Conquest of Elysium 3: Review

Version Reviewed: 3.0

What I like: Imaginative back story for classes and game mechanics, wide variety of monsters to battle and classes to play, lots of replayability.
Not So Much: Not a lot of choices to make, creature sprites too small, stalemates can drag on for too long, stacks of doom.
Other stuff you may like: Multiplayer (did not use).
The Verdict:  C+ (better than average )
Fans of multiplayer will probably get more mileage.

About my reviews

Official site: Conquest of Elysium 3

Disclaimer: This review is based on a free review copy provided by Illwinter Game Design.

Introduction
Conquest of Elysium 3 (CoE3) is a turn-based strategy game in a fantasy setting. It is a game of exploration and war. There are no peaceful victories, as the only goal is to eliminate all other sides that stand in your way. Unlike many other strategy games of conquest, there isn’t any base-building, research to manage, or a complex economy. A wide variety of neutral creatures roam the land that will make you think twice before sending out a small scouting party as encountering a hungry Chimaera will make necromancer food out of even well-staffed armies. Whether by might or magic, your expansion will be violently opposed. Since I have only tinkered with the Dominions 3 demo (another game created by Illwinter) I cannot compare these two games, other than state CoE3 is much more streamlined and less complex. Whether you are a solo player (like me) or enjoy multiplayer games, this game has options for you.

Getting Started
Even though CoE3 is a streamlined strategy game, Illwinter provides very good documentation describing the game mechanics in detail. After reading the manual I felt very comfortable jumping in and starting a game. Unfortunately there are not any tutorials, interactive or otherwise, which are always welcome. Tutorials usually teach the basics of a game a bit faster than reading a manual, but the lack of tutorial didn’t slow me down too much.

CoE3 is a game of randomly generated skirmishes, without any form of story-based campaign or hand-crafted scenarios. I do enjoy a well-done story-based campaign, but the randomly generated skirmishes do provide a great deal of replayability. My guess is that Illwinter would do a wonderful job at creating a story-based campaign as they seem to put a lot of effort into creating an interesting back story for their character classes.

I suspect using the random map generator is the most common way to play CoE3. There are 5 map sizes, ranging from tiny (30 x 20) to enormous (70 x 52). Most of my games were played on a large map (50 x 36) and I estimate they typically lasted several hours. Custom maps can be created with the included map editor, but none are included with the game. There are also 6 different societies to choose from, representing the time period the game occurs in and effects many aspects of the game world – size of settlements, number of bandits roaming the land, and other map features. This can have a noticeable effect on the game as resource availability is affected.

There are 17 different classes to select from, each tweaking game play enough to provide at least a moderately different experience. The main distinguishing features between the classes are what kinds of troops are available and are how they are acquired, which resources are of primary importance and any special rituals available. For example, the Necromancer can raise the dead from battle sites and settlements at the risk of losing their sanity, while the Baron receives yearly conscripts from controlled farms, hamlets and villages. Demonologists can summon politicians (I mean demons), but had better offer enough campaign contributions (I mean sacrifices) or risk losing control of said demon.  Enchanters can create portals for faster travel through the lands. This is only a small sample and the manual does an excellent job at describing the details of each class. For some class descriptions brimming with atmosphere and personality, check out Tom Chick’s game diaries.

A total of 8 different players can be added to the game and can be set to a specific class or randomly assigned one. The player can individually change the difficulty level of each AI player from a set of 10 choices. More advanced levels provide resource bonuses and access to more powerful troops to the AI players.  

Game Play
Winning is achieved by crushing all enemies. A player is eliminated from CoE3 when all of their commanders or all of their citadels are lost. Commanders are special troops who have the ability to move about the map without the aid of any other troops. Typically, they are also leaders – they can be grouped with other troops, allowing non-commanders to travel the lands. While commanders are typically stronger than grunt units, they will quickly be eliminated without an escort. Citadels are the structures where troop recruitment can take place and vary depending on the class.

Look and Ye Shall Find
Like any game about exploration, the initial view is limited to your starting point. As your troops go forth in search of resources and the enemy, more land is revealed. Once exposed, the terrain is always visible, but you must have an adjacent army or controlled map structure to see enemy or neutral troops. This fog of war is represented by a light grey shroud on the map. Some structures extend the line of sight to 2 squares when they are manned, such as the crystal tower in the screen shot below. Unfortunately, not all enemies are honorable and may employ stealthy units. The unlucky commander will locate them by stumbling into the same location. A well-prepared commander includes a scout in his army to uncover adjacent stealthy units. Surprises are better suited for birthday parties, not the battlefield. It is a pretty simple system that rewards scouting and holding structures that provide line of sight. I’m not sure the reward is enough though. Having certain structures provide even more line of sight would make them more valuable and worth fighting over. I am inclined to think that the AI isn’t savvy enough to try and avoid detection by avoiding these structures and try to find an approach to remain undetected.

