/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.1440951]

Let's talk about 4x games /vr/.
>Age of Wonders
>Master of Magic
>Master of Orion
>Alpha Centauri

all welcome and others. Your favourites? Tips? Recommendations?

[Anonymous No.1440953]

Stars!

[Anonymous No.1440967]

>>1440953
How hard is it to learn to play Stars? Looks decent

[Anonymous No.1440968]

>>1440953
I massively concur.

It's hard to get into, allows for way too much micromanaging, but damn can it get epic

[Anonymous No.1440969]

>>1440967

It is DEEP, but hasa very comprehensive tutorial mode

[Anonymous No.1440972]

>>1440969

Wow. Pic unrelated. That was meant for a /my/ thread lol

Sage for offtopic

[Anonymous No.1440970]

>>1440969
What about the combat? Is it like Civ or a bit more interesting like MoM/MOO

[Anonymous No.1440978]

>>1440970
Battles are fought according to plan. You set a tactic on how a token is supposed to behave and it will follow those orders in the execution phase.

[Anonymous No.1440980]

>>1440978
Ah, a bit like Dominions then? Sounds interesting. I'll check it out.

[Anonymous No.1440982]

>>1440970

It is relatively hands-off from what I remember, this game focuses more on the empire building than the individual battles.

In gonna have to reinstall this game now!

[Anonymous No.1441062]

>>1440982

Fuck yeah, managed to find my disc!

And learnt about Stars!Autohost http://www.starsautohost.org

Online play anyone?

[Anonymous No.1441075]

>>1440951
>Age of Wonders
brilliant game, currently playing through the campaign after finding AoW install on an old USB. Frostlings are godtier faction.

[Anonymous No.1441090]

Space Empires!
I sunk a nice couple of weeks into 3. Loved the Windows 3.1 feel of the interface.
SE4 arguably looks better and has more stuff in it, but I couldn't get into it. At some point complexity just gets in the way of fun for me.

[Anonymous No.1441132]

>>1440953

DL link: http://wiki.starsautohost.org/files/stars26jrc4.zip

Serial Code: EP2RDGTA

Y'all welcome, my sci-fi loving /vr/min

[Anonymous No.1441136]

>>1441090

I thought even 3 was getting to complex for it's own good.

[Anonymous No.1441138]

>tfw love Master of Magic to death
>Tfw been playing it since 95.
>tfw have done basically everything there is to do, and don't really enjoy playing anymore.

[Anonymous No.1441142]

>>1441138

Not played, but what does the percentage mean next to your guys?

[Anonymous No.1441149]

>>1441142

In the manual, they stated that the highest score any of their testers could achieve was 8,000. Your score is listed as it's fraction of 8,000.


It's actually not that hard to beat, if you play on Impossible with triple score.

[Anonymous No.1441162]

>>1441138
>>1441149
got any tips? I'm just getting into Master of Magic after discovering it. Prior to this I have played a shitload of original Age of Wonders which I loved the shit out of.

[Anonymous No.1441209]

>>1441162

Food is king. Early game, don't bother too much with research and mana, your first priority in every city is builders hall, granary, smithy, marketplace, farmer's market.

Also, unlike say Civ, all buildings that give bonuses are additive, library gives 2 research, parthenon gives 3 power, etc. You don't get percentages, so it's almost always better to have lots of small cities than a few big ones.

So spread like the plague, have your first city, after grunting out 2-4 settlers, focus on a mid-tier unit and pump them out in industrial quantities to defend yourself (halberdiers, shamans, cavalry, those kinds of things) and only once you've filled up your starting continent, should you get started on things like libraries and the advanced religious buildings (build the minimum you need to keep unrest down)

And for your first few games, it's probably better to go deep with each of the colors once, so you get a good feel for what you can do magically with each one. Only start mixing and matching when you have more of an idea what you're up to.


High Men are a good race to start with too, they're a bit slow in development, but the ultimate endgame power. Those Paladins can kick serious ass.

[Anonymous No.1441280]

>>1441162
RTFM. Seriously. Don't be discouraged by the undecipherable graphics and not knowing what the hell is happening in the beginning. I attempted and restarted the game like 6 times before it finally grabbed me. Then I played for like 48 hours straight. This game is better than HoMM, AoW and anything else that attempted this style of play, but the beginning is really rough.

