23:11
A teacher
Why have I played the lowbrow games more often over the past month than the highbrow ones? This article offers some food for thought:
http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/10/27/procrastination/#more-922
Saturday 11 June 2011
Why do I play some games more than others?
Why have I played the lowbrow games more often over the past month than the highbrow ones? This article offers some food for thought:
http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/10/27/procrastination/#more-922
Why do I play some games more than others?
Why have I played the lowbrow games more often over the past month than the highbrow ones? This article offers some food for thought:
http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/10/27/procrastination/#more-922
Friday 3 June 2011
Mount and Blade Warband - An Update
When I last wrote about Mount and Blade, I spoke about how I hadn’t made any progress with the diplomacy. In fact, I had managed to alienate all the factions (due to not realising that attacking them would make them dislike me...) This time round, though, I was on my best behaviour and ingratiated myself as much as possible.
As I have read before, each promotion changed the game. After pumping an extraordinary amount of time into the game (I won’t reveal how much... ok, around 70 hours in total...) I gained several in-game promotions.
Firstly I was granted the position of Marshall. This meant that I began to try to decimate the other factions. My stupid king, though, didn’t sue for peace with the other factions, meaning that I was fighting on three fronts at once. While somewhat frustrating, it felt manageable. A bit like a promotion would be in real-life, I imagine.
One of the things about this sandbox game that I don’t think I emphasised enough last time is that it should be treated like high-brow literature in the sense that to get the most out of it, you should really read some study guides. Yes, there is an element of fun in killing thousands of enemies. But there’s a certain entropy that sets in rather quickly.
As it was, I used this to my advantage and rebelled against the King. To my surprise, I was allowed to set up my own kingdom aptly (if ridiculously) named The Andersonians. If I had a chance again, I would choose something more like The Gregorians or even The Empire. Or Scarbados. Still, the game continues to hold my interest. Even if I don’t have any diplomacy mods installed, and I don’t quite understand what the hell is going on.
One important update to my original review to note is that the game plays extremely well with Medieval Total War 2. Both involve conquest, and both play with the idea of controlling large armies. The chaos of the Mount and Blade battlefield is more evocative, although the trait system of Medieval TW 2 more immersive;; I image that something that combines both games into a developed system would be highly successful...
As I have read before, each promotion changed the game. After pumping an extraordinary amount of time into the game (I won’t reveal how much... ok, around 70 hours in total...) I gained several in-game promotions.
Firstly I was granted the position of Marshall. This meant that I began to try to decimate the other factions. My stupid king, though, didn’t sue for peace with the other factions, meaning that I was fighting on three fronts at once. While somewhat frustrating, it felt manageable. A bit like a promotion would be in real-life, I imagine.
One of the things about this sandbox game that I don’t think I emphasised enough last time is that it should be treated like high-brow literature in the sense that to get the most out of it, you should really read some study guides. Yes, there is an element of fun in killing thousands of enemies. But there’s a certain entropy that sets in rather quickly.
As it was, I used this to my advantage and rebelled against the King. To my surprise, I was allowed to set up my own kingdom aptly (if ridiculously) named The Andersonians. If I had a chance again, I would choose something more like The Gregorians or even The Empire. Or Scarbados. Still, the game continues to hold my interest. Even if I don’t have any diplomacy mods installed, and I don’t quite understand what the hell is going on.
One important update to my original review to note is that the game plays extremely well with Medieval Total War 2. Both involve conquest, and both play with the idea of controlling large armies. The chaos of the Mount and Blade battlefield is more evocative, although the trait system of Medieval TW 2 more immersive;; I image that something that combines both games into a developed system would be highly successful...
Medieval Total War 2 - An experience of the Grand Campaign
Playing an aptly named Grand Campaign on Medieval Total War 2 for the past two years has given me a new found appreciation for the RTS genre. If you read my review of the original shogun experience, you would have thought I’d be more of a fan of that era. In fact, the darkness of the medieval atmosphere appeals to me much more.
In the Grand Campaign I am playing as the English. After striking north and conquering Scotland and, rather easily, Ireland, I turned my attention south. After several months of slowing rolling over the French, I found myself in a situation where I was defending myself on several fronts against the Germans, the French, the Milanese, and (rather uninspiringly) the Danes.
Like with all campaigns in the Total War series, there isn’t much in the way of an overarching tutorial in which improvements to build in your empire. As such, I leave the AI to decide for me. They tend, like all true councils left in charge of things, to build everything and anything. Do I need to train diplomats in all my cities? Why not... Do I need to specialise in different elite units in my main cities? Why bother. Presumably this is to ensure that players like me don’t simply benefit from leaving the AI to handle my economy.
