TBS Alternatives - Page 2

vee4473 · December 28, 2002, 21:01

not at all

i like the battles in AOM because you get to control battles with individual units, but in a TBS mode.

cool

vmxa1 · December 29, 2002, 00:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Destroyer

Never played Space Empires VMXA. Whats the low-down?

Space Empires IV is a stndard 4x game (TBS). It has a a very large research tree that allows you to have up to 12 projects going at once. The problem is that unlike version III, it spilts the research evenly, you do no get to allocate the percentage of each project (boo).
You select the race or make a custom one and the std universe stuff. That is how big and how many planets you start with and the like. Travel is via wormholes from one solar system to another. You have any number of planets or astoroids in the system. Habitablity is like Moo1, that is if you have the tech you can do it and eventually you will be able to do any planet and even convert astros to planets. You can open/close worm holes, planet mines or create a base.
I think they have a demo now on either Malfador or Shrapnel Games. Malfador is the creators and Shrap is the publisher.
It can be a bit slow and does have a lot of micromanaging, so it is hard to say if you will like it or not.
They have fighters and systems that are only for fighters as I see Moo3 will have.
You can refit ships. eventually you can even have unlimited fuel.

Ozymandous · December 29, 2002, 03:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Destroyer
Isnt AOM a RTS?

Yep it is, just hit the market about 3 months ago. Maybe they are talking about Might & Magic or something else but "Age of Mythology" was published by Ensemble this fall.

Todd Hawks · December 29, 2002, 03:51

I guess he's talking about Age of Wonders 2.

vee4473 · December 29, 2002, 09:03

yes, i meant age of mythology, sorry

getting confused with all these games lately.

oops

vee4473 · December 29, 2002, 09:04

i mean age of wonders

did it again, holy cow!

kalbear · December 29, 2002, 14:09

SE 4 didn't grab me like I hoped it would. It was very deep - the amount of things you could do in the game was phenomenal - but it was just that. A lot of things you could do. The AI didn't seem particularly hard, the tech (while fun) wasn't all that compelling, and the experience came off as a larger version of a spreadsheet type game.

moomin · December 29, 2002, 14:32

I had grave difficulties with finding any of the SE games fun. I thought SE 3 was "fuel clerk in space" and that SE 4 was MOTS. Exacerbated, even.

vmxa1 · December 29, 2002, 15:50

Fpr some reason, I found SE IV to be less fun than SE III. The fuel thing was not a problem and Stars has a limit as well. You could use ram engines to extend your range or bring fule ships along (just like the Navy). Late in the game you get the unlimited fuel. SEIV had sails you could add as well.
I know you are death on micromanaging and SE has a lot of it. Many space games have an aspect of fule limits to them. Pax2 had a range that you could not go with out a planet in range.

Straybow · December 29, 2002, 16:01

Quote:

Posted by Destroyer
Is that Reach for the Stars?

No, R4TS was published and flopped. Slick graphics became the only selling point. Planet development too shallow, and the inability to detect opponents' ships meant that usually you got jumped by a fleet before you got much built to defend yourself with. Combat was stilted as well.

I didn't want to believe the early reviews, so d/l the demo… it was a major disappointment.

vmxa1 · December 29, 2002, 17:05

I have RFTS and could not even bring myself to play it. I knew it was no good as I tried the demo as well, but picked up the game real cheap, just in case. What a waste.

Destroyer · December 30, 2002, 21:53

Top 5 (in order) space TBS games then?

Moo2
UFO
SMAC
Stars!
Supremacy (amiga!)

vmxa1 · December 30, 2002, 23:25

You could make a decent case that SMAC is not even a real space game. I mean you really do not do anything in space, just being on a planet other than earth.
Pax is a true space game as is Space Empires.
UFO are you talking about an X-COM game?

RolandtheMad · December 30, 2002, 23:28

I didn`t think SMAC was construed as a space game. Xcom is cool IMHO.

Destroyer · January 1, 2003, 00:45

Well Ican list all the shite ones I played

Star Wars Supremacy
Ascendancy
Pax Imperia
Birth of the Federation

Ive thought of another one on my old Amiga called Deuteros which was pretty cool.

Kc7mxo · January 1, 2003, 04:26

Quote:

Star Wars Supremacy

I never heard of this one. Do you mean rebellion?

intrigue · January 1, 2003, 04:36

X-COM: UFO Defense/X-COM: Enemy Unknown...
probably my favorite game of all time. (yes, better than MOO or MOO2, IMHO)
and I am excited to see a similar game in development...

UFO: Aftermath or somethin like that??

Terror From the deep was a clone of the original but under water, and apocalypse was no good IMO.

Try the original if you can get it to run... Search for info on in in Google.

Destroyer · January 1, 2003, 18:03

SW Supremacy is the UK name for Rebellion, I think unless they have released 2 shite 4x games.

There is a patch about for UFO to make it work on WinXP.

I read about the game you are talking about yesterday, and I did very nearly wet my pants.