[Anonymous No.1441296]

obligatory

[Anonymous No.1441321]

>>1441280
>This game is better than HoMM, AoW and anything else that attempted this style of play, but the beginning is really rough.
really? I'm planning on a session tonight. What makes this game so unique?

[Anonymous No.1441330]

Recently been getting into MOO2 after never having the chance to play it as a kid.
Pic related was my first game, how'd I do?

[Anonymous No.1441334]

>>1441321
It's the most massive and complex and immersive turn based strategy game out there. (different guy).

You will never have a game where you have so many options, and most of them being reasonable under the circumstances as you will in this game. I never played AoW, but I did play AoW2, and I found that I was casting the same few spells over and over again, prismatic sprays in combat, zephyr falcons for early game summons, dragons for late game, backed up by an item or two.

Master of Magic, you'll probably have about 40 spells by mid-late game at your disposal. You won't have enough mana or casting to do them all, but almost all of them will at least be somewhat beneficial to your situation, and little nuances in the force mixup of what you have and what your opponent has might be the difference between one summon or another, or whether you're better off casting a flame strike as opposed to a disintigrate.


Plus, when you finally graduate to playing on impossible, you get the joy of fighting off colossal, epic hordes with a ragged band of whatever crap you can scrape together. It's awesome when you can make it work.

[Anonymous No.1441339]

>>1441334
Cheers, I'm a big fan of AoW1 and this sounds like it's right up my alley.

[Anonymous No.1441346]

>>1441330

Decent for a small galaxy, I guess.


Never really liked MOO2 much, to be honest. You almost always went for the same tech path every game, spying was ridiculously good, and the antarans were less "cosmic menace" and more "oooh, Xenotronium armor"

[Anonymous No.1441357]

>>1441339

Oh, one other tip assuming you're the same guy who wrote>>1441162


Retreating on normal difficulty or higher has a 50% chance of killing each normal unit, 25% chance of killing each hero. If the combat lasts for 50 rounds though, the defender wins the battle, and all surviving units retreat.

A lot of the times, especially if you have something fast against a stronger, slower enemy, you can just run around in circles, and stall.

[Anonymous No.1441361]

Anyone ever play Reach for the Stars?

It's a bit more "strategy game in Space" than what is usually thought of as a 4x, but it's pretty cool. And brutally hard.

[Anonymous No.1441459]

>>1440951
>Age of Wonders
I have been meaning to make an AoW thread. Never see it discussed here or on /v/ except for the sequels which I thought were just completely inferior. The original was just incredible and the graphics were stellar. This thread is making me want to replay and get back into Master of Magic, which despite it's brilliance just doesn't have the same appeal aesthetically as AoW does.

[Anonymous No.1441464]

>>1441361
Haven't even heard of it. Looks quite comfy

[Anonymous No.1441473]

>>1441464

>Reach
>Comfy

AHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


No, I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a good game, but it's not comfy at all. Thin of a Master of Orion-esque map. You have star systems, you explore, you plant colonies.

Unlike MOO, colonies are pretty cheap to start and get going. They're also easy to destroy. A good sized fleet is quite capable of popping into a border world, and bombing it from full population to death in one turn. There is no such thing as conquest and occupation, just kill and (maybe) re-settle..

Did I mention that fleets are easy to run away from combat, so it's hard to finish off a foe? And that you don't get any early warning at all unless you invest heavily in mostly useless defense satellites, and even then, only if they're more than one turn in transit (rare)


Playing Reach for the stars is like some Cold war inspired nuclear war game. There is no defense. There is no one big clash of fleets like you tend to see in MOO2. You just have endless waves of little splinter fleets, *just* strong enough to bomb a world to death, endlessly attacking and running away from anything that can defeat them. Last one standing, sometimes with a colony world in the ass end of nowhere, wins.

[Anonymous No.1441486]

>>1441473
Sounds interesting, I'll check it out.

[Anonymous No.1441663]

I need some early strategy for AoW 2: SM.
Whatever I do it feels so damn inefficient.

[Anonymous No.1441835]

>>1441663
I've only played SM a few times but principle is not that different from the original. Divide your army into fast troops and slower troops. Send faster troops out to capture nodes while slower troops clear out mines and other places of interest. Try to get a few summoned units out to help out with the clearing.

Also make sure to get enchanted weapons or some sort of variant that increases attack and dmg for your troops and spam that shit.

