Got this game recently at a discount, it seems pretty good. An old RTS that is very simple to play with very quick matches lasting 5-10 minutes each. The game is mostly dead, only finding matches at night, but the people who play seem to be curious buyers like myself trying out the game too leading to fun and fairly equal matches.Anybody else here has played it? It really seems like a good rts, perfect to get people into the genre, don't understand why it didn't take off.
>>2340359>don't understand why it didn't take offI didn't play it, so feel free to discard my opinion. Basically 2017 was just a rough time for RTS's in general because everyone was still playing MOBA's and casuals haven't been warmed up to strategy games by paraslop yet. And Discord wasn't as big yet, so you didn't have the concept of so-called Discord games yet. A few RTS's came out during that time, almost all of them sequels to existing franchises trying to appeal to what diehards were left.
>>2343654i haven't played that game since maybe 3-5 months after launch. However i lived through a dozen or so balance patches - maybe even more - and there was only one, that really incentivised people to go T1 only and that was the launch-meta. They fixed it of course but damage was done. Usually T1-only is not the way to go. You either choose lizzard or squirrel and stick to their strengths to transition into whatever is your T2 strategy. I'd say T1 + T2 choices really matter, while T3 is more or less just a choice of style on how to do the finish. However this game has a surprising depth. You absolutely should utilize T1 for the early harassement (every units can do this but in their unique way), but it also needs to be a reliable backbone for you army 2 minutes later and after that it needs to provide some synergy for your T2 choices (even more so with T3 later). Everything has multiple layers and purposes - great game.Moles were always the make or break point of balancing. While normal harassement strats could be countered with some thought (just don't go Farms only on start, put them next to each other etc.) mole counters could be tricky as fuck (need to chase enmy commander, look if he going moles, if so rush back and cancel your buildings to transition into counter [turret setup] while also keep intel on the enemy commander to check if by that point, he opted out of mole - adapt etc.) new players had almost no chance to figure this whole shit out and would get stomped 10 times in a row. i'd say one out of three patches had some nasty mole shenanigans.
>>2343654I have played this game a lot (but I am not part of the discord nor compete in any tournaments), it is probably the only rts I am "good" at even winning a true 2v1 against 2 human players, which happened last year.T1 is not the meta these days, even though I certainly got defeated in my first matches against Tier 1 unit hordes. I do not know what the sweaty tryhard meta is, but against casual and discord users that I used to find at nights in 2025. I completely stopped T1 units by producing an early skunk (the guy with the gas grenade). I usually dropped 2 warrens of squirrels and saved all my food to place a skunk warren. That stopped all tier 1 unit horde tactics, and if they didn't have a way to transition or were too slow to realize the skunk negated all their moves, then I won on the spot.I have never turned videos into webms, but if anyone is interested I could turn some of my saves into webms to better paint a picture on how a casual that loves this game and can give the discord tryhard troons a run for their money plays.>>2343726T3 are not just a "finish him" fatality style, though it can be, but a couple of them are the entire centerpiece of a strategy.For example, Volkov, the wolf general that shouts at your own troops, is a centerpiece of a strategy based around T1 units. Some use him with t2 units but too expensive.However, the BADGER is an entire strategy and centerpiece that has nothing to do with t1 or t2 spam. It sometimes is played as a turtling strategy on a single base but in my opinion that is wrong, I would say it is the only strategy that can consistently and confidently win on a single base but you need a lot of micro and understanding TEMPO. You play defense, then prepare a big push with the Badger with supporting units, microing your heart out with that badger and you win. It doesn't matter if your enemy has a lot more economy than you, the Badger is a tempo thing, you exhaust your initial farm for that one big push.
>>2340594Considering gamedev cycles are now fucking 10 years, not really.
>>2343806don't get me wrong, I do agree, that T3 can matter (therefore 'more or less') but if players choose to punish mistakes (skill required), most matches are, more or less ,'decided' then the T3 hits the arena [see the 'I won on the spot' part of your post]. However, since the T3 play out in their own way with very own starts, it always felt like a nice choice of 'now, how do you want to end this?' to me - just an awesome little touch to an already great game experience. That being said: messing up the T3 is still a great way to throw the game - every phase requires skill here.also: ahh, a skunk enjoyer :> well, I can see why.I never did the exact maths on this but skunks feel unique cause their damage isn't linear but somewhat exponential (once they cover a huge area) every once in a while you'll get a battle there this just snowballs into some extreme dmg-output unlke any other unit (T2 especially). skuns are cool, I agree. personally i like ferret poking or the standard falcon for the low effort approach ^^ i never made it into the 1on1 top20 (?) though, my focus was team play.can you get a decent 3vs3 or 4vs4 started these days without third party tools?
