What are you playing now?

[Orchomene]

There is UbiPlay (or something like that) : you can play in offline mode (you have to click in a tiny offline button after disconnection) but then you miss some bonuses and the legendary weapons.

It's a bit frustrating, but the game itself is sufficiently fun even with the crap of Uplay

[Gorth]

There is UbiPlay (or something like that) : you can play in offline mode (you have to click in a tiny offline button after disconnection) but then you miss some bonuses and the legendary weapons.

It's a bit frustrating, but the game itself is sufficiently fun even with the crap of Uplay

Thanks, but I think the game just stays where it is then

 

Maybe it's time to dust off the HoMM III I got from GoG?

[Majek]

Batman AC. I'm trying to tackle those annoying campaigns but its going slowly.

 

Also playing Dark Souls again. Cooping Capra demon and Gargolyes. Low level griefers are getting pretty annoying though.

[Enoch]

Maybe it's time to dust off the HoMM III I got from GoG?

I was thinking of grabbing a HoMM game in the GOG sale-- is III the consensus-best of the part of the series that they have available (which I think is 1-4)?

[Gorth]

Maybe it's time to dust off the HoMM III I got from GoG?

I was thinking of grabbing a HoMM game in the GOG sale-- is III the consensus-best of the part of the series that they have available (which I think is 1-4)?

Some die-hard fans claims that II is better, but I've never played it, so I couldn't say. III did seem to be what made it "popular" (as wargames go).

[Maria Caliban]

Finally 'finished' Batman:AC: the main game, all the side missions, and all the trophies and challenges. The game says I'm only at 68% though. :/

 

Played a game of Civ 5. It's much more fun than I remember. Ended up at the edge of a continent with Augustus as my neighbor. Despite my never doing anything to him, he remained Guarded, wouldn't open his borders to me, and denounced me every chance he could. Then the 1800s hit and suddenly he realized my kingdom was all of three cities so I probably wasn't trying to conquer the world. Then he became my buddy.

 

I managed to get a diplomatic victory by amassing a bunch of money and bribing my way to allied status for all the city-states prior to the election.

[Malcador]

Caesar IV, paying for my poor planning. Every rating's at 100 except for Culture and Prosperity, Culture requires things that need more equites than I have, but plonking down housing for them without the necessary services causes the ratings to get worse. And the map's got hills all over. Might have to destroy an entire area of the city and start over.

 

Should give Civ V a go too, I think. Never got taken with it when I first played it, something felt kind of bland and un-fun about it at the time.

[Meshugger]

Finished Witcher 2 and will try out Deus Ex: HR later tonight.

[Nepenthe]

Finished Witcher 2 and will try out Deus Ex: HR later tonight.

I essentially played through DXHR twice in one sitting - so I hope you have the rest of the week off!

[Orchomene]

Maybe it's time to dust off the HoMM III I got from GoG?

I was thinking of grabbing a HoMM game in the GOG sale-- is III the consensus-best of the part of the series that they have available (which I think is 1-4)?

Some die-hard fans claims that II is better, but I've never played it, so I couldn't say. III did seem to be what made it "popular" (as wargames go).

 

Well, I'm sure you can find die hard fans saying that Pong was at the top of game development and that nothing is better than it.

To sum up a bit about Homm :

- first one is very limited but it's the begining.

- Second one is what was considered the classical Homm. As far as I remember, there are only two campaigns, but good one and very difficult in the end. Some small issues in the gameplay, the UI being a bit heavy at some moments.

- the third one is the most complete and developped, but all the expensions made it a bit over developped with a lot of different and very expensive dragons to hire. Certainly the best if you are looking for a strategy game.

- the forth one has been criticised a lot by the fans and certainly had at the begining a lot of AI issues, but is not a bad game at all. In fact, it's the only Homm game ith that many RPG elements in it (your hero is a unit itslef, i.e. can be killed in the battlefield). There are some balances issues when heroes are high levels since fighting heroes, like barbarian, become one-man armies. But it's fun. You just can't consider it a very strict strategy game because of this unbalancing element. Yet, I do appreciate the campaigns in it and some improvements with caravans, armies that can move without a hero and monsters that can move a bit.

- Homm 5 is like a 'get back' to the third opus, yet is too my taste, inferior.

- the sixth one is certainly easier in the empire management and the story is quite well done.

In the end, I would say that the third is the best strategy game of the series but the fourth has some interesting elements if you want to try a Homm game a bit different.

If you've never played a Homm game, I would say to pick the third installment and if you like it but want to try something with a bit of RPG, try the fourth after.

[Majek]

Finally 'finished' Batman:AC: the main game, all the side missions, and all the trophies and challenges. The game says I'm only at 68% though. :/

Yup, Combat and predator challenges and campaigns count to game completion. :/

 

Playing Renegade Ops, its awesome. Oh how i wish someone made new Jungle/Desert Strike game with a mission editor. If made right i would probably play it all year long.

[Tigranes]

Orchomene, I have HOMM3 lying around but haven't tried it yet, or the series at all. Any tips on how to get into it?

[Labadal]

Finally 'finished' Batman:AC: the main game, all the side missions, and all the trophies and challenges. The game says I'm only at 68% though. :/

Yup, Combat and predator challenges and campaigns count to game completion. :/

 

Playing Renegade Ops, its awesome. Oh how i wish someone made new Jungle/Desert Strike game with a mission editor. If made right i would probably play it all year long.

 

Game will be 400MSP and also on sale on PSN. Might give it a try.

[entrerix]

i've got so many games to play, but so few of them are actually striking my fancy. I think I'm getting pickier as I age, but i keep buying stuff anyways... gonna have to reign it in over the next year...

