Anyone playing this? I have it, seems cool, but I can't connect to GameSpy through the game to try multiplayer. Do I have to register with GSArcade to play??

Probably Miles but it's a small download and only a few minutes of registering. I was following battlerealms for a long time and I want to get it but untill they fix the awful control problems with units I don't think I'll buy it.

Doug,

The lack of unit formations and group mouse commands is certainly annoying, no doubt. But after you spend time with it, and learn the hotkeys, it's not so bad. I've learned to love the 'n' key which tells units, even in groups, to stand ground. Why there isn't a button that does this in groups is beyond me.

With the smallish unit cap things don't get too far out of hand. Still, control is my biggest gripe.

Another 'love or hate' "feature" is the lack of hard numbers on units. You have no idea what kind of damage a bandit does compared to a raider, for example. The manual is all flowery and says nothing. It's like 90 pages and 60 of it is clan/unit description, followed by a handful of tech pages, a few pages of prose for an intro, and you're left with a few pages detailing how to actually play the game.

It hints as to the strength of a unit but there's nothing that flat out says, "A spearman does X damage." Some people love this, others, well, don't.

I've played some of this, and I enjoy it. It is the kind of game I enjoy against the computer, but don't have any real desire to play online. I'm much more interested in playing EE online against others. I guess this is because EE seems to be more open to strategic and tactical tinkering by the player than does BR. In BR, you pretty much build'em and let them go. Pretty to watch and all, but that doesn't allow a lot of actual "play". EE on the other hand has a bulky economy you gotta juggle with your military, and the r/p/s format allows for attack-counter attack battles. I think EE seems more fun against other people, while I doubt you would know the difference (human or AI) sometimes in BR.

Some good points thanks guys. I'm more of a multiplayer fiend so unless BR has something to offer in the department I might be out.

- william I'm definitly one of the latter. It will probably take a month tops for someone to obtain and post all those details online. Might as well tell the players to begin with.

-Rob I bought EE about 5 days ago I'v been playing it day and night. It's a tremendous improvement over AOK in multiplayer (wouldn't know about singleplayer I played about an three hours worth of that for both) The biggest improvement over AOK and indeed pretty much every rts I'v played (including are beloved kohan.) Is the lack of build orders you really do have to adapt your stratagy as you go. It's much more of an offensive game witch I like.

Battle realms is so, so close to being a good game. It's such a shame, because there are some interesting innovations buried in there. Fantastic overall polish and presentation, too.

I concur with the comments made above-- Battle Realms' biggest problem is that it's ultimately just micromanagement hell all over again. In some ways it's actually WORSE, since it is extremely difficult in the later single player game to win the battles without exploiting ALL the special powers your heroes/units have. You can't just outproduce the enemy and expect to win in a 1-on-1 fight. Speaking of which -- Lotus Clan is just ridiculously powerful. Hello game imbalance!

I fear that Warcraft III will suffer from these exact same issues. In fact, I'd be willing to bet money that it does. Blizzard loves forcing players to micromanage. Sigh.

Oh yeah.

I had a HELL of a time getting units to stop attacking enemy buildings needlessly. There could be a bloody melee going on inches away from them-- with important support units like healers and archers getting killed-- but they simply can't be distracted from destroying that INCREDIBLY dangerous Peasant Hut (or barracks, or whatever).

Arrrgh! This nearly drove me insane. One mission in particular I ran across to an enemy encampent at the start and established my base there (this is actually a good strategy for almost all the SP levels-- you MUST keep lotus from expanding and powering up or else you are really screwed). What a PITA babysitting my combat units!

Yep, this attack the building syndrome was something I complained about during beta testing, as did many others. It was a very frustrating and easily remedied problem, and they didn't do anything about it, despite the fact that it was universally disliked by the beta testers: it was the number one complaint. It makes me wonder if developers do beta tests to get feedback, or simply use it as a marketing gimmick.

This brings up an interesting question. All RTS games are exercises in micromanagement to some degree. What are examples of games that get the balance right ? I'll throw up AOK as an example of good micromanagement.

On the other hand if you build in to much automation then that leaves the player with nothing to do. How much is enough ?

"On the other hand if you build in to much automation then that leaves the player with nothing to do. How much is enough ?"

Arrrgh!! This is exactly the wrong mindset and the reason that we suffer from the same exact problem as three years ago. STOP THE MADNESS!

The reason to build in better AI is so that the player can CHOOSE to micromanage if he/she desires to. That means I can go supervise a battle somewhere and actually trust my units on to not act like braindead zombies while I'm away. Thus, the hidden resource of time is maximized. Also please realize: no AI will ever be as smart as a human, strategically speaking.

Think of it like the whole "should we allow the player to save?" conundrum... Which isn't a conundrum at all. If you don't want to save, don't save... removing the save option FORCES everyone to play without saving.

Choice is good, people. Really.

So the friendly AI in Battle Realms just sits there if attacked ?

No, it doesn't. What happens is that let's say you have a group that is attacking a building, an enemy unit starts to attack one of your units, only the unit being attacked will react, the rest keep hammering away at the structure. This can be overturned by using the Forced Attack hot key. (In fact if you are not willing to learn the hot keys, you have no chance to play this game effectively.)

You shouldn't have to do this, I mean enemy units should override a hut or a well, but the option to attack is there. I like the game a bit more than most of those in this thread it seems, but I certainly agree with the negatives mentioned. Guess it just depends on what you can and cannot live with.

Is there anyway to set default actions for units if they are attacked ? From what you say I guess not.

Thanks for the insight guys, but can anyone help with the GS question?

You have to register to play, but it's free so there's no problem.