Does this game uses the stupid Caesar-style Walkers?

[kaibioinfo]

Hi,
I would really appreciate a new Caesar-style city building game. However, one thing I really hate in the Sierra series was the walker system. Some people say it gives the game some tactical depth, but in my opinion it's just stupid and the main reason it exists was that they were not able to write a good walker AI.
I really don't want to play another game where I have to build always the same stupid circular roads; where I have to avoid branches and dead ends; where I have to place three times as much service buildings as necessary, just to reduce the probability that the walkers behave stupid.

Does this game use the same old system, or are there at least any improvements in this directions. Are there at least this road blocks like in Emperor, where you can manage which walkers are allowed to pass?

[kaibioinfo]

You have to plan and think in other games, too: in Sim City and Settlers you have to optimize your logistics. In Anno you have to optimize your space usage. In Children of the Nile and CivCity Rome you optimize the correct placement of your houses within range of workspaces and service buildings.... Just in the Sierra series you don't plan but always build the same stupid pattern because you are not allowed to add any intersection roads. There is muss less tactical depth in there than in games without the walker system.

[Sinsem]

You can add any intersection you want as long as you use roadblocks.
The walker system was a design choice, there's nothing to add here.

[kaibioinfo]

Yeah, but it's a terrible design choice. There are enough Sierra style city building games that basicially just differ in their visual style. Why buy another one? It seems to don't have the same complexity as Emperor, it missed the developments of other city building games of the last years. The graphic looks really nice, but if I have to build boring circular housing blocks the good graphic does not help much. Maybe I will buy it for 5€ if it's on sale, but I'm afraid that it is as frustrating as Pharao and Caesar.

[Brick Frog!]

As much as I've been frustrated by stupid market ladies throughout my life, I think the random walkers are an integral part of the series. I could never get into Caesar IV or CotN, where everything used directed walkers.

In my experience, the game isn't as frusturating as Caesar or Pharoah, I find my blocks tend to be pretty resilient to the random devolutions that happened in those games, as long as I don't overreach and make them too large. I'd compare it most closely to Zeus, where you could pretty easily make blocks that were immune to RNG.

[Dowly]

Originally posted by kaibioinfo:

Just in the Sierra series you don't plan but always build the same stupid pattern because you are not allowed to add any intersection roads.

There are multiple ways of building up your city and that's what I mean by planning. It's a puzzle if you say to yourself: "Right, this time, I want as circular city as possible. Now, how can I achieve that efficiently?"

Originally posted by kaibioinfo:

There are enough Sierra style city building games that basicially just differ in their visual style. Why buy another one?

There hasnt been a Impressions Games style city builder in over ten years, it's about time we finally got a new one. Oh, and no one is saying you should buy it, if you dont like it. :)

[Mansen]

Here's an idea - Underpass/Overpasses for walkers. That'd let you cross an intersection Caesar style (I believe the granardy had this kind of behaviour)

[eRe4s3r]

Originally posted by Dowly:

Originally posted by Mansen:

I love the walker system - Simple and intuitive.

Yeah, same here. I really like to come up with different ways to build cities in these games, because you have to think and actually do some planning.

The problem is most of us who played the ol Sierra or rather (thanks Obiwan) Impression games already did that planning, a decade and more ago. So this puts this game imo in a really weird spot. It is definitely Impression city builder inspired stuff and if that was what you were craving for then that is great. But many of us city builder fans want new challenges, not just new settings.

The walker system is obviously a design choice here, and thus nothing we say can change it. The thing though is that the game (apparently) doesn't offer proper solutions to the problems that Zeus had related to the walker system, solutions that Emperor for example did have to some extend...

And I have all these sierra / Impression games on CD as a compilation ;) They still work. Hence my question: What puts this game apart from the ol Impression cb games?

Edit: Yes yes, Impression games made them, Sierra was the publisher, but they are known to more people as "Sierra city builders" ;P (Because the compilation box that came out where I lived was called "Sierra game compilation"

Ps.: If you want to read something really funny related to Emperor

"Despite the positive reviews many were critical of the lack of originality and reported little difference between Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom and previous Impression games."

So yeah, now even more are critical of that ;P

[Mansen]

Most of us? I highly suggest you stop arguing on other's behalf, because that will only make you look silly whenever that isn't the case.

I for one prefer the old-school mechanics to something like ANNO's incredibly oversimplified and dull system. No walkers or anything - Just magical teleporting goods.

[eRe4s3r]

Originally posted by Mansen:

Most of us?

Most of us, in this topic, that were annoyed by the walker system and hence on the fence buying this game ;P .. I generally do not talk about the whole of humanity.

am sorry for my muddy expression though ;) Yiu are correct... it is a bad expression.

Originally posted by Mansen:

I for one prefer the old-school mechanics to something like ANNO's incredibly oversimplified and dull system. No walkers or anything - Just magical teleporting goods.

This is why people look at me funny when I say that Sim Cities (5) is a better Anno game. I absolutely hated magical teleporting goods across ware depots in Anno, despite me being a huge Annoholic (just fair warning ,p). And it doesn't seem to change in 2205 either. Now goods apparently just incur higher "logistic cost" when they are far away. So at least they noticed that magical teleportation is a bit silly. ;) The argument by the devs against it (back in 2070) was that this would add too much micromanagement.... hah. But at least it would be something to do in the game, aside from fast forward until any ware starts to drop below "max" ;p

[kaibioinfo]

Originally posted by Mansen:

I for one prefer the old-school mechanics to something like ANNO's incredibly oversimplified and dull system. No walkers or anything - Just magical teleporting goods.

