Good games usually end up becoming a series and ultimately tend to get worse with each new addition. Sometimes its for the best that a series just dies out but some still regretably live on. Imo this decline is more down to a lack of new ideas but what of game mechanics?
Has the inclusion or removal of a game mechanic ruined a games series for you?
For me the clear winner is Blue Byte's RTS series The Settlers.
I started with Settlers 2 (the best in the series) and should have stopped there. It had a brilliant transport management system that was kind of like a vast network of bucket chains.
Then in Settlers 3 they removed the entire machanic. The thing with settlers is that it focuses more on the economy then the military so your ability to wage ineffective warefare (tactics exist only in your mind) relies on your economy running like clockwork. With S2 poor road building would lead to blockages and if it got too bad everything would just grind to a halt. In S3 some settler is assigned the task of taking said item to the building and it's not always the closest settler that's given the task. With the removal of store houses with infinite stock piles to ones with very finite ones you colony will grind to a halt anyway.
These problems could have been solved if they just brought back the transport mechanic and the storehouses. I kept with the series up till S4. But without this mechanic whats the point its economic RTS, without transport management its crippled from the start.
Ironically S7 is called Paths to the Kingdom (its referring to something completely different)
?The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom [span style="font-size:6pt"]TM[/span] brings The Settlers® franchise to a new level in the strategy-game genre, relying on the key mechanisms that made the series a success while innovating and giving the gamers the opportunity to build their own thrilling experience.? said John Parkes, Marketing Director EMEA at Ubisoft
Is this finally a return to the good old days? Probably not, the rest of the press release talks about everything else but the transport system.
So yeah that ruined The Settlers series for me.
Your games, your thoughts?
Has the inclusion or removal of a game mechanic ruined a games series for you?
For me the clear winner is Blue Byte's RTS series The Settlers.
I started with Settlers 2 (the best in the series) and should have stopped there. It had a brilliant transport management system that was kind of like a vast network of bucket chains.
Then in Settlers 3 they removed the entire machanic. The thing with settlers is that it focuses more on the economy then the military so your ability to wage ineffective warefare (tactics exist only in your mind) relies on your economy running like clockwork. With S2 poor road building would lead to blockages and if it got too bad everything would just grind to a halt. In S3 some settler is assigned the task of taking said item to the building and it's not always the closest settler that's given the task. With the removal of store houses with infinite stock piles to ones with very finite ones you colony will grind to a halt anyway.
These problems could have been solved if they just brought back the transport mechanic and the storehouses. I kept with the series up till S4. But without this mechanic whats the point its economic RTS, without transport management its crippled from the start.
Ironically S7 is called Paths to the Kingdom (its referring to something completely different)
?The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom [span style="font-size:6pt"]TM[/span] brings The Settlers® franchise to a new level in the strategy-game genre, relying on the key mechanisms that made the series a success while innovating and giving the gamers the opportunity to build their own thrilling experience.? said John Parkes, Marketing Director EMEA at Ubisoft
Is this finally a return to the good old days? Probably not, the rest of the press release talks about everything else but the transport system.
So yeah that ruined The Settlers series for me.
Your games, your thoughts?