Terror form the deep was too difficult in my opinion. They just ramped up the difficulty on evey level. The psionics were just plain silly and the terror misiions became tedious.

Apocaplypse takes a while to grow on you. Once you realise that it is made to play in real time, you can appreciate it more.

intrigue · January 2, 2003, 04:08

jeah - agree on the real time thing with apocalypse... I think thats why I never really liked it.
I also didn't really like the graphics much... although better overall than the originals, they looked cartoony to me... and Brainsuckers always annoyed me - I found myself laying down whenever I thought they were near... especially early game when reactions were low.

TFTD was alot harder for sure than the first one... heh - especially if ya never got around to getting the last patch that fixed the level bug...

RolandtheMad · January 2, 2003, 04:39

I agree about TFTD and Apocolypse. TFTD was too hard, and Apocolypse was too cartoony and RTS, but the original was juuuust right...

*Roland is suddenly maimed by a bear*

Demosthenes1234 · January 3, 2003, 20:00

This isn't TBS, its RTS but Haegemonia: Legions of Iron is pretty good. Im playing that and Civ3 to tide my frustrations over until moo3 comes out. The graphics are awesome. Gameplay is a bit slow to start off with but its still very absorbing. I know I have played it a few times, looked at my watch and gone..."wow i've been here for 6 hours and didn't even notice the time go". The mp mode is pretty good as well with other people. The only thing I think they should've done was put in a save option for the mp mode. But hey, hopefully they will do it in a future patch. If you have never heard of the game then check out the website at www.haegemonia.com
The camera views in the 3d universe that are possible are really cool. Ever watched 40 corvettes bombard a planet? Looks very spectacular.

jackshot · January 4, 2003, 14:20

Quote:

Originally posted by Straybow

Quote:

Posted by Destroyer
Is that Reach for the Stars?

No, R4TS was published and flopped. Slick graphics became the only selling point. Planet development too shallow, and the inability to detect opponents' ships meant that usually you got jumped by a fleet before you got much built to defend yourself with. Combat was stilted as well.

I didn't want to believe the early reviews, so d/l the demo… it was a major disappointment.

I liked R4TS in a beer and pretzels kind of way.

But they ended up fixing the "jumped from the dark" syndrom by adding more powerful sensors - however, in a "they giveth and taketh away" patch that completely broke the AI.

Oops.

Epistax · January 4, 2003, 17:49

Emporer of the Fading Suns is very nice, it's just the AI is horrible, and it wasn't produced well. The multiplayer is also arcane.

Why do I still say it is nice? If someone remade it..... pleeeaase.

Basically it's Civilization + Moo.

It's a good distraction at least.

Kc7mxo · January 4, 2003, 20:05

Emperor of the Fading Suns. . . .

I very very faintly remember playing a confusing and unintuitve demo. And this is from someone who LIKED SW:Rebellion . . .

I really liked the atmosphere and story though as I recall. It would be nice to have a remake.

Lemmy · January 4, 2003, 20:16

Quote:

Why do I still say it is nice? If someone remade it..... pleeeaase.

http://www.kborek.cz/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum;f=8
They're sort of working on a clone, but there isn't any real progress in terms of coding....just a whole lot of ideas for now.

Sunstone · January 4, 2003, 21:52

just wanted to add, if someone is interested in Pax Imperia 2, you can download it from here : www.theunderdogs.org
Along with many other REALLY good classics.

You haven´t mentioned :
Starflight 1+2 + Protostar
Xcom has a online game successor, released some months ago, by the same designer - can´t remember what´s it called.
Did anyone ever played SPELLCROSS ? Looks very good - esp. for the xcom folx out here:
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=3064

MDA · January 6, 2003, 18:06

You can probably find one of the Panzer or Allied General games cheap in the bargain bin. They're not long on graphics, but still fun.

child of Thor · January 6, 2003, 18:50

If you can find it, 'Vikings - fields of conquest' is a very good TBS, if simple by todays standards(might be on the underdogs site above?).

And, as has been mentioned, 'Call To Power II' is one of the best tbs games when patched and modded, plus it's cheap at the momment(£7.00 ish) if you can find it.

SMAC is definately worth it bugdet price.

Oh yeah 'UFO-enemy unknown' (the first one), is an oldie but a goldie and DOS only i think(I play it on an amiga, but have it on pc too- just is tricky to find an old enough pc to run it on!!).

They should keep you busy until MOO3 is released

RolandtheMad · January 6, 2003, 19:09

Xcom works fine on my 850Mhz computer. You need to get a slowdown utility like 'Moslow' for Dos (I always had problems with that one) or there is another one that works with Windoze called 'Turbo' which you can download here - http://www.geocities.com/kulhain/

Have fun.

Destroyer · January 8, 2003, 18:55

ufo works fine on winxp and at the right speed with the corrected .exe patch (as does tftd).

Apocaplypse is no go though. It keeps crashing no matter how many different fixes Ive tried, all at different stages.