Jman's Let's Play/AAR Extravapaloosa

[Jman4117]

With everything from the Cyberstorm playthrough in the can, it's time to pick a new game. These are the strategy-ish games that I currently have functional on my PC either through Dosbox or VMware. One or two that have CD tracks for the audio may have issues with that, but other than that, they should all work:

 

1. Mechcommander Gold

Take control of a company of Inner Sphere mechwarriors as they take back a Clan occupied planet. It's real time and the mechs are nearly fully customizable. You can pick from about a dozen different mechs from either side, but Clan mechs and weapons are only available if you can salvage them making getting things such as the Mad Cat rather rare since they don't just come at you in hordes like the smaller units.

 

2. Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds

Defend Britain, Invade Britain. Whichever suits your fancy. You can play as either the humans or the martians in this game as you fight on a map of 1898 Britain. There are no set missions, combat happens on the terms of whoever attacks and is slowed buy the new to build up infrastructure and the need from resources. For humans that would be coal, steel and oil. In the case of the martians: copper, heavy elements and human blood!

 

3. Ascendancy

Pick an alien race then decide whether you will conquer the galaxy through diplomacy, military might or straight up genocide! (This will be done in AAR format and will be commanded by Moomew, God-Emperor of whatever species your decide)

 

4. X-com: UFO Defense

5. X-com: Terror from the Deep

These have both been done to death I guess, but if there were huge demand for one of them I guess I could do it. Maybe one of those things where everyone gets a soldier and gives a playing style for said soldier.

 

6. Civilization II

An old classic. Half of you whipper snappers probably never played it. It will be done in a format similar to Ascendancy. Churning out 12 hours of video for something like this wouldn't be very practical when very little happens at any given time.

 

7. SimCity 2000

Another classic. Pretty much the old SImCity with 3D terrain and a few new buildings.

 

8. SimIsle

Pretty much the redheaded stepchild of the Sim games. Similar to SimCity except you are placed on an island that you control at a higher level that simply micromanaging a single city. The goal of most islands is the make money without wrecking the environment. You can do anything from tourism, to heavy industry, and even in one scenario, you can take bribes from drug dealers.

[The Veteran]

You know what, I tried desperately to get Civ 2 working on my X-Com lappy a few months ago and I was going to do a little fun AAR on the X-Com scenario in the fantastic worlds expansion but even with google by my side I couldn't get it working That'd be fun though, I'd rather do it myself and write a story to echo the game though. The cleansing of Mars after Cydonia

[Thorondor]

I'm in a rather more tactical mood, and seeing as someone has such proven talents with mechies my vote goes to Mechcommander Gold.

 

::

 

[Space Voyager]

Voted for Ascendancy. That is a good old game... AND in space.

[kyrub]

Ascendancy. The game's name comes up time and time again, and I've never played it so I'm really curious.

[Jman4117]

You know what, I tried desperately to get Civ 2 working on my X-Com lappy a few months ago and I was going to do a little fun AAR on the X-Com scenario in the fantastic worlds expansion but even with google by my side I couldn't get it working That'd be fun though, I'd rather do it myself and write a story to echo the game though. The cleansing of Mars after Cydonia

 

What wouldn't work with it? I've had Civ II on everything from 3.1 to XP and it just worked so long as the CD drive wasn't dead or something and even then it was fixable with a patch if you could live without the awesome music and videos. Currently I have it running in a Win98 VM on my desktop since my XP laptop has a broken CD drive and it's not worth the expense to fix it. Have you tried something like that? I got the CD audio and everything to play in it.

[The Veteran]

I tried to get it running on the X-Com lappy which is 98 and it gave me all sorts of errors which google tells me are common. It started off with some files missing or not right and I was told that was an issue with one of the expansions as I have Civ2 and Fantastic Worlds. A lot of people said that you can install JUST FW or something wierd like that but for the life of me I couldn't get it working no matter how many posts I found on the subjevt The CDs are upstairs now but I may try in a little while and let you know exactly what the trouble is. Maybe you can save me

 

EDIT : Ok need help... It turns out I have a copy of Test of Time (basically a slightly extended Civ 2 with a few extra scenarios and such) and Fantastic Worlds which has the X-Com: Assault scenario on it.

