Welcome to Rock Paper Nuke, your number one destination for strategy gaming news, reviews and discussion. Feel free to take a look around our community and read the latest news and opinions. If you like what you see, join us. We're looking forward to meeting you. Click here to register.
By registering you can participate in discussions on the message boards, upload videos and images, and comment on the latest gaming news. Registration is free and easy.
Welcome to Rock Paper Nuke. We hope you enjoy your stay.
Acclaimed developer to take fans behind-the-scenes of the development of its all-new real-time strategy game
REDMOND, WA (FEBRUARY 15, 2009) – Gas Powered Games announced today that work has started on Kings and Castles, an epic real-time strategy game for the PC and next-generation consoles. This one-of-a-kind experience will let players take on the role of one of three powerful kings who are vying for control of an all-new, original fantasy world.
“We’re doing something different this time around,” said Chris Taylor, Creative Director of Gas Powered Games. “We want to take our fans on a great adventure with us. They’ll get to go behind-the-scenes and watch the game come to life from start to finish.”
Using the game’s website (www.kingsandcastles.com) and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter (follow DeathBot9, Chris Taylor’s personal account), GPG will give its fans a (mostly) unfiltered look inside the development process of Kings and Castles. “Synergy will be leveraged, and paradigms will be established,” said Taylor. “More importantly, buzzwords will be utilized.”
GPG will be posting regular updates about Kings and Castles on its website. The first video blog went live today. It contains graphic scenes of wood chopping, chickens, and the obligatory horse biting.
Future installments will take fans step-by-step through the design process, discussing the creation of prototypes, the work that goes into creating the visual look and feel, while others will cover the proper care and feeding of chickens.
Kings and Castles will utilize the state-of-the-art RTS technology that Gas Powered Games has pioneered with its previous titles. Key features include the ability to zoom to any level, incredible maps, and eye-popping visuals that will run on a wide range of systems.
“We also promise to gouge evil from its shell at least once, or maybe twice,” said Taylor. “But not three times. That would be weird.”
I'm offering one lucky person the chance to operate Rock Paper Nuke.
The position is Head Admin / Community Leader
This is a niche strategy gaming site with a custom/unique style, Youtube account, Twitter account. I'm looking to hand over control to a responsible, mature individual who would like to make some money.
Essentially, you'll run the forum and any money that you can make from advertising you get 100% of. That's right, I don't want a penny!
I pay for the hosting, the domain, the premium forum software. All I need is your time.
Either send me a PM on here or contact me on MSN to discuss:
A new detailed North American Campaign Map expands the Empire: Total War experience, with 5 brand new American Indian factions, new units and technologies. Experience battles in the new Warpath Campaign and lead one of the 5 new factions in an epic war to defend your lands and drive out the invaders. Or take these units and their unique strengths into multiplayer battles.
5 New Playable Factions — Play through the new Warpath Campaign or in multiplayer as one of 5 new American Indian factions in Empire: Total War, including the Iroquois, Huron, Plains, Pueblo and Cherokee nations.
Expanded North American Territories — A new, more detailed North American Campaign Map featuring new regions and a new start date.
New Elite Units — Command new Elite units specific to each American Indian faction including Mohawk Elite Warriors, Cheyenne Dog Soldiers, Navajo Scout Warriors and many more.
Shaman and Scout Agents — Two new agent types - Infiltrate enemy territory with the new Shaman unit and sabotage the opposition with the cunning Scout.
New Tribal Technologies — 18 new tribal technologies including Spirit Medicine, the Call of the Wild and Dreamwalking creating a brand new tribal technology tree.
New Objectives — New winning objectives for each of the playable factions.
Empire is expanding. With its latest update now available on Steam, Empire: Total War from Sega and The Creative Assembly adds 14 free new units along with numerous updates and game enhancements (complete list below).
Additionally, the first downloadable content for Empire: Total War is now available on Steam. The Elite Units of the West DLC features an *additional* 14 new units from all the major Western factions. Featuring all new infantry and cavalry units, equipped with the best weapons and having undergone the most rigorous of training, this DLC is the perfect addition to your Empire's army. Expand your Empire with even more options on the battlefield as you improve your tactics and defeat your enemies.
Empire: Total War Update 1.3 Updates
This update includes the implementation of multi-threading in the game for multi-core processors and many optimizations that will also help increase performance on single core machines. Players will see huge benefits through increased frame rates particularly in land and naval battles.
Units
14 Free Units have been included in this patch, adding a large amount of diversity to the playable factions and the armies the player will face. These units replace 'generic' equivalents giving each faction a unique identity on the battlefield. Here is a description of each free unit available in the update:
Prussian Grenadiers -Wearing a distinctive brass fronted mitre cap, the Prussian Grenadiers are an explosive force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.
