Strategy games

[Texas Red]

How is the campaign of Starcraft usually thought of in terms of difficulty when compared to other RTS games? Medium, hard, easy etc.

 

[Jasede]

Easy; even I could do it and I haven't played RTS much. Well, let's say easy to normal. Broodwars gets difficult for noobs like me, though. Especially the later Broodwars missions, ouch.

 

[JarlFrank]

I just got myself the second AoE3 expansion, Asian Dynasties, and I like it much more than the original. One reason might be the Asian setting which I like, another might be that it has been developed out-house by Big Huge Games, who were also responsible for Rise of Nations. It introduces some interesting new concepts, and the new nations are pretty nice to play. The campaign is more historical this time around, too, without fantasy elements thrown in. If you plan to get AoE 3 and you like it, then this expansion is a must.

 

[kingcomrade]

The later Brood War missions are very difficult, there are two that I can't beat.

 

[Lord Chambers]

Nuff said.

I'm so fucking tired of this phrase --if you can call it that. Yes, it was cool and edgy back in 1992 when I first saw it in GamePro magazine but nowadays it just stands in for "I'm a fucking idiot." Fuck.

 

[DraQ]

There is not enough Homeworld talk in this thread.

Some screens, many seem to feature typical multiplayer lulz, though.

 

[vrok]

Red Alert 2

I lol'd.

The later Brood War missions are very difficult, there are two that I can't beat.

This quote needs to be reproduced in that Starcraft thread.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

The later Brood War missions are very difficult, there are two that I can't beat.

This quote needs to be reproduced in that Sudden Strike thread.

fix

 

[Texas Red]

Warcraft 3 is a terrible game. I was expecting more of the same found in Starcraft and instead discovered everything to be downgraded a notch.

During the whole Human campaign there was not a single mission where you could build a settlement from the bottom to the top. In fact, most missions consisted of running around in tunnels and hacking at monsters, like a poor mans action RPG.

In contrast to Starcraft, I only saw a stupid, immature and predictable story with cliche characters. Love how the camera switches to the shadows when a murder happens in the cutscenes. And as if the lame glowing eyes of Protoss weren't enough, the elves have to have magical *sparkle* coming out of theirs.

The graphics featured in Wacraft 3 are a prime example of the mountains of shitty looking games we got during the graphics arms race. It looks so fucking bad that I have to wonder how everyone was blinded by the word "3D" when a pile of poop was playing on their monitors.

So overrated

 

[RK47]

they're too busy sucking Dota's cock to notice the crappy story & Grafix, TWD.Free online play, For Life! E peen comparisons, competitive and cash prizes = Epic RTS.

Too many of my friends play that mod. I personally hated it.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

heh well put.
AOE 3 ain't that bad. People were idealizing AoE 2. At least AoE 3 has a slightly challenging campaign, which can't be said of many RTS especially newer ones.

Just look and Company of Heroes. A very nice game mechanics wise, but the only way they could have made the campaign even more unchallenging, easy and boring would be to add an insta-win button so you can skip immidiatly to the "cinematic(tm)" ingame cutscenes...

 

[RK47]

It's quite hard when you play on hardest difficulty which my friend did cause he loved the game so much. I personally enjoyed seeing his reaction when the AI start pummeling him from 3-5 directions.

 

[Hellraiser]

heh well put.
Just look and Company of Heroes. A very nice game mechanics wise, but the only way they could have made the campaign even more unchallenging, easy and boring would be to add an insta-win button so you can skip immidiatly to the "cinematic(tm)" ingame cutscenes...

I have to agree the original american campaign was crap. The V2 factory mission was somewhat nice but that's it. Then in the expansion the PE campaign is plain crap and wasted potential. You get to arnhem and expect heavy door to door urban combat, what you get is basically a mop up mission. The british campaign was somewhat decent and not as easy but it could have been a lot better. Fortunately the multiplayer more than makes up for the mess of a campaign that game has (I just played a mindfuckingly close 2v2 match damn that was a chalenge). Still that's no excuse for shitty mission design.

God damn it where did all the good mission design go? Starcraft 2 looks like the only RTS that might have a decent campaign for once. Everything else plays like filler content they put in the game just so that it wouldn't get labeled as an online only title. When an overall average RTS game like Tiberian Sun and it's expansion have better mission and campaign design than pretty much every title released after them you know something is wrong with RTS developers.

 

[JarlFrank]

I just began playing AoE2 again and noticed that I suck because I haven't played it for long. Then I noticed that all AI players attacked me at once, even though they weren't allied at all. Some bug or something? None of them fight each other, they all just fuck up me and my ally even though none of them is in the same team, and teams are fixed so they can't just ally with each other.

 

[kingcomrade]

The AI attacks whoever is weakest. All of the AIs were just coming to the same decision. It actually works that way in Starcraft, too. If you're weak all the AIs will attack you rather than each other.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

It's quite hard when you play on hardest difficulty which my friend did cause he loved the game so much. I personally enjoyed seeing his reaction when the AI start pummeling him from 3-5 directions.

