Goblin Commander

[Briareos]

Anyone tried this one yet? Looks interesting and was wondering what people here think. I think its one of those aquired taste games so magazine reviews won't give the whole story.

[Alan Au]

linky?

- Alan

[Briareos]

www.goblincommander.com

[Dr Fear]

linky?
I think he's talking about this:

http://www.goblincommander.com

It's a console "action-RTS," which I take to mean it's Sacrifice on the PS2/Xbox. No PC version is planned.

I found this quote telling:

Q: What makes Goblin Commander: Unleash the Horde different from the traditional RTS?

A: Goblin Commander was designed specifically with the console in mind, therefore the traditional RTS fan will see that many of the institutions that many other games of this genre were erected upon have been streamlined to assure non-stop action and adventure. For example, the traditional formula of sending units to harvest gold has been replaced by the ability to take your goblins out into the world and smash structures to gain gold. Instead of harvesting lumber and other resources, the player must instead harvest souls by killing enemy goblins or capturing structures like soul fountains. Direct control has also been implemented, allowing the players the ability to put themselves right in the middle of the action instead of taking the traditional approach with a fixed perspective.

I think its one of those aquired taste games so magazine reviews won't give the whole story.
Can you explain exactly what you mean by this? Are you saying the magazines are BIAS against the game?

[Alan Au]

Feh, no PC version....

However, the peonless economy is a step in the right direction, um, I think.

- Alan

[Dave Long]

What everyone fails to realize about this game is it's by Ron Millar, famous for being Lead Designer on Warcraft II, did levels for Blackthorne, Lost Vikings...he's one of the big Blizzard vets that left after Warcraft II. This could be one of the better RTS games of the year.

--Dave

[Briareos]

Well actually yeah kinda like sacrafice or majesty where its a type of gameplay that might not appeal to everyone

Herzog Zwei had notoriously low scores from EGM at the time and is now considered a classic.

[Reed]

What everyone fails to realize about this game is it's by Ron Millar, famous for being Lead Designer on Warcraft II, did levels for Blackthorne, Lost Vikings...he's one of the big Blizzard vets that left after Warcraft II. This could be one of the better RTS games of the year.
Interesting, wasn't aware of that.

There aren't many reviews out for it yet, but so far they are unusually positive for a console RTS. May have to give it a rental afterall.

[bago]

Ah, herzog zwei!

[John Many Jars]

Feh, no PC version....

However, the peonless economy is a step in the right direction, um, I think.

Definitely. To me, the most promising thing about this economic innovation is that it fits the theme of the game; you get resources by smashing and looting, which is gobliny behavior.

I've always meant to try Z: Steel Soldiers, which awarded resources according to possession of areas, but it seems to be a love/hate game, and I haven't gotten around to it.

Are there any other RTSs that have non-peon economies? I don't mean Myth and Ground Control (which I like, but which have no economies), but games with unique economic models. If so, how do they work?

[Ben Sones]

Kohan had no peons. You earned resources by controlling cities and building improvements in them, and it worked very well. So well that I no longer care for games that make you manage a peon workforce.

[curst]

Total War is my favorite RTS series of the past few years, and it is partly because of this very thing. No peons to worry about. Indeed, it is pretty similar to Kohan's model.

The game has two stages - turn-based and real-time. Real-time only kicks in when there's an actual battle, and that's where you just throw economy out the window and worry solely about your units and tactics and so forth. Not coincidentally, the battles are about a million times more fun. It's during the turn-based part of the game where you have to decide what provinces you want to develop economically, and which ones you want to focus on developing technology advancements to get better units.

[Mark Asher]

TA: Kingdoms didn't really have peons -- just mana sources you claimed by building a mana collector on them. With the ability to stack commands you can order a builder to build collectors on all of them and then forget about it and focus on something else.

[tronnc]

Total Annihilation was and is still my favorite RTS because of the way it handled resources. Instead of the peon/truck going back and forth, you simply placed a metal mine over a patch of metal. The patches of metal were all over the map (except metal maps, but those sucked) so it basically translated in the person who holds the most territory gets the most resources. This led to great multiplayer battles where both players needed to fight for territory over the whole map instead of just rushing into there base.

Actually a good player wouldn't have a base per se he would have his buildings spread out all over the map making them very difficult to totally annihilate.

Total War is my favorite RTS series of the past few years, and it is partly because of this very thing. No peons to worry about. Indeed, it is pretty similar to Kohan's model.

The Total War games are possibly my favorite games of all time but I wouldn't consider them an RTS, they are regular strategy with realtime battles.

[runesword forger]

There was an interesting interview in Nintendo Power (of all places) where a designer on this game talked about how they made a pretty extreme mid-development change on this game. They made some pretty sweeping changes to the gameplay and the style of the artwork because they felt the project was getting out of hand with various elements.

So if the game is good, maybe they managed to pull it off. It definitely sounded like the end result varied a lot from the original design doc.

[Robert Sharp]

I already saw a used copy at EB today. Of course, that could just mean the game is short or whoever bought it played it quickly...

[John Many Jars]

I already saw a used copy at EB today. Of course, that could just mean the game is short or whoever bought it played it quickly...

Or that the buyer doesn't want an RTS that diverges from the peon model.

[tromik]

Warlord Battlecry II had peons, but you only used them to build if your hero was busy, and you could stuff them into mines to grab gold and stuff faster, but other than that, you didn't really have to worry about them.

I love that game, mostly because it's is pace is slow (not a bad thing here) enough to do things like gaurd your mines and focus on your tech. tree until you built a titan.

Those little battles don't have a huge impact on the game, unless you happen to slay a hero as you get your titan.