Recent posts by steveb444 on Kongregate

Topic: Battalion: Arena / What's the deal with "Reason 2"?

It seems that if you keep ‘refreshing’ every time you get ‘Reason 2’ you will EVENTUALLY get to play.

I have noticed that I always ‘get in’ immediatly when the number in the ‘chat’ room is under 30 .. but when it reaches 40 or so, it takes for ever. The limit seems to be about 43 ..

This suggets to me that the Servers are limiting the number of players .. in other words, in order to join you have to ‘get in quick’ when some other player leaves …

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Game finally dead?

The history of Arena is littered with ‘updates’ and ‘upgrades’ that lead to ‘Server connection fail’ .. USUALLY they fix it in a day or so – this time they have excelled themselves … I’ve been ‘out’ for at least a week … (I was ‘in’ for a brief couple of hours yesterday, so I KNOW it’s nothing I’ve changed)

I’ve said before & will say it again – plainly no-one ever bothers to test the game outside the office (no doubt, as with most companies, I would like to bet ‘der Management’ have never heard of Firewalls – and see no reason why anyone should refuse to turn theirs off in order to play the game ..)

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Awards for Best Maps

If you ever get this off the ground, it had be better be open to ‘paying members’ only … the ‘guests’ have all worked out by now that the only way to get to play new maps is to ‘mark down’ every map they ever play to ‘zero points’ (thus freeing the ‘free to play’ top slot for a map that’s blocked unless you pay)

Topic: Battalion: Arena / What's the deal with "Reason 2"?

Broke again – no Reason this time, just locks up when it reaches ‘Initiate Connection’ Status with ‘Loading …’ in the top left ‘box’ ..

I expect it will get sorted as usual (if we leave it alone for a couple of days) perhaps with some minor changes …

A pity, really, that we never hear what they keep doing to break it … by now you might have thought they would have got beyond rolling out non-working updates :-)

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Official News

Oh hum, broke again .. it loads to the ‘green screen’ with a Loading Status (RH top corner) list that reaches ‘’initiate connection" .. LH top box gets a Yellow Warning triangle & the word ’Loading…’ but that’s all folks …

No, I didn’t chnage my firewall settings, yes it does the same with both MSIE & Firefox, no I do not get a ‘Reason X’ == it’s just dead (Windows Task Manager shows that there is no network traffic taking place, so I guess my PC is just waiting for the game server to respond and it just dosn’t ..)

Topic: Battalion: Arena / What's the deal with "Reason 2"?

Last 24 hours server connection fails with Reason 2. Since I never get to the start menu, I figger something’s changed = I’ve deleted all my cookies, deleted everything in the cache, deleted all history .. still no joy.

Both MSIE (v6) and Firefox (3.5.8) fail at the same step (flash loads OK, then reach ‘green’ screen, top right ‘-loading Status’ list, ‘…. -initiate connection’. top left, warning triangle in box, “Unable to connect to the server, Try refreshing the page. Reason 2”

Since I’ve made no changes to my Firewall settings, I assume something’s changed at the Server end ???

It would be ‘nice’ to have some-one from the developers team to post here when the game ‘server connection’ code changes (so we could stop wasting time trying to ‘guess’ what’s gone wrong :-) )

PS yes, I can’log-in’ OK (and obviously post to forums)

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Game Help Thread | FAQ's and Technical Support

Connecting to Server problem ..

I’ve noticed that as a non-member, the Server Connection is sometimes dropped ‘for no reason’ (at my end) whilst playing the ‘newest’ or ‘highest rated’ game.

On ‘reconnect’ the game is always aborted & I’m returned to the ‘menu’. When I select ‘play’ again, the map I was playing is no longer ‘newest’/‘top’.

I thus conclude that, when a map drops from the ‘newest’ or ‘top’ slot (i.e. no longer available to non-members) ‘connection’ is always lost to any game in progress.

This is, of course, quite annoying to non-memebrs (but perhaps deliberate :-) )

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Expert Combat Strategies

Another tip that I have learnt through bitter experience … if the enemy still has some Subs left, ALWAYS move your ‘Hunter’ (anti-sub cruiser) LAST (otherwise you will be kicking yourself when you run into his Sub with some other unit .. and realise you have already moved the one & only unit that COULD have killed him …) ..

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Expert Combat Strategies

I see the AI is still stupid enough to attempt to ram me with it’s Rocket Tanks & Battleships (instead of using them to fire at me) ..

In fact, one good trick against the AI is to move a commando unit ‘just out of range’ of the AI .. with a pile of your own long range units backing it up .. on the AI’s next go, like as not the AI will rush forward to ‘catch’ your commando, completly ignoring the fact that in doing so it’s moved into range of your own units .. .. and you can then blast it to pieces in your own turn ..

When the AI ends it’s turn with infantry on some factory/oil rig etc. (only by accident, it seems) you can play the ‘tempting target’ trick == i.e. bring up some infantry just out of move range & instead of stopping to capture the factrory etc. it will rush off after you …

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Expert Combat Strategies

Condors have no ‘counter attack’ .. you can take out a Condor by chasing it with a flak tank – flak moves faster so there’s never any problem getting your flak to attack first (anyone who allows a condor to hit their flak first is either desperately trying to defend or has lost it in other ways :-) )

Topic: Technical Support / Newest/Highest maps not working

Featured maps show & play OK. Newest and Rated lists show ‘names’ but map thumbnails are ‘blank’ (grey).

Clicking on a (blank) position locks up the Flash window (grey).

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Official News

Looks like the user maps “server” is broke .. the ‘Featured’ maps show and play OK, but the ‘Newest’ and ‘Highest Rated’ lists are blank – and trying to play by clicking on the map ‘position’ is a one way path to oblivion :-)

Topic: Battalion: Arena / its just stuped

Check out the latest map “Coltrain Sucks” == is this rubbish supposed to be funny ?
(or does it just prove that the ‘moderators’ have no call when it comes to checking maps ??)

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Morale

I assume by now you have discovered that if you move the mouse to the “^” symbol in the circle next to your name (on the right hand side of the window whilst playing, just under the current player Portrait) you get a little window that opens showing Morale points ..

Note also whilst playing, in top left corner, a ‘grey’ status message bar sometimes appears with messages like ‘Failed to attack penalty -5%’ == that means you have been ‘fined’ 5% etc. Morale for failing to attack (attacking enemy fortifications counts, automatic counter-attack does not count)

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Official News

Originally posted by nano5002:

Worst part: Free players can’t do anything but plat 1 v 1 featured games, or nooby new ones, since Scramble is (for some reason) rated number one and nobody can rate it down.

Yep, ‘Scramble’ == non-load. This suggest some weakness in whatever ‘verification’ process (if any) they go through to check maps are valid ..

.. plus they STILL have the habit of offering the same map twice .. we currently have Featured Maps with 2 copies of Ampersand + 2 copies of Unfinished .. (no doubt we would have 2 Ventris if there was room :-) )

Hard to believe that failure to fix this is anything other than “let’s leave it = it will encourage the free users to pay and upgrade”

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Expert Combat Strategies

Stealth units

Enemy will stop short when it runs into a stealthed unit without attacking (except infantry). This means you can use your stealthed units to ‘block in’ the enemy .. this is especially useful if you can trick the enemy into taking a route towards some nice juicy tempting target you have ‘accidently’ left too close and you want to ‘stop’ them in range of your rocket tank :-)

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Expert Combat Strategies

Fortifications

Any unit on one side of a fortification stops units moving through from the other side .. and since you can’t attack your own fortifications, you can end up ‘trapped’ within your own defenses by enemy that just sits there outside doing nothing (well, not against the AI – the AI will always attack your defenses until it opens a hole and lets you out :-) )

Stealth attacking fortifications are not ‘revealed’ until the enemy tries to move a unit across the fortification (which then stops short at the other side).

You can hit the enemy unit behind a fortification with a Lancer Tank without fear of counter attack. This is really good against the AI since it never works out what’s ‘in range’ and what’s not before moving (or not moving)

If you use a Lancer against an enemy unit in front of your own fortification, the ‘fire through’ effect will damage your own fortification .. this is the only way to get rid of your own fortifications which often get in your way as much as the enemy (see getting trapped in your own fort above)

Topic: Battalion: Arena / why do the NPCs move their warmachines?!

Whoopee, a new version .. fancy gun-fire visuals and sound effects …. but ..
Oh dear, much the same old crap AI…

+ Well, it now knows it can ‘repair’ units = it never bothered before, just kept on attacking until they were dead. Now it (occasionally) ‘retreats’ a damaged unit, and often repairs units that are out of harms way,.. however it is still too keen to go over to the attack, so if it ‘retreats’ an almost dead unit, all you have to do is move up something into range and it will trot out again and be killed on the counter attack ..

- in ‘classic’ the AI still fails to make ANY effort to ‘capture’ resources, factories, bases etc. (or deny them to the opponent) even to the extent of moving infantry away from ‘half captured’ resources/factories etc. for no reason at all ..

