XCom: Game of the Year

Whats that you say? XCom: Enemy Unknown may just be more addictive than alcohol, smoking and crack combined times infinity? I can attest to that. When you thought you couldn't possibly say "ok, just one more turn" and its 5am... for the second night in a row.. it isn't Civ 5.. it isn't Heroes of Might and Magic. Its XCom.

I had serious doubts that the newest iteration of XCom was gonna be horrible; that 2KGames was going to bomb one of my most cherished pc games of all time. A game that I didn't fully understand how to play.. and a game that can be terribly hard if you don't have a solid strategy. A game that will whoop your butt and not give you any consolation prize.. nope.. the earth has been invaded by aliens all thanks to your incompetence. Goodbye!

If you played and liked the original XCom series: Buy it.

If you like turn-based strategy games: Buy it.

If you like Aliens vs Humans games: Buy it.

If you like squad based combat: Buy it.

If you like units that you can fully customize and upgrade: Buy it.

If you like a pure challenge, even on the easiest difficulty: Buy it.

If you want an insane challenge that'll bring you to the point of tears: Buy it.

I honestly can't say enough good things about the game and how happy I am to have picked it up; it makes me wish that I bought it on release day resulting in VERY tired mornings at work.. and probably resulting in 'sick' days. Its basically the XCom for this generation, like how The Dark Knight Rises is the Batman for ours. Its not 'good' is 'OMFG SICK.'

 Lets get straight to the bad; there are only two things that I can see that is bad about the game. Maybe three. One: when in a map with multiple levels (1st floor, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and more), the camera doesn't work well. You'll be wanting to move your units, but the camera will show you the level above, causing massive tactical errors. In areas such as these, mistakes such as this results in dead veterans; Ginger and Juan are now on the memorial having sacrificed themselves for the greater good. I really hope they fix this issue with a patch; it nearly makes the game unplayable. Two: the game seems short. In my first playthough, I went right ahead and started doing the priority quests, thinking that they expired.. (they don't seem to) it seemed like the game was progressing very fast story-wise. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised later, but it feels very fast-paced, when I want a little less urgency and a little more skirmishes with aliens. Three: Its so incredibly addictive. Those stories above about the 5am game sessions are true. I forced myself to sleep, knowing full well the past 3 hours I kept saying to myself: "ok, after this one scan, i'll log off." And something interesting always happened and the cycle happened again and again.

Phew. With that out of the way, we can talk about the great stuff. First: Graphics. Huge overhaul to the original and thank goodness for that. Knock on wood, no graphical glitches other than the wonky camera only in multi-level maps. And only one crash. Second: Customization. Just like the original games, you can customize your soldiers, use your name, your friends names, whatever. Make them look as much or as little in resemblance to you. When they level up, you get a simplified (more so than even Mass Effect 3 if you can believe that) ability tree; but the small choices make a big impact in the game for you. Third: Pick up and go. Well besides the 5am part, whenever you fight aliens, the map is a perfect size (atleast in the early goings) that you can normally complete one in under 10 minutes if you're efficient. It makes you feel like you're accomplishing alot and builds morale and a feeling that you're unstoppable (until your whole squad dies).

I could keep going on and on and on about how great XCom is, but I don't want to raise your expectations. Its a serious buy and totally worth the money imho. I thought this year many great games came out: Diablo 3, Skyrim, Borderlands 3, Mass Effect 3 etc etc. For the longest time going, I still thought, overall, Skyrim was the Game of the Year... Now? XCom wins hands down. No. NO! Hands down. Shuddapa your mouth; nothing is better than this game. Case in point: I haven't touched the game in 2 days in fear I won't ever go to sleep again.

Diablo 3: Error! Does not Compute!

In hindsight, I kinda wonder why I made a special effort to leave for work earlier so that I could hopefully pick up Diablo 3 at my local EB Games. It was unfortunately not open yet and I rushed to work a bit paranoid that I wouldn't be able to get a copy when I had time during my lunch. I actually went during my break to snag a copy... which there were many of. 


Then you see the news that the servers are overloaded with an error37.


