Dawn of War IV announced

[Destraex]

Well not after the sefinitive edition is released we have dowiv coming in 2026.
I wonder if relic is involved.

People have already played it. Wow. DowIV
Relic is not involved and we are getting a faction in the initial 4 factions that we have not seen before in a dow game, adeptus mechanicus. Apart from that the necrons, orcs and space marines. We will see if it comes to consoles, company of heroes 3 tried that and had to drop console support after being dropped by their publisher.
The mood from the community after dow3 seems to be one of excitement as well as cautiousness.

Skirmish as well as arena mode seem to be coming back as well as a campaign for each faction. Not bad as long as, unlike Homeworld 3, they concentrate of the core of the game, skirmish mode

[JasonPratt]

I suspected this was on the way, but I wasn't suspecting they'd announce it THAT quickly. The buy-in for the DoW1DE was amazing, but so was the bug grief. I'd be pretty ambivalent about announcing DoW4 that quickly. I'm pretty ambivalent about receiving the news! -- especially with hearing so much sourness back when DoW3 released.

Get DoW1DE polished up to spec guys, then impress me.

[Destraex]

Not only announced but people have already played it apparently.

[Jarhead0331]

The trailer doesn't impress me.

[Destraex]

A friend just told me
It is by the guys that did iron harvest

[Destraex]

The trailer did not do much for me either. It seemed to be missing both character, energy as well as conviction and story. Everything moved slowly, in fact now that I think about it, all the factions in the game are slow. Lol

[JudgeDredd]

The game does look cool - then I see a video of gameplay and remember my RTS game play is long behind me.

I used to love Company of Heroes - because there was a command you could type to slow gameplay down - then that support (I think) was removed. Well - I know it was removed, but someone may have reminded me recently that you could do it. Can't remember 

Point is - RTS games are too fast for my liking. Too much going on. Too much to keep a track of. I do play Regiments - but I think the speed I play would drive other people nuts. I have some other RTS games installed, but they're either fairly slow themselves, don't have too much going on to handle or just don't get played.

[Pete Dero]

[kludger]

The game does look cool - then I see a video of gameplay and remember my RTS game play is long behind me.

I used to love Company of Heroes - because there was a command you could type to slow gameplay down - then that support (I think) was removed. Well - I know it was removed, but someone may have reminded me recently that you could do it. Can't remember 

Point is - RTS games are too fast for my liking. Too much going on. Too much to keep a track of. I do play Regiments - but I think the speed I play would drive other people nuts. I have some other RTS games installed, but they're either fairly slow themselves, don't have too much going on to handle or just don't get played.

Yep as I've gotten older, I no longer enjoy the crazy fast click fest RTS games, I prefer turn-based games, however as long as the RTS allow for a decent active pause where I can give orders and then unpause then I do ok.

Cautiously optimistic based on the impressions and reports from journalists and youtubers who had a chance to play the alpha this week, but we'll have to wait and see.

[Destraex]

I just really hope the gameplay is not simplistic compared to dawn of war 1.
I want all those stances as well as the ai constraints you could use with the original.

In the original you had a toggle icon for Hold Ground, Stand Ground, and Attack. Plus then you had a separate icon to switch between melee and ranged attack.
You could then combine these to tell each squad what you wanted them to do and react like.
Of course units engaged in melee would still react with melee, but using melee specific orders would ensure you did not have axe wielding units hold distance and shoot with pistols. There were times or course I wanted melee units to stand ground in reserve but still be set to melee only for when I released them to attack stance.

Even sins of a solar empire 2 never put back in some of the stances the orginal had. I find developers in general love to streamline snd automate things so far that there is no game to play. They just have that tendency.

I suspect with dow4 the devs will look at stances and be like,  nahhhh, we'll just leave all melee units to run after enemies at all times and shooty units to charge within a set distance.

[Jarhead0331]

Some nice gameplay video. Starting to look very good!

[Destraex]

Yes. It is looking fine if not great. I watched the video on my phone while doing other things so probably missed a lot. But initially;

Something I was not super keen on was the space marines ability to use the Dawn of War 1 auto re-enforce ability to abstain from the dawn of war 3 retreat mechanic, which is like Company of Heroe's 3's retreat mechanic. Press the exclamation mark button and watch your men run all the way back to base. My problem was more with that if they have magic like this mechanic, which I have yet to actually see working in detail, it should be applied to all as it was in dawn of war 1. Thus at least being a zero sum game mechanic and less of a magically overpowering of the enemy "just because press button".

The space marines flying thunderhawk gunships into combat to drop stuff while not getting shot at was strange. I get drop pods because they are small objects hurtling uncrontrollably to earth. But Gunships even though heavily armoured, would I expect avoid just hovering over a massive battle going on directly below them.

What was also interesting was that the space marines seemed to just drop everything wherever they wanted defence wise and the orks seemed to just beat their weapons on the ground to build things? I have to go back and look if builder units are still something used in game. Builders were a cool mechanic because it meant that you had to choose what resources to devote to building and also protect them while travelling or while building.

Other than that the amount of airstrikes and defences being dropped in such a short game made me wonder how mobile the early game would be. Made me wonder if troops will simply be pawns that are their to be squashed by everything rather than the powerful infantry units they were in DOW1. DOW1 infantry were key and could be upgraded in multiple ways. I loved that infantry had real staying power in DOW1 because of auto re-enmforcement as well as weapon additions, adding commanders and other personalities as well as base upgrades such as tougher armour and more powerful ammunition or guns. I hope DOWIV has all this, I need to go back and look for this as well.

Also the short game allowed the ork player to get massive units out. So if these units are not the largest end game units then wow the scale has changed. 

I don't see a morale bar and want to hear that "squad broken" line from the Space Marines. Not indicating that they will run, simply that they have become less effective under pressure of casualties or being overwhelmed. I just see an XP bar and a health bar.

[Jarhead0331]

Still looking awesome to me...

[undercovergeek]

Well that looks awesome and apart from the absence of the space marines makes me wonder why I'd need TW:40k - I didn't realise the scale was that big

[Destraex]

Well that looks awesome and apart from the absence of the space marines makes me wonder why I'd need TW:40k - I didn't realise the scale was that big

The animations certainly look a lot better than 40k total war.
I am not really confident that 40k total war will be what I want. Total War used to be about scale but since then other engines have surpassed it by a country mile. Eugen's iris engine or Broken Arrows engine would have fit 40k much better. Total War's scale is much closer to Dawn of War IV's scale while looking clunky and too small in scale to have interesting battles. We will see. People say be careful what you wish for, I have wanted a 40k total war for many years. Now I have no trust it will be any better than final liberation or even close.