Apocalypse (1983): Terrible UI and stale gameplay packaged in one successful game!
Did I mention barely readable art?
@Dayyalu, @OperativeLynx and @KarbonKitty volunteered for PBEM nuclear annihilation, so let's start the meme thread!l
Ahh, the 80ies. The golden era where everyone hoped daily for nuclear annihilation.
I seriously doubt that many will check this thread: but the Scribe is not exxagerating: this game has probably the most obtuse UI and mediocre gameplay (yes, Gollop included) of all the offers we had. I'll try to explain to the three readers we have here the horror.
This is the European map. We have several maps with standard stuff like Europe and then typically Anglo options like Great Britain, London and the Caribbean. Please don't notice the 1630 date, this is an alternate reality where Philip II truly invested into nuclear power.
So, a player chooses a name and a symbol, and that's good. Now we need to pick the "city centers" for each one of us, and there's a random option (thankfully) and then there's manual selection: manual selection works in the most INSANE way I've ever seen, as the cursor CYCLES QUICKLY THROUGH EACH CENTER and you gotta pray you're fast enough and the input registers fast enough to get the center you truly want. Repeat for each center for each player: if we had to do this in PBEM we'll go insane before starting the game.
And this is only the beginning! It gets better. Stay tuned.
I am just here for the memes and the play-by-play commentary. (and of course to share in the misery of people playing "bad" games)
My theory is that the design philosophy for this adaptation was to replicate the board game as accurately as possible without much consideration for how well the chosen implementation method works on a computer. For example, I can see that city selection method making sense for a board game, but here it is just insane like Dayyalu mentioned. And since the rest of the game follows the same design paradigm, at the moment I'm quite baffled about how this could have been so successful as is said.
Before we start the game proper my prediction is that the UI drives us all MAD and the world ends in nuclear annihilation.
I. The pre-Apocalypse
In the year 2700 AD, 4 civilizations are occupying the last inhabitable part a world made barren by global warming, Gaian collapse and other locust plagues:
(this is a collage to have all legends at the same place)
The Under Ground Socialist Soviet Republic, lead by Under Commissar Dayyalu, controls Florida, the Bahamas and a large part of Central America. It looks like the Sandinists won after all and that all those Cuban exiles in Miami were infiltrators after all.
In the South, Genarch KarbonKitty has created a new quasi-State, encompassing the Eastern Carribeans and most of Colombia, but Venezuela stands firm.
The Mayans have survived and adapted for one millenium. Today, Lynx's neo-Mayans are ready to overcome.
Finally, the Scribes have established missions all over what's left of the world. They pretend to be documenting the world, but their new head, Maphrian Narwhal, seems to have new ambition for the Church!
Quote from Operative Lynx on 4 May 2024, 12h44Before we start the game proper my prediction is that the UI drives us all MAD and the world ends in nuclear annihilation.
Nice pun, I only got it now 🙂
Welcome onboard. I will for once avoid my usual LP-style of shitposting, and instead share the pain. Scribe is free to correct me when I'm wrong, but see, we've managed to randomly allocate the cities. Now it's the time to deploy our troops and move, in a strict I GO YOU GO system (so I deploy and move everything, then Scribe moves and all that jazz).
See the low numbers near our symbols? That's the theoretical revenue we get. I would get like 33. Thankfully, the designers tried their hardest to avoid me blasting my undefended enemies during the first turn as they have not even deployed, so I get an awesome first turn with reduced revenue of eight. Meaning I can build two Land Armies or a single Warship, and do essentially nothing.
Don't worry, Scribe gets double my points and the others get almost their full points, and of course they can deploy and move freely afterwards with no problems, why are you asking? Yes, of course the cities can't be attacked by armies inferior to 4 Land Armies to balance things out, but what if the later players get like 30+ revenue points on the first turn and can build like seven armies on the first turn and move them around
B A L A N C E
(if I'm wrong Scribe, correct me, this game kinda broke me in testing phase so I'm literally going with the flow now and loudly complaining as my Italian blood requires me to)
No, no you are fully correct. I understand much better Gollop's balancing issues when I see who were his colleagues who playtested it his games.
Joke aside, I am yoloing it as well. There is only so much you can stomach for a test.
Still wondering whether it will be so bad it's hilarious, or just bad :).
The war for living space has broken out and the first blood was drawn on the island of Hispaniola, when the Neomayans tried to push the invasion forces of the Genar Empire back to the sea.
