They are bashing Gary Grigsby!

[ravinhood]

In defense of Didz, what I will say here about these GRAND campaign scale wargames, and not just computer versions but boardgame style as well, is that the multiplayer population of these games is very small. Especially compared to wargames that only take a few hours 2 to 4 or don't take forever PBEM as well.

PBEM has a large population of gamers, and 2 to 4 hour multiplayer experiences online have a large population, but, these grand scale games just take too long for your average joe to play online or offline, though PBEM imho would be the avenue of choice if I were to compete in one multiplayer.

You guys that spent 21 hours completing a game all at one time, obviously all had the free time to do this, but, how many of your average joe's have that kind of time on a daily basis or would even want to?

Even if you have 100 people willing to do this on a regular basis is a far cry from the majority of multiplayers out there, playing the likes of other RTS games online. At least from the online multiplayer services I've been to like THE ZONE or GAMESPY.

The difference being, there's more opponent opportunities in PBEM type systems of games and games that only last 2 to 4 hours, than there are in these grand campaign scale type wargames that can last for days, weeks, months, even years. I personally don't want to play any single game that's going to last a year, it requires holding onto ones thoughts and strategy and tactics too long for one individual game and my attention level is not high enough for that.

Having a PBEM system though doesn't leave anyone out of their multiplayer experiences, having to have specific times to play online does.

I tried to play Civilization II online, and never once was a game ever finished, and never once did the participants that quit, ever come back to those games.

I just don't ever see long grand campaign multiplayer games ever being a "hot" gaming need by your average joes. I do see PBEM and 2 to 4 hour skirmishes being what's "hot" atm.

[Reiryc]

You guys that spent 21 hours completing a game all at one time, obviously all had the free time to do this, but, how many of your average joe's have that kind of time on a daily basis or would even want to?

The only 21 I've seen used was 21 days. The point being, a game of EU2 was played over a period of 3 weeks, ie 21 days. It wasn't 21 exactly, but didz threw that number out there and for discussion's sake, works fine. However, the most that was every played at once was 6 hours and that was a saturday

The difference being, there's more opponent opportunities in PBEM type systems of games and games that only last 2 to 4 hours, than there are in these grand campaign scale type wargames that can last for days, weeks, months, even years.

Indeed, most people prefer not to play a long campaign game in my experience, regardless of whether its pbem turn based or rts or wego etc.

I personally don't want to play any single game that's going to last a year, it requires holding onto ones thoughts and strategy and tactics too long for one individual game and my attention level is not high enough for that.

I believe the WitP campaign game will take a year or so.

Having a PBEM system though doesn't leave anyone out of their multiplayer experiences, having to have specific times to play online does.

Yes and no... some people like to chit chat live with other people while they play.

I tried to play Civilization II online, and never once was a game ever finished, and never once did the participants that quit, ever come back to those games.

I've had the same types of experiences with UV, panzer campaigns, gettysburg, nap in russia, east front 2, etc.

[Koper]

To conclude the discussion so far - we all like what we like, we are proud of it and damn the competition! [:D][;)]

[max_h]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

The only problem with that mods statement Max_h is that if you goto the Paradox boards and bash their games, they "ban" you. Hardly an "open" forum in my opinion.

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

They even "moved" that thread that this thread is about to the OT forums to HIDE if from the point it was making, Grigsby's games are better than Johans games expecially HOI and soon HOI2.

[8|] lets compare. the hoi2 thread at W@W/matrix games is closed, the thread about gg games at paradox games is open.

while morons like les the sarge are free to rant relentlessly - without even having bothered to play the game - here, posters at paradox are adviced to forward the complaints to the producer.

guess what I think is the better policy?[:'(]

personally I´m a grigsby fan, but I don´t think that W@W looks too impressive. his strength lies in detail, not in abstraction. while I enjoyed UV, WiTP looks like its too unwieldly for the not unemployed (6 hours for the first turn? wtf? sorry, I can´t afford so much time), W@W otoh has many very disturbing abstractions (western allies, "province" count on the map, etc.). if WiTP e.g. would have been an improved PW I´d have been happy, but as it looks its an expanded UV... meaning that I can´t afford to play it.

to sum it up: grand strategy -> Paradox, operational warfare -> grigsby.

[Pippin]

I just don't ever see long grand campaign multiplayer games ever being a "hot" gaming need by your average joes.

There is a solution to that. Join rated club play. Someone wants to quit or not finish their losing side, then take the loss. If your looking for an opponent, and see a lot of non-completes on thier stats, then dont play em. It seems to sort out the weak pretty quick.

[Slaughtermeyer]

Here are some comments about Crusader Kings, Paradox's latest release and first non-Strategy First release, from their own forum:

It is bordering on stupidity to purchase anything from Paradox until at least a year after its release. -- morganja

Since I have got the game, I have played about 6-7 serious games. 2 ended in corrupt saves, and all the others ended in a multiple paralysing crash that would happen on the same day after each reload, thus making them unplayable. -- Bocaj

Excuses are the only thing more aboundant than bugs in a paradox game.Time and time agian their products are totaly unstable out of the box. -- Belissarius

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

the hoi2 mod explicitely stated that criticism against other games should be expressed on the producers/publishers website.

