Real-Time Strategy all purpose discussion thread

This next series with Erik the Red and Robin Hood should be good. If you have an Android phone or tablet there is an app called AoE2 Database that is nice for refreshing your memory on civs and everything. Even has the tech trees. It also has functionality to quiz your knowledge.

For anyone wanting to watch the AoE2 games today:

This zoom out, font and ui in those videos - is this spectator-only mode? Or can some mods give me gameplay like this?

Once I tried to play Age of Mythology and ended up spending most of my time making and publishing font mod cause original font is horrible. AoE2 isn’t as bad but the rest of UI is painful.

It is currently a spectator only modification.

Yeah, in alpha. I wish I could play using it.

I don’t know how far they plan to take it. They don’t plan on releasing all the source, though they might release some in the future. They are tapping into the AoE2 process memory, reading the game state, and then rendering everything in their own engine. They are worried about the potential for cheating.

I believe this is a well known flaw in the RON AI. Even on the hardest difficulty levels it will never properly takes into account attrition and happily let units die from it :(

I rediscovered Starcraft 2 last week and … there’s a lot of stuff going on over there! Mostly I played co-op which is a lot of fun and I like the format. It does get old since there are maybe 15 maps in rotation.

But there are a ton of crazy units I guess added over time that I had never seen before. Ghost casting Protoss, ugly giant stick beasts for Zerg (really dislike the “new” aesthetic direction for Zerg, very ungainly and silly), lots of new zappy ships for Protoss.

Is there any way to zoom out further in SC2? I played it a few times (vs AI only) and was disturbed that it felt way too much like the original SC. Graphics and GPU’s have come a long way and I felt that was one not-so-good “feature” they retained.

I don’t believe you can zoom out in sc2, but I believe they added it to sc remastered so maybe they eventually will for sc2 as well.

Crazy game from the Hidden Cup 2 semi-finals:

I’ve been reading the Subex guide for Rise of Nations. Has anyone ever played a peaceful, no war game of RoN? It has been mentioned a few times. The Muscial chairs and Assasin modes sound like they could be fun. I think I’ve always played survival of the fittest.

I have, but I don’t find it very satisfying. Then again, I’m a turtle by nature anyway, so I like situations that force me not to be.

One thing I’d forgot about RoN is that multiple people can use a rare resource. Had the AI doing that last night.

Yup. It’s a reason not to build in too close a proximity to rare resources, too. I’ve occasionally placed a building that unintentionally cut an ally off from being able to place a merchant.

Two more games. The 2nd video has probably got the highest level play, but represents what I love and hate about Age of Empires. House tricks, and boar laming. But still, awesome match up. The 1st video has some strange games.

The hidden cup is over, but as I mentioned before, I prefer to watch all the games on Youtube, rather than watch them in Twitch.

Hopefully Tristan is already planning HC3.

I’m surprised they didn’t bump the max population in the extended edition of Rise of Nations beyond the original 200.

Well, it’s really 250 (with future tech) and, really, more than that if you’ve got certain rare resources. Regardless, it’s as much a balance decision as anything else - raising it makes certain factions much more powerful, throws off the economic balance, and generally changes the game in ways not intended. Plus, it makes a largely micro-less game micro-ier.

Does future tech, bump it? I’m pretty sure last night I was still at 200/200 and I had all 4 future techs. I know Colossus and the peacock resources do. One thing I need to do is kill of the scientists if I don’t need to research any longer. That was probably 30+ pop right there. I was playing around with a 4v4 on the big huge map, and I’d killed off one opponent, but we were in a bit of a stalemate until one of the AIs on my side did the wonder victory.

I figured it would be difficult for them to do it because of it being tied to the military advances. People apparently have been modding in the rules file, but the way that ends up working is you have the same progression as normal until last tech level and then it jumps to whatever you set the max to.

Yup, I have that wrong. It’s just Colossus, Peacocks, and of course the Bantu bonus if you happen to be playing them: