Posts in category games

Rise of Nations: Roman Castle in Age I

May14
2011 3 Comments Written by Prasad

Sounded innocuous and impossible to me too. But get this, it CAN be done, and it works well in border push strategy.

If you are Romans in Rise of Nations, then do give this tip a try to put your opponent on the backfoot. No one wants to attack a well defended outpost, even if the outpost is right next to your borders especially because its being guarded by a castle, and god knows how many units are garrisoned in there! Add to the additional territory push that Roman castles have, and you are literally taking away the opponents lands!

The key to this tactic is getting early ruins.

Remember, that Romans have Mil 1 researched at the start. A castle costs 281 wood.

Here’s what you do -

  1. Go Sci 1
  2. Do NOT build farms, they consume wood.
  3. Instead fill up on lumber by all the villagers you create
  4. Use the additional villies and scout to capture ruins
  5. Start building 4 outposts (do not complete the building, just start the building so you consume the wood that you are getting via ruins, so now you keep getting wood via ruins). The key is to keep your wood lower than the rest of the resources without really using up wood.
  6. Once you have 4 outposts queued. Now start building the farms, and booming. Target Civ 1
  7. Once you have Civ 1, go near your opponents border and plonk your second city there.
  8. Cancel the outpost building (all 4 of them). This should give your wood back to you!
  9. Now start building the castle!

Now you have a well defended outpost as your opponents next door neighbor. Start booming, build a barracks, and garrison some units in there.

And remember to PUSH!

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Rise of Nations: Raiding

Apr21
2011 4 Comments Written by Prasad

So I was talking to King Ameya (who often comments on my Rise of Nations posts). He was mentioning that the previous post on Heavy Cavalry was actually a lesson on raiding.

For those who are new to the game, raiding is a concept where you use a small armed force to take down the economy of the opposing nation by attacking commercial resources (merchants, caravans, timber mill, mines, etc). That way, you generate resources whereas your opponent is struggling to get off a good start.

At the advanced levels, rushing is considered to be an amateur tactic and a pro can easily fend off a rush. What works instead is constant raiding and an expert can actually bring down opponents by doing this the entire game.

The best way to showcase this is by giving you a recording of a game that I played with King Ameya. He was Iroquois and I was Bantu. It was pre-decided that he is going to raid and I thought that let’s boom for a change and see how much could a raid impact my economy.

See for yourself!

At the end of the game, I had four cities, but virtually zero resources and no barracks to fend myself. Two of those cities fell at the same time and I had to give in. Raiding can be lethal if carried out properly.

Some points to note -

  1. Scout early and scout often; by the 3rd minute Ameya had the entire map scoured and almost all the ruins were consumed for resources
  2. Small attacks, first aimed at merchants and caravans, then at villagers and resources
  3. Raiding gives you resources, having a Despot increases your gains
  4. You do not need a massive force to deal the final blow
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Rise of Nations: Use of Heavy Cavalry

Apr11
2011 3 Comments Written by Prasad

image A major part of all Alexander the Great’s battle strategy included cavalry. The light cavalry for quick raids (which I shall cover in a separate post) and the heavy cavalry (or his Companions as the vanguard unit). In fact the fall of Alexander was largely attributed due to a mutiny amongst his vanguard troops.

Learn from history.

A liberal use of heavy cavalry units right from the start of the game can really make a difference between a well fought battle and a whooping victory. Here’s how -

When I was playing a random map, I was given Mongols (but I mistook them for Lakota!! mea culpa!!). Fortunately, my strategy was unaffected by misinterpretation, I still was going to make Stables, and raid early with cavalry, and then focus on an army of heavy cavalry. The map style was Himalayas, so that helped!

