What are you playing right now?

You gotta take stabs at them at some point, if for no other reason to disrupt their economy to give an advantage. if you play this again, research some basic rush techniques and it'll really change how you play the game. But you can't be scared to lose some units early on. It's really made me be able to play all those games better, because I'm less passive.

I like hanging back, for the most part, too, but you gotta be able to either squash any offensive nearly immediately or be ready to counter with your own. If you let them just run free on moderate or higher, eventually they'll just have unlimited resources to thrash you with.

 

XBox Invisable War

 

rise of nations is pretty cool. i think the technology gets a little too overwhelming, tho. i do like the way you can have multiple people controlling a single civ, tho. rise of nations has a very low pop cap, tho, so if you're playing against a lot of civs, you need to hack your xml scripts to up this number or you'll have serious stalemates as each side has far more resources than they know what to do with. at least, that's how many of my games would end up.

empire earth is a bit more solid. i just got the expansion and it adds a lot to the game -- mainly that each civ is a little more special. also, it can be had in the bargain bin these days, but it's still a really, really good game.

 

Cool. Thanks Nut. And thanks everyone.

I was wondering about Call of Duty, Rise of Nations, and Empire Earth - all of them. So thanks. I now plan on wasting some $$$ and time on new games this weekend. Maybe next weekend.

One note on AOE. I had not really used monks all that much either so I have to try that. And I tend to horde like Brain was describing and then go on a killing spree, so I'll have to try Mag's ideas. One of the gripes I heard about RON is that you can't use walls of any kind like you can with AOE. Does it matter?

 

You can't use walls, no. And I've heard that people used to use farms in warcraft to wall off stuff, too. No dice there.
The forts, castles, whatever and on up are very effective, as long as you have some quick strike ability to take out cannon-->artillery. If I get attacked by a large force, I can hold it off. If they sit back and protect their artillery it's a bastard, and that's what the computer tends to do.

One strategic plan is to set a city on one side of a mountain and try to use a forest to flank you on the other side. Then put a fortification in the gap between. If you're going to plan on hording and waiting, drop a tower or two to the side, too. With towers you can research attrition upgrades; also spend in your temple. Temples extend your city range, border range, and you can research more hit points and so on there as well. Really makes a difference when you're beating back armies at your fort.

If I have my first expansion city nearby the first city given in the game, I tend to brace those two with a fort in between, if I'm going minimalist. That tends to do a decent bit. But it's not easy as AOE where you can just take cavalry to their trebuchets and the rest die at your walls.

 

now plan on wasting some $$$ and time on new games this weekend.



$$ for games? BWAAAA HAAAAA HAAAAA HAAAAA

 

Yeah, yeah. I know. But I've already managed to help kill the gaming industry once in my life with pirating. So I feel I've gotten mine already.

 

I never could get into Icewind Dale. Maybe I didn't hang with it long enough but there didn't seem to be a story there.

I started CRPgs with Baldurs Gate 2 and then got the expansion (TOB). Then bought BG1 so that I could go back and get the gold pantaloons.

 

baldur's gate 2 was the best RPG i've played on a computer. NWN is just too generic. they focused too much on modularity and the result is that the artistry is missing. nothing feels unique or special.

dungeon siege is too monotonous. and it's too systematic as well. the items are on too gradual a curve. instead of finding some crazy rare item amidst boring items, you find a bunch of pretty similar items. ocasionally you get one that's a little better than what you're using, but it's never noticably so. also the computer can pretty much play the game by itself.

diablo 2 was pretty good, but that's a whole different animal. much more hack and slash.

icewind dale was pretty good, but didn't have the depth of baldur's gate. icewind dale 2 was crap. it looks like they quit working on it partway thru.

 

Have you played any player created modules?