I thought I was going to do something clever with the Warlords scenarios. I thought I'd write one post per scenario, playing through it until I either won or lost, and then describing the experience. It seemed like a good plan . . . and then I started up the Alexander the Great scenario.
It's not a bad scenario, by any means, but it does emphasize exactly those parts of the game that I like the least. You start off in Greece and have 200 turns to conquer all the cities on the map, stretching all the way east, into India. It's a nonstop war from beginning to end, and unfortunately, Civ4's combat system is . . .
I want to say "soul-crushingly tedious," but that's not quite right. Tedium isn't really a problem. The problem is that success in war is decided almost entirely by numbers, and when you have two huge empires fighting each other, it can get bogged down in an endless war of attrition. This is especially true in a scenario, where neither side can benefit from a decisive technological advantage. You win by bringing more units to the battle, while making sure your army composition is diverse enough to deal with every contingency - Archers are the best for city defense, catapults and swordsmen are best for invasions, cavalry beats infantry - unless they're spearmen, in which case they'll tear through cavalry like it's nothing - but it's not quite enough to win. You've got to win by a large enough margin that your remaining units are sufficient to shut down the enemy's industrial capacity, otherwise they'll just rebuild and you'll have to do it all again.
Which is what's going on here. Usually, I'll try and delay wars as long as possible, focusing on developing my technology and infrastructure, in the hopes of producing superior units at higher speeds. However, given that here, I'm playing against a technologically equivalent foe with a larger industrial base, it has devolved into a stalemate.
It's my fault. I started with a large military advantage, but after I took a few cities, I tried to build up a defensive force in order to consolidate my holdings in the hopes of staving off a counterattack. It's a plan that worked pretty well, except for the fact that I wound up squandering my momentum. Now I'm fighting off one massive army after another from the east with my multiple massive armies from the west, and I think I'm winning, on balance, but, well, the city of Damascus has changed hands about a half-dozen times by now.
I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to win the scenario, and I don't care to try. There are eight Warlords scenarios, and I've already spent four hours on this one, so I'm going to move on and hope that the others have more exploration, building, and diplomacy.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Hand of Fate - 20/20 hours
Defeating the Dealer was a huge weight off my mind. Once I cleared that last stage of the story mode, I was free to stop thinking of the game in terms of "success" and "failure" and instead was able to embrace it as a test of personal excellence. The trick was persistence. Much as I suspected, beating the Dealer was a matter of waiting until I got a lucky equipment draw and then not screwing up. Now that it's behind me, I am much more inclined to be cheerful about it.
Endless mode was . . . fun. Going on a run or two is a good way to spend a half hour, but doing too many in a row can be fatiguing, especially when you run into some tough encounters too early to properly deal with them. Still, it's like the distilled essence of an action-rpg. You go to a place, you fight monsters. It's a hard thing to screw up.
I probably should have been playing Endless mode all along. There's no reward, other than pride, for defeating the Dealer, and the stress of trying and failing was almost unbearable. Yet with a bit more breathing room, Hand of Fate became a breezy and almost casual experience. Sure, you die a lot, but what is the difference between life and death? There's no great cost to starting over, and thus nothing to mourn when it comes to an end.
I imagine there's nigh-limitless scope for exploration in your infinite lives, where each path is its own peculiar story, and if some of them (such as the story of how I ran into the Kraken as my first combat encounter and then promptly died) are not particularly interesting, they make up for in quantity what they lack in thematic cohesion.
If I didn't have this blog hanging over me, I would probably play Hand of Fate again. Not obsessively, but for a half-hour or so at a time. The art direction, the voice acting, and solid mechanics (minus the occasional random and inexplicable crash-to-desktop) make for an overall rewarding experience, and the unpredictability can stimulate my latent gambling urge, even if the unfairness of a bad run has me cursing the gods of fate.
Endless mode was . . . fun. Going on a run or two is a good way to spend a half hour, but doing too many in a row can be fatiguing, especially when you run into some tough encounters too early to properly deal with them. Still, it's like the distilled essence of an action-rpg. You go to a place, you fight monsters. It's a hard thing to screw up.
I probably should have been playing Endless mode all along. There's no reward, other than pride, for defeating the Dealer, and the stress of trying and failing was almost unbearable. Yet with a bit more breathing room, Hand of Fate became a breezy and almost casual experience. Sure, you die a lot, but what is the difference between life and death? There's no great cost to starting over, and thus nothing to mourn when it comes to an end.
