Sounds like a swell guy all around. The NPC schedule stretch goal was a very close call.
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Divinity: Dragon Commander |OT| The political RTS/TBS/RPG/Action game
- Thread starter Durante
- Start date
Dictator93
Member
What are the game's system requirements?
Does it seem pretty multi-core friendly?
Does it seem pretty multi-core friendly?
Sir Garbageman
Member
Is conquering the enemy capital in Act III the end of the campaign or is there additional content after that?
Also how many turns do you have to go to see the conclusions of the general and princess story arcs? (similarly are the custom campaigns story content more compressed? It seems like you could conquer a map pretty quickly in some of the smaller ones)
Also how many turns do you have to go to see the conclusions of the general and princess story arcs? (similarly are the custom campaigns story content more compressed? It seems like you could conquer a map pretty quickly in some of the smaller ones)
foobarry81
Member
I'm fairly disappointed. The campaign was like 5-6 hours long. I have no care about the multiplayer and skirmish modes (horde modes, mini modes) don't really do anything for me anymore.
I'd also recommend an HD4890ish card as a bare minimum. Game defaulted to ultra but i'd get like 15-20fps. Put it on low, and the raven would be like 30 fpsish but gameplay would be 60 capped and then with a bunch of explosions and shit would plummet.
That and the game crashed frequently with weird C++ errors until i put it in windowed and admin mode.
I'd also recommend an HD4890ish card as a bare minimum. Game defaulted to ultra but i'd get like 15-20fps. Put it on low, and the raven would be like 30 fpsish but gameplay would be 60 capped and then with a bunch of explosions and shit would plummet.
That and the game crashed frequently with weird C++ errors until i put it in windowed and admin mode.
Basileus777
Member
It's the end. There are some story sequences afterwards, but no more battles.
IIRC most of it finished up by around 50 turns. That would likely end up accelerated in a custom campaign because you start with a wife and all generals from turn 1.
Angry Joe review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOPP4NUGexQ
Dragon Commander gets a Bad Ass label from AJ and a.7/10
Edit: damn... beaten by seconds.
Sometimes I like him.
Othertimes he's a complete moron.
So I went into a battle against the other sides capital city - outnumbers their units 3 to 1 on the deployment screen thing, 82% chance of success! But I thought I'd put the boot in myself and hit it up, Dragon style.
I get into game with less than half the units of the enemy and get stomped within a minute. Where did all my units go?
I get into game with less than half the units of the enemy and get stomped within a minute. Where did all my units go?
One of the best youtube personalities reviewing games. I watch him constantly. He is better than 99% sites out there.
I've got 14 hours played and am still in Act 2...
I did have to restart Act 2 once though.
Barack Lesnar
Banned
Damn how'd you beat it in 5-6 hours?
Sir Garbageman
Member
Just finished it. Fantastic game, surprised me how much I enjoyed it. The Raven crew definitely makes the game, the writing and voice acting for everyone was top notch.
STEAM says I've played 19 hrs, but I restarted after 2-3 and I've left in on here and there so total campaign time was probably closer to 13 - 15 hrs.
Are there multiple endings btw? For example:
STEAM says I've played 19 hrs, but I restarted after 2-3 and I've left in on here and there so total campaign time was probably closer to 13 - 15 hrs.
Are there multiple endings btw? For example:
I decided to not have a vote on switching to a republic, does that impact anything major outside of the factions opinions?
Did you play vanilla Div 2 or did you play Dragon Knight Saga? From what I've heard the re-release is much improved.
Even though I really want you to want this game, I have to say that it doesn't play much like WC3
WC3 focuses on fewer units and heroes, and here the focus is on quick expansion, large armies and grilling enemies as a Dragon.
I played OG Divinity 2 way back then. Got the Director's Cut, I think ima play some of that tonight.
My problem with Angry Joe is that his videos traverse into spoiler territory by a mile, and he doesn't even warn you about that! Now the surprise of picking Ophelia is ruined. :/
If he trimmed down his reviews by 12 minutes and cut out most of the clips he use, then maybe I would like him a little more.
Finally got to put some time into this last night. Fantastic game. I'm inexperienced with RTS games, so I'm doing my first playthrough on easy. I think it was a good decision. Battles definitely aren't difficult, but they're interesting enough to keep me entertained while I learn the mechanics.
What was your strategy, if you don't mind sharing, to start Act 2? I just cleared Act 1 and my army didn't transfer over, much to my disappointment. I'm thinking about a quick blitz to finish off the prince from Act 1, but that might leave me behind in resource and unit production for the rest of the map.
You can safely ignore the red guy for most of the time. Only thing to watch out for are his destroyers blocking your transports. You can grab the northern islands for free, just gotta watch out for red's destroyers.
