DW, DW2, DW3 Discussion Thread

[Iain]

Man DW2 was awesome, i miss it a lot.
You felt like a true hero at war, it was hard as hell (DW5's chaos mode pales in comparison to DW2's hard mode), enemy and allied officers used to kill houndreds of enemies too..
Arrows had a point back then, i used them quite often and enemy bowmen were truly deadly (Liu Bei's camp at Yi Ling was an arrowstorm ).

Hah the machine gun arrow trick was a handy tactic against a rampaging Bu coming at ya, must have been over 100 arrows to collect in the Hu Lao Gate zone.

Troops actually mattered; if for any reason you'd fought far from your troops, you could see them carve through the enemy formation with high morale and defeat enemy generals on their way.

Yes i recall in Wu Zhang plains most of my men were wiped out but one lone archer followed me around helping stagger a foe as i fought him, I was sad when he finally fell, somehow the AI in the game just seemed better even if the game was of a simpler time.

Today i decided to play a lil bit of DW2 again. The CD wouldn't run anymore. Today was a sad day.

Maybe you can download it off playonline?

[Aygor]

Man DW2 was awesome, i miss it a lot.
You felt like a true hero at war, it was hard as hell (DW5's chaos mode pales in comparison to DW2's hard mode), enemy and allied officers used to kill houndreds of enemies too..
Arrows had a point back then, i used them quite often and enemy bowmen were truly deadly (Liu Bei's camp at Yi Ling was an arrowstorm ).

Hah the machine gun arrow trick was a handy tactic against a rampaging Bu coming at ya, must have been over 100 arrows to collect in the Hu Lao Gate zone.

I loved to kill enemy bowmen on turrets or walls with my arrows =D

Troops actually mattered; if for any reason you'd fought far from your troops, you could see them carve through the enemy formation with high morale and defeat enemy generals on their way.

Yes i recall in Wu Zhang plains most of my men were wiped out but one lone archer followed me around helping stagger a foe as i fought him, I was sad when he finally fell, somehow the AI in the game just seemed better even if the game was of a simpler time.

I remember that in Wu Zhang Plains as Zhao Yun I went to save Huang Zhong, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei. That got my troops to the max morale, and they carved their way to Sima Yi killing multiple officers on their own.
Anyway the AI was definitely better, when you see a big groups of people in DW5 troops stand watching each other most of the time, in DW2 they'd at least hit a lot more often!

Today i decided to play a lil bit of DW2 again. The CD wouldn't run anymore. Today was a sad day.

Maybe you can download it off playonline?

I wouldn't even know how

[Korin]

I've recently played DW7 with the DW2 maps and I have to say they are more unique than the current ones.

[Elitemsh]

There were far less battles so naturally the stages perhaps were more uniquely designed. I find that playing DW 7, which I've been doing recently, has got me into the mood to play DW 2. The good thing about DW 2 is that your character is limited in power. There's only so much you can do and this forces you to fight carefully. Much more like a real battle I imagine (obviously still unavoidably unrealistic), you sometimes have to stay close to your allies. This is the fun part of the game. Staying with your people and slowing progressing through long stages. It's interesting that the horses seem much faster and stronger in DW 2 relative to 3. Maybe the developers felt gamers were spamming this too much so they toned it down in 3, forcing a different approach.

DW 7 I have found fun the last week but it is funny when you compare it to 2. Now a musou attack is charged very quickly in 7 and incredibly destructive. It was not so in 2. It took much longer to get it charged and you would try to make sure to save it for an 8 hit kill combo on a gate captain (get +2 defense) or enemy general. The good old days.

[Korin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G4fn97Lyqg

Some DW2 gameplay - I've never played it, I only tried the HD redesign on DW7 verison

[Elitemsh]

That's unfortunate. Problem is you can't really go back and play it now. The 4 hit attack limit may annoy you. For its time though DW 2 was very good. Dian Wei is a beast in it. I'm playing as him currently. It is Wu Zhang plains stage. Funnily enough I've been forced to up the difficulty to hard because it is Dian Wei. For most other characters normal would be challenging enough. It is a lot harder now. You have to fight with allies but it takes a while to beat an enemy general and whilst you're trying a couple of your main allies will die elsewhere and they'll come after you and you'll be forced to retreat further. This is why it is so fun. I'm being forced to think to win. For example, my starting position is near Ma Chao, so my natural goal is to get rid of him first and boost our morale. However he is protected by a lot of archers and this is delaying things considerably. Meanwhile Zhao Yun has killed an enemy general (maybe Xiahou Yuan). He is now advancing and anyone who faces him will be finished. As his morale increases, he becomes progressively tougher to beat. But if I leave to face him then Ma Chao will advance and ill lose a gate captain (source of allied troops). You are never made to think like this in DW 7.

[Korin]

Gate captains gave you allied troops? I never knew that.. I never got any troops from it in DW3/DW4/DW5

[Elitemsh]

Some allied troops would come out if a decent amount of enemies were nearby. It would only be useful if you were with them otherwise the gate captain would die. I think it does happen in DW 3. Don't know about the others. There were times when it was tactically smart to protect a gate captain, especially if the enemy had advanced far into your turf.

[Korin]

What's point of gate captains iN DW4/5 then if no troops come out, I think for enemies they do but not yours

[Elitemsh]

I think allied troops do come out but only when the captain is being personally engaged by enemy troops. Most of the time you're advancing into enemy's territory so you wouldn't notice. That's probably it I think. The effect isn't great anyway.