VitalyB asks about undocumented features in patch 3 at Apolyton (I thought it was dead?!), and he mentions a very handy one.

I am talking about those nifty little changes that don't appear in the readme file but improve the game a great deal. For example: ctrl+home selects all the injured units. What else? Not talking only about key combinations but also of other feature/interface changes that tweak the gameplay.

Great question. Anyone else know of any?


posted by Tim at 5:20 PM

If you want to know how the BHG ratings work check here.

Me, I'm happy.

BHG is using Arpad Elo's formulas (with some slight modifications). Elo's formulas were rigorously tested with decades of data, and they've been in use for decades (US CHess and FIDE both use them). There are very good reasons for all of the components of the rating system.

1. You want to approximate the real rating as quickly as possible. Thus provisional ratings are calculated differently and will have huge swings until they are established. One of the worst thing you can have is to have ratings correlate with games played over time. You should need to play a few games to get your rating established. But then it should "stick" unless your skill dramatically increases for some reason.

2. Ratings should never reset. Ratings are meant to assess skill. Skill doesn't reset. Ratings systems that correlate strongly with games played are not designed to measure skill as much as they are designed to reward constant play. Therefore, they occasionally reset to encourage players to play agains for hte "money title." For example, Battlenet rewards players who rack up tons of wins more so than the prodigy who comes in and wins his first 30 games against top players. Even if the latter player is twice as good. A better example is the money title in golf vs. the Vardon Trophy. Tiger won the Vardon trophy (for lowest adjusted stroke average) while Singh won the money title. Tiger's the better play because he shoots better when he plays. Singh just played in a LOT more events than Tiger.

3. The "k-factor" declines and then remains stable at 16. Even after the provisional period, skill is likely to increase fairly rapidly as the player gets more experience. In that case, you'd want K to start out higher (about 31 for 25 games played vs. 16 for 50 games and beyond.)

4. Once both players are established, if you are evenly matched, then the winner would get 8 points and the loser would drop by 8 points. If you beat someone 400 points below you, then you'd probably get ~1 point (not sure how they do fractions). Established ratings are exceedingly accurate at predicting winning chances. At a 400 difference, I have a 90.9% of beating you. At an 800 difference, that chance is 99.0%. If by some miracle you beat me, you're rewarded with all 16 points and I lose all 16.

UPDATE: For geeks (like me) interested in comparing the BHG system to the USCF Chess system can review US Chess Federation: Rating Calculations.

UPDATE 2: Errr ... that's the old version. Unbeknownst to me, the USCF has modified their rating system. You can read the detailed algorithm here. Turns out the BHG system is EXACTLY like the new USCF system. As far as I can tell. They just have not adopted the "floor" concept.
posted by Tim at 10:18 AM

After sustaining a rare devastating loss in a team game (of all things), I'm rethinking some economic concepts. As I've mentioned before, rare resources play a huge role in team games because there are some many more rare resources on the map. In addition to the resources they bring in, they also bring in the bonuses, which makes them super doubly good. Of course, all this is pretty obvious, right? So get a lot of rares. The implication this brings with it, though, is you should set up your economy to get rares. Well what does that mean?

It means maxing out wood and wealth as early as possible. And the best way to do that seems to be an early COM2. I know this sounds like heresy, but I think it's true. First of all, an early classical has less benefit because raiding is not as prevalent in large team games as it is in 1on1 games. It's more difficult, and will likely set you back relative to the pocket players. Secondly, an early classical is designed to gather knowledge more quickly. In 1on1 games, I believe the logic of the early classical still holds. But in big team games, I think you can recover the knowledge gap with rares. Many rares have knowledge and getting those is better than spending wealth on scholars. So... in team games now, I am probably going to start going SCI2 -> COM2 or maybe even COM2 -> CIV2. I dunno, we'll see.
posted by Tim at 8:49 AM

Here's the change list:

