The Skirmish mode is quite different from that though. It is basically RTS with building structures removed, so all a player needs to do is find resources and buy units and upgrades. No more of that waiting for the Barracks to be finished and then spamming the hotkey for the units. Now I just go straight to spamming the hotkey.
I'm sure in competitive games it would be all about microing and very little macro. All there is to the macro part is going for the right nodes at the right time and picking the right upgrades. Most of the fighting would be about sending which squad to the front and which cover to hide behind.
The campaign was fun. It had a nice story and gameplay was simple. There was nothing to it but microing my 4 squads around, especially Cyrus's squad which I put all my grenades on due to his best mobility.
There are 6 squads to choose from, including your Squad Commander whom you can upgrade as you want. The rest have special characteristics that influences your choice of how to spend their upgrade points when they level up.
Personally I leveled my Commander according to my choice of squads, which are the first 4 that I got. The Tactical Squad led by Tarkus I turned into a good range attacker with decent melee power and very good stamina. This I used as the vanguard in all my battles because they have the Taunt ability that attracts all enemies to them. They were meant to take the worst beatings after all.
The Devastator Squad led by Avitus were the heavy weapons people. I placed not a single point in their melee so that they had very good range damage and hp. These guys I place always in the middle of the group because with their long range they were obviously meant to support everyone else.
The Scouts led by Cyrus was my sniper/utilities squad. Maxed his range attack and gave him good hp so that he is always covering others from afar when nothing else needs to be done. Anything that needs to be thrown quickly I gave to them. All except the anti-infantry grenade because that is needed as soon as I see a garrisoned building and I always have Cyrus cover my rear. That grenade I gave to the Tactical Marines because they're always in front.
My Force Commander was turned into a melee specialist because I ignored the other melee squad. Since he also gets the most armour from the Commander-only items, I don't see why I should waste it by letting him be a ranged attacker. After all, there are always enemies who can leap across obstacles and into the middle of my formation. Someone needs to kill them at close range.
The general strategy was the let all my squads take cover and use my Commander to lure the enemies into range. Or let him get all the attention of the enemies together with my Tactical Marines, my Devastators following behind and finding somewhere to deploy and my Scouts coming in last to throw a grenade or snipe from a cover or just charge in and snipe an enemy artillery/sniper.
The Assault Marines was kind of hard to use because they always attract the most attention. With their Jump ability, they can leap over anything and land right in the middle of the enemies, stunning them.
Having them in my 4 squads would radically change my tactics. First, they would require the best armour since they are designed to jump into the midst of the enemies all the time. That would mean my Commander would have to change into a supporter or a ranged attacker.
Second, I would most likely have them take the place of the Scouts. My general strategy would be brute force. Send the Assault Marines into the enemies, then my Tactical Squad to charge in, my Commander behind the Tactical Marines and finally the Devastators behind them all and deploying at the cover somewhere nearby. All my misssions would probably be completed very quickly, but it would also be more stressful.
The sixth is not a squad by a Terminator unit, which is a mechanical walker unit. I didn't use it because despite having 2 healing abilities on my Commander, none of them heals robots. To have it in my combination would require an extra slot filled with the Rites of Repair item, which doesn't help anyone but this unit.
Of course this thing has to be good, but I got it too late. Everyone was lv15 when I first received it and it started at lv13. 2 levels make a big difference. But its damage was very good for its level. I'm sure if I had it earlier I would do anything to keep it in the team.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I'm very sure the design of the Lictor on the Tyranid faction was inspired by Cthulhu. An octopus-like (or cuttlefish-like in this case) head is always Cthulhu-inspired.
The story of the Space Marines kept reminding me of the Empire in the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov. Asimov's Empire was a futuristic galaxy-wide empire that revolved around an Emperor. This Emperor is a human monarch, unlike he's counterpart in Warhammer who is as good as dead, kept alive by machines but treated as God.
In the time of the Foundation, the Empire was collapsing. The dying Empire is incredibly similar to the Imperium of Man! Both were unable to replace their higher technologies, describing the required knowledge as "forgotten" or "lost". They were both clinging on the last bits of such technologies such as space warships and buildings (nuclear plant in the Empire, automated foundries and many others in the Imperium).
Both of them were also in a similar situation - they were both declining.
Speaking of the Foundation universe, I thought something really didn't make sense there. The Foundation were capable of small-scale machines, like personal bullet-proof shields and walnut-sized nuclear reactors, while the Empire could only planetary defensive shields and planet-scale plants because the Foundation had little resources while the Empire had the resources of the whole galaxy. Or so it was explained anyway.
And that doesn't make sense. My common sense disapproves of this flawed reasoning.
When you have only small amounts of resources to use, you would build big to improve efficiency. One huge powerplant for the whole planet would be better than multiple small power plants everywhere. For one, less building materials would be required.
And small machines because of lack of resources! It's like saying because oil is becoming more expensive (due to demand), everyone should drive their own cars and boycott public transport.