[Anonymous No.1441927]

>>1441835
Pretty much what I'm doing, but thanks for the reassurance.

[Anonymous No.1441931]

Another thing about Age of Wonders:
What do you do with your wizard?
Park him in your capital all game or do you actually use him for something?

[Anonymous No.1441934]

>>1441931

I only use him to fight if it's really early and it's a real pushover, something where I just need another body.


You shouldn't really be leaving the tower though, as a general course of action.

[Anonymous No.1441958]

>>1441934
Because of the Sphere of Influence?

[Anonymous No.1442132]

>scout
>see this
What do?

[Anonymous No.1442150]

>>1442132
>venomous spit
Whoa!

[Anonymous No.1442174]

>>1442150

Yeah, the Tigrans.... kind of suck.

[Anonymous No.1442993]

>>1440953
horrid gui. and win 3.11 is a shit

[Anonymous No.1443176]

Are there any older 4X games that have more emphasis on the exploration (of a randomly generated map) and less on the expand, exploit, exterminate (but still there of course)

[Anonymous No.1443236]

>>1443176
AoW:SM
MOO2

[Anonymous No.1443447]

>>1443176
in the HOMMs , exploration is more important but they're not really 4X.

>>1441209
>all le food buildings
not necessary, esp if you're using hobbits/snakemen/barbies. you'll probably only need all the food buildings for your capital or production city OR if youre stuck on a small isle in early game.

also if you dont mind cheesing, max spell books in any 1 of the colors is always the easiest to win. that also gives you biggest research and casting discount. though i think the research discount for max spell books might be a bug.

2nd cheesiet way to win is probably NO or only 1 spell book, isolate yourself on an isle in myrron, and research spell mastery ASAP.

[Anonymous No.1443496]

>>1441132

Cheers! Saved me $3!

[Anonymous No.1443518]

>>1443447

Disagree. Production wins games. Research, mana, troops, gold, all can ultimately be obtained via production.

and the more food you're generating from buildings, the fewer farmers you need, which means the more production you have. When it comes to generating hammers, especially for smaller towns, the granary/farmers market is zillions of times more efficient than a sawmill. They also help growth, to the order of 60-70 a turn (face value is only 50, but don't forget, they'll increase the max population as well)


And yeah, if you play 11 books, you start stupidly powerful. It's not even primarily the research bonus, it's that you start with a rare spell and 2 uncommons. With black, white, or green, you just shift all of your starting power to mana, and summon a wraith/Torin/gorgons respectively, and start cleaning up.

[Anonymous No.1443560]

>>1443518
MOM newbie here, early game how do I increase mana income?

[Anonymous No.1443589]

Why do I never see Simtext mentioned as an influential developer? Grantly they only made a few games but Master of magic and Master of orion are some of the most influential strategy games around which have spawned countless clones.

[Anonymous No.1443626]

>>1443560

If you can (possible on lower levels) clear out a node, and summon a magic spirit that you can send to the node. You'll have an option "meld with node" and you'll probably get 6-15 power, depending on if you're on Arcanus or Myrror. You can get more with bonuses.

4 of the races generate mana with population. High Elves, Beastmen, and Draconians each generate .5 power per person. Dark elves generate 1 mana per person.

Building Shrines, Temples, Parthenons, and Cathedrals gives 1,2,3,4 power respectively. You can boost this with Divine or Infernal power retorts, and Dark rituals doubles your power generated from religious buildings.

Lastly, the library/sages guild/University line will increase research, which lets you shift points out of there and into other things, if you're so inclined.

If you don't have the retorts or dark rituals running, the research line is more efficient in terms of production and power/upkeep.

[Anonymous No.1443664]

>>1443626
Alright, cheers for the info.

[Anonymous No.1443676]

Seems like a good place to ask. I know there are lots of clones/derivatives of Master of Orion and Mater of Magic.

Which ones are the best? AoW + SM are great games but what others are there which are worth playing?

[Anonymous No.1443702]

>>1443676

Play the original. Master of Magic is still the best, IMO.


And if you want to stray out of /vr/ territory, I could recommend Fall from Heaven (Civ 4 mod)

[Anonymous No.1443920]

Is it worth keeping cities in AoW where the relation is merely neutral?
Do I suffer negative effects from that?

[Anonymous No.1443925]

>>1443920
Not really. I usually just migrate my own race in there.