The Lay of the Land
The terrain determines the travel cost into the location. Seasons also affect movement as winter’s snows make movement more costly. Formally impassable waterways can be crossed when frozen, but don’t be caught in a spring thaw as most unit types will drown. Some units are more adapt at travel through certain terrain. Everyone knows if you have to travel through the mountains there is nothing better than being a dwarf. Mountains and certain structures also provide a defensive bonus to troops residing at that location and can be the deciding factor in a close battle.

A Simple Economy
Terrain also dictates where certain resources are found (forests have herbs and fungi, hills and mountains may have mines, etc…) and the season makes some resources more or less plentiful. There are no structures to build or techs to research. The economic side of CoE3 is very simple. Move one of your troops into a square with a resource to claim it and the resource is collected until an enemy or neutral unit takes control away from you. Important resources should probably be protected with troops, or at the very least an army stationed not too far away. There can be a lot of neutral units about and can be quite aggravating to have them steal unprotected resources. 

Units and Armies
Typically troops are acquired by recruiting them at a citadel at the cost of resources. Acquiring additional citadels is important to increase your capacity to recruit more troops per turn, as each citadel can only recruit one group of ‘standard’ troops per turn. At times, special mercenaries become available and can be purchased in addition to standard troops. Some classes have additional methods of acquiring troops, such as summoning, charming, and reanimating the bodies of fallen troops.

Action points (AP) dictate how much a unit can get done in a single turn. There are slow (2AP), medium (3AP), and fast (4 AP) units. APs are spent on movement or special actions while entering battle uses up any remaining points. One interesting twist is that you can complete an action, such as move into a mountain square, even if you only have some of the required AP. In this situation remaining APs are deducted the next turn, so you may get caught with your pants down and unable to react to an approaching enemy.

There is a great variety in the types of creatures encountered in Elysium. Each unit has some basic statistics determining how much damage they can take before death, susceptibility to fear and magic, and the amount of damage they can shrug off from successful attacks. There are many special abilities on top of these base attributes, such as causing fear to the enemy, taking less damage from certain types of attacks, regenerate during combat, and exploding upon death. The combination of all of these characteristics gives each unit its own distinctiveness. This is perhaps one of CoE3’s greatest strengths.

Units gain experience over time and through battle, with four levels of experience providing moderate benefits. In my opinion, gaining experience over time should be capped. To me, this represents a units training. A unit that doesn’t see battle for 100 months shouldn’t be as experienced as a more battle tested one. Also experience through combat is the same whether one weak enemy or a dozen powerful creatures are defeated. This system is too streamlined for my tastes. After providing such varied units it seems a shame that some systems are rather limited.

Combat
While the combat model has many factors, it is a hands-off affair. The player’s primary influence is deciding the unit makeup of his army as some units are much better suited to do battle against some creatures. In one game I was fortunate to summon an invulnerable (can’t be harmed by normal weapons) creature while one of my enemies didn’t seem to have any other method of causing damage. Promptly taking advantage of these match ups unquestionably brings victory much faster.

Spells can be the deciding factor in battle and the player can adjust his spell caster’s memorized spells before the confrontation starts. In practice I have found that the default selections are almost always good choices, but there may be enemies where it is worthwhile to change the memorized spells. It could just be coincidence with the spells my forces acquired, but perhaps not. Once the battle begins, the spell caster will randomly select memorized spells to cast. I definitely prefer a more hands on approach as there aren’t a lot of decisions to make. Creatures also have slots to equip magic items, further augmenting their abilities.

Combat is at its best when there are less than 40 units or so involved. Stacks of doom (huge armies) detracted from game play in Civilization 4 and the same applies to CoE3. Once the stacks contain too many units it becomes rather tedious to evaluate enemy armies. This is exacerbated by the small unit icons and having to either remember all of the attributes of each unit or right-click on each one to view the statistics, abilities, spells, etc…. CoE3 would benefit from enforcing a command limit on leader units to limit the army size. Perhaps this limit could increase slightly with battle experience. In any case, evaluating a battle with 500 units wasn’t my idea of fun. A unit summary line for each side allowing the player to see how many units of each type there are at a glance would also help. After some experience it certainly gets easier predicting the outcome of a battle.

