I'm on the last mission, and it seems to be nearly unbeatable. Any tips? This is the one where every enemy company is controlled by an evil Kohan, some of them quite powerful. They seem overwhelming. There's also that solo evil Kohan that looks a bit like a dragon/insect. That thing alone can take out a third of my forces.

The more I play this game, the more impressed I am with it. At first I was just building companies without any thought. Now I'm specializing them. The calvary are great for flanking attacks, for example. I hadn't really given that much thought before.

Ensemble should look at this game if they're going to do an AOE3. A lot of the concepts in Kohan would translate well and be a natural.

Okay, I just ran through it again for you.. I had trouble with this one too.

I noticed that the enemy likes to attack from the left side. Here's what I did that worked. Starting from the second you begin the level...

1) Immediately upgrade to mage's college at all cities to address the economy issue with -20 mana. I would also build a few iron exports since they generate so much gold, and you'll never use all the iron that you have. Magic is more of a problem if you're building stuff.

2) Immediately build a company of engineers, use a kohan champion since you have a few extra, and move the new company to the left. Leave your existing troops alone for now, they don't need to be moved yet.

3) Move existing engineer company to left and build 4-5 outposts in a diagonal line directly in front of leftmost city. Use new engineer company to help build. Hurry! Notice you have tons and tons of stone available.. it might be worthwhile to build a wall and/or garrison at the leftmost city as soon as you start, but whatever you do, pump out as many outposts as you can, and put them as close together as you can.

4) Once you have a number of outposts built, move all troops immediately behind the row of outposts, particularly the elite archers and elite heavies. Don't get in the way of the building process though!

5) Now, let the enemy come to you.

The enemy always attacks en masse, but in several distinct waves. The trick is to defeat most of the enemy heroes without getting all your troops killed in the process. I found that the 4-5 outposts really helped me do this. Take 'em one by one if you can, as they come to you.

Now, let your forces recuperate (or rebuild) then head north, and take the 3 magic mines. Build an outpost here. There are cities slightly north and east of here that you can take. At this point it's the usual "steamroll through cities with your superior army" formula you should have grown to know and love by now.

As with all Kohan battles, once you've crushed his main army, the enemy is pretty much helpless, because you will always have a superior force. The AI does rebuild his heroes but he can only muster 1-2 companies at once.

The only reason this mission is tough is because the odds are stacked against you. I heard it's almost impossible on HARD difficulty though. My comments only apply to medium..

wumpus

Yep, just did it again, this formula works. Having 4-5 outposts in a diagonal line is amazingly effective.

I recommend making your second base by capturing the magic mines and a nearby city. It's really easy from there!

Dooohhh. Forgot to add something-- after you build the outposts and get your forces positioned, send some token force over to attack the dark rift on the left. That appears to trigger the attack. Otherwise you end up waiting quite a while.

Ok, sounds good. They descend on me like locusts when the attack is triggered, so maybe doing it from the left will work.

Finished it. It was just a matter of surviving that initial attack. I really liked the last mission. All the heroes and the evil villains got to mix it up. It had an epic feel about it.

Now I'll have to set it aside for a bit, but I hope to get back to some multiplayer games. Great game. Probably my favorite strategy game of the year so far.

---

Quote:

Ensemble should look at this game if they're going to do an AOE3. A lot of the concepts in Kohan would translate well and be a natural.

---

No not really there not calling it a direct sequel so perhaps we will see another AOE. Oh and on unrelated rts news everyone hear Emperor battle for dune actually went gold last month and should be in stores in a week or two... Anybody care? blah.

I have to review the Dune game, so I care. I hope it's interesting.

I'm sure there will be an AOE3. AOM isn't really a sequel.

CGW had a little blip about Microsoft saying there would be a true AOE3 so Mythology is presumably its own....mythology. Or it's to AOE what Starcraft was to Warcraft/II

OK, I see your point about Age of Mythology != Age Of Empires 3.

I think there will be a lot of gamers, especially casual gamers who ate up the Age series, that will equate them though. It will definitely cause some measure of confusion if they wish to keep the brands separate in the minds of their audience.

Age of Mythology is expanding on the same gameplay ideas in the Age of Empires series. So it most certainly is tied into the originals. It just has a setting that will allow for more fantastical powers, "spells", etc. I don't think anyone who enjoys the "Age" games will be disappointed or mistaken about what this game is.

