My gaming moods lately

 Lately I've had a ton of different games going ... more so than normal .... but I've found my gaming mood all over the place lately. Partially because I've been stressed and my work schedule has been unsettled. Normally I don't have a trouble working nights, and I don't this job would really have been any different except for timing and other life issues. Traditionally it would take me about 2 weeks to fully get into a the over night schedule, but this job started and right as the 2nd week was ending Daylight Savings smashed me with a baseball bat .... I'm not going to rant about DST here, I think I've rambled about it before over on Path of Bones in any case ... needless to say IMO it is a dinosaur that needs to die and be turned into fossil fuel. One wouldn't think that something like that would through such a wrench into things, but disrupting a schedule just as it's getting into routine just messes with the head a lot more than you would expect. On top of that, I also had looming jury duty ... meaning I'd potentially need to, for a day or a week possibly more, completely swap myself back to a 'normal' day schedule ... again just as I was getting settled. 

Jury duty was canceled (no jury trials for the week that I had been tapped for so they told us not to report the Sunday before) ... but in anticipation of the possibility I had partially swapped my schedule so that the Monday wouldn't have been so drastic, but then other things came up Monday morning and ... I'll just say kidney stones suck.

What does any of this have to do with games? Directly, nothing, but where I was going was that I've had a lot of different styles of games that I've been juggling, and while they're all things I traditionally like, I'm not usually this scattered. Warframe, one of my go to long time games (Free to play and if you haven't tried it, I recommend it without any reservation ... hands down the best Free-to-Play model I've ever encountered, constantly evolving and adding new content and a dev and community team that I consider one of the best in the business.) It is, however, very fast paced and can be intense, so when I'm tired or stressed I can find it over whelming. So I've been playing other things depending on my mood. 

No Man's Sky is another long time favorite of mine and I've been putting in a good bit of time in it lately. A much slower pace than Warframe, and centers a lot more on exploration and discovery. It had a bit of a rough launch back in 2016 when it launched because a lot of people listened more to Sony marketing and/or heard some of the developers 'We want to' as 'We're going to' because they wanted the feature. Many of those did eventually make it into the game and, much like Warframe they have continued to grow, improve, and add to the game even though it's now nearly 10 years old. 

If you're not familiar with the game it is a sandbox Sci-Fi exploration game ... you wake up, find a ship, and begin to explore the galaxy ... no seriously I mean the galaxy:

Each of those dots is a star you can warp to and that is just a small section of the spiral galaxy in the upper left. I don't remember how many systems there are but I highly doubt anyone could possibly explore them all in a lifetime ... and ... if you make it to the center of the galaxy you can go to a new galaxy. Space flight, planetary travel ... on foot and vehicles ... space and atmospheric combat ... base building ... and story and lore to find along the way. Oh and fishing and underwater exploration as well ... with an aesthetic based off of the pulp sci-fi book covers of the 60s and 70s it has a charm that no other game like it has matched (imo). [Elite Dangerous matches the scope over all but is a more realistic sim focused on space exploration with minimal planetary interest, and you can't land on all of the planets.]

On the flip side ... you have Monster Hunter. I've mainly been playing Monster Hunter: Rise on the Nintendo Switch, but I also play Monster Hunter: World (and the Iceborn expansion) on PC. If you're not familiar with the franchise, you are a hunter tasked with going out and hunting down and slaying (or capturing) massive monsters resembling, dragons, dinosaurs, thunderbirds, oversized snowbunnies, and ... you get the point. 

  

 

(Top - Monster Hunter: Rise (promotional screenshot), Bottom - Monster Hunter: World (from a recent hunt of mine))

The monsters are no push overs and can be very challenging to virtually impossible solo (unless you're very over geared for the fight), but the game is usually intended to be played in a group (something I rarely manage to do) and in world you can fire SOS flares to have other hunters join your hunt to help out. As there's no PvP and you all get your own rewards usually the worst thing that happens is you get a really high level player that over powers the hunt making you feel a little useless. 

I've heard Monster Hunter described as a Souls like for people that don't hate themselves. And in some ways that is accurate. Monster Hunter has very limited invulnerability states like a lot of games do while dodging or animating (often referred to as I-Frames) which is to say that if you're dodging and the attack hits ... you get hit. Likewise the 'hit boxes' of both you and the monsters are very tight to the mesh so to hit (or get hit) you have to hit. Everything goes both ways of course and I have rolled right under a bite, or the animation of my attack missed but because my character was bent over the monsters tail lashed right over my head in a sweeping attack that would have knocked me sprawling. As such, much like the Souls games, it does come down to learning the 'tells' of the monsters and anticipating their attacks, and a well timed weapon blow can interrupt them, just as them hitting you while you're winding up will interrupt your attack.