I imagine there's nigh-limitless scope for exploration in your infinite lives, where each path is its own peculiar story, and if some of them (such as the story of how I ran into the Kraken as my first combat encounter and then promptly died) are not particularly interesting, they make up for in quantity what they lack in thematic cohesion.
If I didn't have this blog hanging over me, I would probably play Hand of Fate again. Not obsessively, but for a half-hour or so at a time. The art direction, the voice acting, and solid mechanics (minus the occasional random and inexplicable crash-to-desktop) make for an overall rewarding experience, and the unpredictability can stimulate my latent gambling urge, even if the unfairness of a bad run has me cursing the gods of fate.
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Hand of Fate - 15/20 hours
I feel like I should love roguelike games. I mean, like I'm supposed to. There's something about them that feels elemental and pure, like they are the distilled essence of a video game challenge. There's no coddling the player, no special dispensation for their ability or for their lack of ability, just a situation and the tools with which to address that situation. The tools may not always be sufficient, but is that not life? So, you fail? Poverty crushes you and what few breaks you had, you were not quite skilled enough to capitalize upon. There's always your next time through.
And yet, five hours later, I have not yet beaten the final boss. I got up to him once, but it turns out the final fight is a massive boss-rush and I was only able to beat half of them (this is partially my fault, because I accidentally used my healing item too early, but still). After that, it's back to square one. There's no sense of progress or advancement, just attempt after futile attempt in the hope that the random number generator will bless me in that narrow window of time between when I warm up at the start of the game and when my brain becomes useless mush after so many failures.
And my main thought is that I hate this. All the elegant simplicity of the roguelike concept, and yet here I am, bashing my head against a wall, trying to defeat this stupid boss with not enough resources and huge and unpredictable gaps between attempts. It doesn't help that the Dealer's level has the two most aggravating rules changes in the entire game - that I get a new Curse after each level transition, and that I can't have Blessings at all. Combined with the fact that there is now a card that hits me for 10hp per curse (and which has killed me from an otherwise "safe" hp total at least three times), and it's a recipe for frustration.
I really should give up and try Endless mode. I suspect I'd like it a lot more. However, I can't. I've still got five hours left to go, and only one stage left to defeat. I'm so close to final victory, it would be a shame to quit before I make it.
I suspect this stubbornness will cause me quite a bit more unnecessary grief before I'm done.
And yet, five hours later, I have not yet beaten the final boss. I got up to him once, but it turns out the final fight is a massive boss-rush and I was only able to beat half of them (this is partially my fault, because I accidentally used my healing item too early, but still). After that, it's back to square one. There's no sense of progress or advancement, just attempt after futile attempt in the hope that the random number generator will bless me in that narrow window of time between when I warm up at the start of the game and when my brain becomes useless mush after so many failures.
And my main thought is that I hate this. All the elegant simplicity of the roguelike concept, and yet here I am, bashing my head against a wall, trying to defeat this stupid boss with not enough resources and huge and unpredictable gaps between attempts. It doesn't help that the Dealer's level has the two most aggravating rules changes in the entire game - that I get a new Curse after each level transition, and that I can't have Blessings at all. Combined with the fact that there is now a card that hits me for 10hp per curse (and which has killed me from an otherwise "safe" hp total at least three times), and it's a recipe for frustration.
I really should give up and try Endless mode. I suspect I'd like it a lot more. However, I can't. I've still got five hours left to go, and only one stage left to defeat. I'm so close to final victory, it would be a shame to quit before I make it.
I suspect this stubbornness will cause me quite a bit more unnecessary grief before I'm done.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Hand of Fate - 10/20 hours
I'm most of the way through story mode now. As of my last post, I had four bosses left to beat, and in the previous five hours I've beaten three of them. My conclusion, based on these experiences, is that advancement in Hand of Fate is largely down to luck. Which isn't to say that there's no skill involved, but simply that a favorable distribution of cards require a lot less skill than an unfavorable one. For example, the first of the three bosses (and therefor, presumably, the easiest) took me three hours to beat. The other two took about an hour each. I wasn't really doing anything particularly different on my first run, it was simply a matter of drawing an effective combination of equipment while avoiding having too many unfavorable cards active at once.
It's not a mechanic I'm thrilled about. I play a lot of Magic: The Gathering, and knowing, if only in a rough way, the statistical composition of your deck is an important skill, but it's actually my least favorite part of the game. Managing chance simply never felt as satisfying as elegant design. It's doubly a problem here because you don't really have a lot of room to design your deck. Ideally, you want to select encounters with good risk to reward ratios, and equipment that will complement your playstyle, but usually the first time you defeat an encounter card, it grants you a token that unlocks more cards, so you want to heavily favor the new ones, and you don't get multiples of your best equipment cards, so it's impossible to weight your deck towards a particular gear loadout. It makes the chance element feel very arbitrary.
