Real Warfare 2: Northern Crusades

[Fighting Farmer]

This game is currently on sale at Impulse (now Gamestop) for $17.49. Is it worth that price? It sounds very interesting and I like the time period but after the Christmas sales I'm so backlogged in games it would take me the remainder of the year to catch up. So I imagine I should wait unless I hear its just a fantastic game.

[Bismarck]

It's not bad.  Have you tried the other games with the engine,  like XIII Century or Reign - Conflict of Nations?

[Fighting Farmer]

No I have not. I did not try the others because they did not have a open ended campaign, similar to Total War, which I think this version is supposed to have.

[Martok]

I seem to recall this game is supposed to have some sort of unsavory DRM, which is one of the reasons why I've held off on getting it. 

[Grim.Reaper]

I bought it on release...it was one of those games I thought would have potential but haven't heard from the developers at all since then.  I paid full price so not completely satisfied with that, but half off or cheaper you might be able to get some good times out of it.

[Fighting Farmer]

I bought it on release...it was one of those games I thought would have potential but haven't heard from the developers at all since then.  I paid full price so not completely satisfied with that, but half off or cheaper you might be able to get some good times out of it.

I think I may pass. I already have one recent game that has "potential" (Sword of  the Stars II). I'd rather not add to that list.

Thanks for the help.

[Nefaro]

I seem to recall this game is supposed to have some sort of unsavory DRM, which is one of the reasons why I've held off on getting it.

It has online activation StarForce DRM.  As many Russian-made games do.  I'm beginning to think StarForce is required by the gov't there.  Unless you get the Steam version, which doesn't have any more DRM than Steam itself. 

It's not bad.  That's the price I got it for.  The battles are faster-paced and plays closer to King Arthur RPWG (minus the magic of course) in that archers can be quite ruinous on morale, and once you get stuck into a melee there's not much of a way to get out other than having a big speed bonus or other units engage and occupy the enemy unit - either way it takes awhile to get all your men out.   Speaking of men - the combat is modelled on the individual level more so than others (TW, KA) and the handy on-screen stats table keeps you clued in to all the effects (and their modifiers) the hot-moused unit has. 

The campaign is where things are still a bit primitive.  When you start off, there is a mission line you work through before the game opens up to your free-wheeling.  It's nice having some pre-made missions to ease you into things.  But the difficulty level spikes quite high as when your leader is low level, and thus can't command many troops nor the money to hire them, you can easily be crushed by the roaming enemy & bandit bands who well outnumber you.  So you've gotta be careful of getting away from bigger armies on the campaign map, yet go looking for easy targets at the same time,  for quite awhile in the early campaign.  The campaign layer seems to be missing content, compared to other games of the sort, because there's no building.  You can buy/sell goods, however, so running a decidedly odd Teutonic knight warband/caravan mix looks to be the best way to make money to pay for your hired muscle.  The campaign layer playes like Mount & Blade, so it runs in realtime and you move your single army around doing fun things like killing peasants.  Or killing bandits.  Or killing anyone who looks like they have some loot.  But you don't really run around talking to every little noble snot who needs something done, like M&B, that I've seen.  So there doesn't seem to be quite so many random missions to do. You can also capture towns & castles although I've not levelled up far enough to have a monster army to do so yet.  Diplomacy, too.

The drawbacks that I'd like to see addressed include currently only having one playable faction (Teutons), the game speed tends to be just a bit on the fast side regarding cavalry, the archers are a little too devastating to morale right now, and the early campaign difficulty ramps up rather quickly due to army limits (and notably one or two early missions where you are quite outnumbered).  Oh.. and the load times before and after each battle can be tiresome as they're certainly longer than others (you'll be fighting a lot, too!  :D ).  When ordering an attack on an enemy unit, your unit will stop upon reaching the enemy's location (if they've moved) so you have to regularly issue extra attack orders in some cases (such as against kiting archers).  I'd like to see actual friendly and enemy NPCs modelled in the future along with relations and such, like in M&B, since this is on a more personal level than running a kingdom.  Note:  There have been a few people complaining of CTDs lately, although I only ever had one and it was because I did some crazy clicking stuff when a load screen started.  I also had to hit Esc after starting the game because the intro vids would just show a black screen and not go anywhere, but that got me through it.  The game itself has been very stable for me.

