"Halo Wars"

Ah, nice one. I wondered what that lockdown was all about.

phAge wrote:
Remember Dune 2 on the Amiga, where all you had to do to turtle was to build a large "L"-shape out of turrets, where your base was closest to the enemy, and the AI would happily send every single unit it made to it's death?

Yup! Gun turret at the pointy bit of the "L" with Rocket turrets flanking it.

As for the lockdown, I find it useful if there are a coupleof units outside my base, pounding it - a single unit would just get killed, but if you release 3 or 4 at the same time, they'll stand a better chance.

Ah... good idea. I've not been in that situation yet. Of the 6 games on my record I've lost I've quit 5 of them within 30 seconds due to a stupid fuck up at the start, and the other I was completely taken by surprise any my base was utterly steam rollered by 3 Vultures, 2 elephants a Scorpion or 2 and god knows how many marines. There wasn't a base left to lock down after a triple barrage from them Vultures.

Covenant AA is SHITE.

Lutz wrote:
Covenant AA is SHITE.

Haven't got the full game yet (c'mon Play!), but in the demo the Prophet of Regret's laserbeam-thingy tears through Vultures like there's no tomorrow. Even un-upgraded it kills them real fast.

Not much good if you're using either of the other Covenant leaders though.

Though I've never had any trouble with AA, Needler turrets seem to cope quite well for the most part, and despite their intended use Locusts seem to do alright.

Lutz wrote:
Turtling isn't too effective in Halo Wars, as your bases are quite limited. However on C&C, espeically Yuri's Revenge, I've built some utter bastards of bases that would take an age to crack.

Going OT briefly (sorry!), as I know you played through RA3 on 360 Lutz. How is the single player with the inclusion of that AI co-op general?

Quite fancy a 360 RTS where I can turtle and thought this might be it.

SCH: It's alright, but the AI is a bit hit and miss. Tends to just make units and rush in batches. Rare for the AI to gain a decent "victory" within a fight for you. But they have saved my arse a few times.

What I'd like to see in an expansion.

New Units.

UNSC

Cutter: Sniper Infantry. Only damages Infantry, long range, slow moving. 1st upgrade: Adds special ability of sniper "deploying" in to position; settling down on the ground, increasing range. 2nd upgrade adds a spotter to accompany the sniper, improving accuracy which results in high damage. 3rd upgrade. Camoflage; not active camo, but when deployed the snipers and spotter blend in to the background. Cost 1 pop, Tech level 2

Forge: Mongoose. Fast as hell, large vision in the Fog of War. Upgrade 1; Adds a rocket launcher toting marine to the rear. Upgrade 2: Awesome suspension; the mongoose will sustain 66% less damage from concussive (Wraith style) weapons as it bounes around to avoid the blast. Doesn't affect piercing weapons (like rifles, plama rifles, needles) Upgrade 3. Marine on the rear is a master at holding onto the mongoose with just his toes; faster reloading of the Spanker!

Anders: Sparrowhawks. Faster than standard hornets and pack more of a punch, but cannot hit other air units like banshees. 1st upgrade adds special ability: cluster missiles. Does an AoE attack that is highly damaging against vehicles (Similar to a Scorpions canister shot, but vs Vehicles, not Infantry) 2nd upgrade increases their armour plating. 3rd upgrade swaps the AoE cluster missile to a smaller scale version of Anders' cryo bomb. Cost 2 pop, Tech level 3.

For all UNSC players

Troop 'hog. Garrisonable by 2 infantry groups, same specs as a normal 'hog, no weapons, but does have ram ability. 1st upgrade: bullbars; increases ram damage considerably. 2nd upgrade: v8 engine, increases max speed. If the 'hog is destroyed then all units suffer 33% of their max hp value as damage but are ejected (if they survive). Costs 1 pop, tech 1.

Pelican. Has a rear facing chain gun. Allows you to garrison 3 infantry squads and fly them around the field. Troops cannot fire out of the Pelican as it flies. 1st upgrade adds stabilisation thrusters, which improves VTOL speed. 2nd upgrade adds a mag lift allowing you to lift 1 vehicle as well as infantry. 3rd upgrade adds missile pods and barrage ability, but only half as strong as a Vultures. Cost 4 pop, tech 2.