  1. Start booming and race to Age II. Have a barracks ready and some defense troops.
  2. After Age II, go Mil2 and Sci2
  3. Build a Stable, and get a Despot
  4. Have 2 Heavy Cavs, and 2 Horse archers ready. This alongwith the Despot is your flash army.
  5. The flash army can move fast (doubly so if used forced march), ambush and patrol the enemy territory for taking out merchants, caravans and resource buildings
  6. It can also hold a sizeable army until you build defenses and/or send reinforcements
  7. Start building your main army slowly and steadily using the resources from raiding while your flash army keeps the enemy engaged. I prefer to build a separate artillery force (3 trebuchets and a supply wagon) and make an attack on one of the outposts
  8. A small bit of micro-management and you should get one of the computer’s cities
  9. The cool part about focusing on Heavy cavalry on a map like Himalayas is that wood and iron is abundant, so siege weapons come easily.
  10. Even if you fail at doing well early on the game, keep your heavy cavs alive and they turn into formidable tanks!

I myself am not that big into cavalry, but today while mistakenly taking the Mongols for Lakota, I realized just about how awesome they can be. I had roughly 4-5 HI, 2 bowmen, 6-7 Heavy cavs, a despot, 4 cannons and a supply wagon with some heavy archers to spare (Mongols, get them free for each stable, so did not keep a count, although I had 3 stables). Almost all of my food came from raiding and sacks.

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World Champions!

Apr02
2011 2 Comments Written by Prasad

wc

It’s Diwali in Mumbai. I can hear to the fireworks still going on … as Dhoni and the Indian team is getting prepared for lifting the world cup.

Cricket is a religion in India, and you could see it today as many Indians in the stadium were praying during the last few tense moments. The entire nation had come to a stand still during the final match of the World Cup 2011.

I had to drop my parents off to the railway station, and the roads were as empty as they normally are at 2am in the morning. Traffic signals were not working, auto rickshaws were not there. Imagine no traffic near Andheri Station!!

A final note, I had been a critic of MS Dhoni, but I am happy to admit that I was wrong. Well played Mr. Cool!! Hats off!! And Thank You!!

A side note … where is Ms. Pandey?

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Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Apr02
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Prasad

tiles_screenshot_storm_disc

I am a huge fan of Role Playing Games (RPGs). Especially those which are random in nature i.e the dungeons are generated in real-time and not from a pre-made style.

The first RPG I really loved was Diablo, but the first real random RPG I played was Nethack.

So when I came across the mention of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup on Questionable Content (it’s a comic strip), I could not resist myself. I just had to try out the game.

And whattay game!! A must see for all fans of any slash’ems. Of course I am not an elitist, and I prefer to play with a tile-set :-|

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Rise of Nations: Japan infantry

Mar12
2011 2 Comments Written by Prasad

Note: The post was ill-timed, when I wrote it I was completely unaware of the Japan crisis. I realized my folly when a friend informed me of the same. My apologies, this was not meant to be a stunt to get more attention. The post was neither tweeted nor posted on Facebook.

 

jap_vertI love the Japanese civilization in Rise of Nations. It is by far one of the strongest infantry civilizations in the game. There are of course the Mayans and the Aztecs who can give the Japanese a run for their money, but with Japanese barracks churning out units faster than any other barracks and with each unity being stronger than the normal unit, you can’t go wrong.

The civilization benefits are also geared in such a manner that it ensures that as ages advances, the Japanese will keep on becoming a stronger force to reckon with. The civilization benefits are as follows -

  • Farms 50% cheaper, Farms and Fishermen produce +25% resources
  • Build aircraft carriers 33% faster and ships are 10% cheaper
  • Barrack Units do 5% extra damage vs buildings for each Age plus Military research
  • Barrack Units built 10% faster, 7% cheaper,for each Age plus Military research

What this means is that the Japanese player can kick off a good boom at the start itself. Cheaper farms and +25% more food means more villagers to collect wood with. More resources at the start translates into ideal boom conditions.

Typically what I do is -

  • Start with 5 farms at the start of the game (you have enough wood to do this)
  • Then science 1 and civ 1
  • Then a town to expand your territory
  • Then commerce 1 and build an additional farm
  • Then a woodmill and more farms
  • Then a trade center and a temple
  • Then science 2 and mil 1
  • Tower for your frontier town and a barracks between your towns
  • Complete the farms and get the rare resources
  • Age. As you are aging start building heavy infantry
  • Get the senate built and a despot (cheaper infantry and war resources)
  • Get 5 HI, 1 archer, patriot and go mil 2
  • Start towards your enemy town and start raiding (rare resources, merchants) but avoid frontal assault (you benefit later in the game)
  • Get a siege workshop and have some siege engines built (2-3)
  • Now go for the first town

Its downhill from then on. The key is to know that you are going to be stronger and stronger with your infantry (atleast till age VII, then you have stronger units). Take towns, and hold your lines. During those times build more units (infantry, light cavalry to take down archers and siege + supply wagons if needed). Use villagers to repair towns and build your barracks closer to the front lines.

