here you should tell ambrosia what your favorite, or least favorite games are, here are mine:

most favorite: Halo 3
I am a Huge fan of the halo games, I don't play Live much because there isn't a cooperative mode on live, and lack of internet connection, if you do happen to find me on live though, I am most likely going to be in juggernaut, CTF, zombie, or slayer modes. I can beat the game on legendary, but that is because the computer has your enemies do a certain pattern. the computer can't outsmart me. I am not exactly very good at halo though.

least favorite: Beowulf
every time that I kill something it takes away the effect by your character yelling "I AM BEOWULF"
and the stupid physics of the game.

I have noticed that I talk in a mumbling type manner, but it is the way I talk.

No, it's more rambling. Mumbling is what I do. If you listen to me talk for three minutes you'll only be able to pick out a few words at a time. Something like "I... could... better... bored."

Then I get "What? I can't hear you because your mumbling."

"I... I could... ng better... do... summer... bored."

And so on. By the time I get to a level of articulation that is understandable the person I'm talking with is too impatient to listen any more.

On topic.

Favorite game: Probably the Elder Scrolls games. I just like that kind of game. Halo would be a close second along with the Legend of Zelda series. Elder Scrolls because it's well, Elder Scrolls. Legend because it's well, Zelda. I'm not nearly as crazy about first-person shooters but I like Halo just because it's well, Halo. There are a lot of cool stuff I've still got to try out. With bubble shields and the ability to pick up turrets along with some different weapon combinations, there are a few things I want to try.

EDIT: Least favorite: Sports games. I have an extreme dislike of sports in real life and in video games despite it being a video game. Like with gray_shirt_ninja, the exception is Wii Sports, and real life is Soccer and Tennis, oh wait, that's not a video game...

Favorite: Marathon: ∞
Least Favorite: all sports games (except for Wii Sports)

Half-Life 2 remains the best game of all time. I was quite disappointed by Company of Heroes. The 1.7 gig patches ever week didn't help either.

Halo 3 has coop over live.

Current Favorite: Dawn of War.
It's older I know, but until StarCraft II comes out it's the best RTS out now because C&C 3 was so lackluster in my book.

Least Favorite: Command & Conquer: Generals.
Just a horrible RTS, really. I just hate it because it did so little right, while doing so much wrong. Coming from Westwood/EA I expected something at least playable... like C&C 3 for instance.

That reminds me Vader what's wrong with CoH? I never got a chance to play it much, but it's from Relic so I thought I would've been pretty good. Expand if you wouldn't mind.

Edit: Talk about rambling, I had to cut that down.

Do you really feel the need to prove everybody wrong nowadays?

Yes. Yes I do.

And like I said. I got your topic started. You now have a grand total of seven posts.

CoH had way too much micro for my tastes. You had to tell each squad where to throw grenades, for example. Microing a few squads, a tank or two, plus my base and all my resource points proved more frustrating than fun.

Come on guys, this isn't how this kind of topic is supposed to work. It's a rule of the internet that your least favorite game has to be deliberately chosen to make other people mad.

I'll start off by not picking a favorite (because honestly I like most genres) and naming my most hated game as...

Warcraft 3! Seriously it feels like everything I have to do to win is an exploit rather than a game mechanic and it doesn't have near the explosive fun factor of Blizzard's other RTS's. Just build, creep, fight one and only one battle, winner goes over kills the other guy's base. THERE'S SO MUCH DEPTH.

Oh yeah, and I remember loving the campaign when I was in high school. Going back and playing it now is just embarrassing.

I think it's kinda weird to list 'most hated game' as one that one has played to death.

For me? Just about every stupid little beat em up made from a movie. Such a waste of budget, it makes me want to cry.

Favorite and least favorite games for me can be fickle sometimes.

Current favorite: Dynasty Warriors 5. Yea, I know it's the previous game in the series. I enjoy it. I have a old PS2 to play it on and I don't have access to a PS3 to play DW6. I enjoy mowing through crowds of peons with a spear.

