Old War2

In Brief

A basic real time strategy game that is ideal for newcomers to the genre.

Introduction:

OldWar 2 is a follow up from the original Old War that was set thousands of years before this second war. You do not require the first game to play this game. Each level has its own goal, and as you progress the levels become harder to beat. In later levels you will experience Tornadoes, lightning and meteorites. these can either turn the tide for or against you.

You can see a video of game play on the Steam store page HERE

The Game:

I found the first level easy going, party due to the fact that you are given a supply of each of the available units (see below for details). The game is a basic real time strategy game where you have to create resources, upgrade your soldiers and attack and capture enemy resources in this case gas, and kill their soldiers to beat the level. The more enemy resources you can take the more soldiers you can build to attack your enemies and the fewer enemy soldiers can be created, making it easier for you to take more resources and ultimately destroy the enemy and win the level.

You can build four different types of soldier, and you will need all four to win the level as each has a specific role to carry out (see below for details). There isn't much variety with respect to the soldiers, but from entering the second level, it looks like there is a varied set of environments to explore; however, this is mainly due to the colour of the backgrounds. The assets used in each level are the same apart from a few changes to some static objects from level to level.

Initially I thought this game was far too easy and was ready to delete it; the first level definitely was; partly because of the fact mentioned above; i.e. you are given a number of each type of unit and are easily able to capture extra resources from the enemy and ultimately win the level fairly quickly. To win a level you have to kill all the enemies soldiers and capture all their resources. However, (and thankfully) things do become more challenging when you move on to the second level. You'll need to create a decent army with all the different types of soldier as quickly as possible if you are to beat the enemy, but you'll also need to judiciously upgrade your units and then capture some of the enemies resources to speed up your own production. Apart from the first level, which I won on my first attempt and quickly, my next several foray's into enemy territory were total disasters and I was wiped out very quickly each time, due in part to the enemy having a much larger standing army at the start and many more resources.

You'll definitely need to use various strategies by selecting the right class of soldiers at the start of level 2 and also select the appropriate upgrades, but I've still yet to find the correct strategy at this time and cannot spend more time, at least for the time being as I have other projects and jobs around the house that I need to work on today. especially as my daughter has just returned from her month long Camps International adventure in Ecuador, the Amazon rain forest and the Galapagos Islands, so I will be spending an inordinate amount of time listening to her adventures and watching the videos and photo's she's taken sometime today. She's jet lagged at the moment and has just arisen (almost 3.30pm here in the UK)

Some units do not become available i.e the shooter and magician until you have upgraded the Knight and Doctor. See below for images of each unit and other useful information not provided with the game. Unfortunately the game doesn't include any documentation that tells you what each unit is used for, nor other useful information that inexperienced players could have used to help with playing the game. However, you can generally guess at their roles, for example the doctor either repairs injured soldiers or repairs the damaged resources. I've not had time to figure whether it is one or the other or both yet, partly due to the inability to select specific classes individually when they are all grouped together. Good (usually AAA rated) RTS games have that ability; unfortunately this game does not, so it can be a bug-bear when trying to select specific classes when they are urgently needed if they are grouped with other classes. If I don't return to clarify some areas of the game, hopefully someone from the community will do so.

As mentioned above initially you can only create the weakest soldiers, i.e. knights and doctors. To be able to create one of the other types more useful types at least for attacking, you need to research via the improvements building that looks like a pyramid (the building that creates the soldiers looks a little like the portal you see in Stargate. Each type of unit can also be upgrade five times to increase their capabilities. Apart from the knights and doctors you can create , shooters, magician shooters, open unit shooters and open unit magicians (I don't know what open unit means yet).

My second, third and other attempts at level 2 as mentioned above were total disasters. I'd attempted various strategies such as to build up a decent sized army with a selection of classes combined with researching and upgrading new soldiers because I'd already discovered my level one soldiers were too weak to take any resources. You are limited by the amount of gas you are producing, so one of my strategies was to try and take some of the enemies resources to increase my armies output and reduce the enemies. Unfortunately none of the strategies I've so far tried have been successful partly because of the enemies superior strength and resource numbers.

