Octopus Overlords

This is the Russian TBS game that is the precursor of sorts to the forthcoming Master of the Broken World, and it's available in English for the first time. Good news: GOG has it for $4.

The not so good news is that it looks pretty deep, but there is no English manual, so we're on our own.

Nice find!

I'll definitely grab this. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that a few of us OOers will get beta invites to Broken World, but this should serve nicely to whet our appetites.

Thank you for the info. I'm interested and I probably would never have found it on my own. Thanks.

Thanks. This looks sweet, gonna grab it. Apparantly the campaign has a tutorial so that should hopefully help.

Someone also likened this version to the new, upcoming version as being like the difference between Homm2 and Homm3. This has been one great year for us TBS gamers, hasn't it?

Great find! I'm definitely going to give this a try. I look forward to learning it along with those of you who also decide to take the (not too expensive) plunge.

I'm pretty impressed so far. The tutorial is excellent. The game is slowly introducing new features to me as I play. There is obviously quite a bit of depth -- I'll be happy to get into it. For now, I'm playing the campaign and even though I chose "skilled" (the difficulty one up from beginner) the game statistics window shows I am on beginner difficulty. I've learned really quickly that the auto-battle is not a very good idea unless you really have overwhelming force -- and perhaps not even then unless you don't mind losing some units.

I chose a Scout class, and apparently that should be translated as Ranger because they are a ranged archery class. So far so good. I'm about 2 hours in and I am still learning new things from the tutorial, which is still popping up, but I do have some questions. One involves a minor spoiler about how to use an object I found, and I would really appreciate some help if someone knows the answer:
My other question is how do I lower unrest in a province? I took a neighboring province and unrest is slowly growing there -- I don't want a revolt but I don't know how to lower unrest.

Just a guess, but looking at the building tree I would think there is something you could build to lower unrest. Also, the size of your garrison may have an impact.

tlr went into the hospital unexpectedly for surgery this weekend, so I haven't had a lot of time to game, but I hope to spend some quality time with this tomorrow.

I bought it as well and have been playing about an hour. Great game for under $5.

This is fun. Its been awhile since I've played a tbs with only a "continue game" save system. I've become too dependent lately with MaMH 6's infinite saves. Thanks for finding this!

The save system had me a bit concerned, but I guess it autosaves after each turn.

I played a bit more of the campaign, and the strategic layer reminds me more of the TW series than HoMM. The only thing I dislike is the cheesy combat animations, but I'm sure that will be fixed for the new version.

Can someone explain the difference between guard and garrison?

tgb wrote:Can someone explain the difference between guard and garrison?

I *think* the difference is that a garrison goes into a town/castle, whereas a guard can be placed in a province you control. So, you could have a garrison and/or a guard in some provinces, while just a guard in others.

I am only a little ways in (level 3 Wizard in opening mission of campaign), but I'm very pleased so far.

Qantaga wrote:
I am only a little ways in (level 3 Wizard in opening mission of campaign), but I'm very pleased so far.

I'm a bit farther, I think. A Lev 5 fighter doing the mission to take out the guy in the "Northwest" somewhere. The one thing that really annoys me is that (so far, anyway) I can only recruit units in the capitol, which means shlepping back and forth when I need reinforcements.

The developer has created a forum for the older game here, which should prove handy. Maybe someone will do a Wiki.

I finished the first "shard" (level) last night. The game shows tons of promise, and after 3.5 hours of play I'm looking forward to playing more tonight.

I re-watched the video for the sequel and the sequel doesn't just look like a new game -- it looks like the same game! The graphics are obviously improved but the gameplay stuff they showed looked identical to what I am playing now, even the interface was the same. The portraits of characters, the UI, even the font. I'm wondering if I may be better off not jumping whole hog into the game right now, and just waiting for the updated-graphics version when that comes out on Steam. I have no idea if the game will play differently, but I sure started to doubt it after I saw that video.

Guards can be placed in provinces. Only certain units can function as guards. You can also build certain types of buildings in provinces, once you have researched/built the correct building in your capital.

I noticed that one of my provinces that I had conquered stopped growing in unrest. I didn't think I changed anything, but thinking back on it I may have hired a guard that stopped unrest from growing. I'm not sure, and I can't go back to an old save to look! Having only the one save is a bit disconcerting, especially for the campaign. What if there is a major bug? I'm trying not to dwell on it, but I'm the guy who won't play XCOM without the ability to save for just that reason.