General fixes

• Balance fix to Barks and Triremes


• Transport ships no longer receive +2 speed bonus from military bonus


• Scout line more likely to attack spies


• Can't upgrade to Commandos until Industrial Age now


• Helicopter bonus vs. tanks has been reduced


• Mobile AA units have range increased


• Siege and supply can now garrison in forts and cities. All other ground military units may garrison in any military producing building


• Units more effective against units three or more ages below

Nation fixes:

• Mongols now get two free Horse Archers when building stables with two military techs, and three at three military techs


• Mayan reduced timber costs for buildings no longer applies to military buildings


• Nubian rare resource bonus applies only in their own territory and not that of their allies


• Romans now get +15 wealth per city instead of +10


• Koreans no longer get free Taxation

Other balance changes:

• Moderate difficulty now easier


• Players now have the ability to declare war on nations that have resigned, and thereby take control of resigned nations' land


• Fixed exploit of Supercollider allowing instant razing of buildings


• Exploit fixed for Nubian buy/sell to gain wealth

Analysis:
Losers:

• Spies - CI is now "automatic." However, since CI still reduces craft, one scout scout can only take out 2 spies. You would still need several scouts to prevent spy spam. Also, they need to be in range. Scouts in back won't use CI on bribing spies unless they come within range. Good use for spies now is to ambush flanking cavalry. Or to sneak around and bribe artillery. Sending a scout with spies so you can see invisible scouts might also be worthwile.

posted by Tim at 1:30 PM

Based on community feedback about the current BHG ratings page, I've produced a modified version of the Top 100 filtered by activity (played in the last 30 days) and total rated games (10 or greater). The table below appears more relevant than the current incarnation.

O4BRank BHGRank Name                   RatingWinsLosses# gamesDate

       1   5    PCA_Frogman            2246  18  0     18       11/14

       2   15   Udon_Bomber            2148  31  5     36       11/10

       3   17   TWC_ShaDowZ            2133  31  8     39       11/12

       4   20   Ma_ARes_rS             2122  24  2     26       11/14

       5   21   AS_REVENGER            2122  8   2     10       11/13

       6   24   TuF_Astator            2117  44  12    56        11/9

       7   30   G_DoG_                 2101  20  4     24       11/14

       8   32   PCA_newty              2100  33  16    49       11/14

       9   33   _RedruM_               2096  21  4     25       11/13

      10   52   camel                  2057  7   4     11       11/14

      11   53   UD_Renegade            2056  34  16    50       10/18

      12   57   I_LoVe_YoU             2051  29  6     35       10/19

      13   58   Silvery_Dragon[ms]     2048  9   4     13       11/13

      14   60   I_HoSt_1oN1            2040  77  20    97       10/26

      15   61   AU_MeMeNTo             2038  11  4     15       11/13

      16   63   PCA_Mell               2036  16  3     19        11/9

      17   68   Hiromu                 2026  52  14    66       11/14

      18   71   UWF--FoLeY--UWF        2021  13  2     15       11/14

      19   75   TWC_Spad_              2016  8   6     14       10/19

      20   78   PCA_MATUURA_AYA        2011  29  10    39       11/14

      21   81   Nanjin                 2010  61  24    85        11/8

      22   82   Be_Good                2009  11  4     15       10/29

      23   84   Renegade               2008  88  33    121      10/27

      24   83   NoxMortus              2008  68  39    107      11/14

      25   89   PlayRated              2005  51  18    69       11/13

      26   88   True_Ogre              2005  12  4     16       10/27

      27   90   TuF_Richter_           2004  65  12    77       11/13

      28   91   _RU_Raven_Alx_         2004  11  3     14        11/6

      29   94   Killmeifyoucan         2001  17  5     22       10/26

      30   96   scb                    1999  14  2     16       11/13

      31   98   KBS_Wyvern             1998  14  5     19        11/3

      32  100   montana                1994  58  24    82       11/12

BHG: any chance you guys can make something like this the default view for the rated page? Then have an "all-time" ratings page using the current default.

Thanks in advance.
posted by Tim at 12:39 PM

Fewer players.

