Re: Microid's 2024 Empire of the Ants demo came out yesterday!

On 18/10/2024 17:22, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

So, you didn't like RTS games like Dune, C&C, WC, SC, AoE, etc. I love those.

 No, that's not what I said.
 Well, except "Dune". I never really liked that one. Too crunky in its
design. RTS weren't worth playing until C&C/Warcraft, IMHO.
 But I played the heck out of the C&C series, enjoyed Warcraft, played
Age of Empires (and Rise of Nations), and a whole bunch more. I'll
admit, I was never a fanatic about the genre, and I almost never
played them online. Mostly, my strategies revolved around turtling up
and making pretty bases, then building the biggest army and sending
them en masse to wipe out the baddies when they got too annoying.
(playing it sort of like SimCity except with annoying neighbors 😉.
Some engaged me more than others; for instance, I quite enjoyed the
"Ground Control" games, and I found the "Battle for Middle Earth"
games much more satisfying than even I expected. But they always
played second fiddle to more other genres I enjoyed more: FPS games,
or RPGs, for instance.
 But the ones I enjoyed most were the ones where you had a god's eye
view of the battle and not the one that also required you to control a
unit on the ground, like "Hostile Waters", "BattleZone", "Sacrifice"
and -apparently- "Empire of Ants". I just don't find the hybrid mix of
RTS and FPS/TPS a good mixture.

Although my most played RTS is Total Annihilation my favourite is Ground Control. The main reason is that it removes the whole resource/base management aspects and just concentrates on the tactical gameplay. It also didn't degenerate into a click-fest.
My view is games are better if they know what genre they are and stick to it. That's why I have a problem with both XCOM:Enemy Unknown and the Total War series. I just wish they have one core aspect.
An interesting one was Field of Glory:II where they ditched the basic campaign mode from their previous title and instead went with a series of linked battles where occasionally you had a choice to make.