[Anonymous No.1443930]

>>1443925
But dem dorfs man.

Well I guess it could make all my dwarven troops desert if I lose some battles.
Guess I'll settle for friendly races.

[Anonymous No.1443936]

>>1443930
If there's a particular group neutral to you but which you want to recruit and have a safe army with, it might be reasonable to take a few of your own 1 hex cities and migrate that race there to get up relations.

>>1443626
>>1441334
Well I took all these into account and just finished my first game. 3 players, normal difficulty on medium map with powerful magic. I went 11 death books as Raven. To begin with I tried to expand and have as many cities as possible where I built shrines and temples. Once I had enough mana I summoned some wraiths and cleared out some nodes. After getting some more mana in I summoned a few sets of Dark Knights and went straight for other wizards' capitols

[Anonymous No.1443947]

>>1443936
Might be worth in a longer game when I have the resources, but I just started and this is the first city I conquered.

[Anonymous No.1443951]

>>1443947
Ah, in which case the first few cities you conquer you should probably migrate your own folks into. Are you new to AoW? What race are you playing? You playing 1 or SM?

[Anonymous No.1443960]

>>1443951
>Are you new to AoW?
Used to play the AoW 2 base game a lot.
>What race are you playing?
Randomed Humans.
>You playing 1 or SM?
Shadow Magic expansion.

[Anonymous No.1443961]

>>1443960
I'm still getting into SM myself but up to this point I played a hell of a lot AoW1. That game is just brilliant.

[Anonymous No.1443962]

>>1443936

Good job, dude!

If I may ask, what race did you play? If you're interested in any particular race or color, I can give a few general tips.

[Anonymous No.1443968]

>>1443962
>color
Colour has an influence upon the game? I didn't know this. I just picked red and I went for halflings so I wouldn't have any food issues early game and could concentrate more on building.

[Anonymous No.1443976]

>>1443968

oh, no, the flag color doesn't mean anything. I meant color in terms of what magic you'd be taking. Playing as a chaos mage is way different than a sorcery mage.


Halflings do work well with black. Anyone who can build up to cathedrals, you have to at least consider playing with black, possibly infernal mastery, and tossing a dark rituals. Gives you 30 power a turn once you've got that cathedral. Plus, as I'm sure you saw, black has some really heavy hitting summons, which helps, as the halflings don't really have a late game power unit. The slingers can be good with a lot of enhancements, but they're vulnerable to a dispel area, and anything with a lot of shields.

[Anonymous No.1443984]

>>1443976
I took death magic. Full 11 books of death magic. I'll explore other magic schools next.

[Anonymous No.1444065]

>>1443589
RTS killed the vidya star, anon. all strat gams pretty much became realtime in westeros , except the HOMMs and Civs and in japan.

don't you remember what a big thing C&C and warcraft 2 were???

[Anonymous No.1444143]

>>1444065
Well that's just sad. MOO2 and MOM were pretty much perfect. Add some improved graphics, maybe add some features and you have some incredible games.

[Anonymous No.1444171]

Played the hell out of Master of Magic when it came out.

Also, used to fap to the bare tits of the black sorceress during the spell-casting animation was running.

[Anonymous No.1446178]

>>1444171
I used to fap to the female aliens in Master of Orion 2, Elerians I think they were called. Hot as fuck.

[Anonymous No.1446408]

Warrax is my favorite hero.

Interesting thing about him is that with enough item buffs, his ranged attack can actually hurt creatures with Magic Immunity. Apparently Magic Immunity doesn't grant invincibility to magic ranged attacks, it just grants a huge amount of extra defense points against them, which is halved by Warrax's Armor Piercing.

[Anonymous No.1446641]

>>1446408


It grants 50 shields. You can see the same thing with Aerie if she attacks something with magic but not illusions immunity. I've wiped out whole armies of paladins that way.


And if you pile on enough to hit and pure power bonuses, you can theoretically do it with anyone, although you'll probably have to chip away at a snail's pace at their HP.

[Anonymous No.1447587]

>enemy scout comes out of nowhere and takes a mine
>send all my troops in the general direction he came from
>10 turns later she asks for peace
Well fuck you too.

[Anonymous No.1447667]

>can't get any hype up of AoW III on /v/
Why do they have such shit taste?