This leads me to believe that there are a lot of players out there running a cracked version and we might not see a portion of those players return until/unless new cracks are released. Disappointing, but not surprising.

UPDATE: That didn't take long at all. Game Copy World has a crack already! Now I can hide the CD from Wifey again!
posted by Tim at 9:31 AM

BHG has released the "ratings page" on their website (thanks Thao) as Big Huge Ratings. In the Heaven Forum there's a discussion about whether this is a good thing, should they reset, and should they have decay.

Ratings shouldn't reset. Skill doesn't "reset" and ratings should reflect skill. I applaud BHG for sticking to their guns on this. However, skill does decay if you are inactive for a long time. So a measure of rating decay for long inactive players might be in order. I would not use what was sugested in this thread about a rapid loss that tapers off. That doesn't mirror real skill decay either. It should be gradual and there should be a max decay threshold.

On the other hand, if BHG redesigned the rating formula, then showing old ratings that were established under the old formula is highly misleading and they should take action to rectify that situation.

Another easy fix is to have the default display page be one that only shows "ACTIVE" players -- players who have played in the last 4-6 weeks. This way you have 2 pages: ACTIVE ratings, and ALL-TIME ratings.

DISCLOSURE: To support some of the discussion, I managed a 2027 rating last night playing 5 games against average opposition. Only 2 games (against Ollive) were competitive.
posted by Tim at 7:32 AM

Some people over at the Rise of Nations Heaven Forum are bashing the British in the thread on Best nations, your thoughts.

Brits are the only bottom tier civ, IMO.

What's strong about Brits is how the COM techs align with the CIV techs. With COM1, I can max out at +125 usually with just 2 towns. That, along with the (at this point small) taxation bonus, I can hit CLASSICAL and raid with a stronger economy.

I'll probably do CIV2 before COM2, so I'll likely be getting that third city up before most other civs. This enables me to do some early border pushing or to establish a stake in the center, around whatever key terrain might exist.

Something HalfLotus might like: the longer range of the forts and towers enables British to emulate the Roman aggression strategy as well, by dropping a fort and using the towers, the longer range towers, partly make up for weaker border effect.

Once I've built the third city, I'll fill it out with workers and then research COM2. At this point I have a +187 economy. Researching SCI techs, the production boosters, and COM3 push that pretty high very quickly.

The better economy allows you to do a number of things: build bigger armies, build wonders to press your econ advantage, continue booming, etc. I'm not saying they are the strongest civ, but they are better than a number of them. They are certainly better than Russians. Let's put it this way, I'm happy when I get Brits.
posted by Tim at 7:11 AM

BHG announced that Patch 3 is out! The download version is not available yet, but it should load automatically when you enter Gamespy. Nod to HalfLotus for the heads up.

UPDATE: You can download patch here (BHG).
posted by Tim at 11:44 AM

I discovered a nearby colleague with whom I work also has a blog: Raj's ruminations. His is more thoughtful than mine, of course, but in discussing blogs we both commented on what the loss of anonymity might do to our blogging habits. No more blogging about how much I hate my job! (Just kidding -- I don't.)

Some people have blogs that are anonymous and they write some revealing things. The blogosphere acts as a sort of confessional. But if people you know read your blog, such as Wifey, The Boss, your parents, your GF, etc., then you have to be more circumspect about what you reveal. Maybe. We'll see.
posted by Tim at 7:57 AM

Yahoo has a story on the theory that Saddam might be behind the insurgency in Iraq.

The recent string of high-profile attacks on U.S. and allied forces in Iraq has appeared to be so methodical and well crafted that some top U.S. commanders now fear this may be the war Saddam Hussein and his generals planned all along. Knowing from the 1991 Persian Gulf War that they could not take on the U.S. military with conventional forces, these officers believe, the Baath Party government cached weapons before the Americans invaded this spring and planned to employ guerrilla tactics.

