games.
that's one reason why it was good.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Are you kidding me? I built all my companies with pathfinders in the original Kohan and they were really fast...

I don't know if they tweaked that in AG or the later patches because I haven't played it for a long time.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

I kinda don't see where you're coming from, either. I never built that many cities, and the city building zones were so large your control zones wouldn't overlap unless you had invested quite a bit in them. Your companies capped at 20 anyway, and new companies took as long to form as old companies took to replenish, so it's kinda pointless to overdo it. If you can afford to build 20 companies of dragoons, what the hell are you dicking around with more cities for? Forts were the way to go to replenish your guys away from home, and they couldn't be captured and used against you, too.

Edit: Guess he's talking about the rangers as far as rushing. I liked them in the beginning, but then I figured out another mage or cleric in the party let them fight longer and better. Rushing was kind of risky in Kohan because militias would keep your guys busy until reinforcements arrived. As long as the other player bothered with building any units at all, rushing kinda sucked.

 

[Sheriff05]

Are you kidding me? I built all my companies with pathfinders in the original Kohan and they were really fast...

I don't know if they tweaked that in AG or the later patches because I haven't played it for a long time.

Ok, you were talking about Pathfinder units...I was misunderstanding what you were saying
yeah an early pathfinder rush was about one of the only early rush tactics...it did get tweaked in later patches. (they got slowed down/ lower armor) ..but that tactic was pretty easy to shut down, easy if your Ceyah.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Yeah that's what I was getting at. It was very easy to win skirmishes and multiplayer games if the map was sufficiently small for pathfinders to rush over before the enemy had any defenses built. But as you said, it didn't always work - but then again I didn't play with people who liked Ceyah, either, so it always worked.

 

[Talorc]

Well, I decided I wouldnt get Kohan II straight away, as I figured it would hit the bargain bin quicker than WH40K, or especially Rome Total War.

I almost pre ordered WH40K at EB, but then I saw some Rome screenshots at Game Rankings while looking for reviews - it looks really pretty ;-)

I think I may end up getting both fairly quickly.

 

[Talorc]

Ok, so I went to EB with the firm intention of pre ordering WH40K, as the demo was massive fun.

If you preorder WH40K you dont get anything - except an opportunity to purchase the "Full of Fanboy Crap, and a badly fitting T-Shirt" edition for $10 extra.

BUT - if you pre order Rome:Total War you get a massive (like 60cm x 100cm or so) colour poster of the Game map, with some unit description on the side, for no extra. Being a compulsive printer outer of Game maps, units charts etc, this really was cool.

So, one Rome:TW preorder later, I have the colour map, and now just await the game ;-)

 

[Anonymous]

I'm downloading Kohan 2 and buying Rome:Total War.

 

[Trash]

Since I really can't stand RTS games I'll happily pass on wh40k. It's puurty, but even the demo couldn't hold my attention for that long. Now Rome is another matter, I loved both shogun and medieval so buying Rome was only ever questionable when I saw those screenshots. How the fuck is my piss poor system supposed to handle that?
Well, somehow it did. The demo ran great, with quite a lot of detail put on high. I've never played Kohan 1, but I'm kinda curiuos. I'll download it and give it a spin, if I like it, I might buy it.
Now, lets hope this luxury in choice will start with rpg's as well.......

 

[DemonKing]

Sad to say, having played all the RTS demos for this season released so far, the one I enjoyed the most was Armies of Exigo!

RTW: I wanted to play the strategic game but it only gives you a pitched battle to fight. Still might buy the full version but I'm waiting for reviews now.

DOW: I found the combat not to be very viscerally entertaining and that damn giant lizard that took 10 minutes to kill was ridiculous.

Kohan2: I'm in the middle of the demo now. I like the way you can handcraft brigades and the fact you don't need to be good at micromanagement (my great failing in WC3), but the general atmosphere/voice acting just isn't there for me at the moment.

AoE: At first I thought it was a terrible WC3 clone but after a while of playing the above/below ground aspects and the great graphics really made a good impression.

Well - anything is possible at this stage, but AoE and RTW look most likely for me, plus BfME of course in November.

 

[Monte Carlo]

I'm just a sucker for customization, and WH allows you to manage your troop uniforms as if you were painting minis.

So fear my hot pink Doom Squadron of utter Campness!!! FEAR THEM!

To answer my question, WH40K and R:TW are both on my to buy list this week, which is turning out to be an expensive one since I bought an XBox and Full Spectrum Warrior already.

Cheers
MC

 

[Sol Invictus]

When it comes down to it, I'd take WH40K and R:TW over Kohan 2 any day of the week. Kohan 2 isn't that great unless you enjoy skirmishes in multiplayer. The campaign's pretty short and it's not very interesting. There's no mid-campaign twists or little quests like the ones in Warcraft 3, Generals, WH40K or Armies of Exigo (which features heavily on the little quests). It's just straight up "go blow up the enemy town" type stuff. The games I've mentioned, including RA2, Tiberian Sun and all the blitzkrieg games are so much more interesting in this regard.

 

[Barghest]

By the sound of it the WH40K campaign is pretty short too. Only twelve levels to complete on single player, and you only get to play as the Space Marines.

Any other new RTS/Strategy with a decent single-player campaign?

 

[Sol Invictus]

Well, from what I understand, WH40K's campaign is as long as Homeworld and Homeworld 2's, both of which had roughly 10-14 missions each. The missions themselves are probably relatively long and usually comprise of many parts. E.g. resist a raid, destroy orc outpost, build forward base, wait for reinforcements while orcs send hordes of slugga boyz against you, reinforcements arrive, push forwards, take out orc stronghold.

Just be sure to play with a higher difficulty than 'Normal'.

This is different from Kohan II's 25-mission campaign. The missions themselves are completeable in 10-15 minutes each. They're short and pointless.