RAGE QUIT!!!!!


lol. More like a *shrug* "meh."


We shouldn't be upset at such a thing, as we need to approach the Diablo 3 launch as a launch similar to (but possibly even more popular than) the most highly anticipated mmo. Say 'maybe' Guild Wars 2. I'd go out to even say that D3 will have even more people playing it than GW2.


In saying that then, there is always launch day issues. Overloaded servers.. massive lag, and huge queues is the norm. Except with Rift which had some rather huge queues for the first week.. more mmo launches are rather rough. 


BUT "D3 isn't an mmo" we scream/whine. That is true; this is the way of the future, being required to be connected to the internet constantly, even if we are playing single player *coughSTEAMcough*. This is the part I don't particularly like; ok the servers are overloaded and we can't play online with other players: that is acceptable. But I would like to play some offline D3 and totally understand I can't transfer my character or gear to my online character even if it is the company's 'fault' for not having enough servers to handle launch day capacity. 


And that is exactly how it works for Heroes of Might and Magic 5; if you cannot connect to the internet, you can still play Homm5 singleplayer. The game will not track your progress and earn any rewards, but atleast you still get to play.


The inability to play even the single player offline-mode without any transfer over for D3 is a bit disheartening for me. Thats why i've learnt not to take vacation days for launches of games, unless it is a totally offline game that doesn't require internet connection.


Take heart fellow gamers; Blizzard is one of the better companies out there and are probably doing their best to solve this issue for their legions of fans.

And as I write this, looks like most people are able to log in fine now.. and the game is very good.

Undying

I thought it was interesting on how my friend texted me the other day to tell me that he got into WoW for the umpteenth time. I was like "again?" How many times will we get dragged into (in particular) the same mmo? Doesn't it get boring? Don't we remember the reason why we left in the first (second/third/etc) place?


I've gone back to WoW myself only once. And that was because it was *ahem* 'free'. But it was exactly how it was X amt of years ago and I promptly quit for the same reasons as before.


This article is more about the creative ways companies lure you (back) to their game. For Blizzard, if you re-sign up for WoW for a 12mth sub, they will level one of your characters to 80 and you'll get a 'free' copy of Diablo 3. Now a free copy of D3 sounds great.. but thats 100$ you're shelling out for a free game. If you count that you're getting 2 games for 100$, yes you're getting a discount.. but not much of one.


I do like companies that lure you with nostalgia by giving you older games with the game you purchase. Say (for example) on Steam, you pre-purchase Heroes of Might and Magic 6, you may get while you wait, a copy of Heroes 5 to tide you over and thank you for the pre-purchasing. Its no more expensive than buying it normally or from somewhere else, but you get the perk of an additional game. 


I recently got an email from SWTOR about how there is a free week (or two) that you can re-install the game, and as long as you have an account, can just play for free without entering any credit card information. Now, had money been an issue for me, this would be a great way to get me to play again and get (for EA's sake) hooked again. That wasn't the case, so I chose not to participate. Having free full game access without the hassle of re-entering credit card information is a new initiative that I think is positive.


I find that bribing me back with in-game items or xp-boosts aren't particularly effective. For those with a high need for instant gratification, I guess it is effective but it can neer be too overpowering to upset the current active playerbase. 


What incentives are effective to pulling you back to a particular game?

Heroes 6 on Sale

Heroes 6 may not have been necessarily mind-blowing, but its still very polished and I like a few new implementations.

Its currently on sale on Steam this weekend for only 24.99 (50% off). 

Alot of improvements, graphics-wise, customizable heroes and set items. The worst thing is being required to be online to play it and the VERY hard campaign mode.

Heroes 6 strategies

Not much to write about these days; I've been consumed with home activities, editting photos from my photoshoot and been watching the Staw Wars: Clone Wars animated series.
                      
When I have time, I do play Heroes 6: Might and Magic. I'd say the game easily out-performs all of it's predecessors.