Try to grab the big island in the middle from the south-east, shouldn't be any enemy presence there. From there, move out to the north and west.
Well, the first time around I did just that, and tried to quickly eliminate the island player and take over the islands. However, taking over his capital required stockpiling so many units that I fell behind overall.
The second try, which I am on now, is going much more smoothly. I quickly expanded to the empty territories on the main continent until I reached the opponents' lands and then focused on taking over at most one per turn if the opportunity presents itself. I keep mercenary cards around purely for defense, since they are infinitely "mobile" compared to the main army. With this strategy, I lost only a single battle so far and now control a plurality of the map.
Sir Garbageman
Member
Exactly what I did for Act 2 as well. Basically jumped south immediately and slowly started expanding throughout the big center island east to west from both the north and south ends of the "C". In my game the red enemy didn't do much outside of turtle in a few islands.
Hopefully you've researched Ironclads already to help keep enemies away from your transport lanes.
Even though I really want you to want this game, I have to say that it doesn't play much like WC3
WC3 focuses on fewer units and heroes, and here the focus is on quick expansion, large armies and grilling enemies as a Dragon.
I meant art-wise, the colours. I love the look of it, is all
. All other aspects look great too.Larian is getting a lot of praise/attention in their (and mine) country from the press etc. It's funny, because this is the first time you notice all of the newspapers etc mentioning them. Never happened with their older games afaik, at least not as much.
Not surprised though, I believe a Larian dev once told me only 1% of their sales is from Belgium That, and the fact that our minister of culture probably doesn't even know them. All in good fun though, but it's cool to see they're finally getting the attention they deserve.
Can't wait till Original Sin, should be their best (rpg) game yet. Dragon Commander success is a big help and motivation too I guess
Not surprised though, I believe a Larian dev once told me only 1% of their sales is from Belgium
That, and the fact that our minister of culture probably doesn't even know them. All in good fun though, but it's cool to see they're finally getting the attention they deserve.Can't wait till Original Sin, should be their best (rpg) game yet. Dragon Commander success is a big help and motivation too I guess
Thanks for your input everyone. It saves me the numerous hours and a eventual Act 2 restart if I had tried to immediately suppress the prince instead of expanding first. Though I hope for the higher difficulties, Larian made the AI sufficiently complex so it does not turtle as much as on the lower difficulties. I remember the early builds of Dragon Commander AI were too hard for normal difficulty, and I hope the developers kept those settings around for the harder levels.
I read one of Durante's posts lamenting sea battles without the appropriate units; so I made sure to pick it up during the last few turns of Act 1.
It has more in common with the original Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War than the slower base building style of Starcraft 2.
I guess i was more referencing how they allow you to visit the locations within the ship and talk to the crew and purchase upgrades. Unless warhammer did that also. I never played it. Its on my massive steam backlog.
Ah, I see. No, Dawn of War had a story line, but it was more of an in-engine movie affair. Dawn of War 2 had a upgrade system but the core gameplay was a departure from both its predecessor and Divinity: Dragon Commander.
famousmortimer
Banned
I saw that. I'm very happy about that. I think this thread and your work on it are a big part of it. The amount of people lurking on GAF these days is insane.
Sir Garbageman
Member
I am actually surprised the game isn't getting more media attention for how many controversial real world issues come up throughout the course of the campaign and how Larian seems to be wearing their political leanings on their sleeve a little bit. I don't mind but its a pretty rare sight this day and age.
Expect to vote on gay rights / marriage, gender equality, unions, universal healthcare, funding education, environmental issues, medicinal marijuana, religious concerns, etc.
Takes a helluva lot of guts to incorporate such subject matters into a game and I commend them for doing so.
Expect to vote on gay rights / marriage, gender equality, unions, universal healthcare, funding education, environmental issues, medicinal marijuana, religious concerns, etc.
Takes a helluva lot of guts to incorporate such subject matters into a game and I commend them for doing so.
Giantbomb QL kinda hinted at this, saying it was surprisingly politically motivated.
Its hard though to discern between being creatively bankrupt or having an opinion.
I played on casual in like one sitting. it was piss easy but act 3 was just kind of...tedious
I don't know if Act II is supposed to be stupid or I just messed something up, but I was slaughtered on the second turn. My capitol is right next to an enemy capitol. He spawns an army 3x the size of mine and invades. I have an 86% chance of winning, but I'm immediately rushed by every single troop he has, while he sends a constant stream of units at my base from 4 different factories.
That was really shitty.
edit: yeah I'm salty.
That was really shitty.
edit: yeah I'm salty.