--Dave

We're just keeping anonymous people accountable. ;-)

Mythology seems very different in terms of how it uses the Mythological characters, and I'm looking forward to that. I assume a real sequel that continues with AOE's races will come out at some point, but I'm curious if they'll take it to 3-D or not.

Man, Kohan may have spoiled me for RTS games. I played a bit of another one last night and it just seemed so primitive, what with all the individual units clustering around a target and taking damage until they're dead. I love the company concept, I love the use of morale, and I love the concepts of the various zones in Kohan.

I like it that your companies are re-supplied with troop automatically if you're in a supply zone. That's pretty cool. You don't have to pay for the same army again and again. It makes surviving a battle a little more rewarding.

Still, it's not the end-all RTS for me. It's cool, it's fun, I like it and all, but it's certainly not the final word in RTSs. For me.

"I like it that your companies are re-supplied with troop automatically if you're in a supply zone. That's pretty cool. You don't have to pay for the same army again and again. It makes surviving a battle a little more rewarding."

Yeah, I was in love with the game too until I played enough to realize that the design, as nice as it is, is fundamentally flawed-- rushing still works, exactly like circa-1996 Warcraft II.

It's all about massing a huge army, then attacking town by town. In some ways it's worse than WC2 in the way this is encouraged.

Specifically, two things I think they got very wrong.

1) There really is no rock-paper-scissors in Kohan. Sure, it LOOKS like there is, but it's not significant enough to balance the game. It needs to be much more pronounced, eg, anti-undead units need to be far more effective than they are.

2) The supply paradigm. When the enemy captures your city, it is IMMEDIATELY handed over to the enemy and acts as a supply zone. This is fatal, because it leads to the domino effect of one army massing larger and larger. You can't whittle an invading army down with ragtag bands of rebels, you need an equal or greater force.

I think I agree. Let me insert this disclaimer here: I have only played the demo, but am looking to pick up the full version in the near future. But, after playing through the demo several times, I agree that it doesn't differ much from Warcraft 2. Unlike most of you, I don't think this is a terrible thing, as War2 is still on my all-time favorites list, near the very top. (Top five, probably, maybe top 3.) And I don't think Kohan will ever top it in my book, but it has some neat concepts.

"It's all about massing a huge army, then attacking town by town. In some ways it's worse than WC2 in the way this is encouraged."

This is typical of just about any wargame where you can accrue a larger and larger army. I agree that Kohan plays like this also, but I think it does so to a lesser extent than most RTS games.

"1) There really is no rock-paper-scissors in Kohan. Sure, it LOOKS like there is, but it's not significant enough to balance the game. It needs to be much more pronounced, eg, anti-undead units need to be far more effective than they are."

You don't need rock-paper-scissors to make a game interesting. Kohan does have this to some extent, but it's not the focus of the game.

"2) The supply paradigm. When the enemy captures your city, it is IMMEDIATELY handed over to the enemy and acts as a supply zone. This is fatal, because it leads to the domino effect of one army massing larger and larger. You can't whittle an invading army down with ragtag bands of rebels, you need an equal or greater force."

Er, I don't know about that. If you watch what's happening, you can sell all your buildings in a city. Also, players tend to leave their cities unguarded. In multiplayer games I've seen teams essentially switch map positions as they take cities from one another.

I'd like to see more built-in governors that hold down unit creation so that the multiplayer game doesn't focus so much on building city after city, but the game still seems like less of a production than any other RTS game I've played.

"but the game still seems like less of a production than any other RTS game I've played."

I meant to write "less of a production race"

"I agree that Kohan plays like this also, but I think it does so to a lesser extent than most RTS games."

Given that every multiplayer game I've played was about numerical superiority, I don't agree. And even the last battle which was the focus of the thread, was a case study in how this works. The computer simply has no hope once his big army is whittled down, and yours is still as large as ever.

"You don't need rock-paper-scissors to make a game interesting. Kohan does have this to some extent, but it's not the focus of the game."

I strongly disagree-- I think this is one of the *most* important things to have in a game. Look at The Ancient Art of War. Units should have strengths and weaknesses that can be exploited, and Kohan basically doesn't have this _at all_. It's a slugfest, pure and simple.

