View Full Version : Darkmoor Dragon\'s detailed preview here . . .
Enjoy.
Grifman
http://www.fourbelowzero.com/games/strategy/MTW/preview.htm
chilliwilli
08-09-2002, 06:04
I shall http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif.
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Master Guardian of The Turkish empire for The Oner Order of Ommisions. http://oooo.freewebspace.com/
RageMonsta
08-09-2002, 06:14
Do behave Monsta or I will get Vanya to chop off the lower of your two heads.
[This message has been edited by RageMonsta (edited 08-09-2002).]
[This message has been edited by Papewaio (edited 08-09-2002).]
Thanks Grif
Cheers
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PSYCHO HOJO / PSYCHO SO
Thank you for the heads up. I'm half way through and just about every question I had has been answered.
Papewaio
08-09-2002, 08:14
Thanks Grifman for the heads up and Dark for the write up.
Half way through and read this;
Once again MTW departs from its "cloneness" with STW in this respect. The game is very much designed against being played in the fashion with which many played (successfully) in STW. Sitting back in a few safe provinces and pumping up a single one to a high degree of technical superiority often just degenerates into failure in MTW...one lone province simply cannot keep up with the demand for troops later in the game (or evn early on) and concentrating everything into one province is a bad chooice strategically/
skip a few para's ...
For my latest campaign I have different provinces tasked/dedicated to specific production types - spears here, swords there, mounted here, spies&assassins here... and it pays off big time as you can surge ahead of the AI production in this fashion... it does, of course, rest very firmly on not loosing any of these provinces though or you can loose the whole technology for creating a "type" of unit.
Teching up in STW is a sure win but a slow way to do it and lacks style.
Being a STW SP specialist to win it in twenty years requires precisely the plan of diversified specilaised provinces and expanding quickly at the start to get enough provinces for the war machine to get its variety going.
Very interesting read so far. Looks like I can live without the seasons (just http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif) for the variety in the campaign side.
youssof_Toda
08-09-2002, 12:48
Quote Originally posted by Grifman:
Enjoy.
Grifman
http://www.fourbelowzero.com/games/strategy/MTW/preview.htm [/QUOTE]
Enjoy explorer crashing everytime I press that link?
Murmandamus
08-09-2002, 13:03
Get a real browser http://www.mozilla.com http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
Quote Originally posted by Papewaio:
Being a STW SP specialist to win it in twenty years requires precisely the plan of diversified specilaised provinces and expanding quickly at the start to get enough provinces for the war machine to get its variety going.[/QUOTE]
I beat shogun in single player on expert diff in exactly 40 turns/10 years. I was Takeda. I used the capital province to pump horses and pumped yari sams elsewhere. My armies were comprised of about 80% YS 20% Cavs. One thing you have to ensure is that you have a steady supply of good generals. You should farm wins with generals (you can get 3-4 wins a year if you do it right) to 8 wins/0 losses then give them an army and attack. With +2 generals in command, and a steady stream of troops, you can steadily march right through all of Japan.
Rebellion/discontent is your #1 problem after a while, so all you need to do is build alot of shinobi, then have them incite rebellions to level them up. Two to Four honor 2-4 shinobis in all your territories makes the campaign ALOT easier. I think I still have the savegame somewhere if anyone wants.
Oh and I forgot to mention, teaching up and developing provinces is a bad idea if you are going for a rapid conquest. Building troops translates into profit when you conquer territories. When I was trying for a 10 year win, I didnt invest any koku that wouldnt pay for itself within a few years unless I had plenty of cash (and for the first 4-5 years you pretty much have to buy nothing but troops). Also, it is very very important to build ports everywhere, as it allows you to move the troops being pumped out in the few teched-up rear provinces get to the front lines in 1-2 turns.
Funky Phantom
08-09-2002, 17:09
Im so glad theres no limit to how many buildings a province can hold, i really hated that in STW...
Great preview Darkmoor, i think you covered every last concern\question i had on the game, although you could do with a spellchecker http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
DarknScaly
08-09-2002, 17:13
thats only the draft - aint spellchecked, finished yet or have any screenies...its why its unlinked etc.
Spell-checkin and adding screenies today - plus some extra info etc.
[This message has been edited by DarknScaly (edited 08-09-2002).]
Very comprehensive preview DarknScaly. However, I was wondering if you are to continue the campaign previews which I thought were great?
