#too bad about the Eldar AI

[king-of-men]

You know it's a good spaceship game when it offers, as a somewhat-situational method of getting the Khorne-blessed battleship off your convoy, the option of ramming it with both your heavy cruisers and pushing it into the nearby asteroid field. Making it take much more damage, since it's traversing the astroids sideways and also being constantly rammed, than your cruisers which are going bow-first! It eventually blew up, which admittedly did leave my cruisers in the middle of the aforementioned asteroid field, but nothing a quick micro warp jump couldn't fix.

[soraka-in-warhammer40k]

A theory on the lost/dead Primarchs

At first, let me throw out a thesis: since the Emperor created the Primarchs with the help of the Warp, and since their very presence seems to screw up either human minds and/or natural laws -

Examples:

Corax being entirely undetectable if he does not want to be seen

Magnus being Magnus in general

The idea of (often) undisturbed Primarch 1vs1 fights in the middle of a warscene that has at least a five digit number of active participants being commonplace

Alpharius/Omegon connection

- it would be same to assume that they are all half-demons. "Demon" however is a very unprecise word. They are half "warp entity" more or less unallinged to the gods. Those who vibed a bit too much with their uncles and aunt (?), well, we know what became of them. There is just one issue with demons: they don't "die". They can only be banished. Sure, depending on how hard you kick the fucker into its spectral groin, it might take decades or even centuries until it manages to manifest again - but it WILL come back eventually. Chaos Legions probably recover faster thanks to their "family" helping out, but the same can probably apply to all the others as well.

Right now we got five dead primarchs, out of which we have story confirmation of three: Ferrus Manus, Sanguinius, and Horus. I do not count Alpharius in his battle with Dorn, because either it was not him for obvious reasons, or there exists the possibility that the original bodies of the Alpha Legion Primarchs have long perished, and they now exist as memetic forces haunting/posessing their own Legion, potentially engaged in a spy-civil-war.

The thing is however, all of those three could, IN THEORY, come back. Assuming you build a suiting vessel (modified primarch body) to gather all the soul fragments of them in the warp, and assuming they actually WANT to come back the moment they recover even the least bit of sanity (definetly not a given), in theory even Horus could come back, even if he is the most unlikely candidate to do so. That there presence is still definetlly active in the Warp is pretty much confirmed by the Blood Angels: Sanguinius' "death" still echoes through the Immaterium and slowly grinds those suspectible to it (his legion) down until the Black Rage consumes them.

The other two are the "mysterious" two lost Primarchs, who were supposedly "purged" by the Emperor himself. There is just a problem tho: assuming the thesis above is correct, then not even BigE will be able to permanently destroy his creations. While he can definetly destroy their current physical form and maybe even shatter their souls like with Horus - there is nothing preventing the possibility of someone or something allowing those framents to gather again. In fact, both Lost Primarchs might have taken steps to enable a self-revive as some sort of contingency. They were literally created for war, so it is definetly not unusual to have backup plans. Not everyone can just fight like Angron or Russ with essentially elevator music behind their eyes.

There is not much we know about those, just that:

They were done in for seperate crimes while it is suspected they supported each other

They were part of legions 2 and 11

They had good ties to their brothers. Lorgar was a good friend, and one legion's marines were shoved to the Ultramarines according to rumors after the purge

There was no Chaos involved - that only came with Horus

There is a mysterious "Subject XI" in the Custodes vaults as by their Codex.

So what could be the two seperate crimes that would cause the Emperor himself to take action AND forbid all speech and knowledge about it?

Generally for the Emperor, the following things are very bad:

Chaos - obviously, but we established that it was not a thing

AI - Abominable Intelligence. Generally all intelligence not reliant on biology. Very likely candidate.

Xenos - aliens. But people know aliens are a thing, and there is definetly the one or other rogue trader who hooked up with an Eldar or T'au (a very spicy story), so no information has been surpressed that way.

Abbandoning humanity. His sons and legions were transhuman, but they were sworn in service to humanity as a whole. They were explicitly forbidden to see themselves as a "new species" of some sorts

This leaves AI and biological transhumanism as possible options. Given that we do not have a single "science"-focussed Primarch with the exeption of maybe Magnus and Ferrus Manus (more of an engineer really) there just is none. Is that not weird? Every fascet of war and empire is covered, even weird space magic, but no science?

AI has the following detail going for it: the Word Bearers are using robots in battle. They give them names, ranks, and all - much to the dismay of the Mechanicum who found a billion bugs in their machines code from this for some reason - while at the same time Lorgar was friends with one of The Lost. From this and the thesis above comes one question: "Does the Soul-Fragment colecting vessel have to be biological?". Is there a Primarch-AI slumbering in the Warp, ready to be "downloaded" by a sufficiently powerful and complex AI?

