Who else likes turn based strategy games?

I love them, games like Lord of the Realms, Heroes of Might and Magic, Civ, etc. I especially like games that would allow hotseat play (2 or more players). I use to get a friend and play these games for hours on the same computer. :D

Is there anyone else who use to do this?

Dan

I am. :ok:

Not me. I hated needing to move over every turn. Better to hook up a second computer and play it over a network. I played a lot of MoO2 games like that.

I just love those kind of games :ok:

SPWAW! I love it... free for download! only 500 or so mb...

I never liked these games and probably never will. That's all I have to say.

And that`s very clear :sneaky:

Little offtopic but have anyone played Advance Wars in GBA? Great turnbased strategy!

I played it on my emulator, both. Didn't like it, or Fire Emblem neither are any good. Since GBA has been brought up I have to say that Final Fantasy Tactics is the only turn-based startegy I like. I even went out and bought it after trying it out on the emulator. But this is the only one I seem to enjoy playing, in the genre of turn-based startegies.

I also have to say that Golden Sun 1 and 2 are the best GBA games I have ever played, excellent for those long car trips or if you just want to run around and kill some monsters with some nice looking magic (MAJICK) LOL . I realy hope they bring out a third.

i really enjoy these games

its a good change from an actual soldier to a leader!

insteas=d of controlling 1 guy ,control all of the guys! i love RTS war games :rifle:

RTS games aren't too bad, but TBS (is that the correct term :crazy: ) games :not_ok: .

The Latest RTS games are just sweeeeeeeeet :ok:

like Command and Conquer, Rome Total War. Though these titles should thank their lucky stars that there were good war games like cannon fodder and settelrs in the good old days.

Strange, I have exactly the same oppinion about adventure games... :whistle:

But that's greatly a question of taste...

i like turn based strategy games because they leave you time to think. unlike action strategy where mostly your units are too fast to control them efficiently. and the alrealso too stupid (C&C and the like). you give command to hold ground and they advance. who is the commander damn it! :ranting:

course I do prefer RTS.. Im sure Im getting both Shogun: and Rome: total War for Xmas or my B'day

I personally have never liked RTS games, I found that they lacked the charm that turn based has for me. As well, I couldn't play hotseat with RTS, and I was the only one that had the games as well as the computer to play on, so we always used turn based.

Dan

X-Com, Civilization 1, 2 and 3, Battle Isle 1 and 2, MOM, MOO 1 and 2 and couple more.

Great TBS games that I spend many hours playing, first on my Amiga, then on PC.

GBA TBS games are very good and playable, but because of limited time, have to wait holidays to play them more.

ps. I'm one of those who like all kind of games. :D :whistle:

I also love Turn based strategy games. The are much more tactical and clever than most RTS are. The best games are always those which make you think.

As a TBS (is this the official abbreviation?) fan I am glad to tell you about a real gem of this genre. Battle Isle 1 is allready available for downlaod at Abandonia, and History Line and the highlight of the series Battle Isle 2 will follow.

So if you haven't allready played these games it is time to begin with part one right now.

Hehe, then we have very different taste of games because I hated Golden Sun. It was just so damn annoying with those unbelieveably long and boring dialogs plus the annoying enemy attacks from nowhere.

LOL LOL
Well after playing those two nothing else seemed like it was worth the time playing it. I have just always liked those RPG style ones. Another game that is really good is Grandia 2. It's battle sequence is the most realistic I have seen in any game of the genre. And the story is excellent. :ok:

i LOVE TBS games! In real time strategy games, its often the faster person who clicks that wins, but when it's turn based it allows for more thought and actual strategy to occur. :kosta:

The best turn based strategies are Heroes 3,4 and Disciples 2

Heroes 4 should not even exist... :not_ok:

How can you say that, it is truth that heroes 3 are better but I love 4 to.

The best TBG are: Civ (all parts) and Heroes 3!