Is there any hope for me if I want to learn and thrive in this game without resorting to outside guides?
>>2343651If you're familiar with wuxia, play on shitter difficulty and don't mind restarting every so often.
>>2343651Don't resort to guides, the game is way too easy to break using guides. You can have things like infinite resource loops and infinite stat increase loops which once you find you can likely never ignore afterwards.
Making body cultivation and Yaoguai raising so RNG based ruined those parts of the game. Chinese will never excel in vidya, apart from profits, due to their love of gambling.
>>2343651>Is there any hope for meNo>if I want to learn and thrive in this gameYes>without resorting to outside guides?No
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ryr8UF4SX4It's out (in 20 days). Thoughts? We now have italians on both sides.
>>2213020bump
>>2337340all that words just to say "no italian faction planned"
i'm really interested in this game initially, especially the multiplayerbut i bought it and tried the single player and it just felt so lifeless that i lost all interest to play and refunded the game
>>2343719Unfortunate. The multiplayer is quite good IMO. Unless you're only interested in 4v4s. Then stay away, because they're just braindead fun. Emphasis on the braindead.
>>2343779meh, i'll try it again on a deeper sale
Greetings. I am looking for strategy games, preferably grand strategy, that will help hone my political abilities and train me for my future career in politics. I am looking for accurate simulations that allow access to all policies, do not enforce socialism as the default winning strategy (all Paradox games are excluded here), and do not have alt history rubbish like Latvia forming the Kurgan Empire or whatever. Just pure strategy, that will sort strong politics from weak.Thank you for your suggestions.
>>2321375>as there can only be one winnerWrong.If your alliance won, then you won to.In ALL games.People who insist there is only one winner are the people who do pointless betrayals in stuff like Twilight Imperium, cuz "only one player is a winner".t. perfectly content with making sure my side wins and I helped to make that happen, regardless of final spot
>>2341853Well, I suppose you could say you won if you helped one player and they win, but considering the two winning conditions of Dominions are to be the last nation standing or hold enough thrones (Which will require you to invade other nations to get enough), long term alliances always carry the risk of betrayal. You could play disciples games if you want teamwork, but those are rarer then free for alls.You still want to scout and open up relationships and with other players, as even something as simple as knowing they're in a war can benefit you if you share a border. Popkill nations have a diplomacy males in multiplayer, as everyone knows the longer they're around, the more useless their lands become and the more chaff you have to grind through.
>>2316284Any of the officer play Romance of the Three Kingdoms games. Debates, forming patronage networks and voting blocs, and managing pressures from above and below are integral gameplay mechanics and are modeled better in RotK 13 than any game I’ve ever played. There’s a lot of stats but the disposition each character has towards you and how your behavior can affect it is sort of obscured from you.I’m sure there’s plenty of autistic Japanese salary men who have figured out how to min max and trivialize it, but for a first playthrough it sells the illusion really well. It’s also completely self serious too, so when random stuff happens it feels realistic instead of the wacky ironypoisoned stuff you get in Crusader Kings. War is a grind and a test of attrition.