Covenant

Regret. Spectres. Garrisonable by grunt squads. Elite will drive, 2 gruns ride shotgun. Upgrade 1: Boosters. Adds a special ability that allows the Spectre to fast travel to a place (Like a banshee) Upgrade 2: Adds an elite in a turret (Who can't exit). Upgrade 3: Light shield. Adds an energy shield (like a ghost)

Arbiter. Shade deployment grunt. A grunt will run to a location and drop a small grav lift for a Shade Turret to be deployed. Shade turret has the same stats as a shade turret in the game. Upgrade 1: Improves plasma flow to allow faster firing. Upgrade 2: Adds deflection shield to the front of the turret. Shield is quite stong, but obviously only forwards facing. 3rd upgrade adds in a plasma coolant, meaning the shade won't overheat and can fire indefinitly. Cost 1 pop, tech 1.

Brute: Prowler. Slower than the ghost and not as well armoured as wraith. A trade off for speed for damage dealing.1st upgrade adds a gunner. 2nd upgrade adds armour (As strong as an unsheilded) wraith. 3rd upgrade adds 2 brutes riding shotgun packing brute shots. Costs 2 pop, Tech 2.

For all Covenant Players.

AA Wraith. Fires eight small fuel rod cannons aimed at the sky. Special ability; bombard. Fires all 8 fuel rods at a ground target, but is very inaccurate, AoE style. (Good for damaging buildings) 1st upgrade. Adds a turreter for light defence. 2nd upgrade, adds a shield. 3rd upgrade, improves fuel rod cooling system, increasing rate of fire and decreasing special ability cool down period. Cost 3 pop, tech 2.

Phantoms. Allows you to garrison 3 infantry squads and fly them around the field. Troops can fire out of the sides of the phantom as it flies. 1st upgrade adds stabilisation thrusters, which improves VTOL speed. 2nd upgrades adds 2 grunts arming the plasma cannons. 3rd upgrades adds side rails to allow an extra squad to fit on board. Faster than their Pelican counter parts, but not as well armoured. Cost 4 pop, tech 2.

So what's the verdict then? I enjoyed the demo, but that was probably down to how easy it was :P. SF4 is giving me a hernia so I'm thinking of picking this up for some nice stress free gaming.

I'd say "If anyone knows if there's a job going at Ensemble for this sorta shit then I'm you're man." but it's kinda a moot point. :(

This and SF make a good combo. Along with the Mega Drive Collection that's the three titles I'm on at the moment. This is fantastic fun, speaking as a big Halo fan. I'm a huge Command and Conquer fan as well.

MattyB2007 wrote:
Anyway Mr Cheese or if anyone else is about for that matter this evening, I would be more than up for some more co-op/skirmish.

I'll definitely be up for some more co-op action when I get in, that is until you get too frustrated with me playing it as an action game as opposed to an RTS ;o)

thefilthandthefury wrote:
This and SF make a good combo. Along with the Mega Drive Collection that's the three titles I'm on at the moment. This is fantastic fun, speaking as a big Halo fan. I'm a huge Command and Conquer fan as well.

You've convinced me to pick it up :)

Damn

My advice would be to not play it constantly as I'm finding it a bit repetitive. So a SF4 - Halo Wars combo sounds ideal.

Basically it tend to be: FMV - build a base - expand army - destroy enemies - repeat.

Still its great and any game in the Halo universe is always welcome.

mowgli wrote:
So what's the verdict then? I enjoyed the demo, but that was probably down to how easy it was :P. SF4 is giving me a hernia so I'm thinking of picking this up for some nice stress free gaming.

Dont think the full game is as easy myself. Bear in mind the demo is the first two levels which serve as an elegant tutorial for the remainder of the game. Missions get more exciting and some demand fairly fast resource building against a tight time limit in order to have a chance of success.

I think its an awesome game with a decent SP and co-op. A decent mix of maps for multiplayer skirmishes that can be played on your own if necessary with the AI acting as an ally bot. There's skull collectables and other stuff for the Halo timeline to spice things up and the collectors edition is definitely worth the money for once. If you even like Halo you can add a point or two to the score. Its an easy 9/10 from me

Just ordered Red Alert for £17.99 so I'm intrigued to see how these compare.

