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Zombies are also made of wet paper when you get to mid/late game units.
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Mar 26, 2014 23:39
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The Zhon baseless concept is an excellent one. Sadly it's dealt a mortal blow by one of the very things that makes the TA series stand out - the interface. Having to place units like buildings makes it impossible to set up a long queue or automate large-scale production the way the other factions can. You have to squiggle the mouse all over the screen and hope nothing wanders into the builder's path as he moves around. It's an excellent way to simulate a guerilla band. A terrible way to raise a TA-style large army.
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Mar 27, 2014 00:27
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Loxbourne posted:The Zhon baseless concept is an excellent one. Sadly it's dealt a mortal blow by one of the very things that makes the TA series stand out - the interface. Having to place units like buildings makes it impossible to set up a long queue or automate large-scale production the way the other factions can. You have to squiggle the mouse all over the screen and hope nothing wanders into the builder's path as he moves around.
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Mar 27, 2014 00:35
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V. Illych L. posted:So with Taros killing off its own units, wouldn't a valid strategy be just putting zombies in the faces of the enemy while their killy units do the actual killing? I dunno, it just seems like they'd be a convenient disposable meat shield. anilEhilated posted:They're not much of a shield, sadly. This game has better units for swarm tactics. nimby posted:Zombies are also made of wet paper when you get to mid/late game units. I will in fact be demonstrating precisely why Zombies are utterly useless even as chaff in the very next mission!
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Mar 27, 2014 03:48
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Loxbourne posted:The Zhon baseless concept is an excellent one. Sadly it's dealt a mortal blow by one of the very things that makes the TA series stand out - the interface. Having to place units like buildings makes it impossible to set up a long queue or automate large-scale production the way the other factions can. You have to squiggle the mouse all over the screen and hope nothing wanders into the builder's path as he moves around. You could actually ctrl-click to order a Zhon builder to create the same unit over and over in one spot. This works well enough until the finished units clump together so much the builder can't make any more, but you can generally get 20 or 30 units built before having to switch spots. Not an elegant solution, but better than dragging all across the screen. I, too, recently replayed Kingdoms. Got all the way through the original campaign and got stuck halfway through the expansion. Some of these missions redefine the word "slog." Despite that, it's a fun enough game, though nowhere near a worthy successor to the original TA.
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Mar 27, 2014 06:31
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Diogenes of Sinope posted:You could actually ctrl-click to order a Zhon builder to create the same unit over and over in one spot. This works well enough until the finished units clump together so much the builder can't make any more, but you can generally get 20 or 30 units built before having to switch spots. Not an elegant solution, but better than dragging all across the screen. Yeah the Ctrl-click is a vital Zhon tool; it doesn't quite do the same job as a structure because you can't set up a waypoint for the units to go to but it's the next best thing and if you just remember to move all the dudes every few minutes he'll be fine. You can also queue up Ctrl-clicks so he moves on to a new spot once he runs out of space.
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Mar 27, 2014 06:35
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In today's episodes Taros get an explosive greeting and then Joreth sprints across a battlefield! Let's Play Total Annihilation: Kingdoms Episode 12 - Youtubular Let's Play Total Annihilation: Kingdoms Episode 13 - Youtubular The sheer quantity of missed potential we have already seen is beyond belief, but here is where the game really knuckles down and starts failing to be as good as it could have been with style and panache! It's like if you turned the concept of a toddler flailing away as he falls down a set of stairs into a video game. Mission 13 for example would be so much better if you could actually see like, anything.
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Mar 29, 2014 08:12
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Mission 13 was where I bowed out of the campaign, right after the awesome 12 - I must be remembering playing it on a higher difficulty or something, because I recall much stronger forces coming at me from the flanks. The TA engine just couldn't handle event scripting very well, could it?