 

I've installed ToT and it works fine but that's not good enough

I also downloaded a copy of plain Civ 2 and that worked fine but still not good enough.

I've now upgraded my ToT to Civ2 Gold with the addition of a few patches and while it looks like the game I seem to remember loading up the extra scenarios from now but it won't have them until I update it with a Fantastic Worlds install...

 

So I try FW again... And it messes up again... It needs a file 'SMEDNET.DLL' which I download and place (this is a common problem suffered by everyone in a similar situation and well documented) After replacing the file however I get the following (just where I got stuck at last time I tried to install!)

 

SMEDS Application Error

 

Error: ERR_RESOURCENOTFOUND

 

File: ..\SOURCE\SMEDS\PORT.CPP

 

Stack trace :

lots o' numbers.....

 

Any dieas? It can't be hard to get just one scenario working, the rest of the game really doesn't matter but I want to play the X-Com scenario

 

EDIT EDIT : Never mind I got it! Seems the upgrade I did to get to Civ2 Gold allowed me to play the scenarios but it didn't include them so I just load them up from the other folder Consider an AAR in progress lol

[silencer_pl]

The error is simple - you need PORT.CPP file in Source\SMEDS though it is wierd that a compiled DLL needs source file (CPP stands for C++ file).

 

You could check this link:

 

https://forums.civfanatics.com/archive/index.php/t-3904.html

 

Also maybe you should download everything again.

 

 

Back to the topic - I opted for War of the worlds - good game though humans have too easy. If you manage to set a defencive perimeter, which isn't that hard you are all set for turtling to Mark I tanks and the game. Though I would like to see someone else playing differently.

 

On martian side, just fast tech to Tempests and you are immortal (almost).

[The Veteran]

Wow, I've never actually seen that WotW game before. Looks good, should be called Total War : of the Worlds by the looks of some screenies It gets my vote as it looks like it'd be an interesting journey to take with you

[silencer_pl]

It is a game for few hours, thus it can't be Total War

 

The game was awsome at its time, the music is superb - just youtube it. Too bad my PC is too modern for this game. I have the copy not sure if the original CD's are still functional - the music in game is CD-Audio format thus superb quality.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv99Dl4Tm_8 - here is better music than video - but you should see how this game looks like.

 

Too bad it is lacking multiplayer.

 

 

From the timeline point of view this game is somewhat silly .

 

The Brits invented Mark I tank in 1916, the game starts at the end of 1899 and you can invent Mark I tank from the word GO. Every unit has 3 levels of upgrade - bigger, better, badder. Of course the human units don't compare in damage versus Martians but the number of them is sufficient enough.

 

The strongest human unit is Ironclad Invincible (almost is) - but it is a naval unit. The Strongest Martian unit is Tempest - killing this bastard requires huge ammount of punishment form Mark I lvl3 tank even firing from both cannons. The battles can be epic if both humans and martians have very high tech.

[Jman4117]

I generally found the Tempest not worth the time due to it taking 65 days for a single unit that's basically the next gen fighting machine with double the weapons, and I think roughly the same armor. In the time it takes to make a Tempest, I could have 6 Fighting Machines, which gives much more damage potential, though I never really checked on the resource usage to see if the Tempest was more efficient to keep running.

 

Now Ironclads...I abuse the crap out of those for hit and run shellings of coastal counties. I don't even bother with the higher level ones until late game since the starting ones are so powerful. I usually have L3 Track-layers and L2/L3 Self-propelled guns before I even start with the ship upgrades.

