Re: Favorite games
 

Damn you, first VedalkenBear swears us into naming it Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri on page two, now you say that this still isn't right! Make up your mind! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image.../firedevil.gif

Re: Favorite games
 

"Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri" is the official, trademarked name of the game.

Sid Meier is the second person listed in the game's credits, right after Brian Reynolds. I don't know why Lingchih wants to downplay his contribution.

Re: Favorite games
 

In no particular order of preference :

Dominions 3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Civilization II & IV
Mechwarrior II (The Clans one - need more of it ! since n°3, it is more a shoot'em up than tactical ...)
Alpha Centaury (of course http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)
Transport tycoon (the old one under DOS http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif)
X-Com / UFO (also the first one - still playing it !! Thanx Undertogs !)
Myst serie (well, until IV, I don't have played the V ...)
Fallout Tactics
Silent Storm (EXCELLENT ! Why no mods ? Why no sequel ??? Bouh !)
Jagged Alliance 2 (soon the n°3 : wait & see)
TIE fighter
Unreal Tournament (the firtst of the name !!!)
Unreal
Half Life (the first too)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Combat mission : Beyond Overlord (the most fantastic tactical wargame !!! The 2WW sequels are also very good. No comment on the last one ...)
Master of Orion I & II
Master of Magic (A classic ...)
Heroes of Might & Magic I, II, III & V (not the IV : pleasant, but not in the spirit)
Pokémon Pearl/Diamond (Heu ... Sorry, just PC games, that's it ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif)
Morrowind
General Fantasy
Stars!
Syndicate
Arcanum
Diablo I & II (but especially the 1rst)
Age of rifles (old, but still a ref.)
Stell Panther 2 (the modern warfare - a extremely huge disappointement that Combat Mission: Shock Force is not SP2 w/ the engine of CM ... I want to play the Falklands with the CM system !!!)
Warlods III: Darklords rising (yes ! It was FUN !)
Tekken I, II, II (heu ... sorry again ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gifhttp://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif)


Well, that's it for the moment. I'm not at home and it is just from memory, but that's the best way to select the games which really leave its mark on us.

Re: Favorite games
 

Hmmm I said Star Control... or was it Starflight? or Starcraft? Which one's which? I mean the one where you are looking for this "fuel"-planet, with the "Spemin" and could catch and scan alien lifeforms.
and there's the one, where you conquer planets in a solarsystem and build a fleet and fight 1 vs 1. With the kamikaze-rodent...

Re: Favorite games
 

The first one you describe is neither Star Control nor Starcraft. So maybe it's Starflight.

The second one is Star Control. The kamikaze rodent was the Shufixti. Fear the Ur-Quan Dreadnought!

Re: Favorite games
 

Fwiffo the cowardly Spathi captain, Earth put under red Ur-Quan Slave Shield, lots of planets to explore? Sounds like Star Control 2. The remake at http://sc2.sourceforge.net/ is made from the original code and graphics, mix&matched from different versions to get best graphics and speech, but due to copyright issues it's called The Ur-Quan Masters.

Re: Favorite games
 

I've been playing MoM for two days now. Feels good! Thanks for links and tips.

Re: Favorite games
 

Thanks for the link to the SC2 remake. We've been playing it in the office over lunch!

Re: Favorite games
 

SC2 link is awesome http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Forgot all about Archone...
Any idea where can I get Archon/Archon II?

Re: Favorite games
 

The first game you refer to is Starflight 1.

The second is likely Star Control 2. Tho really you mine planets rather than conquer them.

Re: Favorite games
 

Ah, yes the decoder wheel http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Has anyone mentioned that there is a Pool of Radiance remake for NWN2, yet? Its quite well done, if a bit linear. A lot of the missions will be just what you remember - others will be just different enough to keep you interested. Worth a look

Pool of Radiance, Remastered

Re: Favorite games
 

Thanks Ironhawk and llamabeast. So it's Star Control 2 and Starflight.

My Pool of Radiance disc should be still working, alas I lost the code wheel... only remember that one password was "wyvern".

Re: Favorite games
 

Home of the Underdogs.

Re: Favorite games
 

Hmmm. Originals are probably only available used. Looks like there's a remake 'Archon: Evolution' ( http://archon.curvenet.co.uk/ ), an unmaintained XArchon project ( http://xarchon.seul.org/news.html )... and a Quake 3: Arena version (! http://brazen.planetquake.gamespy.com/arq/about.shtml )

Re: Favorite games
 

Ahhh, what a list. Some of those games brings back memories.