Monster Hunter: Wilds just released recently and I'd love to be working my way through that, but I have enough games and I don't need to be buying new games. Besides, if I did by a new release at the moment it would likely be Space Marine II before anything else.

 How does this come up when I'm looking to relax? Well, the fact is that while I often get frustrated, the feeling of a successful hunt is a large part of it, but even if combat can be very hectic it rewards precision and patience more than button spamming. The over all pace is methodical and a well done hunt does to some degree feel like a dance, as well as a triumph of the small hunter over the massive monster. Which sometimes I think is a good thing to be reminded of.

Then ... Then there's Ale and Tale Tavern. A cozy tavern keeper game that my wife and I have recently become slightly addicted to. You play as the new owner of a run down tavern in the middle of the woods and you need to get it cleaned up, and open it back up. Serving customers, growing crops (to serve to customers), hunting boar (to serve to customers) and doing quests (to unlock new recipes, abilities, or aspects of the tavern ... or just acting as a fantasy uber eats delivery person to make some extra coin.)

So here we're frantically trying to cook and serve food to customers to keep our ratings up and using the time when we're closed to add tables so we can serve more customers. Now we do have helpers, these little owl people that we've hired to clean and help wait tables. The game recently added the Inn upstairs allowing you to put in beds and rent rooms once you unlock them, meaning you get to add changing and washing sheets to the list of cooking, cleaning, doing dishes, and farming. Still it is incredibly cute, and a lot of chaotic fun .... particularly when you get to the point that you have special visitors that think they have the right to order things that aren't on the menu.....

I've got a lot of games to talk about if I'm being honest. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (An excellent CRPG set in the 40k universe), Civilization VII, Aloft, Satisfactory, Return to Moria, a more in depth look at the games here ... and more ... all I need is the time and energy to write about them.

Time

 I mentioned in the last blog that I don't have the time to game that I used to. It's honestly why I stopped streaming. I'm writing a novel, my wife and I opened our own business, and while I enjoyed streaming a lot I was never going to put the effort in to be serious about it. I enjoyed streaming, playing games and chatting with those folks that came by to see what I was up to, friends wondering what I was up to, new people wondering about the game or just interested in talking. It was fun and, as I live ... shall we say 'off the beaten path' it gave me a bit of socialization that I missed ... the hanging out with friends and playing a game.

 I mean when I was younger, a lot of the games my friends and I liked weren't necessarily multiplayer games ... story driven RPGs, Flight Sims, or a lot of the ones that were were turn based strategy games, but we'd hang out, play, joke, and laugh watching each other, congratulating the player on a great move, or laughing at an epic failure. It was fun, but I never wanted to be a 'big' streamer, a few regulars to laugh and joke with was about it. And with so many pulls on my time, I just had to come to terms with the fact that, unless I won the lottery, spending time on something like that ... something I had no intention of really putting the work in for or really any desire to improve ... wasn't really the best use of my limited time. I still game, mostly with my wife and we have a ton of fun, but there's still something missing.

I'd love to get back to role playing ... but who has the time? Again ... I live at least an hour away from literally anyone I know ... Most of the people other than my wife that I consider friends are in different states if not countries. We could use online systems ... I've used Roll 20 in the past and it's a good system, but still, getting a time that works for a group isn't easy... especially when I am usually working nights.

Monday thru Friday forget it, even if I wasn't tied up with working, sleeping, commuting, or my writing it's not like anyone else would have time to do anything ... not counting that working nights means I would be AT work when most people would have free time in the evening. 

Saturday? Working nights means I often don't get home until early Saturday morning, so half of it is spent asleep, then when I get up I have all of the stuff around the house that I didn't have time for during the week as well as keeping up with business stuff (photos, listings, . I get a little time to chill with the wife in the evening before she passes out having become a *shudders* morning person.