I've never even heard of Heroes 4 but personally I'll take heroes 2 over any of the others. :ok:

It's maybe not as good as 3 but it holds more memories for me :D (cos I had to go back to it after my girlfriend lost my copy of 3! :ranting: )

You haven't heard of heroes 4. Are you living on Naboo. :blink:

Just to add new GBA release of Lord of the Rings, Third Age to this list.

http://emuvortex.net/images/screens/titles/1751.png http://emuvortex.net/images/screens/snap/1751.png

Great game, nice gameplay, music, effects and animations... :ok:

:)

no, he is from tujickistan! and while talking of heroes 2 and 3 - heroes 3 have ten times more options and better graphics, and battle is... :drool:

Heroes 4? Never heard of it. Had no idea till about 10 minutes ago that it had ever existed! :blink:

That's really strange. How could I have missed it? :crazy:

Oh well, I'll still stick to 2 as I like it so much! :ok:

(and maybe my girlfriend will find my copy of 3 one day? :D )

Has anyone heard of Disciples 2, it is quite coll :w00t:

I have it, but I don't want to install it! :bleh:

Why it has excelent graphics and gameplay, and nice thing is that units can level up and change apearance(little squire after 5 levels becomes huge old knight with huge armor and huge sword..........) :D

yes, I know I played it at friend, but I just have important things to do/play (like :SPAM: :SPAM: )

And what is that supost to be ??? :blink:

this!!!!!





'Night :bye:

You speek in riddles.

Good night to you to :bye: :bye: :bye:

Because it's crap. If you want to try a new game then buy it, if you want to play the followup of Heroes 3 then really don't bother.

The game doesn't even play in Erathia. In the opening sequence, there is a small story about how Erathia been destroyed by two swords, and how the Erathians fled away to another "dimension" or "world" thru some gates...

Nothing like the old serie! That's a complete ripoff... The game doesn't even play the same... The "heroes" fight alongside your army now, and most of the time they can kill the army in front of them alone if they are leveled up enough... :rolleyes:

I would give it 2 on 5. :not_ok:

Well, aside from bad music and bad story which isn't any tied up to the old good one, I must say I liked the game. But probably only, because I didn't play Heroes 3 yet, too... :whistle:

It's maybe not excelent game but it is nice in single player

I'd never been a big fan of strategy games until Ages of Empires came along, particularly after the Conquerors expansion. You know the reviewer's cliche "Get this game and you'll lose your job, your girlfriend, etc?" For my part, with this game the cliche becomes almost to real! How can you not like a game wherein your carefully armed and trained elite troops can suddenly and without warning get eaten by a pride of lions?

Hi girls and guys, I am new here, and also I like Liberace. :bye:

Ok anyway, to me, the greatest strategy game is Panzer General. I love WW2, and this game was so far ahead of the rest, it boggled my mind. It is not perfectly accurate by any means, but is so damn fun. I have the PC, Macintosh, PSX, and 3DO versions.

I have played the damn game thru so many times, i sometimes walk to work thinking about how to break thru the KV's in early scenarios.
I am happy that hundreds of modded scenarios and campaigns have been produced. I've installed and played them too.

Hey did I tell you I love Panzer General? :whistle:
Anyway I love the site and forum, and am happy to be here.

For me strategy started with Civilization, X-Com and Colonization, and all of them turns to be a turn based.

But I do enjoy a RTS from it's beginning with Dune2, C & C, AOE and similar. I would say that real time strategy is often more closed to Sims, where you are more observers, while in turn based strategy everything depends on your planning and actions.

MOO, what more do i have to say?

Anybody knows Allied General?
Not the best TBS, but a nice enough game - has a multiplayer option too!

Yup i love strategy games but my favorite must be spcamo's spmbt and spww2.Both are based on the steel panthers engine (came out in 1996 i think)but have been updated and revised right upto a couple of months ago.The games are DOS based but run quite happily in winXP with vdmsound and Mousectl.The only system they dont run in is windows 2000 and for those with mx440 cards which dont have vesa support.
when i say that the games have been revised up till tthe present time i mean that the spcamo team have done wonders with the engine.There are now 15 levels or more of terrain(instead of 3 as in original SP and spwaw) many many new icons and weapons systems and terrain details as well as a brand new tile set of houses.They truely are great games and are and always will be free.In the spring of 2005 the team will be bringing out a windows version of their spmbt to the delight of all.You can find the download link below and by typing spcamo in google you will find the team's main site(which seems to be down atm so i cant link u to them) :D

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/SPCamo/index.htm
l

Yes i have panzer general and allied general both of which i thought were superb in their day and still very good now though i have to admit that i havent played them in a while.I see that u can get hold of pacific general on HOTU.I only found this abondonware site the other day and have to admit that i think its the best site i have been to in regards of quality of games /download speeds and compatability with my XP system.I would like to thank the team and please keep up the good work :ok: .regards Mad_Dog

Age Of Empires 2 is still the one and the best LAN strategy game ever!

Sorry, but it can't beat Starcraft (the original, without expantion) unpatched.

It can. I didn't like starcraft. Actually it was very boring and repeating. Nothing new to warcraft.

