strategy

Classic Game Room HD reviews PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS THE LIGHTNING THIEF for Nintendo DS published by Activision. Based on the book by Rick Riordan and the movie, Percy Jackson is a demigod whose father is Poseidon and mother is some random human female. Percy is, of course, a high school student with a fantastic destiny, etc.. etc.. This DS game is somewhat unattractive but a relatively interesting turn based strategy game with RPG elements. Not a tactical grid based game like Final Fantasy Tactics or Vandal Hearts, but a strategy game nonetheless. Select your attacks, increase accuracy and collect things throughout your journey. Fans of the book and/or movie may get a kick out of this. Those who really enjoy turn based fighting games may also enjoy it. Definitely not the kind of game you'd expect for a movie-based video game. This CGR review of Percy Jackson and the Olympians for Nintendo DS has gameplay from The Lightning Thief on Nintendo DS showing game play in HD.

Stealth Gamers

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Stealth Gamers

Right, so for various dif. units, and groups different moves and tactics should be possible. For example, if I designate a group of cavalry, as cavalry, and then I should be able to order them to charge, through an opposing group, or to a point, and then either return or move on to the next position I want them.

The problem, for example with what happens right now, is that if you send your horse to charge, they’ll just charge through, and instead of mowing down some archers, for example, they’ll just run through them, being shot at from all angles.

That is one thing that needs to change, at least for the way most RTS use horse.

Another issue is something I’ve mentioned before, that pike men, when joined with archers do not adhere to the logical role they should play, that of protecting the archers, but they break formation very stupidly. Instead, it should at the very least be possible to designate a group of archers/pikemen, to fight together.

The other thing is artillery, while they aren’t as bad as usual, setting units to guard them is impossible, and they too, quite naturally break formation, when they aren’t supposed to. It can get on your nerves, very lieterally.

The guard feature needs therefore to be worked out for units too, not just buildins etc.

Actually, even if just this feature, and none of the others I’ve talked about is worked out, and we can then set aside troops to do something specific, in terms of strategy, we’ll have much more fun, though the unreality of having to deal with war/ peace simultaneously could also be removed.

In a real battle, you cant change, tactics at any given moment of time, you can suddenly withdraw troops committed to an engagement, nor can you respond to a new set of troops coming at the wrong time.

You set out a plan, the first wave, the second, artillery barrages, cavalry charges, and then you tell them, when to attack… I mean, no general gets to click on his troops. I think the over simplification forced on fighting by the way in RTSs work, is really irritating.

You should set out your troops in the same manner that a normal gen. would. Send out scouts, to figure out what the other army is using as its units, where they are coming from, and the array yourself in response.

AOE II has sort a similar system, but they give you clues in the start of a game, and so instead of being clues for battle, they become just random pieces of info. I think it would be great fun, if you get to research your opponents, research the terrain you’re fighting on, and then plan out the battle.

That way, upsets like water loo will be possible.

I’ve got an idea for what I shall do, I shall set out alternate commands that I think we should be allowed to give units, or groups.

Orders like the patrolling order that you can give in AOE II. Its cool, because you can set your units to patrol, and feel relatively sure that they will take care of things, of course they might die, but then that’s a real risk. Unlike an entire company slipping through.

That is another thing that needs to be worked on. The dynamics of a troops organized into bands. Its sort of stupid for pike men grouped with archers to break formation and attack foot soldiers, while the horse is still no where near,  when you actually need them to protect the archers, who will easily kill the footmen….

For now.

Alright, now for the details of the garrison style fighting.

So basically what happens is, you either have one or multiple cities. Each of them will have a garrison. Now, the point of having a city and a garrison, is that you can use the city structure as a part of the war fare tactic. For example things like city walls, embattlements etc. can be brought into play. Multiple gates, and their positions, and other stuff….

Basically, you can design your city… or at least its defenses. So you can place cities against mountains, or near rivers, etc. and use the terrain tactically as well. You can design the city to provide for things like emergency get aways, and trap doors to attack beseiging armies etc.

In actual battle, you will have a slight advantage, in that you can set up various buildings like hospitals etc. which will be more efficeint than theif field equivalents, which is obvioulsy what the opponents will have to use. But you wont be able to call on reinforcements, or will have some other disadavantage.

In battle itself you will have many more options, that of hiding behind your walls, that of going out to meet the army. That of abandoning the city. Or of cutting losses, by leaving only a small force behind, and sending the others of to anotehr settlement, or the next best thing.

Battles itself willl be handles along similar lines to a regular field engagement, except you will have walls, and the rest of the city to work with…

Alright, so now to the actual fighting.

Now first of all, we must realise, than an army, or a standing army, does not really come into existence till pretty late in human history. So for civilizations, or players in the  earlier stages of human development, a percent of the population itself would have to be the army, and be conscripted much like militia might be. So they’ll be for some time, no really specialized warriors, meaning that focused, and well trained sorts of companies will not exist, and in truth, aggressive warfare will be rather pointless.

Anyway, if the ‘quota’ of a player is limited to this level of under-development, then his army will consist of peasant, badly trained and weak.

But then there is a point when the army becomes a specialized group in society. Now these people are fun… the army will contain of trained soldiers, and research will allow you to increase the variety of units  you have, and their abilities etc. pretty much like standard RTS armies today.

But the army will be divided into two sets of fighters, the first will be the garrison, a group of defensive warriors for your city. And the second will be the standing army. The garrison becomes important, because if you have multiple cities.

They are basically for defensive tactics… though they can be sent out with the standing army in time. But having a set of garrisoned soldiers and specific defensive tactics can be very interesting.

The second kind of army, will the field, or aggressive army, these will naturally work differently, with different units, and requiring much else. Plus when you choose to fight with the field army, you will have a very different battle scenario, and different tactics to follow.

I know, the last blog I wrote, would suggest a piece about how the ideal RTS would deal with battle, but instead, I’m going to digress, and talk about how RTSs deal with the issue right now.

There are basically three kinds of battles that RTSs engage in, one is in the open field, so to speak, the other happens at the city walls of the opponent, and the third at your own city walls.

The battles in open fields rarely ever happen, and if they do, rarely are deliberate engagements, but usually are the result of two marching armies meeting each other en route to the opposing city walls. Of course this is very unreal, considering that open battles are more fun, and provide better chances for strategy etc… anyway, in battles of this sort, the outcome is seems is decided by which sort of unit sees which sort of unit first… and the amount of strategy is very limited

Then come the battles outside city walls. These I find are even worse, in terms of fairness, or reality quotient, assuming that such a thing even exists. Battles around cities are fought by garrisons, and city defenses are sort of par to of the design of the very city. But in all the games that we play, the very option of building a city defenses is false… in fact many games that we play, don’t even give the option of a fortified city anymore.

And its sad, because epic, and desperate battles for a city are essential…

Actually this brings me back, to my initial point, that I made very unsubstantially in the beginning, simply that games need to deal with battle and building separately the two cannot be dealt with by the same enterprise.