So I attacked Port-au-Prince with 4 armies against 1 defending army. The computer rolled the same number for both of us, which by the combat resolution rules means that defender wins; I lost all my armies and no losses for the defender.
How lovely, this combat system is really painful.
Quote from The Wargaming Scribe on 4 May 2024, 22h52Still wondering whether it will be so bad it's hilarious, or just bad :).
The UI is bad and clunky, but it's still not painfully bad. It's simply pointless because the design seems to be utterly scatterbrained.
I don't think we'll manage to finish this: but I want to share with our three readers how the manual is written:
The players slip into the roles of world leaders, mimicking their daring and foolish escapades, uncertain alliances, and idiosyncratic preoccupations. The high level tools of deceit and treachery, diplomacy and statesmanship direct the players' struggle with the uncertainty of the lunatic - BUT WHO IS HE/SHE? APOCALYPSE is a game of strategy in which the players' skills, both logical and psychological, predominate. Little more than the order of turns is random. Combat between generals is an eye to eye affair. The commitment of forces is made and the battle rages. The players have total control over the outcome. The possibilities of the game are inexhaustible as each player strives for dominance over cities, rich urban areas, mountain strongholds and the open seas. You will be involved in isolated and supported attacks, in costly invasions and you will tread the thin line between nuclear deterrence and devastation.
I want whatever this guy took when he wrote this after playing Apocalypse
As the ancient peoples of the biblical city of Gerar walked on the surface again, awoken by the (checks notes) global warming, Gaian collapse and other locust plagues, they spread across the Southern America, claiming the rural regions to exploit the unbeliveres and finally take over the earth!
The prince of Gerar, Ben-melech, leads the glorious charge out of Port-au-Prince Gerar, the capital of the Gerar, against the Santo Domingo, held by the heathens of the neo-Mayan empire! As the forces clash, the Random Number God selects 4! as the number of the believers of Gerar, and then... 4! as the number of the neo-Mayan beast!
...
Let me rephrase that.
...
Unauthorized, jingoinst adventure of the prodigal son results in a waste of uncoutable lives of the the good soldiers of Gerar, as he takes four divisions out to try and wipe the enemy off the Hispaniola. His name will be forgotten, and the forces of Gerar will be more successful next time around!
God Haiti will have been pain and sufferings until the very end of History
The Proletarian CHUD Divisions attack Houston from underground, managing a closely fought victory against whoever was occupying the city, we don't know. The population is jubilant, the new law of "He who does not work, he shall be eaten" is particularly appreciated
The combat system in Apocalypse is essentially a schizo version of Rock-paper-scissors. And I do not mean the three types of unit beat each other, I mean the defender must try to divine the "number" of the attack and the combat is calculated from that. I do not understand this system nor I'm willing to learn it, so we're automating everything this game.
I believe I sent 6-7 Divisions against Houston (that was defended by a single Division, I believe) but I honestly don't know.
Turn 1:
Nothing interesting happened in turn one, except some distant clash without result on the distant island of Hispaniola. The Scribes declined to investigate.
End of Turn 1. Some factions started occupying "empty" terrain to collect some revenue (3 by yellow tile, 2 by green tile)
Turn 2:
The Scribes heard of a great commotion in the ancient American city of House Ton. A delegation was sent to investigate and record the event, and although the city was initially found empty, at night a creeping multitude poured from caves and other openings to the ground. The Scribes fought as well as they can, and it is a lucky thing that they brought pistols rifles, grenades, machine guns, flame-throwers, tanks, IFV, missile launchers, yet more tanks and DDT with them.
I planned to send only 5 guys, but thanks to the appalling UI I ended up sending everyone (9 units)! Luckily, I won the battle with acceptable casualties.
After that, the Scribes deployed in the countryside to count how many different species of trees had survived thus far. The counting is still ongoing.
Imagine that: I wanted to post a GIF to showcase how horrible the UI of the game, but I could not make a gif where readers would understand what happens on the screen!
I hope the image won't be too large (also thanks to great UIs all around, I've advanced into the next turn while taking the screenshot, please disregard that):
The Daily Genar Courier reports:
The glorious conquest of the one and only King of Genar continues unabated, despite the heretics, the heathens, the deamon worshippers and the atheists trying to stall it! The famously glorious and gloriously famous armies have marched into the villages and the towns in the territories known in the past as the Mexico, Columbia and Haiti, to take more of the illiterate peasants and workers there into the loving fold of the Genar, for the to work for the greater glory and fame (and conquest)!