One of the characteristics of a unit is what battle rank it occupies during combat. Melee fighters typically are in the front rank, ranged units in the middle, and spell casters in the rear. The defenders always attack first. Each unit performs their attack in turn, starting with the rear rank and working up to the front rank. Then the attackers take their turn. Once one side is eliminated the other is declared the victor. Since ranged units and spell casters are usually weak in melee combat, you have to make sure they are protected by enough melee units. Some spells and attacks are not limited to attacking the front ranks, so don’t let your strong front line lull you into a false sense of security. I think it is a mistake for the game to always have the defender attack first. The defender already receives a defensive bonus if they occupy favorable terrain and a strong defensive force can significantly damage the attacker before they get a chance to act. The current system promotes turtling a little too much. A balanced initiative system that allows a mixture of units from each side to attack in turn would be more enjoyable in my opinion. Perhaps the defender could get a bonus to initiative to model the difficulties for an attacker to overcome a prepared defender.

Decisions, Decisions
Practically all meaningful decisions revolve around the management of your troops and the spending of your resources. Since one never knows what type of mercenary will show up, a player has to decide if they will spend their resources on standard troops or wait for the much-needed scout or commander. Also, certain classes can use resources to ‘level up’, so the choice of saving the resources for a permanent upgrade or spending them now on troops becomes important.

How many troops should be left to protect acquired assets vs. how many to take on the offensive? Should I create a stack of doom or spread out to cover multiple areas? These are questions you will ask yourself. Some neutral wondering monsters are pretty tough and can easily defeat a weak detachment guarding one of your mines or performing scouting duties.

Some of the systems could benefit from being made a little deeper. For example, if a demonologist performs too many sacrifices at a town, why not reduce the income generated from it?

Difficulty and AI
My games were all played on the default difficulty level where the AI doesn’t receive any bonus and I had a mixture of results. The AI will take advantage of unprotected resources or weak armies wandering about. When I took care to protect my commanders and citadel I usually didn’t have a large problem obtaining victory. The AI did battle me to a stalemate in game where I gave up, so I would chalk that up as an AI victory. In another game the AI barely expanded, even though it took me a long time to find his position. I have no idea what he was doing.

The AI did seem to know when to avoid initiating a fight, but would sometimes venture too close to one of my stacks and get caught. I also baited the AI to return to a location by repeatedly taking one of his resources until I could get a stronger force in the area to eliminate him.

Much of the difficulty comes from the random starting location, along with what neutral creatures are roaming through your area. A strong neutral stack can put a damper on your resource grab and expansion. Luckily for the player the neutral stacks seem to wander about in a random fashion, passing by resources more frequently than claiming them. For some creatures this probably makes sense, but for intelligent ones (or bandits) they should probably go for the resources a bit more. If they do this I never noticed.

User Interface
Once you get accustomed to some of the non-standard behavior it isn’t bad. Terrain information displays at the bottom of the screen when your mouse hovers over a map location. Many items display information when the user right clicks on it. Unfortunately the use of hint / info messages was a little inconsistent. During game setup the difficulty levels didn’t have any in-game explanation. The same was true for the demonologist rituals and sacrifice level, along with the rune smith rituals. I didn’t go back to check everything so there may be more.

During the initial game setup the player can’t back track to a prior step if they decide to change a setting. Nor can they quit all together. They must finish setting up the game, then fully exit the program, start it back up and start anew. This isn’t as bad as it sounds since the game starts up quickly and there are only a handful of settings, but it was annoying in a couple situations. On a related note, the player can save the game anytime he wants, but can only load the game from the main menu. This means you must save, quit the program, start it back up and then load the save from the main menu. Illwinter’s wanted to dissuade people from cheating by reloading a save when things go bad. In many games it is too tempting to become lazy and abuse the save system, but in the end I think it should be the user’s choice. After all, it is the player who should decide how they have the most fun. I can understand limits in a multiplayer game, but not when playing solo. At least the game starts up very fast.

Resource balance and income is displayed on the primary screen and right clicking displays the sources and any income calculation. It is valuable to have this information at your fingertips to plan your actions.

Troop management is made simple with a variety of features. This is good since troop management is where a player spends the most time. The unit management screen displays all troops grouped by their commander. Clicking on a unit jumps to its location on the map. The player can also iterate through commanders with remaining action points at the press of a key. If a commander is going to stay put for an extended period of time, give him the sentry command so they are skipped when iterating through the commanders. One aspect of troop management that is weak is the only way to view which units are injured is via a hotkey on the unit transfer screen. The only way to view how injured they are is to right click on each one to view their hit points and to see if they received any permanent battle wounds.