Current least favorite: Halo 1-3. I feel that the Halo games just have too much hype and rabid fanboys. I enjoy the single player and co-op, but the multiplayer drives me away because how many people become obsessed with this game. Obsession can be good, rabid fanboyism combined with annoying people just gets on my nerves.

How is that weird? It's like when a relationship ends with both parties hating each others' guts.

Why I liked WC3 initially was largely the hype and since I bought it when I was a poor high school student I couldn't afford to not like it. Factors of lesser importance were "I wonder what happens to Thrall" and "ooh pretty Night Elves". Gradually I began to realize I just wasn't having much fun.

Ah. I guess I don't really see games that way. They are either fun, or they aren't. If I play them and have fun, I'm happy. If they aren't fun, then I label them bad.

Heh, I've always been a fan of micro management. Will give you the resource one though, because I'm not much of a fan of the way Relic handles that in CoH and DoW (though it's worse in CoH).

What kind of RTS are you a fan of? Or are you a TBS?

I like a somewhat older style of RTS. Not the very oldest, like Dune II, Tiberian Sun and all that, but the earlier examples of the modern RTS. Age of Empires II and Age of Mythology are my two favorites. They're less tactical and more strategic, but not as much as a 4X game. I also really like Supreme Commander and other huge world style games, but my computer can't run SupCom so I don't get to play it much. My ideal RTS game lasts a long time and is not overly micromanagement focused. I don't really like Blizzard's RTSs. Ensemble Studios has better gameplay and much, much nicer art style. I don't really like TBS games as much, though Rise of Nations had some interesting turn based elements incorporated into the global campaign.

Well if you've played a game enough, then you begin to get sick of it. I haven't had a new game in probably months. I've played all mine to the extent where I'm not going to play much anymore. If you play it enough then it will slowly fall down your list of favorites. It may be fun at first but as it gets older then it gets boring.

I downloaded the CoH demo and immediately couldn't get into it. I guess if there's any genre that I'm weak on, it's RTS (resource management!), because WC3 showed me how many RTS holdovers (resource management!) I actually don't like that much (lack of physics and mechanics having any bearing on the real world and/or intuition!) and now I can't get into most of them. My least favorite is probably AoE, because it basically takes Warcraft, slaps the thinnest most laughable historic veneer on it, and adds 500 unnecessary resources while still not adding any mechanics that make any sense (or are fun).

I still love Starcraft though, just because it's so simplistically perfect in execution and explosive and arcade-y. Hell, DoW is fun and even Warcraft 2 is good for a laugh. I just don't have the patience to memorize a bunch of ###### any more and just want a simple, explosive, intuitive RTS game, like Myth or TA.

Favorite: (wait for it) Marathon Trilogy

Least Favorite: Reader Rabbit's toddler. My brother used to play it all the time. Even thinking about it makes me nauseous.

I don't really feel like trying to craft all of this into a paragraph so here you go:

Yeah, I've got the same problem with SupCom. I'd like to play it, but I simply can't.

Heh, I never got to play AoE II or AoM. I could pick up AoM for $10 if you think it aged well...
Also comments on AoE III?

I will ignore your opinion of Blizzard as even you may err from time to time.
Though I don't really like WC III much beyond the story telling. Too much emphasis on the heroes to make is very interesting.

RoN has a great strategic emphasis, but I have a major problem trying to apply effective tactics to it.

On the subject of TBSs: Have you ever played Rome/Medieval: Total War? You ever play Civ or GalCiv?

Also what's your opinion of C&C as they tend to have a strategic disposition?

Yes, I am a strat-game geek, but that's just because it's my second favourite genre. The first being the long-dead Space Based Combat Sim breed. *weep*

Ah! I nearly forgot about Homeworld, and Nexus: TJI! Have you ever played? (Open to all. Well everything is I guess, but one more so.)



Well that just makes you fickle.



There are three important components when fighting a war (real or not): Tactics, Strategy, and Logistics. You seem to dislike the latter.