No its not. The difficulty setting doesn't change anything about the how hard the game is.

I once made a really long rant in the strategy forum about it, but I'm too lazy to look it up. Basicly it boils down to these simple facts:

In almost all missions:
1) You have unlimited recources and the ability to build an unlimited amount of troops (im aware of the pop limit, Im talking about rebuilding as much troops as you want)
2) The enemy has a limited amount of troops, replaced destroyed troops at best or more often doesnt build any new troops at all
3) The enemy is static. He is just sitting there on the map, waiting for you to destroy him with your endless amount of troops. He doesnt attack your base except when its scripted, he doesnt cut you off from recources (even if he did, well you get tons of them for free even without capturing resource points), he doesnt do ANYTHING to make your life hard.
4) Even in "tactical" missions without base building you get unlimited reinforcements. Wait, isnt the point of such missions actually managing a fixed amount of troops and getting the mission done without being to build/order new ones? Duh...

This is INDEPENDENT from difficulty setting. The difficutly setting only gives them enemy troops more hitpoints and stuff like that, it doesn't change those fundemantal design flaws.

There were two challenging missionsi n the original campaign. The one where you have to defend that hill, and where you have to capture that hill. The latter only if strive to stay within the time limit. Without imposing the limit on yourself the mission is also boring...

I beat the campaign on expert mode, got most of the medals (including the capture the hill in 30 minutes one) and most of the campaign was just boooooooring.

 

[JarlFrank]

Eh, I guess RK47 referred to a skirmish game, because skirmish is what I play most in CoH singleplayer.

 

[Texas Red]

Here's the strategies I played:

1. Age of Mythology. Hate the incredibly dumb, out of place music during the intro. I'm not a fan of happy land games either. But to the point, I don't like the paper rock scissors mechanics. It seems that you always have to have a set combination of units instead(aside from the myth creatures) instead of developing your own tactics. And can you be any more *vague*? What exactly does "good against" mean? The stats are ridiculously hard to keep track of, what with the values such 31% or whatever. In the end I noticed that all the units get mish-mashed anyway.

2. Command and Conquer Tiberian Sun. Great graphics and room for you own tactics. The Hollywoodish movies are annoying though(you have the mandatory good-looking, rugged captain, some foreign Hindu guy and a ship whore who gets probably banged by every one of those crew members). After saving some guy from the hospital with a help from yet another mandatory cliche large boobed mutant bimbo(for some reason I couldn't follow the plot at all), I deleted the game since the majority of the missions were based around guiding a group of units and exploiting the dumb AI which can't spot a building being destroyed 10 meters from him. In every mission you had to save, reload, save, reload etc. until you could destroy a particular unit/building without others noticing it.

3. Warcraft 3 - already wrote about it.

4. I'm doing the Terran mission in Brood Wars and I have to make an assumption: no other strategy game has such a mature setting with fleshed-out characters, right? That would probably hurt sales.

I think I have to try this Homeworld everyone's talking about though all I really want is simple, isometric base building and achieving of some goals, with an occasional Commandos-like mission. The Dungeon Siege gameplay of Warcraft 3 and the crap seen in Tiberian sun annoyed me since the campaigns could be fun in the way I want. Time flies by quickly, and erases every other thought, when playing such RTS.

BTW, Civ 4 doesn't have a campaign, yes? Gosh golly, just setting up yourself with a map seems so terribly pointless.

 

[JarlFrank]

Try the Age of Empires games, they're less "rock paper scissors" than Age of Mythology. AoE2 should be cheap by now, and it's a classic that everyone should have played.

 

[DraQ]

I think I have to try this Homeworld everyone's talking about

Yes.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

I think I must try this Homeworld everyone's talking about

fix

 

[obediah]

One reason might be the Asian setting which I like,

A german with yellow fever?!? Stop the presses!

I'm pretty sure the entire WW2 thing was all about getting German men closer to bunches of asian women.

 

[DraQ]

I think I need to try this Homeworld everyone's talking about

fix

Double-fix.

 

[Hazelnut]

How is the campaign of Starcraft usually thought of in terms of difficulty when compared to other RTS games? Medium, hard, easy etc.

I got moderately stuck half way though the last third (the Protoss) of the game, and since each stage took so long, by the time I could face it again I'd lost any competence I'd ever had. I'm not good at RTS games BTW, but Starcraft is cream of the crop so even I liked it.

 

[Texas Red]

How is the campaign of Starcraft usually thought of in terms of difficulty when compared to other RTS games? Medium, hard, easy etc.

I got moderately stuck half way though the last third (the Protoss) of the game, and since each stage took so long, by the time I could face it again I'd lost any competence I'd ever had. I'm not good at RTS games BTW, but Starcraft is cream of the crop so even I liked it.

The Protoss did seem the hardest because you have to fight other Protoss and their annoying reavers. But generally, for me, the Protoss seemed the most powerful when playing against the Terrans or Zerg. In the last Brood War Protoss mission it seemed like the hordes of Zerg were just throwing themselves against impenetrable walls since no matter their numbers they couldn't get through.