The only problem with that mods statement Max_h is that if you goto the Paradox boards and bash their games, they "ban" you. Hardly an "open" forum in my opinion.

It actually was official Paradox policy for a period of time to ban people from their forum for making objectionable (to them) comments on a different forum. The rationale they gave for the policy was that they didn't feel that they needed to invite people to their "home" who badmouthed them elsewhere. This policy was officially stated by Paradox on the Languish forum but that post was eventually deleted.

[mavraam]

It actually was official Paradox policy for a period of time to ban people from their forum for making objectionable (to them) comments on a different forum. The rationale they gave for the policy was that they didn't feel that they needed to invite people to their "home" who badmouthed them elsewhere. This policy was officially stated by Paradox on the Languish forum but that post was eventually deleted.

Just out of curiosity, how the heck do they know what you said on a different forum? How do they tie the user id's together. Do they have access to your ip address at the other forum????

[Slaughtermeyer]

ORIGINAL: mavraam

It actually was official Paradox policy for a period of time to ban people from their forum for making objectionable (to them) comments on a different forum. The rationale they gave for the policy was that they didn't feel that they needed to invite people to their "home" who badmouthed them elsewhere. This policy was officially stated by Paradox on the Languish forum but that post was eventually deleted.

Just out of curiosity, how the heck do they know what you said on a different forum? How do they tie the user id's together. Do they have access to your ip address at the other forum????

Some of the people on the Languish forum were careless/naive enough to use the same name on that forum as on the Paradox forum.

[Koper]

Sorry, don't understand... [&:]

You mean that this policy is still used?

I've seen many very negative comments (or simple flames, comment is not good word here) on the Paradox games on their own forum, but most of the time, IF the thread was not constructive at all ("Game is bad!"/"No, it's good!"/"You are an idiot!"/"No, you are!" kind of thing...), they were usually moved to the OT forum. They simply got their fora organized with many sub-forums to use for different topics - check the root of their forum directory if you don't belive...

Now, back to the topic... Leaving stability and balance topics aside (those are main problems of their products, that's for sure), their game systems got some really nice features you won't find anywhere else. Their games are flexible (sometimes too much - exploits), with great modding potential (HoI got Great War 1914-1920 mod already and it's really something! Not to mention numerous, regular mods...), are quite easy to manage interface-wise for the Grand Strategy that goes down to divisional level organization (HoI) or got huge "what if" potential (Victoria, CK). I like turn-based "operational" wargames, but in Grand Strategy genre (not much competition, all right.. [;)]) HoI is the king.

[Titanwarrior89]

I probley will not spend another dime on HOI, not historial enough for me. The real time sucks. Also i dont think they are in the same league with Matrix and GG when it comes to Historical Simulations. Hope i spelled that right. [:'(] Now if we could only buy WitP[8|]

[ravinhood]

Heh, SPARTAN is the NEW KING of Grand Strategy games, makes HOI look like a toddlers toy and much more fun to play cause it has a more indepth combat system. Just get down and dirty with conquering the world in the ANCIENTS time period of the Spartans or any of the other (99) PLAYABLE factions. A farily complex and detailed Diplomacy system that has about 50-60 choices overall. How much Diplomacy did HOI have? heh hardly any.

I must say out of the box it didn't crash or have any bugs that I could find that destoyed the gameplay like PARADOX's games do.

It also has an AI that's incredibly hard on its hardest settings (In fact they had to patch in an EASIER AI on the normal and easy difficulty settings because of all the whiners, how often do you see a patch to decrease the power of the AI? lol). You really get to play this game, not so much let the game play itself like HOI does for the most part. I'd rather command Hoplites than tanks anyways.

The tactical portion of the game is really like it should be, but, you get to setup your units in all kinds of formations and pick combat strategies, then click the go button and the computer takes over, you have three choices during the battle, to blow the "rally" horn, to mount a "charge" for reserve units and to "retreat".

Really puts HOI to shame, I doubt I'll ever load HOI onto my hard-drive again after playing SPARTAN. Can't wait for TIN SOLDIERS.

[elmo3]

Do you have a link for Spartan? I thought it wasn't out in the US yet. Thanks.

Edit - Never mind, I found it at Gamespot.

[Koper]

Spartan, heh? Slitherine?

Legion, Chariots of War... - something like 3rd part of the series. [:D]

Seems nice, but I have to remind you that it's a lot easier to make game about ancient times... mainly because there is seriously less people that can say "It's crap, because Tiger I is not modeled properly, Rommel was not general in .., Italy is too powerful, planes are hard to handle, blah, blah, blah". Almost like making fantasy Grand Strategy. [;)] Experience in creating 2 previous games about the same also helps.

EDIT: What's more, it was already patched many times (latest one is 1.017). And what's more, it already got expansion-pack on the way (Guess what? Simply new campaign - Troy - more fantasy).