This is a major problem. I can't think of any ther way to redress the "winning by numbers" factor, other than strong exploitable weaknesses-- eg, airplanes vs. flak cannons, or ships vs. submarines. Without that, it's a tedious economic game of who can produce the most first.

"Er, I don't know about that. If you watch what's happening, you can sell all your buildings in a city. Also, players tend to leave their cities unguarded. In multiplayer games I've seen teams essentially switch map positions as they take cities from one another."

If you guard a city, that's one less company to use in your massive attack force. The player with the larger attack force will simply overrun your city *and* destroy your smaller defending army.

And once the city changes hands, your destroyed guarding unit is gone forever, whereas the attacker's forces just sustain some damage and heal up at their new city. Again, the problem of the weak growing weaker while the strong grow exponentially stronger. This is a major design flaw in the game, IMO, along with the lack of exploitable weaknesses.

Now, if you can find an opponent foolish enough to attack an _equal_ force which is defensively entrenched, that works in your favor. But it's uncommon to have equal forces, and it's uncommon for one party to leave such a large force in one place long enough for them to entrench. Usually it's just a token force defending which is easily overrun with minimal losses.

The cities need to be destroyed, not captured. That would do wonders for balance.

Ah, the old 'positive feedback loop' problem. Not to pick on Kohan in particular, but RTS games haven't really varied from the old Dune 2 formula. There are a couple of exceptions (TA, B&W(!), Myth) but the build/amass/overrun strategy is still pretty much the status quo. Kind of ironic that the current batch of RTS games are more about efficiency and less about strategy.

- Alan

Maybe nobody's fixing it because they don't realize that it's broke...You know how the saying goes.

Not saying that it is or isn't, but it obviously works for a lot of people. I'm probably one of them. I certainly wouldn't mind a change, but I don't mind the existing formula, either.

TA is just as much a build and overwhelm game as any of them. It's just that the diehard players all know the building tricks and keep pace with one another fairly well.

Myth, of course, isn't, and probably should be Wumpus's favorite RTS game as a result.

Any game with resource managagement that lets you build your armies is going to boil down to the bigger army carrying the the day. I just think Kohan has some built-in features that slows this down a bit. I don't know if there's any way to design these kinds of games where the bigger army doesn't have a huge advantage.

"This is a major problem. I can't think of any ther way to redress the "winning by numbers" factor, other than strong exploitable weaknesses-- eg, airplanes vs. flak cannons, or ships vs. submarines. Without that, it's a tedious economic game of who can produce the most first."

It's still winning by numbers, though. You might have the right units in place but they'll still be overwhelmed if you're outbuilt significantly. TA tends to be all about production too.

Kohan at least comes with built-in defenses, and if a player sends his entire army on the attack, he's leaving his own cities in a precarious position. I've played team games where teams end up swapping cities.

And there is some rock-scissors-paper going on. It's just not a drastic effect. Positioning of troops is also important. You can really wreak havoc if you can hit an enemy from behind while it's engaged. I had an archery company that hit from behind a couple of enemy companies with spellcasters in the rear and my archers took down the casters very quickly. I know I saved the friendly companies that were being toasted by fireballs.

If you don't like RTS games that hinge on production, you need to play games like Myth and Ground Control.

Well, I'll go back to Warcraft 2 to pull some examples...

Blizzard, if properly used, could work over a pretty good-sized army. For that matter, the mages had several spells that could (potentially) turn the tide of a battle.

Bloodlust was really (way too) powerful, so that nine bloodlusted ogre-mages could easily work through fifteen paladins, unless there was some fancy mage work (slow) and good healing going on.

Also, air units attacked pretty slowly, to counter their obvious advantage.

I realize that Warcraft 2 is not the perfect game in terms of the discussion here (though it's still my favorite RTS), but I think it still got some things right that more recent games have missed. But, I'm admittedly biased.

Still, I'm hoping for wonderful things from Warcraft 3.

Ground Control and Myth are both great examples of RTSs sans resource management. Neither has an upper level AI, however, which hurts them as single player games. All they have are a tactical unit AI with an activation radius. And when the computer doesn't have the ability to maneuver its units like a human player and respond to changing conditions... Well, I'd almost rather play a conventional resource oriented RTS.