My current playlist of favourites are:

1. Age of Wonders Shadow Magic (patched and modded). This is my all-time favourite game and the game I keep going back to.

The rest are in no particular order...

Dominions 3
Advanced Tactics
Call of Duty 4
Sins of a Solar Empire
Battle for Wesnoth
Knights of Honour
Galactic Civilisations
Star Wars Empire at War

Past favourites have included:

Chaos Overlords (does this still run on modern computers?)
Stars! (I played this for years)
Dungeon Keeper (why didn't they make version 3)

Re: Favorite games
 

How is Sins of a Solar Empire? It looks interesting, but rather challenging.

Re: Favorite games
 

It's quite good. It's like a RTS game but without the agitation that's usually part of playing one. The pace is quite comfortable. They're supposed to release a demo later.

Re: Favorite games
 

Sins of a Solar Empire, in my opinion, is not nearly as good as GalCiv2, which is made by the same people.

I found the difficulty to be a bit much, and any more than 1v1 nearly impossible, as they tend to gang up on the human. Maybe I just suck at playing it.

Also, the weird scrolling/zoom thing is unwieldy, as if you zoom in close enough to see the actual ships (and not the icons representing them) you can't even see a battle, as the ships are too far apart to both be seen in the screen.

That being said, the research system is cool, and I like the storyline - a campaign would have been nice.

Re: Favorite games
 

That must be it. I played it three times, and I won three times. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif
Actually, the game gets easier the more AIs you add (FFA). You'll have an easier game with 8 players than with 4. Less than 4 might be easier than 4, too. I started with normal AI and then mixed hard and normal half and half. Interestingly, three of the hard AIs were out even before the normal ones.

I wouldn't say unwieldy, but this game definitely makes you use the mouse wheel much more than any other game. You don't need to change all three axis, though. I usually have one rotation fixed so that it plays just like a 2D game.

Re: Favorite games
 

It's alright, but the game balance is very poor. Missile frigates are among the cheapest and lowest-tech ships in the game, but are very powerful compared to almost everything else. Capitol ships are terribly cost-ineffective, and most technologies are not worth the cost of researching. Single player is alright, but the AI is not very strong. A friend who had never played the game and I defeated 6 allied "hard" AIs without much of a fight.

Didn't live up to the hype, in my opinion.

Re: Favorite games
 

Thanks. I'll save my money then. The new Gal Civ expansion is about to come out. I'll spend it on that.

Re: Favorite games
 

They (Bullfrog) were acquired by the Evil Arts corporation >:(

Re: Favorite games
 

There is a bit of negative discussion about the game on their forum but I enjoy it. I think that the reason I like games like this, Gal Civ, Age of Wonders and Dominions is that each time you play it the parameters shift so a strategy that worked one time may not work a second time. Personally I find Dominions much more difficult to play than Sins. There are choke-points that need to be secured. If you have low resource planets you need to change what you build to compensate. The more you expand the more you need to manage the composition of your fleets etc (although it isn't a micro-manage game by any stretch).

Re: Favorite games
 

In reverse-chronological order, an imperfect view:
Dominions series
Combat Mission (series)
Space Empires III & IV
Myth: The Fallen Lords & Myth II: Soulblighter
Tigers on the Prowl (series)
Cybercon 3 (Atari ST)
Dungeon Master (Atari ST)
Omnitrend's Universe (Atari 8-bit)
Necromancer (Atari 8-bit)
Encounter (Atari 8-bit) <-- holds my record for most joysticks ripped apart during play!
Star Raiders (Atari 8-bit)
Adventure (Atari 2600)

Also:
Roguelikes (various)
Dwarf Fortress
First-Person Shooter games with very lethal weapons, taking cover an important tactic, and no bunny-hopping (various).
Various sims and wargames and adventure games.

Re: Favorite games
 

I like sins of a solar empire less than galactic empires.. I quit it after a few started games.

PS you get less ganged-up upon if you actually start completing a few missions for otehr races. It helps a great deal if 3 races want you to target another race.. DO IT or basicly you'll die from all 4 races http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif and try to stay neutral (relatively, or just defendeing a bit) untill you get such a target.. all my (al be it few) games I saw this happen... usually once you are halfway through destroying that nation they will want you to target another though.. which probably doesn't fit in your plans then.. but hey.. you are way positive in their favor then .