Here are some strategies I employ:

1. On the first turn, I normally build a tavern and purchase a hero with the same two units that comes with my initial hero.
- this gives you a stronger hero to tackle early monsters in the first week and allow to you take less casualties

2. For the next few days, depending on the resources you have, I'll try to make as many Town Hall improvements as possible.
- building a creature dwelling only gets you that creature and no additional benefits for the rest of the week
- building a Town Hall upgrade will give you more money for the rest of the week

3. Normally around the 4th or 5th day, I'll start building creature dwellings
- i'll never upgrade any dwellings and concentrate on different dwellings, possibly using the Marketplace to purchase crystals when needed

4. Don't forget your initial hero comes with a skill point!
- spend it on your first turn before you do anything
- I like to spend it on Enlightenment; a stronger hero makes the army stronger

5. Save skill points when you are about to hit lvl 5 or 15
- by saving a points, you get get 2+ tier 2/3 skills at lvl 5/15 instead of only 1
- tier 2/3 skills are usually much better than tier1

6. Use your second hero as a mule
- concentrate your army in one hero for the first few weeks, and have your secondary hero be the mule which concentrates solely on picking up loose resources
- your main hero should only pick up artifacts and treasure chests for experience
- when you have 2+ towns, should you have 3 heroes

7. Initial trait: resources, tarot card or money
- I normally always go the 5 extra resources; money is always plentiful, and the tarot card doesn't seem to make a big difference

8. For those that don't read (which is moot b/c then they wouldn't read this), the "Mass" spells or abilities are normally 1/3 the strength of single target spells.
- normally I only cast "mass" spells when there are 4 or more creatures it will affect otherwise it isn't really worth it

Does Not Compute

This is why I don't like the growing trend of needing to be connected constantly to be able to play PC games.

There is nothing wrong with my internet, and there is nothing programmed wrong with my settings (firewalls, virus protection)that is causing me not to enjoy a game that I rightfully paid for. Its the companies server that is down (pssst this isn't an mmo). And the user suffers because of that?

Unacceptable.

Heroes 6 by the way is amazing, but not liking the constant connection requirement.

Matrix Pre-loaded

Not much happening these days... tried to pre-load Heroes: Might and Magic 6 last night... woke up this morning to find it somehow stopped and was downloading at a blazing fast speed of 30kb/s.... And when I tried to resume today, it had forgotten I downloaded 4gigs and started from the beginning. Fannnnntastic

Get More: GameTrailers.com, Might & Magic: Heroes VI - GC 11: Heroes Never Die Trailer, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Hopefully will have good news on Monday; will be doing a studio photoshoot with a model and makeup artist on Saturday.. ill post some good ones.

Its not all about what you think

One may wonder if this became more of a Magic: The Gathering blog rather than a general gaming blog these days, and I assure you that is not the case. Just more limited time for recreation, blogging, and nothing in particular I feel like playing.

I'm looking forwards to Heroes 6: Might and Magic which releases on October 11th 2011, though the beta is out currently. And i'm also really excited for some dual-wielding craziness in The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, though I may need a serious pc overhaul (please no!) for that. 11.11.11. If my pc is overhauled, then I guess i'll be trying Deus Ex as well.

For now, I'm concentrating on (besides Magic) my photography. My wonderful gf bought me a new camera bag. 

Kata 2N1-20

While I went out yesterday and rounded out my collection and bought a monopod.

Manfrotto 680B

All that is needed now is a flash, ballhead and better lense filters.

I must say although Fallout: New Vegas is very buggy, it has brought countless hours worth of gaming, and thats with only 1 dlc. I purchased Old World Blues and barely scratched the storyline. Haven't bought Dead Money, or the new Lonesome Road.

Oh! And don't forget, Fallen Earth mmo is going free to play October 12th, which i'm very excited to give a go. Anyone else going to give it a try?

Heroes 6 Beta Improvements

I pre-ordered Heroes of Might and Magic 6 on steam and got access to their beta. I don't recall seeing any NDA, so i'll assume its ok to talk about it and bring the hype.

Town Portal
A great improvement to the franchise: there are two kinds of town portals that can be built in towns: basic and greater. A hero is able to teleport from one town to another as long as: both towns have a basic town portal, the hero is in town AND has 15 movement points (about half of movement points).