If this is true, then this will have curious story implications for the Mechanicum, Necrons, and T'au alike

The biological theory is a bit more complex: what does one need to turn Space Marines into a species of their own? Well, for one every species needs to be able to reproduce. And for that, at least if we take humanity as a basis, you need more than just a men's-only-club. My guess is that one of the lost Primarchs had a focus on extreme biological adaptability. It would also be a nice way to explain the more "weird" chapters going around like the Carcharodons, but back to the point: some animal species develop weird things in extreme situations: Some even change their sex to ensure the survival of the species. Some can regenerate from insane amounts of damage. Some are even straightup immortal like some jellyfish. Biology is weird, and now imagine the full force of a primarch's power and the science of the 30th millenium thrown at it. If you think Fulgrim laughs at the concept of sex and gender, that person probably just evolved 5 new ones just to mess with people.

My guess that this is "Subject XI" being entombed in the Custodian Vaults. The Emperor literally vaporized them, but a single cell survived, regenerated, and instantly recovered the soul from the Warp. They literally can't kill it, and if they overdo it, a single cell might get out and regenerate outside. So instead they lock up the "main body" in such a way it cannot do much.

If this is true, not only would that confirm Female Space Marines (in a way), but it would also have curious story implications for the Tyrranids.

Personally I hope I am correct with this theory, mostly because given the data at hand it makes the most sense while opening up the most venues for the writers: fans of a Legion want their Primarch to come back eventually, so that's always a good card to play assuming you play it right. It would be a big lore moment that's for certain. At the same time we can dive more into the things the Imperium actively abhorrs: AI and the logical endpoint of "transhumanism": that eventually there will be no humans left. Both Lost Primarchs would tie into various factions with their nature as described here, and we would finally have a "anti-Nid's-weapon" strong enough that we could actually let them have some wins before stomping them down again (because otherwise the setting ends after everything gets eaten).

Oh, and in one case it opens up the venue for 7 foot tall supersoldier ladies, which definetly can't be bad thing according to some people (you know who you are and yeah, honestly? I get it).

[nemossubmarine]

Warhammer 40k: Wrath & Glory RP #38

We start with a lot of shopping; equipment, weapon upgrades, stealthy cloaks, a jetpack, you name it. Noticeably Saef gets Terra snowglobes, Biker mice from Mars t-shirts (for Rat and Theo!), lollipops in the shape of Terra and a laser pointer for Felis Catus. Gimlet gets a phone for his dad, a simple ring for his beard with his real name carved inside it, and an apple sapling for Tabasco. Gorm gets a bowl for Mimir and #1 brother mug for Uffe and #1 mom mug for Jennifer.

After the shopping our heroes head back to the Navigators’ quarters, as Gimlet has sensed something in Paternova Locarno’s house, that he wants to check out. While they are going there, it just so happens that Roboute Guilliman is exiting the premises with two Primaris Ultramarines. Our heroes drop to their knees as one is wont to do. Guilliman tells them to be at ease. Our heroes clamber to their feet, and Guilliman notices that Gorm has something to say to him, so he stops and waits for him to speak. Gorm’s voice is very shaky, but he manages to tell Guilliman that he is honored to have met him and that the three of them have a message for him. Guilliman asks who sends this message, and Gorm says an eldar seer. Guilliman dismisses his companions, and says they need to talk somewhere more private, so he takes our heroes up to Paternova Locarno’s house and secures a room for them. (while they are walking, Gorm hands Saef his phone and tells him he’ll show a sign when to take a picture of Gorm and the Primarch)

Alone with the Primarch in a room he looks even more big and indimidating. He asks our heroes’ names and about our heroes’ mission that has them meeting aeldari. Gorm explains his hunt and how that led them to meeting the Harlequins. Guilliman asks if that is Saef’s and Gimlet’s missions as well, and they mention working for a Rogue Trader. Guilliman asks for the message and Gimlet gets his notes and shares the Harlequins’ message. Guilliman ponders over this for a while, and then thanks our heroes for sharing it.