I guess you mean Warcraft II, which was also extremely poor. I would give it 2 on 5 and that's because I'm on a good mood. ;)

Starcraft was brilliant. There was some balance in the units unlike games that I won't mention (but I already mentioned Warcraft II anyways :whistle: ). Unfortunatly Blizzard eventually had to listen to the contant whining of young teenagers who would not understand how it should be played and who were not able to win properly and added patches after patches of stupid "fixes" which really more ruined the current balance than really helped it. I remember that at a time all you would need to do to win was to build Scouts (Protoss) and spam the map with them... :rolleyes:

I never liked the expansion (Brood Wars). 2 New units for each race? What for??? :not_ok:

I think the most of the points for warcraft (2) goes with nostalgy. I really enjoyed both warcrafts and the third too actually.

Well it should be Starcraft then Warcraft and then C&C series (or maybe Warcraft and then Starcraft)Anyway just can't wait to see WoW

Starcraft was a great game..

Only too difficult for me :tomato:

starcraft still is a great game, not was. it occupies my hd to this day.

AoE original, now thats a good game... though were a little :ot:

What is this MOO?

Master Of Orion.

We have it on the site.

Oh. I'll go check it out.

EDIT Doesn't look like my kind of game.

In my opinion strategy games are the best there is :ok: , they make you think :wall: and use your imagination :eeeeeh: and there are many ways for completing the task at hand :ph34r: . I just love it! :kosta:

Modified by omuletzu

AOE could have been a fine game, but the AI was nothing short of shocking. AOE2, now that was impressive.

As far as I recall the topic is Turn based strategy games! :ot:
I just wanted to ask if UFO is turn based?

It is as turnbased as they get.

Yes, it is, at least in the battles. In which case it owns all other games mentioned here.

Cool, thanks! I didn't played it yet, but I will see what I can do about it! :D

What do you mean you haven't played it yet? :blink: How can you call yourself an abandonian when you haven't played the best game on the site?

EDIT: 1000 posts!!!! :Brain: :Brain: :Brain: Yes, you'd better call me god!

I know, I know... *goes play UFO* :bye:

Don't think it will work..

they won't me call god or :angel: Wormpaul :angel:

I'm not sure if it is appropriate to discuss current games here, but I am a huge fan of Turn-Based Strategy, and I've started playing a game called Galactic Civilizations (www.galciv.com). It is a lot of fun if you liked games in the flavor of MOO2. I thought I'd mention it, as they are creating a sequel now and its hard to find good NEW TBS games.

I have to agree with what many people said about XCOM - it is such a good game! I think it was ahead of its time, considering the level of computers available at the time when it was made. Crouching down behind pieces of terrain to stay out of the enemy field of view, destroyable walls, customizable characters with equipment and skills, alien autopies ... it had it all! I lost my copy years ago, and I was really excited to find it on this site.

i love: fantasy general!

I used to waste hours of time in Fantasy Empires.

Hi guys. I'm new to this site,and i came here on a mission. I've been hunting this one game all over the internet and i cant seem to find it... Maybe you guys can help. Its a turn-based space strategy game, where the goal is to take over all the planets on the map. Its for quite a few players, hotseat style. Different planets you take over have different statistics depending on size and population. when you take over a planet, a flag of your color flies from it. I remember clearly that you could buy different types of ships for your fleet, and throughout your turns, it would show your fleet's eta to wherever you sent them. You could send anything from really huge carriers to "ssms" which were just a bunch of missiles.

Thats pretty much everything i can remember about the game. I spent so much time playing it, it was such an awesome game. I think my description might sound similar to master of orion but its definitely not. Any ideas?

This site makes me wish i didnt have a mac!

Master of Orion?

I don't think he meant this one...

Haha, yeah, but thanks... i think it had numbers in the name, but i might be thinking of tyrian which i played a lot too.

How about Spaceward Ho! ?

Nope not that either. I actually went and hunted down people I used to play it with, and found out the game's name. Its STELCON 2469. Really addicting game and from the description, you can see its probably similar to Master of Orion. I'm excited about that, because my parents got me moo3 for christmas! woo.

I reccomend someone whos into these kinda games give stelcon a try.

My fav turnbased is Medievil Total War, Civilization series, Lord of the Realms 2, and Rise and Fall of Anciant Empires (Even though it sucked like muck)

Was Medievil Total War turn-based?

PHEW I'm glad it didn't work on my computer now.

i certainly love em and missed them, XCOM APOCALYPSE and terror from the deep was my favorite.

