Welcome to the Home of Game Strategies and Stories
21 Sept 06
Sorry, a stomach bug knocked me out there for a while. I hope to be back to normal shortly. Maybe you guys can post something in the forum to keep each other entertained while I recover. I won't make the nigh obligatory comment about toddlers, but you know I'm thinking it.
Jason
19 Sept 06
My poor dwarves. I know it will probably pain Bill, but I had to revert to an earlier save. Yes, technically, the game doesn't allow that, but you can copy the file when you quit. I did that after my first stop since I was told the game would occasionally corrupt save files.
Why did I revert? Well, the problems weren't with my planning. It was me learning and fighting with the interface. I ended up with too much dead time. By the time my farm was up, flooded, drained, and plowed, everyone was starving. I couldn't get planting done because the food had run out. Everyone was off hunting vermin to eat.
I thought I could get back on track by trading some of my crafts for food from the caravan. Well, I didn't understand everything there. You can't load up the trade depot until the caravan is near. Then everything you want to trade has to be transported to the depot. Then you can commence trading. I couldn't get anyone to bring items. They were still hunting rats. Except for the one guy I could get to fish. That was a problem too since I didn't know to build a fish cleaning area. All the fish I caught went to waste instead of into stores. Oops.
Then everyone started dying. That left the survivors shattered and unable to do anything. So I reverted.
This time I focused on getting to the river and starting my farms. That created some other problems including space issues, but they were much smaller. Except for the miner, we started communal farming then. With unskilled labor, it was very slow going, but we eventually got all our initial seeds planted. That's when I found out the amount of seeds I had planted much less than I thought.
For the record, I didn't get any fertilizing done. I was going so slow, I couldn't wait for the double time of fertilizing and planting. Besides my carpenter was planting, and I ran out of barrels (or is it buckets) to hold lye. I think it's buckets. Regardless, we couldn't continue making fertilizer. So the no fertilizer plan went ahead. We got about one and a half crops of plump helmets grown before winter.
That combined with our now effective fishing resulted in reasonable food stores. No one was starving when the caravan came. This time the trade depot was stocked. They took most of our pretty trinkets, and we took all of their meat. Hopefully that will bolster our supplies through winter.
I had thought that we only received two migrants in fall. One was the metalsmith. But no, nine more showed up right after the caravan. That's a lot more labor, but it's also a lot more mouths to feed. I know we can't fish outside, but I believe that we can still fish the underground river. I created a separate entrance to the river. That should allow easy access. We can do a little hunting. We'll see how it goes. Needless to say, this time things are looking better.
Jason
Read/Post Comments
18 Sept 06
How has it gotten this late in the year already? It's just amazing how much gaming is coming down the pike. I just struck one game off the list. It turns out the next generation debut of the Kingdom Under Fire series will not be a strategy game. It's going to be an action RPG. I'm guessing it will be more heavily into the RPG elements than 99 Nights. That does little to interest me in the game.
I posted it in the forum, but I wanted to make sure everyone knows that Defcon preorders are available now. You can get it on Steam for $9.95. Or you can order direct from Introversion. That way you get a box, disk and a manual. They'll also give you a download key to start playing right away. However, you'll pay more for all of that ($17.50). IGN UK has posted their review, an 8.8. Defcon is projected to launch 29 Sept (1800z).
I thought a quick update from Gamerankings was in order. Joint Task Force is hovering around 80 percent. That would be decent most times, but Company of Heroes is over 95 percent. That's in must have territory. The only remaining question is do you have the rig to run it?
I'm beginning to wonder how many scripts are out there trying to post comment spam. We keep getting new members, but they're not real. It's not exactly the way I envisioned growing the site. Reports are the new point update for Postnuke will relieve the problem. It's expected before the end of the year.
My dwarves are suffering under incompetent leadership. I don't seem to be doing much right. I'm chugging along at the basics and no one has died yet, but my farm isn't up yet. I just read Bill's post recommending fertilizer. That's a bunch more steps. I'm not sure what trade goods I'm going to have. My attempt at a bridge and a road are looking like a joke. At least I'm getting the basics down, so the next group won't suffer as much. We'll make a run at getting at least one good crop out and some crafts made before winter. Otherwise it might be a cold, dark mountain.
Jason
Read/Post Comments
15 Sept 06
I got about half the work done on the 4X Made Easy draft. I guess I'll finish next week.
So what have I been doing? Well, today, I thought I'd check out Dwarf Fortress. I figured I'd let it generate a world in the background. Then I'd see if I could get things started.
I forgot about the huge learning curve. Even with Bill's posts and the wiki, it took me a while to figure out how to start. I thought I was lucky and found a good world on try six. But no, it rejected it when trying to populate the wildlife. It did that several more times. I believe it was about attempt 120 when we got a good one.
