Ascension to the Throne! ...wait, what is this?

[JasonPratt]

So, with all my other recent purchases still to play, a random thought winging through the nethers of my mind late Saturday reminded me that once upon a time (late Jan 2007) 1C published a little 3rd Person RPG with tactical battles similar to a mixture of what they eventually did with their Fantasy General engine update (Fantasy Wars/Elven Legacy) and their King's Bounty remake/update series. (The former of which was eventually ported as the tactical and army management mechanic in their Warlock: Masters of the Arcane series.)

{inhale!}

And I already bought it on sale long ago, because despite the sketchy reviews I was curious about what they were thinking when they were working on what became a monster powerhouse "indie" series (the KB remake juggernaut) and one of my favorite underrated games that I wish they'd come back to someday (FW/EL, though they kind of did with Warlock.)

Incidentally, it's also on sale at Steam right now, possibly elsewhere, too, for $2. But full price is still only $5.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/289200/

The tutorial is a little thin, and it's easy to die early if you don't follow the assumed-early path (out of several possible options: the whole world is open at the beginning aside from some companies blocking progress). The instructions for moving the camera are important but non-existent so far as I can tell (mouse to the edge of the screen, or right-click to mouselook). And if you try to play the game at its highest resolution, it will crash, requiring you to find its folder and throw away the graphics cfg file (which for some reason is written in a code instead of text, possibly because it's Russian originally).

But.

I just spent a stupid amount of time yesterday playing this game. Like until after midnight on a following workday. Which I haven't done for any game in a year or so.

The graphics overall are, let's say, at least five steps behind Lotro. They're far more realistic than King's Bounty, which is more storybook, or even FW/EL which are still more colorful. But they have a definite rustic charm, with plenty of incidental details (near cities and settlements anyway, though to some extent a lot of repetition in how certain 'pieces' are used), and to me haven't aged badly at all (since they were never top-notch to begin with).

The sound design is... well, not all there: practically no combat sounds for example. Which sounds half-deaf. But I haven't gotten tired of the musical loops yet, despite how much I played it yesterday.

The story is bog standard and not a little schizophrenic: the PC, Alexander, already fought his way up to being king of his land (in a previous game?) from a presumably level 1 condition, and from the opening cinematic can throw a mean fireball (with a behind-the-back flourish even); but he's ejected from his castle during a rebellion by his chief mage (who was trying to kill him but the magic went screwy thanks to Alex's ancient family necklace), and dropped "naked" (they make a point of saying this, but he isn't, he has pants) on the far side of a completely different large island kingdom where for no reason (but I guess typical of these kinds of games) he starts over again at level 1 -- and with possible contempt for using any kind of magic himself. Despite throwing that behind-the-back fireball earlier.  ::) ::) ::) ::) And yet, the whole game long from the beginning he constantly talks like he remembers Conan-ing up to kinghood and still has his previous skills! The story should have been a bit more bog standard with his son being ejected by his father as a desperate last-act, so now having to Conan up himself instead of being a soft court-prince. I suspect this was intended originally, as there's even apparently a son (never mentioned again so far) cowering back on the steps of the throne during the finale to the opening cinematic; and the opening narration contrasts soft court princes of today to the men of iron who conquered their kingdoms first.

All that having been duly complained about, I have to admit the writing and English localization is pretty sharp and rather more amusing with Alexander as a dispossessed king who (in theory) already knows how to kick ass and command troops (despite in practice having to learn to command troops all over again).

The gameplay is straight up King's Bounty, except down at 3PS level instead of overhead isometric (and there's nowhere near the sheer stuffed content of even the first KB remake). Alex runs (no horse in the first 20 hours, maybe not ever, but some teleport nodes help) around the island, helping locals, defending against a couple of different invasions, and convincing the nobles to accept him as king of their island so he can go counter-invade his own stolen kingdom again. Fights are usually (but for some plot purposes not always) clearly marked out with large rings of groundfire so they can be (usually) easily avoided unless and until you want to deal with them. (Somewhat similar to how Etherlords 2 works, too, and not likely by coincidence.) The character management is nowhere near as detailed as KB, but you can put points in five stats as you level up, and... well, that's just about it. Alex has two slots for rings, one slot for a necklace (which after around 10 hours I've never even been offered a replacement for), and one slot for "outfit" which includes all armor and weapons. There are a few spells to learn which will only ever be used in combat, and some are practically useless because Alex always seems to move last so throwing a buff on one of your squads or heroes will probably only last the end of the combat round against the slowest enemy troops.

