10-21-2005, 11:22 AM
Black and White 2:
I picked it up. So beautiful... so farking beautiful, and yet only 5 creatures total and very few story scrolls. I feel robbed. The alignment system has shifted between city development and combat. Instead of casting miracles to impress settlements, you may develop your cities as pretty as can be, and people flock from neighboring settlements to yours.
Or, if you wish to go the militaristic route (considered evil by default), capture them with armies (who fight in a very rudimentary way). If the army command interface was better, I would not complain, but it is fairly crude on a macro level. There is either move, or attack, and sometimes guard. There is no attack move, patrol, harass, or other army AI features. Simply put, the combat model is overly simplistic. There are also no more 'creature battles' where in B&W1, two creatures of godzilla proportion would have similarly epic sized battle where the player would control how the creature would fight. Instead, creatures swap punches and if you're lucky, your creature tackles and hits the other on the ground--thus being a completely one way fight after a certain point.
It is interesting to note the armies are formed directly out of your male population, and when they're dead... you will have to wait for a new generation to rise out of your existing population, or conscript men from towns you capture. Unfortunately, unlike black and white 1, your people refuse to repopulate if you do not have enough homes for them and yet there seems no penalty (your people do not lose life) for overpopulation when migrating waves from other towns settle in.
What did we trade off?
Greatly improved graphics, for reduced gameplay content.
There are a lot fewer silver story scrolls, and the game itself has an extermely low challenge factor.
Fewer miracles, instead of 6 per race, we have... 6 plus 4 'unlockable' epic miracles that include their own large. Four races, and you only play one (cannot build other races buildings by default). The community-developer interaction is good, and it will be possible through modding to go around this annoyance, but this is wholly disappointing.
Few to no story scripted events, and we don't fight fellow gods. Influence ring is almost completely determined by civic and residential building placement.
I came into this game hoping for floods and landslides. More interaction between god-hand and people, not less. There's very little to actually *do* outside of build magnificent cities or rudimentary army building. You no longer impress via miracles, god hand and creature events. There is no rock-artifact that people take as a sign from you to dance around and charge with influence. Your creature no longer 'learns' miracles from your demonstrations, but you instead purchase them via a cold 'tribute' . All and all, something special was taken away and I think I'll go play the original black and white to remind me just how cool it was.
Warhammer Dawn of War: Winter Assault expansion
I'm very impressed with the new race. Its very cool. I've played through the 'Order' campaign with Elder and Imperial Guard, and several skirmish mode games. For the most party, EP did not disappoint. New voices for the single player campaign, and a workable story. Second to last mission 'order' had somewhat limited avenues to succeed (joint success between races was impossible).
The new race is very cool, and adds a defensive element missing in warhammer, and the 'order' campaign takes advantage of the Imperial guard's ability to send infantry between buildings with minimal downtime (not quite instant travel, but far better than walking) and also bunker inside them. Imperial guard production buildings offer centralized command point increase, buildable 'influence' ring, house mannable defensive weapons which your infantry may bunker inside, and an ability to travel bunkered infantry between buildings similar to Eldar webway arches. Imperial guard don't require expensive headquarters to expand buildings, so may their base may progressively expand the map. They cannot relocate buildings as Eldar do, but since production facilities double as networked bunker defense, they do not need to. Need builders? An army? Pop some into any of your bunkers, and requisition them to your desired bunker. No mess. No relic required. Eldar are still by far more mobile, but Imperial guard have a viable defensive network.
Overall, I'm quite impressed with this expansion pack. The Imperial guard are fun to play, and Elder get a true 'anti-vehicle/building' infantry piece that does terribly against infantry (not a problem, as all other elder infantry mops up that). The other units do not seem as impressive or as balancing. Mega Nobz are my least favorite. Space Marines get a commander unit which makes their infantry even more durable than before (hard to imagine), and Chaos get a Space Marine-esque melee unit named Khorne Beserker which I've yet to play with.
I'm happy with this expansion purchase, with few disappointments. If you've enjoyed Warhammer DoW thus far, you'll enjoy Winter Assault.
