I'm feeling turn based and fantastical

[warty goblin]

I checked out a few videos on these and it doesn't seem like what I'm after. It looks, at least from what I've seen so far, very similar to homm, and it appears as if your hero isn't even on the battlefield but rather stands on the sidelines. Thanks anyway.

You could try one of the Disciples games then. I've spent the most time with D3, and there's fairly strong minion customization in the form of choosing advancement paths, and a rather interesting upgrade system for the heroes. Heroes are on-map for the tactical combat, which is surprisingly good. Only problem is that the game is painfully, painfully slow. No, slower than that.

I tried the demo out, and boy is that a clunky interface. I couldn't figure out how to get my elven archers to fire their bows. It also took me entirely too many turns to figure out how to create more units. Thanks anyway.

The interface for using activated abilities is a bit clunky in some ways, but it actually makes handling units with multiple special abilities easy, or units with a melee attack and a special ability. When you select a unit, a panel pops up in the right-hand portion of the interface. This lists all the unit's activated and passive abilities. The activated abilities are on the top in bold. Just click on the relevant ability, click on a target, check you aren't going to shoot any of your dudes in the ass, click to confirm. Easy peasy.

I'll keep it in mind, but for right now my non-fantasy urgings are being satisfied by xcom enemy unkown. Thanks.

As soon as I fenangle internet for my gaming PC, I'll be giving the copy of that I bought back at release a try. I rather suspect I'll end up preferring Back in Action's more simulated take on matters though. I fundamentally question a game like this that doesn't have some form of physical ballistics modeling.

[Tengu_temp]

You could try one of the Disciples games then. I've spent the most time with D3, and there's fairly strong minion customization in the form of choosing advancement paths, and a rather interesting upgrade system for the heroes. Heroes are on-map for the tactical combat, which is surprisingly good. Only problem is that the game is painfully, painfully slow. No, slower than that.

Hiss, Disciples 3. Disciples 2 was a great game with some interesting, unique elements and a dark fantasy, animesque style. 3 threw it all away to become a Heroes of Might and Magic 5 knockoff.

I tried the demo out, and boy is that a clunky interface. I couldn't figure out how to get my elven archers to fire their bows. It also took me entirely too many turns to figure out how to create more units. Thanks anyway.

I think you should show more willingness to explore the game's interface and trying to figure it out on your own, or at least to look it up in the instruction manual. RPGs and strategy games, especially older ones, are really not the genres where interfaces can be 100% intuitive all the time. And Age of Wonders really is not that hard to figure out.

[MLai]

Warty you like the real-time-pause game mechanic? I hate that mechanic, because I'd rather play completely turn-based, or completely real-time such as RTS. The corridor example you gave doesn't seem to hold water, because the overwatch mechanic exists.

Anyways, the only reason no one mentioned the Baldur's Gate and related games is because they're not turn-based. So if you like the R-T-P mechanic and you're looking for something fantastical, then why aren't you playing Baldur's Gate and its plethora of offspring/relatives?

[warty goblin]

Hiss, Disciples 3. Disciples 2 was a great game with some interesting, unique elements and a dark fantasy, animesque style. 3 threw it all away to become a Heroes of Might and Magic 5 knockoff.

While there are plenty of things to dislike about D3, a HoMM 5 ripoff it is certainly not. The combat mechanics are completely different for one thing. I'd also hardly say it ditched the dark fantasy aesthetic.

Warty you like the real-time-pause game mechanic? I hate that mechanic, because I'd rather play completely turn-based, or completely real-time such as RTS. The corridor example you gave doesn't seem to hold water, because the overwatch mechanic exists.

You really can do things with the synched RTP system that a turn based game either can't do, or doesn't do well. I'm not convinced its the best choice for fantasy dungeon crawling, but when it comes to modern fireteam tactics, it's a much stronger choice.

Anyways, the only reason no one mentioned the Baldur's Gate and related games is because they're not turn-based. So if you like the R-T-P mechanic and you're looking for something fantastical, then why aren't you playing Baldur's Gate and its plethora of offspring/relatives?

