🚀 go-pugleaf

Recently I decided to take a look back at some of the earlier RTS games 
on the PC. Or at least the RTS games that defined what we have now.

So first up was Warcraft, didn't go very well. I usually
don't have any problems playing older games, the dated graphics and
sound don't usually bother me if the gameplay is good.

But every so often you come across an old game, that due to advances in
subsequent games in the genre are very hard to play. Warcraft: Orcs and
Humans might be one of those game.

Why? The bloody interface. Man, it's pretty nasty. Even knowing the 
hotkeys it's pretty cumbersome and slow to use. For example, I was 
surprised you couldn't even move without having to select the action 
first. After a couple of levels I started to get used to having to press 
the hotkey first for every single action (really missing the pointer 
changing to the default action depending on what you are holding it 
over), but still found it pretty clunky and difficult to adapt to.
Also not being able to queue builds is quite annoying. You constantly 
have to go back to the base to build a new unit. Of course this results 
in loosing your grouping of other units you may been using elsewhere on 
the map. Argh

Another problem for me personally is that is's a fairly slow game in how 
long it takes to put an army together.
You have to get an army of peasants together first to get enough
resources to start building your real army. Meanwhile there are regular 
attacks from the enemy (who always start with a fully functioning base, 
while you start with very little) picking away at the few soldiers you 
have at the start, and your defenceless peasants. Between gathering 
enough resources to build your army and replacing dead peasants it can a 
long time to get enough units together to go on the attack. But I can see 
the appeal of this for those who enjoy that style.

I've not completely given up on Orcs and Humans, however I read that 
Wacraft 2 is a lot more fluid and improves on the first game in many 
ways. Hopefully I'll get on better with that. 


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