RTS New expansion announced for Age of Mythology. Yes, after 13 years.

[Agesilaus]

But if we're talking about mythology, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fengshen_Yanyi

No, just no... that's a novel written more than two thousand years later...

 

[treave]

No, just no... that's a novel written more than two thousand years later...

The Iliad wasn't exactly written at the time of the Trojan War either.

 

[Agesilaus]

The Iliad wasn't exactly written at the time of the Trojan War either.

The Iliad was composed in ancient times, not 2500 years later. Come on!

I'll try to be helpful, though: 山海经 ShanHaiJing is an ancient text that focuses on Chinese mythology.

 

[treave]

The Iliad was composed in ancient times, not 2500 years later. Come on!

I'll try to be helpful, though: 山海经 ShanHaiJing is an ancient text that focuses on Chinese mythology.

Well, catalogue of fantastical beasts aside, the stories told in in the Shanhaijing tend to predate the Trojan War period by a thousand years or more. I was looking for a parallel to the Iliad in the form of a heavily romanticised, mythological accounting of actual events occurring around that era. I thought the question was basically "What notable events occurred in China during that period, and what mythology is associated with it?"

 

[Agesilaus]

Well, catalogue of fantastical beasts aside, the stories told in in the Shanhaijing tend to predate the Trojan War period by a thousand years or more. I was looking for a parallel to the Iliad in the form of a heavily romanticised, mythological accounting of actual events occurring around that era. I thought the question was basically "What notable events occurred in China during that period, and what mythology is associated with it?"

You're the one who mentioned the Iliad. Anyway, here's my thinking on the subject: if you want to know the mythology/monsters for this game, best to get a book on the subject from as close to the period as possible. Then you'll know that these are legit, ancient monsters that ancient people thought about. The ShanHaiJing is the best I can come up with; it's barely Pre-Qin, and it basically compiles them all in one text. I came off as a jerk, but I just don't like modern texts. They often have differences with ancient texts, and you can't really be sure how legit the creatures and their myths are in terms of resembling ancient accounts.

 

[Archibald]

RTS are gaming's biggest disappointment. Somehow they stopped believing they could attract a wide diverse audience in favor of appealing to the nolives and ADD afflicted teenagers.

Doesn't help that RTSs are generally serious pieces of coding, not something untrained indies can handle. More than a decade and CA has never nailed the code that would allow for fluid soldiers movement and fighting in their games. Has there ever been a good survival RTS outside of warcraft custom maps? That shit would kill, but it's not being made. Good sim hybrids? Once every 10 years. I would rather hit my dick with a steel pipe over and over again than consider something as dull as Starcraft as the pinacle of RTS.

RTS genre in general lacks "subsets" like we have for RPGs. Nobody really compares Morrowind to Fallout, Baldurs Gate or Dark Souls. All four games are generally liked in Codex, but they aim for different experiences and avoid direct competition. While with RTS games it looks like you are either as good as Starcraft or you are shit, period. I could see Starcraft as pinnacle of something like "action RTS" (obviously someone will come up with better name), but not RTS genre in general.

 

[Volrath]

Starcraft literally killed the RTS genre. Fuck Blizzard.

 

[Renegen]

RTS just evolved into MOBAS.

Spoiler

 

[Dayyālu]

RTS just evolved into MOBAS.

You are indeed correct, even if you are trolling.

RTS games out-evolved themselves to oblivion. After the late '90/ early '00 craze, that had a ton of clones but also a ton of experimental stuff that was quite fun to play (I'll never tire to say that when I was a youngster I thought the future of RTS would be something like a properly done Planetary Annihilation, with massive scale and options - naval, air and land forces or even space battles all integrated -) then around the mid-'00, like with RPGS, a age of death and decline killed off most of 'em. Starcraft endured by sheer inertia (I am still amazed that people can keep playing Starcraft for years, it's not that good, men, I mean, TA with fan patches is quite better).

The true end, I guess, was Warcraft 3 and its focus on heroes. Easier to balance and to implement heroes than to build entire factions, and the MOBA model with AI-led troops and abilities spam is far more coherent with the kind of RTS playstyle that triumphed (speed, fixed build order, hard counters, speed again). RTS in MP rarely have anything resembling "strategy" or "tactics".

The only one that tried something different (even if I disliked somewhat the deck building system) was Wargame, that's a quite solid game with a clear strategy layer. A pity it gets somewhat ruined by the deck building.

 

[Tehdagah]

Oh hey Microsoft, you know what would've been a good idea?

Not fucking up Ensemble Studios, you twats.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

3 was already dull as it was, and 5 is essentially Halo Wars. The team that made Age of Empires 2, AoM, was already gone at that point. I remember catching a lot of exclusive alpha screenshots and information of Age of Empire 2 I might make a dump at some point because it's worth discussing.

 

[pippin]

I remember catching a lot of exclusive alpha screenshots and information of Age of Empire 2 I might make a dump at some point because it's worth discussing.

do it!

 

[Outlander]

Fucking Warcraft 3

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Warcraft 3 was badly received in the competitive scene, had it been starcraft 2 it would have been far more popular and the one to start the moba genre.

A lot of cool ideas, and they were planing to be a tactical squad based game in the beginning, which I think would have fit better.

 

[Zephyr Arsland]

I remember thinking that Rise of Nations was kind of the way to go.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Yeah if you want all the worse features of strategy games into one.

 

[Archibald]

Warcraft 3 was really always about modding (if I remember correctly DoTA was just one of many popular mods), competitive scene was mostly active due to Blizzard's good name at that point and not due to qualities of the game.

 

[a Goat]

Has there ever been a good survival RTS outside of warcraft custom maps?

Battle of the Middle Earth 2. It's hard to make it work though.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Did you misread?

 

[a Goat]

Did you misread?

There are good modded survival maps for it.

Unless you mean that BftME2 is bad, then okay.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

I haven't seen them, post them I'll play them. This game's simplistic building schemes, limited unit pool and ultra fast combat does not lends itself well to survival.

 

[a Goat]

http://bfme2.heavengames.com/downloads/showfile.php?fileid=1087
The first I've found.

There's quite a lot of it but I can't bother myself with looking for it.