Gorm musters up his courage and asks if Guilliman could possibly share anything about Leman Russ. Guilliman appears to be a bit taken aback, as he clearly hasn’t thought about his brothers in a long while. But he humors Gorm, telling that Russ used to sneak up on people and do the traditional Space Wolf head bonk, which admittedly confused Guilliman at first, as this was not a greeting among his people. He mentions expecting the head bonk of a life time once Russ returns. Gorm thanks for this story, and asks how people greet each other in Guilliman’s culture. So Guilliman demonstrates, kissing Gorm on the forehead and saying something in High Gothic (walk in light, grey hunter, Gimlet later translates). Gorm asks if he may greet Guilliman the Space Wolf way and the Primarch kneels down. Gorm gives Saef the sign to take the picture and then head bonks the Lord Commander of the Imperium. Unfortunately Guilliman notices, and tells Saef he isn’t a fan of having his picture being taken. Gorm takes the blame and apologises profusely. Saef asks if they may keep a single copy of the photo for Gorm to show his mentee, and nothing else. Guilliman seems fine-ish with this, though he makes it clear to Gorm that this meeting is not to become a saga on Fenris, or really anywhere. With that he must be off, so he says his goodbyes and leaves. Gorm asks him to say hi to the Emperor for him.

Once Roboute Guilliman has left the room, Gorm sits down on the floor and says he can die happy now. Too bad he can’t really tell anyone, because Guilliman said so. He is a handsome man, Gorm admits (very important to write down).

Well, since they are now at the Paternova’s house, might as well get to exploring. Gimlet says he feels something coming from downstairs. He suggests Gorm ask his new sugar daddy Espern whether he could grant them access to the house. Gorm calls Espern, but unfortunately mentions to him about his friend sensing stuff downstairs, so Espern suggests they come talk with Paternova Locarno. Gimlet is not happy with how the call turns out and Gorm shrugs and says he’s not the lying type. 

They attempt to sneak out of the sitting room they are in, but Gimlet gets caught, and so the three of them are taken to meet Paternova Locarno, an older woman, who is not a fan of Adelbert Valance. Gimlet is frank with her about his parentage and why he is interested in checking out her cellar. Paternova Locarno is unimpressed and denies Gimlet’s request, having her guards take our heroes out. 

Before our heroes are escorted all the way out, Gorm grabs Gimlet and bolts, running downstairs with him on his back. The downstairs area is filled with doors, and Gorm uses his newly-purchased jet pack to gain some ground. They check two rooms (uninteresting both), before they are surrounded. Gorm attempts to jetpack beyond the guards, but gets caught. The guards ask Gorm to come down, and say the police has been called. Gimlet asks Gorm to let him down.

Suddenly there is a noticeable shift in Gimlet’s demeanor, as he becomes all professional. He pulls out a badge of the Inquisition from his pocket and informs the guards that in the name of High Inquisitor Marbray, he is demanding to see the cellar. Paternova Locarno is called onto the scene, as is an Inquisitor of Ordo Malleus, who watches over the Navigators. Gorm attempts to speak, and Gimlet tells him to be quiet and tag along. They are taken to the cellar, where they find a blob of meat in a tank. Paternova Locarno explains that this would be Gimlet’s grandmother, a shape-shifting mutant too old to keep a humanoid form. These mutants have been hunted by the Inquisition and have been sheltered by the Locarno family for a long time, until Cara left. With that information, Gorm and Gimlet leave.

Meanwhile Saef has just been chatting with the guard named Gideon who’s watching over him, who’s telling Saef about his family and asking him to come over for tea once he gets out of jail.

Gorm and Gimlet come back to Saef. Saef notices that something is off, because Gorm looks very tense, his hands balled into fists. So it didn’t go well? Saef asks, but gets no clear reply. Gorm asks where Gimlet would like to talk, and they return to Gimlet’s room at the Palace. Saef is at this point very confused and asks to know what has happened. Gorm asks Gimlet if Gorm should explain, if Gimlet should explain or if Gimlet wants to keep on keeping secrets. Gorm says he was trying to help Gimlet, and then suddenly Gimlet drops this act and becomes someone else, and not just anyone, but an Inquisitor. Gimlet clarifies that he was working undercover, which was why he didn’t wave the Inquisition badge around, until now. His cover is no longer there. Gorm asks if Gimlet needs his head cut off, because, honestly, it’s getting kind of close to that. They need to know if Gimlet is a friend or an Inquisitor. Gorm seems genuinely hurt by Gimlet ordering him around back at the cellar, when Gorm was only trying to help. Gimlet says he didn’t want Gorm to get into more trouble.

Gimlet says that whenever he was nervous around Inquisition members, it was a genuine reaction, because he was afraid he’d mess stuff up. Gorm asks if he means with the Inquisition or with his friends. Gimlet says with Inquisition, making it clear that Saef and Gorm were never part of his plan. Gimlet makes it very clear to Saef, that he genuinely wanted to help Saef by bringing him under Inquisitor Inpax. And he appears to be genuinely distressed at the situation they are in.