You could also argue that Shogun and Gettysburg are similar examples of resource-less RTSs.

But as for breaking the basic pattern set by Warcraft/Dune, Kohan does a lot more than most other RTSs to change the way you play, particularly in terms of unit management. It's silly for someone to complain that a player being rushed by superior numbers is at a disadvantage. Duh.

Other RTS that change the pattern substantially are Sacrifice (which really is a fast-paced RTS more than a shooter) and Homeworld (which is a great sci-fi counterpart to naval battle sims). They both play at a different level of control, the former more intimate, the latter more epic.

Beyond those, the Dune/Warcraft model is alive and well and living in boxes that sell lots of copies.

-Tom

True, TA uses build/overrun, but I think it also does a good job of providing the player with strategic alternatives to the overrun. Of course, maybe I haven't played enough TA to know that in real life players just Flash/Storm rush each other (?).

Kohan makes me think of AoW, the turn-based Warlords games, or the HOMM games. I guess it's just the whole "mobility is key; defense is ineffective" paradigm. Anybody else have similar observations?

- Alan

"Kohan makes me think of AoW, the turn-based Warlords games, or the HOMM games. I guess it's just the whole "mobility is key; defense is ineffective" paradigm. Anybody else have similar observations?"

I think Kohan has pretty effective defenses, but you need to reinforce them with troops you build. Thing about Kohan is that the units are so slow that you cannot get them back to defend your cities if they are afield somewhere else.

What Kohan needs is a way of limiting the building of cities, which would in turn limit the number of companies you can create. Of course this would run the risk of turning the game into a slow-playing, often stalemated affair.

"You could also argue that Shogun and Gettysburg are similar examples of resource-less RTSs."

Sid Meier's Gettysburg is also a fantastic team multiplayer game. Shogun less so. I've found multiplayer Shogun tends to devolve to two armies, facing each other, on seperate mountains.

-Andrew

"Myth, of course, isn't, and probably should be Wumpus's favorite RTS game as a result."

I've said many many times that I think the only _safe_ course of action here is to remove building altogether. I did like Myth, and I liked Ground Control for the same reason. I'm definitely looking forward to Myth III, and I hope they tweak the formula a bit.

I'm not sure removing building altogether is my reege-style "final answer" though. There has to be a happy medium in there somewhere. Building is fun-- but the problem is that it ends up ruining the strategy of the game in the overwhelming majority of cases. It's just too easy to do.

As for a postfix on existing building RTS titles.. I have a strong hunch that limiting people to a low, arbitrary number-- say, five or ten-- of any particular type of unit would help immensely. And a total unit cap, while I'm at it. But even with that, you can get into a contest of who can replace destroyed units faster... which is pure production. Sigh.

"Bloodlust was really (way too) powerful, so that nine bloodlusted ogre-mages could easily work through fifteen paladins, unless there was some fancy mage work (slow) and good healing going on."

This is an understatement of thunderingly epic proportions. It wasn't just way too powerful, it completely ruined the game. And as you correctly point out, bloodlust is a much less labor intensive skill than healing, which renders the latter skill moot. I believe Blizzard rectified this with the terran healing unit introduced in the brood war pack-- that guy automatically heals everyone he's around, which is the way it should have been from day one. Blizzard generally makes very few mistakes, but this one was a real head-slapper. What the fuck were they thinking? But Blizzard still forces players to micromanage units way too much. The ultimate resource you end up managing is.. time. And that sucks. I am not convinced WC3 will be any different in this regard.

"But as for breaking the basic pattern set by Warcraft/Dune, Kohan does a lot more than most other RTSs to change the way you play, particularly in terms of unit management."

I'm not saying that Kohan isn't innovative or interesting in the way it does these things.

What I am saying is that IT SIMPLY DOESN'T MATTER. Multiplayer games against skilled players devolve into straightforward Warcraft2-esque building contests. And that means all the cleverness in the game's design is for naught. I would argue the design is inherently flawed if it can't offer a better, more strategic multiplayer experience than "who can build the biggest army first".

As I said earlier, it's like meeting this totally hot girl who turns out to be exactly like your psycho girlfriend you dumped years ago.