One problem im having right now is that i cannot play XCOM APOCALYPSE on WINXP can anyone help me? I wanna remember old times.

Does anyone know if there are any new turned based games now?????

The Total War games are a mix of turn-based and real-time. The overall campaign map is completely turn-based, and probably best compared to games like Risk. When you start a battle of some sort it drops you into a real-time 3D environment with the armies that were in place on the campaign map. If you wanted to avoid the real-time stuff you could ask the computer to automatically resolve those battles (although it would typically result in a worse result than if you fought it properly yourself), and if you wanted to avoid the turn-based stuff you could just create custom battles with various units in armies.

These days Rome: Total War is miles ahead of Medieval, but we're hardly talking oldies anymore. :)

Shogun and Medieval where Risk like but the newest version (Rome) is not. In Rome you have the possibility to actually move you armies over the world map with movement points. Roads effect travel distance (positively) as well as the size of your army (negatively).

Rome does leap ahead of its predecessors in many areas but the battles don't feel right and it has a lot of bugs and balance issues. Still a worthwhile game and there is a mayor patch in the works that should be released in early January.

Yeah, rihgt, whatever.....
Starcraft, warcraft, Civ, AOE,MOO...... nice but
Jagged Aliance 1 & 2 r the best TBS games ever :ok: :ok: :ok:

Liked JA very much, but the second part of this serie never managed to bring me to even complete the first mission... :not_ok:

I thank my sister for telling my dad I wanted R:TW :P
thats the only thing she's ever done thats useful...

Space Empires 4 i really find good (malfadour are now in hte process of making space empires 5) it should be even better will remain turn based 2D on the game map but the space battles will be either 3D or 2D - and in real time i understand it.

Must better than MOO2 and MOO3 (anyone else here place SE4 ?)

I've played the demo of space empires 4, i liked i but though galciv was better (anything is better than MoO3!).

I just played a demo for Silent Storm. And although I'm not a fan TBS games this was pretty good. Graphics were very nice, sounds were excellent. And although I suck at it, it is good.

I like turn based strategy games like everyone else but i never really liked the moo
series. :yawn:

MOO 1 is classic, MOO 2 is not that bad till you beat it once/twice. MOO3 is worst TBS game ever.

Just remember on amiga I played a sharaware game that came on floppy with Amiga magazin. It was simillar to MOO. Loved that game.

Also spent a lot of time playing colonization on Amiga.

I've played the demo of space empires 4, i liked i but though galciv was better (anything is better than MoO3!).

MOO3 wasn't bad when it was patched. But the interface was something of a mess, since the development team leader was fired when Ubisoft changed their mind about the overall game design. (Ubisoft actually demanded that it be in 800 x 600, when the developers wanted to do a 1028 x 768 version.) There are parts about it I don't like, and others I think are really great improvements over MOO2.

GalCiv has great AI, but very few features, and retro-graphics. Space Empires IV has a ton of features, but I kinda lost interest in it after playing for a few hours. Heard that the AI wasn't that great, too, but it may have improved since I first tried it.

I'd beg to differ, I never even noticed a difference with the patched VS unpatched game in MOO3. And it was as boring, a patch can't change that.

MOO3 is really the biggest disapointment I had for a game ever in all aspects, all platforms together.

There is of course the freeorion project - freeorion.org for those interested open source version (very invovled many programmers) that are seeking a game similar to M003 built from scratch but much more balanced and without so many bugs - waiting for MOO4 which if made needs to be much more like the original - i still prefer space empires 4 (with hte 1.91 patch) and the now in development Space empires 5 due out next year with turn based strategy but with 3D real time battles. Its shaping up as a very good game.

I'd beg to differ, I never even noticed a difference with the patched VS unpatched game in MOO3. And it was as boring, a patch can't change that.

MOO3 is really the biggest disapointment I had for a game ever in all aspects, all platforms together.

Each to their own. No 4x space strategy title does it all for me, but MOO3 comes as close as any, despite remaining annoyances. I imagine a lot more people had a reaction about the game similar to yours, though.

turn limit in turn-based wargames
 

I dread the turn limit in turn-based wargames. This has put me off from Panzer General the first time I played it. I usually play defensively in such campaign modes, while the limit forces hasty attacks. Don't you hate when you lose because you were 1 turn short from capturing that last mission objective? It usually also means the scenarios will put you in offensive role - and I like variety in my missions.

I know that in some hardcore simulations when the historical battle was resolved within a week, it would be unrealistic to allow the fight to continue for a month.

