It is not as difficult to coordinate it all as you might think at first. You don't have to control each individual person. Your soldiers are organized into units, usually of up to 160 or 240 people each. A little less for cavalry units. You can have a max of 20 units in a battle. Though the computer can have any number over that. It is a real time game, but you can pause any time you want. So by pausing a lot, it basically becomes a turn-based game, and can micro-manage the battle really well.

My general Penthesilea recently conquered the island of Rhodes, but the Greeks want it back (The Greeks are the guys with the gold flags with the lightning bolts. Each person you see on this strategy map is an army.)

Going out to fight the Greeks

The Colossus of Rhodes looks on

Flawless victory

This post has been edited by SubRosa: May 5 2015, 08:49 PM

All this strategy game talk has got me in a similar mood. Of course being an Xbox player my choices are pretty limited. Thankfully my laptop is just about good enough to run the original 'Stronghold'. Might have to invest in some more games now that I know it'll work.

I love that all these armies are beautiful women; and the Generals too! Like the episode of Star Trek where they went to a planet where there were only voluptuous women, lol. These screens are great!






This post has been edited by mALX: May 5 2015, 06:06 PM

After Halo 3 bumped me back several times on legendary, I decided to just smash the game on heroic difficulty(2nd highest) instead. Then I moved onto Halo: Reach, which I'm getting close to finishing on heroic. Once I'm done I'll be moving on to Halo 4.

dread to think how much time I spent on Halo: Reach. Absolutely loved it.

aaaand now I wanna play through it again

Yeah, it's a great game. Even the single player, going through the story. There's something very satisfying about it.

Now that I've wrapped it up, for now, I'm moving onto Halo 4. Damn this game's gorgeous. I got past the prologue bit, into the first area with a proper view, and my jaw nearly dropped. It was one major "wow" moment.

This post has been edited by Callidus Thorn: May 5 2015, 10:00 PM

My son LOVED the Halo games; but he played them online. I played one of them once or twice in single player, but compared to the games I was used to playing it was too linear - but it was gorgeous, agree with you on that.

Currently playing Jurrassic Park Operation Genesis on the original Xbox. I bought it years ago for next to nothing and a resurgence in popularity has made it worth almost $100. I love it. Really fun game and definitely a laid back way to kill a few hours.

So... you´re playing Genesis on an Xbox..? ....



Oh, retro-style humor! How I love thee

So I haven't been playing Oblivion much at all, since I got sucked into yet another open world-ish game - Uncharted Waters: New Horizons on the SNES.

I bought a lot of Koei games back when the SNES was state of the art, but mostly the pure strategy empire building ones - Bandit Kings of Ancient China, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Nobunaga's Ambition and the like. I got the first Uncharted Waters, but it just never really hooked me, and I didn't bother with New Horizons. But I ran across a mention of it on a thread on a retrogaming board and figured I'd give it a shot, and yeah... it's taken up most of my spare time since.

Quick outline for any who might be interested:

You play one of six different characters, each of which is just starting out in their eventual occupation - an Italian adventurer, a Dutch explorer, an English naval officer, a Spanish pirate, a Turkish trader or a Portuguese adventurer. They each have their own stories, but the stories just unfold over time, as near as I can tell triggered by particular amounts of fame or fortune or success or whatever's appropriate to the character. Each character starts the game with a ship - in most cases it's a pretty basic but usable one, though both the English naval officer and the Spanish pirate start out, though for completely different reasons, with stolen Spanish galleons. They have basic goals to accomplish, usually at the behest of the ruler of their nation (the Turkish trader is asked to expand trade routes and forge alliances, the Dutch explorer is asked to explore the world and report his discoveries to a cartographer, the English naval officer is asked to defeat the Spanish fleet, and so on). But really, you're free to just do pretty much whatever you want. When you start the game, the Mediterranean, Iberia and central Europe are open and the rest of the map is dark, waiting to be discovered.

The economic system is surprisingly sophisticated. Goods are divided into broad categories (spices, cloth, luxuries, food, etc.) and trade in particular items affects the markets relatively predictably and accurately. If you sell a great deal of one product to one port, the price they're willing to pay for it goes down, as does, though to a lesser extent, the price they're willing to pay for much of anything. And the demand for that item in neighboring and allied ports will also go down. Meanwhile, the port you've been buying the item from will be flush with money and it's prices - both what it's willing to pay for things and what it demands for things - will go up. If you run a particular trade route for too long, you'll exhaust it.

There's also a complex web of loyalty that's affected by pretty much everything you do. If you trade with a port a lot, it'll increase loyalty to, and eventually ally with, your nation. But if it's an important port, that'll potentially spur other nations to increase their trade with it, and it can lead shipowners from those nations to attack you, trying to force you out of the area. And so on.