DarknScaly
08-09-2002, 18:25
soon as i've finished the preview off with screenies - aye.
it provides food for thought
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You are perpetuating the downfall of mankind
JZ Temple
08-09-2002, 19:33
After reading through this incredibly detailed preview, I'm thinking to myself that I'd buy this game even if it didn't have the tactical battle system. As the author notes, if you are a fan of this kind of micromanagment turn based strategy (and I am), there is a huge amount of gameplay there even if you chose to never go to the tactical level.
If it all works, and that's always a concern on a project this big, my wife is going to see me even less than usual this fall. Thank goodness Master Of Orion 3 has slipped to the end of the year!
Very well written (except for the minor typos) and an excellent read. I think it would be better for a more casual gamer if you would throw in more screenshots to crab their attention, otherwise you did a great job.
DarknScaly
08-09-2002, 19:52
doin that now - also spellchecked it lol! (works furiously at his keyboard)
Dark Phoenix
08-09-2002, 21:45
Thats good for me JZ as I have just got the demo and my machine is crawling on the battle in Bulgaria.
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"DP is correct" - Shiro
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We may have years, we may have hours,
but sooner or later, we push up flowers
JZ Temple
08-09-2002, 21:57
Quote Originally posted by Dark Phoenix:
Thats good for me JZ as I have just got the demo and my machine is crawling on the battle in Bulgaria.
[/QUOTE]
What are your rig's specs?
Dark Phoenix
08-09-2002, 22:44
Well its to do with my crappy video card, it a 8mb TNT card which is under the new system requirements I think. I was just testing the demo to see what it would play like.
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"DP is correct" - Shiro
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We may have years, we may have hours,
but sooner or later, we push up flowers
I've got a 1.3ghz, 512mb, GF4 ti4200 rig and I still chug slowly for the battle of Jaffa. I hope they did improve perfomance by release because that's ridiculous.
Were you able to run it very smoothly, DD?
Sjakihata
08-09-2002, 22:57
Yeah.. great stuff there.. (if you get 200$, will you send me a burned copy http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
concerning micromanagemant:
I think, it is worth beeing very careful, and look EVERY details through EVERY turn. Mainly because one turn reflects one year. And I don't think that ANY medieveal king would "forget" about taxes, loyalty etc http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
And one turn beeing a year, you will loose a tactical aspect. To choose to go to war in a autmun, if you know your opponent has gund. Or attact in summer if you have ranged weapons. And I can hardly believe that it would take one year to march an amry from Lorraine to Flanders etc.. you get my drift?
But, hopeful, they will have fixed that when it is released, or in a future patch.
And again, well written...
JZ Temple
08-09-2002, 23:03
Quote Originally posted by SattP:
I've got a 1.3ghz, 512mb, GF4 ti4200 rig and I still chug slowly for the battle of Jaffa. I hope they did improve perfomance by release because that's ridiculous.
Were you able to run it very smoothly, DD?[/QUOTE]
Very wierd. I'm running Win98SE, Athlon 900, 384MB RAM, Geforce4 Ti4400, "el cheapo" Ensoniq soundcard. Battle resolution set at 1024x768, no fauna or smoke, music turned off, and in Jaffa the gameplay is smooth, with only a little jerkyness when I'm moving the camera location. This is the default Jaffa, not any of the moded versions.
I've been considering getting a new computer, but the people who have been having performance problems seem to be all running WinXP, or so it seems, and I'm a little concerned about that.
Is there anyone who has Win98SE who has been having performance issues (related to the demo, of course http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif )
chilliwilli
08-09-2002, 23:10
The theory with XP is that alot of things are running in the background wich is true sometimes. If XP users go to C: prompt and put in services.msc you can make some things idel and free up a little ram. Also JZ it was running smooth because you turned all of the graphical features off if XP users did what yuo did I'm sure it would run fine too.
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Master Guardian of The Turkish empire for The Oner Order of Ommisions. http://oooo.freewebspace.com/
Quote Originally posted by SattP:
Very well written (except for the minor typos) and an excellent read. I think it would be better for a more casual gamer if you would throw in more screenshots to crab their attention, otherwise you did a great job.[/QUOTE]
This was my fault and I apologize. DD clearly said on his site it was a draft and not complete, but he wanted us to go ahead and take a look. I should have indicated it was still a work in progress.
Grifman
Quote Originally posted by youssof_Toda:
Enjoy explorer crashing everytime I press that link?
[/QUOTE]
Must be operator error - seems to work for everyone else http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
Grifman
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