Rare Resources:

Rare resources that you need to go after – Cotton and Whales

The Cotton will reduce unit production times by 25%, and Whales will give you the resources required to generate more Heavy Infantry.

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Fortune Online: Diablo2 style MMORPG

Feb24
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Prasad

Image courtesy Fortune Online

After power leveling my first level 85 Dranei Hunter on World of Warcraft, I kind of realized that I need to slow down on the WoW front. Not only was it eating a significant amount of my free time, but I had gotten a bit jaded by it.

So after staying away from it for half a week, I tried to give this a whirl. FortuneOnline is a free MMORPG which has the look and feel of Diablo 2 … took me back to my days of engineering … bunking lectures so that I could stay back and slay Diablo/Baal or his uber-minions. I think that game is the only game I played to its fullest (for a full 6-7 years).

Pros:

  • Interesting power-ups and skill trees for different classes
  • It’s a browser based game – no pesky bulky client downloads
  • Platform dependant as long as you can install Adobe Flash
  • Diablo clone MMORPG (I can’t get enough of this)
  • Good controls and game controls are extremely responsive
  • Game is divided into different sections very nicely
  • It’s free

Cons:

  • Not many players online who seem to be active on the general chat
  • The consumable items do not work sometimes (I hope the developers sort this glitch out)
  • Game can get a bit repetitive after some time
  • The item drops in the game suggest presence of more classes that the player can have, however when I was in character creation, I did not see those classes (don’t know if there is a premium mode)
  • The plot is not riveting, or perhaps I am still too jaded for really engaging into the game plot.
  • The graphics are meh! … however, even Diablo was not that awesome (remember it was 1999), now our expectations have gone up

All in all, a good whirl and you can idle by a few boring hours with this game. I do hope that the Torchlight folks can turn out a better MMORPG

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Welcoming Cataclysm

Dec07
2010 4 Comments Written by Prasad

image

In just a few hours, the world as we know it will come to an end.

The much awaited sequel to the World of Warcraft series is scheduled to roll out across the world at 12am 7th December Pacific time!

For those of you who do not know me personally (in which case you haven’t heard me rave about this game already), I suggest that you head off to Blizzard and give the game a whirl. It’s definitely an experience and there is something to learn from the makers.

As the minutes go by, I am eagerly awaiting to go home and see the destruction through my set of toons.

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Deus Ex 3: Human Revolution

Jun12
2010 Leave a Comment Written by Prasad

Eagerly awaiting this game among others :) … thanks to Satyabhat for bring this to my attention

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Rise of Nations: The Forbidden Capital

Jun11
2010 7 Comments Written by Prasad

wonder_capital

This tip is not more of a tip, but rather an interesting experiment which players can try to confound the attacking horde. For you to successfully pull this off, it is strongly suggested that you have a defensive army and are an experienced player.

One of my clan members gave me this idea, and I decided to try it out. The idea is simple and I feel like a fool that why could not I have thought this. You go for Forbidden City wonder, and build a Senate for that city … making it the Mega-Capital. Know that Forbidden City has a higher border push and being a wonder has oodles of hit points. You do this right, and put your capital wonder city right on the border of your kingdom and you suddenly have a veritable fortress city.

(Contribution from Ameya Mane) This will only work before the Industrial age, from then onwards normal cities have higher HPs!! Nevertheless, it could be a good military tactic to reduce capital timers.

There are a few drawbacks of this idea, first Forbidden City comes for a minimum of 250 Food, 250 Wood. Thus it cannot be your second city, also by this time you will have built a Senate. So while building your wonder, you will have to simultaneously raze your own Senate. If your Patriot dies during that time, then you will have to wait for the entire process to finish to get him back.

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