Slitherine

Heh, I thought I was the only one on this planet that liked Star Generals.

Concerning 2D turn-based Wargames...

One of the best old games I have enjoyed (something like 10 years ago?) was the "FANTASY GENERAL" from SSI.
Great music and gameplay...

Or, the Battle Isle and Battle Isle2 moon of Chronos from a german company (2D turned based tactical game) or the very old clone of Battle Isle, the GREAT WAR (2D, turned based WW1 game).

Of course the Panger General (all the series) was superb and the Steel Panther World at War (SPWAW. SPH2H, SPMBT, SPWW2) series of games are games that I play them up today.

Besides regular CoW campaigns and occasional bouts with Spartan, I still get some mileage from the old Close Combat series, most notably CC2 Bridge Too Far, and CC3 Russian Front.

Panzer General was on my hard drive for a long time, but I got tired of every scenario being offense, offense, offense, requiring you to sieze heavily defended and widely seperated objectives even when the other side was supposedly on the advance. I also didn't care for the "initiative" in the combats, where one side got to attack first, and the other side could only fight back if they weren't suppressed by the initial attack. A simultaneous combat, or even alternating attacks by one "pip" from each side, approach would have been more realistic. It still wasn't a bad game overall.

Age of Empires got to be too much of a "click-fest" for my liking, where the AI would launch simultaneous attacks by different opponents in totally different areas, requiring you to race back and forth to manage both situations, since the troops would invariably do the most stupid things without continual orders to the contrary. Otherwise, it wasn't bad. Empire Earth was even more of the same, with a rock-paper-scissors mentality to the whole game, where your troops would make the least effective attack possible if you didn't explicitly order each one, and the AI would again exploit its muti-tasking capabilities by coordinating a series of widely seperated simultaneous attacks. I very occasionally run a random scenario of the former game, but sold the latter.

Other vintage items in the collection which still see occasional play include MOO2, Mech Commander 1 (2 was a cakewalk), Caesar II (3 lacked the regional map, or it would have been better), and Jagged Alliance 2. I was fond of the old DOS turn-based Stellar Empires game by SSI at one time, but haven't played it in years due to backwards compatility issues.

Have you tried DOSBox for that?

I play Sparta and Gates of Troy on the strategic side. I play them a huge lot lately...

On the grand-tactical side, I always play Spcamo's Spww2 and Spmbt. I have all the Combat mission games also, but there are many unrealistic things there, specially the penetration formulas used, too much for my grog taste <G>...

From time to time my operational needs are fed with HPS' Panzer Campaigns...

I play Fantasy General from time to time too.It takes an act of god to get it to work in XP tho,Fortunately I have an older machine with ME and it works okay with that.

Oh =- well if we're going to talk about stuff that I HAVE had onboard.......

Let's see - Steel Panthers 1, 2, 3, OAW, SSG's Battlefront Series (dating from the 80's but still gives a good quick game!), Panzer General, CMBB, CMBO, various short lived fantasy games - mainly for my kids you understand!! , AoE, AoK, Tzar, Sid Meier's Gettysburg & Alpha Centauri, Civ 1 & 2, MOO 1 & 2 (Moo 3 got returned!), VGAP, Strange Adventures in Infinite Space.......

Rome: Total war
Outpost Kaloki
Galactic Civilizations (and testing beta of 2)
Space empires iV Gold (they're making a V version now!)
Gates of Troy


Hoping for Imperial Glory and Stronghold 2...

WoW has taken over my life I have to confess. It's just a timesink, you know it's a timesink, but you can't help wanting to improve your herb gathering! Just one more bush...

Ahem

Pip

Dominions 2. cossaks 2. Stronghold Crusader(hoping for 2 too!). Majesty! Shogun. AoK/AoE. Knights of Honor(just the demo... Want the game, though.)Rise of Nations Demo.

Jagged Alliance 2 (and various mods of same) still eats up a good deal of my time after all these years. I love TBT (Turn-Based-Tactical) games, and the character interaction and various easter eggs and goodies in that game make it one of the nearest to perfection for my tastes.

I also play the Sims consistantly, although the changes made to The Sims 2 do not appeal to me and I have no interest in buying it.

When not playing these, various CRPGs, especially Baldur's Gate II and Icewind Dale (in various mods) take up most of my remaining game time. Since I am so unfortunate as to have a nearly-new computer with Windows XP as the interface, many of my old favorites (Fantasy General and XCOM: Apocalypse are two) can no longer be played. Sometime I have to get an old laptop with Windows 98 or something, because I loved both games.

I see that the games I like the most were all released before the current century began. There's a reason for that, no doubt, if I could just work out what it is. Possibly, the fad for "3D" graphics (one of my favorite misnomers: how can a 2D video screen have 3D graphics?) has led to the production of too many games emphasizing flash over content.

-- Mal

There are plenty of ways to make older games to work under XP. For example I am playing for the last few days XCOM, Apocalypse, Panzer General, all under XP. If you want help just tell me.

efthimios wrote:There are plenty of ways to make older games to work under XP. For example I am playing for the last few days XCOM, Apocalypse, Panzer General, all under XP. If you want help just tell me.

I've been trying to get Great Battles of Alexander to work on XP since the dawn of time. I change the compatability properties, etc. but XP just can't find some of the files. I really think devolopers should try reprogramming and rereleasing some classic games to work on XP, it could make a lot of $

Have you tried Dosbox? Check this link:

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_news=1

Hope this helps
Miki

The game I'm reffering to is on a Win 95 not MS-DOS operating system. Dosbox is great though

Which files can it not find?

I agree with the concept of recycling classics for new systems. There are so many excellent DOS games that would probably attract new hordes of players if they were re-released in a new format. Kind of like recycling old rock and roll records -- it's amazing how many people who weren't born until the 80's or 90's love them oldies but goodies once they're exposed to them.

The hindrance in both cases is probably copyright and royalties. Easier legally and more lucrative (I use the term loosly) to make a new game, however crummy it might be, than update someone else's classic work. And the impulse of design is to create something of one's own, not copy someone else's stuff.

-- Mal

It has been done before, with mixed success. AFAIK:


- Sid Meier`s Pirates: I think it's been a hit, haven't played the original neither the new one, but it has postive reviews.
- Defender of The Crown


And upcoming titles


- The Bard's Tale, I'll give it a chance.


I would love to see Ports of Call for new Windows platform...

malthaussen wrote: The hindrance in both cases is probably copyright and royalties. -- Mal

It's true intellectual property owners don't want others profiting from their work without permission, but many classic game developers have become defunct or have been bought out (Interplay-gone, SSI-bought by Ubisoft, Impressions-bought by Sierra, Sierra-going down the strategy game toilet, Interactive Magic-gone, Creative Assembly-sold to sega and making eye-candy for Sony, Westwood-now part of the EA juggernaught, Slitherine- Alive!).

If you aren't making money on something it doesn't make sense to prevent royalties-generating buisness.

Efthimios, I'll have to get back to you on the details of my inability to run Great Battles of Alexander on XP, I've just been keeping an old computer around to play it nowadays.

Who made Dungeon Keeper 2? I lost my old copy, but I LOVED that game.