Strategy Gaming Online - Features: Gen Con 1999 Report

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FEATURES

Gen Con 1999:

Would you like to play?

By Steve Lieb

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Finally, my sleeper hit of the convention: Disciples - Sacred Lands. I was wandering aimlessly, caught in that "convention haze" when one is stumbling around trying to spend the last dollars they have in the last "bargain hours" of any tradeshow, when I stumbled upon the Strategy First company booth. Tucked off on the side of the show, I hadn't spotted them before. I saw that they were the producers of Man of War II. I'm a big fan of Age of Sail games and have been for a long time, so I thought I'd stop by and try to get a review copy. Little did I have any inkling about what I was going to find.

One of their booth fellows happily sat me down and was about to demo an adventure game for me. Gulping, I quickly pointed out that I was from STRATEGY GAMING Online, and wasn't 'into' adventure games (I had already had an ugly "bait-&-switch demo" incident of the same kind at the Sierra booth with Gabriel Knight 3 from which I barely escaped intact). Crestfallen, he looked around for something to salvage the situation. Seeing Pro Sotos, the producer of their upcoming strategy title Disciples, sitting right there, he said "Why don't you check out Disciples?"

I sat there, initially politely listening, but after a little while I started to pay closer attention. This was a pretty good game! Basically, DSL is a Warlords clone - 4x game, turn based, fantasy environment. Cities and terrain are set up by scenario and the goal is to conquer everything. Cities build forces, which are then moved around on the strategic map. Fog of war is simulated by the map starting blacked out, and becoming clear as units move. Straightforward, right?

Well it is straightforward. Nobody who has played Warlords 1, 2 or either of the 3's is going to have any trouble picking this game up - it's a classic strategy engine. So - you say skeptically - what's the big deal? The big deal is in the execution. This is what Warlords 3 should have been. The units are beautifully rendered, and the screenshots make it hard to believe this is only a 256-color game. The settings are entrancing, the music perfect, the atmosphere entirely and completely consistent.

The cities are your sources of units and tech advances, much like MoM/Warcraft. With the resources you gain through the expansion of territory you build and advance units based on the technology acquired through structures. But again here, the implementation is what's so interesting - the 4 "sides" each have thoroughly different "feels" to them, as well as entirely different tech trees.

One real innovation is the expansion of territory. Your group's controlled area is represented by a unique texture to the ground (the Mountain guys have snow, the Evil guys have lava, etc.) which also changes the look of the structures on top of them. This control area expands automatically semi-randomly each turn, speed depending on how successful you are. You can direct the expansion with certain units that can plant control rods near desirable targets, and your land will expand trying to reach the control rod. This territory doesn't have to be homogeneous, but the impetus comes from your capital, so by and large players will try to go for nearby resources.

Movement is by party - a leader and only up to 5 others travel in groups when outside cities, obviating the "killer stack" issues common to Warlords-family games. The stacks just can't get that powerful so as to dominate the game. Combat is resolved semi-tactically, with individuals in the party being either in the front rank (meaning they take damage first, and can melee) or second (typically spell casters and archers) and rather quickly. Magic items are present in limited numbers, augmenting one or all of your party.

The game ships with a scenario editor, allowing map editing as well. No plans are currently in the works for an army/force editor, but Pro seemed to think that was a good idea, so who knows?

Basically, I was stunned. If you liked Warlords, you will definitely like this game. There's little here that's revolutionary, but that's ok when it's put together in a satisfactory whole. D-SL is straightforward and has a low learning curve, but a disproportionately high entertainment value. I'm eagerly awaiting my review copy.

And, after all that, I was so impressed - I forgot to even TALK to them about Man of War II! Pretty crummy journalism, if I say so myself.

Gen Con was a good convention. I hope more vendors realize the value of reaching out to the customers directly - since Gen Con's the natural venue, there is a very good likelihood this gaming event will continue to grow. I hope that more computer vendors specifically decide to take advantage of it.

See you at Gen Con 2000!