Battle Isle, still worth playing?

[Bhazor]

So I just bought the Battle Isle Platinum collection purely for Incubation which is a game I wuvved a big huggy bunch in my innocent days.
But included are the original three games which I understand are completely different in every way. So as a fan of 4x and tbs games how do the earlier games stack up? Is there one stand out game? What other games are they most like?

A few points
I'm only really interested in single player as I'll probably be playing mostly on the train. So I'm most interested in how well their campaign and scenarios are designed.
As a fan of Dwarf Fortress I can tolerate just about any kind of ass backward outdated interface. I'll put up with any kind of rock stupid interface if the game nugget is sparkly enough.

So any thoughts?

Now to end on a song. Take it away Incubation.

[Moraven]

hmmm how did I miss this game. I like TBS, I like Blue Byte games. And that song is gold.

[c-Row]

Incubation aside, you should definitely play Battle Isle 2. It has a better presentation than the original, a more classic game mechanic (moving and attacking in the same turn, rather than being able to either move or fire) and none of the cheesy videos Battle Isle 3 had. Furthermore, the expansion includes one of the best hot-seat multiplayer maps I have ever seen - we played the hell out of it back in our youth. They can be played against the AI, too, so you can still fully enjoy them on your own.

[Jams O'Donnell]

As c-Row says, BI2 is really good. I also have a soft spot for History Line.

[Vexing Vision]

Battle Isle 2 is fantastic, and Incubation is to date still one of my favourite games ever - it takes everything that makes Space Hulk good, then adds oomph. Unfortunately it is also the shortest game ever. :(

[Heliocentric]

Unfortunately it is also the shortest game ever. :(

Short is better than bloated.

So its essentially advance wars alike? I need to try this, also Blue Byte need to update this settlers 7 style.

[b0rsuk]

You may want to check Unity of Command, too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL5y-w4dsSk

It's a WW2 game, but graphics and music are very good... and people keep saying AI is very good. What were they thinking ??! A TBS game with good AI ?!!? Check the video for examples of smart behaviour.

[Arona Daal]

You should check this out for Battle Isle Goodness :
http://www.asc-hq.org/

[Drake Sigar]

You know what's great? Growing up on demos from floppy discs and CDs because it was damn near impossible to afford full games (it's not as if were were dirt poor, my parents bought me a Megazord!), and finding out years later that most of them were considered true classics.

Actually that didn't sound great at all, but that's how things were back then. The Incubation demo had three levels, but I played the SHIT out of them for weeks.

[Bhazor]

Thanks for the recommendation guys.

I'll give BI2 a good going over this week, wish me luck!

@Vexing Vision

Space Hulk bulked up is a great way to describe Incubation. Really highly recommended to anyone interested in tactics games or fans of the old Space Hulk.

@Arona Daal

That actually looks pretty cool. I'm definitely in a Wargames mood at the moment so I'll probably give it a go this week as well.
Any mods worth getting for it in terms of balance and improving the core game?

[BlueEyeDoc]

Hi There...

I wanted to make some advertisement for another really cool and motivated Turn-based Strategy-Game on Kickstarter.com
called "Battle Worlds Kronos"... it`s an inofficial sequel to the famous Battle Isle and History Line Series with modern grafics and AI... so its "Battle Isle 2013" with the name "Battle Worlds Kronos"... ;-)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...tegy-revisited

Also their facebook-page could be interesting... http://www.facebook.com/BattleWorldsKronos...

So plz try out the kickstarter-Page, and if you like it, plz back it and tell all your friends about... THX !

[mrki]

As c-Row says, BI2 is really good. I also have a soft spot for History Line.

Oh, indeed. On both counts.

Ah, crap. Didn't look at the dates. :shameonme:

[c-Row]

Don't worry - with the announcement of BW:K it's all relevant again.