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Red2112

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3 hours ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

I've played BCT Commander and Air Assault Task Force Commander.

 

I love the idea and scope of these games but they are truly crippled by a UI from hell.

 

Would rather just play SB as an RTS.

 

I don´t find the UI crippled in the AATF engine, it´s actually quite easy to use.

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1 hour ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

That's too logical and doesn't apply to Battlefront.

LOL, ok well one can always dream a bit haha. I never liked there buisness model although it has changed in the past years. As I don´t like Command Ops 2 buisness model either, which is similar to BF.  Panther games was alright but they too left alot of customers out in the cold (me included).

 

The lipstick is 10 bucks for a engine upgrade with ver minor additions, and for each module!

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I think you missed the part were it says that Battlefront has teamed with Matrix!

https://www.matrixgames.com/news/combat-mission-shock-force-2-out-on-august-25th

 

Iam way done with Matrix due to there clear mis-use and favorable forum moderation so it really dosen´t bother me. Although I might buy Shadow Empire because of the dev (VR Designs) someday, but that´s as far as I want to get with Matrix again...

Edited by Red2112
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1 hour ago, Red2112 said:

I think you missed the part were it says that Battlefront has teamed with Matrix!

https://www.matrixgames.com/news/combat-mission-shock-force-2-out-on-august-25th

 

Iam way done with Matrix due to there clear mis-use and favorable forum moderation so it really dosen´t bother me. Although I might buy Shadow Empire because of the dev (VR Designs) someday, but that´s as far as I want to get with Matrix again...

Same here.

 

I love Battle Academy II and the Unity of Command series, but most of their games are just unfinished, and unpolished messes with awful UI. 

 

This is clearly a publisher with no quality control over their developers. 

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Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, i picked it up recently for about $10.00 on GOG.com as i read about it.

 

based on a microprose classic (i also never played): Master of Magic, Age of Wonders Shadow Magic is a 'typical'  4X explore, research, build and exterminate strategy game in a fantasy setting. at the strategy level,

it is generally like any other Civilzation clone but combining tactical battles like another microprose legacy classic X-Com UFO defense. the result is a strategy / RPG like hybrid with kingdom and resource management

at one level, and tactical combat resolved by individual parties on another. the most cited classic in the Age of Wonders series, Shadow Magic is said to be better than the modern version with updated, modern graphics in the polygon era.

here you get attractive hand drawn 2D art and special effects, decent voice acting and dialogue.

 

moreover a lot of factions and alignments out of recognizeable tolkien and RPG elements: humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, orcs, lots of dragons, the undead, paladins, castle sieges, spells which either directly or indirectly influence combat,

global spells enemy wizards can cast against each other's domains, combat modifiers depending on equipment, line of sight modifiers for ranged attacks, and

opportunity attacks during conserved movement point phases, and so on. available spells and unit types are varied depending on the type of faction, alignment and magic concentration you choose (for example, death based, life based, fire based,

or a universal concentration based magic which has access to all magic concentration but, it is more difficult to acquire the most powerful spells of any of them).

 

i can say it is very well produced with lots of value here: the developers threw everything in they could, lots of variety, the single player campaign is very long, and when you finish that, you get an assortment of individual scenarios, a random scenario

builder, the tools to create your own scenarios with tailored storylines, and multiplayer (which i don't see as very practical- individual scenarios can take so long that i can't see wrangling that much with multiple people putting their lives on hold to finish one).

fortunately, the single player campaigns often provide brutal opponents capable of scouting your domain, blitzing with multi-pronged attacks, shifting armies on the fly if they detect reserves being brought up in order to

attempt breakthroughs on weaker protected domains, or retreating to their redoubts if they sense they are disadavantaged- even able to use tunnels and caves to metastasize like cancer behind your defenses; what's more,

rogue independent parties will harass you, the gods demand you drop your plans and fulfill quests, and this often happens at the worst time when you have your attention and resources already tied up- hence they got the "just one more turn" formula

down.

 

 

screenshot one:  the effect of one of my global spells during the campaign: a curse of damnation emits from my domain and transforms the land into forests of dead, briar patch like thorns and volcanic wasteland (a good aligned wizard in contrast

may fight me by casting an opposite spell of repairing the land once more, or an air magic concentration wizard turns the land into an arctic environment, etc. ).

 

screenshot two: tactical combat resolved in open terrain.

 

screenshot three: an example of a description of one of the game's units: the bone dragons. surprisingly, one of the physically weaker of the dragon types, the red, black and gold dragons seem to be the strongest, but the background story

descriptions have flair and quality consistent with the game.

 

screenshot four:  crafting armors and items and personalizing them with either godly or hellish names and particular abilities offering combat modifiers, or non combat abilities which have other effects:

moving through walls, invisible when traveling overland, etc.

 

this is the only game i have on my hard drive at the moment, and it's a steal at the reduced price if you have a hankering for the subject matter. the consensus seems to be Shadow Magic was the best of the series, improving on the first Age of Wonders game,

never surpassed by the follow ups to the series. unfortunately, the game's manual is not included with the download at GOG.com, i found a .pdf copy of the manual after searching around, and it's necessary to play the tutorials to understand

the basics of the user interface- which won't explain everything- there are a lot rules and stats to track, but the game's depth is admirable once you get used to it.

 

 

 

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Edited by Captain_Colossus
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@Captain_Colossus

I have Age of Wonders Shadow Magic, and I agree with your comments. You might want to have a look at Deity Empires (Master of Magic like)...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/889080/Deity_Empires/

 

@Apocalypse 31

 

BA2 has a very healthy fan base, and that´s for a reason. I have BA1, someday I´ll pick up BA2. But for now, Iam really saturated with the WWII theme in wargames. Iam more into Cold War and on, unfurtunately there´s not that much in that area worthwhile.

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I've seen this multiple times in the last year or so.  Old broken or abandoned games suddenly popping up as something new.  Steam should have pulled Theater Commander after just a few months when it became VERY obvious the dev was in way over his head.

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28 minutes ago, thewood said:

I've seen this multiple times in the last year or so.  Old broken or abandoned games suddenly popping up as something new.  Steam should have pulled Theater Commander after just a few months when it became VERY obvious the dev was in way over his head.

Yes I agree, and Iam not the only one. Plenty of folks asking the same with games that have long been abandoned. Takedown: Red Sabre was officialy abandoned with a video of the dev saying so and posted in the game forum, It´s still selling since 2014. Just one example among ALOT more.

 

Then we have games that simply don´t work anymore but they keep selling them.

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1 hour ago, Red2112 said:

Shadow Empires, by VR Designs...

https://www.vrdesigns.net/?page_id=669

 

 

Red

+1 for not being World War Two - finally, a game that is comfortable in a fictional (but not unrealistic) setting. 

 

-10000 for using an old, ugly, un-intuitive game engine (TOAW 4). Good job, Slitherine. Your goal of preserving history by not updating your products is going well. 

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3 hours ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

+1 for not being World War Two - finally, a game that is comfortable in a fictional (but not unrealistic) setting. 

 

-10000 for using an old, ugly, un-intuitive game engine (TOAW 4). Good job, Slitherine. Your goal of preserving history by not updating your products is going well. 

You sure on the TOAW 4 engine? I mean VR Disigns (Victor Reijkersz Designs) is the same guy behind Decisive Campaigns Barbarrosa, Case Blue, Blitzkrieg and Advance Tactics Gold.  Aside from that VR-D is the developer, and Slitherine is the publisher, so Iam not to sure that Slitherine desides what game engine is used, especially in this case.

Edited by Red2112
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