I believe the first strategy would be to capture enemy gas stations so as to increase your production and speed up leveling of units and creating of more unit, plus reducing the enemies production of attack units. However, before making any attempt at capturing enemy resources you do need enough soldiers to both attack and protect your own resources. All my attempts so far have failed because I reckon I've spent too long before making any attempt at attacking enemy resources. Each attempt the enemy has found my resources first and destroyed them quickly. Some of the enemies resources are unprotected. Those should be your first target, (just figured that, lol)

⦁ Knight =
⦁ Doctor =
⦁ Shooter =
⦁ Magician =

Level 1 Doctors require x120 gas per unit (gpu)
Level 1 Knights require120 gpu
Level 1 Shooters require 200 gpu
Level 1 Magician requires 120 gpu
open unit shooter requires 240 gpu
open unit magician requires 220 gpu

Each unit can be upgraded five times, but the higher the upgrade, the more gas it will cost. Gas resources produce 5 gas units every second and you can see how much you have in the bottom right of the game screen. The maximum number of units you can create at anyone time is 80 units

Conclusion:

I've purchased hundreds of RTS games over the last two decades. They used to be my favorite genre for years. For example I must have spent tens of thousands of hours playing games like Age of Empires, Warhammer 40 000, Cossack's: Art of War and later versions, as well as early favorites such as Dune and Civilization I, II, III, IV, and VI and the Total War franchise.

Age of Wonders (that was given away via The Humble Bundle a couple of times over the last few months) is an example of a decent AAA RTS game. Today's game comes nowhere near as good as any of the ones I've mentioned above, and I'll probably never return to it after today; that said, I do think this is an ideal game for anyone who hasn't played or rarely plays RTS games. It has the basics, which is all you need to start. If you like the game, then you could work up to the more complicated and much better games i've mentioned above plus many more titles that I don't have the time the mention here. For a beginner (Noob) I'd score this a 6.5 to 7 out of 10; however if you are an experienced RTS player this wouldn't be worth more than a 1 or 2 out of 10 at the most.(and I'm being generous). So, in conclusion, a game worth downloading if you aren't familiar with the genre. Despite its lack of a help document, its still relatively easy to pick up due to it being a very simple RTS game.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

If OldWar 2 doesn't interest you, but you still want something new to play, you'll find details of some game deals whether they be sale items, indie bundles or games being given away for free HERE (I've not updated the thread in a while, but Delenn still posts frequent updates and most of the links still take you to the latest deals). You can check out Delenns thread HERE for details of other free games and offers. Also check elsewhere in the game discussion forums HERE, (usually on the first page).

Also, check out the free games available via Indie Gala’s Dev’s showcase HERE. The latest additions (since I last updated this list) include Lumber Island - That Special Place (a psychedelic first-person horror adventure), Adventures of Shuggy (2D Action Puzzle Platformer with Single player, local coop and local multiplayer options), Horror Girl, Citadale: The Legends Trilogy (Retro 8 bit style action adventure platformer), Crab Dub (shmup), Malevolence (retro styled first person horror adventure), Dino Run: Marathon of Doom (retro-styled, action-packed prehistoric dinosaur racing game), Space Ship: The Game (classic 2D space shooter), The Maze: Game (classic 2D maze game), Patience, my Patients (8 bit retro platformer), Total Singu (top down shooter). To get any of the above Indie Gala games you require a free indie Gala account and then click on the acquire button. Once that has been accomplished the game will be added to your account and you should be able to download a free standing copy of the game any time for as long as indie Gala operate. Some of the games do contain adult content and are not suitable for young children.

The latest weekly giveaway over at Epic Games includes two games this week; entitled For Honor: Standard Edition (Enter the chaos of war as a bold Knight, a brutal Viking, or a deadly Samurai. Play the thrilling story campaign or fight in brutal PvP modes - single player included) and Alan Wake (A third person atmospheric horror adventure game. - A Dark Presence stalks the small town of Bright Falls, pushing Alan Wake to the brink of sanity in his fight to unravel the mystery and save his love.); these two games would normally cost you almost £38. From August 8th these change over to GNOG a 3D puzzle game set in a tactile world of toys and secrets. which you’ll find HERE. Finally, there are also over 130 free games available via Steam HERE