No more, teleporting to whatever town you like when you're deep in the wilderness when the opponent sneaks into your area.

Only with a greater town portal can a hero teleport to the NEAREST town with a greater town portal. One might not think this a big deal, but in Homm6, the rare resource Chaos Crystals, are pretty hard to come by. Its as expensive as building tier 2 (4th, 5th, 6th ranked) buildings (or like the 4th/5th levels of mage guilds).

Army purchasing
I always thought it was a pain to have to get my mule heroes to move my armies from my strongest home castle to my adventuring hero. In Homm6, as long as you have the basic creature dwelling on the outpost, you can purchase that un-upgraded version of the monster from a pool of all your creatures from all your castles.

Being designed this way, it is easier to defend specific towns from attack, at the cost that if not enough time is given to upgrade it, you may be playing with weak versioned creatures.

Retreat
Retreating no longer is 'that' painful in Homm6. Instead of losing your whole army, you only lose 25% of them. The drawback comes when having to purchase your hero again; costing significantly more, coming in with a debuff, having a huge stable of heroes is a thing of the past. Some factions do come with special buildings that decrease the cost of purchasing heroes and even give them a small buff for a week

Leveling Heroes
I always thought it sucked when your main hero was incredibly strong, but then had newbie heroes guarding your home. Even with a strong army, they would seccumb to a more experienced hero with better skills and magic.

In Homm6, there is a feature to have 'more powerful' heroes. As time progresses, the purchasing level of your heroes in the tavern increases. So instead of paying X amount for a level one hero, you now have a level 5, or level 8. Pretty impressive.

--------------------------------------

New Innistrad links: Curse of the Stalked Prey (fast agro strategy) and Human Champions

Heroes 6 Musings

The Harpy attack animation takes too long
- it takes about 3-5 times longer than any other creature

Only one type of special resource? Chaos Crystals?
- I liked concentrating on different resources for different factions

Unique catapults depending on the faction
- spider-like design for the necropolis

More support creatures in Homm6; more healers (usually 3 heal charges), more ranged (looks like unlimited ammo).

The ability to convert enemy faction towns and forts when captured
- pay a small amount of resources and you no longer have a mish-mash of creatures

Taking over an enemy town, will turn over all mines to your control (atleast in this beta skirmish map)
- so no more having to get a secondary hero to steal them away
- but while the enemy holds their town, you cannot steal their mines

Some artifacts have requirements; Magic Heroes cannot use shields, while some artifacts require the Magic Affinity ability

Going from land to a boat doesn't take up a whole turn
- it looks like the Sanctuary faction has water-walking!

Each pre-generated hero comes without starting skills, so you can fine tune them the way you want instead of hoping you have access to them in your tavern.

Your tavern gives you access to all heroes in all factions.

Logistics seems to have a lesser impact/nerfed.

Different look to Phoenix
- at first I thought it was a Thunderbird. The fire shield on the Phoenix is DEADLY with stacks of +50/+100 creatures dying instantly.

- The Necropolis top tier creature has the ability to morph from a vicious melee creature into a spider ranged creature.

- The game likes to crash 3-4 turns before I win the game :P

Heroes 6 Preview

So. Heroes of Might and Magic 6... or more like Might and Magic: Heroes 6. If you bought the preorder on the official website or on Steam, you'd be able to download the closed beta.

Lets get right down to it.

The Good:

Graphics
The adventure screen is more 3d and shows more depth; you can tell whether you're going to a higher altitude or going down a slope. There is more color and more light bursts. More Shiny. Creatures look impressive both in normal and elite versions; it looks like more thought was put into making the elite version look more impressive and not be just a different splash of color.

Combat
Is the same as you loved it in previous versions. Checkerboard design. No more hexagonal design (i like both). Right clicking on a creature will show you all the stats, abilities, buffs and debuffs currently affecting it. You now see critical hits as a special animation; imagine my eyes becoming as big as saucers when I saw the vampire throw his sword high into the air, fly up and do a verical slice down onto the baddie. The death animation is also impressive for creatures.

