**EDIT**

Found a helpful link with lots of extra info the Manual doesn't quite explain.
http://www.markofchaos.com/forums/vi...er=asc&start=0

**END EDIT**


Just finished up the Chaos side of the single-player campaign. Loved the storyline...but a couple gripes. Most are centered around the side of evil because that's all I've taken time to play so far.

First thing I did when I installed was check for updates. It took forever to download and install, but I figured there was a good reason for a patch.

Started the campaign to ease myself into how the units work, then did a couple games vs. AI to try out other stuff. Annoying to have to set up a LAN game in order to play vs. computer, but no big deal there.

Likes:
Characters are good, but not as overpowered as I heard they were during the beta. In beta, a maxed-out Daemon Prince could take on an entire army of footsoldiers and win. This is no longer the case...and I like it that way.

Magic- Love magic...love, love, love it. Glad to see they made it a part of the game. I'm a huge fan of the sorcerer abilities and use them almost to the point of exclusivity.

Unit selection is great...being able to pick a variety of units and play different facets of the same army (such as Undivided, Khorne, or Nurgle) lends some extra tweakage that I felt was missing from the Rome TW game.

Artillery units and missile troopers no longer have limited ammo. I HATED this in Rome TW. Max out a unit of elite Egyptian archers, just to have them run out of ammo when you really need 'em just plain sucked.
Artillery is now a constant threat instead of just the first few opening maneuvers...so taking them out is a much higher priority during gameplay.

Goblins! As an all-goblin player in the tabletop game, I was thrilled to be able to create an all-goblin army. Rumors during beta were that there would only be the generic "goblin" fodder unit and it was iffy as to whether or not you'd be able to field them yourself, or if they were only available to fight against during a specific scenario in singleplayer campaign mode.

Dislikes:

CTDs- Crashed to Desktop multiple times during the singleplayer campaign. Apparently, not all of the bugs were worked out when I patched. It's really annoying to have to restart a scenario from scratch because the game bogged down from sheer number of units.

Play CD- I installed just fine, but every time I pop in the Play CD, it still tries to go through the installation process. I have to cancel it out and double-click my desktop startup icon.

Hero Duels- Repetitive clicking of duel abilities as they recharge just doesn't do anything for me. There's no paper-rock-scissors recipe for winning a duel. Just brute force and how quickly your abilities recharge. A huge letdown for me.

Hero Abilities- You only get 4 slots for hero abilities. I've noticed that even if I don't have an ability (meaning zero skill points allocated to it) that it is still sometimes useable in-game after the hero levels up even if I allocated the earned skill points elsewhere.
I've also noticed that some of the super abilities don't show up in the ability slots even if points are allocated to them. From their descriptions, they must be activated and are not passive abilities that are always on. This is just plain stupid. Why the hell would I max out the lower abilities, unlock the super ones, spend points on 'em, and not even have a behind-the-scenes hotkey to be able to use them?
This is my biggest gripe...I am MOST displeased. Maybe I'll figure out I'm mistaken about the active-vs-passive skill type and find out it really IS always on, but for now...it is player enemy number one.

Multiplayer Army Selection bug- I noticed that some Chaos units are mislabeled and deceiving when selecting an army. Chaos Undivided was fraught with this. Chaos Knights in particular...while selecting an army, level 1 knights started 20 strong. At level 3 they were up to 60 knights! Just to double-check, I fielded 'em in-game...they showed up in the correct numbers in-game, so only the army selection is buggy.
Makes you wonder what else might be though.


Overall, I love the game. I can't help it. I am a tabletop fan, so seeing all the familiar units and being able to fight with 'em without having to spend a huge wad of cash and weeks of painting them makes me very happy.
It's the mod for Rome TW that I always wanted to see...plus a few things I hadn't thought of.

Computer Stats:

ASUS A8n-SLi Premium Mobo
AMD FX-53 chip
2 GB RAM, Dual-Channel
SLI-rigged Nvidia BFG GeForce 7800 w/ 256 RAM (x2)
SATA RAID HDs
Graphics settings all on Medium (High was bad for lag, but Medium still causes hiccups and CTDs)