Spanish Guardias de infateria - These elite guard infantry are charged with protecting the monarch and are a potent force on the battlefield.
Swedish lifeguard horse - This cavalry regiment forms part of the monarchs' household guard. Superbly drilled, they act as a shock force on the battlefield.
Holland Horse Guard -Armed with heavy cavalry sabres, these disciplined cavalrymen represent the elite of the army.
Prussian Garde Du Corp- The Prussian Garde Du Corp are a replacement for the Prussian standard Household cavalry. These heavy horse shock troops are best used to break enemy lines and overrun enemy positions. With a strong charge and fearsome attack, these riders make short work of those who would oppose a Prussian monarch.
Prussian Life guard - The Prussian life guards are equipped similarly to line infantrymen. However their uniforms are altogether more splendid, marking them out as a superior force, in arrogance if nothing else. They do a good job as garrison troops and are dedicated to the crown.
Russian Grenadiers - This new Russian unit is great for assaults and their grenades pack a mighty punch!
Spanish Guardias De Corp -The Spanish Guardias De Corp replace household cavalry for Spain. With almost unbreakable morale, on the charge they are almost unstoppable.
Spanish Grenadiers - These are a replacement for the standard Spanish Grenadiers with a distinctive bearskin hat to mark them out as exemplary on the battlefield.
Swedish 'Lifeguards of foot' - These are a highly trained replacement for the standard Swedish guard. They are often used as a force in a system that defends a monarchy and can be relied upon for utter loyalty and deadly accuracy in the field. Their professionalism is reflected in their fearsome battle reputation.
Holland Guard - The Holland Guards from the United Provinces are superior line infantry units. Carrying smoothbore muskets, they were traditionally chosen to protect the royal family and have an incredibly high morale, often making them the last troops to break in a fight.
Scots - The Scots are a Highland ex-patriate infantry used by the United Provinces, renowned for their deadly charge.
Swiss Infantry - Very disciplined infantry of the United Provinces with quick reload and excellent marksmanship.
Mamelukes - Mamelukes are fearless light horsemen, deadly when deployed against a broken or unsupported enemy.
Additionally the Spanish nation has had a new uniform design to better reflect its historical look.
Audio
Sound loading has been made asynchronous, so heavy disc access is reduced to a minimum. This makes loading times faster and reduces any instances of 'stuttering.' Unit group sounds have also been improved, for more realistic group movement. The primary sound library (Miles DLL) has been updated to stop occasional clicking. And we've added more sound variation for unit deaths and musket fire.
Campaign
Several crash bug fixes in saves, movement, agents and logic.
Various optimizations have been made to AI and path systems to reduce the campaign map turn times.
When the pirates are destroyed and re-emerge they now maintain a status of at war with all and are unable to enter into diplomatic negotiations.
Added small ships on domestic trade routes from the trade nodes to home regions moving in the correct direction, i.e. with the flow of trade.
The AI should now no longer repeatedly sign a diplomatic agreement and then break it the next turn. Treaties are more valuable and adhered to.
We've fixed some border trade agreements allowing greater numbers of bordering factions to properly trade with one another.
Movement arrows now reflect the range of the selected units, not the whole army/navy.
AI will no longer counter-offer and ask for more money than the player has available.
Fixed commerce raiding taking money from blockaded trade routes.
Fixed navies getting stuck when forced to retreat from ports (tactical retreat).
Fixed rare inability to attack certain ports.
Fixed middle mouse button camera drag stopping working occasionally.
Made emergent factions be at war with the faction they emerged against if that faction is human.
Fixed various movement extent crashes.
Changed background income for minor factions.
Fixed diplomatic relations with emergent factions.
Tactical withdrawal will now always leave armies on the landmass containing the settlement of a region.
Changed war score system to make the AI more likely to accept peace.
Fixed crash when embarking and disembarking armies at ports.
Fixed trade ships not being correctly registered in trade nodes after splitting forces.
Fixed government change diplomatic effect.
Improved commerce raiding display on trade screen.
Faction specific text is now used in diplomacy.
Prevent players cancelling the movement of fleeing agents.
Balance changes
Units
Charge bonus generally increased across the board for all units and melee defence reduced.
Greater diversification of stats between different unit types designed to emphasise differences and improve balance.
Redone costs for all units for multiplayer to improve game balance which better reflects the actual battlefield worth of each unit.
Mob formation added in for Native American, irregular and some skirmisher units.
Spot distance for light infantry, skirmishers, irregulars, light cavalry and missile cavalry increased allowing them to spot hidden units at longer distances.
Russian line infantry stats have been boosted to allow them to compete more with other faction's line infantry.
Movement speed of all unit types reduced by 10%.