That's cool with me, because DoW is arcade-y because of it's is low focus on logistics/resource management too, but I still like it because of its very heavy emphasis on tactics.

I'm really not getting this "(lack of physics and mechanics having any bearing on the real world and/or intuition!)", could you explain your meaning?

Have you ever played Rome: Total War?

My favorite game has to be Halo. Enough plot to hold you over in the cut scenes and plenty of violence.

My least favorite game is Jericho. It's like playing a crappy sci-fi movie.

AoM is probably the best strategy game of its type ever. There may not be a whole lot of people online, but if you get the Gold Edition (it comes with the expansion pack included) there are about 40 single player missions plus random map battles against up to 11 AIs. The gameplay is tight, the art style is nice, the interface is pretty good, the music is excellent. The graphics are a bit cartoony, but it's helped them to age well.

I have only played the demo of AOE III, but here's what I got: Excellent graphics, ok gameplay, ok interface. It's really pretty but it doesn't do anything that AoM and AOE II didn't do as well or better other than graphics. AoE III also has more hero type characters with more developed abilities which I don't like.

I have high hopes for AoE IV, but right now Ensemble is stuck working on a console only (wtf!?) RTS game, Halo Wars. Not that it looks bad exactly, but it seems like a waste of time for a studio of that caliber.

My main problem with Blizzard games in general is how fantastically ugly they look. For Warcraft, they take every fantasy cliche in the book, add some ridiculous cartoon styling and blue/green/red glows, and then make every unit really bulky and unwieldy looking and call it an art style. The gameplay in the older Warcraft games is good, but even the newer ones are such an eyesore I can't stand to play them. World of Warcraft is a bit better, but it's still pretty unsightly, especially if you turn the graphics down even a little bit.

It's true that RoN didn't have fantastic tactical battles, but it did some pretty good stuff. I liked the fact that battles weren't decided by dice roll or something silly like that.


Yes to all but only very briefly. Not long enough on any to gain a real opinion except GalCiv, which I just found overwhelming. Rome and Medieval were good though, especially the tactical battles with cavalry charges!

C&C games are extremely fun but balanced badly for the most part. Red Alert 2 is sort of an exception, kind of. The C&C games that I own are Tiberian Sun, Firestorm expansion, and Generals with Zero Hour. All of them have ridiculous explosions but they are also all unbalanced and not much fun online, with a focus towards incredibly fast, almost twitch-based play. I like my games to last longer than 15 minutes, thankyouverymuch. C&C 3 was aimed toward the 15 minute battle paradigm and I would guess that RA3 will be too.

Good breakdown of components. Here's what I like in games:

Tactics only (Myth): Good
Strategy only (Risk): Good
Resource management only (accounting firm?): boring

Strategy and resource management (AoE II with resource focus, SupCom with strategy focus): Good
Strategy and tactics (AoM to some extent, RoN, Total War series): Good
Tactics and Resource management (CoH): frustrating

Strategy, tactics, and resource management (Sins of a Solar Empire maybe?): could be anything depending on how well it's done. Sins looks extremely good.

Edit: its, not it's.

Well, in a game like Myth or TA, you can immediately look at what's going on in 3D, apply common sense (arrows can't go through trees, nor do they home) and craft strategy. In WC3 you have to understand a lot of other bullcrap, and less intuitive mechanics like focus fire or running the guy being targeted away becomes more important because you don't have to worry about friendly fire or missing or other intuitive elements of realism.

Depending on my mood, both slots are occupied by the same game.

I might just pick it up then. Thanks.



Considering my personal opinion of juggernaut units, I bet I'll dislike any amped-up hero units.



I doubt the revenue they'll likely receive from the game will agree with you.

Though I personally feel that strat-games slapped onto a console are essentially an auto-fail.



Well... without a doubt I'll agree that the rendering found in the recent WC games is a solid let down. Especially WoW after seeing Guild Wars. As far as the overall art direction, I'll have to make a distinction there. It's not that I think it's exceptional by any means, it's merely that I can't help but think that if it were presented better in the games I'd likely find it pleasing. Of course I'm considering the CG movies that Blizzard produces when I state that (the only area of graphical execution that I can say that Blizzard excels), as I am always impressed when I see one of those.