>>2341909>but considering the two winning conditions of Dominions are to be the last nation standing or hold enough thrones (Which will require you to invade other nations to get enough), long term alliances always carry the risk of betrayalYou realise you can conceed, right? You don't have to betray/be betrayed, if you understand that achieving victory by backstabbing your ally is completely pointless.Like seriously, why it's such a tough concept for idiots to grasp that even in games of "only one winner", you can deliver it to your alliance and then simply fold, giving them victory you helped to create (and then caused, since you are the final obstacle).There is a reason why I always play with the same guy with team-ups in various games - for he seems to be the only person to truly grasp how this shit works. In the end, depending on the game, we simply flip the coin or see who has the lead and the other one folds. But this way, we always win, never have to worry about "now I will betray ally for quick expansion that's gonna actually weaken us both" and have fun watching all the idiots backstabbing each other
>>2343358I guess you can consider it a win if you assist another player and they win, but alliances in Dominions are on paper only, with nothing like being able to move through their lands freely or being able to share research. It is possible to go an entire game without getting attacked ny a neighbor, but that depends on all sorts of factors. Just play the game with other players before going off on how diplomacy could work in it. The air of mutual distrust and give and take influence how you interact with everyone. MA Ermor is infamous for this. They're literally cancer, killing off their population to spawn skeletons. Nobody wants to fight Ermor solo, as that means punching through hundreds of skeletons to get territory that gives you little gold and can't support many troops. So they're often the target of a collation, as this benefits everyone that borders them. But of course, how this turns out depends on more factors.
Are there any truly great strategy video games out there today? Since largely migrating to board games about 10 years ago, it has become obvious to me that strategy video games largely fall into two buckets...1. Games where there's so many layers of slop that strategic thinking is inconsequential (civilization games)2. Games where there's so much complexity and admin that focusing on strategy is an afterthought (paradox games)Where are the approachable, yet tight and endlessly replayable games?I can play something like Imperial 2030, 1830, pax renaissance, Tigris and Euphrates and make far more interesting decisions, in the span of a couple hours, and keep going back to those games 10+ years later.
>>2343180>player doesn't want a challenging aiplayers do want a challenging ai. However, they do not want a cheating ai, which is what games usually offer.
>>2342838Try out MoM and/or AoW2. I find them the right balance of casual fun and having to use tactical planning and thinking.But if anything, I mostly play economical sims, so not sure if I can really help you.
>>2342838>Imperial 2030this sounds really fun
>>2343352Modern total war is the prime example of this, harder difficulties give you debuffs and the enemy buffs, they don't actually play much smarter. Which is why Medieval 2 is one of my favourites, the AI doens't get much in the way of cheats and harder difficulty makes it play smarter.
>>2343125>it looks to be very abstract. Looks more like a puzzlish solatire game.It is. I figured you were looking for something more competitive, but thought I'd mention it anyway.You move colonists around, explore, have them interact with planets and installations, make sure they have oxygen for upkeep, fuel for moving, security to move deeper into space, you draw cards to modify planet/deep space tiles and the goal is to settle a required number of people before the time runs out e.g. at the difficulty level of 25 it's 26 colonists in 6 turns. To me it looks like Against the Storm but turn-based. >AI WarI see it frequently recommended
New demo out until the 17th. Anyone interested in trying it?https://store.steampowered.com/app/1761210/The_Touhou_Empires/
>>2342874You gather booze and click the worker fairy button in exchange for it.
>>2342878eh im not convinced, but thank you
>>2337752Oh shit I almost missed it, I'm not really into touhou or RTS but this game grabbed my attention with the heros mega attacks and I liked the demo well enough
>>2343147liked the very first demo that is, judging by this thread there's been several more since then
>>2342880>>2342874There is no breeding you "summon" fairies.(Besides Tohous reproduce asexually with mitosis)
Crisis in the Kremlin:The Cold War(2025) ThreadNew small updateAnyone had any particularly fun runs? Any tips for a successful dismantlement run?
Did they improve the translation? I have the game but when I played it it was unreadable.
>>2342877How can they not find a native English speaker to help them with the English text Jesus
>>2342882Competent native English localizers are hard to find because of two issues:First, faithful translation. We could get into current anime and vidya politics here, but let's just leave it at "it's difficult to find someone who is culturally fluent in two cultures". You can learn a language easily, but fail at actual understanding.Second, networking. It can be hard to find people in general. The Internet makes it a needle in a haystack.
>>2342624>>2342700Cut foreign imports other than foodstuffs to 0, cut environmental spending to 0, under "diplomatic" decisions pull out of the western patent system, increase research spending(I typically do nuclear and consumer first, then others as my income increase). Lastly, your first two researches should be the peaceful nuclear tech branches, to prevent Chernobyl, and for some science mana. Then left most agriculture tech and right side of computer tech.Doing all of this generally allows me to survive long enough to actually start doing a run.Its worth noting that starting as Chernenko allows you to pass doctrine changes immediately, lowering conscription and "liberalizing" the army will help your economy and the labor shortage. Changing to friendly protectionism should also help. Centralizing the CMEA will hurt relations with other countries but give you a nice boost of income.>>2342591How is your budget? Are you pumping money into propaganda and culture? Some doctrines will generate more politics mana for you. Are you making sure to attack other factions at the plenums?