If they got rid of city capturing (this is a MAJOR problem) and made the units more rock-paper-scissors oriented, that would go a long way towards fixing the design issues with the game.

"It's silly for someone to complain that a player being rushed by superior numbers is at a disadvantage. Duh."

If you are rushing me with superior numbers of aircraft, it may not matter if I have a smaller number of flak cannons or flak units. This basic rock-paper-scissors dynamic is completely missing in Kohan. Sure, there are units which are quite a bit more _powerful_ than others, but none which negate each other. Biggest army wins, period, short of total incompetence on the part of the player(s).

"True, TA uses build/overrun, but I think it also does a good job of providing the player with strategic alternatives to the overrun. Of course, maybe I haven't played enough TA to know that in real life players just Flash/Storm rush each other (?)."

Well, you can do stuff like build long range artillery, planes/bombers, nukes, as well as tons of defensive emplacements. As mtkafka pointed out, Kohan lacks a lot of these strategic options. It's all about mustering a big-ass army, and the bigger the better.

wumpus

"Any game with resource managagement that lets you build your armies is going to boil down to the bigger army carrying the the day."

Not so. Specific examples-- you send a giant armada of battleships against my medium-sized fleet of submarines. You send a giant fleet of gunships against my medium-sized fleet of flak units.

Furthermore, beyond those basic rock-scissors-paper unit balances, TA offered dozens of defensive emplacements.

A well-defended base was a friggin' nightmare to lay siege to. You can build 2 types of dragon's teeth (walls), medium range cannons, medium range advanced energy weapons, ground/air missiles, and heavy/light laser emplacements. Not to mention taking advantage terrain effects, like building behind a hill, up a slope (range advantages), or in a natural valley.

Plus, destroyed unit wreckage blocked your path (depending on how forcefully the unit was blown up-- it is possible to vaporize units in TA).. once enough units died in the line of combat, the dead metal hulks actually blocked the units behind from progressing. That's just one of the many small, brilliant game design tweaks in TA.

In the _LONG RUN_, you're right. Short of total incompetence on the part of the players, the guy building the most units will generally win. Production redux.

But a numerically superior army should not always win. It just does in Kohan, because the game design allows that to happen.

wumpus

"Not so. Specific examples-- you send a giant armada of battleships against my medium-sized fleet of submarines. You send a giant fleet of gunships against my medium-sized fleet of flak units."

But I'm not going to do that, nor is any halfway decent player. TA is still going to be all about production. I'll just produce a mix of units.

"But a numerically superior army should not always win. It just does in Kohan, because the game design allows that to happen."

It depends on the numbers. You send two companies at my one company that's entrenched and backed by the militia that will appear, and I may win that battle. In this example, you've built two and I've built one and I still win.

You build three and attack my one backed by militia, and you probably win.

It also depends on how far up the unit tree we've climbed. Cavaliers vs. scouts and grenadiers vs. footmen is no match. Getting spellcasters into the mix makes a huge difference too.

Kohan multiplayer does tend to focus on production, but good tactics can negate a modest edge in numbers. It's just that the production ramp up never stops. Players keep adding cities. I wish that could curtailed a bit.

"But I'm not going to do that, nor is any halfway decent player. TA is still going to be all about production. I'll just produce a mix of units."

Mark, this happened all the time in TA. Players love nothing more than building dozens of the same type of unit, and throwing them at you en masse. It's the lazy man's strategy.

Unfortunately, this strategy (or lack thereof) works in Kohan, just like it worked in Warcraft II. Just send a ton of bloodlusted ogres.

People attacking with 5-6 of the same exact company happens to me all the time in Kohan. Hell, I do it myself. Build company after company of footmen and wizards. Why? Because it works!

The difference is, that _doesn't_ always work in TA because every unit has specific weaknesses that can be exploited. You had to build combined forces if your opponent was smart. And you can't explore all the build tree at once-- if you take the risk of specializing, you can sometimes reap the benefits in TA.

"It depends on the numbers. You send two companies at my one company that's entrenched and backed by the militia that will appear, and I may win that battle. In this example, you've built two and I've built one and I still win.