Gorm asks what he should call Gimlet from now on, Acolyte Gimlet or Acolyte Demetrius or what? Gimlet says that Gimlet will do. Gorm seems to settle for Little Inquisitor.

Gimlet says that he was trying to get his freedom from the Inquisition by working undercover, but he has a new mission now. He gets asked about what his mission was before, and Gimlet says that he was looking into Kane Bullard’s dealings on Dew Mountain, and looking for his connections to Tanner. Upon being asked what he found out, Gimlet mentions Triplex Phall AdMechs. Saef calls Gimlet out on not telling the whole story, and Gimlet admits that those connections seem to mostly center around Eden. Gimlet says that it doesn’t matter, Eden is going to die anyway. Gorm asks about Vivek, and Gimlet says Vivek had information. Gorm asks is Gimlet saying that if Vivek is going to die, that Gimlet had nothing to do with it. Gimlet doesn’t answer, and Gorm tells him that if Vivek dies, and Gimlet played any part in it, especially if Uffe has to kill his best friend Vivek, then Gorm will kill Gimlet, and that is a promise.

Gimlet says that what he was always trying to do is make sure those people who were wronged by Tanner are done right, that nothing like that would be done again. Does that mean Eden and Vivek did something wrong? Gimlet says he doesn’t know, but he’s been trying to find out.

Gimlet reveals that he was working for Inquisitor Inpax, which doesn’t surprise Saef and Gorm at this moment. Now, however he is working for High Inquisitor Marbray, and his current mission (and Gimlet thinks Gorm might like this one) is to kill Inquisitor Inpax.

Saef is really upset about the fact that Gimlet said that Eden is going to die anyway. He points out that all this time they’ve been trying to save Eden, and now Gimlet wants to kill him. Gimlet says that it was always beyond his control, since he’s an illegal AI.

Gorm says he has a practice he needs to attend to and Saef says he needs to prepare for his sanctioning (all the praying) so they both leave. All alone Gimlet starts crying.

Outside Saef asks Gorm if he could come watch him practice, as he’d rather be with people before the sanctioning than alone. Gorm is more than happy to have Saef over. He says surely Saef watching his ass getting kicked by Custodes will make Saef happy. Gorm says they should talk about other stuff for the moment, and then tells Saef that he is proud of him, and that Saef has grown a lot, and if things go bad, he’d be willing to help Saef out of Terra. Saef appreciates the sentiment. Gorm offers Saef the necklace he got when he last visited Fenris, telling it has helped him feel more willful (+1 willpower babyy). Saef notices that the necklace appears to sport Wolf-like canines, quite probably from Gorm’s brothers’ mouths. Saef takes the necklace. And that’s the end for this session!

[dapperkobold]

Review at Random: Dawn of War 2

Dawn of War was a competent game desperately in need of a quality of life update. Dawn of War 2 is... different. The quality of life improved, but it’s still subject to some troublesome issues that make me frown. Also, bad replayability.

(I already did Dawn of War)

Graphics-wise, it’s fine. Move along. Sure, people who are picky about graphics will no doubt frown, butt they’re rather nice, effective, and not disruptive. Sound quality was similar.

Gameplay, however...

Let me open with a bald-faced admittance that I’m not a multiplayer player. I don’t do the PVP thing. It’s not an interest of mine. I play campaigns, I like plot and campaign missions. As a result, I have no idea how the multiplayer in this game works. The campaign is doing its own thing with its own rules.

The base campaign is really closer to a... let’s call it RTRPS: Real Time Role-Playing Strategy. You have your space marines, they level up, you equip gear that the enemies drop, you gain more stats and abilities as things go on. At the same time, the control scheme and setup means that you’re really playing an RTS game. The resulting hybrid system is... well, it’s not amazing, but I’d love to see it refined until it was. It works, certainly, it’s even good, but it could use some fine-tuning.

You level up, you invest points in stats, you get abilities. Usually I’m hard on stats in video games (especially MMOs, but that’s a line for another time), but this time they’re really straightforward. Health, energy, ranged damage, melee damage. Nice. You unlock abilities in the stats as you level them up, and those abilities are the real power behind your units.

In missions, you get equipment (called wargear as per the Warhammer tradition) and you slap those on your guys. There’s no money or stores, only what you pick up in the wild. Extra gear you can throw in the hopper for extra EXP. Not bad, I suppose, but I’ve become disenfranchised with gear systems in general and especially leveled ones. Oh yes, gear items have levels and if you’re not that level you don’t get to use that gear.