[Anonymous No.1447906]

>>1446641


Ok, how exactly does the shields, swords, + to hit thing all work? And I see that like my swrodsmen lose little men when they fight, but what's the significance of that?

[Anonymous No.1448002]

>>1447667
As decent as AoW3 looks I'm a bit annoyed that you get classes for heroes instead of hand picking skills to create the perfect hero for the perfect situation like in the original AoW. Also a lot of content is said to be released as DLC such as undead faction and others. Besides this though I'm looking forward to it.

[Anonymous No.1448048]

In MoO I finally managed to beat the game with the Meklar in hard, truly an accomplishment for me. Especially because I started in a shitty northern area of the galaxy, with the Silicoids to my left and the Psilon to my south and east. But I managed to keep them at war with each other, building colonies on nuked planets whenever I could, researching like mad and terraforming my home planets.

The thing is, I think one of the keys to my success was the Black Hole generator. It's fucking devastating, and I've been thinking, what counter is there to it? Unless you have Repulsor Beams your ships are fucked, and most means of long range attack are meaningless if the black hole ships have large amounts of hit points and auto-repair.

[Anonymous No.1448056]

>>1447667
I fucking LOVE AoW but I can't get "hyped" for 3.
Simplified mechanics, uglier 3D visuals, probably less content with DLC garbage and all that... maybe I'll get a Gold Edition or whatever in a few years.

[Anonymous No.1448095]

Should I feel bad for actually DISLIKING Master of Orion II after playing the first one? Or is this a common kind of feel?

[Anonymous No.1448103]

>>1440951
> Age of Wonders

Loved it back in the day, the combination of RPG/Strategy was neat.

Some Missions of the campaign were also quite hard.

[Anonymous No.1448142]

Do neutral units Raze nodes they capture now?
Happened to me in AoW II: SM and it's pissing me off.

>>1448002
I don't like the classes system either.
Although I disliked the customization aspect as well.
Preferred a big number of predefined sorcerers.

>>1448056
It's looking good enough, considering all the recent PC blunders
>Rome 2
>X: Rebirth
>Thi4f

>simplified mechanics
>less content
Elaborate. I know about the races but what else?

[Anonymous No.1448179]

>>1448095
What? How?
Most people I've talked to regard MOO2 as one of the best strategy games, with some preferring MOO1. Never have I seen people disliking the sequel. Mind giving some reasons?

[Anonymous No.1448260]

>>1448142
I've seen a lot of Rome 2 hate. Its rather baffling considering that the game is better than Rome 1 in every single category.

[Anonymous No.1448331]

>>1448179
>>1448095

It all seems bulkier for some reason.

I prefer the slider system, it remains complex but you can adjust things by glancing at your planets, instead of having to check them and the buildings they have individually. You don't get to have to build buildings, which just bogs down the game.

The interface in the second one is very clunky, you have to keep remembering that usually there is more than one planet in a given system, and so have to rely excessively on the Colonies screen, which feels like playing a spreadsheet game.

The first one has an equally complex but more comfortable espionage system, you don't have to build individual spies, which considering each planet can only build one thing at the same time, prevents you from building ships, colony improvements or defenses.

The focus in the second one is put towards big bulky ships, since you can never build more than one type of ship in the same colony in the same turn, no matter how cheap it is and how much production you have. The first one had a more balanced system in that you can build tons of smaller cheap ships and at the same time dedicate time into building bigger ships that take some more turns to build.

Research is more flexible. In MoO2 you can only research one thing at a time, in the first one you can research techs from all 6 tech trees at the same time, or devote your efforts to a few, or beeline for one in particular. You don't get the same level of choice because it is always randomized, while in the second one, unless you are the Psilons you are pretty much going to pick the same techs time and time again.

The combat is much better though, I have to give it that. There's some other things but that's just what I remember.

[Anonymous No.1448427]

>>1448331
You are right in your points and a lot of smaller features in MOO2 (such as over reliance on the colony screen) do detract from the gameplay, but really when the rest of the game plays so well and looks incredible nearly 20 years later just makes me love the game that much more.
I never really gave much attention to MOO1 aside from a few games here and there. I started with 2 and stayed there.

[Anonymous No.1448460]

>>1448427
>>1448331

Like you, I started with MoO2, because I thought it was another game I used to play when I was a kid, which it wasn't. Then I tried MoO1, and came back to 2 in disgust, seeing it as oversimplified and not as good as the second. But as I came back time and time again I began noticing all those details, and now I just can't come back to 2. Give it a new chance (or a few).

