That was helpful, if solely on an intellectual level. I wouldn't do those things anyway, because of my ethics beliefs, but I still have to wonder about killing the goose that laid the golden egg. At some point someone might figure out a way to make a game cheap enough that it isn't profitable to pirate. Some of the best action shooters are available for free on the internet at places like addictinggames.com They might have to go the route of just shrugging, accepting the piracy and selling ad space in the games.

Yes, but comparing it to Diablo, you have a less flexible and more awkward and silly-looking version of a game more than a decade old. THAT is what I needed to download for more than 10 hours?

It didn't segue naturally out of my original rant, but I was wishing they had put the IG in there to make that tiny squad seem significant by comparison.

I am hoping we get that in theoretical movie coming up. I was think of Robert Heinlen's MI and John Ringo's ACS when I played that stage in the original DoW game where you get supplementary IG units, and suddenly understood why the guys I had been playing were space MARINES. IMO, Star Wars should have treated stormtroopers this way (to a lesser degree), rather than making them into the catch-phrase for inept cannon fodder.

Yeah, the battlefields would not be so bad if there was more to the strategy aspect, or if they dropped that part all together and stopped calling it Dawn of War. Maybe call it "Space March" or something. That might a good game, but it is not a fitting sequel to DoW, and should not have been marketed as such.

Agreed, but I preferred the Skirmishes in those games. The only campaigns I really played were in the two original games (DoW & CoH), and Dark Crusade and Soulstorm, where you were not constrained by that whole "jumping through hoops to play out the storyline" issue that bugs me. As far as the CoH issue goes, since the equipment and names of maps place the game in the late 1944 to 1945 period, there were not a lot of victorious German operations on which to base the campaigns. Of course they could go back in time to scrounge up some operations, but I don't think players accustomed to Tigers & Panthers and Panzershreks & StG44s would enjoy having to use the crappy equipment Germany had in the early war. At the time of the invasion of Russia their best tanks were the lame Mark IVs you get with the expansion Germans (NOT the one that comes with the Wehrmacht in the original) and a smaller Mark III whose gun is available as an upgrade on the armored car in the current game. A semi-realistic German campaign would not be fun for the very simple reason that they lost the war.

I thought it was a 50/50 split in the Horus Heresy, with half the primarchs revolting and their chapters with them?

I would have preferred an expansion pack featuring them, and a strategy campaign like DC or SS, to the whole new game.

Given that, I suppose I agree.

I thought they counted against the infantry cap. The limit on one squad of each type was the most annoying thing about the expansion packs, IMO. I thought that if they were going to be so limited, they should have been the relic-necessary unit, and WAY more powerful. As it was, despite the overall power of the Space Marines, I found the lack of a crowning ultimate unit like the giant god-things the Space Elves and Space Demons and Space Undead got, or the Baneblade, to be a disappointment with that faction (ditto for the Orcs and the Squiggoth), albeit probably a necessary one for the game balance.

Another disappointment for DoW2. My play style is strategic offensive/tactically defensive. I prefer to jump out early and grab a good defensive position, fortify it, and build up to overwhelming strength before flinging everything at the objective. I think the IG suits this style of play best, with their tunnels and occupied buildings and really awesome vehicles. I never really mastered the Space Elves, probably because (in addition to my anti-elf prejudice) that faction is simply so unsuited for my style.

But that's also possibly the underlying cause of what makes DoW such a dissatisfying game for me. The style of the game is such that the IG could not compete with the Space Marines at such a microscopic level, and likewise, the game does not fit my playing style.



As far as their predating the Zerg, that's what they have to deal with. The Zerg got to the video game market first, so it is inevitable that subsequent similar races will be compared to them. They struck me as more of a derivation of the Giger Alien than anything else, and the complete rip-off of the Terran dropship pilot's dialogue from Aliens didn't change that perception any. Perhaps if DoW2 was done better, I might be more familiar with the Tyrannids and thus be better able to judge.

Before I knew of their existance, I can recall thinking "This game would be even better if they had something like the Zerg." All the other races had a familiar niche, except the Tau, who struck me as a pointless bone thrown to fans of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and not necessarily occupying a spot in a spectrum of balanced factions or sci-fi/fantasy archetypes. I could see "multispecies empire, if there were more variety among their units...

Ah. That explains it.

Why am I not surprised?

I like that aspect of the Imperium, BTW. I kind of like how humanity is seriously flawed, but its the only game in town, so we might as well go along with it. As for combining with the Eldar, team-ups and putting aside differences have become trite, and only good when you are combining awesomeness, like the eliteness of Space Marines and hardware of the Imperial Guard, or the evil of Chaos directing the numbers, savagery and simplicity of the Orks, to the extent that it is possible.