Still, seems like a nice game... Have to try it, that's for sure. [:)]

[Didz]

Had a look at Spartan in Game this lunchtime. But got put off by the screenshots. It looks remarkably like 'Age of Empires'.

Does anyone know if its real-time or turn-based and whether it has a campaign setting and PBEM options?

[Hanal]

Didz...don't know if you saw the official web page ot not so here it is:

http://www.slitherine.co.uk/spartan/SpartanIndex.htm


According to the site...it is turn based.....I played Legion when it first came out....it was fun for a while but it became redundant and I got bored with it....SPARTAN looks like an upgrade from LEGION though...

[elmo3]

No PBEM for Spartan from what I saw at the web site. Too bad as that is the only way for me to play multiplayer these days. If the AI is really good it might be worth a look anyway.

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: elmo3

No PBEM for Spartan from what I saw at the web site. Too bad as that is the only way for me to play multiplayer these days. If the AI is really good it might be worth a look anyway.

Thats very odd.[&:]

If its turn based why owuldn't they have provided PBEM?

Perhaps one can do it just by swapping saved game files. I have Chariots of War already but hadn't made the connection between this and Spartan. CoW is quite a nice little game, though I note that this doesn't have PBEM either.

[ravinhood]

I agree Legion and Chariots of War were not up to my expectations, but, Spartan has improved most that was flawed of the two previous, like you don't have to lose ALL your units now if you don't win the battles, so they put in a retreat feature, you still take some battle damage, but, you don't lose all your units just because you are outnumbered like in Legion and Chariots of war.

The Diplomacy feature in this game is unbelievable. I counted 50 or 60 diplomatic choices, instead of the 100 I mentioned above when I looked them up in the manual. The 100 was a 100 playable factions/nations.

Also their patch numbering is not like other patch numberings, the number is like the number of things they have changed or added to the game overall since release, so there have been like 17 changes to things overall, not 17 patchs! lol

Patch 1.013 is really my favorite for a tough AI, they patched DOWN the AI in 1.017 and now it's not as aggressive as it was in 1.013, why oh why do they listen to the loudest whiners first? heh We're working on them bringing back the aggression of 1.013 and just let the babies whine. I've already gone back to 1.013, it's more fun when there is "fear of losing" than when there is no fear at all. I beat the very first game I played of patch 1.017 on "hard difficulty" (the most chosen level of play for me) and before with patch 1.013 I got my butt handed to me every single game! lol Some people were losing on the EASY level in patch 1.013 hahahah, so they whined, "I can't beat the game on easy wah wah wah" hahahaha

Overall though I enjoy the campaign map and it's movement and the colossal size of the game and the nations. Rome is an invading faction that comes at a certain point, they are awesome overpowering. heh Then you have the Eastern Great King army out of the east to have to contend with, this little game is one of those quiet winners and it's rare I give much credentials to many games of today, but, that 1.013 AI is just a wonderful sight to behold. Who'd ever thought someone would "like" losing to the AI?

Oh and Elmo, it doesn't have a PBEM feature because the combat portion is in real time, simular to Total War but not like total war, you are the commander of your armies only, you get to place them on the tactical map, give them orders of what to do during the battle and then let your generals take over from there and you just sit back and watch until you want to call in the reserves, which is a "charge" command and or blow the "rally" horn which stops some of your units from routing (basically gives them a morale boost for a short time) and/or "retreat", if you feel the battle is going badly or you know you are outnumbered and going to lose anyways.

If you like single player games and like a challenging AI, this one has it, as long as you stick with patch 1.013, if you feel the AI is too tough then you can patch to 1.017, heh, I sort of feel those that think an AI is ever too tough, just aren't very good players. I think the 1.013 AI is tougher than heck, but, I don't mind, it's more fun trying to defeat it, than "knowing" you are going to defeat it. for me anyways.

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood
Oh and Elmo, it doesn't have a PBEM feature because the combat portion is in real time, simular to Total War but not like total war, you are the commander of your armies only, you get to place them on the tactical map, give them orders of what to do during the battle and then let your generals take over from there and you just sit back and watch until you want to call in the reserves, which is a "charge" command and or blow the "rally" horn which stops some of your units from routing (basically gives them a morale boost for a short time) and/or "retreat", if you feel the battle is going badly or you know you are outnumbered and going to lose anyways.

Thats a shame. I'd rather have sacrificed the real-time combat and had the chance to play the game against other human players.[:(]

[Slaughtermeyer]

Just now Paradox deleted my post explaining the fundamental flaw in Europa Universalis 2's battle morale system that results in armies of 1 occasionally routing armies of 10,000+. Not only that, it closed the thread so I would not be able to repost the information.

Here's the closed thread:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=153471

Here's my post that was deleted:

Pretty annoying to loose those kind of fights. Guess the whole truth isn't releaved in the dust of the battlefield.

How else can you explain a loss to a one-man-army?

It can be explained by the flawed ahistorical way in which the EU2 engine treats combat morale. The amount of morale damage a force can inflict or sustain has nothing to do with the relative sizes of the forces involved. A force of 100 men (or for that matter 1 man) can inflict and sustain as much morale damage as 5000+ men, all other factors being equal.