One annoying thing (unless I'm missing it somewhere) - the only way to see the makeup of a hero's army is the recruitment screen, and if you're not at the capitol you have to shlep back.

Ha! The tutorial in the next world (yes, the tutorial is still going on) just answered our unrest questions: A guard reduces the speed that unhappiness grows in a province, and later on you can unlock buildings that influence population mood.

I cant seem to figure out how to place a garrison recruit that was won as a trophy in a battle.
I have a spider Egg and I would like to place it as a garrison.
Is it possible that it is level two and I need to upgrade the garrison level before I can place a certain level beast in there?

I got a scout to level 8 and am now working on a Wizard who is level 5. Still loving it.

Malacheye wrote:I cant seem to figure out how to place a garrison recruit that was won as a trophy in a battle.
I have a spider Egg and I would like to place it as a garrison.
Is it possible that it is level two and I need to upgrade the garrison level before I can place a certain level beast in there?

I'd love to know the answer to this as well!

Does this have any sort of widescreen support or will I be playing with black bars on each side of my monitor?

tgb wrote:One annoying thing (unless I'm missing it somewhere) - the only way to see the makeup of a hero's army is the recruitment screen, and if you're not at the capitol you have to shlep back.

select your hero then click on his portrait or hit the g key

Dave Allen wrote:

tgb wrote:One annoying thing (unless I'm missing it somewhere) - the only way to see the makeup of a hero's army is the recruitment screen, and if you're not at the capitol you have to shlep back.

select your hero then click on his portrait or hit the g key

Thanks

OK, the game is kicking my butt. I managed to lose my first "real" shard (the second shard) and since you can't revert, I'm just rolling with it. I've also managed to get my heroes killed several times.

One thing I've learned is that a "contract" is something that allows you to hire that type of guard in a province. So if you get a contract, you can start hiring that type of guard. Also, I've learned that it is probably better to conquer new lands than to conquer locations in your starting area at first.

Once you get into the meat of the game there's a menu option to "roll back time", or something like that, which resets you to the previous turn, so you can recover if you take a real ass-kicking. Thing is, you take a hit in some of the stats for doing it.

Just finished the tutorial shard. My hero was an explorer type. I spent a lot of time protecting my men so they could level up. I thought the least powerful units - the peasant and slinger were a waste of time. When it came to the siege at the end, my level 10 hero had one level 3 healer and four level 5 militiamen. Without a save file I was sweating it out with just my almost dead hero at the end. The dialogue after that was humorously philosophical.

Also, if you explore a province to 100%, it yields +2 income and eliminates unrest.

I noticed in the game proper that building certain improvements lock out others, but without a manual I'm having a hard time determining what locks out what. I'd like to restart the campaign but don't want to play the tutorial again.

I hope the new version comes with a more conventional save system.

I got this last night and have been playing through the first world with a wizard. Good fun so far. It has a nice balance between RPG and strategy game that does a good job of pulling you into it.

So a couple questions:
The only ways to heal (at least in the beginning) are with the heal ritual spell and by waiting, correct? It seems like if I kept my troops healed I would be fighting a battle once every 10 turns, but you really need all your troops at full strength for some of those fights. It just seems odd that I have a spellbook full of heal spells that I can use in combat, but only the heal ritual in the strategy portion that I can use once every few turns.

I assume that even though your mentor says you need to hurry before the local lord wakes up that there's no actual time limit on the tutorial? I started rushing a bit toward the nothwest when I was told about that, but the fights up there get tough!

Now that I have a bit better understanding of the basic I'm thinking I might restart as a fighter or a commander. Wizard seems like he'll eventually get pretty strong, but at least at this stage I wasn't sure he was helping enough.

My tips so far:
Build the tavern and keep an eye out for good mercenaries. They cost a bit more, but I was able to get a crossbowman and some good heavy infantry for my army that way.

If you play a wizard, stock up on the spells available in that starting city... particularly the summon skeleton and the magic missile spells. Once you cross the sea you can't seem to go back, and the spells you can get at your stronghold aren't as strong for the most part.

I had no problem going back. There is a province on the Eastern shore with a boat dock. Have you captured it?

Shards can be played in any order. Just for discussion's sake it might be a good idea for all of us to play the same shard?

I was going to restart the campaign. When I saw that it meant replaying the tutorial I started a random map instead

Sent from my R800x using Tapatalk 2

Pro Tip: Going by the empire summary screen, it appears you can only build up to 3 buildings in a province

I LOVE that the game is full of difficult choices. I'm really looking forward to the new Beta now.