There is, however, one part that kind of make sense. The Foundation used mainly small space fighters while the Empire had a fleet of huge warships. I don't see how the size of the ships is related to the resources.
As I see it, what they should consist of depends on how they are meant to be used. The huge warships would be excellent seige machines to scare warlords into surrendering and quell the ocassional rebellion. They can also be used to conquer new planets by providing support to soldiers and other ships, and attacking enemy warships.
The smaller fighters of the Foundation would be more suitable for small scale battles. Since the Foundation does not conquer other planets by force, there is no need for seiges. I imagine these smaller ships would be good for fighting off pirates and other sorts of criminals.
Though little detail was given as to what the Empire was like in its final centuries, playing Dawn of War 2 gave me a better picture of it.
Though there are 12 commanders to choose from in a Skirmish in DoW2, I imagine this extra work was offset by the lack of buildings.
I think this is what strategy really means. The same strategy is required. In the "normal" style you build according which units you want. This simplifies things, but also prevents each side from gathering intel on each other. In Starcraft, players often try to look at their opponents' bases to see which buildings are up in order to guess which units are being sent against them. This allows them to adopt a new strategy by recruiting the units most suitable to counter their enemies.
In DoW2 you can't tell what you're up against till you see the actual army, which would be too late for you to change anything.
The series, Freeman's Mind, on Machinima.com is actually very good. At least for anyone who has tried Half Life 1 before. It's basically about what Gordon Freeman was thinking about as he went through the events of Half Life.
The machinima is really a recording of a seemingly perfect run through Half Life, with a narrator and with the screen turning and moving according to what he was thinking about.
The first episode began rather slowly but it gets better by episode 3. And I got hooked ever since. Even though each episode is about 10 mins long, I feel that they're still too short. But I understand it's made by one person, so it's not easy to produce.
After a slow period of progress (2 days of half level peer day), things have gotten a more interesting in Runes of Magic. Now that I'm at level 36 for both classes, I can finally go to the Necropolis of Mirrors and not get raped at every single boss fight.
I'm not sure if it's because Ystra is a rather quiet zone or if many players are leaving the game due to the diamond issue, but I haven't seen many people looking for groups to go to NoM recently.
This makes things a little disappointing, though it does help that I'm at a somewhat high level now. At my level I can easily solo anything in the first newbie zone, Howling Mountains, and most things in Silverspring. So when I get tired of completing quests I go to the those two areas and offer my help for any player who wants a shortcut. Of course, they don't get any experience from the mob kills, but they do get the reward exp when I kill the boss mobs for them.
And I raid dungeons for the newbies, when there are enough players to make the trip worth the effort, ie full party. Sometimes they try to help by buffing me or hitting the mobs, but as a Rogue I can one-hit-kill most mobs in those dungeons. The buffs are also pointless, but it's another way of saying thanks I guess.
There is one dungeon, though, that I cannot help with very well. In the instance in a place called Moongorge, there is nothing but this boss that summons many tiny weak mobs, 3 at a time in fact. My Rogue doesn't have any ability that kills multiple monsters, so I can't kill them all fast enough. Having an excellent Dex score and a Dodge rate buff, they can't kill me.
The newbies are the one who have trouble getting past them. So generally I tell them to stand at the sides and try to not to catch any attention. Meanwhile I go straight to the boss and kill it in a couple of seconds. So far, only 1 person has died. The moron walked right into the midst of the mobs and got gang-raped. I think he was trying to hit 1, but aggroed those around it too. Luckily for him he died after I downed the boss, so that he completed the quest.
Once there was this player who kept following me around, for reasons I don't really know. I didn't even help him with anything! He just asked me to invite him to my group after I helped some newbies kill a boss. When I asked him if he had any boss quests that requires my help, he didn't.
All he wanted was to follow me around, so I let him. And I completely ignored his presence after that. He left after about an hour. Fortunately for me I don't have a fixed schedule, so I never saw him since then. All I can say about this behaviour is that it was stupid. I'm just a guy trying to help the new players where I can. And liven things up a bit in those newbie zones, by talking crap and stuff. After all, an MMORPG is really just an RPG combined with IRC.
I'm planning to buy a desktop instead of a laptop for my next computer. If all I need this computer for is gaming, I'll get a better set for a better price if I pick a desktop. My bro went to Sim Lim Square today, so I asked him to keep the flyers for me. Apparently, no one is giving out flyers for computers there. Weird.
NTUTMC AGM is approaching. Coming Wed in fact. And I haven't prepared my Powerpoint. Seriously, I don't feel like doing it. I'm not even planning to renew my membership after this year anyway. I didn't even try hard to find a replacement for my job and merely sent some messages on Facebook to ask around. I have no idea what to do for the Powerpoint too. All I know is I'm supposed to talk about my role as the SAA in the club.
4chan /r9k/ and /b/ has been down for the past couple of days, hit really hard in an ongoing DDOS attack by some people yet to be offically identified. Sad.
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