reg5000 Fraks Himself

Gamer Gang Tip: When starting your first turn on Risk, remember to deploy your troops otherwise you will be totally fucked up for the rest of the game.

So The Gamer Gang had it’s second session of New Risk recently. Present was myself, Llengib, Mr Clueless and his partner (who we’re going to call Cleo). As you can probably guess by the title of this post and the above tip it did not go that well for my good self.

This time around we went for the straight objective-based win. Objectives in New Risk are like the secret missions of old risk, just without the secret bit. They’re also openly displayed on the board so any player can go for them. There are four minor objectives and four major objectives (things like capture two enemy capitals, occupy two continents or hold 8 cities, etc). If you get three objectives you win the game.

We portioned out the territories and immediately I had a big division of forces. I had no real center of power aside from two territories in both Australia and South America so these are what I decided to concentrate on. It was my aim to control these two continents early in the game and then build up my forces from there.

South America was going to be tough because Llengib was virtually unopposed in North America and across the Atlantic I had Cleo with a firm grip on Africa. Worse still was the fact that both of those players went before. Given how I’d built my troops up in Argentina there could be no doubt about my intent so I knew there would be a battle or two.

Australia looked much better though. I had two territories while Llengib and Mr Clueless had the other two.

As Cleo and Llengib took their turns things looked well. Aside from a few pushes into my South American territories from Cleo I was able to hold all my key countries coming in to my turn.

Then I fucked up. Instead of recruiting and deploying my troops at the start of my turn (which would have given me quite a nice boost of troops) I just went straight into the attacking part.

Here was how the board was for me. I had Argentina and Venezuela in South America and New Guinea and Eastern Australia in Australia. These got all of my troops. This meant that I had a sizable force in these four territories which could have given the optical illusion that I had already placed my troops. This also meant that I was able to conquer Brazil and Peru in South America and Western Australia and Indonesia in Australia giving me two continents on my first turn. A staggering achievement which provided me with a major objective and a bonus, an extra defensive die. This was to be the only lasting benefit of my first turn.

As Mr Clueless took his turn and and began deploying his recruits I realised my mistake. Shocked at my idiocy I asked if I could deploy them now but only into territories I held before I started my turn. Mr Clueless vetoed this and from that point on my fate was sealed. On his turn Mr Clueless took a bite of of my Australian territories and I never recovered from there.

Note: Look into developing a Gamer Gang voting process for situations like this. Majority rules.

Perhaps through pity Cleo and Llengib agreed not to attack my South American holdings but by then it was too late. I was a spent force in this game. An annoyance but never a threat. Sure, I tried to reassert myself in Australia but the dice abandoned me and once that happened I simply stopped caring.

Despite my idiocy I actually managed to stay in the game for some time thanks entirely to the extra defensive dice. This was a godsend. It changed every combat encounter. No longer did I have a numerical disadvantage when someone was attacking me. My main opponent was Mr Clueless as he attempted to purge me from Australia. Wave after wave of his troops were crushed against my superior defenses.

Gamer Gang Tip: The extra defensive die is an awesome deterrent so get it if you can. It’s like the New Risk version of a missile defense shield.

My goodwill with Cleo and Llengib was not to last however. As soon as it became unnecessary for them to worry about me being a threat they struck. Once again the extra defensive die made my opponents bleed for every inch but in the end their sheer numbers ended me. My capital fell to Llengib and with that I was done. My horror game had come to an end.

Llengib eventually won the night bringing the score card to:

Mr Clueless 1, Llengib 1, reg5000 nil.

Still, there’s always next time.

Mass Effect 2

Halo Wars Demo Impressions

The anticipation I’ve felt for Halo Wars has been quietly building up from indifference when it was first announced to quiet excitement upon release of the demo this week.

I’ve been an RTS fan since the early Red Alert days but haven’t been overly impressed by recent games in the genre. As the day drew nearer my excitement for Halo Wars grew (no doubt helped by the fact that it took an age to download, suspense plus!).