I also wish the combat screen had a button for stepping through a single attack. Watching a single attack would get tedious in the long run, but would help to understand the combat mechanics when starting out.

There are lots of hotkeys for those inclined to learn them.

Online / Multiplayer Features
CoE3 can be played with multiple human players via either hotseat or network play. One player starts a game as the host and players join by typing in the hosts IP address. Play by email or match making services are not available. I am strictly a solo player, so I am unsure how the multiplayer experience is.

There are no online features aimed at the solo player, such as a scoring or leaderboard system.

Graphics and Sound
The graphics are primitive, even by turn-based strategy game standards, but doesn’t interfere with the game play for the most part. I found the terrain to be clear, but smaller elements are sometimes difficult to spot. I had the most trouble spotting one of the camps, even after I knew its general area. One nice graphical feature is the ability to seamlessly zoom out to view a large portion of the map. The mouse wheel zoomed slower than I would like and there wasn’t an in-game option to configure its responsiveness. The units on the main map are easy to distinguish when zoomed in fairly close, but during the battle view the units are so small it is difficult to tell similar units apart.

Combat sound effects are even more basic than the visuals, but truthfully it doesn’t matter so much in a game like this. Where the sound shines is the musical score. I have yet to see a comment about the music that didn’t praise it and I have to agree. I’m sure I have heard each song many times over and it never becomes grating. A big step up from the Tropico 4 soundtrack.

Technical Performance
The game performed flawlessly without any crashes or hiccups.
My Specs: Windows 7 64-bit. Intel Core i7 860 @ 2.80 GHz. 8 Gig RAM. ATI Radeon HD 5850.

In The End...
My first inclination was to dislike CoE3 for its lack of choices. I enjoy the city building and research aspects of games like Civilization, so the lack of equivalent features seems like a hole in need of filling. This is compounded by the lack of tactical control during the battles. After playing the different classes I began to enjoy the game more. While the basic focus remains the same for each class, there are enough differences to make each class feel fresh. Combine the variety of classes with the random map generator and you have a lot of replayability. The variety of units and their abilities makes evaluating enemy armies challenging. The opposing forces of expansion vs. protecting what you have creates a welcome tension in the game, as does deciding whether to spend your resources now or save them for a greater benefit later. Players who enjoy role-playing or have an active imagination can probably create some interesting stories for their games. Conquest of Elysium 3 is not a game that will keep me hooked for a week at a time, but will be a pleasant distraction in between other games. I hope future iterations in this series make improvements to take it to the next level.

Score: C+   (better than average )

Tropico 4: Review

Version Reviewed: 1.04 (Steam Special Edition)

What I like: Abundant choices, pleasant visuals with good performance, clear objectives.
Not So Much: Most scenarios play out very similarly, ease of campaign decreases importance of making good choices.
Other stuff you may like: Should appeal to fans of the series. Game may have longer-lasting appeal for players who enjoy the ‘sandbox’ play.
The Verdict: C   (average)

Can probably add a couple points if you enjoy the sandbox play more.

About my reviews

Official site: Tropico 4

Introduction
What are you doing surfing the internet when you should be using your fishing net for the good of our fellow Tropicans? Sorry, I’ve gotten used to being the benevolent dictator of my own series of tropical islands. Tropico 4 is a fairly detailed, but light-hearted city (island)-builder. Providing jobs, housing, medical care and entertainment are some of the main responsibilities as I oversee my island nation. If you decide to become an island dictator be sure to bring your hardhat, because building different structures is your primary tool for meeting your subject’s needs. Let enough citizens become displeased with your rule and your political authority will be challenged by rebels. Make sure you have a strong economy, because money is power.

Getting Started
Between the 4 scenario tutorial campaign and the manual, new players should feel comfortable jumping in and starting the campaign. The user interface does a respectable job of providing enough information to make informed choices and the controls are intuitive. The campaign scenarios are pretty easy to win, so there shouldn’t be too many worries about getting overwhelmed.

The two modes of play are sandbox mode and the 20 scenario campaign. Sandbox mode consists of selecting a premade map, or generating one based on several parameters. Further customization is available to tailor the difficulty to suit your style of play – the political stability, economic difficulty, tourism difficulty, starting population, frequency of random events, and number of turns can all be adjusted via sliders. The player can also chose a prominent faction to inhabit the island, whether immigration is allowed to your island, and more.

