Newbster Arrives

[ozarkmichael]

A few observations about Empires of Steel:

This game is a cross between the old Empire game and one of my old favorites, Command HQ by Dan Bunton. Empires of Steel maps are plenty big. Plenty of exploration or make a smaller map for immediate action. The vanilla game has good randomness to maps but too much island hopping (I never liked that sort of thing, it was the one stain on Command HQ) Good news is the editor allows creation of scenarios without an island start.

I did not see any rivers yet. Yeah, i love land campaigns too much i guess. Rivers must be hard to code?

The tech tree adds a lot of pep to the game, that is the most glorious feature of Empires of Steel, and this is where it leaves the old favorites in the dust. You can see a lot of thought and work in the tech tree. It kept me monkeying around for hours. Really nice city improvements make up for a lack of resources. Except you have to research them, and then build them. Which uses up precious time and resources which could have gone to making fighting units. So its a strategic decision.

There are some nice unit surprises. For example, Satellites are very simple in the game but an excellent concept. You pop them up to a point in the sky and they sit there for 7 turns, illuminating a pretty good sized area. And then there are Attack Satellites too! Simple but cool. That is the sort of thing that adds elegance to a game design.

Questions:

Now that i brought my battleship forward to the enemy coast, how do i talk it into shelling the enemy town and enemy land units? I ntried the usual right click.. but nothing. My battleship seems to be pacifist.

I havent even looked at the editor yet. Is it possible to make a scenario with lots of units already on the map? That would be lots of fun. And then could I upload that? I might just make a scenario if it works that way.

Is there an expanded guide to the tech tree anywhere?

Ok, thats all for now. Flame if you must, because i tend to talk like a know it all, but in fact i am only a newbster.

[Brit]

I did not see any rivers yet. Yeah, i love land campaigns too much i guess. Rivers must be hard to code?

I've gotten a few requests for rivers. I should add them at some point, here.

Now that i brought my battleship forward to the enemy coast, how do i talk it into shelling the enemy town and enemy land units? I ntried the usual right click.. but nothing. My battleship seems to be pacifist.

Strange. I'll look into it and see if there's a bug here.

I havent even looked at the editor yet. Is it possible to make a scenario with lots of units already on the map? That would be lots of fun. And then could I upload that? I might just make a scenario if it works that way.

Yup, that's how things work. The scenario editor lets you do a bunch of things - place units, airfields, cities, etc. You can put city improvements into cities, set units to have damage, setup "discovered" maps for each player, and define which technologies each player has already discovered.

Is there an expanded guide to the tech tree anywhere

There is a fully-expanded tech-tree, is that what you mean? You can access this through the game-manual by going to the ruleset, then clicking "Tech Tree" (which appears right above Tech List). Another way to access the Tech Tree is to go into the research window, and clicking on "View Technology Tree".

[wisky4372]

I have checked the manual, teched up- how do you construct forts?

[Makris1821]

I have checked the manual, teched up- how do you construct forts?

AFAIK, forts can't be constructed but are part of the initial set up of scenarios.

[wisky4372]

Well, if thats the case, is that something that can be added- it would be great to fortify key locations, resources etc.