Sunday? I mean technically this IS my free day, mainly that means playing games with the wife and painting, and trying not to think of the mountain of things that still need to be done. Sure, I could arrange time to do things on a Sunday afternoon once in a while, but unless my wife is going to join me, I'd be giving up my limited time with her to do it ... and again ... unless it's online travel time is not to be forgotten, going down to ATL to play games with friends (which I do occasionally if I can get schedules to line up) is a 2 hour round trip, I'm not just going to go down there for a 1 hour gaming session, it's going to be for an afternoon. Likewise I'm not going to ask my friends to come out to me, unless I can dedicate an afternoon of games to make it worth the cost of gas.

Wow ... this got way more depressing than I intended. But it does illustrate why I gave up streaming, just not enough hours in the day, enough days in the week. I enjoy a lot of what I do ... my job, painting, the company my wife and I have started and my writing, but that doesn't mean that I don't miss other things too. I'll keep gaming on Saturday evening and Sunday ... I'll keep plugging away at my book ... and painting my little plastic soldiers .... wishing I had more time to do all of it .... and more time to do other things too.

Dusty here....

Pretty much as dusty as it was over on the Path of Bones .... Which is a shame really. I could have done a lot with this in the 2018 to 2022 span while I was actually streaming. Played a lot of games in that time, had a lot of fun. These days I don't have the gaming time that I used to. Don't get me wrong ... I have soooo many games I WANT to play, but my gaming time is generally limited to Sundays and that's also my model painting time (oh yeah ... btw ... I picked an old hobby back up and I paint miniatures. I also opened up a business with my wife selling those miniatures as well ... so that's most of my time.) 

And as if to emphasize this I've been working on this post for 3 days now (I'm not counting Saturday and Sunday as I didn't write any of it then.... so five calendar days, 3 days of work) Work is getting crazy and to make matters worse I have jury duty coming up in a little less than 2 weeks. But none of that has to do with gaming ... more my lack there of. I did get some in on the weekend, playing some Warframe (which I've posted about before) some No Man's Sky (Great exploration game that fought it's way back from a rough start that was mainly the result of people getting over hyped about things that weren't promised) and some Eternal Strands story driven exploration and monster fighting game. I've also dabbled in Avowed CRPG set in the Pillars of Eternity universe which I've been enjoying. If I can whittle out some time I'll likely do write ups on all of those, and there are several others that I'd like to be playing ... Space Marine II, Monster Hunter Wilds to name at least 2 ... but I can't justify paying the price when I don't have time to play the new games that I have (Civilization VI) or old games that I haven't finished (Rogue Trader, Satisfactory, Return to Moria) .... The fact of the matter is ... It's a great time to be a gamer ... and a lousy time to be a responsible adult. 

 Something else I'll likely be doing some here, is talking about model painting and some of that, maybe if I can get my arch-nemesis to dust off his models I'll even write up a blog on a game of Kill Team .... Narrative style.

ARK vs Conan / Entertainment vs Engagement

As I mentioned in my last ramble I've been playing Conan Exiles lately and over the weekend I was looking at it trying to find why I seemed to be more captured by Conan than I had been by ARK. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing ARK, but there is something in Conan that I didn't have with ARK.

To be fair I must say that ARK is still in early access as well, and that I haven't played the game in the last several months so it is possible that changes have been made that I'm unaware of. 

Both games are sandbox survival games, which is to say most of what you get out of the game is dependent upon what you bring into it. So they don't have a story that you follow as you would with more traditional style games. ARK is rumored to be heading toward having an end goal that you are supposed to be working toward (building a ship and leaving the ARK in the case of ARK) while others of the genre are really about just living in the world. In either case, however, there is no definitive story.

Both games you create a character and are thrown into a hostile world naked and alone and you have to gather the resources that you need to survive. Both games use pretty similar mechanics for these systems (likely in part due to using the same engine and I'm sure that ARK influenced Conan's development significantly as well). Combat, building, and general survival concepts are all very similar between the two games. So why do I find Conan so much more interesting?

I suspect that there is several reasons behind it, but first and foremost it comes to engagement. I find myself more engaged with Conan than I really did with ARK. Why? Background. Conan has it, ARK doesn't. In both games you customize the appearance of your character in the game and name them. In Conan, however, you make a few additional choices - mainly Race and Religion. Race (or Culture really) is a purely superficial choice it has no bearing in the game beyond perhaps limiting certain cosmetic features during character creation. What it does add to the game, however, is background. It gives you a culture that your character came from. Religion, does have a little more impact in the game, namely how you interact with the religion system in game. Again, however, it allows you to get some background information as it would apply to the world and your character's place in it.