The campaign unlocks in a linear fashion. You must win the first scenario before moving onto the next one. I have played through 12 out of the 20 scenarios and winning hasn’t been a problem. The objectives for each scenario are displayed in the bottom right corner of the screen. As you complete one objective, others may unlock and get added to the list. A time limit is usually not imposed, so the player is rarely rushed. While there are a variety of tasks to perform I found that they rarely had a big effect on how I proceeded. I may have had to build a particular building or industry sooner than usual, but that was it for the most part. Build the economy and complete the tasks. Next.

Game Play
There are a lot of different aspects to Tropico 4, so I’ll go into depth with some and gloss over others. Otherwise this long review would grow to unmanageable proportions.

The controls are simple to use. Move the mouse to the edge of the screen to pan the view, use the mouse wheel to zoom, and the middle mouse button to rotate the view. Keyboard shortcuts also exist for those with an aversion to rodents. Three game speeds are available, along with a pause function, so you can take things at your own pace even though this is a real-time game.

Your Fearless Leader
Premade characters are available, such as Fidel Castro, or you can customize you own. There are a wide variety of traits to select that provide different bonuses for your leader. Some improve the productivity of certain industries, while others make it easier to keep certain factions happy. You can try to tailor them to the current scenario, but since I don’t want to be bothered by the USA and USSR I tend to stick with those that help keep them happy. As you gain experience with these traits over multiple scenarios their benefits increase.

We the People
The people of Tropico go about their daily business in a weird time scale (they may stay at church for a month, take two months to travel to work, etc…). They rest at their living quarters, go to work, and try to fulfill individual needs. If a garage is available from their departure point, they will take a car and use the roads if it is quicker then traveling by foot. Efficient placement of buildings ensures your citizens don’t waste a lot of time traveling, allowing them to help maximize your profits with their work for the state. A poor road and garage network causes the travelers to waste time sitting in their cars. I haven’t run into many problems even though I’m not overly anal about my road network.

As already mentioned, each of your citizens have needs they try to fulfill (food, rest, faith, fun and health), which map to different happiness categories. Periodically they try to satisfy each need by visiting the pertinent structure and when they can’t, their happiness in that category decreases. Each service structure has a limited capacity, so if it is full your other Tropicans are out of luck until somebody leaves. As your population grows additional service providers will need to be built to keep up with demand. Balancing your income with the expense of providing these services is an important part of the game.

Other happiness factors are affected by where they live and work (crime safety, environment, liberty, and job). Each person also has three happiness categories that have a larger affect on their overall happiness. If a person isn’t happy, then they may become a rebel. If all this seems overwhelming, don’t worry. I have been successful at Tropico without worrying about happiness at the individual level. The almanac provides happiness numbers for your population as a whole, so you can see which needs require attention. For example, if healthcare satisfaction is low it may be time to build a new clinic or make sure your current one is fully staffed.

Individuals are further differentiated by their traits, which control how quickly they can learn new skills, how likely they will become rebels when unhappy, how likely they will become faction leader or an opposing presidential candidates. There are 4 education levels a person can have in Tropico (none, grade school, high school, and college), which improves the rate at which new skills are learned and determines what jobs they are eligible to take. If you can afford to provide education through building schools and the literacy edict, your dependence on importing foreign workers will decrease. Making these types of decisions is one of the enjoyable aspects to playing Tropico.

It’s the Economy Stupid

The most basic need is food, so you need to either grow it or import it. There are 7 crops, but only 4 of them provide food. Each crop has its own preferred climate. The crop condition overlay displays which locations are good for each crop. Plant the farm in optimal conditions and it will flourish. Production will decrease as conditions worsen as farming also depletes the soil. The horticulture station will improve the surrounding farm’s output. How it helps farms is not clear in the documentation.

Mining and lumberjacking provides further access to natural resources and also provides jobs for the uneducated. The environmentalist faction won’t be too pleased with this type of job since they decrease your island’s natural beauty and generate pollution. These factors can be somewhat mitigated by passing industry pollution standards (an edict), or building landfills to provide a home for your nation’s trash.