I've played a bit of Icewind Dale 2 and Planescape, and was seriously unimpressed. I find D&D a totally wretched system which I avoid whenever possible. Plus Bioware doesn't usually produce games I like, and I don't think I'll play anything they make again.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Warty you like the real-time-pause game mechanic? I hate that mechanic, because I'd rather play completely turn-based, or completely real-time such as RTS. The corridor example you gave doesn't seem to hold water, because the overwatch mechanic exists.

Personally, real-time + pause is my favorite way of doing single-player strategy games. When you're controlling a full squad of irregulars, guerillas, or otherwise guys whose best tactics involve splitting up, you can't expect to be able to keep an eye on all of them at once in real-time. If you want that, you have things like Planetside/Planetside 2 and Arma 2, where each player controls a character and the coordination is like in real-life combat. But when it's a third-person isometric viewpoint on a full squad of soldiers under your command... yeah. That pause button is a life-saver.

As for reaction fire (only XCOM 2012 specifically has an Overwatch feature, other games just trigger it if you have leftover TUs/APs), that only works if they've got action points left. If they're crouching down, waiting to unload some slugs and buckshot on the first guy they see, then you're dead. If they're not, killing everybody in the room is a trivial matter, since I'm assuming you spent the last turn getting up to the door and still have most of your TUs/APs. It's even less realistic when he opens the door, fires some shots, goes to one side, and another guy comes bursting in guns ablazing.

Anyways, the only reason no one mentioned the Baldur's Gate and related games is because they're not turn-based. So if you like the R-T-P mechanic and you're looking for something fantastical, then why aren't you playing Baldur's Gate and its plethora of offspring/relatives?

Who said he wants to play a real-time + pause game right now? Or for this type of setting?

All the D&D FR computer games are also A) really popular as far as computer games go, B) based on D&D 3.X (a non-stellar system, although the mechanics aren't cut-and-paste from 3.X to BG), and C) in Forgotten Realms (I personally find it a rather boring setting, especially when you don't have a tabletop game's freedom).

[Terraoblivion]

All the D&D FR computer games are also A) really popular as far as computer games go, B) based on D&D 3.X (a non-stellar system, although the mechanics aren't cut-and-paste from 3.X to BG)

You mean apart from the part where Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and the first Icewind Dale game is based on AD&D 2nd edition, right? And were mostly developed before 3e was even released.

[warty goblin]

Personally, real-time + pause is my favorite way of doing single-player strategy games. When you're controlling a full squad of irregulars, guerillas, or otherwise guys whose best tactics involve splitting up, you can't expect to be able to keep an eye on all of them at once in real-time. If you want that, you have things like Planetside/Planetside 2 and Arma 2, where each player controls a character and the coordination is like in real-life combat. But when it's a third-person isometric viewpoint on a full squad of soldiers under your command... yeah. That pause button is a life-saver.

And shot-by-shot turnbased gameplay can easily get dull. Sometimes I don't want to spend a minute and a half wasting one guy with a semi-automatic weapon. Real-time lets the bodies hit the floor a lot faster.

As for reaction fire (only XCOM 2012 specifically has an Overwatch feature, other games just trigger it if you have leftover TUs/APs), that only works if they've got action points left. If they're crouching down, waiting to unload some slugs and buckshot on the first guy they see, then you're dead. If they're not, killing everybody in the room is a trivial matter, since I'm assuming you spent the last turn getting up to the door and still have most of your TUs/APs. It's even less realistic when he opens the door, fires some shots, goes to one side, and another guy comes bursting in guns ablazing.

The CQB improvements RTP offers are fairly vast. I find it makes a bit less difference when there's a bit more space between combatants. Even then however I shouldn't be able to pull crap like stand up, take a few shots, and drop back to a crouch in perfect safety.

All the D&D FR computer games are also A) really popular as far as computer games go, B) based on D&D 3.X (a non-stellar system, although the mechanics aren't cut-and-paste from 3.X to BG), and C) in Forgotten Realms (I personally find it a rather boring setting, especially when you don't have a tabletop game's freedom).