 

Other units of note:

 

Flying Machine - Great scouts. Decent in attacking, especially if they don't have any anti aircraft guns.

 

Armored Track-layer - The core of human land forces. Probably 80% of your killing will be done with these. You don't want to bother with the Lorries, they are too weak. I usually just run all of those into some early martians to get them off my upkeep and hopefully take out some enemy units.

 

Self-propelled Gun - It's a naval gun on a lightly armored tank chassis. They give longer range vision and firing to your ground forces. Just make sure you have the Track-layers to defend them. I usually send at least twice as many tanks as artillery.

 

Most of the rest seem a little gimmicky for my tastes. Either being expensive for what you're getting or only useful under very limited circumstances.

[silencer_pl]

Yes fighting machine is faster to build than tempest - but - L3 Fighting machine has 1 X-Ray gun, while L3 Tempest has 2x UV-Ray, thus tempest is stronger in firepower and I belive that in armor too. I remember that killing L3 Fighting machines wasn't that hard like fighting L3 Tempest. Besides Tempest looks very badass

 

I have never bothered with other tanks than Tracked Layer - I once went L3 lorries then tanks - total disapointment. I have also had fun with Enchanced Tracked Layer - using drill can be fun at times.

 

The game is so random that I have even won the game using Tier 1 Tracked Layers.

 

I also find strange that AI always went first for your flyers - guess they don't want you to have half of the map uncovered - though Zeppelins are piece of crap comparing to flying machines.

 

 

About Ironclads - I believe T3 had 4 guns instead of 2 - more firepower - though as you said it - the most basic is very tough.

[Thorondor]

@Jman:

 

Don't know if you caught wind of Metal Brigade Tactics already or not, but I just remembered having reported it a while back and it strikes me as the kind of game you might enjoy.

 

There's a demo available at the official site and it's currently quite cheap to get on Impulse.

 

::

 

To simply see it in running, you can watch a video

(iPad version though) by "classicL337 Game Reviews" - or, actually, as I rather seriously suspect, more likely HAL 9000...

[Jman4117]

Tried it. Maybe if I had an ipad or netbook I would have it on there if I were bored to tears, but I much prefer the Humble Bundle games on the desktop.

[Jman4117]

sooooo, Mechcommander in parallel with WoW or something more AAR worthy first with MC going after WoW?

[silencer_pl]

That depedns what titles you own

 

You know it would be nice if you played (Silent Storm Sentinels or/and Hammer and Sickle)

 

Why ?

 

Because SSS I didn't finish, H&S I didn't even start to play and now my PC is too good to play them. Stupid JooWood

 

I don't want to bother with this stupid RAM workaround becuase I am doing something else and cutting myself from 8GB to 3 is not an option. I have even tried with XP Mode but the emulated GPU also gave the same stupid error.

[Jman4117]

I don't have those, but I do have the ones at the top from the poll as well as:

 

Age of Empires

You take control of a stone age civilization and try to conquer the rest. It'll probably be done in campaign mode.

 

Alien Legacy

Earth has been in a war with Alpha Centauri and the war hasn't been going well, so ships are sent in a hope to prevent the Centaurans from finding them. Your vessel, the Calypso arrives at its target star only to discover that other Humans that left after you did arrived decades before due to an advanced drive. A very deep plot then unfolds involving aliens.

 

Caesar II

You're a Roman provincial governor. You start out in 300BC with one of the new territories near Rome. As the game progresses you can get promotions to new provinces. If you play your cards right, you can eventually become Emperor after 10-25 promotions depending on difficulty.

 

Detroit

You start out in the early 20th century as the head of a new car company. You have to expand your auto empire while braving two world wars, a depression and a gas crisis.

 

FreeCiv

Looks like Civ II with better graphics. Default play style is something of a combination of Civ I and II. You can pick pretty much any country imaginable, from the modern world, to Middle Earth.