Your basic farming and mining industries can provide inputs to more sophisticated industries. For example, pineapples and coffee can be canned, gold crafted into jewelry, etc… These jobs require at least a high school education, so it is best if you can build a high school to educate the masses. Otherwise you will need to spend your hard-earned money (well at least your people work hard) to import foreign specialists who are educated. The nationalist faction won’t be pleased by the foreigners taking the jobs in their homeland, so you will need to find other ways to keep them happy. These industrial building have upgrades available, which may improve productivity and working conditions, reduce pollution, etc… The supply chains are not very complex, but do give you tools to improve the strength of your economy.

Some of the more advanced buildings require purchase of blueprints before you can build them and/or have electricity available. Electricity can be produced from several types of power plants and/or wind turbines, with the latter being more environmentally friendly, but having a high upkeep.

With over 100 different types of buildings to chose from (in total, not just buildings related to the economy), there is a nice variety in what can be built. Some buildings have different modes of operation (such as running a sweat shop or a more relax work day), so along with their upgrades there are numerous ways to tweak how your country is run.

Your citizens earn money through the jobs you provide or your generosity (the social security edict). This money is spent on meeting their needs. Since you control their wages and set the prices for services, what they can afford is in your hands. A citizen that can’t afford to meet their needs is a likely target for rebel recruitment.

As you can see, there are many aspects to keeping you economy humming and your people happy. If your treasury becomes empty you can borrow money, but this displeases the superpowers (see Politics below). Another option is to fire up the print presses and make more money! If it were only so easy, as printing money raises the future costs due to inflation.

Growing Your Workforce
There are two ways to increase the available number of workers, having babies born on your island or through immigration. Your hospitals and clinics can be set to increase the birthrate of your women, but waiting for the children to grow up so you can put them to work is a slow process. In a longer scenario or in sandbox mode your patience can pay off. Immigration allows your workforce to quickly expand, but also requires the island’s service infrastructure to keep up.

Politics
If you keep your subjects happy, they will vote for you to remain in power during the next election. If not it is game-over. Luckily, there are ways to influence the results. Election speeches can change the minds of your pliable voters to get you the numbers you need. Breaking your promises can lead to future trouble, but you can worry about that later, right? For the less honorable dictator, tampering with the election results is always an option. There is always some subjectivity in how a hanging chad is counted!

There are 8 political factions pushing their agendas which influence the happiness of their members. The almanac lets you track what is making the faction happy and what isn’t. This is welcome feedback, as guessing what game designers decided to model isn’t usually fun. For example, affordable housing is required to keep the communists happy, while the environmentalists get upset with high levels of pollution. Each faction can offer up tasks to improve your standing with them. Either I am a naturally-gifted dictator, or keeping the factions happy is too easy an endeavor.

If keeping your own people satisfied isn’t enough, you must also manage your relationship with the US, USSR, EU, China, and the Middle East. Good relations mean getting favorable trade prices. Let your relationship suffer and they may embargo you. Superpowers (USA and USSR) may also decide to invade your island if your relationship hits rock bottom. Build a nuclear program or an alliance with the other superpower to protect your rule from this outcome. Like factions, these foreign powers may provide tasks to be completed to gain their support.

The User Interface
The UI usually does a good job at providing relevant information, but could be improved in several areas. In most cases, the player would like to focus his production on the most profitable exports, so it would be nice to be able to sort exports in the ledger by price. Optimal farm placement is unclear because the UI doesn’t indicate how far farm workers will go to plant crops, or where the initial crops will be planted. Sometimes it is desirable to limit the number of positions available at a work location, and Tropico lets the player do this. Unfortunately there is no easy way to find these buildings again later when you wish to open up the positions again. The employment overlay displays these buildings as filled, as long as all of the available positions have employees. None of these are insurmountable, but are definitely aspects that could be improved.

For Your Competitive Side
You can compare your score with other players on the online leader board. The problem is that in the campaign, points are granted based on the population of your country and the size of your budget. There is no incentive to meet the objectives in a timely manner. To optimize his score, a player is motivated to make the scenario drag out so the island can be completely developed, increasing his score. This would be ok for the sandbox mode, but in the campaign meeting the objectives in a timely manner should be rewarded. 


Graphics and Sound
Tropico 4 looks quite nice, with lush colors and lots of little details. People move about from place to place with a variety of appearances. Crops grow in the fields, cars congest busy roads. The impressive visuals don’t bog down performance either. While my machine isn’t bad, it’s not top of the line anymore either. Tropico 4 ran flawlessly.

As expected the music is of the appropriate flavor. Even though I rarely turn off a game’s music I do tend to tune it out after a while. My guess is that those sensitive to repetitive music will eventually turn the music off. For the most part the attempts at humor are rather juvenile. The radio announcer can be turned off. Occasionally the radio will say something relevant to the situation and is welcome, but I can do without the jokes after hearing them once (sometimes once is too many).

