3642

I would love it if GoG released all the General games eventually. Sigh, now I’ll have to go install Fantasy General again…;)

3643

My secret hope is they are able to release a PDF of the hint guide for Fantasy General along with the game.

I loved that thing, probably my favorite game guide ever. It had walkthroughs for every campaign mission but they weren’t really concrete things. There turn-by-turn detail because of the dynamic nature of the forces you could face in the field. Using it did not rob the game of difficulty, I found. It had plenty of statistical information and explanation of the hidden mechanics (loot rolls for various special sites as well as expalnation of how the AI’s “cheating” worked). It had good information on how to play to the strength of each warlord.

And it was wonderfully written. It had sections on basic wargame tactics and smart strategies to fall back on. But the guy writing it had a subtle sense of humor. There was an early mission where an optional side condition was to deal with some rogue “drueds”. Not druids (which the game had plenty of), mind you, but drueds.

So the drueds were a running joke throughout the book.

3644

Oohhh, I never had the guide. runs to Amazon and Ebay

3645

Probably the cheesiest aspect was knowing what out of the way temples/etc were worth visiting or not. You could of course save scumm results if you chose. But a number of them had quite a few “bad” result roles that could put your liberating unit in hot water, and even threaten your force at large.

Though I guess knowing how the enemy’s allowance/troop experience boost worked was also cheesy, it didn’t make the game easier. Except that it helped you minimize it.

3646

They can skip Star General, for all I care, but I’d probably get the others.

3647

We’ve had this discussion before, but I can’t be the only one who liked Star General.

3648

I didn’t like it, either. In fact, it was probably one of my all-time biggest gaming disappointments, just because I was so psyched to play it, after Fantasy General, and then ended up thinking it was pretty terrible. I can’t even remember why any more, honestly.

3649

Pfffffft

3650

GOG weekend deal: Age of Wonders Trilogy 50% off (or 30% off if you only buy one or two)

3651

I think you can. I hope you are, anyway. I’m with Ben: I was really excited to play Star General, because I thought it would be like FG: a game where they could really do awesome stuff because they weren’t bound by historical units and scenarios. Instead I got a game with an underdeveloped space segment and an underdeveloped ground segment, messy presentation, that just wasn’t fun at all to play. Too bad. IIRC it was made by a different company or designer than the one that did PG and FG.

Even though I have working copies of FG (run via DOSBox) and PG (via PG Forever), I would love it if GoG got those games (and People’s General, which I never played). I would buy those in a heartbeat.

3652

Oh god dammit, I snagged them all already. Bastids!

3653

I told myself there was no chance these would go on sale so soon after release, so I bought them. Now I’m kicking myself for it.

3654

Exactly!

3655

At this point I know that GoG can and will put anything on sale at any time, so I just wait until they do. I’ve probably gone years and years without playing these games already, a few months or years more won’t be that big a deal.

3656

Just to let you guys know. The Circle of Eight mod for Temple of Elemental Evil seems to be working great (64 bit Vista). All the oringinal release bugs are fixed. I’m in the Temple proper now.

Since this is my second time through I’ve skipped all the fetch quests in Hommlet and Nulb and recovered the experince/rewards I would have recieved from those quests by completing the first two (combat oriented) Circle of Eight quests (Welkwood Forest and Hickory Branch). Seems to have lined me up nicely with where I would have been, exp-wise. Played like this the game is a pure tactical combat game (like Fallout Tactics) rather than a dodgy RPG with a great Tactical combat engine.

Tony

3657

Awesome. I sure loved ToEE.

3658

I was going to do a 4 monk, 1 druid party (since druids could enchant an awesome monk item), but I remember having difficulty in the early going and then I drifted away from ToEE alltogether. I need to get back to it and try that.

3659

4 monks sounds super difficult (the game is levels 1-10). TOEE can be quite challenging with a well balanced party, 4 monks is really tough, unless you plan on recruiting an NPC party member or two.

I went: Half Orc Barbarian/Fighter, Half Orc Fighter, Elven Rogue, Human Cleric, Halfling Wizard.

Tony

3660

Keep an eye on this page:

http://www.gog.com/en/page/dec2010

3661

I am aware of the level ranges and the difficulty was part of the point.