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[Aklyon]

That flow system sounds pretty similar to Supreme Commander or AI War, except for the 'excess turns to gold' part. In those if you had extra it was just extra mass/energy.

[Shades]

That flow system sounds pretty similar to Supreme Commander or AI War, except for the 'excess turns to gold' part. In those if you had extra it was just extra mass/energy.

Its quite a common system in strategy games, but that's true of most 'unique' features games talk about

[Sergius]

The thing is, you don't actually care that much about your "gold stockpile", mostly you ensure that there is not a net loss.

In the Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander games, it's more like a regular RTS resource: you use it up, until you have none left, then wait for it to trickle/fill up depending on how many extractors you have. Since you're not always building, your stores just fill to capacity, until such time that you need to produce more stuff, where it becomes empty again. So you can really build in bursts, at the end of which building becomes a crawl, then you have to "rest" (well except in SC which at some points felt more like a reverse Tower Defense game, with an automated, endless trickle of troops from your factories into the enemy and viceversa). The only difference with Warcraft is that the mine/forest never runs out.

In Kohan, regular buildings (not necessarily mines) give resources and unlock troop types. So, if you're going to have a mage-intensive army, you have to make sure that you have enough magic resources produced at any given time, and so on. If it's going negative at all, you're doing something wrong and you need to correct it. Gold is simply a buffer telling you how much time you have to fix the problem before it starts having consequences.

Don't remember other uses for the gold. Maybe some things you had to purchase, not sure. Blacksmith upgrades maybe.

[Shades]

The thing is, you don't actually care that much about your "gold stockpile", mostly you ensure that there is not a net loss.

In the Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander games, it's more like a regular RTS resource: you use it up, until you have none left, then wait for it to trickle/fill up depending on how many extractors you have. Since you're not always building, your stores just fill to capacity,

If your ever finding you were filling to capacity then you weren't building enough. Generally in multiplayer games it acted more like flow resources in that you'd try and keep something close to net +ve but sometimes dip under and just endlessly build.

It differs in that this was for building and not an ongoing cost.

Civ 5 also uses flow resources for it's stragegic resource model, this time terrain based rather than building.
The Anno series also uses flow resource, I think since the first one back in 98, and is much closer to what you describe although in this case it's some buildings that require the resource and others that generate (and some convert).
Arguably the industry giant games also used this concept although they were more unit resources being moved around than resource totals, like wise the simcity series treated power and later water this way.

Sticking to RTS games there are fewer examples though, even if most have some form of food / popcap which is a flow resource.

The addition of the gold buffer is a nice touch though, may have to get it and see how well that works.

[Rolan7]

I played some of #1 yesterday (woo nostalgia!) and that seems about right, except that gold is an important resource.  It's needed to construct buildings, form regiments (which then use resources for upkeep), resurrect your immortals, etc.  It's very important that your gold income be high, and to do that you have to avoid deficit spending in any resource.  You also have to build markets which actually *drain* your resources in exchange for extra gold income.

The difference from other RTSes is that you are stockpiling a single resource which represents a healthy economy.  The limited number of buildings per city forces "trade" where some cities focus harvesting resources and others focus on producing elite units (which drain those resources as upkeep).

Unit upkeep keeps you from building too many resources-to-gold structures.  I've commonly had to deconstruct wood-exporting structures so I can support more archers.  You *can* just form the regiments anyway, in an emergency, but having a resource deficit drains your gold prohibitively.

[Meta]

I just found that Jet Set Radio should be released the 19th September.
...
09/18 Borderlands 2
09/19 Jet Set Radio
09/20 Torchlight 2
...
Ok, my life will become really difficult in one week.

[Tellemurius]

oh god jet set radio................

[Shades]

oh god jet set radio................

Oh hell yes! Do want. Just hope it is as good as I remember, but the fact I want to dig out my old dreamcast and boot it up right now implies it is.

[Alexhans]

I just received this from Gog's newsletter.  Thought some of you might find it interesting.

Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, NWN, and more D&D games up to 65% off.  (I think they're all 3,49 us$)

http://www.gog.com/newsletter/hasbro_stacking_promo?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=game_subject&utm_campaign=hasbro_stacking_promo

I already have P:T but I'll probaby get BG 2 (to play on a distant, less busy future )

[Karlito]

Oh come on! I just bought Planescape like a week ago and now it's on sale?

[Anvilfolk]

I already have P:T but I'll probaby get BG 2 (to play on a distant, less busy future )

I do believe you mean: to never play it

Oh come on! I just bought Planescape like a week ago and now it's on sale?

Doesn't that go on sale fairly often? It seems like the old games always get at least 50% discount in any bigger sales event that there is.

[Rolan7]

I already have P:T but I'll probaby get BG 2 (to play on a distant, less busy future )

Same situation here.  I remember a fine webcomic which I think was set in the BG universe and got me interested in the games.  I got one of them used for my PS2 but the disk was unreadably damaged :/  These days I don't have enough time to play every epic (in the sense of long) RPG that I want to, so onto the backlog it goes.

My plan is that when I retire someday, if I DO have regrets about my life, they will be fully drowned out by my massive backlog of classic video games.  The SNES alone would take several years at my leisurely pace.

[Ultimuh]

So this Star Treek Online, which is free to play.
Is the free to play version worth it?
Any limits I should know of?

And the game itself, is it worth wasting time on it?
What's the pros and cons?

[Sirus]

I personally like it, space combat in particular is pretty interesting (for an MMO). There is a cash shop, but everything in it can, in theory, be earned in-game.

[Itnetlolor]

oh god jet set radio................

Oh hell yes! Do want. Just hope it is as good as I remember, but the fact I want to dig out my old dreamcast and boot it up right now implies it is.

Hell, I got my old XBOX running again (although the controllers are a slightly different matter) just to play JSRF again. That game was quite fun, and the music was pretty awesome as well. Nice to see it ported to PC now, if I'm reading this right.