OT: Recommendations?

[Arryn]

Originally posted by fahdiz:
Heh. I followed that sordid mess as well. Actually "Black Isle" - as a brand - still exists...it's simply no longer populated with the people who made those great CRPGs. Interplay has said that they will continue to release games under the "Black Isle" label, when they feel it's "worthy" of the distinction.

But then again, they felt Lionheart was worthy of the name...and that was the most God-awful rushed-together mess of an RPG that I've played in many a year.

It's insane that they lay off the talent that made Black Isle/Interplay famous and then try to sell the Fallout license. What good is a license without the people? Who yanks the engine out of a car (leaving the car without one) before they sell the car? Idiots!

I bought Lionheart solely on the Black Isle name. My mistake.

The only top-tier developer that's still putting out consistently good games is Bioware. Everyone else is catering to the console crowd.

[Tricon]

Originally posted by Arryn:

It's insane that they lay off the talent that made Black Isle/Interplay famous and then try to sell the Fallout license. What good is a license without the people? Who yanks the engine out of a car (leaving the car without one) before they sell the car? Idiots!

Amen. (edit: deleted rant)

[ March 10, 2004, 15:11: Message edited by: Tricon ]

[fahdiz]

I agree completely, Arryn.

They've already soiled the good name of Fallout with the "Brotherhood of Steel" console hackfest. Personally, my feeling is that Interplay is no longer a company to be trusted.

OK, all this (previous) conversation about EU2/HoI/Victoria has got me itching to try them. Maybe I'll have to bargain-bin hunt for EU2 this weekend and simply take a chance.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by fahdiz:
OK, all this (previous) conversation about EU2/HoI/Victoria has got me itching to try them. Maybe I'll have to bargain-bin hunt for EU2 this weekend and simply take a chance.

Despite my feelings about the lameness of the EU engine AI, I do recommend you get EU2 and HOI. I also recommend that you spend an extra 6 bucks and buy EU1 just for the EU1 manual which has some very interesting historical info in it.

With regards to HOI, my advice is to be sure you play it with the CORE mod. The basic game's AI files, OOBs, and other factors leave much to be desired. The CORE team has put in an enormous amount of effort into making the game more historically accurate, balanced, and tweaking the AI (as much as can be done) to provide some sort of challenge.

IMO, Victoria is still too buggy to be worth buying. It needs at least 1-2 more patches. A good friend of mine plays Vicky every night, has been doing so for months now, and he never has anything good to say about the game. I own the game myself and he keeps reminding me why I shouldn't play it. He keeps playing it because he has nothing else to distract him. I've been trying to get him interested in Dom (since my BF won't play me) but he prefers games that have an economy-management aspect to them (like EU/HOI, and Civ, etc.).

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by Arryn:
Despite my feelings about the lameness of the EU engine AI, I do recommend you get EU2 and HOI. I also recommend that you spend an extra 6 bucks and buy EU1 just for the EU1 manual which has some very interesting historical info in it.

I'm not as interested in HoI as I am in the other two, as I tend to shy away from "modern warfare" games unless they're science-fiction. World War II is an interesting period in history, but not one which I personally find very entertaining in games. The one exception to this would be Pod9's oustanding Gear Krieg miniatures wargame/pen-and-paper RPG, as it's much more of a "what-if" scenario with steampowered mecha, etc.

IMO, Victoria is still too buggy to be worth buying. It needs at least 1-2 more patches. A good friend of mine plays Vicky every night, has been doing so for months now, and he never has anything good to say about the game. I own the game myself and he keeps reminding me why I shouldn't play it.

Duly noted; thank you.

[MythicalMino]

Originally posted by fahdiz:

I have and frequently play Warlords BC II. It's great! Unfortunately Warlords IV was a real letdown, coming off the greatness of Warlords III and then going years ahead to...IV. Hardly the update many thought it would be.

What happened to Warlords IV? At one time, the game looked so incredible, then all of a sudden, it totally changed....combat was looking like a fantasy type of Total War (just the screenshots...), then one day, it just all...changed....

I bought Gangland Last nite....really like that game....I also got my hands on Warlords 4, BUT, i only bought it cause it also came with Warlords Battlecry II.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Arryn:
Actually, both you and Peter ignored this particular point. I've reduced the discussion to apples-vs.-apples, comparing two games using the same engine, to illustrate my point and help you to focus on the real issue. To reiterate, EU2 has a simpler "model" than HOI (therefore less work to do in each timeslice) and yet the EU2 AI plays as a much "dumber" opponent than the HOI AI.

I did not address this point, as it was not the main focus of your argument. The focus of your argument was EU2 vs. DOMII, or RTS vs TB, and in that situation time is the real issue.

HOI (or Victoria, for that matter) vs EU2 clearly shows that given enough development time, a better AI on the same game engine can be made [what a surprise], though it has to obey the same timing restrictions as the old AI, for which we are happy as players, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the RTS-TB comparison and fundamental timing issues.

I fear we are talking past each other, here.

Basically, if you stop comparing turn-based and real-time-based strategy game AIs in a "which is better" fashion, I will stop bringing up timing issues.

[ March 10, 2004, 16:15: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]