Epic Single Player

RadiantFleet · #1 February 27th, 2004, 08:50 PM

Hi all,

Just curious how many people like epic single player games? I'm currently playing the world war scenario with all nations, 9 strength independents, most AI's set to impossible. 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). I believe this turn is taking so long because Ryleth (me) and the Abysians are slugging out a 3-4k army battle with lots of leaders, etc. on each side. It's been a wonderful game so far, the compiler changes for the windows Version have worked miracles. Previously I've had to take games over too linux if they got too large, and then finally send them to the devs if that failed.

Arryn · #2 February 27th, 2004, 08:57 PM

My AAR is on the Orania map. Precisely because I like epic games.

Gandalf Parker · #3 February 27th, 2004, 09:06 PM

I have maps which are 450 land and 50 water provinces (500 is apparently a max), some are 2400x3200 pixels (a max on the map generator), and I love to randomize the text file so that the AIs are different settings and alliances. Plus 50 extra castle/lab/temple/or-mix is scattered around, every province gets an extra army which can be made up of anything on the monster list (finding an army of gods in a province is fun).
Anyway, the answer is YES I have been known to get into some epic single player games.

[ February 27, 2004, 19:08: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Darryl · #4 February 27th, 2004, 10:11 PM

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

Argitoth · #5 February 27th, 2004, 10:21 PM

you know, it's not that hard to make an epic multiplayer game. those are always fun fun.

RadiantFleet · #6 February 27th, 2004, 10:25 PM

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

RadiantFleet · #7 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 · #8 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 · #9 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 · #10 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