Forums > Game Talk > Please Help Me Remember the Name of this Game
T C on 9/21/2010 2:35 AM · Permalink · Report
I'm trying to remember the name of a game I owned a few years ago.
It is a fantasy turn-based game. You have a home base where you can recruit units. You combine them into teams and move them around on a map. Combat takes place on a hex grid where you control each of your units individually. I think both the global map and the combat map have a fixed isometric view.
You play as one of several factions, each of which is highly themed. There is a faction of goblins, another of halflings, another of spiders, and a bunch of others I can't remember. Each faction has special units. For instance, the goblins have a suicide unit who carries a bomb on his back. One of the best units is a type of ghost (perhaps called a "shade"?) who can possess enemy units. When the shade possesses another unit, he does a somersault into the other unit's body. At the time, I remember being particularly impressed by that -- not at the graphics per se, but at the level of detail the developers put into little animations like that.
There is a demo version of the game. The demo is fun, with battles that are challenging and interesting. On the strength of the demo, I bought the full game and I was very disappointed. The full game is unbalanced. The combat-level AI, featured prominently in the demo, is good, but the strategic-level AI is worthless. It lets you easily win the economic war and build unbeatable armies. As a result, battles become lopsided and uninteresting.
Furthermore, the version I bought came with DRM. It was the first time I encountered that obtrusive type of copy protection everyone hates so much. I naively installed it on my computer, and it messed me up. It made my computer freeze, and there was no way to uninstall it. In the end, I reinstalled Windows because of this game.
Given my history with this game, I should be able to remember its name, but I just can't. Can anyone help jog my memory?
-TC
T C on 9/21/2010 3:02 AM · Permalink · Report
It is not Heroes of Might and Magic, but it is similar. The big differences are in combat mode. If I remember HOMM correctly, you control stacks of units (not individual units) on a playing field that abstracts two battle lines for each team. The units don't move -- they just stand there and attack each other. In the game I'm thinking of, you move individual units around on a grid -- like chess played on a hex grid with exotic pieces. Sometimes, the grid has obstacles like castle walls.
-TC
Tracy Poff (2094) on 9/21/2010 4:03 AM · Permalink · Report
No, in heroes the stacks of units can be individually moved around the battle map (see this screenshot), on a hex grid. I'm fairly sure you can also turn on displaying gridlines, in case you remember them being visible. Also, the battle map can have castle walls and such on it, as you mention.
T C on 9/21/2010 4:36 AM · Permalink · Report
You are absolutely right about moving units on the battle map in Heroes of Might and Magic -- I completely misremembered that part of HOMM. Nevertheless, HOMM is definitely a different game than the one I'm trying to identify -- it has a completely different look and feel. The game whose name I can't remember is more colorful and cartoonish.
I expect that if anyone is able to help me identify the game, it will be because they've played it and remember the shades and suicide goblins.
-TC
lilalurl (733) on 9/21/2010 10:31 AM · edited · Permalink · Report
[Q --start T C wrote--]There is a faction of goblins, another of halflings, another of spiders, and a bunch of others I can't remember. Each faction has special units. For instance, the goblins have a suicide unit who carries a bomb on his back. One of the best units is a type of ghost (perhaps called a "shade"?) who can possess enemy units. When the shade possesses another unit, he does a somersault into the other unit's body[/Q --end T C wrote--]
Not sure about the shade, but the bomb goblin and halflings are featured in the (fantastic to say the least :-)) Age of Wonders games: http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/age-of-wonders-series
- it fits the remainder of the description.
T C on 9/22/2010 2:23 AM · Permalink · Report
Yes, Age of Wonders is the game I was thinking of. Thank you for identifying it for me.
I can now see that I misremembered many parts of the game. The somersaulting ghost is the Dark Elves' "Incarnate". Also, there is no faction of spiders -- although spiders do show up in a couple of places.
-TC