>Achievement "Based">In all three events - The Molotov Pact, the Prague Spring, and the Katyn massacre - choose only the option "Yes. We did it. And it was right!"I still want to know what the devs are cooking with that "Yugoslavia" DLC.
Hey guys, have you heard of Enemy Nations? It’s a really unique game from 1996, kind of a mix between Command & Conquer and SimCity. The developers released the source code quite a while ago, but nothing happened with it until now. Thankfully, someone has decided to bring it back to life, and a new version has just been released: https://github.com/EnemyV/EnemyNationsRevival/releases/tag/2.00.003
Whats this version got over https://www.enemynations.com/
>>2343127It adds new terrain, better performance and AI, and a bunch of fixes so it runs properly on modern PCs. The enemynations.com version is basically the old, unmaintained 1996 build.You can check all the changes here:https://github.com/EnemyV/EnemyNationsRevival/releasesThe dev also made a short video about what he plans to do with the project:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPtRtH5ZqQ0
Looks like an older Rise of Nations from the screenshots, how does it play, does it do anything interesting?
>>2343310It’s more management-heavy and economy-focused than most RTS games from its time, so if you like games like The Settlers or Knights and Merchants, you’ll probably enjoy that side of it. The interface and AI kinda sucked in the original, but hopefully this new version will improve them.
I didn't remember how ugly 3 Kingdoms looks, how can people enjoy it unironically?I swear, even in 2026 I still hearing people mad about CA not keeping the development of this game. Like, are we looking at the same game or what?The only nice thing is the 2D art of the black ink with the letters and the pink flowers of the decree's tree. And beyond that, the combat is even worse than in Rome 2 somehow, and the whole development of your city, faction feels even SLOWER and boring.
>>2333603Kek if you actually play shogun 2 it looks like shit
>>2333899and somehow the new slop looks worse. it's remarkable.
>>2333371Fucking WHY. Why is this a thing in nu-TW? Shit looks like a crappy mobile game.
>>2333603Medieval 2 looked good enough for a strategy game desu. Units in Shogun 2 and on often look like animated shiny plastic figures
>>2334659Visual clarity on where the archers shoot or sumshit.
POV: You've been banned from my park.You will never get to return to this land of wonder. Jealous? Yeah I thought you'd be.
>>2327844are you playing vanilla rct when openrct2 exists?
>>2329237because he's not a fag
>>2329253he is a fag and so are you
>>2327844I want to come back to mister bones' wild ride
Sup y'all, figure I'd put a ride in the thread, Meet the Molerat, a mostly-underground crazymouse ride.
Roadmap revealed>One last major update of 2025, including allied bot support for skirmish>1st DLC will be free and coming early on 2026. Full reveal on December 9th>will add a new "allied" country, which will be available to the US side as a spec in multiplayer (likely the Baltic units from singleplayer)>new environment and maps planned for later 2026, released for free alongside the listed paid DLCs>full expansion for 2027 with a new singleplayer campaign and a new faction
>>2333859Javelins actually have 100m minimum range, both of them, same as the dogshit RU ATGMs like Fagot.
>>2333677>pushing javelinsDo you not have artillery you retard
>>2261396
Man it's fun cucking amerigoylems out of H on BaltiiskThey're so used to getting it for free that they seethe and feed when their precious little Ospreys and Niggerhawks get mulched by Mi-24P and Mi-28N AA helis covered by Su-35s and followed shortly after by Mi-26 airlifting Osas onto the islandand if they give up on H those AA helis and Osas go to their airspawn and rape their EX2s and Fag35s
>>2342590The whole reason the Osprey gives H to US for free is that it's more than twice as fast as every other helo. If your AA helis are arriving in time to fuck up their drop it just means some retard screwed up or went AFK and called in their deployment late.Otherwise by the time you're in range to contest H there's already a bunch of manpads in buildings and nothing for you to shoot down.If you really want to control H you need to control or at least pressure F/G. Now that the SLAMRAAM is anti-heli instead of a SAM, there's no heli-bourne long range AA that can be deployed to H, which means the team sitting on H needs to control the opposing coastline to cover the point. If they can't keep a SAM up on that coastline you can just hover a drone out of manpad range and bomb them off the island with impunity.