One of the most interesting bits about it is that many of the playable characters appear as NPCs in the other scenarios. In fact, some of them are important characters in each other's scenarios. Since each scenario starts at the same point in time, that means that you can play out both sides of some of the important rivalries in the game. And all of the characters at least figure into each other's scenarios, even if they aren't active characters. For instance, as I mentioned, if you play the Turkish trader, your task is to expand their political and economic empire. He exists no matter what, so if you play any of the scenarios other than the Turkish trader, you're going to have to deal with the fact that there's this Turkish trader out there expanding their political and economic empire.

It's really quite a well done game, with lots of content and lots of freedom. I strongly suggest it to anyone who enjoys freedom, exploration and strategy.

Wow, that sounds remarkably sophisticated, and on the SNES as well! Nice find, gpstr. Hope you´ll continue to sink much time into it


Are you playing on your own childhood system btw?

Well... it's not a "childhood" system - I'm older than that. My childhood system was the Atari 2600.

I do actually still own my SNES, and most of the games from it (though I've sold off some of the better ones when the prices got high enough to justify it), but that's all carefully stored away and appreciating. I exclusively play on emulators, in part because it's cheap and convenient, in part because it makes it possible to play things I wouldn't be able to play otherwise (like fan translations of Japan-only games) and in part because it stresses me to play on the console. Every time I put a cartridge in, I swear I can actually feel the tiny bit of abrasion - the little bit of plastic and metal that's being ground away. I'm just more comfortable knowing that all of that stuff is stored away, not being worn and torn and potentially damaged.

I see what you mean. It´s not quite the same on the NES though with the Zero Insertion Force thing, so I can play on it without worrying too much



But selling games because the price got up.. You just don´t do it!! ... If you´re a Collector, that is..

That game sounds really neat, gpster. Holy [censored], that was SNES? Never heard of that game. Sounds awesome though. Some of those Nintendo games were incredibly creative, and I'm not just talking about Final Fantasy, either.

I don't know how it works on SNES, but with the original Nintendo, I used to clean the metal contacts with isopropyl alcohol, otherwise the picture would get funny after awhile with some games.

Oh, and I'm playing Oblivion this weekend. Big surprise, right? I keep getting urges to return to one of the Tomb Raider series, but I haven't got the time. What I'd REALLY like to do is have a look at GTA: V. I wonder if this is mod-able, yet. One of my daughter's friends' older brother has this game, and although I forbid her to play it, I couldn't help but watch him as he was gaming the other day. I can't play as a guy though, I'd have to mod a woman character in, instead. I'm spoiled by Beth games, I suppose.

This post has been edited by Renee: May 10 2015, 11:07 AM

Isopropyl + qtip = we´re in business

Has anyone ever played Divinity Original Sin? It is on my list of games to try. But before I spend $40 I'd like to hear what people who have played it have to say.

I am done with Amazon Total War for the foreseeable future. I reached 51 territories with Amazonia, and the long campaign victory condition is only 50. For some reason the victory window never kicked in. My guess is that it might be because 4 of my territories are from the Parthians, who are my protectorate. That means their territories count toward my total. But perhaps not where the victory conditions are concerned?

I kept going for a little bit, but then got a CTD at turn end. I could go back to a previous save. But at this point the turns take forever. That is one of the downsides of this game. The minutia of managing fifty settlements, hundreds of units, generals, spies, assassins, etc... really bogs things down in the late game. So I declared victory.

Now I have moved back to NWN1, where I still have Persephone's game to finish. She recently had to switch to a bow to shoot some orcs who were otherwise unreachable. Afterward I unequipped the bow, but forgot to equip her sword again. She ran into an Ettin soon after, and after Persephone killed it with just a few hits, I realized that she had done it with her bare hands! Her sauce is definitely most awesome at this point.

I have played some turn based RTS games in the distant past - and do recall that it could take a long time in late game to go through all your holdings to ensure everything is set for the next turn.

Purse Phone = Awesomesauce indeed!

I'm still playing Uncharted Waters: New Horizons on SNES (emulated).

It's really a tremendous game. I can't recommend it strongly enough, for anyone who likes strategy, exploration and open world (and even a bit of roleplaying), and isn't put off by 16bit graphics. It's just amazing.

I could (and actually started to, but thought better of it) write a whole wall of text about it, but... I won't do that. I could spend that time playing instead.

playing Bladestorm: The Hundred Years War. Played it approximately 39385629 times through on the 360 but now i have the fancy updated Xbox One version, which includes Bladestorm Nightmare which adds things like goblins and dragons to the medieval setting. Haven't got round to starting Nightmare yet, having too much fun being a (very biased) mercenary.

This updated version has way better graphics and character customization as well as some little gameplay changes that make everything easier to plan out during battle. The best part is that you can now create multiple characters alongside your main mercenary who can do their own thing during a battle or add their squad to yours so you can command up to four units (max. 200 soldiers overall) in one super squad.

In other news, only 3 days until The Witcher 3 is released. I'm rather looking forward to it.