In the campaign, I think each turn updates only three files in the save folder - game0.bkc, game0.cmp, and map0.cmp - but I wonder what the other save files are for?

Just to be on the safe side --- after certain milestones I'm backing up the entire save folder.

This game looked too good to pass up and the price was excellent. Downloading now...

Stuie wrote:Does this have any sort of widescreen support or will I be playing with black bars on each side of my monitor?

I'd like to know too. It's rather surprising to only see 4:3 screenshots for a game released in 2009. Does it support resolutions like 1920x1080 natively, or will I have to play on a stretched screen or a big and fuzzy scaled 1024x768?

There doesn't seem to be a way to change the resolution in the options, so who knows? I'm sure the new version will.

Haha!

I found a way to restart the campaign WITHOUT re-doing the tutorial. After you choose NEW campaign and delete the old saved one, you need to click on the choices with the imp that basically say "come now, lets get on with this". Which is to say we already know how to do this. This takes you to the astral screen and when you choose your first island other than your home base to conquer, it allows you to choose your difficulty level.

I was having difficulty on the Competent/Hard level (3), so I am reducing it to level 2, just above beginner, to see if I can conquer more than one shard. Alt-tabbing out and force ending a game by using the task manager does not save you a "take back the last turn"

In my 4th day now. Still liking it lots. Worth every penny I paid for it.

tgb wrote:There doesn't seem to be a way to change the resolution in the options, so who knows? I'm sure the new version will.

I would get this one, but I have such a large backlog that I can safely wait for the new version. Should be out early next year, right?

baelthazar wrote:

tgb wrote:There doesn't seem to be a way to change the resolution in the options, so who knows? I'm sure the new version will.

I would get this one, but I have such a large backlog that I can safely wait for the new version. Should be out early next year, right?

They are saying first quarter. Should be early in the quarter since the beta starts this week.

Malacheye - Very cool. The only thing keeping me away from this right now is the hope that I made it into the beta of the new version, which supposedly starts Monday.

I asked the developer about the difference different races make in terms of the strategic map. Here is his reply:

Each race has an alignment, elves don't like to be oppressed by an evil master, orcs can't tolerate a goody-two-shoes ruler etc. Also, non-human provinces have some specific events exclusive for their races.

More importantly, when you enter a non-human province, you may (depending on your karma) offer this race an alliance, and having sealed the alliance by completing a quest, you get to construct their special buildings in your foreign quarter and recruit their special units.

Boy I hope I made it into the beta.

Got it, and I am impressed. Quite detailed, but not overwhelming so far. I am currently a level 7 commander.

Best comparison would probably be to Heroes of Might and Magic 2 or 3, but more hard core. Tactical battles require more thought, and world gives you more complicated decisions to make.

Lots of little details remain a bit unclear to me, but that is to be expected without an English manual. One thing in particular -- ranks and levels of units:
* Units keep leveling up, and I see this when I right click for details. My pikeman is a level 4.
* But in the unit recruitment screen, there are also ranks, and I gather these are different from levels. I have a couple level 4 slingers sitting in rank 2 on the screen. Not sure if that affects them in any way?
* But to complicate it still further, when I mouse over these units, they are all labeled rank 1, even the units placed in levels 2,3,4. This rank 1 label is confirmed if I right click on any of the units.
Not sure at all what to make of that.

dbemont wrote:Got it, and I am impressed. Quite detailed, but not overwhelming so far. I am currently a level 7 commander.

Best comparison would probably be to Heroes of Might and Magic 2 or 3, but more hard core. Tactical battles require more thought, and world gives you more complicated decisions to make.

Lots of little details remain a bit unclear to me, but that is to be expected without an English manual. One thing in particular -- ranks and levels of units:
* Units keep leveling up, and I see this when I right click for details. My pikeman is a level 4.
* But in the unit recruitment screen, there are also ranks, and I gather these are different from levels. I have a couple level 4 slingers sitting in rank 2 on the screen. Not sure if that affects them in any way?
* But to complicate it still further, when I mouse over these units, they are all labeled rank 1, even the units placed in levels 2,3,4. This rank 1 label is confirmed if I right click on any of the units.
Not sure at all what to make of that.

Actually it reminds me more of AoW, but whatever.

As near as I can figure out, unit-producing buildings can be upgraded to produce higher-ranking offshoots, kind of like HoMM. I'm not entirely clear on how placement works, however.