This was actually something I had considered before the war in our watercooler talk around the office. Saddam's bluster was just a front. He had to know there was no way he could win a head-to-head battle against U.S. forces. Given that situation, what was his best course of action? When faced with a superior force, avoid battle. Appear weak where you are strong. Use surprise attacks to sap the will of the enemy occupation forces. These are basic strategy concepts. I find it hard to believe that this outcome comes as much of a surprise. But, the Yahoo story goes on to say:

If these observations are borne out, it would be a significant departure from previous U.S. government assessments. Before the war, the Bush administration never gave any indication that it expected to face a large-scale, planned guerrilla campaign. Just recently, U.S. officials who interrogated former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz and other former Iraqi officials said they found no evidence of such a strategy.

Where was mighty RAND? Some simple game theory analysis would have likely indicated that the Iraqi leadership would attempt some form of long haul insurgency. They know we can't stay there forever, but they can. Time is on their side.

This is one reason why I think a prerequisite for promotion to General should be some form of hard-core strategy gaming experience. This is something that probably should have been obvious. We should have planned for it and set appropriate expectations with the UN, our allies, and the people of this country. Success will probably require us to have a presence there for years. Maybe longer.
posted by Tim at 7:33 AM

On the AU clan boards, niDe makes an amazing admission. Disgusting.
posted by Tim at 2:32 PM

WhiskeyPete posts a good solution to this problem:

I seem to have a problem that when using forced march, unless the general is with an army of all cavalry he outpaces the other units and thus doesn't help them out with the forced march ability after a short amount of time has passed.

posted by Tim at 11:23 AM

Some people have taken umbrage over my response to Sea Biscuit's Tips for playing koreans. He said this:

i dont play them much so i dont know. let me know

My response was short:

ROFL! You should probably play them some before posting anymore "tips."

I followed it with an explanation:

"Tips" are generally considered as "here's something that has worked for me, give it a try" or "here's my well-thought out analysis, see how this works for you."

If you're just guessing what works for a civ that you don't play much at all then you should be posing questions, such as "What do you guys think of this?" Don't go posting tips. You don't see ME posting the authoritative how-to-play-Aztec guide, cuz I don't play Aztec. If I do, I'll be sure to let me peopel know what I learned.

There are a lot of people who might read that and think because it's a "tip" that it might be a good idea, and they might try it in a game and discouraged when they get their head handed to them.

This was apparently offensive to Sea Biscuit who responded:

O4B- Do you have a psychiatrist??? you need one!

and

I am not sure what you are trying to contribute to this discussion.

Here was my response to that:

I take strategy pretty seriously. Whether it be for games, economics, negotiations, or plain old office politics. I enjoy game theory and the search for the Nash equilibrium. I believe that it is important for strategy development for strategies to be published so that others can improve them or refute them. Publishing strategies, tips, and techniques helps the community as a whole improve and increases the talent available for pushing the strategic envelope. Another role for helping the community is commentary on strategies so that newer players can get a sense for whether a strategy is worth pursuing or not. To cultivate a garden, you have to pull some weeds. That's all I'm doing. Pulling weeds.

If you have serious strategy to contribute, fine. Post it up and let it stand on its own merits. But if it is not serious, you can expect some negative responses, particularly when it pretends to be serious. I read almost all strategy-related posts on all related websites. I link to the good ones, ignore the obvious trash (My expansion pack wish list!), and refute the not-so obvious trash. Yours is the latter case. You purport to having insight on Koreans, yet claim you don't play them much. Based on your comments alone, I'm gonna call bullsh1t. If only to help newer readers who might not know that the "latest tip" is rather controversial and apparently untested.

If you want more positive replies, then take an example from HalfLotus on how to post your strategies and tips. It's one thing to post garbage strategy as a joke, and quite another to post it in the guise of serious "tips."

Now you can come back with more name calling and insults (no, I don't need a psychiatrist), or you can come back with some serious analysis or some recorded games of you performing these "tips" against good players.