On a side note, when I think of horrid rendering in a strategy game, I think C&C Generals. Who found those infantry units acceptable? Especially when they decided to abandon their trademark live action video in favor of that crap. Ugh.



Yeah, the "dice roll" stuff in the Civ games is garbage, I can't tolerate a total dismissal of tactics. Also my take on GalCiv was very similar to yours. I've fired it up a handful of times, and every time I bailed out due to it's complexity and campy-ness.

If you ask me, Rome is one of the best games of its kind to come to market, and Medieval is pretty much that same game with different paint. By that I mean that I felt let down by it. It's really no more distinct from Rome (in the area of game play) than the Barbarian expansion for Rome. I just feel that if they make a new game, it should include significant innovations of deviations. Given the type of game play of the Total War series, more of the same truly feels like more of the same. Heh, that Medieval explanation kept getting longer and longer.

Anyway I love the fact that you can actually effectively emphasize infantry, artillery, archers, or cavalry (my specialty) depending on your personal preference. That and the morale system seemed pretty damn solid if you ask me. In that game I win off of breaking the enemy (with cavalry tactics) long before killing them. This is greatly contrasted with my friend who prefers to hide his archers and artillery behind a solid phalanx of infantry until the enemy is whittled away into nothingness. The fact that the game allows for such drastically different types of play without any noticeable shortcomings on either end of the spectrum impressed me greatly. Yeah, I've already said I'm a strat-geek.



Yeah, I've always liked the idea of a C&C game, but I can't really say that I've been very satisfied with their execution. They're reasonably fun, but they're always at one extreme being either too slow: Tiberian Sun, or too fast: everything after. That and that obvious balance issues you've already mentioned. They always seem have at least one juggernaut unit per faction.



I can't really take credit for the breakdown of components. I watch the *cough*history*cough*channel*cough* Anyway moving on...

I've heard good things about Sins, but I've not played it. Anyone here played it who is prepared to give a decent review? Nothing special just whats good vs what's bad.



I understand what you're getting at now. Yeah, I wouldn't really care for WC III much if it weren't for the quality of their writing. I think that my interest in unfolding the story kept me going through the campaign long after my interest in the game play faded. The most prominent factor I can cite for that lack of interest in the game play would be the Heroes. I know they were trying to execute a hybrid game, but they really did sacrifice much of what makes for a good strategy game to incorporate the Hero emphasis.


On a parting note: Nobody here has played Homeworld?

Only the demo. . It was really fun and I kept telling myself to get it but I never did. Played the Homeworld 2 demo also and never got that either.

Homeworld II dominates. I've played it before, but only the demo unfortunately. I remember having two different demo versions of it as well. Now I have the first few story missions as well as the first few tutorial missions. In the first version I had all of the tutorial missions and the first story mission. What was fun about the last tutorial is that you fought endlessly against the Vagyr and I never got very far. I didn't have too many ships at the time. And when I'm playing the first story mission, I'm trying to play but it keeps freezing on me so I haven't played really for a while.

What I like doing though is getting a bunch of gun platforms and just sending them in front of the Pride of the Hiigara then watching as fighters try to break through. I do a bunch of other stupid stuff too.

What I do when I play Age of Empires is just set up a bunch of troops randomly in the map editor and just watch them fight. I'll usually put a bunch of hero's or something. Or base a map off of a historical event, like the French and Indian war, or the civil war or something. That or I make scenarios where my troops have to escape from somewhere, or have to attack a fort or something. Right now I'm trying to make a trigger that triggers a trigger that has the effect of placing a troop, resetting the first trigger which reactivates the first which makes a troop which also activeates a trigger that places a troop in the square next to them which triggers a trigger resetting the whole process which also triggers a trigger that tells the soldier to patrol to a spot and stops them when they get there and then I'll have a whole bunch then a spot that deactivates all triggers so I can get a whole bunch of troops to look like they're arriving from somewhere outside of the map like in the Atilla the Hun (Ghengis Kahn?) set.