In order to progress, like in all TW games, it is essential at some point to take on larger armies with fewer troops. For a game that purports to follow the principles of Sun Tzu, this perhaps isn’t the case of how things should be. Or perhaps I am simply poor at diplomacy and fight on too many fronts at once. I must admit, I have never felt bad for fighting a battle where the odds are stacked heavily in my favour.
Where the game does excel, though, is in the ability for a small, highly-trained army to destroy much larger hordes through simple out maneuvering and superior morale.
Take, for example, my progress this last half-term. I had a true stalement in the middle of Europe. Most of lands were being taken, and retaken, by the combined forces of the angry Germanic-Franco-Milanese empires. I decided, as somewhat of a break from the incessant sieges, to expand into Spain.
Like all good Spainards, they rolled over. Having spent the past 50 years doing very little, my unmounted knights were able to smash their militia time and time again. In the space of 10 turns, I had conquering all of Spain, leaving me with, effectively, only one front to fight on. Memories of the original Shogun, where I rolled from left to right across the map, began to return.
It was in this time, though, that the Danes had made a surprisingly successful foray into my empire. Whereas they had small armies they were universally comprised of elite troops. One army of 500, in particular, managed to decimate three standing armies of 800 troops, including one in a siege. The usually excellent auto-battle option let me down here.
The sign of a great game, of great story-telling theatre, is that the Dane’s march across my northern front was a more engaging experience than me conquering Spain. Watching, with increasing trepidation, one general growing up to eight stars (whilst controlling far better troops than I), I took great pleasure in converging on him with three times the size of an army. He went down fighting.
Graphically, I think the game is the smoothest of the series. The music is evocative and the mass control of an army is still extraordinarily easy. The charge function, though, is somewhat broken. Sometimes knights will charge; sometimes they won’t. In addition, some soldiers simply won’t path-find correctly to chase down enemies. This is a shame, as utterly annihilating an army was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the the original TW - here it’s simply a pain.
A recommended edition to the series. However, if you are more of a fan of the other eras, I’d recommend those TWs to this.
In the Grand Campaign I am playing as the English. After striking north and conquering Scotland and, rather easily, Ireland, I turned my attention south. After several months of slowing rolling over the French, I found myself in a situation where I was defending myself on several fronts against the Germans, the French, the Milanese, and (rather uninspiringly) the Danes.
Like with all campaigns in the Total War series, there isn’t much in the way of an overarching tutorial in which improvements to build in your empire. As such, I leave the AI to decide for me. They tend, like all true councils left in charge of things, to build everything and anything. Do I need to train diplomats in all my cities? Why not... Do I need to specialise in different elite units in my main cities? Why bother. Presumably this is to ensure that players like me don’t simply benefit from leaving the AI to handle my economy.
In order to progress, like in all TW games, it is essential at some point to take on larger armies with fewer troops. For a game that purports to follow the principles of Sun Tzu, this perhaps isn’t the case of how things should be. Or perhaps I am simply poor at diplomacy and fight on too many fronts at once. I must admit, I have never felt bad for fighting a battle where the odds are stacked heavily in my favour.
Where the game does excel, though, is in the ability for a small, highly-trained army to destroy much larger hordes through simple out maneuvering and superior morale.
Take, for example, my progress this last half-term. I had a true stalement in the middle of Europe. Most of lands were being taken, and retaken, by the combined forces of the angry Germanic-Franco-Milanese empires. I decided, as somewhat of a break from the incessant sieges, to expand into Spain.
Like all good Spainards, they rolled over. Having spent the past 50 years doing very little, my unmounted knights were able to smash their militia time and time again. In the space of 10 turns, I had conquering all of Spain, leaving me with, effectively, only one front to fight on. Memories of the original Shogun, where I rolled from left to right across the map, began to return.
It was in this time, though, that the Danes had made a surprisingly successful foray into my empire. Whereas they had small armies they were universally comprised of elite troops. One army of 500, in particular, managed to decimate three standing armies of 800 troops, including one in a siege. The usually excellent auto-battle option let me down here.
The sign of a great game, of great story-telling theatre, is that the Dane’s march across my northern front was a more engaging experience than me conquering Spain. Watching, with increasing trepidation, one general growing up to eight stars (whilst controlling far better troops than I), I took great pleasure in converging on him with three times the size of an army. He went down fighting.
Graphically, I think the game is the smoothest of the series. The music is evocative and the mass control of an army is still extraordinarily easy. The charge function, though, is somewhat broken. Sometimes knights will charge; sometimes they won’t. In addition, some soldiers simply won’t path-find correctly to chase down enemies. This is a shame, as utterly annihilating an army was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the the original TW - here it’s simply a pain.
A recommended edition to the series. However, if you are more of a fan of the other eras, I’d recommend those TWs to this.
Wednesday 1 June 2011
Gaming as a social habit?
Well worth a read about gaming habits amongst professionals:
http://www.pcgamer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9223
http://www.pcgamer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9223