Other than that, I stand by what I said. Don't assume that I think everything you post is bad. I've linked to you in the past. I just think this was a Bad Post, and I said so. Just so you know, I don't presume to know everything. Which is why I often ask questions of my own.

I sure this will end on a positive note.
posted by Tim at 10:35 AM

Arch Mage asks the common question: What's the best nation? It's good to periodically review this because perceptions and fashions change. What was once good might not be as effective once people learn to counter certain strengths. (Don't forget those Nubians!) Also, I'd like to mention that some people believe the Germans are a top 5 civ. (So don't forget the Germans.)Personally, I like Chinese and British the best. Koreans, Mayans, and Mongols are good, of course, but they don't fit my playstyle quite as well. I prefer Chinese, but British absolutely rock in team games where you have a chance to get the mighty economy going.
posted by Tim at 7:22 AM

TuF_Astator has the current lead in the Celtic Warriors Info Age race with the amazing time of 22:35. And he used Nubians!
posted by Tim at 7:19 AM

The Official X3D wesbite has this analysis of Game 1. The game ended in a draw, but it was an exciting draw, with Garry being up the exchange, but the computer with more active pieces.

Garry Kasparov came and he saw, but in the end he could not conquer. His took the fight right to X3D Fritz in this exciting first game and gained a substantial advantage. The machine defended precisely and then battled back at the first opportunity. X3D Fritz gained enough play to force a draw, an offer that Kasparov could not refuse.

I managed to watch a big chunk of this game on ESPN2 yesterday. It's extremely rare to have chess matches shown live on TV. They did a good job making this interesting to watch. Errr.... interesting to a strategy gaming geek, I suppose. Next match is schedule for 1 pm EST on Thursday. I'll be setting my Snapstream to record that one! HEY! I can do that ONLINE!

UPDATE: WOW! That took 2 mintues to log in and set the computer to record all of the future episodes! That is waaaaaay cool. Almost as cool as the Warhammer 40k mod for Rise of Nations.
posted by Tim at 7:00 AM

Raven has some reading comprehension problems.

You guys probably don't know this but Knight and O4B said flamethrowers are useless...

Here's what I actually said:

So what the heck are Flamethrowers supposed to do? The AI makes these guys all the time in SP, but I have yet to (consciously) make these in a competitive MP game. Wouldn't you rather just reduce it with artillery instead of attacking the garrison? I mean, we are talking industrial age here... Does anyone make them, and if so what do you use them for?

I hope everyone notices, I was asking what people use them for, which is far different from saying they are useless. At any rate, he does offer a pretty interesting use for flamethrowers.

In modern/indust age, coupled with a general and a couple scout cars, sneak into emeny base until you find a unveristy, flame it!! and Out come to scholars, now fry/shoot them, kill those nerds!!

Of course, I have never seen this in a game nor a recording, so it's apparently only theoretical at this point. But it sure sounds like a great idea. Or does it? Tann counters with this:

I dont see the point to take his scholars...when all you need to do is send in a small force of a flamie, 5-6 specforc and some machine guns....dont forget the general this will take down a city in seconds...then you can have all the buildings....not just the uni.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Polly weighs in with The Answer.
posted by Tim at 5:57 AM

I told Wifey not to get me anything for my birthday (or Christmas) since I built a new computer and bought a Mercedes. I mean what do you get for the man who has everything? The answer is this: Karaoke Revolution

Turn your PlayStation 2 into a high-end, interactive karaoke machine with Karaoke Revolution, the latest in Konami's award-winning line of music video games. Featuring an impressive list of tunes from current hits to yesterday's classics, Karaoke Revolution will give gamers of all types something to sing about. Sing your favorite tunes while Karaoke Revolution judges you. Perform your way to the ultimate concert venue in Showtime Mode. Choose from a list of hits from the 70's, 80's, 90's and today!