Combat is, as noted, a mix of KB and FW/EL, though not as detailed as either one, but with a few interesting nuances. All combat takes place on the underlying local terrain (even in cities or settlements, with the city parts completely removed), with combat fields of varying sizes which mainly affects how close the opposing companies start out. Despite the 3-dimensional terrain still applying, the field might as well be flat as no elevation or anything else seems to affect movement or shooting distance/damage. Flanking is useless.

Troops are bought, like in KB (and like in the original KB's own spiritual remake, the super-successful Heroes of Might and Magic), from local sites and added to squad slots (though heroes take up a slot by themselves); and like KB but unlike most other games the troops never, ever level up. On the other hand, unlike KB (the original remake anyway, I haven't played the sequels yet), troops do respawn, so if you find a type you like it may take a while but you can get as many as you want and replace lost units relatively easy. As with KB (and some other games), you can only hire as many troops as your "authority" skill allows, and different types (and heroes) require more or less authority per individual unit. Unlike KB (or HoMM), all your troops are physically right there on the field during the fight, not abstracted off -- though this means you can only have ten troops in any single squad, and only nine squads total (including any single heroes who also don't ever level up by the way so who are usually more useless than troops), plus Alex himself as the king. As in chess, if he dies it's game over and time to reload; and for some special encounters he fights alone 1 on 1!


I realize I'm making the game sound less good than the KB series, or the FW/EL series. And to be brutally honest, it is less good. But having my squads run around the battlefield physically, maneuvering against other squads, is strangely addicting. And having a KBish game where my camera view is down in the weeds with my character (or not far behind him at about the same eyelevel if I want) is rather nice.

I may just be a sucker for this kind of game as long as it isn't too broken, which this isn't.

[Barthheart]

...... Did someone hide Jason's meds again......  :o

[Nefaro]

...... Did someone hide Jason's meds again......  :o

Hey now! 

Maybe he took too many meds!   :))


That's actually a fairly detailed comparison disguised as a wall of text crit.  :)

[Yskonyn]

Mr. Pratt, can I veto here? Making you buy a decent game like Dominions 4 instead of some old crap pile?      ;D

[BanzaiCat]

JP, you probably should submit these rants and ramblings to the management staff for review consideration. As long as you have the right meds.

[JasonPratt]

Mostly I was purging my surprise at having spent +10 hours yesterday on this title of all things. 

[JasonPratt]

Another few hours blissfully forging ahead on this mediocre game last night, happy as pie while trying to figure out how to best 'shift gears' between my current dominating army setup which is starting to get a bit dog-eared (mainly made of werewolf swarms and crossbowmen, plus two hero characters who are either useless or almost useless but have to be there because of plot reasons), and a new punchier setup.

The problem is that any improvement in the werewolf swarm leaves me with fewer groups of slower frontline troops, and in this game attacked squads cannot defend so hitting hard first is a decisive tactic (as the game itself makes a point of saying during semi-tutorial advice occasionally).

Thus, since two of my five backfield slots are taken up with plot characters, plus Alex (who isn't useless but who is less useful than a cluster of good archers), I've replaced one of my remaining two crossbowmen groups with the highest level amazons, who hit a lot harder but don't quite have the range (being spear chuckers) -- though they'd be much better in a physical scrap if it came to that. Their high authority requirements, though, mean I can't field as many of them (yet) as I can field crossbowmen, so even though if they all aim at a squad with one or two units they'll output more damage (and are better able to push through armor) they can't spread damage out as efficiently yet in a large group.

Unlike many similar tbs games, most relevantly King's Bounty (and its HoMM followups), but also FW/EL in a way (despite how things look during combat resolution), in AttThro any unit you add to a squad is there physically on the field during a fight. This means a group runs up to attack another group or individual together, or shoots together, but each unit attacks individually. This makes 'aiming' their attacks on an enemy squad important, because the allied squad keys on a particular individual chosen by the player in the enemy squad and then spreads out or shoots around to other targets in the enemy squad. Consequently, not every unit in an enemy squad will return an equal attack result: some will do better or worse depending on how the allied squad concentrates its efforts, which for melee units (like the werewolves) means being physically able to occupy enough hexes surrounding an individual unit to concentrate attacks -- which can be affected by whether other enemy or friendly units (even within the attacking squad) are blocking access to the enemy individual units of a squad!

It's hard to describe. I may have to try some screenshots to illustrate.

...I may need an intervention...  :-[