This will be my third game of Endless Legend. My faction of choice this time will be the Cultists, who only have one city and convert the minor faction villages to be more dedicated allies than for other factions. I enjoyed the Wild Walkers and their forest bonuses in my first game, but found the Drakken much less interesting in my second. Probably because I had a better grasp of the game mechanics and was still playing on a low difficulty I found it too easy, so I didn't have much call for the diplomatic special powers of the dragon people. If nothing else, having only one city should change the game substantially. I'm playing on a large map with six empires on Hard difficulty. The world gen options are fairly standard.
0 Comments
A few weeks back I wrote a post about my attempt to build a game around being a higher level commander who has to work from limited and sometimes erroneous information from his subordinate officers. In that post I also described some big problems with the game as it was, along with some thoughts about possible improvements. I actually made these changes earlier, but haven't got round to writing about them until now.
To briefly sum up the previous post, the player was too disconnected from the outcome and their role was unsatisfying, the enemy force and distribution of their units was random and too much to deal with, and the combat system was poor. I came up with three changes I hoped would improve things. The competition ended last weekend. I hoped to have something done since I managed to produce stuff I was fairly happy with for the last two I entered, but this time it just didn't happen. I think the biggest reason was just a lack of motivation - I just wasn't feeling the contest this time round. That said, I think I also made some mistakes in terms of my ideas.
The information we receive in strategy games about the enemy and our own units tends towards a very limited set of different states in most cases. The fog of war is usually present as a binary state where we either have no information about an area or perfect information, based on the sight ranges of our units or the utilization of special powers which will clear the fog of war. Sometimes there will be units with 'stealth', rendering them invisible until they attack, get too close to enemies, or within the range of certain detector units which can uncover them. These units tend to be fairly rare though, and still only occupy either a completely hidden state or a completely known one.
I've spent a lot of my time playing Alien: Isolation in situations like this. I really like how you duck extra low to fit under desks and tables, just naturally as you move in. I feel safer being so close to the ground. Lockers and cabinets are fine hiding places too, but I never liked the crash and bang as you leap in and out, or the fact there's that moment of lost control as you step out - you're committed the moment you decide to leave. It doesn't make too much difference, but I feel like under a desk I might notice a threat as I'm moving out in time to turn back. And so, that tail has been very prominent in my experience of the alien.
Made for Ludum Dare 31 (with a theme of 'Entire Game on One Screen'), I'm quite pleased with the end result here. It's a stealth game where you have escaped a prison execution and now have to hide from the guards people hunting you for the titular 12 hours, at which point the resistance will arrive and liberate the area. More info and other thoughts about the development below, or try it from the Games page.
Most strategy games have some form of 'elite' unit, from the commando or mammoth tanks from the original Command and Conquer to your 50+ kills Colonel in X-Com. Less fantastical games often include experience as a unit trait, so though these two rifle divisions might be technically the same in terms of equipment, one is made up of green recruits and the other is comprised of hardened veterans.
A delightful little game about throwing together your own underground network - at least it's always been 'throwing together' rather than 'building' in my experience, since I feel building has an implication of planning and careful forethought. Both of these things are usually lacking in my attempts at the Commuter game mode, where you have to expand your network to cope with new stations and ever increasing passenger numbers, while preventing any one station getting too overcrowded. While you do get more trains, extra carriages, and more infrastructure (new lines and more bridges/tunnels to cross water), the challenge is integrating everything together effectively.
Commuter mode is generous in this, because you can redraw or even remove whole lines at will, which is something I quite often end up doing when a new station appears in an awkward location. The tougher Rush Hour mode doesn't allow this, meaning once you've laid down track and connections, they're there to stay. You can also enjoy the Scenic mode, which doesn't have a fail state, including switching to it after losing one of the other modes, which is a nice touch. You also have the option to take a screenshot of your network when a game ends, forming your own little collection of subway maps. A collection of mine are below, some of which you'll see are more plausible and coherent than others... along with a bit more about the actual gameplay. It's always the approaches to my main base that are most dangerous. But while the helicopters usually get hit flying over the nearby stretches of jungle, it's the engineers who tend to get ambushed barely a few hexes out from safety. It must be very demoralizing, to be freshly deployed with the mission of improving the road network miles behind the frontlines and forward bases, only to be hammered with RPG fire moments after leaving the safety of the compound. Then having to limp back for reinforcement, not even having completed a full movement before taking losses. I'm inclined to like any game where getting a Chinook for longer range transport and longer operation time between resupply is not only a legitimately exciting prospect, but often more compelling than a Cobra gunship. Where it can take the little Huey's several turns to ferry artillery shells to your most advanced positions, the Chinooks feel like they can cover the whole map in two turns (I'm sure they don't take more than three). Don't get me wrong, I love the Cobras for their ability to deliver indirect firepower quickly without having to worry about terrain, but they aren't going to help keep my artillery supplied or airlift injured infantry out of harm's way. Vietnam '65 is all about transport and supply lines. Your task is to patrol a section of the country, identifying and destroying enemy units to win the hearts and minds of villages in the area. While you win hearts and minds mostly by destroying enemy units (and a little from visiting the villages with infantry, though these visits are often more valuable to get intel on enemies to destroy than for the small H&M boost itself), Viet Cong cadres will emerge from the jungle aiming to visit these villages to lower their H&M value, lay minefields, or set ambushes. You'll also have to deal with advances by North Vietnamese Army units, which will grow in intensity if the overall H&M score is allowed to drop.
...AND TECHNOLOGY TURNING THE TIDE OF WARI experienced something interesting while playing a game of Endless Legend recently that I haven't personally seen in another strategy game up to now, which I figured was worth a post. Technological progress and innovations in conflicts can be fascinating, particularly in longer ones between somewhat balanced opponents, such as the World Wars or the Cold War. I'm not talking here about groundbreaking stuff like the atomic bomb or tanks in WW1, but smaller things from blind bombing radio technology to longer range escort fighters and increased fuel capacity for bombers.*
|
What's All this then?I like making and writing about PC games - mostly strategy games. Expect after action reports, thoughts about design and gameplay, and maybe even a few prototypes. Archives
September 2016
Categories
All
|