Wifey and I played it for several hours last night. It's a lot of fun. It'll be more fun at parties as up to 8 players can compete and you can have your own little American Idol party. With the big screen TV we have, the PS2 becomes a very entertaining party game.
posted by Tim at 5:48 AM

Game is here (MFO)

So WhiskeyPete tracks me down in the unrated lobby and says he wants to challenge the "blogmaster" himself. Despite wifey being home, I agreed to play, even though that meant playing with the sound off and some light key stroking (no banging on the keyboard obviously). niDe and WP both asked me why I don't just use headphones. Well, the noise isn't really the issue. It's the playing that's the issue. To keep from getting caught playing, I have to have the sound low. I can't use headphones because I need to be able to hear her sneaking down the stairs. So slightly handicapped, I hosted up a game and we commenced to playing. It was secret random; he chose Koreans and I chose Chinese.

I hit classical not too long after him and raded a bit some HA. He fended me off with LC. Although I killed some villagers and caravans. It did put me behind in getting my 3rd city up. With a presumed slight econ advantage, I pressed the boom, getting to Medieval and putting up both the Colossus and Pyramids. I made a fort and sent a spy to to make informers in most of his cities. Meanwhile, I kept pushing on the econ envelope, crusing along. Then I realized I still hadn't made much military. At that point he attacks my weak middle area with a large force. I tried to slow them down but they pressed right on through my troops. I made it to enlightenment age and upgraded for the counter attack, but not before he managed to sack my main econ city - the one with the Pyramids. I took it back and destroyed hsi army. He managed to slip away 2 cannons and a supply cart. Those managed to bring down the Colossus wonder before I could kill them off.

So the game settled down into a slugfest in the middle, where he had a strongpoint which was flanked on one side by an expansion town of mine. My poor micro kept me from managing my troops properly and so despite a larger econ, I was unable to capture his forward city. I'd about had enough trnech warfare, so I went industrial and built the SOL. He followed me into Industrial but beat me to Modern. Neither of us was making any headway. However, I wasn't too worried because I had informers all over his territory and could see his troop strength. I was making just enough to prevent him from breaking through. Eventually I reached the Info Age and made a bunch of Apache helicopters who tore up his defenseless ground troops. I also attacked on the wing with a small raiding force to capture a flank town. With his army gone I managed to finally capture that forward town. He resigned once I started lobbing shells onto his capital.

So despite the sound handicap, I managed to eke out a lucky win and maintain blogging rights for another week. GG!
posted by Tim at 8:34 AM

At the Rise of Nation Heaven Forum, Sea Biscuit writes about why Spain is one of his favorite civs.
posted by Tim at 5:07 PM

According to the Big Huge Games website, patch 3 should be out in a matter of days.

Patch 3 has been given the green light by the Microsoft testing team and is being packaged for release. This includes a localization pass and the creation of a stand-alone version of the patch. This means that Patch 3 will be available for download in a matter of days.

Thanks to LameAim for the heads up!
posted by Tim at 11:31 AM

Knight posts on his blog something I hadn't really considered about markets.

[Trading] usually means you are not managing your resources properly. Yet, one of the great new ideas BHG implemented was a commerce cap, thus making trade at the market more important.

That's a great point. Sometimes you have to trade because the commerce cap doesn't allow you to get what you really need.
posted by Tim at 10:31 PM

HalfLotus posted a new Roman Aggression rec at Rise of Nations Universe. This time is against someone decent. And this time it loses.

Well every strategy has its foil, in this case it's Turks with gems. There's a replay at RoNU. With his free catapults, my towering/sieging was for naught, I should have taken a different approach. The raiding went well, I might have been able to outboom him. I was able to catch up later, then made a significant strategic error which cost me the game.

Download the game here.

UPDATE: Okay, I watched the game. This was a great example of pulling defeat from the jaws of victory.
Twice.
In one game.

I'll give my comments on the game below. But I encourage everyone to watch this game. It has several instructive elements:

• 2 variations of a SCI1, COM1 start on Australian Outback. One with CIV1, one with SCI2. SCI2 seems like the better route to go as it gave HL more ruins and he had an earlier Classical. It would have been nice to have seen a SCI1, COM1 vs. a SCI1, CIV1 start, but we'll save that discussion for later.