I tried telling all that to Storm and he laughed as I got tounge tied.

Multiplayer is where the real fun is at. That freezing issue stinks though, any idea why?



I doubt that anyone can deny screwing around pointlessly in a game at some point. It's kinda the nature of games.

My personal favorite moments in Homeworld involve duping my friends with hyperspace jumps. It's a whole nother level of tactics.



I thought my friends and I had complex triggers in StarCraft.
Then again some weren't that far off.


On a parting note: You both should consider picking it up. If anyone ever played ORB, Homeworld is far far better.

As far as the triggers go I'm failing badly. Partly because I haven't even thought about trying something like that since I told Storm and AoE doesn't have the desired effects that I want. There are some things I want to do that the game just won't let me.

What I did in Homeworld last time I played was that I made three carriers. Build every facility I could to reduce the chance of the computer (I was playing Player Vs. CPU) from attacking the carrier directly. Then I built a max of the ships. Four ships from the Corvetes that were strong against capitals and eight that were strong against fighters and corvetes. Five fighters that were strong against fighters and corvetes, nine that were strong against capitals. Seven of each frigate so I ended up with

Interceptor X 5
Bomber X 9 = 14 Fighter squadrons
Gunship X 8
Pulsar Gunship X 4 = 12 Corvete squadrons.
Ion Frigate X 7
Torpedo Frigate X 7
Flak Frigate X 7
Carrier X 4.

I docked an even amount of ships in each carrier, 1 of the pulsar in all, 2 gunship in all, 2 bomber in 3, 4 in 1 and so on.

Then I grouped all of them together. I made a hyperjump and unleashed my fleet. I pwned the CPU. There was a whole mess of lasers, torpedos and explosions all around.

Yeah, I've not messed with AoE (1?) triggers ever, and I don't own any others. But I can say that having messed with StarCrafts it's a lot of work. I hardly even looked at WC III's triggers because they scared me. If someone else did use them, I wouldn't mind their thoughts/reactions to them.



What no BattleCruiser? *gasp* (demo lock?)

Alright, this is something I like to get into. In my opinion Interceptors, Torp Frigates, and Gunships are crap. When it comes down to it they're aren't good enough at what they do to be worth the bother. Interceptors are at a disadvantage against Vaygr Fighters (smaller squadrons), at their best only trading kills, and by their nature are limited to the role of exclusively engaging other Strike Craft. Torp Frigs are listed as Anti-Corvette, and they get that job done, but they are only marginally effective against other Capital Ships (useless against Super Capitals), and can't engage a Bomber/Fighter squadron to save their own lives. Gunships are just obsolete when you have Flack Frigs on hand. They're not as good against Fighters as Flacks, and they don't do much to anything bigger (they barely hurt something as "big" as another Vette). Though if you have an enemy who is inclined towards Bombers, I have been known to bring Gunships back into service. Inters and Torps are universally useless.

My general doctrine in every strategy game is to counter the enemy's units with the units they are weakest against. I know this is fairly obvious, but I was always amazed in a C&C game when I saw tanks fighting tanks, and infantry fighting infantry. In Homeworld this means that you concentrate on Anti-Cap Ship Strike Craft (Bombers/Lances) and pit them against their Caps, and you concentrate on Anti-Strike Craft Frigs (Flack and Assault) and pit them against their Fighters and Bombers. Nothing is more pitiful than a squadron of Torp/Heavy Missile/Ion Frigates trying to swat a swarm of Bombers with no more success than can be counted on your fingers.

When it comes to dealing with those pesky Fighters, Lances, and Bombers Flack Frigs tend to tear through Strike Craft with ease and en masse (it gets messy for the enemy quickly). Assault Frigs are noticeably less effective, but they can get the job done if they're supporting each other.