However, I shouldn't complain, because I'm winning. The only opponent I have left to face is the Dealer himself. Once he's out of the way, I'll be done with story mode (though I still have no clear idea about the nature of the in-universe game) and be able to focus on endless mode, which I suspect to be the real meat of the game. I imagine that if there is no definite end-point to your dungeon delve, then your inevitable death from a run of bad luck won't seem nearly so cruel.
It's not a mechanic I'm thrilled about. I play a lot of Magic: The Gathering, and knowing, if only in a rough way, the statistical composition of your deck is an important skill, but it's actually my least favorite part of the game. Managing chance simply never felt as satisfying as elegant design. It's doubly a problem here because you don't really have a lot of room to design your deck. Ideally, you want to select encounters with good risk to reward ratios, and equipment that will complement your playstyle, but usually the first time you defeat an encounter card, it grants you a token that unlocks more cards, so you want to heavily favor the new ones, and you don't get multiples of your best equipment cards, so it's impossible to weight your deck towards a particular gear loadout. It makes the chance element feel very arbitrary.
However, I shouldn't complain, because I'm winning. The only opponent I have left to face is the Dealer himself. Once he's out of the way, I'll be done with story mode (though I still have no clear idea about the nature of the in-universe game) and be able to focus on endless mode, which I suspect to be the real meat of the game. I imagine that if there is no definite end-point to your dungeon delve, then your inevitable death from a run of bad luck won't seem nearly so cruel.
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Hand of Fate - 5/20 hours
Nothing much has changed. The enemies have gotten more difficult (you can now draw bosses as random encounters, which is never an annoying mechanic), and my equipment hasn't really kept pace, but the core gameplay is exactly the same as it was 3 hours ago. I'm currently in the last rank of the story mode, and really flailing with the more intense challenge. I guess I should give the game credit for easing me into the rogue-like elements, but it does feel like a bit of a bait-and-switch. I got into the game expecting a certain degree of steady progress and now I'm hitting a brick wall. I expect this is merely a skill plateau, however, and once I have a little more practice, I'll be able to move forward once more.
And if not, there's always easy mode. It's an option I tend to avoid, because I have an irrational pride in being a "normal" gamer (I don't really bother with hard mode on games, either; I think the only exceptions are Viewtiful Joe and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance). To downgrade on difficulty feels like admitting defeat.
It really shouldn't. Games are nominally played for enjoyment, not as an exercise in human dominance over an inanimate object, and I really enjoy the version of Hand of Fate that's a casual brawler/card-driven choose-your-own-adventure. So it makes sense to lower the difficulty. I'd just hate to do so if there's a possibility that I can rise to the challenge on my own merits.
It's not like it's a critical decision, though. I still have fifteen hours to go, and I will say this for dying and restarting from the beginning of a level - it does a lot to pad out the playtime.
And if not, there's always easy mode. It's an option I tend to avoid, because I have an irrational pride in being a "normal" gamer (I don't really bother with hard mode on games, either; I think the only exceptions are Viewtiful Joe and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance). To downgrade on difficulty feels like admitting defeat.
It really shouldn't. Games are nominally played for enjoyment, not as an exercise in human dominance over an inanimate object, and I really enjoy the version of Hand of Fate that's a casual brawler/card-driven choose-your-own-adventure. So it makes sense to lower the difficulty. I'd just hate to do so if there's a possibility that I can rise to the challenge on my own merits.
It's not like it's a critical decision, though. I still have fifteen hours to go, and I will say this for dying and restarting from the beginning of a level - it does a lot to pad out the playtime.
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Hand of Fate - 2/20 hours
My plan to build an unstoppable combo deck is not likely to bear fruit. The decks you build for Hand of Fate don't appear to have any sort of synergy or destructive interactions. Rather, you have an equipment deck, which acts as a loot pool for your encounter rewards, and an encounter deck, which determines the sort of random mini-quests you run across on the way to the boss.
It's a little disappointing to me that it's not a strategy game, where you navigate the board by selecting cards from your hand, but it's an amusing little text-driven rpg with short, easily-digestible fight sequences that give it a unique and appealing energy, so I don't see much point in moaning about the game I thought it could have been.