Torment isn't FR, but it's still D&D. And I really cannot stand D&D anymore. The entire thing is just such a flavorless lump of munchkinism.

Given a decent system I actually am rather fond of RTP for RPGs. I've gotten quite a lot of fun out of the Drakensang games.

Anyway, just weathered my first demon-thingy invasion in Warlock. Those dudes mean business - they actually knocked out one of my cities! It's been a while since anything's managed that. And they destroy any city they take, and convert the surrounding terrain to goop, so now my economy's blown to hell. Would have caused a lot more problems too, except I happened to have a frankly abusive number of elven archers at hand.

[MLai]

I can agree that the R-T-P mechanic is very suited for modern squad combat. I simply don't like the mechanic aesthetically. It feels stuttered and the action feels arbitrarily broken, as if you're watching an action movie but your 5 yr old brother keeps jamming on the remote's pause button cuz he thinks it's a hoot. I don't feel this with a pure TB game because by default the designer has designed the action around the turn cycle.

While playing Dragon Age Origins (a R-T-P game), my biggest wish was for some sort of combat replay function so that I could rewatch all my battles without all the pausing in between. No such functionality, sadly. (Don't advise me to fiddle with the AI function because I like to micromanage my own battles.)

Who said he wants to play a real-time + pause game right now? Or for this type of setting?

I thought he was implying he finds R-T-P to be a preferred evolution of pure TB. In which case I recommended Baldur's Gate spinoffs though he must have known about them.

[factotum]

I tried the demo out, and boy is that a clunky interface. I couldn't figure out how to get my elven archers to fire their bows. It also took me entirely too many turns to figure out how to create more units.

I know that Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic has a tutorial that tells you all this stuff--can't remember if the original game had anything similar, though.

[Triaxx]

I really like the way Fallout Tactics did it. You had individual turn-based, where each actor on the field got a turn. Squad turn-based where your guys all shared one turn, then the bad guys took one turn. And continuous turn-based which was like real-time, but spending action points to perform well, actions.

Individual was annoying because the one guy you needed to have a turn would somehow ALWAYS end up going after everyone else and was occasionally the last one standing.

Squad was better because you could co-ordinate the group.

CTB was harder. The AI seemed to cheat more than was strictly necessary, having occasionally perfect reflexes when they shouldn't have any chance of shooting back.

[Aotrs Commander]

and, embarrassingly, this. Actually the expansion, because I've already played the base game. My shame knows no bounds.

Details? Is it any good? What's the approximate sort of play-time, since it's a full priced game? I mean, there's so few games I'm bothered about at all floating around at the moment, I'm prepared to have a good gander at almost anything in a genera I tolerate.

From the sound of it, it doesn't seem anything worse than, say Witcher 1's "collect all the nekkid ladies" (or Witcher 2's nudity) And, while not a huge fan of naked people in any context generally, it doesn't bother me that much and having naked people at (semi-appropriate?) junctures can't be any worse than Dragon Age's lack thereof, when really should have had it, if only so it didn't look quite so silly...!

(The "how-stupid-it-is-that mega-violence-is-okay-to-show but-sex-isn't - even if that is the way round I personally prefer it" rant is for another day!)

[warty goblin]

Details? Is it any good? What's the approximate sort of play-time, since it's a full priced game? I mean, there's so few games I'm bothered about at all floating around at the moment, I'm prepared to have a good gander at almost anything in a genera I tolerate.

Playtime I think is twenty, maybe thirty hours. I ended up taking a break in the middle, so I'm not completely sure.

The combat is a fairly simple pseudo-positional sort of deal. Basically you've got six spots for characters, three in front, three in back. Ditto for the enemy. Melee characters can only hit the row directly in front of them (but any column within that row), ranged can nail anybody. Attacking bumps you down the initiative order, with more powerful attacks knocking you farther down. Most fights tend to take a couple minutes, tops. On standard difficulty I think I only lost one or two battles. You can skip random encounters at will, too, which only costs you the loot and experience. Story fights are mandatory.

