Appogee

This is indeed very welcome news. I was starting to worry that no further development was under way.

Yes, an update would be very nice. It's been about a month since the beta SDK was released.

This is fantastic! Thanks so much for improving the strategy game so much!

The real game is the strategy game. The campaign is more of a tutorial with lots of hardwired events. Reality is perverted at various points in order to let the campaign script keep running as intended. For example, at one point your Mantas will be mysteriously destroyed instantly if you try to undock them. The campaign demands that you use Walrii, and you must do it as it says.

They'd have to finish making the game before they could make the making of video, wouldn't they...?

Great ideas. I hope the devs read these forums.

So it would have got a higher score if it had multiplayer, but that is different to me saying it got a lower score because it didn't have multiplayer...? Either way, the absence of multiplayer led to a lower score than if it had multiplayer. Your analogy isn't actually analogous. If people who buy MP3 players generally want and expect their MP3 player to have video, then reviewers will mark down an MP3 player which doesn't have video. Which proves my point.---------- Post added at 23:42 ---------- Previous post was at 23:26 ---------- So a game that lacks a good plot, that lacks good graphics, lacks stability, lacks replayability, may still be a ''good'' game because it can only be judged on the merits of the very few things it does have...? Hardly. If a Space Invaders clone were released today, do you think it would have any chance of scoring a good review? Of course not. Reviewers will comment on the lack of graphics, the lack of sophisticated gameplay, the lack of variety and replayability, the lack of strategic options, and the lack of just about everything which is currently expected to be part of a ''good'' game today. The lack of multiplayer in CCGM, which most closely aligns with game genres like BF and COD and ARMA where multiplayer is standard, was noted by several reviewers and stated as a negative for the title. Not at all. It would depend on whether RPGs are generally expected to have multiplayer by people who like to buy RPGs and consider ES to be an RPG. I note that Skyrim, the world's current premier RPG, has no multiplayer. Even then, several reviewers mentioned it as a mild negative when reviewing it, knocking a few points of its otherwise stellar score. But here in the real world, reviewers mark games down all the time for things they don't have... from straight out game mechanics such as an absence of certain configuration options to the absence of multiplayer to an absence of compelling plot to an absence of replayability to an absence of variety to an absence of competent AI to an absence of any one of a dozen things which are currently considered to be a necessary part of a ''good'' game within a given genre.

I respectfully disagree. Reviewers see their job as telling people how ''good'' a game is. If most players want multiplayer - and the evidence in the these forums is that most people do - then a reviewer is justified in downscoring a game which doesn't offer multiplayer.

I really really REALLY hope you are right. But I remember them saying that multiplayer would depend on the commercial success of the release, which as we know, hasn't happened. It's chicken and egg, of course. Many reviewers said the lack of multiplayer was one of the reasons they rated the game poorly.

And if BI do that, I will buy two more copies for my sons.

Not a chance. But if you really want to wager I'll be happy to put down some cash.

Defense islands are much harder for the enemy carrier to capture, AND they strengthen the defences of any islands they are linked to. In practical terms, that means it takes the enemy carrier much longer to capture them, and a bit longer to capture any production or resource islands that they are linked to. So: you might put your stockpile on one, you might plant one in the middle of the enemy's supply chain to deny him supplies, or you might build a row of them between you and the enemy's islands, so he has to waste a lot more time getting to your production and supply islands before he can attack them.

I just sever his supply line and starve him of resources, then it's merely a matter of time til I either take all the islands, or defeat him in a carrier battle. The enemy carrier AI needs a lot of work. I have to wound him and then let him live in order to make the game long enough to be enjoyable.

It's possible to complete Thermpolae in the first Walrus you're assigned. I've done it. But I had to save/die/reload quite a few times before I managed to get through.

I forgot about those, but yeah, they would be a nice addition. Also: Change Hammerheads so they have to be targeted to a specific point - but it can be anywhere on the map. Enable an (optional) tech tree, so you can start with basic equipment, but need to capture equipment upgrade plans from resource centres. Let you replenish your vehicles with those on captured islands.

The campaign must have sucked up a huge amount of development time, with its voice acting and cutscenes. Imagine if that development time had instead been invested in fixing the basic game mechanics, adding the missing tech tree, etc...

Heh, me too.

There are many walled complexes on most islands. But the place where the Command Center needs to be built will be shown on the map as a white down arrow above a line (presumably meaning ''plonk Command Centre here''). When you drive your capsule-equpped Walrus there, you will see the rubble of a building on the site where you need to build. Move the Walrus within a short distance of that ruined building and your cursor will change to a ''deploy'' cursor. Hit the ''use'' button and the capsule will launch, and you will see the shimmering outline of the Command Centre which is now under construction.

I respectfully disagree. Regardless of how much I enjoyed the simpler gameplay of the original CC in eighties, in the year 2013, there is simply no excuse for a developer to release a game which has AI and pathfinding so unfinished as is the case of CC:GM. Worse, because the game was released with these fatal flaws, it sank with the critics, and has been left dead in the water without much of a gaming community to sustain it. I only hope BI do the right thing and further develop the game now that it's released, to make good with their customers. They won't be unable to undo the damage of the botched launch, but if they do fix it and build out the unfinished features around the tech tree etc, then I for one will do my best to promote the game to other gamers and sell more copies for them.

I'm just waiting for the new patch before I play it some more, having comprehensively captured all the islands and defeated the enemy carrier on hardest difficulty setting, in the current version.

Heh. I knew it was faster, but didn't know it was that much faster!

I agree a respawning enemy carrier would be a good idea. Easy to implement, too. In the original CC, the enemy could outrun you, so I think the devs were being faithful to that in CC:GM.

As Species said, the campaign is all skewy because it's basically getting you to play out a scripted story, and needs to keep the enemy carrier alive so it can play out its scripted role at the end. If you want a ''fair'' game, play the strategy game. In that, the enemy carrier is actually too easy to beat. I have to keep him alive just so I can enjoy a long game of capturing islands.

On the Map screen, go into Carrier Defense mode (0 key). You will see two buttons ''Launch Drones'' (for defence drones) and ''Scout Drone'' above the row of Walruses and Mantas. If you use the deck gun view you will see the defence drones undock and start circling your carrier. The scout drone can only be manovered from the map screen. You can't fly it yourself. You can't redock it, either.

Don't blame the beta testers. We called out long, loud and often through the 3 months of the Beta program that the pathfinding was badly broken, and warned that it was going to kill the game if it was left unfixed. That BI went ahead and released it anyway is even more disappointing to us than to you. It resulted in poor reviews, and I suspect, many players who tried the game and then just walked away never to return. The 1.03 patch on PC made pathfinding better, but it's still not fixed. Optimists hope that BI is still working on another patch. Pessimists note that they have been uncommmunicative since patch 1.03 was released in the two weeks prior to Christmas, and worry that perhaps BI have decided the game's reputation is unsalvageable and that any further development is pointless.I guess we'll find out during January.