Also, after solving the... minor issue of the jingoist prince last year, our glorious King has taken matter into his own hand to eject the foreing heathens of the neo-Mayan Empire from the island of Hispaniola Genar, and he leads five divisions into the fray! As the battle rages, the enemy division defending the city is broken and routs, but as the loses on the attackers side mount, the sailors of the warship squadron in the port hold of the assault with the help of the ships guns and missiles. The conquest will be completed next year for sure!
So it seems that the warship is enough to hold the city against the attack; this time I've attacked with five divisions against one division and one warship, and rolled 3-1 losses, which left me with 3 divisions in the Port-au-Prince Genar and a single warship in Santo Domingo (I've used one of the divisions subsequently to take over the Haitian countryside).
The accursed Robes have surged from their ivory towers to lay waste to Houston: the sacrifice of our Brothers let the Second CHUD Proletarian Division enough time to muster men and mutants for a ferocious counterattack that freed the ruins of the city from Robe oppression. The countryside, alas, is completely compromised and too far away from our lovely tunnels, caves and metro stations.
AI makes this game look cooler than it can ever be
So, people complain about the controls in this game. Movement for example is location based: you select the initial location and the "type" of movement for the units inside the location ( Movement, in theory lets you select how many troops you want to move but it depends, March, it selects all the troops in a location for movement, Occupy, it selects all troops bar one to leave a Zone of Control behind). and then the objective.
Half of the time the move command do not function as advertised (for example, attacking cities seems to make the command go schizo and ignore Occupy or Movement or maybe it needs a minimum amount of troops even to start an attack? Who knows).
Turn 3
The UGSSR attacks House Ton again, and the Scribes have to fall back to report:
But the Scribes counter-attack en-force, and liberates Houston again, with significant casualties
The game indicates very significant casualties on my side and nothing on the defender side, but I won nonetheless
With its significant revenue, the High Parish can send another team of investigators to Dallas, the regional capital shaft of the UGSSR. It is another victory:
... and now it indicates casualties. Note that armies can move a whooping 6 tiles/turn, including in diagonals, including the turn they are produced, so there is little placement tactics.
The Scribes are triumphant. The UGSSR has been chased from Texas.
The only thing left to do is to plug the few remaining mole-holes West of Dallas...
... and it does not turn so well. I destroy the mole-men in a first location, but lost all my assault in another because, as explained by Dayyalu above, even though I asked them to do an "occupy" move (moving all my units but one), every one was involved in combat. Oh, well. Still a great turn.
As the neo-Mayan heathens spread across the countryside of Hispaniola Genar Island, the wise and prudent King moves his attention elsewhere - the gatherers of heretical knowledge and readers of forbidden books, Scribes, seem to grow in strength out of proportion. A crusade is called forth from the Medellin and the Genar army marches into the Panama City, taking it in a bloody battle [1]. Victorious troops pour out of the city, taking over villages and towns all across Panama, and strenghtening the hold the glorious nation of Genar has on the southern part of the world, at the same time striking a blow to the Scribes!
Further north, a small force marches over the fertile plain of Tabasco and Tamaulipas, protecting the illiterate peasants and factory workers from the blood-sacrifices of the neo-Mayans and the heretical teachings of the Scribes, bottled up in the cities of the former Mexico.
[1] Attacked with 9-1 advantage, lost 4 division.
As far as I can tell, the combat system lets attacker choose a number from X to Y, where Y is the number of attacking divisions, and X depends on the terrain being attacked, rougher terrain having higher X. Cities/ports have X = 4, from what I've gathered, and the yellow 'urban' areas 3, I think? The mountains seem to limit the Y value.
As for the movement being erratic, is this only during the attacks? I _think_ that this is caused by the fact that if attacker losses are higher than the number of the divisions moved into the attack, they can actually cut into the divisions _left behind_. Which, probably, still a bug, but I didn't have problems moving divisions without attacking, either single ones to occupy countryside, nor multiple ones in march/occupy moves.
I can't really make out what is happening 🙂 Does the flowchart from the boardgame (Warlord) help to clarify the attack rules.
I remember enjoying this game a lot (back in 1980) but we always ending up nuking everything into oblivion as soon as possible.
Yes, thanks to you and another investigation by KarbonKitty we found out the system:
- The number of attackers determines the MAX of the strategy range (eg: 9 attackers - strategy 9 is available)
- The terrain determines the MIN of strategy range (city: 4, urban:3)
This means that 4 attackers against a city have 100% chance of losing - even though "technically" you can attack. Same with my attack of 3 guys against an urban terrain. Even 5 attackers against a city is 50/50.