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Mar 29, 2014 17:02
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Loxbourne posted:Mission 13 was where I bowed out of the campaign, right after the awesome 12 - I must be remembering playing it on a higher difficulty or something, because I recall much stronger forces coming at me from the flanks. Kingdoms doesn't have difficulty levels; the mission appears hard and if you think to yourself "Oh the battle must be in the middle of the map I should go around like it said" then you will probably run into one of the huge blade demon or jungle orc fights, even then it's not that difficult so long as you don't actually attack anything; the majority of enemy forces are scripted to attack Verunans and won't do anything else unless you hang around long enough for their scripting to run out or try to fight them. Basically the mission is only hard if you believe the mission objectives; do not believe the mission objectives. I don't think we've run into any yet but I'm fairly sure there is at least one mission objective that is an outright lie. If you go into it blind it plays a lot better but as I mentioned in the video I spent ages scouting out chapter 13 just so I could work out what is going on where (basically there's a bunch of fights set up all over the map and whenever a fight is over the survivors move towards the city) so I quickly worked out the "Joreth goes for a run" route to victory. This is actually an ongoing issue with really fast dudes; whenever you have a mission to get a fast moving dude to a given location unless said location is literally in the middle of an enemy fortress (this happens at least once) then you can probably win it by just telling him to leg it. Mission 3 can be won quite handily within about 2 minutes by just having Joreth run up to the boats and sail off. Neruz fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Mar 29, 2014 |
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Mar 29, 2014 17:09
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I played it not even realizing the Verunans were your allies. I just assumed you had to avoid both sides here, and kill anyone who got close. Somehow that worked (after two failures). Getting into the city involves bashing down a damaged wall. One of the recent missions with Lokken (7 or 10, I think) takes a lot longer if you expect a bigger attack than what they throw at you. It seems that every time they say, "build your defenses" it's smarter to put minimal effort into that, and instead just go on offense as soon as possible. I guess I haven't played enough of it yet, though. vvvvvvvv Kangra fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Mar 29, 2014 |
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Mar 29, 2014 17:26
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Best defence is a good offense This is not even remotely true later on
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Mar 29, 2014 17:42
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Neruz posted:Best defence is a good offense When I played it shortly after release, me and a friend spent hours building elaborate defences in some missions, but couldn't make any progress unless we tower creeped. Some missions get a lot harder if you wait too long, because the AI will be sending an unending stream of units, so that trying to advance your own army through it is a pain in the rear end.
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Mar 30, 2014 11:54
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nimby posted:When I played it shortly after release, me and a friend spent hours building elaborate defences in some missions, but couldn't make any progress unless we tower creeped. Oh yeah; the AI is actually pretty decent at building gigantic blobs of dudes if you let it. Pathing abuses can usually be used to achieve various advantages and launch kill blows but this is still the TA AI and the TA AI loves itself some blobs. We'll be seeing the full effect of this in the later missions where I'm forced to take it slowly because the computer just starts off with too much stuff.
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Mar 30, 2014 12:41
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The Fog-of-War cheats don't work during the campaign, right? Otherwise you could at least show off this entire battle.
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Mar 31, 2014 09:54
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Something I remember from playing this game many years ago: The Tarosian Lich drains life from everything around it, but the damage is greatly reduced against undead units. It was a cute gimmick tactic to make an army of nothing but zombies and liches and go on a life-draining rampage. Force-attacking with the liches was the best way to get them to fire.
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Mar 31, 2014 10:25
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Nuramor posted:The Fog-of-War cheats don't work during the campaign, right? Otherwise you could at least show off this entire battle. Almost no cheats work in the campaign. Afriscipio posted:Something I remember from playing this game many years ago: The Tarosian Lich drains life from everything around it, but the damage is greatly reduced against undead units. It was a cute gimmick tactic to make an army of nothing but zombies and liches and go on a life-draining rampage. Force-attacking with the liches was the best way to get them to fire. It's a nice gimmick but the damage reduction isn't enough. When I was younger I assumed that Lich lightning wouldn't hurt other Liches since it didn't hurt the user so I made a bunch of Liches (in that mission no less) and tried to use them to take the hill. They got into melee with the enemy and then everybody died; liches included. They just nuked themselves to death. That was the last time I ever built Liches.
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Apr 1, 2014 00:36
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Neruz posted:That was the last time I ever built Liches. They are one of the few Taros amphibian units, so they have a use. It's just not a very good use that you don't ever need due to the existence of flying units.
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Apr 1, 2014 00:56
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Used to love this game so much as a kid. The levels seemed a lot harder than TA where you could complete pretty much every level by turtling up before sending an unstoppable blob of destruction at the computer. On kingdoms the longer you took the more came at you. Think I did pretty much every zhon level by capturing a priestess with a harpy.
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Apr 1, 2014 03:09
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In today's episode we help Commodore Shellhat take back some almost worthless and strategically useless islands that are inexplicably covered in trolls. Also we learn what harpoons sound like  Let's Play Total Annihilation: Kingdoms Episode 14 - Youtubular
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Apr 5, 2014 22:28
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IGNORE THIS FAILPOSTED
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Apr 16, 2014 05:35
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Only one actual naval power? Seas must not be too important, then. Or does everybody else get fliers?
