Has anyone played SpellForce?

[metal leper]

I'm thinking of buying it, is it any good? It doesn't seem as though its been discussed here

[Manus]

Not many people seem to have heard of this one, yet it is an exceedingly good game.

If I had to catergorise it I would say a blend of Warcraft 3, The Settlers, Gothic II, and new factors as well.

The RTS elements are great, more in-depth and realisitic than Warcraft, yet far more action-orientated than Settlers. You can control many races through rune monuments, even all six at once, only if the light and dark races meet they will fight. The races seem to have very different tactics and units, they even gather different combinations of resources so it isn't repetitive. There are even two elven untis which can only be built with human or dwarven allies mining iron. The untis are detailed and fluid.

The RPG side is just as good, better than many straight RPG's I've played. You can play this in an RTS perspective, or a 3rd person view similar to an adventure game, and ever part of the map is detailed so that in this view things look like you are in an RPG. Not Morrrowind, obviously, but nothing to complain about.

Your character has 7 attributes and can choose any combination of levels between 7 skill schools comprising a total of 22 skills (I think) so customisation is up to you, and your character is as developed as any in an RPG. You wear a lot of equipment (it's vital) including greaves, torso, helmets, robes, shields, a huge variety of weapons, magic orbs, bows, rings, and you can have any combination of weapons, that is, a weapon and orb, or shield, or bow, or another weapon dual-weilding, or even a shield and an orb or an orb and bow or two orbs. What equipment you may use is handled by your level or your skills.

Of course, there are may spells as well, in many schools, The spells system is good, but if I had a complaint about this game it would be that the right spells are too difficult to obtain, and few merchants sell the high-level spells, which must be found as loot. Your early level spells can also be increased in level, and in certain cases their potency also increases with some of your attributes.

Yte this interface is simply managed and does not detract from the RTS side if that is what worries you. What I'm trying to say is it's also a fully fleshed-out yet integrated RPG. There are constantly quests and sub-quests, there are towns full of people, there are a lot of things on the map you can explore if you wish that are added detail to the campaign, a lot of little extras that are a lot of fun, and differ from the standard, build-then-rush scenario.

The story-line and dialougue is excellent, and well thought out; very compelling and entertaining, and not run-of-mill like you might expect, but quite new in its story (how new can any fantasy story be though), and as I said, there are a lot of added extras as well.

Also, you can play the maps with up to five rune warriors, that is, heroes like yourself who do not level up -but better ones can be obtained- who wear equipment and have skills the same as you. You summon them from monuments similar to that you summon your armies from. They can either be a party of adventurers, or the Generals of your army, whichever you wish.

The sound and graphics are good too, as would be expected these days. Nice look to everything, a lot of detail and fluid movement, shadows if you wish, good musical score too. The voice-acting is also good, some actors have a definate accent and this adds to the story I think, it's a little disconcerning at first, but when you realize that the different charcaters have accents to suit their position, it is very well done. There is a patch out now, v1.05 is the latest, and I suggest downloading it. There aren't any serious bugs, but it adds some other things in as well, a new unit, and colour-codes the runes with which you summon your heroes according to the type of hero being summoned.

[metal leper]

Thanks for the reply, I bought the game today, and it looks good so far, although I'm still on the tutorial (which is a bit slow paced but I guess they had to cater for people who've never played RPG/RTS games before). At least I haven't died yet like I did in the PoR tutorial!

[Aikanaro]

Your death in the POR tutorial would probably be because of character suicide, who was extremely depressed at being in such a pathetic game

[metal leper]

Close, 2 of them fell asleep! (not due to the game being boring but because of a sleep spell which was aimed at an orc).

SpellForce isn't released in North America until near the end of February, but there's a demo online at http://spellforce.jowood.com/

[Gothmog]

I'm playing it right now and i love it

It's quite addictive too. Yesterday and today i did not play anything else than Spellforce.
I built myself an archer-elementalist(fire&ice). I think i spread my abilities too thin - bows, ice, fire. I got an excellent bow at lvl4 which i cannot use until next level up - 8th lvl

Anyone else playing it?
BTW, its worth buying indeed

[Manus]

Damn it, IE crashed and ate my response, I'll try to remember it.

OK, bows can be good, and very effective with a back-up hero, but it tends to be better to use melee with your main avatar, as the monsters will just rush you anyway and force you into close combat.

There is a lot of discussion over this, and skill uses over at the official forum.

The general idea is that dual-weilding light weapons (bladed or piercing) is best, but heavy armour has the best defense/stat boosting. I have seen some very good light armour, but towards the later part of the game. Heavy weapons are usually two-handed, meaning no shield/orb or second weapon.

But if you do want to use bows the definately go for it, they can be quite effective and can be used very well with the right tactics, you just may want to have slightly more melee fighters to back you up.

The good thing is that you can still weild a melee weapon with a bow, and there are even some weapons which only require a certain skill in 'any melee' which bows count towards! So there is no need to train another skill.

You can even use a lot of armour that only has a level requirement, or a light/heavy combat arts ability, so I wouldn't even bother training your armour skill until about level 18-20 (the cap is 30).

You can also gain melee abilities to heal yourself and others, which is good. Not sure what skills you need though.

If I were you I'd stick with the skills you chose. Three is good. Then maybe later in the game, put points into light armour -or just light combat arts- you get 60 skill points in all by level 30, so for three skills (in two disciplines) meaning five trees in total, you can get your magic skills both to twelve (the max) and bows to twelve. If you want to train your armour as well, it will have to either come off bows/ranged combat or ice/fire/elemental magic. Or you could just use robes, some of which are very good, and just have a requirement in any magic skill. Remember that at least half the requirements for armour are off the skill discipline, not the specific sub-skill, so you can for instance train light combat arts and not worry about light armour. An 8 in light combat arts is better than a 4 in light combat arts and a 4 in light armour. Don't worry about any of the other armour skills. You can use better shields, and better orbs, simply dependant on the magic skill, or a level requirement.

I hope this helps, here are the two best sites I have found; The Spellforce Companion and Spellforce - The Order of Dawn.

Edit: I assume the bow you got was Flaming Wrath? That is good, used it right up until I got Spiritstrike or something similar. That's not unitl map number 0012 or 0014 I think, though there are others inbetween.

[ January 12, 2004, 17:00: Message edited by: Manus ]

[Gothmog]

Yeah, i just got Flaming Wrath. Amazing difference, because before i still had the first bow - 3-5 damage

The only thing that bothers me... and really bothers me is that my Avatar just wont shoot enemies by itself! if there's a battle going on i dont know about (sorting peasants,...) she's just gonna stand there and wait for all the melee units to get killed. And then she'll be overwhelmed by sheer number of enemies. If only she'd shoot as soon as she sees an enemy id's be much, much easier.
I dont know if this can be changed though