It's great. I'm just mixing it with Halo 3 on mythic (overloading Sandbox and exploring the edges with cool filters on looks AWESOME).

Turtling in mutliplayer is very dangerous, if you mis-stack buildings and build orders. Covenant players can rush you with their leader and teleport in units (SO FUCKING ANNOYING), and others can go for Hawks (my fav)/ODSTs/mass scorpions etc and charge quicker than you can perfect a brilliant base. The turrets et al aren't strong enough for a pure turtle strategy anyway, so immediate production of troops and a constant harrassment of enemy supplies/bases etc is good.

Oh and Dune 2 always beat me. I got to the last level of Atreides once. I was about 11, however.

Lutz: check PM :)

sanctusmortis wrote:
Lutz: check PM :)

\o/

Yer velcom ^_^

Finally managed to do mission seven! WOOOOOOOOO!

I had to try four times but I did it! The scarab kept destroying my base when it only had about 3mm of health left. However, on my next attempt, I drove my hero up infront of it, with other units flanking him. When the scarab killed the hero, the units surrounding him brought him back. So the scarab wouldn't move its head - it'd just keep looking at him and shooting. A cycle began.

Scarab shoots hero
Hero dies
Hero is revived
Scarab shoots hero
Hero dies
Hero is revived
Repeat

All the time my other units decimated the scarab \o/

I've met the flood now, on the second mission with them invovled.

Edited by thefilthandthefury at 09:00:55 04-03-2009

Played the first two levels last night and really enjoyed it.
It looks fantastic and I love seeing the warthogs bounce around the terrain as they are heading for their targets.
The kind of game I will be thinking about all day at work now untill I can get back home and play again.

I keep thinking about this as well. It's making my usually low productivity even worse!

Level.... 7 spoiler Did the Rhino one last night, but I didn't get the achievement! I protected every Rhino, none were lost! BUG? Gah.

Then the super scarab. Everything was ticking along nicely for getting the "don't destroy a power node" achievement, when one died! Turns out the Warthogs were firing on them as they passed the twats. Any idea how to kill the scarab, without touching the nodes and stopping the warthogs from firing on them?

Lutz wrote:
Level.... 7 spoiler Did the Rhino one last night, but I didn't get the achievement! I protected every Rhino, none were lost! BUG? Gah.

The exact same thing happened to me. It must be a bug :(

Edited by thefilthandthefury at 11:43:24 04-03-2009

thefilthandthefury wrote:
Finally managed to do mission seven! WOOOOOOOOO!

I had to try four times but I did it! The scarab kept destroying my base when it only had about 3mm of health left. However, on my next attempt, I drove my hero up infront of it, with other units flanking him. When the scarab killed the hero, the units surrounding him brought him back. So the scarab wouldn't move its head - it'd just keep looking at him and shooting. A cycle began.

Scarab shoots hero
Hero dies
Hero is revived
Scarab shoots hero
Hero dies
Hero is revived
Repeat

All the time my other units decimated the scarab \o/

I've met the flood now, on the second mission with them invovled.

RAWR! I HATE THAT FLOOD LEVEL!

Was playing this map, it was hard but I was managing. Researched everything to the max, got a megaton of vultures and went to find the last elephant (or whatever they are called). Called in a mega barrage on that flood point, thinking that I can't hit my own units. GAME OVER. WTF?????????????!!!!


0_o

;_;

Xerx3s wrote:
Was playing this map, it was hard but I was managing. Researched everything to the max, got a megaton of vultures and went to find the last elephant (or whatever they are called). Called in a mega barrage on that flood point, thinking that I can't hit my own units. GAME OVER. WTF?????????????!!!!

:D

You do have to be careful! Just go in with ground units (send all but one of the Spartans - leave one at the base) and use the air ones for scouting/picking off the enemies, rather than the 'structures'.

For the Rhino achievement, I think it's that they must not be damaged at the end. Which is mean.

Edited by RedSparrows at 11:53:23 04-03-2009

The first flood level REALLY pissed me off at the start. Twice I did it, made as many troops as I could, each time to have them wiped out when I attacked. Spartans took their own sweet time arriving... Grr... And having to keep all Elephants alive... ;_;

RedSparrows wrote:
For the Rhine achievement, I think it's that they must not be damaged at the end. Which is mean.

FUCK SAKE...