I hate such answers. Everything is simple and casual just because it has no micromanagement. That reminds me on the "Settler" remake, where they replaced the different tools (hammer, saw, scythe, ...) by a single "tool" good. Many people complained the game would be now super simplistic and casual. But that's stupid; a game does not become simplistic just because you remove unnecessary micro-management elements. At least as long as you add other macro management elements. In Anno goods are transported between the islands with ships. They are not teleported. But, therefore, they removed the transportation system within an island. The big disadvantage, though, is that there is no necessarity to place your factories next to your mines. On the other side in Anno you have to create several settlements on different islands, add transportation routes etc. because many goods are maked out of a bunch of other goods. Caesar/Emperor/Zeus/Pharao instead have super simple manufacturing systems: every good is made out of maximal one other good. There is usualy no reason to not build a pottery directly next to a clay collector, which makes the system not more complex than in Anno where there is no reason to put both buildings next to each other. So all in all, Annos mechanic is not simplistic, it's just different than the mechanics in Caesar.

The problem with the walker mechanics is that it is not controllable by the player. Walkers chooses their paths randomly. If they choose the wrong way several times after each other, everything collapses. That has nothing to do with tactics or puzzling, it's just bad luck. And it happens often enough. The only valid strategy is building blocks of city districts with circular or linear roads, especially without road intersections.

eRe4s3r said it nicely: We already played enough "impression styled city builder games". What's wrong with developing the genre, adding new mechanics and replacing old mechanics that never worked really good with new ones? This does not decrease the complexity of a game, as long as you add other challenges to the player. And there are much more interesting challenges than just "avoiding road intersections and place as much buildings as possible into the circular road". Emperor for example was great, because it had a outstanding diplomatic system. You had to trade a lot with other cities, because you couldn't produce everything yourself; but there was also a military threat; you had to decide if you want to please everone by giving gifts or if you build up a strong military. Another great feature in Emperor was the feng shui, which adds another layer of complexity of "how to place your buildings". I also liked the historical setting, where you get new goods and new industries throughout the campaign (e.g. in the beginning you wrote on wooden boards, later you could produce paper ). After all I read about this game, it is a step backwards from what Emperor gives us.


But I don't started the thread to tell you that I don't want to buy this game. I see that it is too late to make a better game design. But you still can improve the current game mechanics: Give the player some possibility to control the walkers. You could add configurable road blocks, or even allow the player to change the walking routes of the walkers (although a more macro-management method would be nicer). You could make the walkers smarter, by letting the walker prefer roads which weren't visited frequently by another walker of the same kind. There are a lot of possibilities to improve the walker system which could be delivered as a patch.

[Mansen]

And I hate it when people don't understand how to paragraph their walls of text. Or when people can't accept that not everyone shares their opinion. Just because you don't want another Impresisons game, doesn't mean I don't.

If I wanted a different kind of game, I'd play one of them that are alread out there. Banished anyone? Simcity? Black & White? (Et cetera)

Anno? Complex? Please allow me to pick up all of these sides. ANNO is about as deep as a box of crackers. (And yes - That's another opinion)

[adamkkool]

I think the biggest problem, as many have stated, is that the steam system sucks and that there is no combat. Ceaser 3 was great because it had the aquaduct system but sucked because it didn't have road blocks while Zeus and Emporer where great because it has much better combat and the option to take over towns.

I think adding both of those and maybe even a little twist to them would be great.

[Mansen]

The planning and building of monuments was also a great part of why I love Pharaoh. Watching those endless loads of stone being pushed through town and up the the sides of Pyramids, followed by the careful cutting of the sides.

Combat was never "great" in the Impressions games - But it was acceptable. If I wanted an RTS, I'd go for Age of Empires, which was the opposite. An RTS with city building elements.

[kaibioinfo]

Originally posted by Mansen:

And I hate it when people don't understand how to paragraph their walls of text.

Some people like to write arguments instead of putting their opinion into a single line. But if you don't want to read other people arguments, I give you a short version: The walker system sucks.

Originally posted by Mansen:

Or when people can't accept that not everyone shares their opinion.

At no point I forbid other oppinions. I opened the thread because I don't like the walker system and because I still have the hope that the developers might add some mechanics that improve this system.

Originally posted by Mansen:

If I wanted a different kind of game, I'd play one of them that are alread out there. Banished anyone? Simcity? Black & White? (Et cetera)

There are not many city builder games out there. That's the reason why I was really interested in this game; and really dissapointed that its game mechanics are 20 years old.
From the games you mentioned, only Banished is nice, but does not have an interesting end-game. It becomes boring as soon as you established a big settlement. And I think I already said this several times: I liked the old Impression games, but nevertheless I would like to see a new game that improves the old game mechanics instead of just copying them.

Originally posted by zerg_x:

I think the biggest problem, as many have stated, is that the steam system sucks and that there is no combat.

I'm definetely a more peaceful city builder. However, the combat in Emperor was great, because it was challenging to build up a strong army while building up your economy. And you didn't have to use the army in the end (if you don't want wars), nevertheless, you need it because otherwise the computer would attack you like hungry wolves.

[Mansen]

You're clearly more interested in petty fighting than an adult discussion - So I think we'll just stop right there, Kaibio...