I don't have a lot else to say about it so far. It doesn't have much of a story, due to the aforementioned random encounters, but you do have an "opponent" who narrates and comments about your actions in an amusing way. The voice acting of the character is really well done, and his interruptions are always welcome. The cards appear to be part of a mystical game within the fiction of the actual game, played for high stakes by people with occult knowledge, which is intriguing, but the specific details have not yet been revealed.
I'll be keeping my eyes open. Until then, Hand of Fate is a fun distraction. So far it's been pretty easy, and a little shallow, but I imagine as time goes on it will only get more intense.
It's a little disappointing to me that it's not a strategy game, where you navigate the board by selecting cards from your hand, but it's an amusing little text-driven rpg with short, easily-digestible fight sequences that give it a unique and appealing energy, so I don't see much point in moaning about the game I thought it could have been.
I don't have a lot else to say about it so far. It doesn't have much of a story, due to the aforementioned random encounters, but you do have an "opponent" who narrates and comments about your actions in an amusing way. The voice acting of the character is really well done, and his interruptions are always welcome. The cards appear to be part of a mystical game within the fiction of the actual game, played for high stakes by people with occult knowledge, which is intriguing, but the specific details have not yet been revealed.
I'll be keeping my eyes open. Until then, Hand of Fate is a fun distraction. So far it's been pretty easy, and a little shallow, but I imagine as time goes on it will only get more intense.
Hand of Fate - Initial Thoughts
About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)
Deckbuilding comes to life in Hand of Fate!
An infinitely replayable series of quests - earn new cards, build your deck, then try to defeat it!
Beyond the thirteen gates at the end of the world, the game of life and death is played. Draw your cards, play your hand, and discover your fate. Hand of Fate is a hybrid roguelike/action-RPG/deck builder, in which the player builds a set of cards into a deck, which is then used to deal out the dungeon floors through which they adventure. Upon entering a combat, all of the cards the player has collected fly into their hands as fully modeled 3D assets, and combat begins.
Build your deck, enter the world of Hand of Fate, and prepare to face the Ace of Skulls.
Previous Playtime
0 hours
Expectations and Prior Experience
Another strange one. I'd never heard of it before, but going by the description, I'm intrigued. I like card games, a lot, and a card game that's also an action-rpg does sound like a little slice of heaven. Roguelikes, I'm on the fence about. I like them in theory. There's something appealing about the idea of a fair challenge that pushes your limits until failure is a matter of "when" rather than "if," but I've also been known to be irrationally fragile about that sort of thing. I like the feeling of winning, even if a hard-fought loss would be more impressive.
Still, maybe there' a particular deck that will allow me to dominate the challenges. If so, discovering it would be just about my favorite thing in life. I love, love, love assembling elaborate combos to achieve ridiculous outcomes in collectible card games. Usually, I tend to overthink things and build top-heavy decks that only work on the rare, extraordinary draw, but when the stars align and everything works perfectly . . .
If Hand of Fate can deliver that experience, it will have made a fan for life.
Deckbuilding comes to life in Hand of Fate!
An infinitely replayable series of quests - earn new cards, build your deck, then try to defeat it!
Beyond the thirteen gates at the end of the world, the game of life and death is played. Draw your cards, play your hand, and discover your fate. Hand of Fate is a hybrid roguelike/action-RPG/deck builder, in which the player builds a set of cards into a deck, which is then used to deal out the dungeon floors through which they adventure. Upon entering a combat, all of the cards the player has collected fly into their hands as fully modeled 3D assets, and combat begins.
Build your deck, enter the world of Hand of Fate, and prepare to face the Ace of Skulls.
Previous Playtime
0 hours
Expectations and Prior Experience
Another strange one. I'd never heard of it before, but going by the description, I'm intrigued. I like card games, a lot, and a card game that's also an action-rpg does sound like a little slice of heaven. Roguelikes, I'm on the fence about. I like them in theory. There's something appealing about the idea of a fair challenge that pushes your limits until failure is a matter of "when" rather than "if," but I've also been known to be irrationally fragile about that sort of thing. I like the feeling of winning, even if a hard-fought loss would be more impressive.
Still, maybe there' a particular deck that will allow me to dominate the challenges. If so, discovering it would be just about my favorite thing in life. I love, love, love assembling elaborate combos to achieve ridiculous outcomes in collectible card games. Usually, I tend to overthink things and build top-heavy decks that only work on the rare, extraordinary draw, but when the stars align and everything works perfectly . . .
If Hand of Fate can deliver that experience, it will have made a fan for life.
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