Finally, when you name your character in Conan you are also presented with a list of 'crimes' that you have been exiled for. There are other indications that point to the fact that these crimes may or may not have been real, but you have a reason for being in the wilderness where you start. ARK has nothing of this. You make and name your character and you appear in a world that you know nothing about, no idea how or why you're there .... just that you are.

Now in ARK you CAN create a full story around yourself and the reason for the situation that you are in, but generally when people are playing a game they are looking to relax, mentally creating something like that from scratch is not the type of thing that they are looking for. The world of ARK exists, but it is a completely blank slate there is no history, no character background, there really isn't anything to tell you that there could potentially be an end game.

I enjoy ARK, it does have an appeal to it. Taming Pseudo Dinos to help you work and protect you as you journey through the ARK looking for resources. Conan doesn't really have anything like that at the moment, but the world and lore that exists in the game provides a framework to help the player engage that ARK is lacking.

The Dinos of ARK, however, do present another issue. No it's not that I can't immerse myself because there's Dinos around ... I enjoy that aspect. However, once you reach the point that you have Dino mounts, and particularly flying mounts, the world shrinks significantly. I don't know how the map between Conan and ARK actually compares size wise, but Conan's world feels bigger, for the most part because you're traveling on foot. You can't fly up to the top of that cliff to see what's up there .... you have to explore and find the path up, and deal with any dangers on the way. Yes, in ARK you can forgo the Dino mounts and make yourself travel on foot, even not bring Dino escorts to help protect you and deal with issues, but that is basically forgoing a major feature of the game just to make the world feel bigger.

The world of Conan also feels a bit more alive and real with camps of tribes and other people around. In ARK only other players fill this role, if you're playing single player you are the lone human in the ARK (which really doesn't make a lot of sense even within what little framework they have for the game). Where as in Conan while you may be the only player, there actually are other people scattered around (though admittedly most will be trying to kill you if they see you, but there are some lore NPCs in the game).

You can say that the point of ARK is multi-player and I'll agree with that to a large degree, but the same IS true of Conan too. The truth is that either - you are playing on a PvP server (most of which are little more than deathmatch arenas with no hope of story or any real engagement) or you're on a PvE server that basically boils down to you and your friends are the only humans on the ARK (at least this is a little more believable). [Note - I'm not saying that everyone on a PvE server are your friends or are even in the same tribe as you, but since there are no humans on the ARK that are ever a threat to you, you may as well be.]

In short, what it really boils down to is ... Conan is more like a world while ARK is more like a game. ARK (again when last I played it) is entertaining and fun, it is challenging, and rewarding when you tame a new Dino or finish building a new base, but it isn't engaging, it never really feels like a world. Lore and backstory can be added, and I hope that the devs and mod community will create lore and backstory for the characters and worlds and make the game more engaging, but in my experience that aspect is what is currently pushing Conan Exiles ahead, at least for me.

Multi-Game Madness

Okay ... I've been bouncing around the Game-o-sphere again (still really ... lets face it, even when I'm playing primarily one game, I'm usually dabbling in 2 or 3 others). So I figured I'd drop some quick thoughts on what I've been playing lately.

Conan Exiles (https://conanexiles.com/)

Early Access game from FunCom (The makers of MMO games Age of Conan, Anarchy Online, and The Secret World) as well as some single player games, most notably The Longest Journey series and more recently The Park a single player adventure in The Secret World setting. Conan Exiles takes the Conan License into the Sandbox Survival genre allowing players to play Multi-player on Officially hosted persistent servers, Single player, or host their own persistent servers where they can set the rules. Originally I had very little interest in the game when I heard that they were working on the title as I was expecting a PvP gank-fest online game designed primarily around the idea of e-sports, and I was pleasantly surprised to see the single player and Co-Op options being presented with the title.

(Aside - For the record I have nothing against games being designed around e-sports or being PvP focused. I find, however, that while I may enjoy these games on occasion I rarely have the time/desire to sink the kind of time into them that it takes to be truly competitive so I don't tend to have much interest in them. Games like Mechwarrior Online that I can jump into and play a few matches occasionally in a setting / genre that I like can be fun, but aren't going to be a primary makeup of my gaming and as a result I'm not likely to pick them up unless I can get into them without spending cash.)