Technical Performance
The game performed flawlessly without any crashes or hiccups.
My Specs: Windows 7 64-bit. Intel Core i7 860 @ 2.80 GHz. 8 Gig RAM. ATI Radeon HD 5850.

In The End...
If you’ve read this far, you can see there are a lot choices available in Tropico 4. Between the plethora of building choices, upgrades, and modes, there is wide variety in how you can rule your island paradise. There are plenty of details regarding the citizen’s behavior too. The user interface provides the relevant data for the most part, so I was never frustrated. Available and accepted tasks/objectives are clearly presented so the user isn’t guessing what to do. Occasionally when between objectives I did wonder if I missed something, but eventually a new objective would become available.

Due to the ease of the campaign, I never felt I had to optimize my play. This is a big drawback for me, as in most games I tend to enjoy the focused challenges of scenarios and campaigns much more then setting my own goals in a more open/sandbox mode. I didn’t feel I needed to be very careful in my choices because I could still remain profitable while only being moderately careful. I wish the penalties were a little more severe for making poor decisions. The online scoring system could have mitigated the lack of challenge somewhat, but since the player’s score isn’t based on their ability to meet the objectives, it was of limited value to me. I never come close to losing an election or being overrun by rebels. Unless you’re into role-playing your leader, the ruthless choices never need to be made.

Tropico is a well-done game, but in the end it comes down to fun. Since I tired of the game play half way through the campaign, it’s not going to get a great score. Perhaps some of the problem is the repetitive nature of city-builders. Fans of the more open sandbox mode or user-made challenges will find more enjoyment then I did.

Score: C (average )

Crusader Kings 2: A Simple UI Mod To Hide A Character Stat / Rating

Even though I haven't found Crusader Kings 2 (CK2) to be an enjoyable strategy game, I still find visiting the forums interesting in order to read what others are saying about it. One player, in the name of immersion, suggested that an option to hide the character ratings should exist. From what I read, most players disagreed (myself included), but found the request an interesting exercise.

The user interface files reside in the folder: .\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings II Demo\interface. Each window has its own set of files. By some trial and error I determined that the games uses the "character_selection.gui" file when the player selects a character to appoint to their council. My guess is that it is also used for other character selection screens too. The lower half of the screen is a list that displays the characters available, along with their stats  You can hide a field by setting its position to off screen (see position):

instantTextBoxType = {
name = "character_diplomacy"
position = { x = 9999 y = 7 } <-------------- I changed the value to 9999 so it isn't rendered on the screen. Now the diplomacy rating isn't displayed on the screen where you appoint council members.
textureFile = ""
font = "vic_18_black"
borderSize = {x = 0 y = 0}
text = "0"
maxWidth = 30
maxHeight = 20
format = centre
Orientation = "UPPER_LEFT"
}

If a player would find the game more enjoyable with the character stats hidden, they could simply mod the UI files, moving the stat fields off screen. This would have to be done in each file that displayed character stats, but a motivated player should be able to mod the fields out without too much effort. Note: I only tried this method for the diplomacy stat in the one file, so I can't guarantee it would work everywhere. I can't see a reason why this method wouldn't work. If someone bothers to try this, please share your experiences here. It would be interesting to know the results and how it effected your enjoyment of CK2.

Limbo: Review

Version Reviewed: ??? Last update 8/10/2011
What I like: Interesting puzzles that ramp up in difficulty, great atmosphere in early game.
Not So Much: Very short (about 5 hours).
Other stuff you may like: 13 achievements
The Verdict: B+ ( Very good )

About my reviews

Official site: Limbo

Introduction
My disasterous attempt at becoming an operational wargame mastermind went down in flames, so I decided to search my virtual pile of holiday Steam purchases for something different - something that  wouldn't take a month to play through, because I want to get back on the wargaming saddle (I may have lost the battle but I'm not ready to concede the war). Besides, I thought it was about time that I played a game that isn't from Matrix or Slitherine!

I chose the well-received puzzle-platformer Limbo. Some online discussions have compared this game to another indie puzzler, Braid. Both make use of creative puzzles and have a unique atmosphere, but Limbo wins this battle hands-down in my book. While Braid's puzzles were more challenging, the atmosphere of Limbo was much more powerful, tapping into emotions untouched by most games.