I picked it up. So beautiful... so farking beautiful, and yet only 5 creatures total and very few story scrolls. I feel robbed. The alignment system has shifted between city development and combat. Instead of casting miracles to impress settlements, you may develop your cities as pretty as can be, and people flock from neighboring settlements to yours.
Or, if you wish to go the militaristic route (considered evil by default), capture them with armies (who fight in a very rudimentary way). If the army command interface was better, I would not complain, but it is fairly crude on a macro level. There is either move, or attack, and sometimes guard. There is no attack move, patrol, harass, or other army AI features. Simply put, the combat model is overly simplistic. There are also no more 'creature battles' where in B&W1, two creatures of godzilla proportion would have similarly epic sized battle where the player would control how the creature would fight. Instead, creatures swap punches and if you're lucky, your creature tackles and hits the other on the ground--thus being a completely one way fight after a certain point.
It is interesting to note the armies are formed directly out of your male population, and when they're dead... you will have to wait for a new generation to rise out of your existing population, or conscript men from towns you capture. Unfortunately, unlike black and white 1, your people refuse to repopulate if you do not have enough homes for them and yet there seems no penalty (your people do not lose life) for overpopulation when migrating waves from other towns settle in.
What did we trade off?
Greatly improved graphics, for reduced gameplay content.
There are a lot fewer silver story scrolls, and the game itself has an extermely low challenge factor.
Fewer miracles, instead of 6 per race, we have... 6 plus 4 'unlockable' epic miracles that include their own large. Four races, and you only play one (cannot build other races buildings by default). The community-developer interaction is good, and it will be possible through modding to go around this annoyance, but this is wholly disappointing.
Few to no story scripted events, and we don't fight fellow gods. Influence ring is almost completely determined by civic and residential building placement.
I came into this game hoping for floods and landslides. More interaction between god-hand and people, not less. There's very little to actually *do* outside of build magnificent cities or rudimentary army building. You no longer impress via miracles, god hand and creature events. There is no rock-artifact that people take as a sign from you to dance around and charge with influence. Your creature no longer 'learns' miracles from your demonstrations, but you instead purchase them via a cold 'tribute' . All and all, something special was taken away and I think I'll go play the original black and white to remind me just how cool it was.
Warhammer Dawn of War: Winter Assault expansion
I'm very impressed with the new race. Its very cool. I've played through the 'Order' campaign with Elder and Imperial Guard, and several skirmish mode games. For the most party, EP did not disappoint. New voices for the single player campaign, and a workable story. Second to last mission 'order' had somewhat limited avenues to succeed (joint success between races was impossible).
The new race is very cool, and adds a defensive element missing in warhammer, and the 'order' campaign takes advantage of the Imperial guard's ability to send infantry between buildings with minimal downtime (not quite instant travel, but far better than walking) and also bunker inside them. Imperial guard production buildings offer centralized command point increase, buildable 'influence' ring, house mannable defensive weapons which your infantry may bunker inside, and an ability to travel bunkered infantry between buildings similar to Eldar webway arches. Imperial guard don't require expensive headquarters to expand buildings, so may their base may progressively expand the map. They cannot relocate buildings as Eldar do, but since production facilities double as networked bunker defense, they do not need to. Need builders? An army? Pop some into any of your bunkers, and requisition them to your desired bunker. No mess. No relic required. Eldar are still by far more mobile, but Imperial guard have a viable defensive network.
Overall, I'm quite impressed with this expansion pack. The Imperial guard are fun to play, and Elder get a true 'anti-vehicle/building' infantry piece that does terribly against infantry (not a problem, as all other elder infantry mops up that). The other units do not seem as impressive or as balancing. Mega Nobz are my least favorite. Space Marines get a commander unit which makes their infantry even more durable than before (hard to imagine), and Chaos get a Space Marine-esque melee unit named Khorne Beserker which I've yet to play with.
I'm happy with this expansion purchase, with few disappointments. If you've enjoyed Warhammer DoW thus far, you'll enjoy Winter Assault.
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