User Interface
Its new, its different. No longer does the game go into a separate screen to access hero skills, or the town management screen; a smaller window will popup allowing you quicker access to the info. It seems to lag a bit, but i'm attributing it to the more intensive graphics and it being a beta.

The market interface which allows you to trade resources is revamped; it still does the same thing, but now is much more sleek and user friendly.

New Hero Skill/Ability System
There has been a current theme to continuation of series these days (Dungeon Seige 3 or Dragon Age for example) where developers are dumbing down beloved strategy/rpg games to cater to console players but turning away the pc players. I'm happy to report that the skill development system of Homm6 is streamlined, makes sense and doesn't give a feel that it is dumbed-down, but more user friendly instead.

If you remember from previous Homm games, you had your favorite heroes for a certain faction that you'd always start with. I remember in one series where I had the minotaur Dace which had a bonus to logistics which would allow him to run much farther than any other hero. In Homm6, you get to CREATE your own hero; you determine the name, sex, faction, starting bonus, any dynasty weapons (more later), might/magic class. This form of customization is very sleek and very welcome, creating emotional attachment to the hero.

If creating your own avatar wasn't enough, the new ability system appears in a window divided by Might, Magic, General skills. All heroes have access to both Might and Magic abilities, but your class dictates how far down the skill tree you can get. For example, as a Might class, you will be able to get (basic, advanced, elite) elite might skills, but only get advanced magic skills. No longer do you have to rely on manuals or websites to see what skill leads to what and what is available in general; all the skills are plainly revealed. To get access to advanced skills, the hero needs to be atleast lvl 5 and sometimes require you to have purchased the basic skill. Same thing goes with elite skills; the hero needs to be lvl 15 and have purchased the basic and advanced prior versions.

Online hero persona
As you play, you gain experience. As far as I see, they look like you can use the experience as currency to purchase special in-game items that make your heroes more powerful/unique. At the same time, this boosts your dynasty weapons..

Dynasty weapons
What is a Dynasty Weapon, you may ask? It is an equip-able special item that a hero is assigned to which provides stronger bonuses dependent on your online hero persona's level/experience. These is this staff that I have from pre-ordering that gives a bonus to water spells, and if I gain a level, it will give my hero more mana and boost my other skills. Knowing this, I think the Deluxe Homm6 costs would be justified.

Factions
There are 5 factions each with it's own feel:
Haven - your traditional knights and angels (european)
Necropolis - undead and vampires (the immortals from the movie 300)
Barbarian - goblins, orcs and cyclops (mayan)
Demons - succubi, demons, pit fiends
Sanctuary - nagas (snake people), sharkmen, frog-ishmen (japanese)

Story
With greater computing power, Homm6 appears to have a much better fleshed out campaign mode. Cut scenes, more dialogue and better character progression seems to make the campaign mode something that i'll pursue.

The Bad
Factions
Only 5 factions which seem like alot less from previous versions. Of course the arguement is that they 5 factions that made the cut were polished and work really well, i've always still enjoyed having many different factions and avoiding the feel of rock-paper-scissors. I will truly miss the Wizard faction (titans, genie and mages), Dungeon/Dark Elf faction (evil dragons!), Forest/Elf Faction (elven archers, unicorns, phoenix!) from the normal mix. I really hope the future expansions contain more of these missing factions and that they DO NOT create an elemental town instead (stupid).

Graphic Glitches
Maybe its the game telling me that my new (& rather good) video card is not that great, but every 5 seconds the screen flickers... which is annoying. I will attribute that and the choppiness to being a beta and hopefully this will be fixed by time it goes gold.

UI placement
In the top right part of the screen, there is a globe which allows you to look at the progress of your overall online persona. Its invisible, but if you click on the top right, there seems to be a close button there. If you click on that accidently (which I have twice now), it WILL close your game. Thank goodness for autosave.

It took me till my third game to realize how to create the improvement to creature buildings to be able to purchase elite creatures. Where it has the icon that shows you build the basic creature generator, there is a checkmark to let you know you built it. What you may not realize until you read this, is that you can click on it again which allows you at THAT point to then purchase the upgrade. It wasn't as new-user friendly as I would have hoped, but once you know how it works, it makes sense.