However, there are a number of good things about it too.  The combat has a different feel to it, and the extra info is nice.   It has more going for it in the formation & morale areas and soldiers usually break before taking devastating losses so only the most elite units will fight until nearly wiped out.  Each individual solider is calculated in the fights.  You get to level your leader (lots of skills to choose) and all the units, which can be given better armor, weapons, morale, increase the amount of soldiers in the unit, etc.  So the army customization is nice even though there are only about a dozen different types overall.  You're not really playing a nation or people, yourself, but one warlord in the grand scheme of things so it's a different perspective than running kingdoms as in other games (once again - closer to Mount & Blade although with tac battles instead of first-person).  I quite like the interface - it's the best one I've seen yet for a medieval tac battle game.  The essential buttons are easy to get to, are easy to recognize, and the overall layout is good.

Lastly, Mitra's mod improved some of the gameplay issues I had like getting rid of those annoying bright red/blue circles under every soldier's feet and eliminated problems like being able to see where enemy soldiers were, through the fog of war, on the other side of hills.  I'd say once you get accustomed to the vanilla game and it's different style of combat, pop in Mitra's mod to fix a couple things and start fresh with your new tactics at the ready.

I've enjoyed the game since I got it, even though I only play in short spurts (a couple-three battles a session).  I also have a backlog so I've been hopping around even more than usual.  They just announced another update so that's something to look forward to... really would like to see more factions & units, though... perhaps in an expansion?  I picked up the game on the previous Steam sale because .. well.. Fookeen StarForce RAWR!!  I want to see them disappear; avenge my poor old DVD-RW drive.

[Svend Karlson]

I've just bought it, partly on the strength of having the overland campaign aspect described as being similar to Mount and Blade.

Sounds like I should use Mitra's mod from the get-go. Anything I should know too about minimizing the terrible bloom?

[Nefaro]

You can turn off the overdone Bloom in the "Effects" option screen, it's called HDR lighting or some such.  Effects button is just under the Graphics button in the options screen.

I always forget which button turns off (some) of the annoying feet-circles but there's one there that does it for enemy ones by default, and Mitra's mod further tones it down after that.   As with any PC game, it doesn't hurt going through all the option screens to see what you may want to customize.

[Toonces]

How does Impulse work?  I've been looking at getting this game for a while, but I don't want another "Steam" type application on my computer if I can avoid it.

[LongBlade]

How does Impulse work?  I've been looking at getting this game for a while, but I don't want another "Steam" type application on my computer if I can avoid it.

Impulse works, though I don't use it much.

IIRC it was created by Stardock but sold to GameStop. I'm with you, I'd rather just have Steam, but Impulse pops sales up from time to time, mostly on games I already own.

I did manage to get a good deal on Blood Bowl a while back, and I used it to buy Warhammer Space Marine because it had the Space Wolves skins. Mostly I just use Steam. The down side is that because I have so few games on Impulse, it took me *forever* to remember I bought Blood Bowl on it, not Steam. That was frustrating...though self-inflicted by stupidity on my part ;)

[Toonces]

So Impulse is similar to Steam, in that I have to have a little background app running that manages the games?

[LongBlade]

So Impulse is similar to Steam, in that I have to have a little background app running that manages the games?

Yup. And it's even better! Every morning you'll get a fresh advertisement in the lower right with a deal of the day!

Once clicked upon it will go away, but it's there pretty much every day.

[Fetrik]

So Impulse is similar to Steam, in that I have to have a little background app running that manages the games?

You only need to run Impulse to install or update the games. You can play without having Impulse running. Oh and the always running update / ad application can be turned off in settings.

[LongBlade]

Thanks, Fetrik. I never bothered. IMHO it never hurts to see a game on sale and it's easy enough to close the box and move on after a moment.