But was that the case in, say, Battle Isle 2? With hexes, turns and a limit the game becomes closer to a puzzle game - you forgot to unload infantry for 1 turn, got delayed by weather - sorry, too late to win, despite having the decimated enemy on their knees! You must take specified actions in due time!

The game mentioned above featured such advanced features such as units repairing railroad tracks, sappers building entrenchments - when I'm supposed to use that when I should be going "immer vorwärts"? If I recall correctly the earlier Historyline didn't have such limit?

Wow, another resurrected thread. I do like the topic, but I guess there is no point commenting on posts made so long ago. Maybe we should start a new one from the scratch?

Was I doing that? I've started new question. Maybe you should start by addressing it? Other forums would issue a warning had I tried to make na new thread similar to existing one, here someone whines (no offense) that I posted in correct thread? Well, next time lock it, to make it sure noone resurrects it.

While this is a necropost of 7 years, it is okay. That is the official statement of 3 supermods. :max:

If you want to talk about this feel free no one is going to stop you, and some of the people that were talking in this thread are still around so they might want to join in again.

Yeah, I think we're far less likely to make comments about rotting stench and maggots in threads, aren't we, Piąty? :sneakrete:

Well, if we could all simply ignore this thread it would simply go back to the thread heaven zone for another several years. Nobody care about a thread made 7 years ago.

Also I don't know about the lack of common sense of other forums but necroposting is indeed a complete lack of respect as far as netiquette goes.

I have to agree that a time limit or move limit on a Turn Based game is rather weak and annoying. To me turn based games have always been about taking your time and thinking everything through, not having to rush things because you might not make the limit. It seems like a lame attempt to speed the game up for people who like me don't often like the slow pace of these games, that is not fair on the people who do like the slow pace and even I enjoy it with certain games and at certain times.

Necroposting is bad if it does not offer any meaningful contribution to the discussion. Since 9/10 times it doesn't, the default approach is to kill it with fire on sight.
If this thread continues without devolving into spam, I see no reason to not let it continue.

On that note Fifth, since I posted my ideas about time/turn limits and I know you are more a fan of this type of game do tell us what you think about them.

I have always played turn-based strategy games more than real-time ones, if only because of all the time I spent playing Microprose's Civilization I and II, Colonization, Master of Magic...

In a historical game like Panzer General it makes sense, taking too long to win a battle can make your country lose the war. Besides you can play any battle separate from the campaign, so you can play all of them from the start. And you can try again and again until you have a good plan to make it in time.

I don't remember any turn-based game with a time (not only turns) limit, but it would be lame. I mean if they think the game should have a time limit they should have made it real-time to begin with; but any real-time game lets you pause the game and slow it down, so...

That does make sense Japo to a point, but if you are stomping the hell out of the enemies but are just doing it a bit slow you really shouldn't be losing just cause the turns ran out.

M.A.X.: Mechanized Assault & Exploration. Luckily for us this mode is optional. I think it should only be reserved for multiplayer (hot seat or online* ), because as you said, it defeats the purpose of "thinking man's wargame" the turn-based genre aims for.
* Age of Wonders could also play in simultaneous turns mode with time limit per turn.

Despite the current trends ("faster & more intense", "it's crap but it's in HD!") there will always be a need for turn-based play. No way there will be Chessmaster:Realtime version. :mischief:

What I completely fail to comprehend is the move limit (per turn). Turn-based gameplay isn't fast and this only slows it down to a crawl - in RTS your units can at least auto-defend when left alone, here nothing moves until ordered so, and you're being allotted only few orders! So far I've seen this only as an option (fortunately!), e.g. Historyline 1914-1918.

Recently I've introduced myself to The Battle for Wesnoth, and while I like many aspects of the game (great oldschool graphics, excellent music and quite nice storyline campaigns), the complete randomness of combat is what really put me off. Actually, this would have been fine (or, at least, tolerable) if it were not coupled with the turn limit per mission, and the crucial need to level up your units. By contrast, Disciples, while having rather similar combat mechanics (except battles involve lesser numbers of units), allow the player at least to revive their fallen units in order not to disrupt the level-up process.

I don't think anyone will disagree that Battle for Wesnoth is spoiled by its randomness, otherwise it would be great. Since it's open-source I wonder if it would be very difficult to spot the random number generating function, modify it and re-compile...

Speaking about necroposting:
...I've just added this game to MobyGames :perv:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/stelcon-2469

I think I had that game as a kid. On some shareware CD, I remember the game screen. That was a rush of nostalgia...but I can't remember if I liked it as a kid or not.

