Epic Single Player

RadiantFleet · #1 February 27th, 2004, 10:25 PM

Epic multiplayer requires coordination with other players, something that I haven't had much luck with doing!

RadiantFleet · #2 February 27th, 2004, 10:43 PM

Actually, I find it reasonablly suited to epic games. The five order limit has to do IMO with no battle plan surviving contact with the enemy than anything else. It would be nice to have a "repeat " command for battle orders, but it doesn't bother me too much.

Interestingly, I feel the same way. I hate meeting another player too soon, were is the fun in that! Playing against a lot of impossible AI's does force you to learn how to be agressive early in the game, but I find with 16 impossible AI's that you can knock off a couple and still get a good game. The game I'm currently playing I have 4 super combatants with 10 in all paths (I use wish to jumpstart may key commanders), running around with 500+ strong summoned criters (like summer lions or vastness's). The main AI contenders have 500+ strong unit armies running around, so you get some interesting battles (though the replays can get tedious!).

Quote:

Originally posted by Darryl:
I tend to like epic games as well. I tend to like single player, and don't seem to be like a lot of people. Most I've heard talk about single player seem to like small maps with everyone crammed in. Like a few factions vying for control of an area. I tend to prefer having a "developed nation" going to war with another "developed nation" and having various powers at my disposal.

When I first started playing, my comment was continually "What? Another nation so soon? But it's only turn 3!!" By turn 10 I had 3 or more nations visible. Hated that.

I don't see how much of the magic can be used unless the game is epic. I recently finished a game with Marginon playing on the Aran map against TWO AI's (hey, I'm still learning...). Even when things were under control I still couldn't get to level 9 magic, or 8 for that matter. I ended up winning on Dominion automatically a few turns after pulling my army out of Pangaea! (they only had a few provinces left)

It doesn't seem like the game is geared for epic battles though. Having a limit of 5 rounds of orders for a battle between thousands of troops seems like it's geared toward smaller skirmishes.

Darryl

Arryn · #3 February 27th, 2004, 10:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by RadiantFleet:
It would be nice to have a "repeat " command for battle orders ...

It would be very nice to have this feature. Perhaps the devs will listen and bless us once more?

Gandalf Parker · #4 February 27th, 2004, 11:17 PM

When I first started playing, my comment was continually "What? Another nation so soon? But it's only turn 3!!" By turn 10 I had 3 or more nations visible. Hated that.

In the various threads discussing map size and map generators its been hard to discuss the numbers. I try to make the discussion easier by shifting it to provinces per player. If a player prefers games where each nation gets 5 provinces before the fighting starts, then fine. Others prefer 10, some 20, some (like me) would like to weave their way thru many provinces searching out the other nations. When the devs changed the limit to 500 they doubted anyone would want more but 17*30 is 510. So 500 is probably enough to allow for a decent game with all nations, or a really good epic game with fewer nations, but not both.

Vger · #5 February 28th, 2004, 01:43 AM

Hi,

I definitely prefer epic SP games. (Actually, I don't expect I'll ever play D2 MP.) I'm playing as C'tis/Normal AI/9-strength indies on the world map (not the War scenario as everyone starts out too close).

I'm having a great time having beaten down Ermor I now have Africa to myself and am facing Vanheim to the North, T'ien Chi to the East and Atlantis to my East and West. (And sometimes South, depending on how the war is going.)

Atlantis and I are in a real slugging match trading provinces back and forth. Mainly because I'm not projecting my power into the sea very well. (This is being corrected as I am now focused on them and just holding my other borders.)

One of my problems is that unless I play something like the world map there aren't enough choke points. Nor do most maps (including the world map) have enough water provinces.

Ciao,
V'ger gone

UncleYee · #6 February 28th, 2004, 11:14 PM

"I've had the game machine churning on my latest turn for four hours now (and yes it's a decently fast machine, 2GHz Pentium IV with a Gig of RAM)"

Woe, woe, woe. I like the idea of epic SP games and one day hope to understand the game well enough to survive one, but 4 hours for a single turn? That'd kill my enthusiasm pretty quick. Are long turn resolutions (10+ minutes) common on those 300+ maps?

Gandalf Parker · #7 February 28th, 2004, 11:26 PM

I havent had it happen much. I suspect he had it parked to the system bar and doing something else in the foreground.

One thing I think is interesting is that the processing keeps up with the game play. When it takes me an hour to do my turn, then it takes maybe 2 minutes to process it. Just long enough to make me walk away and see what I missed during the Last hour.

If it took hours to do the moves and less than a minute to proccess, Id die of starvation or dehydration or exploded bladder. (this is a dangerously addictive game)