Pike and Shot

[Nefaro]

I picked it up since they have it on sale for $30.

Yep.  USD30.  I bought it.  Waiting for the Steam version to activate.

If you bought it, why wouldn't you install the Matrix/Slitherine version today instead of waiting for a Steam release that's 27 hours away?  ???

[jomni]

Because when the steam version goes live I will uninstall the matrix version.
Yes it's stupid but I prefer Steam and the matrix version is a back up when steam dies.

[Sir Slash]

Opinions please.  or or maybe Don't keep your fellow Grogs waiting.

[Philippe]

And the interesting question is to what extent can the game be modded.  If you can reduce movement rates, firing effectiveness, and firing ranges, you might be able to make the game tolerably realistic.  I doubt that it will ever get Steam Workshop support, though.

[Nefaro]

The gameplay reminds me of Field Of Glory quite a bit.  Although the units have their own situational flavor. 

I'm only judging by part of the tutorial being played.


My initial impression was of the mouse cursor.  It's damn slow and sluggish to react to my mouse movements, which likely means that they have some artificial mouse movement delay setting running in it.  >:(  Can't stand that.

I probably wouldn't have picked it up if it weren't for 1) Having a random battle generator and 2) being $10 off at release.  I've not tried the meat of the game yet so I can't give much of an impression.  Just that it reminds me of FOG.

[Cyrano]

Nefaro hit something I was trying to put into words.

It does play much more like FoG than BA.  This makes sense, I suppose, as they're both derived from the base of the FoG ruleset (it is, after all, based on FOG:R).

If you can tolerate FoG's abstractions of ancient combat (and they are many) I think -- still early -- you'll be fine.  If not, well...

I haven't poked around in the file structure anywhere near far enough to know how much modding is possible, but, given the PBEM++ handshake, I doubt you'll be able to get by with overmuch.

If anyone's up for an MP game, let me know...I should be back on-line this evening.

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

[Jarhead0331]

So basically, nobody is raving about it yet...

[Cyrano]

http://31.media.tumblr.com/779711c2ed89c4e848cf592f98c6380e/tumblr_mstq8a0GEc1ramh22o1_500.gif

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS85m6YHtt8RkH0Nd7GjOZ1P-QhLMq2c9MAj39oj0n9DzBzqayf

I am horrid at using images, but do these suit?

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

[PipFromSlitherine]

Nefaro hit something I was trying to put into words.

It does play much more like FoG than BA.  This makes sense, I suppose, as they're both derived from the base of the FoG ruleset (it is, after all, based on FOG:R).

If you can tolerate FoG's abstractions of ancient combat (and they are many) I think -- still early -- you'll be fine.  If not, well...

I haven't poked around in the file structure anywhere near far enough to know how much modding is possible, but, given the PBEM++ handshake, I doubt you'll be able to get by with overmuch.

If anyone's up for an MP game, let me know...I should be back on-line this evening.

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

In terms of modding it has all the same flexibility as BA/BA2.  That is, you can build your own campaigns to play in single- or multi-player that alter pretty much anything; game model, logic and orders, stats, text, AI, UI, graphics, tilesets.  You can literally build an entirely different game should the urge take you (and example is the Amaris Naval Mod for BA, or indeed the early versions of Pike&Shot itself).  This is all supported for MP games (the system checks you are using the same files) and you can package your campaigns to allow other users to download and install them in-game (and we can make good mods 'official', meaning they are shown by default in the download list from our servers).

Cheers

Pip

[jomni]

The gameplay reminds me of Field Of Glory quite a bit.  Although the units have their own situational flavor. 

I'm only judging by part of the tutorial being played.


My initial impression was of the mouse cursor.  It's damn slow and sluggish to react to my mouse movements, which likely means that they have some artificial mouse movement delay setting running in it.  >:(  Can't stand that.

I probably wouldn't have picked it up if it weren't for 1) Having a random battle generator and 2) being $10 off at release.  I've not tried the meat of the game yet so I can't give much of an impression.  Just that it reminds me of FOG.

From the Wargamer preview:

However, before we start a bit of a (sort of) declaration of interest. Byzantine Games is basically one Richard Bodley Scott, a name that may well be familiar to historical figure gamers out there from his involvement in the DBM and Field of Glory rule sets. Pike and Shot is more or less an implementation of the Field of Glory: Renaissance rules, and I was one of the co-authors of that rule set. So whilst I have no direct connection with Pike and Shot, I was involved with the rules it is based on. Make of that what you will when reading the following first impressions ...

I'm glad they at least chose the BA engine as the FOG engine is horrendous.

[jomni]

Installed it anyway.  It's a nice game.  Pretty graphics and streamlined interface. 
Combat mechanics are adequate to simulate the era and the units are varied.

But you must really get over the scale issue to appreciate the game mechanics.  Since a town takes up a square, it means the arquebus and mustkets can shoot across several towns.  It's simply unacceptable for us grogs.  If they were able to render the terrain to be at a smaller scale, and even make the units occupy several squares (like a tabletop game), then you won't really mind the fire ranges.  If you forget about the scale issue and concentrate on combat, it's really a good and quick-playing game.  Not cumbersome like John Tiller's Renaissance.  And as mentioned before, it does depict the battles of the era pretty well (in a simple way).

[panzerde]

Just got around to buying and downloading. More later once I get a chance to play a bit.

[panzerde]

My initial impression was of the mouse cursor.  It's damn slow and sluggish to react to my mouse movements, which likely means that they have some artificial mouse movement delay setting running in it.  >:(  Can't stand that.

It seems that the mouse won't scroll the map if you have a unit selected. If you hit "space" to unselect the unit, you can again scroll the map with the mouse and the cursor is responsive.

Not sure if that's what you're seeing as an unresponsive mouse cursor, Nefaro, but it did surprise me and took me a minute to work out why the mouse suddenly seemed stuck.

I'm also not sure of the rationale behind that. Maybe that's a known behavior from the engine - I've not played any BA. In any case it seemed odd.

Beyond that, I'm finding the game enjoyable and not a bad representation of the era for a game that plays quickly. I quite enjoy the look of it, too.

[Nefaro]

My initial impression was of the mouse cursor.  It's damn slow and sluggish to react to my mouse movements, which likely means that they have some artificial mouse movement delay setting running in it.  >:(  Can't stand that.

It seems that the mouse won't scroll the map if you have a unit selected. If you hit "space" to unselect the unit, you can again scroll the map with the mouse and the cursor is responsive.

Not sure if that's what you're seeing as an unresponsive mouse cursor, Nefaro, but it did surprise me and took me a minute to work out why the mouse suddenly seemed stuck.

I'm also not sure of the rationale behind that. Maybe that's a known behavior from the engine - I've not played any BA. In any case it seemed odd.

Beyond that, I'm finding the game enjoyable and not a bad representation of the era for a game that plays quickly. I quite enjoy the look of it, too.

I was referring to general mouse cursor lag.  Feels like "Mouth Smoothing", which is just a fancy word for making your mouse cursor lag behind your mouse movement a bit.  I usually see that in games ported from console.  Skyrim on the PC has some IIRC.  I always turn that crap off in the INI files if possible. 

It could just be a driver issue or something, instead of a game engine thing.  I noticed that some parts of the interface are stretched on widescreen resolutions (most noticeable in the circular unit pics turned into flattened eggs) so perhaps it's a byproduct of that. 

Some people probably don't care, but I prefer my cursor be as responsive as possible and not trail 100ms behind my mouse movements.

[jomni]

I do not notie the lag that you describe on my end.