War: Age of Imperialism

[Godzilla Blitz]

Anyone else playing this game? I just got a copy today and messed around with it for a couple of hours tonight. Somewhere I read that it's like Risk on steriods, which is a pretty good description, as far as I can tell.

Much like Risk, you play on a world map that's cut up into regions. You have artillery, cavalry, infantry, leaders, and ships for units. There are also research and development aspects to the game. Very much a beer and pretzels type of wargame, but it seems to have legitimate depth to it.

I had heard the AI was pretty sharp. I played one game against one opponent on "easy", and that was pretty much a cakewalk. I'm now in my second game, against three "medium" opponents. I arose from Africa and overran one enemy early on, but have only just turned the tied against a sprawling opponent in Asia. I think I'll win this game even though I'm not sure yet how a lot of things work, but the AI wasn't too bad at this level. Now that I've taken the lead, I'm interested to see what my rather feeble neighbors in Europe will do. They should attack my weak west flank. If they don't, the game is over, as I should be able to crush my enemies in Asia if we're left in a one-on-one battle.

I'm looking forward to seeing how well it plays at the "hard" level.

Although there is only the world map to play on, there are a lot of game variables you can tweak for variety. PBEM is an option as well. Games seem relatively fast too. Can play one in a couple of hours or less, I would imagine.

[Tasan]

Hey hey hey!!!! No new games til we see an update on XCOM!!!

[Calis]

Interesting, I haven't even heard of this one. Keep us updated.

Although it'll have to hold off either way, so don't make it sound too good.

Should have Silent Storm waiting for me when I get home! Woohoo!

[WSUCougar]

Yup, I played the demo and enjoyed it. The similarity to Risk is definitely there, but it has a lot more subtle, advanced strategies involved.

This is a PC port of the Eagle Games board game of the same name. For those unfamiliar, they have some interesting games, and I'd highly recommend you take a look at their website,
Eagles Games

[Godzilla Blitz]

Finished the "medium" difficulty game. It actually got quite easy as I figured out more of the game system. As is often the case in games of this type, once you get a more than halfway the rest is easy. Red let me wipe out black and that sealed the planet's doom. Apparently it isn't until the "hard" level that the AI will gang up on the human player, so we'll see what happens in the next game. Time to try a game on "hard".

By the way, I think I was wrong about PBEM. I believe you can play online, but not PBEM.

Tasan: Ah, X-COM. Things are not looking good on the X-COM front. Our baby is not sleeping regularly yet, which means that my normal gaming time, the two hours in the late evening, is kind of toast. My wife is wonderful about everything, but she doesn't take it too well when I abandon her to go kill aliens when she's taking care of the baby all day and night. My evening options are more along the lines of help her or work for most likely another month or more. Sigh. I can squeeze in an occasional evening or so, but not enough to keep up with the demands of the X-COM dynasty. Best guess would be two more months. I'm disappointed that it will take that long, but my choices are either stay married with happy family or play X-COM.

Calis: Silent Storm! That sounds like a winner. I'm hoping I get my new computer built within a month, and that the timing is perfect for when our baby starts sleeping well. I'm definitely picking up Silent Storm if the reports keep up as strong as they have been at first.

Cougar: Thanks for the link.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Humm...

Messed around with a game with all opponents on the hardest AI setting: seven AI opponents, full world map, with a variety of options on the AI opponents (you can select balanced, war mongering, or economic as an opponent's gameplay style).

The AI expands and develops decently, but other than that, I was not too impressed. I started out in South America, and not really knowing yet how to develop quickly, I fell behind badly over the course of the first ten turns. The "red" opponent (in Africa) declared war on me, but got caught in a European war as well. I was able to invade Africa and rip red apart because it was forced to fight a two front war. By the end of this war, two other AI opponents were eliminated in Asia, leaving me about number four of the remaining five in terms of production. However, I was far behind in technology, and needed time to catch up to the big three (North America, Europe, and Asia). This would have been a perfect time for an opponent to attack me, as I now had a lot of land, a depleted, poorly armed military, and little economic development. Instead, they just started stockpiling men and exploring the few remaining neighboring countries. I was able to catch up in technology and development over the next twenty turns (the tech tree runs out after a while), and they had let me in the game. Not only that, but the AI rarely colonizes island masses, even when doing so would give them a production bonus for owning an entire continent. I was able to send out fleets to pick up another half dozen netural territories late in the game. The AI also is clueless when it comes to naval warfare. It will leave single ships around that you can pick off easily with three or four massed ships (ships can fight without having to declare war).

After a while, I was able to get my production up to number two in the world, and destroy every enemy ship in the world. Now I just park a half dozen ships off enemy ports and sink enemy ships as they trickle out of the harbors.

I slowly built up my military, then invaded North America en masse. If anyone else was going to have a chance to beat me, this was it. Europe, which was still the number one military and economic force in the world, should have thrown everything at my African holdings. Instead, they just sat there and let me wipe out North America and gain a huge territorial and production advantage. Sigh. Silly AI. In short, despite the rulebook claiming that the AI opponents will gang up on the human on the hard level, the opponents sat by and watched as I gained a huge advantage over everyone else. At this point, I figure the game is just about over. No one can touch me on the seas, my production is double everyone else's, and the AI, despite having a massive military advantage in the Old World, is just sitting there cranking out troops and sacrificing half their production each turn by sending a dozen ships into the teeth of my armadas. Within a few turns, I will be able to match their military might in the Old World, and bring all my North American forces into Africa. Once that happens, it's over.

Bottom line so far: disappointing. Might be fun for online play or a good bargain bin pickup.

There still might be a couple of things I can do to make the game more difficult. I'll probably play a new game with all the AI's on "warmongering" and see if that helps, and also tweak some of the attack parameters for the AI to see if that does something. But right now I think this one goes up on Ebay if the AI can't put up a better fight.