Online Security system
The developers of Homm6 are devious, I barely recognized it: they created this online hero persona to make you forget you need to be connected to the internet to be able to play the game. Just like other Steam games, if you don't have connection to the internet, you won't be able to (legitimately atleast) play a game that you've paid for.

Conclusion:
Blackhole has made great strides and changes to a beloved franchise, but kept it true to it's roots that we can all appreciate.

If you're a Homm fan; this takes the game to the next level; everything has been improved, its a reasonable (50$) price for massive replayability. So long as it isn't hampered by too much by bugs and CTDs, this will be a staple in our pc game libraries.

I'm definitely glad I pre-ordered this game to get access to a beta which allows access to 2 campaign stories (Haven & Sanctuary) and a skirmish map allowing you to play ANY faction. I'd highly recommend preordering it if you're a Homm fan and feel the itch to play one more turn.

Game of Heroes

I ended up pre-ordering the Might and Magic: Heroes 6 on Steam to get access to the beta. I'll have a preview up soon but so far everything looks alot better: graphically, emphasis on storytelling, new factions, interface.

Oh Dear God...

Huge savings (albeit on Steam) from June 30th to July 10th...

Just what we all needed: more games..

Not to mention,

Pre-ordering will get you into the beta..

So many games... so little money for more Magic cards... guh

Dedication

I was reading Tipa's entry on the Sony debacle and it got me thinking; if the PSN system has been down for so long, what happens to the gamers, in particular the mmo gamers? Unlike other console games, where if they were for some reason prevented from playing a certain game, they would put in another game and play that in the meanwhile. An mmo gamer is typically different, are they not? Some people have a huge stable of games they play per fellow bloggers like Tipa. Most of them I notice though, all require internet connection. Similar to my entries on Steam, if you don't have internet connection, or Steam is down, you can't get access to your game even if you just want to play single player.

If you lose access to all your games for such a long time (2+ weeks now?), what do you think will happen to your interest? Will it increase exponentially making you crave it even more and have a binge-fest when its available again? Or will your interest drop as you find different things to occupy your time? What would you do if your favorite form of entertainment was unavailable to you for a long time period?

Rift is my main and only game at this time; a week before it came out, I had upgraded my pc, ram, video card and operating system. I enjoyed the smoothness of Borderlands, liked how L4D2 didn't crash constantly, and was pleased as punch that Dungeons (by Kalypso) would actually load the map! But then came Rift and that changed.

I generally spend 'a bit' of time every day of Rift and just like the other day's thought.. i wondered what would happen if I stopped Rift, what would I do? I know i'd spend more time on msn talking to the gf instead. I'd be on Steam looking for new upcoming games. I'd spend more time taking photos and touching them up on Lightroom or Photoshop. I may do more research on Guild Wars 2, but heres the catch, I think my interest in mmo's would fade; ever since the days of UO, Shadowbane, etc has mmo's been at the top of my interest. Nothing is more rewarding or fun. And now, I don't think i'd return to one if I ended Rift. There is a fantastic community aspect to mmo's which I truly enjoy, but there is a boatload of upcoming games that need to be experienced. And with each iteration/generation (?) of game, the quality increases to a very interesting level; never one to play first person shooters, I fell in love with Borderlands and enjoyed the freshness of Left for Dead. Feeling nostalgic, I got Dungeons. Hoping for the best, I look forward to Diablo 3, Dungeon Seige 3 and Heroes 6. Fallout 3 and New Vegas brought rpgs to a new level of detail, graphics and story that had me at 100+ hrs played and was forced to stop due to bugs (which reminds me of another game to go back to).

If your game system was inoperable for an extended period of time, what do you think you'll do instead?

The Turtle always wins... except in RTS

Two strategy games, two similar approaches.