The story is a fairly traditional bit of genre fluff. It's got a bit more of a swords and sorcery feel to it than most high fantasy, but there's not really anything here you haven't seen before. It's main virtue is that it's quite aware its an action driven puffball of a story, and keeps moving at a steady clip. Play for half an hour, the main plot will be advanced, and you won't spend time collecting fifteen Snargle tails or making deliveries for the strangely immobile population. The characters are solid sorts of archtype, with about as much dimensionality as the artwork, but are mostly fun nevertheless. And there's enough of them you can safely ignore the ones that bore you. I for instance found the boyish wizard with self-confidence issues a complete wet blanket, and so paid him no attention. The bashful dwarves trying to get it on were great. I rather liked the ending as well, it makes the most of the simple combat system and plot-driven story to ramp up for a nice final battle, a solid last choice, and a good epilogue.

From the sound of it, it doesn't seem anything worse than, say Witcher 1's "collect all the nekkid ladies" (or Witcher 2's nudity) And, while not a huge fan of naked people in any context generally, it doesn't bother me that much and having naked people at (semi-appropriate?) junctures can't be any worse than Dragon Age's lack thereof, when really should have had it, if only so it didn't look quite so silly...!

So pretty much all the character designs are fanservice so far as I can tell, albeit in a completley PG-13 sorta way. The actual sex scene, at least the one I saw on my first playthrough, was way more mild than the Witcher. Plus everything is hand drawn and so avoids the creepy dead-eyed robots rubbing spark plugs syndrome that characterizes most RPG sex.

There's also an option for slightly less revealing outfits and an even faster fade-to-black when it comes to loving, but it's still pretty much constant fanservice. Personally I say just go for it, at it's most hardcore there's nothing more explicit than some obscured nipples.

[Aotrs Commander]

Playtime I think is twenty, maybe thirty hours. I ended up taking a break in the middle, so I'm not completely sure.

The combat is a fairly simple pseudo-positional sort of deal. Basically you've got six spots for characters, three in front, three in back. Ditto for the enemy. Melee characters can only hit the row directly in front of them (but any column within that row), ranged can nail anybody. Attacking bumps you down the initiative order, with more powerful attacks knocking you farther down. Most fights tend to take a couple minutes, tops. On standard difficulty I think I only lost one or two battles. You can skip random encounters at will, too, which only costs you the loot and experience. Story fights are mandatory.

The story is a fairly traditional bit of genre fluff. It's got a bit more of a swords and sorcery feel to it than most high fantasy, but there's not really anything here you haven't seen before. It's main virtue is that it's quite aware its an action driven puffball of a story, and keeps moving at a steady clip. Play for half an hour, the main plot will be advanced, and you won't spend time collecting fifteen Snargle tails or making deliveries for the strangely immobile population. The characters are solid sorts of archtype, with about as much dimensionality as the artwork, but are mostly fun nevertheless. And there's enough of them you can safely ignore the ones that bore you. I for instance found the boyish wizard with self-confidence issues a complete wet blanket, and so paid him no attention. The bashful dwarves trying to get it on were great. I rather liked the ending as well, it makes the most of the simple combat system and plot-driven story to ramp up for a nice final battle, a solid last choice, and a good epilogue.


So pretty much all the character designs are fanservice so far as I can tell, albeit in a completley PG-13 sorta way. The actual sex scene, at least the one I saw on my first playthrough, was way more mild than the Witcher. Plus everything is hand drawn and so avoids the creepy dead-eyed robots rubbing spark plugs syndrome that characterizes most RPG sex.

There's also an option for slightly less revealing outfits and an even faster fade-to-black when it comes to loving, but it's still pretty much constant fanservice. Personally I say just go for it, at it's most hardcore there's nothing more explicit than some obscured nipples.