MoM was great.. I've played it a few times on dosbox in the last years but really... it's way to easy.. the idea is great.. 2 worlds

Myth was nice too I'll admit

populous was nice even the latest version

Re: Favorite games
 

Actually, if you are already attacking an enemy, your first mission from the other races will be to continue to attack them. The more AIs there are, the better the results.

MoM too easy? With the latest patch? Without white magic?

Re: Favorite games
 

Why white magic? green magic is broken

Re: Favorite games
 

Doh! Forgot about Myth, it's been so long since I've played. What a great game. I used to love the Dwarven bombadiers.

Re: Favorite games
 

MOM
White magic is greatly overpowered. Heroism, holy weapon (+1 to hit), holy armour, altar of battle, stream of life (max taxes), prosperity, Incarnation, lionheart, righteousness, star fires, endurance...

Actually, I can only think of two green magic spells I really need:
Wall of Stone
Resist Elements (because AI loves shamans and direct damage spells)

What's so broken about green magic ? I think in the long run Black and Blue pay off much more... if you know what you're doing. Black has wonderful Mana Leak which basically halves ammo for enemy shamans and mages. Drain Power lets you to completely empty an opponent before you attack his city. Weakness is a very good, cheap early spell. Summons (except very overpriced ghouls) are just POWERFUL, to the point where I decided not to use them. Dark Rituals for stupidly high power.
Blue has Word of Recall, Counter Magic, later on Magic Immunity.
Red has awesome summons (hellhounds - PRICE), very good buffs, battlefield-wide spells like Flamestrike, Warp Reality (great with Chaos Channels)....

Note that I play either on Hard or Impossible. I don't play:
- halflings
- high men
- elves
- beastmen, draconians, dark elves, trolls, dwarves
because I consider them overpowered and not fun enough. Halflings are the worst offenders by far. Huge food supply, 8 figures, slingers are extremely effective and come from...armory. +1 to hit bonus by default (this is huge). Very high resistance. Halfling swordsmen easily kill gnoll halberdiers, which is very sad, because extra attack power (and wolf riders) is all gnolls have.

I like lizardmen, gnolls, nomads.

Re: Favorite games
 

Hooray for single player games like Master of Magic where balance can take a backseat to variety. Balance has become an obsession of modern gamers, and it makes perfect sense in a multiplayer game, but in a game like Master of Magic what is the point?

As long as the balance is not so skewed as to create only one possible choice, it only serves to create varying levels of difficulty in a game like MoM.

You can create your own settings beyond choosing the difficulty setting, such as you have done with your "these are the only races I play" and "This is the magic I consider overpowered".

The very thing you guys are debating about has extended the life and replayability of Master of Magic.

And honestly, by comparison do you think that Dominions is all that balanced? There are weak blesses, weak magic paths, weak nations, and what people would consider "overpowered" versions of each as well. To the point that the end game strategy in Dominions is fairly uniform with the early to mid game strategy being only the means of getting there.

Of course in single player Dominions we can create our own rules just like we did with Master of Magic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Favorite games
 

My favorite MoM spells are Change Terrain and Chaos Channels. I usually played Nomads, or Dark Elves when I wanted to be left alone. The sprites for green magic were totally overpowered because they could fly. For instance, you could send two sprites against a Great Wyrm and since it couldn't hit flyers you could wear it down and steal its goodies or unlock a node before you'd normally be able to. Even if you couldn't clean out the whole battlefied before you ran out of ammo, sprites could almost always retreat successfully so you could wear a site down over time.

Building on the "flyers rule" strategy, I LOVED flying Dark Elf Warlocks. The doom spell could eliminate tough flyers or archers and then the conventional melee units just had to sit there and take damage until you ran out of ammo.

Part of MoM's charm is that it has a lot of valid and enjoyable playstyles.

Re: Favorite games
 

White magic has the best buffs for units and thus enables them to easily gain lots of experience in combat, from the early game on.

Re: Favorite games
 

While this is generally true, MOM has exceptionally bad balance. Mana cost of some summon spells is just crazy.