Finally I was able to play and I have to say that I enjoyed myself. It felt good to get back into an RTS and the fact that it was set in the Haloverse meant that I was already nicely invested in the story. I played through the tutorial, getting used to the new controls and very soon it all felt very natural. After that I went in and played what looks to be the first mission of the full game and even though it looked like standard RTS fare I still enjoyed myself.

Then I played the skirmish mode. First up, big points for including this in the demo. I love skirmish mode on these things and was thrilled when I saw that I’d be able to play it before buying the game. It gives you a really good chance to explore the game mechanics while not being held back by any story elements. I played on easy and very quickly pulled ahead of my opponent (the demo only has 1 on 1 skirmish). This meant that I could just build up my supplies and begin slowly rolling over opponent with my superior tech.

Gamer Gang Tip: Do not play on easy. It will provide absolutely zero challenge for you.

So far it’s been all good hasn’t it? I certainly seem to enjoy the game and in many ways it is very good. In other ways though I am unimpressed.

The first gripe I have is the same gripe I’ve had with many an RTS. Troop caps. I understand that the reason why they limit the number of troops you can have on your team is so that it doesn’t break the system you’re playing on. So while I don’t like that I can understand why they do it. Halo Wars goes a bit further though and assigns certain troops (Scorpions, Elephants, Vultures) with increased troops value. I’m not a fan of this at all.

Secondly, your base only has a maximum of 8 slots (with an additional 4 slots for defensive turrets) where buildings can be built. Story-wise they worked this in pretty well as each base is set up as a more-or-less temporary site but from a game play perspective I am not thrilled. I like a big base. I enjoy setting up a veritable fortress from which I can gather resources, build an army, and crush my foe. Halo Wars does not let me do this.

For the most part Halo Wars handles troop selection really well. You can “double click” the A button and select all of a single type of troop on screen. The bumpers are also used to select either all troops on the screen or all troops on the map. One thing that I miss however is the ability to assign a group of troops a number. I always found this especially useful if I wanted to have reinforcements for an attack but it also came in very handy to just be able to press a button and then be able to select a group from anywhere in the battlefield.

With Halo Wars if you want to do that you need to have your troops grouped somewhere on the map then drag your screen over to them. On the small 1 on 1 map this was an annoyance. On a larger map I can only imagine how frustrating this could end up being.

This next one if a bit of a nit-pick but the mini-map is too small. I wanna be able to discern more than amorphous blobs of my troop colour. God help me if I still had my standard def TV. Even with the ability to scale the map up or down in the settings menu there’s still not enough detail.

Some of these issues may be sorted out when the full game is released. As they say you should never judge a game by its demo and I’ll be sure to reserve full judgment until I have the full product in my hands. For now though I can say that Halo Wars shows great promise and that I will be buying the full game. I guess that the best endorsement I can give it right now. Sadly, much like Civilization Revolutions, the only reason I’m playing Halo Wars is because i have no other RTS games to play at the moment.

The latest game, first post, new risk version.

I am making the post of shame, being the first of our three players to be knocked out of our most recent game.

After making a runaway start, revealing myself to be a threat to the other two players, I was pounded into a sorrowful state, ending up in a sorry retreat to northern Europe.  This reveals two important facts about the new risk game:

1. Capitals.

Capitals are a nice addition, especially when you blindside your enemys capital on the first turn and capture a bonus card. On the other hand, they never quite forgot that little incident.

2. Bonus Cards.

Having achieved the taking of another capital I collected a card that gave a useful bonus: A free risk card every turn. Very handy. Especially towards the end when I was holled up in my bunker in Europe.

While there are many improvements (and some detractions) of the new risk version, these are the two with the most direct effect on my game this round. The remaining feature that had an effect on the whole game was the new cities feature, which I will leave to until later or to others to post about.

My final plan was thrawted by my own risk-aversion after being thrown onto the defensive. I waited too long to cash my cards in for troops and paid for it with my defeat.