When it comes to countering those Corvette class buggers (and I realize this breaks my aforementioned rule) I tend to leave that to other Vettes (Pulsar). This is simply because as a class they are big, slow, and unmaneuverable (new word) enough to be adequately handled by nearly everything else so you don't really need to worry too much about them, ie. your Vettes are an insurance mechanism more than a true counter.

When it comes to taking down those Frigates you are pretty safe leaving those to the Bombers if you play it right. The trick to this is pretty simple, and will require some micro-management. You'll need to keep your Bombers nice and safe until the rest of your fleet takes down any Frigates rated against Strike Craft (Flacks, and Assaults). Now the safest place is in the hangar of a Carrier. Just take the Frigs down first with whatever you've got. Once the those murderous Frigs are destroyed just set your swarm loose, and the other types of Frigs will be down in no time.

When it comes to tangling with larger Capital Ships and Super Capitals you really have no choice but to leave that up to your own Caps and Super Caps. Destroyers are designed to be effective against other Destroyers (and Frigs), and are simply too beefy to be left to anything smaller than another ship of their class. That said, if you bring along a bunch of Ion Frigs with your Destroyers you'll find the job much easier. Super Caps (BattleCruisers) are just hell. You need another BattleCruiser to challenge a BC or else you'll trade its destruction with that of half of your fleet's.

Keep your Carriers out of the fight until it's safe (enough) for the Strike Craft (Bombers and Vettes only), and then jump them in, and dump their complement into the fray.

Well that's what I use (ideally), how I use it depends on the situation, and I've written enough.

Oh crap, I wrote too much.


On a new parting note: Has anyone played Empire at War? Other PNs still apply.

Edit: If you want to know another easy tactic, always kill the smaller/weaker stuff first. The idea is to remove as many "guns" as quickly as possible so you take less net damage. Otherwise if you take on the bigger ones first you'll take the fire of all of the small ones while you're spending too much time bringing down the big one. It's like Tanks in MMOs, don't let them do their job, and take out the Squishies first.

God damn that was a long post on Homeworld strategies. I have indeed played Empire at War. I own it, in fact, but I don't find it all that engrossing. I'm sure there is some strategy there, but I can't really get into it. The campaign isn't all that good and the whole thing feels both overcomplicated and somewhat shallow.

Heh, it wasn't without some solicitation... but yeah. Sufficed to say: "It's easy to get me talking about strategy games."

Besides if you do pick it up (which you should consider) it'll be useful...ish.

If you want to know how it got so long though, I wrote it over a long period of time during commercials while I was watching TV. It's easier to forget how much you're rambling if you do that.



Yeah, I'm mostly just covering all may bases with this last game. I have to agree that I didn't find it to be all that compelling either, and it is fairly shallow when it comes to the battles. It's another case of "I liked the idea, but it failed in its execution". In my assessment the main map is fine (I like the real time version of the Rome style map). Perhaps if they expanded the space maps (they're pretty claustrophobic), and made them 3D they'd require little improvement beyond that. The land map would require a near complete overhaul in nearly ever department. They're a real let-down in nearly every area.

Well if it's a smaller squadron then it's probably a Corvete squadron. Interceptors are specifically meant for fighting other fighters. I think Gunships are fighters and Corvetes. I'm not real sure but Interceptors are fighters only. Torp Frigates are just for other Frigates and Carriers and such. Any ship really is only effective against what it's meant for. Bombers have huge attack but are crap when fighting an Interceptor squadron.

Yes! This is exactly what I do. I tend to take out the weaker ones or if they're even, focus on one first instead of all of them at once because even if they will all be destroyed at the same time, I'm taking more damage during that period and that's what usually makes or breaks the battle.

And I agree, If I'm being attacked then I look at the number of ships in a Vagyr (Hiigaran) squadron before intercepting them. I'll actually pause for a few minutes, look over the health of my squadrons and pick a few to go fight. Interceptors are crap, but if used right they get the job done. I tend to rely heavily on fighters since the caps don't have the strength to get the fighters out even with flak frigates. But if I'm doing a jump in and full assault kind of thing like I usually do I have to just let them fight it out because I can't tell which ships are mine, who needs to be attacked, or anything like that.