Thankfully, the gear in this game isn’t too bad. It’s mostly linear progression, but there’s occasionally the difficult choice. If this game did have a store, however, I’m pretty sure that would foul it all up, so I’m very glad it does not.

Story-wise, it’s not bad. Not amazing, but I’ll take it and be happy. The characters are fairly compelling, the voice acting is good enough, and the overall plot is really good except for the Eldar.

It’s no wonder that the Eldar are a dying people. How did they get a successful civilization in the first place with such terrible communication skills? And for being ‘master manipulators’ they... really are not. They can’t even manipulate Orks right. They aren’t smart, they don’t seem to have a solid tactical or strategic understanding, much less the social skills to really manipulate people, and they aren’t good at their jobs. 

B- to B+ story, but I’m leaning towards -.

Level design I’m going to be harsher on. You’re on every single map at least twice, and I think it’s sometimes three or more times. none of the levels are super memorable, and it’s sometimes downright frustrating. Bosses are fairly common, and they’re more a drag than anything else. I was never in serious danger in a boss fight, partially due to the boss’ bad AI.

That’s not too say that the game was too easy. No, the game as a whole wasn’t too easy, just most of it was. But then some parts of it are way too hard.

I wound up playing on easy mode because the entire game has a bad case of Jekyll and Hyde. You can breeze through most of a mission, and then 3 of 4 guys are dead and the last one has a giant tank bearing down on him. By the same nature, you fight smart and bypass most of one area, and then just breeze through the rest because you just bypassed the hard part of the mission.

That said, if I could turn up the difficulty mid-game, I would have before the end. Once you get into mid- and late- game, you can blow through most anything with no trouble. You can go look up build guides for your marines if you want, but let me tell you a little secret:

There’s no doubt that you’re going to wind up overpowered. The question is how overpowered you’re going to be.

I don’t know how it is on higher difficulties (I’ve heard some horror stories) but on lower difficulties you’ll likely be fine as long as you don’t specifically hamstring yourself. Once you get past that initial hump, do the extra missions, give all your extra gear away to charity... you’ll be fine. Trust me.

However, I’ve saved the best for last: The game still has some interface issues from the first Dawn of War. The Escape key still does nothing, the hotkeys are better but still a mess, and there’s no grid layout.

Pathfinding has improved, though, barring a few MASSIVE bugs. I think there’s something wrong with Avitus’ AI that doesn’t like rocket launchers, but at least there’s no need to call down an artillery strike on your own men.

Overall, I’m not going to play through it again any time soon, but it was fairly fun.

But wait! I didn’t just get Dawn of War 2, I got ALL of it. That means I got Chaos rising and Retribution, too!

Chaos rising is more of the same. Same quality of plot, same unneeded Eldar, same quality of gameplay, same quality of RPG elements, and a slightly improved difficulty curve. You can import old saves, too, permitting you to go from ‘overpowered’ to ‘hilariously overpowered’.

That said, I’d like to go into detail on that improved curve. It no longer has harsh changes mid-mission, it now changes between Jekyll and Hyde between missions. Also, free advice: the first Eldar mission is a Hyde mission. PUT THE JUMP PACK ON YOUR FORCE COMMANDER AND BRING THADDEUS. BE READY TO LEAVE THE GROUND-POUNDERS BEHIND.

Trust me.

Really, that’s my thoughts on it. If you liked the first Dawn of War 2 campaign, you’ll likely like Chaos Rising. If you didn’t like the first one, I don’t see this one changing your mind. It has the same system, the same hotkeys, the same characters, and Avitus still doesn’t like rocket launchers, just use a heavy plasma gun or a lascannon, trust me.

Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising: second verse, same verse as the first verse.

Dawn of War 2: Retribution is quite different, though.

The RPG elements have been streamlined, the stat points now buy abilities directly and equipment has been made into more of a suite of options instead of a mostly-linear progression. I found myself actually considering my loadout and changing it instead of just rolling with the best everything, something that had only barely happened in the first two campaigns.

In addition, you can get more units, like vehicles and infantry, like it’s an RTS game! Woah! However, the level design still feels very much like it’s made for a group of four heroes instead of an army, and I found managing a large group of infantry to be tiresome, so I just wound up using elites and tanks and occasionally melee units when I felt I needed more melee presence. It worked, though.

The story stays at about the same rate, though, maybe lowering a bit. Not complaining much, it’s still not bad. Eldar are still superfluous.

The space marines campaign does lose a few points for me for benching the force commander, though. With the smaller cast and having already explored the character depth in the previous campaigns, lacking Mr. ALIEN BEANS for me to laugh at made me a little sad. Diomedes does have his moments, but that force commander and I had a good time together.