• Example of 1-city raiding. HL has pushed this as a good strategy for Egypt. Well, boys and girls, it works quite well with other civs also. Using fishing to boom his food income, he does an early Classical and hits Mell with HAs. Mell made the mistake of going barracks first, but deletes it, and gets a stable up; however, not in time to prevent losing a few villagers. He rushes Mell with 3 HAs which do a decent job of keeping Mell's econ down below HL's. After the raiding, HL has about a +125 advantage on Mell. He manages to keep this up through most of the game. Unfortunately, he puts it to "bad" use.
• Example of the Roman Aggression strategy in action. This ends up nearly costing HL the game, because his push doesn't go anywhere and he ends up losing all of his forward buildings to Turkish artillery. As we mentioned here, I think the weakness of this strategy is using the forts to push the borders, making them easy targets for the enemy. Of course, this is even worse if your enemy happens to be Turkish, but you can bet everyone else will be making artillery as well. HL probably could have sealed the deal if he had placed his third city in front of his fort and military buildings. His superior numbers would have prevented Mell from capturing the city and the city would have prevented the artillery from getting close to the fort and mil buildings. With no city, the arty just mows through the buildings and creates a big hole in the middle. I think he probably would have won this game fairly easily if he had just pressed his post-raid advantage in a more conventional manner. HL pretty much admits this in his above quotation.
• A great example of Border Flanking on the part of Mell. Mell builds first a fort and then a city on the edge to flank HL's border and get close to HL's capital. It's a risky strategy given his weakness in the middle, but it becomes important later on.
• An outstanding example of using ambush to surprise the enemy. HL does not upgrade any of his troops until he reaches Enlightenment Age. This means he loses pretty much all of the early battles. But once he reaches Enlightenement Age, he upgrades all of his troops just in time to ambush Mell's Gunpowder Age army. HL routs Mell all the way back to Mell's seond town. HL sacks the town and does a great job ripping up Mell's econ. But...
• Meanwhile, Mell had sacked Rome (launching his attack from the border flank) and assimilated it, then built a tower and sent all his troops there to reinforce. HL doesn't respond until it's too late. (Maybe he didn't see it? Or was that the "significant strategic error" he mentions?) Game Over. Mell wins with better strategy, despite being down in military and economy.

I've now watched all the games of the Roman Aggression strategy, and while it still can be argued either way, I think the strategy requires some improvement. I like the idea of pushing hard with the fort, but I think that an early third city HAS to go somewhere in front to protect the fort. It's really too easy to take down a naked fort. Also, the other recorded games were against players who were so bad, a simple Ancient rush or normal boom would have won more easily, so it's hard to say the "strategy won it."

Anyway, this was a great game to watch. GG fellas!
posted by Tim at 9:01 PM

So what the heck are Flamethrowers supposed to do? The AI makes these guys all the time in SP, but I have yet to (consciously) make these in a competitive MP game. The official MS site says:

The particular value of the Flamethrower (besides great animation) - is that using it against enemy-occupied buildings results in the expulsion of the garrisons of those buildings. The buildings and the units don't fare very well, either.

Wouldn't you rather just reduce it with artillery instead of attacking the garrison? I mean, we are talking industrial age here... Does anyone make them, and if so what do you use them for?
posted by Tim at 2:18 PM

In the MFO Rise of Nations Forum someone was arguing that Starcraft is the best RTS game ever. I disagreed. Starcraft is one of the best games ever made, but IMO, there are certain things missing from Starcraft that are in other games.

• Unit experience (units can level up, like Red Alert 2 and Kohan)


• Unit facing (tactical maneuver is important, like RON and Kohan)


• Random maps (variety, like all the other games)


• Logistics (some representation of supply requirements, like RON and Kohan)


• Customizable units (like Kohan)


• Customizable unit AI (as in Dark Reign)

These things significantly add to the experience.

posted by Tim at 2:10 PM