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piratefish

piratefish

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Aug 8, 2009
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I have yet to play a DH game even though I downloaded it on April 5.

I have had the opportunity to update to 1.01 and install the game, and have even gone as far as to explore the interface and set up builds, appoint new ministers, and execute a couple of "decisions", but have not taken the game past the first week or so of January 1936 as Germany.

One thing that is immediately evident is that DH is very different than AoD or HoI 2 (the two games with which I am most familiar/comfortable). It is obvious that I will not be able to just start playing by relying on what I know about AoD/HoI 2.

I am curious to know, specifically, what some of you are doing differently. One certainly cannot follow the same strategies as in previous games, and the new technology, manpower, trading, diplomacy, espionage, IC, and combat systems demand overhauls to one's approach to victory.

Most of all, I hate reading game manuals, I like diving right in, but also hate getting 3 to 4 years into the game only to learn that the fundamentals of my strategies are flawed and that I need to start over. Any quick tips/observations will be much appreciated.
 
Just an idea.
As you're familiar with Armageddon maybe you could play a quick game in Darkest Hour Light first. This way you won't have to deal with all new features at once (like the tech tree or the mobilization), but still will have access to many of the other as trade and spy automations, generic decisions, realistic map distances etc.
 
As a matter or principle, i refuse to ever ever play tutorials for ANY RTS game, since im a proud strategy gamer since like 98' (star craft/age 2 was it 98?).

If you want to learn about this game, the way to do it is not some boring tutorial wasting 45 minutes of your life on basics like "move your cursor the edge of your screen and camera will move around the world". What you need to do is play play play. Start in 36' or 14' (in either version), hit pause button (or click on time), check that game start warning and move your mouse around, get to know different options and menus. It is a very simple design, if it takes more than 20 minutes to familiarize yourself with these things, then idk (dont wanna use harsh words :) ).

You have nothing to lose other than time, and there is nothing wrong with playing a game where you havent realized 120% of your max production efficiency etc.

And remember, there are different speed levels (CTR+ +/- on numeric keyboard or click the buttons in game) and an option to pause game, then do everything at pace that suits you.
 
DanubianCossak said:
As a matter or principle, i refuse to ever ever play tutorials for ANY RTS game, since im a proud strategy gamer since like 98' (star craft/age 2 was it 98?).
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Ahh Starcraft Broodwar those where the good old days. Many an hour i've spent, fending of 6 player zergling rush and drinking beer.

Completely agree about tutorials. :)
However DH light is not a tutorial it's more an intermidiate game.
 
Gormadoc said:
Ahh Starcraft Broodwar those where the good old days. Many an hour i've spent, fending of 6 player zergling rush and drinking beer
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From WC3 all the way to present day all major main stream RTS games have been dumbed down so much, that i really wonder if anything after the Cossaks really deserves to be called "strategy" at all. With Paradox games being the only (afaik) bright exception to the general rule.

But yeah i agree those were the days (cept for wars and stuff over here).
 
IMO what makes RTS is the following: (obviously) Real Time + Strategy.

All those Paradox titles that you listed, are in most strict definition all of the above, R T and S.

Now, its debatable what Real Time is:

IMO having the ability to pause game, does not make it turn based. You can pretty much press escape and bring main menu in every other RTS game, with difference being that in most other games you cant issue orders during this stage, but there is nothing preventing you from pausing if you need time to think.

Turn based games (like my all time N01 game Civ3) are those games where you can issue orders in either real time, or during certain time periods (limited or unlimited), but your orders are not executed until your units get their turn to perform action.

By these definitions HoI2 cant be turn based time, as the closest it gets to turns are "ticks", amounts of time it takes to update certain segments of the game (technology progress, day-night change, production % etc), but ticks have no direct effect on the way game progress in most areas: such as moving all unit types around the map, combat etc.
 
SplitSide said:
DH is considered a RTS?

For me, you cannot pause and move units, or change speed in an RTS, maybe I am wrong :)

I tought games like HoI, EU and Vicky were Turn-based games. A turn being an hour in HoI :)
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If it truly were "real time", then wouldn't it take you about 6 actual, real-life years to play the game? Wouldn't one minute of game time be synonymous with one minute of "real world" time?

Turn based strategy is more like the Total War series. Being able to control the speed by which time passes does not in any way qualify the game as turn-based. When are you waiting for the enemy to plan his moves and execute his strategy, and when is he waiting on you to do likewise?
 
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