In Homm5

I play a turtle-y game and once strong enough, I go all out and expand expand expand.
First turn, I'll buy an additional hero that has good skills and add the entire army to my initial army to be able to take on the guards to the primary resource mines which normally are only rank 1/2 at the most. Beyond that, ill attack any weak mobs where there is a high chance of winning with minimal loses and avoiding any fights where the bulk of my force would be defeated. I'd play a building game, every day/round i'd make a creature dwelling and ignore any general city improvements (forts[for creature growth], marketplaces, mage guilds [for spells]). Only once I have about two weeks worth of creatures of atleast the second highest rank, will I normally stack them into my original hero and stomp on the rest of the mines for the secondary resources and in particular the kind of secondary resource needed by my faction.

My second hero is pitiful, as I normally task him/her to simple resource collection, ferrying troops to my main hero or getting weekly resources, never getting any chance to level up, other than from free sources. At this point in the game, i've started saving up for the highest ranked creature's dwelling and if resources permit, i've started building forts to increase the growth of all the other creatures.

Once the army is strong enough, ill empty the creature dwellings (and my gold coffers), once again stacking them only into my main hero and leaving my alt hero with only one slave rank 1 creature, and charge towards enemy castles. Normally this large zerg is capable of taking out the first opposition with relative ease. I don't mix creatures from different factions as it hurts morale and the castle is usually empty anyways as my enemy wanted to deprive me of any creatures. Normally, unless i've lost a big portion of my army, I hurtle forward towards my next opponent until I finally get to a point that everyone is defeated, or I don't have enough monsters for the next battle.

By that time, i've either saved enough creatures from my home castle, or a turtle until there are enough to refill my army.

In Civ5

I tend to play the same way; I tend to leave my neighbors to their own devices. Normally decline open border agreement as from experience sneaky civilizations will settle in my own lands. I'll develop a small army to fend off any local barbarians, but normally only enough troops to eliminate one camp at a time.

Unlike Homm5 where 99% of the time, the objective is the elimination of your enemy and 1% its to find the secret artifact (which takes way too long), in Civ5 there are many ways to win other than the total annihilation. I've found that when in a pacifist mindset, ill go for the cultural victory. But normally any other form of winning is difficult as it just takes too long. Possibly, when the map sizes are humongous and armies too powerful would a technological or diplomatic victory be more viable. I don't have the patience to play such long games, and try to keep a session at about 3 hours and usually play on duel or small maps. Hence total annihilation tends to be the path I take; if any civilization is getting too powerful, ill normally take them out first, unless they're incredibly powerful, ill join up with city-states and conquer weaker nations to amass my own civilization.

Its much easier to amass an army in Civ5 than Homm5; in Homm5, even if you have the money and the creature dwellings, you're stuck waiting for the beginning of each week for new creatures to spawn in those dwellings. In Civ5 if you want to amass an army, you forgo making buildings and non-military units and just make troops instead. Because of this fact, it makes it easier to employ either a defensive OR offensive strategy.

How do you play your games? All-out aggressive style, balanced or defensive-minded?
Does it change if you play an RTS?

Back

Back from a relaxing vacay; I was intending on writing some entries on Monday, but there are too much good vids and links:

A new Heroes of Might and Magic....
http://kotaku.com/5616482/hey-theres-a-new-heroes-of-might--magic-game
http://kotaku.com/5616648/might-and-magic-heroes-vi-might-be-magic
Can't wait.. I need more turn-based strategy games!

Cosplay fix here.


I purchased Torchlight via Steam a few weeks ago.
So freaking addictive; just like Diablo 2.. but better.

And just like the vid says, the thing that was missing that would have made this game the next Diablo.. or until Diablo 3 would come out, was: Multiplayer.

I just can't do it; I can't play Dragon Age: Origins for a second full playthrough. I finished the core game with my female evil rogue.. and have an aoe mage 3/4 of the way.. but I just can't do it again.

In case you can't view it.. go here

Clash of Heroes

I'm not the biggest supporter of Ubisoft (and if that was true, I shouldn't mention them at all), but coming soon to Xbox Live Arcade is Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes.

http://kotaku.com/5490290/might--magic-clash-of-heroes-goes-hd-for-xbla-psn

I am a huge HoMM fan from the original to even the first person rpg and even the not so popular Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. CoH initially came out on the Ninendo DS, but I guess it was popular enough to come out for the 360. I'll have a review when I give it a try when it releases later this year.