- War bears from nature magic cost 80/2 turn if I remember correctly, and they're likely to lose against swordsmen. War bears have no redeeming qualities.
- Ghouls cost 80 mana. While they're nice and can create undead, they don't heal at all and if you want to use them as an undead factory, be prepared to soften enemies with spells like Weakness etc.
- Hellhounds cost 40/1 turn and they absolutely kick ***. Unlike ghouls, they heal. Fire breath is a form of first strike. It also allows them to fight flying creatures. Hell hounds easily destroy ghouls 1 on 1, as well as war bears, which are twice as expensive.
- MOM is a very buggy game, and some spells just flat don't work. For example Flying Fortress. Neither does Aura of Fear. Subversion does opposite what it's supposed to. Why would you cast a spell that only harms you ?! This is just wrong. MOM, even patched (the version from The Underdogs) is buggier than Fallout.

Balance of many things is so wrong it can easily be considered a bug. There are many ways to play MOM, but there are also many easy ways to win. Any 11 book wizard (all books in the same magic) has access to POWERFUL spells right from the start. Wraiths, Chimeras, or Torin will conquer at least half of the map without breaking a sweat.

I think Sprites are not very cost effective. They have high cost, upkeep, and only 4 shots.
Besides, Sprites are not better at running away than any other creature. I remember, from manual (available on The Underdogs) that there's a flat chance of running away. The chance is something like 50% or 75% per unit, and 0% on Easy difficulty. You'll need a lot more than 4 shots to kill something like a Great Wyrm ! How many groups of Sprites does it take to kill a Wyrm ?

----------

You know what ? I think Dominions3 is more of a SP game than MP game. Kristoffer clearly cares much more about flavour than balance. I don't blame him, he's a bit like a mad scientist :-). And, best of all, he/they gave us tools to fix balance ourselves. But most games (especially from EA) have less bugfixes than Dom3 has extras added in patches. Alternatively, Dom3 can be considered a 'roleplaying MP strategy game'. But this carries a risk of running into a minmaxer.

Re: Favorite games
 

This is an interesting viewpoint. I agree with you, to an extent. In a game that is designed only for single-player use, players can adjust for rough balancing by handicapping themselves or helping themselves, depending on whether they take advantage of poorly-balanced mechanics or units. As long as the balance is not too lobsided (eg. you MUST use unit x to win, or if unit y is useless), then the game can still work. I would only have an issue if the units/spells/races that I liked were so terrible that I could not use them and win.

It's interesting to note that, as AIs get more difficult, balance becomes more important. If you must play optimally against a difficult AI opponent (or another player online) then, in order to win in a roughly-balanced game, the effective variety of stuff that you can use is greatly reduced. It is the unfortunate reason why fine game balance is essential for most modern games.

As for MoM, I actually do wish that it had been balanced better. I would find replaying MoM more fun if it was able to challenge me without forcing me to handicap myself (which also effectively limits the variety of things available in MoM), and I would have a great deal of admiration for a game able to wrap all of MoM's "stuff" into a coherent and balanced game system. Plus, then it could have hotseat multiplayer, so I could play it with my friends. Then it'd be perfect. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Favorite games
 

Ok, it's pretty clear that many people here dig the Rogue-likes. While I have become addicted to Dwarf Fortress (albeit with a graphics pack) I can't seem to get into Roguelikes, and since they are so popular I know I'm missing something.

I have played a few, but of the main ones I have Slash 'em, a Nethack variant. I use a graphical 2d tileset. I have heard about the depth of the programming and how basically anything can be done, but I'm not seeing any of that. I usually die between floor 2-3, I don't know how to use stores, and its pretty basic repetitive move around, search, kick open doors, pick up random stuff, and fight stuff.

Since these games get so much praise I know I am missing something or doing something wrong. Please help me get the full experience! Is there a tutorial? Tips? Did I pick the wrong game to start with? I've played a relatively new roguelike called Drash and that one is pretty fun, but it doesn't claim to have the depth of Nethack and Slash 'Em.

Anything y'all who like these types of games can share to increase my enjoyment and understanding of the genre would be well appreciated. I have seen how imposing DF was until I learned it and so I'm expecting a similar epiphany once I understand the true Rogue-likes.

Thanks!

Re: Favorite games
 

Hmmm, am I missing something WRT Dwarf Fortress? I've spent hundreds of hours on rougelikes, so the interface isn't too much of a barrier, but I feel like I'm playing Sims: dwarf. I guess I was looking for something more like Dungeon Keeper and less picking out the color or of chairs and cabinetry. Should I give it another whirl or is this one just not up my alley?

