No, see, I need to see people so I get money. Giving them money would get me even less time. I'm considering it, I'd get horribly buttmutilated. Could be fun.
I think I could beat someone at my skill level if I got lucky. And then I'd get a game! An unspecified game that will probably suck. But FREE!!! Unless they're handing out copies of Air Land Battle...
Neat to see this still gets support. It hit under the radar for me at launch, and only picked it up recently, and I really enjoyed the multiplayer.
I like some of the ideas of having a 'deck' of units available, and the customization it allows. It's a bit of a pain to have to grind to unlock things though, did the matchmaker do any tiered matching? Did it have a matchmaker? I never played anything but custom games and a wee bit of singleplayer. And the singleplayer was pretty dry.
They do have an elo-esque system in place but I'm not sure that enough people play it for there to be good matching. The campaign is pretty stale, yeah. At this point I'd propably recommend custom games and waiting for the sequel wich is supposed to add a dynamic campaign with coop.
Mmm. I love the look of Soviet jetfighters. It's a shame I'll rarely see them up close like that. Maybe if they improve the replay functionality.
I always thought that was one of the weird things about both it and RUSE, you have these great graphics, but they are almost entirely unnecessary for the scale at which the game is played. And all the trailers try to sell the game with these close up shots that are nothing like actual gameplay.
If you allow people to occupy zones and get points for them, that only encourages spamming special forces units without actually controlling any area. If you give people all the points at the beginning, then games will be decided immediately based on skill. If you give players a fixed income of points, arguably this is the best equivalent replacement system. There's also the WiC system of income based upon how weak you are. Too bad the jetfighters will be moving too fast to actually see them.
The command stars are for unlocking units between games. Given that, your post didn't make much sense, that's why I asked for a clarification. The income system as it stands is mostly fine since you can't actually occupy a zone with special forces, you need a vulnerable command unit, sitting still, to gain income. If you shift that over to flat income however you need to add other incentives to advance across the map and create areas for engagement.
Then again, this problem is common to a lot of RTSs, even of smaller scale, and I don't think any game has really solved it, just mitigated it by making the scale smaller (e.g. DoW II). I wish more strategy games would adopt a hybrid real-time/tbs system like Combat Mission or Frozen Synapse.
Games that are at a lower end of the scale, like Company of Heroes, where one is physically trying to put a squad of dudes behind a wall or whatever, it works fine. The graphics are great, and I have some time to absorb what I'm seeing. But in general, I agree, for example all the massive amounts of art and work that went into the special synch-kills of DoW were mostly wasted, as I'd be too busy actually playing the game to see them. Of course, there's probably some element of the crowd who totally focuses on those things and must see them.
I will admit that I enjoy graphical fidelity in my RTSs, sync kills in Dawn of War are known to distract me something fierce and if I'll happily zoom all the way in to look at the tanks when I have a spare moment in Wargame or Supreme Commander. The biggest boon of higher graphical fidelity is in the effects though. You can almost feel a barrage of MLRS coming down across your deployment. It's a terrible thing, easily capable of knocking out infantry and light vehicles but it's also bloody impressive regardless of zoom level.
Yeah, agreed, though it's especially noticeable in RTSes with a strategic zoom. Sins of a Solar Empire might be a partial exception, though - on the default setting it's slow enough for me to safely zoom in and enjoy the view.
Over on the official forums, the developers have stated that (a) AirLand Battle pre-orders will open in the next few days, and (b) pre-order customers will gain access to a new beta starting Monday. :D
The preorder with beta access is now on steam. Between this and Monaco I'm not likely to get anything done for a while.
Astromarine Yeah, the beta is multi only and with preset decks. Haven't gotten round to playing a game yet but the maps are a lot nicer. The game actually models mountains now, and villages/cities are composed of discreet cells. Both of these things should make infantry a whole lot more useful. The UI is miles better at providing unit information too, much less hidden information. Also, saw my surname on a Swedish tank commander so that's a bonus.
Installed the beta this afternoon and played a few rounds (including a couple of 1v1s vs Riztro). Man, this is as awesome as ever. It definitely feels evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but I'm not complaining - the first game is one of my all-time favourite RTS. :D Observations on the NATO beta decks: The Canadians are incredibly lightly armed. No tanks more modern than the Leopard 1, no ATGMs other than the rare ADATS, and no artillery heavier than mortars. I'd hate to take them against an armour-heavy deck! The USMC deck is an interesting beast. Again, they have no heavy tanks or artillery, but they have lavish air support - Hellfire-armed Sea Hawks, Cobras with Sidewinders and TOWs, F-14s with 6x AIM-54, A-7s with napalm, etc. I think these guys would work well paired with the... French deck, which is mostly notable for having a Wild Weasel plane with an anti-radar missile. The West Germans are mostly reservists with obsolete kit. I do wonder if the Heimatschutzen could be useful this time around; they've become a lot cheaper (6pts) and with the boosts infantry in buildings have received, it might be worth spamming them on a built-up map. The Brits and Swedes seem pretty well-balanced, the Brits especially, with a good mix of tanks, aircraft, infantry, and support vehicles. Note, however, that the Swedish beta deck lacks air-to-ground aircraft. Haven't tried the Danes/Norwegians yet.
For the people playing the beta, have they done anything to make the deck building UI easier to understand and go through? When I was attempting to learn the game that was already on the complex side, trying to make sense out of deck building was too much.
Right now deck-building isn't in the beta. It's all pre-built decks. Speaking of which. I was playing on a team of all-soviets who faced the US Marine side, I think, with their anti-radar missiles. Those knocked out all our AA and then the entire US Airforce bombed the shit out of us. Not a fun day. I guess Polack MANPADS have a use next to all those fancy Soviet toys after all.
Pact AA in the current decks seems a bit weak when they're facing Anti-Radar missiles. It's a bit too easy to end up in a situation where you have no relevant AA, and the enemy can just keep you at bay with their air forces, have had that happen in a couple of games now.
Sort of. Overlapping Pact AA and good use of the non soviet decks for non-radar AA can lock off already gained ground. Taking more can be harder in the face of heavy air interdiction though. Pact, given that one of the decks is Soviet, also rules the tank game at the moment giving them a solid push if they can get a break from aerial threats..
Also, don't forget you can turn off the radar guided cannon on the Tunguska and just roll with the IR SAMs. :D
So you can. My favourite is to have a Polish teammate spread out AA infantry and vehicles. They're far less effective per unit but unlike the Russian deck you can saturate and create traps for Nato planes in multiple locations without breaking the bank.
Deck creation is now in the beta. I will try it out presently. The patch notes warned that the some of the pre-made decks are broken with the update so you have to fix them yourself with the deck builder. But build away.
Spent way too much time with the deck builder. They also unlocked the armory where you can preview all the units in the game. Which represent, pretty much, every single unit in the European theatre of operations during the late cold war. This game is basically war nerd heaven. Here's the Swedish army's main battle tank of the era, the Stridsvagn (Battlewagon) 103. Who needs turrets? And here we see what happens when a Soviet general asks "how many rockets can we stick on a helicopter?"
That swedish tank looks like someone decided to make a modern StugIII. I am starting to really want to pre-order this thing now, you guys seem to be having fun.
It was never actually tested in battle but the Strv 103 was regarded as a rather successful design as far as I can tell. The idea was that any tank battle in Sweden would be a defensive one where Swedish forces could set up defensive positions and stage ambushes. In those scenarios a tank without a turret would be harder to detect and could also have comparatively stronger front armor while being cheaper to build.