1. Well, "time limit" in TBS actually is turn limit. And it is exist in all Civilizations, for example. :)

2. There is no need to have time limit in turn-based games, of course... while you are in single player. Most such games have time limit for turns (that can be tuned, but still) when you are playing with distant opponent. :) And yes, there is not possible to pause RTS here also. :)

I am personally hate turn limit, and can tolerate it in Civilizations only because it's quite generous. Usually. :)

I think it would have helped a lot if instead of hit-or-miss randomisation there'd be randomness in the amount of damage a unit deals per attack, depending on terrain types, speed, skill etc. (maybe with a very low chance of completely missing the target, like 2-5%). That would have helped avoid those frustrating situations when you surround an enemy unit with several units of yours, then watch all of them miss that unit, and then it successfully counterattacks some of your units next turn, aaaargh!

I never said you were addressing the old posts - I almost did it before I realised how old they were. And I wasn't going to post reply to you before mods confirmed we can use this thread.

I understand your frustration with turn limits, because it indeed dictates your style of play, even unit selection. I'm in the middle of playing Fantasy Wars and like Panzer General it has different levels of turn limits - if you finish mission soon enough you get better bonuses (in case of Panzer General it was also bonus missions) and there was also the ultimate turn count which you couldn't breach without failing a mission. So, I had to play aggressively and I also had to choose fast units for the game, since slow ones would end up stranded half the map while the fast ones would attack the final objective. And that's another thing, there were cities/forts that you had to capture as objectives and there were those you didn't. I like to capture them all (since they give you some bonus and units get experience), but sometimes I didn't have enough time to do it, since I had to focus on objectives.

Saying everything above, I also think that it's good to have a random turn limit mission in generally non-turn limit game, like it happens sometimes in different HoM&M games. It spices it up a bit, adding extra challenge and breaking monotony.

On different topic, I much prefer turn-based games to RTS. I simply like to take my time to make decision.

In Fantasy Wars and Elven Legacy it is much better if you stop obsessing about the Gold Medal Victory and take your time clearing the map. Once you realise that the bonus rewards are negligable compared to the immense gain from even one unit making an extra level (since each level gives +1 stats and a perk, so in total more than most items), the turn limits stops annoying you.
The ultimate turn count, being bronze medal, is often generous enough to clear the map twice over.
Not to mention all the gold from capturing extra city tiles far outweighs the 200 extra from gold medal. Plus the good reward items are all in the second to last mission or so where it doesnt really help much anymore.
I'm a big Fantasy Wars/Elven Legacy fanatic and the turn limit was the only thing that bugged me about the games, but now after about 10 playthroughs I like it as an additional bonus/gameplay option. And now after having played in all kinds of ways, I can safely say it is much easier to play hard and clear everything than it is to play medium with compulsory gold.
I can't get enough of these games, last month I had such an urge, I played through Fantasy Wars, then Elven Legacy, then Ranger,magic,siege and then all of them AGAIN! Gotta say my favourite is the magic campaign, the tactical options are very diverse.
I really hope the bring 10 more of these games to milk me Sims 3 style.

I totally agree - I discovered the same in the middle of the human campaign. In the orc campaign, it was actually very easy to get gold victory (played on medium difficulty level) for almost all missions, save for the second last one (in my opinion) as long as you choose good way to deploy your units. I haven't played the elf campaign yet.

And like with many similar games, you are struggling with gold (or whatever coinage in the game is) at the beginning of the campaign, when it's useful to score a few gold victories (and conquer all the cities/forts available), but at some point, you have more money that you can possibly use, so getting gold victory bonus is not important.

Still, saying all that, I happen to be an achievement junkie when it comes to games, so I just like getting those gold victories, if only to see what magic item they're going to grant me ;) So it frustrates me that I can't always score a gold victory and capture all cities/forts.

Thats probably what annoys most people. I think it would have been better if they had shown the rewards before the mission, so you ccould decide if you want to take your time and clear everything, or if you recklessly rush through for gold.
Anyway, I get around that for myself in that I always look into some gamefaq to see what the rewards are.
Talking about it makes me want to play again, I think I'm due for another all campaigns playthrough!

My gaming block continues, aided by my faulty PC... probably this triggered my MobyGames-spree: I'm adding "ancient" wargames like crazy, usually ones covering WW2, but also Napoleonic Wars, American Civil War, even US Army vs. Indians... my oldest submission is the release date for Tanktics - 1978! We're talking about serious computer historiography here! :max: