Old Games I Still Love: Dungeon Keeper 2

Still such an amazing game!

Now, this game is widely considered a classic and for good reason, it is among my most favourite games of all time so how could I not make a blog post on it. Made by one of my favourite dev studios the ever venerable Bullfrog (Theme Park is something I'll have to look at one of these days again.) I played it before the first Dungeon Keeper game as I'd picked it up as part of one of those big old game collection boxes (yes I know, games used to come in boxes, almost unheard of on PC these days!) The ones that used to have about a dozen or two dozen games in that I'd picked up because of a few of the other games inside it not really aiming for Dungeon Keeper 2 itself. I was hooked the moment I installed it because not only was it an original concept but pretty damned well executed too!

In most games, especially at the time you were always playing as the heroes, the knights in shining armour, the good guys for lack of a better description. In Dungeon Keeper 2 you play as the titular Dungeon Keeper with the task of building and maintaining your dungeon and it's monstrous inhabitants whilst keeping the heroes out, them minions do love their chicken. That alone was interesting enough to have me delving deeper like a gold hungry imp! The RPG elements also helped keep things interesting, every minion under your command for the most part had a level from 1 to 10 often gaining impressive abilities along the way.

The Dungeon Heart!

A typical game of Dungeon Keeper had you plopped into the map hovering above the ominous heartbeat of your dungeons core with a little bit of gold, a handful of loyal worker imps and usually access to a single creature portal. Then you'd be tasked with digging out the various corridors and spaces to place your rooms, which in turn would allow you do do more things like research or training your creatures. The types of rooms you had would also determine which evil beings would be drawn to your dungeon to work for you. Now, unlike most 'RTS' games save for a couple of exceptions you had no direct control over your creatures for the most part, they'd wander the twisted halls of your lair eating, drinking, training or if they were disgruntled, punching each other.

For the most part your influence over the world and your minions came down to giving orders and hoping they would be followed with your disembodied hand not only able to cast spells to help your minions and hinder your foes. In particular one amusing thing was a right click on a minion would give them a swift backhander usually making them slightly unhappy but compelling them to work faster (well you are playing as the evil overlord so it's to be expected!) The spells also allowed the one exception to the largely 'hands off' control, the possession spell.

This spell was honestly surprising to me, as you could literally cast it and jump into direct control of the chosen minions body. Turning the game into a first person action game after a fashion as as you could move around your dungeon, seeing it from ground level but also attack and form groups with your other minions. On some levels this was almost required but for the most part it was just a fun little addition.

The mission or level select screen.

The campaign I think deserves a special mention as I personally think it's pacing was spot on, each mission usually introduced a few new things at a time like a new room, creature or concept. As such it never felt overwhelming and I always found myself looking forward to what I would unlock next, an extra layer of motivation to beat that level. There were of course secrets to uncover, even a couple of hidden levels however there was one thing that kept me playing long after the campaign had been completed.

My Pet Dungeon, my favourite mode!

The 'My Pet Dungeon' mode was what I wiled away countless hours in building that perfect dungeon lair without the threat of attack unless you chose it to be so. There was still an objective to this mode earn points by building things and completing objectives to unlock more 'Pet Dungeon' maps. The sheer variety of rooms and minions on offer was quite impressive everything from Casino's and Fighting Pits to Temples and Workshops, all of which were put to use by your 'loyal' minions. Warlocks and vampires would pore over ancient texts in your library for researching new spells whilst trolls and bile demons crafted nefarious traps in your workshops.

Initially I was going to write a separate section for all of this but I realised it can all be tied up into one, atmosphere. This game has oodles of it and it just works so well with each aspect complimenting it. The biggest contributor is the 'advisor' character whom guides your evil deeds, voiced by the extremely talented Richard Ridings who just pulls it off so well. The graphics, whilst by today's standards are a bit primitive they still work due to the almost stylised look, everything is slightly crooked and off angle giving your evil abode a charmingly unsettling appearance when paired up with the lighting. The sound design in general is impressive at least in my opinion, from the steady thump of your dungeon heart to the slightly creepy ambient sounds it really rounds out the evil package gloriously.

For the longest time the only hint of us getting more Dungeon Keeper was the Dungeon Keeper 3 teaser that was in Dungeon Keeper 2 itself. As Bullfrog vanished though the IP was claimed by EA who turned it into, well let's just call it a disappointing mobile game and leave it at that. Evil Genius was pretty close to the Dungeon Keeper playstyle and is another game I still genuinely love but it still wasn't Dungeon Keeper which made me oh so happy when some plucky indie dev's took it on themselves to craft a spiritual successor in War for the Overworld (yet another game I will have to make a blog post about!)

All in all, I still love this game despite it looking it's age these days, it still has a place on my hard-drive even now. 

World of Tanks: My Personal Top 5 Tips!

Now, before I get into the meat of this particular post just a quick disclaimer. I don't claim to be an incredible player, my personal rating hovers between 5500 and 5600 or so but the amount of silly mistakes I see people making even at tier seven or higher is a bit worrying. So, rather than slump across my keyboard wondering how they even got that IS-3 I figured I'd share a few of my own personal tips, if it helps one or two people do a little better then I am happy!

Tip #1: Use Your Map

Always, always use your map, this cannot be stressed enough not just to get an idea of where enemies are but also so you know where your allies are as well. It doesn't really matter what kind of tank you are playing, the map is always your friend. 

There is often little point charging ahead as a scout if there are no friendly tanks there to shoot at what you spot. Nor is there much point sitting on an empty side of the map for five minutes when the entire enemy team has been spotted elsewhere. 

Tip #2: Never Give an Enemy Free Shots

Never advance around a corner if an enemy already knows you are there. Seriously I see this one so often it's a little frightening, I know it's tempting to roll around that corner and do a bit of damage, believe me, even I used to do it. However, they are more likely to hit your front drive wheel and track you, keeping you in place and barring a few tanks with forward mounted turrets, you can find yourself unable to fight back.

It's usually best to simply try and pull back and go elsewhere or simply find another angle to attack them from that doesn't expose you. Failing that you can if your tank is capable of doing so effectively, you can attempt to side-scrape.

It doesn't just apply to rounding a corner though, if you know that an enemy is waiting for you to pop out. Don't. 

Tip #3: Never Be Afraid to Retreat

Tempting as it is to try and be the hero and fight off five enemy tanks by yourself whilst the rest of your team goes full lemming train on the other side of the map, sometimes it's best to pull back. Put yourself in a more defensible position, behind solid cover and preferably behind something that will shield you from artillery as well.

Make sure to ping the map to inform your team but only do it once every so often, if you spam it people will likely just ignore you. If they don't come to help you then it's on them, not you!

Whilst there are some tanks which can at least stall a flank by themselves such as certain hull down heavies or heavily armoured tank destroyers. It is usually best to just pull back rather than get overrun and destroyed as typically it'll be you against many and at best in my experience you will never kill more than one or two if they are even half-way competent.

Also if anyone starts pinging on you or trying to tell you to go cover that flank without themselves moving to help you? Ignore them. 

Tip #4: Know Your Tanks

I mean this in a very general way, not just for tanks you play but those of your allies and enemies as well. Whilst tanks are generally divided between the five classes that doesn't mean every heavy tank plays exactly the same as every other heavy tank, a Tiger I plays differently to an IS for example.

Play your tanks to their strengths and try to exploit the weaknesses of enemy tanks as best you can. I know that's easier said than done for the most part but it's a good thing to always keep in the back of your mind as you play.

Telling a thinly armoured heavy tank to push or expecting a tank destroyer to scout for you is not likely the best of ideas.

Tip #5: Don't Get Frustrated or Angry

Believe me I know this one is harder to do than it is to say, there are times even I get so frustrated I could bite my keyboard in half but in the end it doesn't help anyone. You are in the end only responsible for how well you play, if you get six kills, do 4000 damage and still lose that is not your fault in the end.

Getting angry or frustrated over it will make you just play a whole lot worse and more importantly, you'll stop having fun, defeating the point of playing the game in the first place!

A rule I started to follow about a year into my playing of World of Tanks was to always try and do more damage than the hit-points of my own tank. Following that one simple goal in every battle slowly saw my average XP and credit earning increasing and my overall frustration diminishing.

Raging, ranting and cursing at other players no matter how badly they may be playing from your perspective is never really justified. Also if you find yourself the target of someones frustrations, simply mute them or add them to your blacklist. Remember, don't feed the trolls.

If you see someone doing something wrong, then perhaps try to explain to them why it may be they just didn't know! (It is not as if the WoT tutorial is that comprehensive let's face it.)

Old Games I Still Love: Stronghold

Still in it's box on a shelf for me!

Ah, Stronghold where to even begin with this little gem? As a consummate 'turtle' in most strategy games the idea of building a heavily fortified castle is inherently appealing to me. It hadn't really been done before either, sure other medieval games and such had their castles but they were usually just big defensive towers. Stronghold on the other hand focuses purely on those medieval bastions, letting you practically build them brick by brick, placing down towers, walls and more to craft your ideal fortress. Everything from a wooden palisade to a multi-layered citadel and everything in between could be built given enough time and resources on hand.

There's also a fairly in-depth economic aspect to the game as well more in line with games like Settlers than Age of Empires. It starts off fairly simple with woodcutters huts and hunters huts to feed your peasants and provide material for building more structures you soon find yourself actually having to produce the bows, spears and armour of various troops whilst trying to balance increasing your peasant population to work and fight for you whilst also taxing them to train soldiers. Honestly, the economic side of the game reminds me of the Settler's series (though this has shorter production chains thankfully.) You could also use the marketplace to your advantage, have an abundance of iron but no stone? Then sell the excess iron to buy in stone. 

A wooden fort, everyone starts somewhere..

The campaign has a fairly cliche story but it was compelling enough to move the action along (there was even a short non-combat economic campaign). You started off building castles from wooden palisades and fending off wolves as you tried to gather food and resources and each mission saw new units or new economic structures or challenges to take on. Some missions did away with the castle building and instead gave you an army, tasking you with attacking an enemy stronghold, I wasn't personally a fan of them but they could be fun and more than a little satisfying when you figured out how to pull them off.

The sieges themselves are fairly spectacular to watch with hundreds of arrows sailing through the sky, trebuchet shots tearing chunks out of walls and pitch ditches bursting into flames. In my case I much preferred defending to attacking, simply because I love building castles, fortifying my bases and generally watch all those archers and crossbowmen I paid for putting the hurt on my opponents. It was made all the more impressive to watch due to the sheer amount of units that could be on screen at once, often hundreds of units from the cannon fodder spear-men to heavily armoured knights, archers, mace men etc.

"My lord.. The farms are on fire.. Again.."

The free build mode is where I sunk many an hour once the campaign had been exhausted where you could build in peace on a number of maps and only be attacked when you chose to be. As I said at the start, I am quite a turtle when it comes to strategy games so getting to construct the perfect castle and then spawn in enemies to test it was innately appealing to me. Sometimes I built sprawling citadels encasing all my peasants and production buildings behind triple thick walls and multiple gates, others I'd simply take the Helm's Deep approach and build a massive wall bisecting the map. The fact I could make the titular strongholds however I felt best was a lot of fun when paired up with the compelling economic issues. Did you want to keep all your production buildings inside but run into space or travel time issues? Or did you keep some of them outside of the protection of your walls at the risk of invaders poking your farmers and woodcutters with pointy sticks?

I could genuinely spend hours tinkering with the layout of my castles either for the sake of min-maxing them or just making them look cool, even copying the layouts of fantasy and real medieval castles as best I could. I recall me and a couple of friends using both free build and the map editor to try to recreate the battle of Helm's Deep, fun times!

Such a cozy little fort, I think I'll take it!

All in all this is the game that started it all, it isn't my absolute favourite in the Stronghold series but I like it enough that even now I sometimes reinstall it and play it to this day. If you are into building castles then I can heartily recommend Stronghold Crusader HD as it has far more content than the original. Stronghold Crusader however is an entire other blog post waiting to happen!

World of Tanks: My Thoughts On Gold/Premium Ammo

Now, gold or premium ammo, whatever you wish to call it garners a lot of mixed feelings from players of World of Tanks and for good reason I think. Now, for clarification I have played the game for a long time, since the beta, back when gold ammo could only be purchased for gold. Though by that token it was also rare to run into and often just ignored as who would want to spend what amounts to real money for ammo in an online game?

I forget which version or patch it was but they decided to make it so you could buy the 'gold' or premium consumables and ammunition for (a lot of) credits technically giving everyone access to it. Now with the more recent addition of a shot tracker as the screenshot above shows, you see gold ammo flying around all over the place which brings it's own issues. 

It genuinely feels like my more heavily armoured tanks can't really use their armour the moment the gold ammo gets loaded up. People see my O-Ni and despite it having weak side armour and being pretty easy to flank, they just punch holes in the front with gold anyway. Okay, fair enough heavily armoured tank but then I see people spamming gold at my tier 7 Swedish TD, a tank with 15mm of armour, a tank that could be penetrated frontally by low tier HE rounds.

Personally if it were up to me I'd entirely rework it or just remove it as it is not much fun to be on the receiving end of. There is no in battle trade off to using premium ammo most of the time, sure it costs more credits but that should not be a balancing factor. To that end here are a few possible ideas I personally have had over the last few weeks.

• Make it do less damage: This to me makes the most sense as it gives a direct trade off for the increased penetration. This will at least mean players will have to make the choice of whether they want to risk more damage at the potential of bouncing or do less damage but have a better chance of penetrating
• Give it special effects: I know there are a lot of types of premium ammo from HEAT to HESH and APCR or even just standard AP. Just a couple of examples though, APCR might do less damage but guarantee module damage (not destruction.) So, you slam a shot into an enemies engine as they cross the open and boom, slowed to a crawl. HESH/HEAT may be more likely to injure crew and such but this would need additional balancing bringing me onto the next idea.
• Limit the amount of premium ammo a tank can have in battle: This would be the easiest one to add in. Simply make it so you can't carry a full load of premium ammo, limit it to 5-10% of the tanks ammo capacity. Will stop it from being spammed at the very least.

What about tanks that almost have to use premium ammo?

No tank in my opinion should ever have to fire premium ammo though there are a lot of tanks that do feel as if they need it due to their standard ammo not being very competitive. The Comet, the Churchill VII to name the two I have played that felt like they needed it but they should be buffed to be competitive. Also I am not asking for it to be removed as that's highly unlikely just changed and balanced like.. Well a lot of aspects of the game need right now! Yes, I'm looking at you, matchmaker. 

It's not an IWIN button though, you still need to know how aim.

Whilst you do have to be aware of the quirks of premium ammo such as HEAT (spaced armour such as tracks nullifies it completely) the point is more that it can make heavily armoured tanks feel pretty pointless. If they can't use their armour effectively due to getting pummeled with premium ammo and penetrated frontally anyway, then their biggest advantage is already gone. 

I also think it doesn't promote good gameplay, rather than outflanking that Ferdinand or trying to get around that KV-4. People just load the premium ammo and knock holes in the front anyway.

Final Thoughts

All in all I highly doubt they'd ever remove premium ammo but I do personally think they should change or re-balance it in someway. Every advantage needs a trade-off, that's a key component of balance, tanks with heavy armour move more slowly, smaller caliber guns fire faster but do less damage etc. Simply saying it costs more credits is a non-issue, economic balancing should not affect battle balancing. Anyone with a half-decent premium tank can likely afford the credits to run tanks with premium ammo. 

Is it the biggest issue in World of Tanks right now? Probably not but I do feel it's something that perhaps needs looking at. Along with the matchmaker but that'd be a whole other post to make.

World of Tanks: My Thoughts on Swedish Tank Destroyers So Far

Yeah, I know I took the screenshot a while ago now!

Tank destroyers have long been my favourite class of tank in World of Tanks so I'll likely be putting up a lot of blog posts on them. 

So, my thoughts on the Swedish tank destroyer line on the whole so far as I have played up to the Ikv 90 Typ B. So do consider I haven't gotten to play around with the whole siege and travel mode of the tier 8 or higher yet (soon!) I have another 40-50k or so XP and a metric ton of credits to go before I get there.

All in all they have some interesting low tier options, the tier 5 was a particular favourite of mine due to it's standard ammunition for it's howitzer being HEAT rounds. This meant it could really really ruin anyone's day if you could hit them. However like most of the Swedish line they have cardboard armour and HE rounds even at low tiers will usually just go right through them. It's incredible gun depression at least helped with poking ridge-lines that other tank destroyers can only dream of.

Tier 6 with the Ikv 65 Alt II sees the line moving away from howitzers and more toward long range sniping, which it did fairly okay at. It was helped by it's agility and ability to relocate as needed, but as with most of them it's armour was over-matched by everything. That said it felt very much like a Hellcat without the turret to me so it didn't take long to get to tier 7 which is where the brakes feel like they got slammed on progression wise.

I am currently sat at tier 7 as you can see above, this one feels like much more of a grind so far. It's not a bad tank in the strictest sense of things, the gun can pose a threat to even tier 9 heavies and if it gets spotted it's usually fast enough to escape all but the speediest of tanks. However the low damage per shot and the oddly slow reload for that damage can make it feel more like a chore to play. 

It's pretty sneaky given it's low profile but that compared with it's speed is literally your only defence. The complete lack of armour (15mm frontal) means anyone with half a clue will be slamming high explosive shells into you for devastating effect, artillery is especially deadly to this especially as it can see tier 9 artillery. I've had near misses from GW Tigers shave off half of my hitpoints. It really does the 'glass' part of a 'glass cannon' well that's all I will say on that part. All in all you should really do your best to avoid being shot at in the first place as even tier 1's would have no trouble punching holes into it's paper thin hull.

The top gun also doesn't feel as accurate as a thinly armoured tank destroyers gun should, I've lost count of the times a fully aimed shot has just whiffed completely or fired off to one side or the other and simply tracked a target rather than damaged it. Whilst on paper the 0.36 accuracy is pretty average given that you have to play this thing in the back line you feel it a lot more, especially with the fairly low fire rate for a 90mm gun. Despite the gun being mounted in the rear, the range of movement it has to the left and right as well as decent gun depression makes it fairly easy to keep your gun on all but the fastest targets without the battle with terrain the TD's like the SU-100M1 and SU-101 have.

All that said however I am definitely looking forward to getting into the tier 8 and higher Swedish tank destroyers and playing around with the siege and travel mode. I even have a female crew from the Christmas event waiting to crew the tier 8, so once I get to the biggest TD's I'll have a more in-depth look at them.