screwtype
05-18-2005, 07:32
It's not that new anymore, I bought it on budget some time ago and it sat on my shelf virtually untouched until the last couple of weeks when I finally dusted it off to have a look, and I'm quite enjoying it.
It's quite a bit tougher than AOWII (playing on the hardest difficulty level), I'm only into the fourth scenario and I've already lost it once, making my second attempt now but I think I might be about to lose again - and this scenario is only rated as "average" difficulty. It's a real change to play a PC game that is actually hard to beat for once!
There are new units in the game, and also many units from the older game have been "tweaked" in their values a bit to better balance things. For example, I never built ballistas or other machines in the earlier game, in this game they have more hitpoints and movement points and are more powerful. I still rarely build them but now they are harder to beat when you face them in combat. Catapults are quite a bit more useful now with their fireball ammo. Other units are more powerful too, like the dwarven engineer who really sucked but now he comes with a pistol and is actually a better unit than the human pirate because the engineer has a better pistol, more movement points and can still repair machines.
There are a couple of minor disappointments, for some reason they seem to have weakened the ranged attacks of the heroes, so that they are even weaker than standard ranged units, at least that's how it's been with my first hero. I'm also still a bit disappointed that you lose your heroes after just three scenarios - just about the time they reach their maximum potential. It would be nice if you could keep them for a fourth scenario so you could actually make full use of all their abilities.
All in all though I've having fun with this game, it's got that "just one more turn" factor and the greater challenge is very welcome in an era when games seem to be getting much too easy.
It's quite a bit tougher than AOWII (playing on the hardest difficulty level), I'm only into the fourth scenario and I've already lost it once, making my second attempt now but I think I might be about to lose again - and this scenario is only rated as "average" difficulty. It's a real change to play a PC game that is actually hard to beat for once!
There are new units in the game, and also many units from the older game have been "tweaked" in their values a bit to better balance things. For example, I never built ballistas or other machines in the earlier game, in this game they have more hitpoints and movement points and are more powerful. I still rarely build them but now they are harder to beat when you face them in combat. Catapults are quite a bit more useful now with their fireball ammo. Other units are more powerful too, like the dwarven engineer who really sucked but now he comes with a pistol and is actually a better unit than the human pirate because the engineer has a better pistol, more movement points and can still repair machines.
There are a couple of minor disappointments, for some reason they seem to have weakened the ranged attacks of the heroes, so that they are even weaker than standard ranged units, at least that's how it's been with my first hero. I'm also still a bit disappointed that you lose your heroes after just three scenarios - just about the time they reach their maximum potential. It would be nice if you could keep them for a fourth scenario so you could actually make full use of all their abilities.
All in all though I've having fun with this game, it's got that "just one more turn" factor and the greater challenge is very welcome in an era when games seem to be getting much too easy.