This is the ONE thing that would really improve the AI .. many maps start off with land units and a ‘neutral’ air base positioned in the center of the map. Plainly the expectation is that the players will battle over control of the air. The AI totally ignores this, so you can spend a few goes building up your forces and then send a single infantry to go capture the air base .. and chances are the AI’s will simply ignore it ..

- still much too keen to attack … in most maps you can more or less just spend the first couple of turns organizing your defenses waiting for the AI to blunder into you one unit at a time ..
Of course, on the smaller maps, the AI is so fast to attack that you just don’t have time to build many units and get them into position before you are engaged = which might suggest they only ever tested the AI on small maps :-)

- the AI still has no idea how to use ranged units == it still moves rocket/mortar tanks ‘randomly’ backwards & forwards, it still makes the ‘newbie’ mistake of attacking (and being counter attacked) before using its ranged units .. and still hits nearby units with long rage capable thus leaving no target for it’s short ranged .. finally it seems to give predictable priority to targets [anything under repair first, then the ‘highest points value’ .. if you can predict it’s fire you can move your units to take advantage – or even sacrifice a ‘repair’ on a half dead infantry to avoid it hitting your just moved into range fighter etc.]

- AI still attacks fortifications, instead of the high value / half dead unit sitting next to it.

- AI move order seems to be fixed – and so it is often unable to ‘follow up’ a breakthrough because it moved the units in the ‘rear ranks’ first (so when the front line attacks and clears a path it has nothiong left to follow up with).

- AI has no concept of ‘protecting’ it’s war factories by NOT leaving (or even opening up) a path for you units to attack .. and it’s just plain stupid NOT to move away when your rocket tank / battleship has already hit it last turn and there’s nothing to stop you hitting it again next turn ..

- AI still moves units one or two at a time “into harms way” (instead of building up an attack force just out of range and then all attacking at once) ..

+ if you have stealth tanks, AI IS clever enough to spot where they ended a move and ‘cloaked’ .. i.e. it often moves up a unit to ‘reveal’ a unit that ended it’s last move ‘stealthed’ ….. but the AI is too dumb to actually use it’s infantry in an ‘attack the stealth’ move (i.e it stops short even if it could have attacked) …

Maybe, one day, they will employ some-one who knows how to write a decent Wargame AI ….

Topic: Battalion: Arena / More Co-op Maps

Originally posted by Nicholaswerty:

I think premium and elite are crap. There only use is to raise funds for the server. If Urbansquall couldn’t handle the financial cost of running the server then why did he/she make it?

… the programmers have to be paid, the server power bills have to be met, of COURSE they have to make money somehow (you don’t think that have enough coming from the referral commission on the adverts, do you ??)

… and to be honest, compared to the likes of rip-off World of Whorecraft, it really is good value …

Topic: Battalion: Arena / spider tank underpowered

Generally agree that Spiders are not worth the cost …

However they ARE useful in a heavily mountains/forests map (where the only opposition is infantry) ..

Otherwise they just move too slow = if you are attacking they get left behind, if defending they can’t dodge out of the way in time .. I would suggest either make them a bit cheaper (so you don’t mind wasting them) or give them a bit more movement ..

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Battalion: Ghosts is out!

Ghosts is working just fine,…. pity Arena is broke :-(

Topic: Battalion: Arena / armor types ... How do they effect damage?

Armour (defence) and weapon (attack) are two different things ..

To see the attack /defence type & value of various units, you can look in the top box in the ‘build’ window or in the ‘details’ bar at the bottom of the map window (when you click on a unit)

Topic: Battalion: Arena / I CANT CHAT

“Chat” (tab) has NEVER worked for me (neither MSIE nor Firefox) ..

The only thing I can assume is that they are using some non-standard protocols that do not get through my Firewall …

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Not LOADING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looks like the game servers are totally down .. the FLASH app. doesn’t load at all, so we don’t even get the ‘Reason 2’ (or whatever) == most likley they are having problems with the latest version ..

From what I can see, they have put a most of their efforts into the fancy new ‘fire effects’ and zero effort into making it a bit more ‘robust’ .. still what can you expect ? == being twice as good as the compitition, even if it’s only half as reliable, gets you 4x the sales .. (at least until the consumers work out that reliability is more important than featues)

Topic: Battalion: Arena / Official News

Still down (again) .. it’s times like these that I’m gald I never paid up :-)

[pity the poor mugs who paid their $$‘s only to discover that the organisers are STILL using them as ’free’ beta Testers :-) ….]

PS hint to the organisers .. when rolling out a ‘new’ version’ always be prepared to revert to the previous versiion in the event of any problems .. having a proper plan in place should mean you can ‘roll back’ in less than an hour … it’s been ‘off’ for about 8 hours so far …. and counting …