In addition, each map is surprisingly well-made, with a solid deign and no repeating. It went over well enough I wouldn’t be against re-playing it at some point. Which is a good thing, since that’s what I’ll be doing if I want to try other factions.

Yes, the other factions all have campaigns too! No, wait, it’s just the space marine one with less cohesiveness. Well... I’m not surprised, actually. Disappointed, yes, but not surprised. And while the campaign is good, it’s not so good as to make me want to play it again back-to-back.

There’s a few bugs that Retribution adds, much to everyone’s chagrin, including a sound bug that crashes the game and a few other things, but they added in a option for grid hotkeys! Yay!

It turns out that’s not as great as it could be. The order of abilities does not appear to be based on the kind of ability or the placing of the accessory in the slot, but some kind of internal counter. As a result, the hotkey that corresponds to a given ability (especially from accessories) can change every mission sometimes. It’s better than the old set up, but still aggravating.

Overall, Retribution is pretty good, yeah, but it could use more polish, except for the non-space marine campaigns, which are honestly pretty vestigial.

EDIT: I missed a few things! The below conclusion is still accurate, but maybe read the add-on.

So... after all that, I don’t know how to feel. It was a fun romp, but nothing to write home about. I might play it again, eventually, but not anytime soon, and certainly not as much as I play Starcraft 2 or the Arkham games. It’s not an amazing game. I won’t kick it, but I will say it’s not for everyone, and if you want to full experience, you should wait for a sale.

I’d say that on number scores I’d put it above half, on a tier ranking I’d call it a B maybe C, on up or down I’d give it a up, and on a grade sheet I’d give it a B-. Could use some work, but I’m not going to ask you to go back and do it again.

[entergamingxp]

Put a Conquest Mode in everything • Eurogamer.net

Conquest Modes, I truly believe, are the best thing to almost happen to video games. There was a weird, brief time when it looked like they might happen around 2005, seemingly off the back of a wave of appreciation for Total War, when they started popping up in everything from other RTS games to the original Star Wars Battlefront 2. But then – poof! – gone.

I would very much like them to come back. It’s taken me a while to realise but conquest modes are often the secret ingredient to some of my most beloved games, home to my most beloved pre-adolescent memories. Not to be confused with the tickets-and-control-points Conquest mode in Battlefield, which is fun but not what I’m on about, the conquest mode I’m talking about is where you get a big, often slightly silly layer over the top of the “actual” game itself, in the form of a map with regions or planets or whatever that you strategize over capturing, and fight over down on the real-time ground itself. A metagame, if we must use that word: a driving, continuous reason to keep playing the game, but essentially one that is also a game itself, as opposed to just a path of XP unlocks or a paid-for pass.

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A favourite of mine – if we’re excluding Total War, which is sort what you get if you make an entire series of conquest modes, where the mode itself is fleshed-out and maximised to its logical conclusion – is the one that came in the Dawn of War: Dark Crusade expansion, which frankly had no right to be so good. The story here, if you chose the Space Marines, is that you’ve landed on some xeno planet and just about every other intergalactic race (there are seven of them) just happens to show up as well. If you play as the Necrons, it’s a bunch of rowdy neighbours moving in and waking you up. If you’re the Tau then apparently you think this planet’s yours. Everyone’s here, basically. Orks! Imperial Guard! Chaos! More! For some time since, quoting the hyper-committed narrator’s “…and then the Eldar came!” has been a running joke with friends.

This is the joy of this stupid, brilliant mode. It does not need much thought or care, nor any great dedication to lore. It’s an abstracted, non-place all stars battle royale of whatever you feel like throwing in the mix, a playground game where Aragorn’s fighting Gandalf and nobody can butt in to tell you, actually, that Aragorn can’t beat Gandalf because Gandalf’s a Maiar and therefore can’t really die, never mind the fact they’d never be fighting anyway. In this mode, in this game I have just made up, Gandalf dies because I captured his base and beat him in a battle down on the ground, and you just have to get over it. Load up a new game and play it differently if you don’t like it. That’s the point.

In Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, different territories grant you bonuses like special ‘Honor Guard’ units or buildings. A grotesque amount of my time was spent here.

It’s apt, also, that it’s another Star Wars game that has me pining for conquest mode’s shlocky return. Squadrons, the new dogfighter from EA Motive, which looks ace – properly colourful and dramatic and, obviously, carrying on EA’s penchant for making their games look unnervingly close to the films – has just been shown off in a bit more detail. We’ve learned it has a single-player story on top of what I’m sure is the actual, long-term focus of the studio in its multiplayer, which we know lots of people will be very happy about. (And full VR! The six of you who keep talking about that in the comments must be delighted.) But! No conquest mode.