Ammo for light infantry increased to 20, line to 15.
Land battle morale
Charge morale bonus reduced from 10 to 4.
Recent casualties, extended casualties and total casualties morale penalties increased slightly for higher percentages.
Rear and flank exposed morale penalties increased.
Fatigue
Fatigue penalty for melee reduced from 18 per tick to 10.
Running fatigue penalty for heavy and light cavalry reduced from -3/-2 to -2/-1.
Artillery Changes
Calibration area for cannons and howitzers reduced. Accuracy of non-round shot shot types reduced to compensate.
Muzzle velocity of round shot for cannons increased to make them fire lower and bounce more, accuracy also increased.
Lethality of shrapnel pieces reduced to match canister shot, range also reduced to 350.
Load time for special shot types for howitzers increased slightly, and range reduced to 350.
Calibration area for mortars increased, accuracy of round shot increased to compensate. Reload time increased slightly.
Accuracy of 18 lbr horse guard artillery restored to 65.
Hit points of gun trains increased to 50, all guns and caissons to 25.
When was the last time you played a really good space RTS? I mean a really good one? I can't remember, the principle reason being that there hasn't been a truly great space RTS game in ages (perhaps since Master of Orion II). Have there been attempts to creating such games? Sure, but most of them aren't worthy of recognition in anything other than the Darwin category for games that have tried really hard to kill the entire genre.
I mean, look what we've had to work with the past few years. Lost Empire: Immortals tried to be that uber-huge, absolutely ginormous space game that got so large the game developers needed a map just to find the start menu. It was touted as a game that could let a player colonize over 5000 star systems. The game was boring to begin with (and I have yet to understand why Pollux decided to make battles non-interactive cutscenes that were controlled by a camera mounted on a unicycle with a flat tire), but was it really necessary to take that boredom and then draw it out to the extreme? Who has time for a game that big?
What else did we have? Master of Orion III? That was a bad idea. MoO3 showcases a trend in gaming these days. The developer will find themselves swimming in cash after a particular game in a series strikes it big. After a couple years of doing lines of coke and releasing a few crappy games for the Wii or something and the cash starts running low, the developer decides to try and expand upon the success of the previous game. But as with MoO3, that failed miserably. More appropriately, it failed epically.
Then there was Star Trek: Armada and its brilliantly named sequel, Armada II. Okay, Armada was pretty good - for the first few hours. Then it got repetitive. It was the same non-tactical "let's see who can fire more torpedoes" kind of battles with the same ships and the same unremarkable weapons on the same poorly rendered maps over and over and over and over and over and - you get the idea. The developer hit upon something good with Armada, but couldn't to make it great with their failure to make the game experience enticing and inciting you to come back for more.
Then along came Sins of a Solar Empire. It's about a year old now, so it's not really "news" in the sense that it isn't scandalous, biased, or containing totally irrelevant information. But where these other games failed, Sins has risen to greatness.
The environments are simply stunning. Given that you'll be spending almost all of your time staring at them, beautiful visuals are a necessity. Lost Empire's visuals were non-existent. A 3D drawing on graph paper made by someone with a combination of Parkinson's and Downs could have created something far more stunning than what was found in Lost Empire. Same deal with Armada. It had strategy to it, but the environment was nothing more than a grid with a couple of polygons arranged in such a way that they kind of look like planets. Sins doesn't have that. Asteroids look like gigantic rocks in space, with their porous features and menacing size. Planets have atmospheres and continents that aren't just horrible textures slapped onto jagged objects. And the backdrop is stunningly rendered to accentuate the feeling of vastness that is a fundamental element of space.
Of particular note are the ships. Unlike other games, the designs are both unique and intriguing. In Lost Empire, the designs were dull, more like a series of boxes stacked using the winds from Hurricane Katrina rather than anything even remotely resembling coherent thought. The ships in Sins, although not as numerous as in other games, make you want to look at them. The details are engaging, and make you feel as though you're actually looking at something crafted for space flight.
What is usually a clincher is the UI. Armada had a semi-friendly UI. Lost Empire had a passion for buttons, many of which didn't work or only worked when you slammed the mouse down several times in frustration. Sins, however, prides itself on ease of use. The number of buttons you have to press has been significantly reduced, and information is displayed at your fingertips without the need to hunt for it all. This means I can actually spend time enjoying what the game has to offer, rather than cooped up in the manual trying to find the page that tells me out to quit the game.
All in all, Sins makes up for failures past in space RTSes. Though I haven't played it for terribly long, I can heartily recommend it. Sure, the game is almost a year and a half old (old enough to have an expansion pack), but it has stood a (brief) test of time as its many enticing features have shone through amongst its poorly designed predecessors.
Rock Paper Nuke - Strategy Gaming News and Community