Getting Started
There isn't a manual or tutorial for Limbo because there are only two actions in the game; the arrow keys for moving and jumping, along with the control key to perform an action. The only way to know this is to navigate to the OptionsàControls menu. Where I learned that an X-Box controller will also work. It would have been nice for the opening scene of the game to introduce the controls to the player, but perhaps this would have broken the immersion into the dark, bleak world that is Limbo.

Note: If you edit the settings.txt file it appears like you can change the key bindings, along with some other options. I haven't tried this, so attempt at your own risk and backup the original.

Game Play
A game review shouldn't reveal too much about the story or other aspects of the game that are more fun to discover on your own. While I do present some limited information about the setting, my goal is to remain vague enough so each player can discover the world for him or herself. I'd like to know if I've spoiled anything for you, so I can right the balance.

The opening scene consists of our protagonist waking in the middle of a forest, his bright eyes the only sign of life. Was the Boy sleeping or hurt? We will never know because there isn't any dialog or story per say. I'm usually not a fan of artsy presentations that leave the story to the user (or watcher in the case of a movie), but it really works here. Limbo immediately invoked a feeling of desolation. The scene wouldn't have been as powerful if the Boy started the game in a conscious state. The Boy; the trees; the wind. Alone.

Alone

Gameplay consists of navigating the world of Limbo; running, climbing, and moving objects. Objects that can be manipulated are usually obvious, with no need to pixel hunt. The puzzles start off quite simply, and ramp up slowly. Sometimes I think a bit too slowly as I completed about 15 of the 40 chapters without much of a struggle. I'm not going to reveal the types of puzzles here because I think they are better discovered. On the occasion you do meet your doom, I've found that play typically resumes fairly close to the point of failure. You can explore without being paranoid that you will have to replay the last 30 minutes again (and again). Once in a while it helps to have moderately quick reflexes, but needn't have a strong twitch muscle to enjoy the game.

Difficulty
The internet is both a blessing and a curse. When I was in high school, it would sometimes take days to solve a particularly troublesome puzzle in King's Quest. My friend and I would deliberate in social studies about how to get past some of the obstacles. Sometimes it would be quite frustrating to make such halting progress, but there was a huge sense of elation when the problem was solved. I have to admit there were two places I mined the rich deposit of gaming knowledge the internet provides to continue my journey through Limbo. The first time I kicked myself because I should have seen the solution. The second time I'm not sure I would have solved it within a reasonable amount of time. That being said, none of the puzzles were unfair. Resist the urge for immediate answers as long as you can.


Graphics and Sound
Limbo is a bleak, gritty world. The graphics are grayscale, but that only adds to the immersive quality. Is the film-grain effect used to make the player feel watched? I felt like there was a presence observing my trials, but unwilling to offer a hand. Little touches, such as the dust and dirt the Boy kicks up as he runs buffs the visual presentation to a pleasant sheen. Audio is used sparingly, thus adding to the sense of desolation. The selective use of audio always enhances the gameplay and never distracts from it. The later environments didn't invoke the same sense of creepiness as the opening chapters and just didn't seem as inspired, but overall I have no complaints.

Perhaps it is the parent in me, but I imagine the protagonist being my son. I want to help him move forward, hoping that he'll make it out of this miserable world. While my son sleeps peacefully upstairs, I pause to listen to his breathing for a little comfort before urging the Boy to continue. Despite my unease, the Boy's courage never falters, but I feel he is being brave only out of necessity. Kudos to Playdead for creating this immersive environment that has so easily pulled me in.

The game can be quite gruesome, but never seemed gratuitous to me. I found the rag-doll quality of the Boy's lifeless body very disturbing, but in a way that drew me into the game. The violence underscored how unfriendly Limbo is. A fascinating, unfriendly place.

Technical Performance
The game performed flawlessly without any crashes or hiccups. After death, play resumes quickly.
My Specs: Windows 7 64-bit. Intel Core i7 860 @ 2.80 GHz. 8 Gig RAM. ATI Radeon HD 5850.

In The End...
Simple gameplay, moderately challenging puzzles, and a creepy, desolate environment are the main elements of Limbo. Without the artistic direction, Limbo would be a good puzzle-platformer, but the presentation elevates the game to a unique experience I can whole-heartedly recommend. The persistent gamer can finish this bite-sized morsel of gaming goodness in one helping. When compared to other games, Limbo may not be the best value unless you get it on sale, but compared to other entertainment, such as movies, it holds up well. If all of the chapters drew me in as much as the early game the score would be higher, but as it stands it is still very good.

Score: B+ (Very good)