When fighting I will tend to lean towards a surpluss of gunships and bombers because they are balanced and I tend to like Corvetes better than fighters. The Pulsars are alright except for their short range.

All in all I don't have a specific strategy other than max out my fleet population with ships that will balance themselves out.

And it's easy to get me talking about anything. Especially video games.

Favorite: The Escape Velocity series. Need I say more?

Least favorite: SimIlse. The frustration caused by its controls made me want to cry at times.

Nah, nah, I'm pretty sure I'm not wrong. I kinda sorta own the game.

Hiigaran Interceptors have 5 ships per squadron, Vaygr Assault Craft (counterpart) have 7 ships. That's what I was saying. Gunships are anit-fighter, and Pulsar Gunships are anti-corvette. Torps are adequately effective against Frigate class ships (not so much Capitals) but are tailored against Corvettes, while Ion Frigates are specialized against Frigates and Capitals. Bombers are great at putting the hurt on anything bigger than a Corvette, and if it is a Corvette or smaller then that's where I said I use the Flacks and Pulsars for Fighter/Bombers and Corvettes respectively as they're better at the job than say, Interceptors and Torps. I really hope I didn't come off as a dick-head on that one. Anyway I found a link that should cover all of the ships (I only looked at if for a second).

I'm not saying by any means you'll get your arse kicked (especially against a comp) if you use a generalized force (its a common strategy), I'm just inclined towards more specialized attack forces (it's an alternative that does require more micro-management though).

They're bad against Corvettes because the programmers made them weak against Corvettes. It's in the weaknesses/strengths I think. And I thought that Pulsar gunship were strong against capital ships? I don't even remember what's strong against Corvettes. On well. I don't really care that much.

And from the squadron size, I'm used to fighting against the Hiigarans not the Vaygr.

Hehheh.

Double post.

Wut 'ev. I'm more interested in talking strategy and tactics, and not arguing about details. I care just enough to say that GameTap has a PDF of the user manual if you'd care to google it. This isn't really one of those issues where my tenacity comes out.

On a side note: In that second post where's that quote from?

Edit: Here, I may as well post the link if I'm gonna mention it.

I got it from the capital class page. Destroyer first then Battlecruiser.

SimIsle was pretty cool once you got past the interface though.
But it was still really hard.

Favorite Game: Total Annihilation. It's sooooo fun in every way, excluding the bad 90's graphics

My favorite is really EVN but I can talk about it in the EVN board

Least Favorite: Project Gotham Racing. Not many games are so horrible that I can't stand to play them, but this definitely fits in that category. I love racing games and all, (Gran Turismo 2 is in my top 10 favorite games.) but PGR has the worst racing physics and handling ever.

Re AoE3, I bought it and its expansions a few months back. I have really tried to get into it, but I think that that series peaked with AoK. For a start, AoE3 employs that annoying spreading mechanic where the longer you play, the better (debatably) your lot is. Apart from that, the change in the style of resource management, and the far less obvious counter system, always make me feel less in control.

Add to that that units are harder to tell apart, and so much of the combat is ranged, and it's just harder to enjoy. Also one of the good things about AoE/AoK was that the civilisations were all very similar - AoE3 brings a lot more unique units and some different playstyles per civilisation, which encourages specialisation, as does the home city levelling system, where Random was a very good choice of civ in AoK.

The naval combat system is also somewhat different. Apart from the fact that watching it requires a decent graphics card (at least, not integrated), it seems that they went for graphics, size (massive, massive ships) and complexity over fun. As for 'amped up' heroes, not so much - you start with an explorer with whom you -explore- and try to gather treasures, but they really aren't that strong and their special abilities are targeted at treasure guardians rather than the opposition.

To my mind, AoK had it right, with the 2.0A patch, just before the release of The Conquerors, which I felt turned the game too much in the rush direction, especially with the later patches. Smart villagers and queued farms also took away some of the advantage that could be gained by having good micromanagement, which was sad.