Conan Exiles has just launched into Early Access so I'm not going to be too critical here as a lot can change over the course of late development. I am also looking at this from the point of view of a PvE player.

Graphically the game is definitely beautiful:

And all things considered it's pretty solid. There are the usual balance issues (particularly between ranged and melee combat) but that's something that can easily be tweaked and adjusted through the early access part of development. Presently the skill progression is very inter-dependent and with the lack of skill points you aren't going to have a lot of 'wiggle room' in your chosen crafting skills. While this won't likely be as much of a problem on large high population servers where people can reasonably specialize and get what they can't make from other players, players like myself that prefer a smaller more intimate server may find themselves unable to do the higher end crafting because they've had to spread out their skill points too much,

There is a lot of potential in this game and there is the opportunity here to make a game that really takes the best of this genre and shines, but at the same time it is facing an uphill climb. This is a well established genre at this point. Games like Minecraft, Rust, Day-Z, and the like have all built this genre over the last several years and recent games like ARK: Survival Evolved have been expanding it into different settings so you have the dual edged sword of trying to make yourself stand out as a late comer to the genre, but at the same time constrained by the expectations of people that play the genre regularly ... you have to be different, but not TOO different.

In the end, it's a fun game and my friends and I are enjoying our private server Co-Op experience. I'll definitely get my $30 worth of entertainment out of the game. In it's current state the game is stable and fun, if difficult at times. It is, however, very much a game that needs multiplayer to really reach its full potential, or a much more robust NPC / RPG element for the single player experience. If you have several friends that like a Low-Fantasy setting I would say to keep an eye on this one for release. If you are willing to brave the issues of an incomplete game and the risk of burning out before the game even releases then the current Early Access game is solid.

Warframe (https://warframe.com/)

Free to play 3rd person action Co-Op shooter. This game is primarily a PvE 3rd person shooter with some PvP arena match games available. Game has a solid F2P model that encourages but doesn't require the player to spend real money on the game. That is to say that almost anything in game can be earned in game if the player wants to put in the time to earn what they need in game. The game can certainly become a major grind if you want to focus on it in that way, but if played as a game to just jump in and have some fun (particularly with a group of friends) and realize that the other 'stuff' in the game will take time to get to, then you can play it and have a lot of fun completely for free.

All Guild (Clan) goals are also achievable to even a small Guild (Clan), and in fact larger Guilds actually have to gather more in terms of resources to complete the same goals. The game is solidly designed around co-op game play with teams of 1-4 players doing missions. The matchmaking system makes finding a random team fast, or players can invite friends or clan-mates to squad up before starting missions ... more people on the team means a slight increase in difficulty and an increased rate of drops as well as better chances at rarer drops.

The game is a ton of fun, the movement and fluidity of the controls is pretty well done (It has it's issues here and there, but that's any game ever made as far as I'm concerned), and the combat is face paced and down right exhilarating at times. For myself, I find it's a lot more fun in a regular group of friends that play together and work as a team. PUGs (Random pick up groups) tend to focus on speed runs and that is (imo) what turns the game into a grind for most people. Keep it casual, keep it fun, but keep in mind that things will take time to get done.

Mordheim: City of the Damned (http://www.mordheim-cityofthedamned.com/)

Okay, I'm a bit biased here as I love the Games Workshop Warhammer (and Warhammer 40k) universe and I love turn based games. The game, based on the table-top mini game of the same name, is a dark fantasy setting in which you take control of a warband scouring the ruined city of Mordheim for fame and fortune. The game has a significant learning curve and the tutorial is largely unhelpful (It is a great lesson, however, in how NOT to design a tutorial series.). A lot of people complain about the Random in the game, but to be honest (they show the rolls in the combat log) it really isn't stacked against the player specifically and I've seen the type of things that people complain about happen during a game rolling dice.

That said, the rules of Mordheim are harsh (also because the tutorial sucks, they are somewhat mysterious) and the game will punish a tactical mistake without pity. The biggest advantage I've seen the AI have in the game, however, is knowledge of the map. They know where they can pass through where a player may waste a turn going into a building that's a dead end only to have to go back out the way they went in and go around. The story line missions are particularly brutal, unforgiving, and totally unfair, so that I think is probably where a lot of the complaints about the game come from.