I have to say however that one of the things I miss the most in respect to 2 is the ability to make "motherships", ships which launch smaller fighters or bombers. It's not that well implemented, because usually it's just preferable to have beam weapons or missiles by yourself, but it's a cool as fuck idea and pretty uncommon. The only other example I know are the Protoss Carriers, and Homeworld.

[Anonymous No.1448503]

>>1440951
MoM was shit
terrible AI
extremely limited 'strategy' mechanics
bloated with nonsense
minimal as shit racial interaction
barely functional/existent diplomacy
repetitive spell designs

stupid man's moo

[Anonymous No.1448703]

>>1448503
>Implying Moo didn't have
terrible AI
extremely limited 'strategy' mechanics
bloated with nonsense (all those useless techs)
minimal as shit racial interaction
barely functional/existent diplomacy
repetitive ship designs

At least tactical combat in Master of Magic has depth to it, as opposed to Moo "Shoot first and win" 'tactics.

[Anonymous No.1448716]

>>1448703
>At least tactical combat in Master of Magic has depth to it

Mind providing some examples? I'm not that guy and I love both games but I always thought MOO2 had the better tactical combat. You had weapons, counters, special ship techs which could turn the tide of battle and formation was important in order to minimise damage in case of your own ship perishing. In MOM, the combat felt very simplistic and just always resulted in "wait for your enemy to come close enough so you can attack them first".

[Anonymous No.1448731]

>>1448503
>bloated with nonsense
Like what?
>repetitive spell designs
Oh 'cmon.
It did probably have most of the unique stuff of all the games it inspired.

[Anonymous No.1448859]

>>1448716


Well, first off, combat is slower in Master of Magic, if we define "fast" as number of combat rounds before one side is defeated. Moo combat tends towards slow in the beginning, to fast at the end of the game, because engines bring you into firing range quicker, and offense does seem to rise faster than defense. It's a very rare late game big fleet brawl that isn't over in a round or two. If we're talking Moo2, once you get the heavy plasma cannons and a big targeting computer to run them, do you really need much else? Even the supposedly beam resistant antaran ships with their high speeds, damper fields, and those reflector beams often fall in one round to an equal sized ship maxed out with plasma weapons.


Secondly, Master of Magic has a stack limit. You can never have more than 9 units in a square. Moo, well, you're limited by how many ships you can support, but you're free to leave your whole fleet together.

This tends to mean that you have one BIG battle with your opposing player, and the winner takes all. MoM is more attritional, and when you have more battles, you have more chances to experiment around and play around with the system.
1/2

[Anonymous No.1448861]

>>1448716
>>1448859


This also feeds into factor #3 mana. You have a very limited resource which you can use to sharply affect how battle outcomes go. Seriously, for an experiment, just try saving before a big lair rush, and casting prayer, seeing how it goes, and then do it again sans prayer, see how it goes. It means a lot, and that's just one smallish rare spell. A critically placed dispel evil, or disintigrate, or word of death can turn the tide. And because you don't have one big main fleet clash, and instead you have a bunch of smaller clashes, not all of which are equal importance, you need to ration your mana in order to deploy it most effectively in the combats where it'll be need it. Saving for a psionic blast where the opponent has a hugely shielded hero can mean the difference between victory and defeat in the whole war.


Fourthly, there's a huge rocks-paper-scissors elements in combat. Just take how the figure and shields system works. A Colossus has 10 shields, so it'll block 3 hits on average per figure. This is relatively insiginficant when facing a hard hitting hand to hand guy, like a minotaur, but absolute death on facing something that relies on lots of figures to bring down a foe, like a slinger.

But those same high HP, high attack, low defense minotaurs run into enormous trouble when facing the slingers themselves. Having the right units, and the right spells, at the right time is critical, and fare more flexible than you can be in MOO, where you have to redesign your ships to meet new challenges. Master of Magic goes to the point where you should really be considering your spells in tandem with your units right at the start of the game, if you really want to maximize effectiveness, and what's more, you can often go in two completely opposite directions with the same race.

2/3

[Anonymous No.1448867]

>>1448861
>>1448859
>>1448716
3/?