Moff
Member
I am about a dozen or two rounds into act 2 now, and I kinda like this game.
the political aspects are nice, the game looks great there, the political topics are great, the dialogue is witty, but it feels very superficial. the very same can be said about the strategic world map.
the main meat of the game, though, the actual rts combat, does not look good at all. wow, when I first entered a battle I was even shocked. it looks very bad.
It reminded me of another RTS, does anyone remember force commander, the terrible star wars rts?
dragon commander looks almost as bad as the 13 years old force commander, the units look enrecognisable bad, which is probably why the get icons after a short distance. it doesnt look steampunky at all, it looks like a first generation, polygon based RTS game. its completely unpolished, this part of the game has a terribly low production value.
luckily it is saved by the dragon, which makes the RTS part semi-fun, I am certain withhout this I would not bother with this game anymore, the 7/10 rankings are very well deserved in my opinon, I dont think this game deserves more at this point. I just dont understand how the part on the raven can look so nice and polished and the RTS part, which is the actual game, can look so dated and unpolished. its what I am kinda used from larian games, though, their games are kinda nice, but never witthout some terrible flaws, and this is not a good sign for original sin, which looks pretty unpolished, too, at the moment.
the political aspects are nice, the game looks great there, the political topics are great, the dialogue is witty, but it feels very superficial. the very same can be said about the strategic world map.
the main meat of the game, though, the actual rts combat, does not look good at all. wow, when I first entered a battle I was even shocked. it looks very bad.
It reminded me of another RTS, does anyone remember force commander, the terrible star wars rts?
dragon commander looks almost as bad as the 13 years old force commander, the units look enrecognisable bad, which is probably why the get icons after a short distance. it doesnt look steampunky at all, it looks like a first generation, polygon based RTS game. its completely unpolished, this part of the game has a terribly low production value.
luckily it is saved by the dragon, which makes the RTS part semi-fun, I am certain withhout this I would not bother with this game anymore, the 7/10 rankings are very well deserved in my opinon, I dont think this game deserves more at this point. I just dont understand how the part on the raven can look so nice and polished and the RTS part, which is the actual game, can look so dated and unpolished. its what I am kinda used from larian games, though, their games are kinda nice, but never witthout some terrible flaws, and this is not a good sign for original sin, which looks pretty unpolished, too, at the moment.
This honestly makes me wonder if you ever played a "first generation polygon based RTS game". I did, and I remember them looking like this:
Not like this:
I actually think it looks great -- I was positively surprised when I first entered a battle in the beta, particularly by the lighting and atmospheric effects.
Not like this:
I actually think it looks great -- I was positively surprised when I first entered a battle in the beta, particularly by the lighting and atmospheric effects.
This honestly makes me wonder if you ever played a "first generation polygon based RTS game". I did, and I remember them looking like this:
That is Earth 2150. Awesome RTS
Basileus777
Member
These screenshots actually make me think he has a point, and I didn't even think about the graphics while playing it. I definitely think the units could be more easily recognizable at least.
I don't think you know what you are talking about.
foobarry81
Member
Larian is getting a lot of praise/attention in their (and mine) country from the press etc. It's funny, because this is the first time you notice all of the newspapers etc mentioning them. Never happened with their older games afaik, at least not as much.
Not surprised though, I believe a Larian dev once told me only 1% of their sales is from Belgium
Can't wait till Original Sin, should be their best (rpg) game yet. Dragon Commander success is a big help and motivation too I guess
Never thought I could become a 1%'er.
Moff
Member
yup, as I said, it reminded me of force commander.
and I dont think the dragon commander units look close up much better than those close up units from earth 2150, honestly. the landscape looks better.
of course its a bit exagerrated, but it reminded me a bit of those games. I certainly wouldnt say dragon commanders rts part looks great.
wouldnt you agree that this is the games weak point? the game would have such a nice steampunk design, but the RTS part reflects that almost not at all, and you need icons to even recognise the units until you're really close, I dont like it. its certainly playable, but witthout the dragon feature I would not enjoy those battles at all, that I am sure of.
I'm playing on easy. That's what blew my mind. Up until that point, it's been really pleasant. Not too easy, but not difficult. I've had some long battles where my opponent and I went back and forth capturing structures and sending dozens of units to their deaths, but I hadn't been faced with anything impossible to overcome. In that last battle, there was absolutely nothing I could've done to save myself. I was never given an opportunity to even begin to amass the resources necessary to put up a decent fight.
I hesitate to call it a difficulty spike, because there's nothing difficult about watching a couple dozen red dots run through your base before you even have a chance to bring in your dragon.
Basileus777
Member
The early part of act III is the most difficult part of the game. Dealing with enemy navies and your island rival is the challenge, once you've done that the map essentially yours for the taking.
michaelius
Banned
Are those choices somehow balanced or made to support only one "correct" option ?