All in all it is a very solid turn based squad tactical game in a dark fantasy setting. The different warbands (Mercinary, Sisters of Sigmar, Skaven, and Chaos in the base game Witch Hunters and Undead via DLC) have their own feel, strengths and weaknesses, and flow (along with their own story line, but see the above comment about the story line missions). The game allows a good degree of customization (Items, Weapons, Armor and look, as well as names and the like for each member of the warband.) allowing you to make a warband that reflects you ... and then watch in horror as they slowly die. Seriously though, I very much have enjoyed this and I am really stoked that the developer and publisher recently announced that they are working on a Necromunda title (similar table-top game set in Games Workshop's 40k setting) for me to look forward to.

Total Warhammer

Okay, the game is actually Total War: Warhammer, but I'm just going to call it Total Warhammer because it's easier and I'm lazy. Now, to be clear I am a fan of both the Total War series, and Games Workshop's Warhammer (both their Fantasy and 40k lineups as well as several of their other games). So I am coming at this with reasonably high expectations.

For the TL;DR people here's the summery up front: It's a decent strategy game with some wonderful visuals and neat mechanics. If you're a pure Total War fan I'd potentially suggest giving it a pass, or waiting to get it on sale or bundled with some of the DLC. If you're a pure Games Workshop / Warhammer fan this is a must buy. Some of the mechanics may take a little getting used to, but by far this is the closest to the table top experience I've seen in a computer game. It is solid, stable, and performs well on my 3 year old gaming laptop.

Basic Gameplay

Now for the nuts and bolts. In the Total Warhammer campaign you take command of one of 4 starting factions (Dwarves, Orks, Empire, Vampire Counts) ... I'll get to DLC in a bit ... and go through a series of objectives to try and achieve victory (as described by your faction at least). The game takes place in 2 modes ... the campaign map, a turn based mode in which you manage your resources, raise armies, recruit units for your armies, position your heroes to aid your plans or hinder your opponents and maneuver your armies to get them where you need them.

Each army is led by a Lord, a powerful individual that gains levels and skill that will aid them, bolster the units under them, or help with the larger campaign. Heroes may also be embedded into an army to bring their substantial power to bear on a battle directly as well, or they can remain independent and operate on the campaign map avoiding direct battle but using their skills in other ways to aid their faction.

Unlike in many of the other Total War games, here the factions are very different with different mechanics that make them each feel unique. This is part of where the game is really well done. Orks feel very much like Orks. They have a Waaagh meter that if the commanding Lord of the army doesn't keep 'iz boyz in good fights (that is fights that they are winning) his units will start to suffer attrition because the orks get bored and start deserting, or fighting among themselves. Dwarves have their Book of Grudges where the longer a grudge stays on the books the more unrest it causes in your settlements.

Settlements, unrest, income, taxes, all of this needs to be managed and each of the factions goes about that in a slightly different way. Also certain factions can only settle in certain locations, Vampire counts, for example, can't take over a Dwarven keep, but the can take over an Imperial settlement. While that may seem to set the game up into a pair of rivalries (Vampire Counts v Empire, Orks v Dwarves) it's not quite that simple. Just because you can't settle it doesn't mean you can't raid it or raze it.

 And that brings us to combat. Because invariably your armies are going to meet the armies of one of the other factions on the field of battle at some point. Combat takes place in a pause-able real time fight with both sides issuing orders to their units trying to maneuver to take advantage of the terrain or just flank their opponent.

Just as the campaign mechanics are different, the units are also different between the factions (not just in look, but in function) Dwarf Crossbow units (for example) have good accuracy and damage at range, but they are no slouch in a melee fight either (you have to toggle them to their melee weapons, but aren't push overs in any case). On the other hand Goblin Archers in addition to having shorter range, don't stand up in a melee fight well at all. Though with the sub factions within each faction, you'll be fighting some mirror images of your armies as well.

Cons

Okay a few things that I've come across in my playing of the game (I've played as every available faction for at least the early game). Compared to Total War: Shogun 2 (the one I've personally spent the most time in) settlement management is over simplified, I would like to have seen more depth here than there is. If nothing else an ability to adjust tax rates instead of just 'off or on' would have given some options.

I'm also not a fan of the region system (a region is 2 or 3 (usually) settlements and to get certain options you have to control all settlements in the region. I like the idea of this but I think they went the wrong way in its execution. That is to say I think that the regions are too big ... I would have liked it better if they had divided the settlements into smaller parts that had to be captured to control the settlement. I think that would have increased the conflict and offered more depth while grouping several settlements together into a region I think actually took depth and options away.


