Most interesting, how'd this get under the radar.

[Hugh Manatee]

This game looks interesting, I like quickee turn based head to head strategy play(advance wars, Empire deluxe ect). I infact bought a Nintendo DS over christmas just to get AWDS($135 total), I once fought a 12 year old kid over a copy of Empire at a library charity sale, yanked it right out of in front of him(little spoiled motor mouth brat had it coming trust me, bought out damn near the whole table...). I can't get the demo for about 6-8 hours so let me ask a couple of questions before I decide to order.

How do battles work? Is it till total anihillation or is there a HQ or Hero to kill or capture? If I'm screwed can I just give up?

How many units do each of the 8 factions get?

Does it work over 56k? More specifically does it work over AOL(SE4G, and Alpha Centauri seem to vomit when I try to launch TCP/IP Games)?

How big a community do you have so far? Like how many are browsing for games between 9pm-6am central(texas time).

Also I don't suppose anyone knows if the gamersfront store is having a sale or coupon anytime soon?

[Quitch]

1. You win by one of the following conditions:

a) At the end of a turn all enemy units are dead. (might be wrong here)

b) You own 2/3 of the cities on the map.

c) You capture the enemies capital.

You can surrender on your turn at any time.

2. Each faction has four units.

3. I don't have dial-up, but I don't see why it wouldn't. It's not bandwidth intensive... well, no game is, they just tend to need a reliable, consistent connection. Since this is turn based it doesn't really matter, so I don't see why it shouldn't be fine.

4. I'd say it's fairly quiet online, but the lobby doesn't display people playing a game so you've no idea how many gamers are on but in games... it's certainly not Battle for Wesnoth size though.

5. No idea

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Hey there,

Quitch already answered most of the questions, but here's a little more info:

quitch said:
a) At the end of a turn all enemy units are dead. (might be wrong here)

Well, you're very close. You win immediately when all enemy units are dead. =)

quitch said:
You can surrender on your turn at any time.

Not only can you surrender, but we encourage you to if you feel a loss is imminent. We actually made specific design decisions to 'trim the fat off' of the game, meaning we didn't want the end game to last pointlessly long. But even still, the player can usually tell they've lost before our rules determine it, and they can do a favor to both players by conceding when they're sure they've hit that point.

Hugh Manatee said:
Does it work over 56k? More specifically does it work over AOL(SE4G, and Alpha Centauri seem to vomit when I try to launch TCP/IP Games)?

It should work just fine. I haven't had any reports of that scenario not working, and our data packets are very very small and infrequent. You should be able to support thousands (at least) of simultanious LOL games on a single modem connection. I also don't see why AOL would matter, unless they take active steps to block connections, which wouldn't have anything to do with our service.

Hugh Manatee said:
How big a community do you have so far? Like how many are browsing for games between 9pm-6am central(texas time).

Like Quitch said, the community has been fairly quiet, but is starting to grow. We just got some nice reviews in PC Gamer and Computer Games Magazine, and those are helping to bring in some new customers. Our new v1.20 patch and planned new online playable demo should help bring new players to the lobby and make it a bit easier to find opponents.

What can help even more is for you to recommend LOL to your friends who might be interested in playing LOL online. The more people that have LOL and play online, the better off everyone is. And feel free to tell them to check out our upcoming demo offering restricted but free online play.

Hugh Manatee said:
Also I don't suppose anyone knows if the gamersfront store is having a sale or coupon anytime soon?

Shrapnel handles that stuff, not me, but I haven't heard anything about it, so I don't think there's anything on the horizon.

If you haven't checked out the existing free demo, I encourage you to do so. Hard to beat the price. =)

I hope that helps...

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Hugh Manatee]

One last question, do my units level up or gain EXP(Final fantasy tactics/disgaea style), or are they just fixed strength(like Advance Wars). They don't have eqipment , you just buy em and attack right?

Ok one more last question, have there been any clear imbalances or broken units or races found and if there are would they get fixed? I mean stuff like(in advance wars DS) colin's double gold rush +200% Power of Money charge, or Grit's artillery superiority.

I seem to recall a valentines day event last year, got the thunderpack, IT2, and Starfury then at 20% off or something like that... I think I'll hold out, play the demo, till then see if something comes up.

My main PC has been dead since late november or i'd likely have got it sooner, been out of touch with the shrapnel community for awhile. I read about this in PC gamer while standing in a walmart, once I get home I borrow my ma's PC to do some research. I'm getting the demo as I type, but 66 MB over 56k is taking awhile.

EDIT: one more thing, a sugestion for the guide. So far it's been very informative but a little more detail on the units would be nice, like their exact stats, cost, HP defence ans skills. I know if I had the game i'd know what they were anyway but for reference and quick comparison it's be cool.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Hi there.

Units do not gain experience, and are not persistant from battle to battle. (So it's more like Advance Wars than FFT in that regard.) Units don't have equipment per se, although many of the action abilities use the name of weapons to explain the nature of the attack.

I know of no balance issues right now, and if I did, we would certainly fix them in a patch!

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Combat Wombat]

Welcome to the LoL forums Hugh Hope you get the game so I can kick your butt

[PhilD]

Hugh Manatee said:Ok one more last question, have there been any clear imbalances or broken units or races found and if there are would they get fixed? I mean stuff like(in advance wars DS) colin's double gold rush +200% Power of Money charge, or Grit's artillery superiority.

I don't think there are true imbalances. I know I've been unable to win multiplayer games so far with the Undead, and I also don't like it when I get the Afflicted as "Random" race, but it's only natural that each player should have his favorite races.

[Quitch]

I'd say it's not Race Vs. Race where you might face imbalance, but rather you may find certain maps favour certain races, but the scoring system takes into account whether you picked your race or went random, and the same for the map.

But I'm not exactly a pro, so who knows?

[Combat Wombat]

Oh man the Undead are the best race

[Quitch]

I have to admit, I do like playing the Undead. Afflicted are powerful (well, I get that feeling) but I'm damned if I can use them