Well, after that and some time poking around on their forums, it seems worth a look, at least enough to be put on the "to get" list for later in the year (as currently I've got quite a few new games - and Witcher 2 for that matter! - to work through); given that the only games I'm aware of on the release horizon are likely to be the back end of the year (if that), having a few more on the list for the meantime is all to the good. (As this would make it, what... all of four. One of which is an expansion. To a 2002 game.)

Although, I probably ought to finishing playing some of that mountain of PS2 JRPGs (two of which I haven't touched yet) at some point, too...!

[factotum]

Individual was annoying because the one guy you needed to have a turn would somehow ALWAYS end up going after everyone else and was occasionally the last one standing.

Squad was better because you could co-ordinate the group.

I've not played Fallout: Tactics, but the only game I remember playing that had team-based turns was Wizardry 8--and in that, they sucked. Two main reasons for that:

a) Boring! It took so long for the turn to play through and you were entirely a passenger during it, since you couldn't change orders mid-turn.

b) Brain-dead target prioritisation. For example, one of your magic-using characters might go early in the turn and put a nasty enemy to sleep. If the target of one of the remaining characters died before they got their go, that character would automatically switch targets, and the number of times they would then attack the sleeping enemy and thus wake them up was a joy to behold...

[warty goblin]

I've not played Fallout: Tactics, but the only game I remember playing that had team-based turns was Wizardry 8--and in that, they sucked. Two main reasons for that:

a) Boring! It took so long for the turn to play through and you were entirely a passenger during it, since you couldn't change orders mid-turn.

b) Brain-dead target prioritisation. For example, one of your magic-using characters might go early in the turn and put a nasty enemy to sleep. If the target of one of the remaining characters died before they got their go, that character would automatically switch targets, and the number of times they would then attack the sleeping enemy and thus wake them up was a joy to behold...

The bigger issue with team based turns, particularly with highly lethal weapons, is that whomever wins initiative, wins.

The bigger issue I had with Fallout Tactics was, besides the inherent dumbness of Fallout as a setting, the interface. Active skills should not be tucked away in submenus. It sucked when Fallout did it for one character, by the time Tactics came out they really should have known better. Plus it used modified dice rolls instead of simulated ballistics. Even Age of Wonders did a better job convincing me that dudes were trying to hit each other with projectiles, not rolling dice at each other.

Actually Age of Wonder's ballistic simulation was pretty impressive for the type of game it was. It ignored air resistance by using strictly parabolic flight paths for physical projectiles, but for a game not about precise shooting that's totally OK.

[Artanis]

A completely random thought that just came out of nowhere: Kongregate has a couple of games that are fantasy, turn-based, and most importantly, free. I figure they're worth checking out because if you don't like them, you'll have only lost a few minutes of time


Monster's Den: Book of Dread

Monster's Den Chronicles

[endoperez]

X-Com system with an emphasis on melee would play so differently, it's not really the same game.

X-Com encourages using cover and focusing your whole group's actions into attacking enemies.

You can't stay in cover and walk into the striking distance of an enemy, and once the first guys did that, they'll be in the way. An enemy standing on a doorway would be an extremely annoying obstacle, because your guys have to fight him 1v1.


It might be possible to replace cover with large penalties you get if enemies surround you. Standing next to a wall is kind of like "cover", since enemies can't surround you on that side any more.
There would have to be some sort of protection against just walking guys in circles around enemies while it's your turn; some sort of "zone of control" might be interesting. Think Battle for Wesnoth, or something like D&D's attacks of opportunity.

Those sorts of mechanics might result in shield wall tactics, with a line of your own guys advancing together (to protect each other's flanks). The problem with that is that there would, inevitably, be some sort of a boss monster with some sort of AoE, and those would screw that kind of dense formation.
If AoE effects were very limited, or made to work in straight lines instead of as explosion, it might work.

I can imagine a few different tactics being designed for that.

Shield walls inspired by Roman legions. It would be really cool to have your guys shield the guys next to them. "Brutus saved Centurio Julius from certain death! Brutus has earned a promotion."

Mixed armanents inspired by Swiss pike formations. Pikemen with reach on the back ranks, guys with shields and swords in the front, perhaps a guy with a big two-handed weapon to handle mostrous enemies, with some people on the back ranks carrying javelins or bows or something for ranged attacks.

