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SPOILER - this is a rant.

1st. AAAARRRRGGG! (and that's an anger arg, as opposed to a pirate arg). This post is a direct result of a 2-hour Tarantino-in-magnitude struggle to keep Homeworld 2's Vaygr fleet from screwing me in a very uncomfortable place... and losing.

2nd. I have to qualify this by saying that I love gaming but I've never been a particularly skilled gamer. Nor do I have much patience with games that I have to "practice" at to get "good". I don't mind playing for hours and improving as a side effect, but practicing is something you do on the flute. Plus I don't play much multiplayer. Result: I like to cheat.

3rd. This rant is an indirect result of many frustrating hours spent with the RTS genre. As such, my gripes don't apply to all games, as each one presents differing levels of bliss and Biblical immorality (asspoking).

Rant. What is the deal with modern RTSs? Damnit! It's one thing to impress your audience with increasingly large and complex engagements, but for Christ's sweet sake I only have TEN fingers on TWO hands. Also, unlike Grand Admiral Thrawn, I don't enjoy the support of a hand-picked command crew capable of communitcating broad, sweeping strategies to my individual units with the discipline and precision provided by decades of training at the galaxy's finest military academies. Also, also I'm not cybernetically linked to ANY computer system, nor do I have any sort of interface with a hyper-advanced AI construct that may or may not have been designed by and based on Dr. Halsey's staggering intellect, which would help. Also, also, also, unlike the Kwisatz Haderach, I am utterly without the ability to be many places at once.

This is all to say that I am at an EXTREME disadvantage to the computer in any real-time contest, and I'm a little tired of game developers who choose not to teach the damn thing to either give me a break or USE SOME LUBE! Games like Warcraft III mitigate this somewhat with different levels of difficulty and built-in cheats that give the strategically challenged (me) the equivalent of a shiv and some soap-on-a-rope. Others, like Homeworld 2 force me to seek the protection of 3rd party trainers that often don't work, or submit to round after round of excruciatingly-frustrating combat and the inevitable asspoking.

So, after recieving my hind-parts on a platter 3 times in the same engagement, I've spent 45 minutes trying to convince myself that I can toss my copy of Homeworld 2 (and by extension any RTS that causes me to break my possessions in anger) in the drawer and forsake it. The sad thing is, I can't. I'm like some sick codependent cheerleader with a vespene gas habit, who has apparently underestimated her tolerance for anal punishment.

Since I can't imagine actually quitting the genre, I'm just going to issue a humble plea to the RTS development community.

If you're going to make your games so tough, please make them suck so I won't want to play them. My butt hurts.

Thank you.

Sorry 'bout your frustrations with RTS's man. "Tis a shame, since there are a number of good ones out there, like Rise of Nations, AoM, and the Civilization series. It's a pretty exclusive genre, one that can't be pulled off on any other system than PC. Not well, anyway.

But, on a lighter note, great Thrawn reference! The guy is a badass, easily my favorite Star Wars villian of all time.

I, Yankee, and Afro are long-time fans of Age of Empires II and Age of Mythology. The only times I truly got raped in those was playing online. Very positive experience, might give them a try. But while Homeworld had looked appealling to me in the past, I shall remember to avoid it in the future.

DON'T GIVE IT UP!

For some of the best experiences ever in a RTS, play Homeworld 1 and 2. Seriously, you're not going to fine anything as well done as those two games for a long time.

Here some tips for Homeworld 2, and you can PM me with specific questions, I haven't beaten it, but I got towards the end and then FFXI captured me again.

1) Patch the game!
The game came out and even the devs thought it was way too hard! Without the patch, it's virtually impossible to get past level 3.

2) Balance your fleet.
Use every fscking credit you have into making sure you can handle anything. I say get a small group (5 or so) of every kind of fighter and corvette there is, except scout, they blow. As far as frigates go, build as many as you possibly can, and just move them all together. Always be harvesting and always be building. You should reach the unit cap after the first 5 levels or so, and if you haven't you should be on your way.

3) Swarm!
When you attack something big, don't waste resources and ships guarding your mothership, when you go on the offensive, your mothership will be vulnerable sure, but you're going to be decimating your objectives, and the computer will scramble. In that line of thinking, almost always wait till your fleet is capped out/all your resources are spent and just move them all together. I like to select them all the frigates, put them in a Frigate Phalanx (or whatever the frigate formation is called) and then assign the fighters/corvettes to guard all the frigates, then attack with the frigates. The fighters will engage the other fighters and your frigates will rip up everything else. Oh, and build as many capital ships as you can, they are worth the cash.

4) Prioritize engagements!
When a cruiser or something big enters the skirmish, have all your frigates attack it, it's got 2-4 ion cannons and more turrets than I can count. It'll lay waste to your frigates one at a time, and any fighters/'vettes in the area will be squished. Always focus your resources on the most dangerous thing, if you've got mostly fighters and a few frigates, take out that missile frigate, they'll take your fighters out en-masse.

5) Know weaknesses!
You've gotta learn what's weak against what. When you go up against a slew of fighters with some ion frigates, you're not gonna do shit. You need some missile corvettes or some multi-gun corvettes to have the faster maneuverability as well as the multi-fast-targeting guns/seeking missiles to get your job done as efficiently as possible. Them dying faster means you don't lose many ships, and save some money.

6) Repair!
Whenever there is downtime, or if a group of fighters is down to 1 or 2 injured ships, get that puppy back to your mothership for repairs. That'll replenish the ship count in your unit, and fully repair the injured ones, further letting you spend your hard earned Gil...er...RUs on more ships, instead of replacements.

That's just scratching the surface, so if you need more info, let me know and I'll help you out to the best of my ability.

Let me know how this works out for you, and please give feedback people!

Thanks for the strategy, Afro.
I went home last night and whipped level 7's ass like 8 bitches on a bitchboat. No burly men for me last night.

Your Swarm suggestion probably helped me the most, I was hung up on protecting my Mothership.

Repair and Prioritize helped out a lot too, plus the fact that I had already lost the engagement 3 times before so I knew where the Vaygr where going to pop up.

Here's a new question: are there hotkeys to select every ship of a type, say Torpedo Frigates? I'm playing on a borrowed copy without a manual, and there just aren't enough groups (1-10) to set the fleet up like I want.

I basically ended up with 4 hotkeys. Fighters, Frigates (including capitals), the combination of the two, and resources. That's basically all I ever did, i might have subdivided a little, but saw no point.

I'm glad my expertise could help you

Jevin wrote:No burly men for me last night

My God, this guy's a PA encyclopedia!

Speaking of RTS, anybody seen anything on Perimeter? Looks pretty sweet, did you guys happen to see it at E3?

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/per ... index.html

I was wonderin If antone ever played civnet, one of my first games!!