Best city builder in your opinion?>Cities: SkylinesShitties of them all in my opinion. In this one you have shit like 16 people living in a skyscraper and you can't even build realistic sized cities. The traffic simulation is supposed to be good but its nonsensical (drivers are incapable of changing lanes, the game puts pedestrian crossings through roundabouts etc.).>Cities: Skylines 2Not even top tier computers can run this past a certain city size.>Simcity 4You can build massive cities in it. Its a shame that the game was designed to build american style cities though (no mixed zones, no public housing, etc.). Game runs like shit too because of its old engine.>Citystate 2This is the best one in my opinion. Economics makes sense and you have neat details like poor people building slums if you can't fill their housing demand either through making enough housing zones or building public housing units. There is also an entire legislation system that allows you to make anything between a communist hellhole and an anarcho-capitalist dystopia. I wish the game was moddable though.
cs2 chads there's a new studio working on it
>>2330967Yeah, I'm addicted to A-Train, but I think the real appeal of the game is the trains and the complex operations you can do using the timetables (no signals, all train departures programmed by hand).I don't usually do that, I keep the trains running 24 hours a day and just set up the basics so that one train doesn't "collide" with another and shut down the entire system, but when you play like that, there's not much to manage, the game becomes kind of just: create stations, provide construction materials, watch the city grow, and that's it.That's super satisfying anyway, but you don't really need to manage much, I think.Now train autists who want a model railroad simulator will like it, because you can do almost anything in A-Train 9 Ultimate, as long as you have the infinite patience to manage all the trains by hand, which can be an absurdly time-consuming task.
>>2306278can't modders just, you know, fluke the numbers? Like everything in the simulation works as intedned, but the numbers displayed are "realistic"?Like yeah, the skyscraper might have 25 slots, but each slot counts for 50 people being displayed.It kinda falls apart in displaying traffic or the people themselves, but you gotta work with what you have.
>>2335585I enjoy against the storm but I feel it's more closely related to something like frostpunk than any other city building game. I agree that builder games can get boring once you get stable and producing surplus but I feel like against the storm doesn't give you enough time to appreciate it and build a vanity project because there's just not enough slack. Also building a self-sustaining town is not really a goal anyway. It's all about outrunning the timer to hit the objectives. It's more of a puzzle game where you have to figure out how to combo cards, stuff you discover in glades and requests. This is especially true for seals.Also you can make anything out of anything with the right buildings but I feel like that just makes it more difficult upfront to remember how all the intermediate goods can be produced but doesn't make it more interesting in the long run.
>>2335585>The early phase of city builders is almost always the best partthat's because you're a brainlet
Which way, young man?
>>2334442I tried Field of Glory and I didn't like it. Felt like a boring version of tabletop wargaming.
>>2334511same, its simply bad game
Iron ore editionAKA waiting for v1.1 to get fixed edition
>>2346669>caring about the "meta" in a single player gametranny hands made this post
>>2346677I don't care how you play this game, it's very easy. I enjoy optimizing strategies.
>>2346680before or after you take your estrogen?
>>2346669>Le it's not a big dealLiterally every single province I have is fully built up and has roads to every adjacent because of estates, you lying nigger.
>>2346669Nice and very helpful, thank you anon
On one hand it's great we had so many episodes of King's Bounty, on the other hand, I wished we had more. Imagine, a King's bounty game every 2 years, forever, until the fatigue eventually set up (it wouldn't).
>>2329596I liked the games, but as someone who only relatively recently finished all four I could use a break. If they ever make a proper 2 then I might be up for it.
>>2329596the whore-ior class
>>2329596Back when Humblebundle used to give out useful shit for a dollar...
>>2329596>Only Legends has you play as (You)>You need cheats to change names of the PC on the later gamestalk about disappointing
>>2341641You could also change the name in the first one.