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Apr 16, 2014 05:38
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Glazius posted:Only one actual naval power? Seas must not be too important, then. Or does everybody else get fliers? Veruna are the best at boats but everyone else gets various ways to do things in water; Aramon get boats of their own that aren't as good as Veruna's boats but are good enough. Zhon get some surprisingly powerful amphibious and sea monsters as well as their masses of flyers and Taros get ghost ships and some amphibious dudes\flyers. This all goes to poo poo in the xpak because Creon are the best at everything but their boats are stand-out amazing even by Creon standards so they own the high seas.
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Apr 16, 2014 05:57
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Neruz posted:This all goes to poo poo in the xpak because Creon are the best at everything but their boats are stand-out amazing even by Creon standards so they own the high seas. I..I didn't even KNOW there was an expansion. 
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Apr 16, 2014 06:06
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Rick_Hunter posted:I..I didn't even KNOW there was an expansion. There is and it completely redefines the term 'horrendously overpowered'. but we will get to that in time 
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Apr 16, 2014 06:15
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On today's episode we finally get to a mission that is sufficiently complex that I don't talk very much at all! Solan Rixx also continues to be the hardest badass on the sea, such a man  Let's Play Total Annihilation: Kingdoms Episode 15 - Youtubular Next time gunpowder finally gets to Veruna and things start going their way and Solan Rixx continues to be the manliest of men. I'll give the TA:K devs this; most of the voices are pretty bad but Solan Rixx is great.
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Apr 16, 2014 08:11
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Veruna: Fighting for the superiority of parrots over canaries.
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Apr 16, 2014 11:16
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The Verunan Parrot brigades supply vital battlefield information to Verunan commanders and artillery in battle.
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Apr 16, 2014 11:20
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I too choose only the gaudiest and most colorful of birds to deliver my important messages in battle.
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Apr 16, 2014 15:54
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Jefepato posted:I too choose only the gaudiest and most colorful of birds to deliver my important messages in battle. I'm imagining the squawky parrots taunting the Zhonians with, "RAWK, I know where you sleep, RAWK!!" during recon now.
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Apr 16, 2014 18:30
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Gunpowder has arrived in Veruna! Watch me get my ships sunk and make a pretty statue garden in this fine episode. Let's Play Total Annihilation: Kingdoms Episode 16 - Youtubular Next time; STONE GIANTS 
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Apr 17, 2014 05:36
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War Galleys, yay! *gets one sunk immediately* Also, how is a Trebuchet ship a new gunpowder unit, KINGDOMS!
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Apr 17, 2014 13:01
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I thought they say something later to the effect of their navy being 'powered by gunpowder'. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to just mean the weapons, but I like to imagine it being literal, and the trebuchet galleys are rocket ships. Really slow rocket ships, but rockets nonetheless.
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Apr 17, 2014 16:49
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Kangra posted:I thought they say something later to the effect of their navy being 'powered by gunpowder'. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to just mean the weapons, but I like to imagine it being literal, and the trebuchet galleys are rocket ships. Really slow rocket ships, but rockets nonetheless. That's the beauty of the External Combustion Engine.
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Apr 17, 2014 16:52
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STONE GIANTS Let's Play Total Annihilation: Kingdoms Episode 17 - Youtubular Next time, MORE STONE GIANTS
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Apr 18, 2014 11:40
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Stone giants are not only awesome, they are also very stealthy.
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Apr 18, 2014 13:44
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Although the gunpowder units were as impressive as promised, the simple combination of boulders and gravity comes pretty drat close.
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Apr 18, 2014 21:05
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Hell yes. Stone Giants are my favorite unit in the game; no other artillery comes even close to their versatility.
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Apr 18, 2014 21:29
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anilEhilated posted:Hell yes. Stone Giants are my favorite unit in the game; no other artillery comes even close to their versatility. Downside is they are slow as gently caress and literally can't turn to save their life.
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Apr 18, 2014 22:55
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nimby posted:Downside is they are slow as gently caress and literally can't turn to save their life. Their slow speed and inability to be transported by Rocs are literally their only weaknesses. Stone Giants are great; the combination of a high vantage point with high velocity low arc projectiles also makes them the most accurate siege weapon in the game.
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Apr 19, 2014 03:04
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Don't they have one more (minor) weakness that can be shown in the next mission with them, or was I just a victim of a massive pathfinding fail when I built 20 of them and they refused to cross the water?
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Apr 19, 2014 04:56
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