For example, my two favorite setups with the Halflings are either 8 black, infernal mastery, conjuror; where I use the hobbits to build cathedrals, cast dark rituals, get 30 mana a town, and have them support a never ending tide of summons.

I've also had a lot of success with some mix of white/red (usually tending more towards white) and warlord, where I spam buffs, crank out slingers, hopefully cast altar of battle, and in the end turn my hordes of ultra-elite lionhearted eldritch bladed holy armored death machines on my foes.


Both work. Both work quite well. Moo2 especially, I tended to research the same things in the same order almost every game, no matter what the circumstances were, no matter what I picked for my race, and no matter what the galaxy settings were. I still won on impossible quite a bit, although I never got to the point where I was challenging other people.


IMO anyway, MoM is the game with a lot more depth to it.

[Anonymous No.1448878]

>>1448867
>>1448861
>>1448859
Some great points here which I failed to consider. Seems like both games have their merit. I really wish more games nowadays would take all these factors into consideration.

Though really I've only been playing MOM for a few weeks now having missed it entirely as a kid. Great game and I'm finding new depth every time I play.

[Anonymous No.1450753]

>>1448056
>tfw it looks like a downgrade in every aspect of AoW aside from the graphics.
At least I still have the originals, they're god tier.
Graphics still look gorgeous too

[Anonymous No.1451574]

What's the best 4x game to start with for someone with no experience in strategy games?

[Anonymous No.1451658]

>>1451574
civ series would be the most accessible and modern of any 4x
MoO2/MoM are pretty accessible and retro
really all of the retro 4x are pretty accessible actually
They only begin to get irritatingly complex when you start dealing with attempts at real-world replication in the EU series and such
or I guess dwarves. dwarves are a bitch too

[Anonymous No.1451754]

>>1447906

By default a unit has a 30% chance to hit. A "+1 to hit" special bonus is actually +10 percentage points, so a unit with "+2 to hit" has a 50% chance to hit.

This hit chance is the chance that that each point of attack (sword icon) will actually deal damage to the target. A unit with 10 attack and no bonus to hit will, on average, deal 3 damage per attack (10 times 30% chance to hit).

Once the amount of damage has been determined, the game next rolls to see if any of that damage is blocked by the defender's armor. Each shield icon has a 30% chance to block one point of damage. A unit with 10 armor points will, on average, ignore 3 points of damage from every attack it takes.

>And I see that like my swrodsmen lose little men when they fight, but what's the significance of that?

Most units come in squads of two or more figures. A unit of War Bears has two figures, most races' Swordsmen have six figures, etc. Each figure attacks separately, so if your Swordsmen squad is at full strength, it will make six separate attacks at once. The defender gets to roll his armor against each individual attack, so in most cases it's better to have one strength-10 attack than two strength-5 attacks. The flip side is that any spell that increases damage (like Flame Blade or Giant Strength), increases damage for the ENTIRE squad, so the more figures in a squad, the more effective an offensive buff is.

A squad takes damage one figure at a time. So if a unit with 2 hearts takes 2 points of damage, one figure will die. This means the squad will have one less attack, so as squads take more damage they become less powerful. However, as long as one figure in the squad is still alive, the others can be revived using Healing magic or resting in towns.

[Anonymous No.1451982]

>>1451574
start with either Master of Magic or Master of Orion. imo Master of Orion 2 is the best one but some people would disagree.

There's also Age of Wonders and Age of Wonders Shadow Magic which are very good. Both games are worth playing.

For a less fantastical setting play Civ 2 or Alpha Centauri

[Anonymous No.1454861]

We all know about MoM, MOO2, AoW, AoW:SM, Civ, SMAC but what other lesser known 4x games are there?
Stuff like Emperor of the Fading Suns which is a feudal space 4x taking place across both space and land

[Anonymous No.1455105]

>>1454861
>Emperor of the Fading Suns
but the question is
is it not shit

[Anonymous No.1455153]

>>1455105
It was an interesting concept that wasn't executed too well. I just gave it as an example of a lesser known 4x game. I'm looking for some good ones

[Anonymous No.1455240]

>>1454861
I don't know if it's exactly a 4x but the original Sid Meier's Colonization was pretty cool. And I don't thing it was that well known.

The remake did improve things to such a point that it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to come back to the original though.

[Anonymous No.1455409]

Alright, what's everyone's favourite race from AoW?

Frostling masterrace here