Nobody attacks with a small force in Kohan. The city militia model artifically escalates the terms of any conflict.. small guerilla attacks are useless, so everyone is defaulted into this "build a giant army" mindset. It's the only way to get things done in Kohan! A small force isn't worth a damn in this game, as they can't cause any real damage or capture a city. Thus, the push to produce bigger and bigger single armies. And the city capture-and-supply design makes it a problem of epic and nightmarish proportions.

"You build three and attack my one backed by militia, and you probably win."

It shouldn't be this way, though. The composition of the forces should have a strong effect on the outcome (eg, airplanes vs. flak cannons). But it really doesn't. Also, the per-company-only model of engagement limits the strategies we can use, IMO.

"It also depends on how far up the unit tree we've climbed. Cavaliers vs. scouts and grenadiers vs. footmen is no match. Getting spellcasters into the mix makes a huge difference too."

This is really a side effect of production. And the only difference is the toughness of the units and how much damage they deal out. That's like having a light, medium, and heavy tank to choose from. They're all tanks..

"Kohan multiplayer does tend to focus on production, but good tactics can negate a modest edge in numbers. It's just that the production ramp up never stops. Players keep adding cities. I wish that could curtailed a bit."

Tactics in Kohan can negate only a VERY VERY modest edge in numbers. So little that it's almost not there at all. In this sense, the game is very disappointing.

But I admit the game looks great on paper, and SEEMS strategic in single player. It's when you start playing real human AI that things regress to the 1996-era levels.

wumpus

Years pass ... wars are fought ... warp travel is discovered ... the year is 2088.

Still, wumpus fights the good fight:

"Sure, Mark Asher Jr., you may THINK Starcraft XXXII is strategic, but where's the rock? Where's the paper? Where's the scissors? I haven't seen a less strategic game since Kohan back when I could urinate normally."

---

Quote:

I am not convinced WC3 will be any
different in this regard.

---

Just a note: Rush tactics and production queues work in real life. There's a story about an captured Italian anti-tank gunner in WWII that said: "I was in a great position to shoot the American tanks. Every time one came through the pass, I would shoot it. What happened? One day I ran out of bullets, but the Americans didn't run out of tanks."

People, please!
Wumpus is clearly saying, over and over again with every single EPIC post, that the Y-Wing is the superior craft!

-Andrew

Actually, it sounds to me like he's saying he hasn't played anyone in Kohan that bothers to think about what they're doing. If he did, he wouldn't be complaining about all the things above.

Mark made a great point and you just ignored it wumpus. One strategy that negates your whole theory on city capture is to SELL ALL THE FACILITIES when you're going to lose it. I've done just that more times than I care to count. Even better... if someone does this to you, destroy the city rather than rebuild it and put the focus of the fight somewhere else!

Kohan has a ton of strategy. I think your anonymous online competition prevents you from seeing it.

--Dave

Actually no that doesnt change matters at all. You still have one more city and they have one less you collect money from a city just being there. And you lose money for buildings sold. It helps of course but its still a big set back. Also I would suggest a rather obvious and fun twofold solution. Why dont you guys meet up on gamespy play half a dozen games and see just how they turn out? Oh and also and possibly more conclusive Go to Mrfixit.com go to the kohan homepage that can be found on that and dowload some of the recorded games they have. They only tend to list the best and theres a good half a dozen or more at any given time.

"Mark made a great point and you just ignored it wumpus. One strategy that negates your whole theory on city capture is to SELL ALL THE FACILITIES when you're going to lose it. I've done just that more times than I care to count."

Yeah, I've done that too. It really doesn't make any difference. The enemy still gets a city with all its production, support, and economy bonuses, and uses it as a staging area for their attack on your next city. The enemy gains and you lose. The weak become weaker, the strong become stronger.

I do wish cities were just destroyed instead of captured.

"Even better... if someone does this to you, destroy the city rather than rebuild it and put the focus of the fight somewhere else!"

You cannot raze cities that are under siege (eg, combat occurs nearby). So you must be very quick to raze your city as soon as you see the looming army on the horizon. This isn't possible in most situations, and besides, who wants to go down without a fight?

"Kohan has a ton of strategy. I think your anonymous online competition prevents you from seeing it."

This is only true if the game is broken, and friends agree not to exploit the broken game design. In that case every game ever made has a "ton of strategy". If we agree to play WC2 without bloodlust, sure, it's better. But better still if the game was designed properly in the first place..

wumpus