[Orchomene]

Orchomene, I have HOMM3 lying around but haven't tried it yet, or the series at all. Any tips on how to get into it?

 

I don't know what do you mean by "how to get into it".

I think the best would be to begin by the campaigns. The original ones.

Otherwise, if the question is about strategy tips, I can give you some general tips :

 

1/ Homm are games of attrition.

This is the main point of all scenarios. Thus, as a direct consequence, never do a battle in which you lose units in numbers bigger than a small percentage of your troups, if at all. You can lose some units if the fight is necessary for you to gain access to a mine of high importance (wood/minerals and one of the other resources depending of the race you play).

So choose well your fights. Shooters, spells, strong melee units are important to achieve that.

 

2/ Homm 3 is based greatly on spells. If you build well your major hero, you can win fight were you are greatly outnumbered with spells like mass slow, blind, resurrection, clone...

That's why, even if your hero is a fighter, you will want to take the skills : wisdom, most of the school specialization, maybe intelligence. Logistics and pathfinding maybe also very good for your major hero and this leads to the third point.

 

3/ Be quick. You want those mines as early as possible. You want more cities to produce more units. You want to be able to flee from too big enemies and you want to be able to chase smaller enemies before they take your mines or not well defended cities.

 

4/ You want to optimise the development of your cities, especially the first. What you want is to get the most potent army possible at the moment you planned. This last moment depend greatly on the map difficulty and size.

This is why, for city development you have to go for money earnings (city size, treasures if you play rampart) and unit dwellings.

Ex : in big maps, I generally plan to get the 'efficient army' size on weeks two to four (depending on possibilities and neutral unit stacks). If I play the castle (human), I will check how to build monks quickly since I intend some heavy use of those shooters. My next dwellings target will be archangels (if I have access to mines quickly).

 

5/ This development will orient what your main hero will do in the first weeks with a limited power and a limited number of units. If I plan my city development, I know what resources I need to get. After some yime, you will know quickly what fights you can do and what you can expect as building targets.

 

6/ During combat, you have as an objective to minimize losses. That means that you want to :

- destroy sources of damages in the first round of the enemy. If your units don't move (i.e. wait and maybe move after the enemy units move), most of the enemy units won't be able to destroy some of your units. Thus, you will target shooters and magic users.

- only melee attack when you want for either destroying efficiently the adversary (only the units that remain after your attack will retaliate, thus if your first attack destroys 80% of the enemy stack, only 20% will retaliate), to protect your shooters or to avoid that the enemy attacks first.

- mass spells are powerful (that's why you will need the magic school specializations) like mass haste, mass slow, mass bless or curse even, and can change greatly the outcome of a battle round.

- there are spell tactics that are real army killers. Most are not damage spells. Those are blind (the blinded unit's retaliations do 0 damage and blinded unit can't act until attacked), clone (duplicate your melee units to absorb the retaliation of the enemy stack and then mass attack the unit without losses), berserk, resurrection (or clone on archangels that have the resurrection ability) and other I don't remind at the moment.

 

After that, strategies and tactics begin to be more specific and depend on your race and what map you're on.

Normally, the first campaign is relatively easy (castle units).

If you want first an idea you can play :

- first play the begining of a huge map up to the moment you cross an AI enemy. You will acquire a good idea of how to develop.

- then do a very small map to get an idea of how to develop 'efficiently'.

- play again the same map above (or just the beginning of it if you get quickly your answers) to see how you are a LOT more efficient.

- enjoy anything, you should have the basis to win most maps without 'suffering'.

 

A good internet site for homm resources is celestialheavens.

[Tigranes]

Thanks. I've played King's Bounty, Age of Wonders, etc. and really, these types of games have a few small tips/quirks that I like to know before I start, or I just end up regretting. I will start with the campaigns then.

[Maria Caliban]

Civ 5. Huge Pangaea map. Randomly got Rome but could not find any Iron for love or money until I was at the longswordman.

 

Was doing okay until Cathrine decided to attack me. Then Neopolian. Then Montezuma. And all of them had 'declared their Friendship' to me recently.

[Tale]

Finished Halo: Anniversary. Now to focus on Mysteries of Westgate.

 

No opinion on MoW yet. It seems a promising start. Start off at level 7, have some adventurer backstory, and get told to engage with one of three factions in the city. All I've done aside from that little bit of background is a quest where all roads seem to lead to failure... which is odd, but I think it's setting up for later. And it definitely seems more talky than fighty so far. Only one fight in the first handful of minutes instead of throwing you to a bunch of them.

[Starwars]

I liked MoW. Felt like a mix of a fan-made module and professional expansion pack (which was the idea). Not that memorable overall but some pretty good ideas and diverging things (especially in the end-game) and some extremely challenging fights here and there. Should replay it one of these days.

 

Still playing Darklands which I think I'll be finishing up soon.

[Bos_hybrid]

I also enjoyed MoW, it's a pity Ossian decided to make an iOS game instead of an indie RPG.

[WorstUsernameEver]

I also enjoyed MoW, it's a pity Ossian decided to make an iOS game instead of an indie RPG.

 

An iOS game which is quickly becoming the Age of Decadence of the Apple store since no one knows anything about its release.

[Majek]

Rayman Origins.

 

Forget every other game this year, this is my GOTY. It's awesome.

[Morgoth]

Rayman Origins.

 

Forget every other game this year, this is my GOTY. It's awesome.

Is this ever coming out for PC, too?

[Majek]

Who knows.

[Jaesun]

Final Fantasy IX on my PS3. Almost to the end of Disk 3. I never finished it back in the day...