As for WC3, the campaign play was good fun (except for the -survive- scenarios on Hard) ... which is another area where AoE3 really falls down IMO - every scenario there is build & fight; almost no fixed force, and only a few attempts at -survive- and very little that is memorable. WC3 did a great job, with story, variety and memorability.

Unfortunately I always found the WC3 AI too hard to beat in non-campaign play, and I never went on battle.net but assume that was even harder. Some of the scenarios are always good fun - Warchasers on a LAN for instance. I also played quite a bit of Defence of the Ancients on a LAN over the last week visiting family - that's good times as well.

For the topic ... well I'm back to mainly playing WoW and waiting for Aquaria at the moment. Overall I like to go by genre:
MMORPG - only played WoW, like it
RTS - Age of Empires II
TBS - Warlords 3: Darklords Rising
FPS - Marathon trilogy.

As I've said before, micro is by far the most irritating aspect of strategy games, especially one that is more economy focused like AoE II. Economic micro is far more boring than military micro.

SimIsle was my most favorite island simulation game until I got Tropico.
SimTower & Yoot Tower are something not far from freaking awesome, also. Man, how I wish I could play Yoot Tower again!
Also, SimCity 4 is, to this date, still worth playing.

Worst simulation game-- SimCity Societies. The game is ... mildly amusing. There's definitely some luster you lose when you go to real-time graphics.
Runner up: The Sims. But why can't I stop playing? And why is it still on my computer? Along with three other expansion packs???

...maybe it's the woo-hoo.

I've been thinking and thinking, and I'm not sure I can say I've got a favorite, but it's got to be between EVC, Secret of Mana 1 (and maybe 2), and marathon 1 (it had the best atmosphere of the three). Also Myst because it introduced me to video games on my mom's friend's Quadra one solitary night when I was five or so, and even all these years later I can look back and go "that was cool."

My least favorite is Diablo. Once you realize it's just click click ######ing click, oh more stuff to kill let me click some more, it gets to the point where every second you spend clicking makes it feel so damn tedious, which is not the point of video games IIRC. The fact that necromancers were really tough to build properly and if you placed one point incorrectly you were screwed for the rest of the game kind of soured it for me too, but that was a much lesser issue.

edit: On WC3... the setting is bland fantasy with no interesting twists and some pretty annoying characters. Arthas made me grit my teeth during both the human and undead campaigns. The Night Elf campaign was an improvement since it at least had characters who didn't come straight out of Robert Jordan's latest toilet paper masterpiece, and I had some fun with that, but the frequent exposition and stupid Illithin drama messed it up a bit. So in the end, the Orc campaign was the most fun. It had good amounts of action and variation between base-building and survival/exploration, plus it didn't have nearly as much stupid talking head exposition as the second half of the game. I don't know why Blizzard thought they had to put that in there; if you can't follow the frame plot in a real-time strategy game you're probably too stupid to be playing it in the first place. But I like the colors and playing with friends/custom maps so it was worth it

My most favorite game would definitely be a turn based strategy game, but between Civ2, Moo1/2, and Dominion Wars 3, I can't really bring myself to decide which is best.

As for least favorite game. Well the least favorite game I've bought was Empire Earth 2. It just seemed kinda lackluster to me, compared to what I remember of the original Empire Earth and other RTSes out at the time. And I generally don't like first person shooters, hated Unreal Tournament when I played it. Though the Halo series is kinda fun, if only for punching grunts--they squeak and bounce in an endlessly amusing fashion, oh and the story is not bad, either.

Diablo was always really hard and boring to me. I couldn't beat the first boss... The music makes more clicking than the mouse does. It's just a bunch of little recorded clicks and timpanis filled with reverb and echo (which can get very annoying).
Diablo II however, is one of my favorite games of all time. You get more storyline more easy, so it stays interesting through most of the game. It's got better graphics, better storyline and better music; and it's not as freaking hard as the first game