This is good news, in the sort of palatably grey and textureless way that Disney era Star Wars delivers good news. Star Wars: Squadrons sounds immaculately inoffensive. It’s focus testable and on-brand, it won’t contradict page 43 of the Big Book of Star Wars Lore someone has locked in a vault at the head office. It fits the apparent rule that Star Wars-ness is measurable by looking at buttons and trees and holding up a kind of authenticity ruler, and that as such all new Star Wars properties must begin with a period of concentrated existential crisis. What is Star Wars? Who is Star Wars? Is this Star Wars? Am I?

There’s another, much more boring and miserable argument here, that in consigning this wonderfully endless mode to history studios are missing a trick. That today’s world is one of engagement: continuing attachment to and interaction with a given platform, be that Netflix, or Fortnite, or Facebook – or your playtime in Game Pass freebies on the Xbox One. The word goes that a lot of people seem to have looked at the multiplayer giants of the past decade, that have so easily and indefinitely gobbled up the hours, and decided that pitting people against each other is the golden ticket to the infinite click – and that we must disagree. I do, in fairness. And Football Manager disagrees, sports and racing game career modes disagree, and above all strategy games disagree.

Star Wars: Battlefront 2’s Galactic Conquest mode was rudimentary, but that was part of the charm. Simple concepts and broad strokes – earn resources, spend on upgrades, repeat – can often morph into something brilliant.

A strategy layer – which is all conquest modes are: strategy lite – is a cheap and cheerful way to get people coming back forever. They’re an infinitely more relaxing way to play these kinds of games. It’s a shameless, “back in my day it was just sticks and mud we had to play with” point, all this, but I do think it’s also quite valid. The crux of multiplayer engagement remains frustration for me, rather than fun. The “one more game” mindset is famous across the competitive scene – I’ve certainly lived it out over a few thousand games of FIFA and LoL, and I am far from saying it’s all bad, too – but still, that fame should probably be infamy. The compulsion is driven by the desire for a rematch, to set the record straight, to end on a high. To live out the Monte-carlo fallacy that a losing streak will eventually lead back to a win. There’s a sour difference between one more game and one more turn.

But, like I said, that argument is miserable. Conquest modes are a guiltless pleasure, and that is what we should focus on. You turn them on, you squash some AI, min-max a few resources, squash some more AI and continue, painting the galactic map, colouring in the little corners, tidying up the frayed ends and scattered edges and getting everything in line. Innocent compulsion, proving the existence of satisfaction without tension. It’s a driving force to keep playing, and a means of injecting spirit and fantasy to fantasy worlds that are growing stale, without fear of consequence. With the conquest mode of old Battlefront 2, Star Wars could learn a thing or two from its own game – but so could lots of others. The point remains: Gandalf dies and you can just get over it.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/put-a-conquest-mode-in-everything-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=put-a-conquest-mode-in-everything-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[dapperkobold]

Review at Random: Dawn of War

Well, I recently purchased Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War. All of it. And 2. Seeking linear plotting, I elected to play through the original Dawn of War first, including expansions, in order. This has caused feelings not dissimilar to my feelings on Star Wars: Empire at War, but less extreme and also less conflicting.

(Bonus Reading for afterward)

The first thing I noticed when I started up the game was that the graphics have not aged well. At all. Now, that’s not the kind of thing that stops me. Games can recycle textures all they want and I’m not liable to notice. I consider the graphics from the original Dark Forces adorable. My general rule for graphics is ‘as long as it’s not actively ugly and doesn’t get in the way of the gameplay, I don’t care.’ As a result, I’m willing to ignore the graphics of the game as competent, for the time, with one major exception: The faces are ugly. Not a big deal, but still.

Plot-wise gets less stellar marks: It’s not an actively painful plot, but at the same time it isn’t anywhere near good writing. The voice acting ranges from ‘not too bad’ to ‘pretty good’, but if you take out Sindri it only goes from ‘not too bad’ to ‘not bad’. So, writing and voice acting are pretty much on the same level as the graphics, maybe a smidge worse.

What about the gameplay? Ssssh. I didn’t just play the first Campaign, I tried them all. However, the first one was the only one I finished. Let’s touch on them all.

The original campaign had fairly competent level design. Not amazing, but competent. Winter Assault takes one step back on the writing, and one forward and two back on the gameplay. I’ll admit that I only played the Order Campaign, and didn’t even finish that, but given the situation I feel no need to play more of it. This is partially blamable on the sudden dual-army system, which is shoehorned inorganically into every mission. In fact, all the worst writing and level design of the order campaign is directly connected to the Eldar parts of the missions. The tearing point for me was an escort mission with poorly explained mechanics, an extremely limited force, and the army-swapping reaching its least fluid.