Part of the feeling of this is that each region has a capital settlement and all the others are 'minor' settlements. Combat at a 'minor' settlement takes place in the field just like it would if there was no settlement there. This is one of the places where I agree with some of the negative reviews, this takes a lot of strategy out of the game, in previous Total War games even a village without walls you could use buildings and such to set up choke points OR go meet them on the open field. Now you don't have that choice at all.

Likewise while you can BUILD 'walls' in the minor settlements you don't actually get walls, you get a few more garrisoned units to help you fight out in the field. This is much less of a help in an attack than actual WALLS would be. Only the capital cities have actual walls though.

Which brings us to Capitals these are where you have walls and actually fight in a city. But unlike previous Total War games (or at least Total War: Shogun 2) your city apparently only has 1 wall (at least during an attack) so your opponent can't attack from multiple sides of the city ... again, limiting the strategy of the fight. Not a good choice for a strategy game, in my opinion.

Other missing items from previous Total War games are unit formations. Skirmish formation when melee troops approached archers to spread them out and limit ranged casualties, spear units setting for a charge, shield units coming together for a shield wall ... these formations and using them properly gave depth to the game and strength and versatility to the units to minimize a weakness or maximize a strength in a key point in the battle. But they are gone in Total Warhammer.

Heroes in Total Warhammer are powerful tools that can really change things. Like Lords they level up and earn skills, but unlike Lords they can not lead an Army. They are a bit over powered in the campaign because if they aren't attached to an army, armies and lords can't attack them. Another Hero can attempt to assassinate them but that is the only way to attack a hero that is operating independently. As such they can wreck your town buildings or garrison and, unless you have a hero nearby, there's nothing you can do about it, even if you have a much more powerful Lord with a full army in the settlement. (I should note that if you have a lord and his army in the settlement, an enemy hero will have a more difficult chance to succeed in their sabotage, assassinate, or other 'mission's but they can stand there and try every turn until you get your own hero there to try and assassinate them.)

Combat feels 'off' a bit. Units break and run very fast (at least in the early game) which doesn't allow a lot of time for larger battle strategies. While the default 'max' time for a battle is listed as 60 minutes, I don't think I've had even a massive battle last more than 15 yet. maybe that will change in the late game, but currently it really does feel like some things have been 'sped up' in an attempt to make the game feel more fast paced.

That probably seems like a lot of Cons there, but really they're minor. Most of them will only apply if you have played and enjoyed earlier Total War titles (Shogun 2 and earlier as some of these changes were apparently in Rome 2 and Atilla as well). And some of these changes have as much to do also with one of the big PROs ... faction diversity. While in Shogun 2 you had a LOT of factions, you all used the same troop types, formations, mechanics, etc. Now Faction A may have a bonus to a couple of unit types while Faction B had bonuses to different units, and Faction C had bonuses to production, but ultimately they were the same.

Several other elements of the game are new such as is gear, magic, and of course the monstrous units. I suspect that last one is why they've done away with village fighting as large units in a village would have pathing and movement issues, or would be unable to get in at all unless you made buildings destructible and I suspect that would have been time and/or resource intensive and they decided that it was better left out for now.

DLC

Okay, currently there are 3 DLC available for the game. 2 Add new playable factions, Chaos Warriors, and Beastmen respectively, and the 3rd adds blood and gore to the battles. (See my Ramble about people complaining about DLC over on the Path of Bones) Each of these factions added new unique mechanics to the game and the Beastmen also added a smaller more focused story style campaign centered around their faction.

Some people will complain that there is going to be too much DLC for the game (and Creative Assembly does tend to create a lot of DLC for their Total War titles so that isn't surprising), that it costs too much, or that they held content out of the game just to release it later. I say people complain too much. I like the DLC system, if I'm not interested in a particular piece of DLC (the blood and gore pack for example) I just don't buy it. And I remember the days where you had to wait much longer for an 'expansion' to the game that was often another $50. Beastmen is a $19 add on ... if $19 seems too much wait a bit and catch it on sale.

CA has also announced 10 free DLC (one of which is a new playable race) so they are definitely planning to support and expand the game even for those that don't get any of the paid DLC.