 

Lords of the Realm (1 and 2)

The king is dead! but who will replace him? Fight wars of conquest on maps of medieval Europe to prove you're worthy to be the new monarch

 

Oregon Trail

Drive your oxen across the American West. Brave cholera, snake bites and dysentery. Even hunt for food when your stocks run low! Can you make it from Missouri to the Oregon Country alive?

 

Outpost (1 and 2)

An asteroid is detected headed for Earth and plans are made to leave the Solar System. A large fusion ship is built in orbit of Jupiter as a last ditch effort to keep humanity alive. An attempt to divert the asteroid fails, breaking it in two pieces that both impact on the planet. Earth is dead. Now we must look for a home among the stars. Outpost is a game where you colonize a planet, Outpost 2 is a RTS set on that same planet years later as the colony is divided over political issues. Unfortunately, the first game was release incomplete and they over hyped it to make it appear that that wasn't the case. I totally wasted my childhood playing this thinking that I was just doing it wrong! But...Outpost 2 is a great game that they actually did correctly after firing the idiots that did Outpost 1.

 

Risk (Sega Genesis version)

The game of world domination, on the Genesis (well an emulator in this case as I'm not video recording my tv)

 

 

..or we could just ignore the strategy thing and play flight/space/mech sims or old console rpgs or something

[silencer_pl]

Only tried to play Detroit. Never was able to produce a single car Simply couldn't figure it out. So I guess Detroit is my choice.

[Knan]

Alien Legacy was cool in its time, though I never finished it. Rest in peace, Sierra.

[Jman4117]

Ok, with WoW being down to just bonus episodes remaining, how should I do Mechcommander? The game defaults to 640x480, but there's a workaround to get the combat map in higher res. Only catch is, that the base screen where you configure the mechs is still in 640x480, with everything in the top left of the screen and a black filler space to the right and bottom. Should I play it in 640x480 to have a consistent picture, of go with something like 1024x768 and have it work similar to how I did with Cyberstorm with the combat filling the screen in HD quality with the equipping screen much smaller? The only way around it that I can think of would be to have two recordings going at the same time, one for 640x480 and the other for 1024x768, but I don't think my machine could handle that very well.

[silencer_pl]

You can do in 640 and then either do better compression or try to scale up to the 1024.

[Space Voyager]

You can bypass all Mechcommander problems by playing Ascendancy... https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/SpaceVoyager/Smiley/pokerface.gif

[Jman4117]

I just did the first 3 missions. With me failing horribly a few times due to the difficulty, on "Regular" no less..It was challenging the first few times I played through it on "Easy". I have no idea how this game is possible on "Hard". I was getting beat to hell while passing up secondary objectives and never managed to capture a Clan only mech. I really wanted that Uller in the first mission, had to pass up going after the Hollander in the 2nd, and just blew up the bridge in the 3rd to keep a Madcat from coming after me after I'd already had half my lance crippled fighting my way to it..Yep, this thing is hard folks

 

If I do another Ascendancy what race and map size should I go with? Should I do some videos during selected fights and invasion, with the rest in screenshots?

[Thorondor]

I'd rather have it in 1024x768, as combat is where the most pain *cough* fun is. And, besides, not all of it needs to be video, so equipment screens, etc can be screencaps and cropped as needed to leave blackness out.

 

::

 

All systems are go. May the pounding begin, Jman!

[Space Voyager]

If I do another Ascendancy what race and map size should I go with? Should I do some videos during selected fights and invasion, with the rest in screenshots?

This is definitely my preferred combination.

Vids take a lot of time for the viewers and chances are that nobody will watch them if they are too long and too often. I have very few views on my SotS vids but there are things that "demand a vid" in my opinion. Showing a critical moment of a game, like a battle or some extraordinary game content with a vid is great and those who really want to get to know the game will take a look. Others will usually just read through the written story and glance over the pics. It takes them a minute, not tens of minutes like extensive vids.

 

But writing an AAR should be fun for the writer first and foremost.