There are a huge number of ways to set up your initial party. I'm sure you could start a few dozen times tweaking the initial skills and load out based on what you learned from starting the previous location. I went with the power skills solution with each party member having a primary job and minimal other skills.
I tried to follow the advice from the wiki to buy many different types of meat and plants. That way you get more barrels and more wagons. Those give you more wood and mules and horses. I must have spent too much on skills since I ended up with only one wagon.
I'm not going to write up too much from this start. I'm learning everything as I go so it's quite possible that the colony will die a horrible death through my ignorance. I'd like to have a reasonable go at it before trying to write up a whole adventure. However if any interesting things happen along the way, I'll let you know about them.
I do worry a bit about the game. Despite all its promise (and intriguing gameplay), it's got a couple of huge entry barriers. It's easy to be overwhelmed or overlook something. There aren't graphics; it's ascii. Almost nothing is simple. The menus are a maze. Finding information can be a chore.
All that will scare a lot of people away. That's too bad. It's fascinating just to watch even when things go wrong. The world feels organic which is saying something since it's made of little letters, numbers and obscure symbols.
It was kind of neat feeling the sense of frustration as my miner left a half finished room because he felt like working on the corridor right then. Of course, I could have only designated one room at a time, but that would require huge amounts of babysitting. Everything has consequences. It's a great way to design a game, but it will scare off the masses.
Jason
Read/Post Comments
14 Sept 06
I was wading through all the new Wii information today. In fact I learned that that is the correct usage. It's just Wii, not Nintendo Wii. See how I suffer for you. I know, most of you don't care. I think it's important since Nintendo is trying to change the landscape of the gaming marketplace.
For Xbox 360 users out there, the Wii doesn't have blades, it has channels. As you might expect, there's a shopping channel for those virtual console games everyone is excited about. They also have weather and news channels that are separate from the internet channel (using Opera by the way). It's internet connection is always on even when off.
There were a couple of interesting tidbits. The Wii does support component connections. Some had worried about that after they dropped component support for the GameCube. The Wii does have built in WiFi. Or you can use a USB lan adapter to connect an ethernet cable. There are connections for GameCube controllers and memory cards. They is a connector for a SD memory card to expand the 512 MB of internal flash memory (in lieu of a hard drive).
Perhaps the most interesting thing is that the Wii is shipping first in North America. For a very Japanese company, that is odd. I'm sure they have the marketing numbers to back it up. The $250 price tag is about what was expected, but Nintendo announced the return of the pack in game. The Wii will ship with Wii Sports. That includes version of golf, bowling, baseball, tennis and boxing. While they might only be fun diversions for hardcore gamers, they're the perfect example games to show and interest the casual gamer that Nintendo is going after. Clever that.
They're promising 30 Wii games and 30 virtual console (classic) games available by the end of the year. The one that has me interested is Battalion Wars 2. If they fixed a few of the flaws from the original and added multiplayer, it could be an instant classic. Reports are that online gaming won't launch until 2007. That might affect the release.
If I didn't scare you all off with the console stuff, you might want to know that the Heroes of Annihilated Empires demo is out. You may recall that's the combination RTS/RPG from GSC Gameworld. It's a sword and sorcery epic with massive armies. It showed some initial promise and is probably worth checking out. It can be found at the Usual Suspects.
Jason
Read/Post Comments
13 Sept 06
Man, did I say Joe at Groovgames.com? I must be getting old. Joemama is Eric at Groovalicious. I'm pretty sure about that. Yeah, Paul is Coz. Anyway, sorry Eric.
I wouldn't mind seeing some impressions (or even stories) in the forums of Joint Task Force and Company of Heroes. I'm not holding my breath, but it would be nice to see. No pressure.
Speaking of release, Atlus has just release Rule of Rose for the PS2. It's a survival horror game revolving around some creepy kids. It seems to use some disturbing imagery to enhance the creepiness. I'm not too interested in the game, but some people are worried that the use of children might bring more Jack Thompson type heat.
That might be true, but the game that really worries me is Persona 3 also for the PS2. Atlus is bringing that Stateside as well. Based on the movies and previews, one of the key mechanics of that RPG involves simulated suicide to unlock power/magic/whatever. It's got secret societies, occult trappings, violence, and death imagery. Arguably many other RPG's have had those as well. I think this suicide mechanic could push Persona over the edge if it gets into the wrong hands. Did I mention it's set in a school?
I don't want to project too much of my own views on you. I'd suggest you go to your favorite console covering website and look up the game. Look at some of the videos. Then please let me know if it's my imagination or if you think the game should be modified for US release. Personally, I think Atlus should change the game. It might be too integrated to remove, but perhaps a fancy light show could cover up the animation.
Having lost a friend to suicide, I'm not unbiased. Please check it out and let me know if I'm overreacting. As always, your feedback is appreciated.
Jason
Read/Post Comments
© Talk Strategy 2004-2006