[MLai]

I can imagine a few different tactics being designed for that..

If you go that far, then you're no longer playing as a party of 5-6 adventurers. You're playing turn-based Myth.
Nothing wrong with that, but OP said "Jagged Alliance".

[Triaxx]

@factotum: Fortunately with FT, you had direct control and actions occur NOW, rather than after you've given them all. So you could focus fire on the guy with the RPG rather than getting blown up as they all shoot at the pistol user.

@Warty: I'm not getting into the fallout universe issue again.

I would agree about the active skills thing, except that in FT the only skills you really needed to use were lockpicking, first aid, doctor, and traps. And sneak, but sneak and traps are on 1, and 4 respectively and the other three have items that are required for use, so you've got to click on them in your item slots instead of the menu.

I do agree about the dice roll mechanic, but given the nature of the game, and the amount of jury-rigging they must have had to do the engine, I'm willing to forgive them that. I would love to see a sequel with actual bullet physics.

[endoperez]

If you go that far, then you're no longer playing as a party of 5-6 adventurers. You're playing turn-based Myth.
Nothing wrong with that, but OP said "Jagged Alliance".

That's why I started that post with:

"X-Com system with an emphasis on melee would play so differently, it's not really the same game."

That aside, it doesn't really matter if the upper limit is 6 (Jagged Alliance) or 8 (X-Com). All I mentioned could be done with about 8 units.
3 units in front with shields. Depending on how reaction attacks and zone of control works, that's enough to cover an area 5 to 7 grid squares wide.
2-3 units behind those with long spears. Each spearman could probably cover the area around two of three frontliners.
That's still 2-3 slots left for ranged characters, and the guys with shields and spears could carry javelins with them as well.

[warty goblin]

That's why I started that post with:

"X-Com system with an emphasis on melee would play so differently, it's not really the same game."

That aside, it doesn't really matter if the upper limit is 6 (Jagged Alliance) or 8 (X-Com). All I mentioned could be done with about 8 units.
3 units in front with shields. Depending on how reaction attacks and zone of control works, that's enough to cover an area 5 to 7 grid squares wide.
2-3 units behind those with long spears. Each spearman could probably cover the area around two of three frontliners.
That's still 2-3 slots left for ranged characters, and the guys with shields and spears could carry javelins with them as well.

In my (very) limited sparring experience, when you're looking at eight per side, complicated formations aren't worth the bother. Sticking together so the enemy doesn't gang up on you and stick pointy things in your kidneys is worthwhile, but the shortness of any line makes the flanks too vulnerable for the formation to really persist. Stacking up to any great depth is simply not feasible - sure you start with the spear guy behind you, but after about forty seconds of contact, who knows where people end up.

[endoperez]

In my (very) limited sparring experience, when you're looking at eight per side, complicated formations aren't worth the bother. Sticking together so the enemy doesn't gang up on you and stick pointy things in your kidneys is worthwhile, but the shortness of any line makes the flanks too vulnerable for the formation to really persist. Stacking up to any great depth is simply not feasible - sure you start with the spear guy behind you, but after about forty seconds of contact, who knows where people end up.

This is a game, though. I was simply mentioning a tactic that would arise from the premises of a given game environment.

I have no sparring experience of that kind, at all. Would the experience work well in a video game trying to emulate X-Com? Hmm. This type of game could actually be prototyped pretty well with a chess set and some dice for randomization.

[Triaxx]

@warty: Which is why, when you look at historical spear units, from Greek soldiers to Roman Legionaires, they had both their spear weapons, and short swords for close fighting.

[Hiro Protagonest]

@warty: Which is why, when you look at historical professional spear units, from Greek soldiers to Roman Legionaires, they had both their spear weapons, and short swords for close fighting.

Fixed that for you. Hoplites and Legionaries (the correct spelling) were the top soldiers in their time. The spear is easy to make and excellent for formation fighting, meaning conscripts and militia had them.