A Tale in the Desert

Those that have known me for a while may remember that I wrote about this game a loooong time ago (well a long time ago in computer/game terms at least) on a forum for another game entirely. A Tale in the Desert is a game my wife and I first encountered back in early 2003 when it launched. Since then it's a game that we've returned to several times over the years and as such I've decided that it deserves some attention again.

A Tale in the Desert is a persistent MMO with a focus on social interaction, building and puzzle solving. A Tale in the Desert (ATitD for short) differs from most MMOs in a couple or ways. First there is no combat in the game. There is no 'threat' that your character is trying to overcome (There's a challenge, but I'll get into that more later) and you are not a 'hero' that is some how better than everyone else. Secondly there are NO NPCs* to interact with, you don't go out and get your loot and sell it to the vender for in game coin ... in fact there IS no in game coin either. (* - Note - there can be 'NPCs' but only in that the developers may spawn characters for story reasons, but such characters are being controlled by a Dev or GM at a keyboard, not interacting on their own via AI.) Finally, and probably the biggest thing, is that it is designed to have an ending.

Just because I say that there's no combat in ATitD, don't make the mistake of thinking that there's no conflict. I've seen as much if not more conflict and drama in ATitD than I have in some purely PvP MMOs. ATitD has a lot of competitive tests, and a lot of other issues (Pollution, resource availability, etc.) that can create conflict and drama between people. Additionally, there are player elected positions (Demi-Pharaoh), player proposed and passed laws, and the general social nature of the game that creates plenty of opportunity for debate and ... we'll call them 'heated discussions'.

Of course that plays into and is enhanced by the lack of NPCs in the game. ALL of your interaction is with other players. Now there are certainly things that you can go off and do on your own, but generally speaking one player isn't going to be able to do everything themselves. At some point you're going to need to trade for items that you can't find or make yourself, or need the assistance of other players to get some of those items. In many cases for the various Tests you will need other players in different capacities (to judge your art work, or puzzles, to vote for you or your law, etc.) This isn't to say that dealing with players is always bad, it's not. I have many great memories of group events over the various times that I've played, and I certainly wouldn't have those without the other players.

The biggest difference from most MMOs, however, is really the fact that it is designed to end. There is a point in the game that is meant to trigger the 'end game'. The 'goal' is to promote an Oracle in each of the 7 Schools of Man (Harmony, Body, Worship, Architecture, Art & Music, Leadership, and Thought) and build a monument to each of the 7 Schools before the end date. As part of the monument a new test is designed and 'inscribed' into the monument for future generations.  At the end the server is wiped, changes made to various game systems and mechanics, and a new Tale begins with a new generation of immigrants to the desert lands.

At the time of this writing Tale 6 is drawing to a close and Tale 7 is being discussed and planned as the players start the push to build the 7 monuments and I find myself once more drawn to this social/building sandbox. A little history here, I played at the beginning of Tale 1 in early 2003, came back for the beginning of Tale 3 in mid 2006 and the beginning of Tale 4 in late 2008. You may notice on those dates that they all say 'the beginning of tale x'. Something (in some cases just deciding that I have stuff that needs to get done in real life) has always interrupted my involvement in a telling.

But why do I keep coming back? There's a lot I like about the game. First off, it's a sandbox. While there is the over all goal of the telling (get 7 Oracles and build the 7 Monuments) those are (particularly at the beginning of a telling) insubstantial goals and I can pick and choose my own goals. There's also the social aspect, and tied to it, the political aspect. The introduction of Levels in Tale 3 did kind of bottleneck things early on, but then really became meaningless and did, really, encourage me to try out other things in the game more.

There are also a couple of down sides. First it's not a game that everyone will 'get'. Some people aren't looking for a social/building game as they tend toward a slower more thoughtful pace and some people really do want the faster pace / more immediate gratification of an action game or more traditional MMO. The real down side in ATitD, even for someone like me that loves so many aspects of the game is that it can be a horrendous time sink, particularly early in a telling before the various automated techs are researched. There is so much to do, and since other players are involved in so many ways in this game, your schedule isn't always their first concern.

Tale 6 has gone free to play for the remainder of the telling, so if a social/building MMO sounds interesting, by all means check it out (there's a download link on their website - www.atitd.com) it's kept me coming back for over 12 years. If you have any questions you can shoot me a chat in game (/chat Tahrqa) and I'll get back to you when I can ... one word of advice though ... get a Hand Loom asap ... the Student Loom is a horrible torture device.