Re: Favorite games
 

Again, I can heartily recommend gardening. It's very therapeutic.

Re: Favorite games
 

For me, the fun of roguelikes (Nethack in particular) is unraveling the mysteries of the items:

"Nearly every item in the game interacts on some level with another item or object in the game. For instance, if you find a wand and you don't know what it does, you can use one of the charges of the wand to draw on the ground. The game will give you a message such as, "The floor is riddled with bullet holes" indicating that you have a wand of magic missiles. If flames shot from the tip then you'd have a wand of fire. Sometimes nothing obvious happens. Maybe you have a wand of invisibility and you can't see what you drew on the ground. You'll have to find another way to discover what it is. If you find a potion, you can take a sip of it to try to figure out what it is, but you don't want to drink the whole thing. It might be a potion of polymorph and turn you into a lizard! Or maybe it'll turn you into a red dragon... Every item can eventually be determined through experimentation or by discovering what other items are and using process of elimination."

The problem with roguelikes is the extremely high opportunity cost of getting into the game. For instance, in order to really get into Nethack you have to memorize ridiculous amounts of game data. You need to know all the in-game messages that give away what a wand is when you engrave, plus you need to know which wand it might be if you receive no message at all.

You also need to memorize the relative costs of items so that you can ID them by buying/selling them at shops. You also need to account for your charisma modifier and the random chance of a 25% or 33% markup. It goes on and on. The only real way to learn these things is by dying. Over and over and over again. So it's tough to get into these games.

If you'd like to try something a little easier, you can try Lost Labyrinth (www.lostlabyrinth.com) or maybe Incursion (http://www.incursion-roguelike.org/index.html). They're still complicated, but the opportunity cost in learning these games is somewhere in the neigborhood of hours rather than days. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

----

Back to MoM for a second, the manual is wrong. Retreating flyers rarely if ever get killed. Sprites themselves may not be that good, but the idea is to stack flying ranged attackers into the same army. You get a highly mobile force that 80% of the monsters in the game can't even attack. Sprites are just the lowest level of that concept. Eventually I put Chaos Channels on all my ranged units and group the flyers together. But our play styles are very different. I'm just in it for the fun, I like to get as many goodie huts as possible before the AI.

Re: Favorite games
 

I always was under the impression that the closer you were to the edge of the battleground and the further away from your enemy, the higher your chance of survival when fleeing. So the best before fleeing would be to go for the shortest way to the battleground border with your units and flee then. True?

Re: Favorite games
 

Real men don't need to flee.

Re: Favorite games
 

Sprites do not need to run away. You fire off your shots at a Wrym, and then hit 'End Turn' or whatever the button is, 50 times, and the combat times out without loss of any Sprites. I think you need 3 or 4 to kill one Wrym per combat.

Re: Favorite games
 

Well, that's a dirty trick. Besides, nature nodes tend to also contain sprites or giant spiders, which mean trouble for your sprites.

By the way: MOM does indeed have useless units. They're called bowmen. I mean the regular bowmen, not longbowmen, not slingers.

Re: Favorite games
 

4 green books, 1 red, 1 blue

Node mastery, Conjurer, Channeler, Nature Mastery

Send early sprites to attack everything without flyers or ranged. Victory is assured.

If you attack an indy town with only melee units just shoot what you can and when you run out of shots just keep pressed "d" (done) to reach turn limit. You don´t flee so you don´t loose units. In magic ranged attacks, distance don´t affect accuracy unlike physical ranged attacks, so you are well just shooting where the sprites are.
With time a lonely sprite can take any town this way.
When you are able to get some nodes you will be swimming in mana and spamming sprites all over.
Later your summoning skills can be used on stronger creatures. Even taking multiple colors allows you to trade well.
(this is a lame strategy just to win easy, note that channeler is useful in the patched version where it halves mana maintenance)

Re: Favorite games
 

Modern roguelikes tend to be far more complicated than the original Rogue. (Which has its own irritations, e.g. Aquators).

Two fairly prominent families are the Nethack family and the Angband family. The Nethack games tend to be somewhat shorter, more purely dungeon crawls, more capricious (*lots* of opportunity for extreme fortune / misfortune)... and yes, very irritating if you're not either a veteran player or playing with a copy of the latest spoiler files.

