Avian Gamers Network

I'm not sure I'm at this point, but I think I may be looking for a different genre to put some gaming timeinto...

When I was out visiting my brother and his family, he bought C&C: Gods and Generals before deploying to Qatar and it made me think...he's always been a RTS guy. I had always gravitated to the turn based RTS' while he liked the real time ones. Before MMO's, I had always been a Civ and MOO guy (until MOO3 which sucked from what i hear. Reviews were so bad i didn't even buy it). The last game I played of this nature before taking an almost 10 year hiatus from computer gaming (to check out SWG) was Lords of the Realm back in 94/95.

I can buy LoR3 now for 20 bucks, and I am tempted (came out a year ago). However, what games have you all come across over the last couple years that you really liked that are in the Civ, MOO, LoR vein? I ask because I really haven't followed gaming at all outside of MMO's since I got back into gaming.

I didn't like KoToR and while I've played the occasional FPS, its not what I'm really interested in.

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For strategy games I can recommend Rome:Total war and Empire Earth II

EE2 is an RTS with resource gathering and techtrees to explore and it was released only about a week ago. The graphics could have been better (seems the same as EE1) but there are a lot of nice features that make it very playable.

RTW is a combination of strategy/politics/RTS you have a large map of europe with all the provinces. Construction and troop movements happen on this map and are turn based, while the battles are RTS on different maps.
This came out some time ago and can probably be picked up cheap now.

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Meriander, Paladin
Rentin, Warlock
(Emerald Dawn, WoW EU server)

Take two hours of WoW and call me in the morning.

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Liro
"The english language is not a wedding gown, it doesn't get better the more lace you add. It is instead a thong. Less is more." From /.
I need to remind myself of this regularly.

I second Aubai's plug for Rome Total War. I have about the same taste in games as you do dbakke. The whole Total War series is excellent (Shogun, Medieval and now Rome).

As far as RTS goes, Age of Mythology is excellent. Of course, if you missed that whole RTS craze, you may want to start with Age of Empires II: Age of Kings. It's also a great game.

If you like LoTR, War of the Ring is a good RTS, but very much like Warcraft 3 (which you should check out too).

Out of all these titles, if I had to just pick one, I think it would be Medieval Total War, just because I got so much playability out of it.

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"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides." - Thomas Paine, Common Sense

A break like that does a body good. Spend a month or so away and you'll be a new man.

On to RTSs, if you like WOW, you'll prolly like warcraft 3. Starcraft too. Both have GREAT stories behind them with some outstanding balancing. Plus it's very easy to get a good game going online.

Check out Age of Empires 3 coming out later this year. Huge hype about it going into E3 and there will surely be some great interviews/feedback about the game in the next coule weeks.

As mentioned, the Age series is amazing!!! My first online gaming (ok, second only to DOOM over dial up modem) was playing skirmish with a bud with Age of Empires.

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

if you have not tried Doom III and HL II then those are definate winners. Doom III is pretty heavy on your box though.

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Moge

I'm really enjoying the space opera/strategy sim Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. Also, Republic Commando is a pretty damn fun squad based tactics game. Both are casual friendly, which fits my 30-minutes to play/week lifestyle well.

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--The Hermit

s0o i got both EE2 and Rome Total War...EE2 is pretty good...reminds me a lot of Civ, but RTS.

I've only just started Rome Total War, but I'm digging it. I can see getting very addicted to that one.

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Should you like FPS stuff, Battlefield 2 is coming out in a couple weeks and it is going to be absolutely amazing! I've read previews, looked at real footage off E3 coverage, and am very excited about this. I seem to recall making a separate post about this game and hoping there would be interest in Avian to get a squad going.

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

I dont know if my laptop is going to run it or not but if it does I will be picking up BF2 to play around with.

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Section 6

IMHO LotR 3 sucks ass. The battles don't feel at all like you are making any difference. The battles in Rome: Total War are without comparison. They are real time but you can pause to issue orders which to me is ideal. The only problem with R:TW is the ai is abysmal in certain battles like assaults and bridges. It is greatly improved with the addition of the mod RomeTotalRealism. Google it and get it for free. If you like it make a small paypal donation to the modders to cover bandwidth etc.

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"Chatfield, I think there's something wrong with our bloody ships." Admiral David Beatty, upon watching the battlecruiser Queen Mary explode at the battle of Jutland.

My name is Tobias Smith and I approved this post.

So i finally decided to get the RTR free mod to Rome: Total War. They recently released version 6.1. So far, I'm very impressed with the additions from a historical perspective.

Should tide me over until Civ4 and AoE3 are released later this month.

Who's getting any of these titles?

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I DL'd the AoE3 demo a couple weeks ago. To be honest it just didn't grab my interest like I thought it would. Really excited for Civ 4 tho.

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

Civ 4 is a no brainer. Maybe AOE 3. Wait and see on that one.

Another title good for some cheap RTS city-building and defending fun is Stronghold.

"Archers ready!" Ahh, I never tire of that phrase...

The game is about managing your people's happiness (based on taxes, rations and variety of food), army, city industry (raising wheat to grind to flour at a mill and ultimately baked into bread) and city construction.

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Liro
"The english language is not a wedding gown, it doesn't get better the more lace you add. It is instead a thong. Less is more." From /.
I need to remind myself of this regularly.

I'm gonna have to get this...

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/movies/news.html?sid=6135284&mode=top&page=2

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Good one! I love this shot:

http://Nerfshot.com/myshot.php?img=160.jpg


(note: Hey Moge, this didn't work: )

Yeah, this looks like it could really be a lot of fun! I wonder though how long it will take for the 'Debbie Does...' mod to appear.

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Liro
"The english language is not a wedding gown, it doesn't get better the more lace you add. It is instead a thong. Less is more." From /.
I need to remind myself of this regularly.

I'd really recommend [url="http://www.microsoft.com/games/fable/"]Fable: The Lost Chapters[/url]. Great game. It's almost like a single-player WoW, with many of Arindel's ideas of character progression without levels thrown in.

It has a GREAT back story. Very quest-oriented, but the quests are fun and entertaining. Your character ages over time - my Hero was 59 and still swinging (though limping and a bit hobbled in his Plate Mail).

I'll post some more ideas in Arindel's HA thread.

Fable is one of the best games ever made.

It's up there with The Ocarina of Time IMO. I played through it on the XBox, now playing it on the PC.

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2 Locks, 2 Pally's, 1 Priest, 1 Warrior, 1 Hunter and 1 Mage walk into a bar...

Nope. I removed full image linking for BW and leeching issues.

Try this

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Moge

Ah hah! You so smartie!

I after watching the videos on the above link I'm sure Ill be picking up a copy of The Movies next month.

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Moge

I've been waiting for The Movies for a while now.

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"