Dawn of War: Winter Assault: Worse than the original, despite addition of the Baneblade.

After Winter Assault was Dark Crusade, which has a ‘conquest’ map that makes me think of Empire at War. Alright, I’m on board. It all feels a bit clunkier, though, and the missions become more tedious as you have less means of streamlining things from the conquest map. In addition, even on easy the computer blatantly cheats.

It starts out as ‘sometimes the enemy has two bases on defense,’ which is fine. Poor AI needs a little leg up on occasion. It then goes to ‘AI has two fully-developed bases from the start on attack,’ which is... cheap! I only get one base, and nowhere near that developed, if I pay tons for it with a certain perk! But okay, given that I’m spamming Baneblades, I’ll let it slide.

When it got to ‘computer has buildings crammed into every nook and cranny in the map’ it got too dumb and I stopped. Baneblade or no, that’s not worth the frustration. Reminder: this is on easy mode. Does hard actually have smarter AI, or does it just cheat MORE somehow?

Dawn of War: Dark Crusade: Very nice until the computer stops playing nice.

Soulstorm just seemed like Dark Crusade but with worse conquest UI and a few gimmicky additions. I played enough to determine the planes didn’t change much and then stopped because I was fairly sure it was going to go the same way.

Seriously, the Imperial Guard has a ‘dedicated bomber’ that can drop like one bomb every two minutes or something. Useless.

Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Just play Dark Crusade.

Okay, NOW we can talk about the mechanics overall. They’re really good right up until they’re really bad, and that’s just the way of it. The core game works on a two-rescource system, one of which is just power that you can build stuff for wherever, and the other of which is connected to controlling parts of the map. Ultimately, not bad.

Units vary a lot between the factions, and while I can’t say a lot for balance I can say that playstyles vary a lot and that’s kind of cool. Space Marines can roll up a ton of infantry and kill everything. IG has amazing turtleing powers, etc.

The big issue is that the controls are a disaster.

Not the camera control, that’s pretty cool, but with the game’s pathfinding system and insistence of squad units you’re going to have LOTS of trouble getting them from point A to point B if there’s anything other than open, flat terrain in there. Units seem to be very picky about their personal space, and sometimes they can’t figure out how to get through an area for no reason. It’s kind of hard to explain how bad it is, people who have played it before probably know what I mean, but suffice to say ordering units around is clumsy and it makes fine-tuned positioning all but impossible. This is the only game I’ve played where selecting several units and then clicking in the middle of them has made them move further apart.

That’s not even getting into the issues with knotting units. Sometimes, when 3 or more infantry squads get tied up in one another (commonly also on a terrain feature or building) they get stuck and refuse to move. This can be a royal pain, and when it does happen you don’t have a lot of options: You either click all over the place and hope that one of them can step out somehow, or you need to decide which unit to kill so the others can live. With a rather limited pop cap in the first place, this can be a huge problem.

Thankfully, I found a third solution: Fire on ground in the middle of the units with your artillery. The knockback and knockdown ignores the game’s conventional pathfinding, re-scrambling the units and giving them a chance to escape if you work fast. It seems extreme, but it’s cheaper than deleting one of them. Also, this is WH40K: Sometimes you need something bigger than a bolter to punish cowards!

But my personal problem with the game was the hotkeys. Which is to say, there’s next to no hotkeys. In Starcraft 2, I fell in love with the grid layout, and this game could have definitely benefited from that! It uses next to no convenient hotkeys, to the point that the escape button does not pause the game.

You can’t make that kind of foolery up. It boggles the mind.

Now, normally this would be a slight annoyance followed by half an hour in the setting menu, but Dawn of War’s settings are pretty bare, to the point of having no control customization at all. Overall, while the production value of the game isn’t bad (some of the lines from the units are amazing) the control and gameplay issues make it hard enough that it needs to stand on other merits. However, with the level design being ‘lackluster’ to ‘bad’, the writing being ‘passable’ to ‘bad’, and the AI cheating like a crooked casino, it has no other merits to stand on.

Maybe you’ll like it. Maybe. The core gameplay is not bad, it’s just wrapped up in so much sludge that it’s too much trouble for me to enjoy. However, for the average player, I’d recommend staying out of it.

Finding a good game in a sludge shell makes me sad, though, and it makes me wish that they’d done it better! Well, they did make a Dawn of War 2. I’ll have to give it a look...