The Angband family tends to be longer and more involved -- many include overland travel between towns (on the surface, no less) and dungeons and what-not. They both require and reward caution -- there's somewhat less arbitrariness, but it's also harder to save yourself by taking a bad chance. Casually entering a full graveyard is a -bad- idea no matter what you have...

You need to invest time in increasing stats, covering crucial resistances and the odd immunity, stockpiling those mana / healing potions -- easier to do than in Nethack, but slow.

Among the Angband family, PernAngband (now refocused a bit and called Tales of Middle Earth, IIRC) included quite the odd variety -- including a character type which could possess the bodies of slain monsters and so forth; there was an ability to forge new magic items; and so forth. Very funky.

Re: Favorite games
 

There are three other roguelikes worth mentioning here (alphabetical order):

A.D.O.M.
A roguelike that has a lot in common with RPG games. It has a story, quests, etc. It has a lot of interesting ideas, depth, and memorable places. It's just fun. It was my first roguelike. It has some cons, too: it's not being developed anymore (bugs are not going to be fixed, etc), story gets annoying after a while because you have to redo quests in almost the same order each time you start anew. It has some almost worthless skills, like bridge building. It's quirky and on many occasions plain unfair, without a chance to escape.

DoomRL:
The simplest of the three, but it's also refreshing. A breath of fresh air in the world of roguelikes. It's quite simple, but deffinitely fun. Not only it's the most notable Sci-fi roguelike around, but also one where ranged weapons (not spells) actually matter. Even better, ranged weapons pack a punch and it makes tactics important.

Linley's Dungeon Crawl (Stone Soup variant)
http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net
My favourite roguelike. First, it prides itself on being mostly a tactical game and has few quirks. Mechanics are mostly transparent to the player. Spoilers are of little help in Crawl. It's skill-based rather than class-based, meaning you can shape your character in any way you wish. It has a lot of interesting, innovative spells and items. It's technically more advanced than ADOM, has more gizmos, much more varied random levels etc. It has really good interface - for example you can travel between explored levels by just pressing a few keys, auto-explore long, dull corridors until something interesting happens, etc. Gods of Crawl are a lot more interesting than those in Nethack or ADOM. Each of them has its likes and dislikes and rewards (mostly) something different. Crawl has a lot of depth, a lot of variety (many enemies which require unique tactics, for example giant bats which are several times faster than you and use hit&run tactics), and is also quite fair. It rarely has instant deaths which you can't prevent by playing safer. Also, it's almost immune to scumming - there are very few ways to cheat the system, and you can't, for example, stay on the same level to grind forever (Nethack is infamous for this). Crawl has quite high difficulty, and wanting you dead is how it shows its love. Running away is a common survival tactic in Crawl. But, as said before, it rarely kills you without a warning.

Re: Favorite games
 

I <3 Dwarf Fortress. I only play it with the may green tileset version though. Much purrrtier.

Can't wait for the future patches to fix the bits that really need it (ie military) and add a srategic context (war on gobbos!).

Re: Favorite games
 

Thats the tileset I use as well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

I am so terrible at dwarf fortress but I still love it.

Re: Favorite games
 

Remember... Losing is fun! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Favorite games
 

I'd suggest that you go to rec.games.roguelike.development and try out the different 7DRL entries. They are roguelikes done in 7 days, and as such are much smaller, easier and simpler than the "normal" roguelikes.

Roguelikes are games where player skill matters as much, or even more, than character skill. Unfortunately, for most roguelikes this means that to have a chance of completing the game, you have to read some spoilers. Some are easier on this regard: all 7-day roguelikes, DoomRL, perhaps something like Dungeon Crawl where you need tactics and good equipment choice, and where you can choose what to tackle next to avoid things you can't handle yet.

Re: Favorite games
 

You are confusing game lore / mechanics obscurity and skill. Skill and tactics matters in Crawl, and if you point out an area where Crawl is unfair, the developers will often try to remedy that. Case in point: I managed to get Scroll of Enchant Weapon III and Enchant Armour changed. That is, now their description (at least in trunk) should mention, that they can be used to make some weapon brands permanent, or transform hides into armour.
Nethack is often taken as an example where spoilers have extreme impact on success. Crawl tries to reduce the need for spoilers. Some essential things like racial skill aptitudes are now a part of the manual.