(This thread is about Castles 2)

I'm getting convinced that I might be the world's most un-skilled video game addict. I've bought 2 games so far from GOG--both with endless strings of GOG members lauding them as "some of the best games ever made"--and I want my money back for both games.

The game itself doesn't seem to have any real technical problems; although the graphics & colors are all messed up (it's like trying to watch a scrambled cable pay-channel), the game seems to function in all the ways it was programed to. (Castles 1, on the other can't load at ALL.)
I don't know what it is (maybe a personal techno-curse on myself), but whenever I try any new game in which I'm pitted against other players who are computer-controlled, I have as much success as a kid shooting at a Dalek Battle-Cruiser with a potato-gun.

Difficulty mode set to "EASY." Major false advertising there.
I got myself established with like 6 territories, and a very mediocre army, and by then I was surrounded on all sides on Anjou and Burgandy. There was one neutral, unoccupied terriory right below me which I attacked unsuccessfully 3 times in a row (apparently they have Elite-Commando peasants?). I wanted to attack Burgandy (the only way I could gain any more land), but my army was 1/5 the size of his.
I'd try to make more troops, but in the time it took to train 1 archer, Sabeteurs would steal half my resources... which would leave without enough food/gold to feed/pay my army, making my hard-earned archer abandon me moments after I recruited him. (this cycle would then repeat for a couple years).
After reading through the manual I learn the only protection I have from enemy sabeteurs is "Policing the Realm", which reduces my happiness rating (and takes away my ability to train troops, as I only had 1 military taskbar). As my happiness rating was getting lower every time I performed an action, I have to compensate by doing the Happiness Task... doing which costs pretty much all the resources I have at any given time.

When a game stops being about "see how quickly you can expand & vanquish your opponents" and becomes about "see how long you can last until you're completely wiped out"... it's no longer worth playing.

Seriously I should never pay for another video game that I haven't already played & determined to be decently playable. Never before have I had so much respect for video-game DEMOS.

I do think I will be using GOG again any more.

I have barely played Castles 2 so I can't help you there but I can tell you that you're not alone.

First a question: How many really old games have you played, say released before 1995?

You see really old games are generally MUCH harder than newer games. It's very common for a player that haven't played games for so long to try them and get totally humiliated. So that's why I say you're not alone. :)

So don't give up. You do get used to the difficulty after a while. Imho it's worth it to keep trying.

This is indeed quite a difficult game, as Tarm says there are easier/more recent games on GOG that you could try ... what are your interests?

As for the game itself, try to build up a mix of resources, don't try building a (big) castle until you have the ability to do two tasks under resources & management, use policing the realm to catch enemy spies (again two task bars), build your army up slowly. Getting two task bars is essential for military and management needs.

One important part of the game is diplomacy. If you have seen the demo, you would know that keeping the pope and the people happy is at a very high priority. Fail to do so, and you'll quickly lose. I was also very frustrated by the game before knowing this.

First of all, all the specific advice that was given in the comments above about how to play this game... I'd already used those strategies, they weren't enough to get me very far. I know from experience that "really old games" tend to be hard (I have played many many of them, as far back as before my family even got our first computer in 1993). I see from your comments that Castles 2 is generally considered rather hard even by the standards of it's era... if I had known that beforehand, I would NOT have purchased it.
Game reviews on GOG mostly indicate how much people *like* specific games, and in what ways, but they don't have much to say on how easy or hard games are. Unfortunately, even though I've been a huge video-game nerd since I was a wee lad, I have virtually never managed to beat any video game without full-on CHEATING, or at least looking up the secrets/answers in books/magazines/the internet. My ***favorite*** thing about the NES was the Genie. GOG really should have a system to rank the difficulty level of games in some way(s). I can't really afford to buy games and then see if I can play them or not, even if they're only $6 (i'm poor).

Secondly, I immediately after making this thread a week ago, I uninstalled the games I had gotten from GOG, as I have no intention of playing them again. To be honest, the real reason I came here was so I could get games that I already own but which are no longer playable because I recently got a new computer that runs Windows7 (this includes the MAJORITY of the PC games I own). Unfortunately of all those games GOG only carries one: Master of Orion 2. There's at least a half-dozen other games that I was hoping to find here but didn't.
I suffer from a lot of medical conditions including chronic depression, and video games are my primary "antidepressants". When a game gets to be problematic that I get stressed out just trying to get it work right, then it loses its purpose, and that seems to be the case with GOG in general.

I'm sorry to hear of your troubles.

GOG is adding games all the time as it signs on new publishers, gets permission from the publishers for specific games, and then those games working right on modern systems, so check back every once in awhile. You might the find the games you were looking for added. May I ask what they are?

I have some game suggestions which as a disclaimer I have to admit I haven't had the opportunity to try myself. I've not got very many GOG games and even amongst those few I have I haven't gotten through many of them. With that caveat, you can use the game-specific forums to double check the difficulty of the games.

So it seems you like Master of Orion? (agreed on it being a fantastic game) Have you tried Master of Magic? I've not played it myself, but have heard great things and that it is extremely similar to Master of Orion 1/2 (same developer). So that might be something you'd be interested in if you were looking for Master of Orion in a fantasy setting.

It seems you like strategy in general. I bought recently and am about to try Lords of the Realm 1/2 (Royal Edition). Have you played it? It seems like a younger version of Castles 2 so it might be easier on easy difficulty settings (if it has one, again I've not tried it yet). In a few weeks, provided work and real life don't get in the way I might be able to tell you how it was.

Last game suggestion: I've also bought but haven't tried yet Evil Genius (got it and Lords of the Realm on the sale recently) which is at the $9.99 price point. My understanding is that though it sounds like quite a complex little game there are some exploits that make the game very easy to beat. The top review on GOG ("Evil will always win because Good is very, very, very dumb" - gave the game 4 stars) gives a very detailed account of the gameplay including a couple of the exploits. There are apparently walkthroughs online too.

One thing you can try is for the games you are interested in buying go to their game-specific forums and ask people how hard the game is explaining to whatever level of detail you wish why you want to know. I think most people will try to helpful. They can also tell you if the game has any known technical issues. Especially for the $9.99 priced games this might save you some money (and time).

Hope you get better and find a game or games here that you'll like. As crazy_dave said, tell us what kind of games you're interested in and we might be able to help. :) PixelPaladin
From what you've said you might want to stay clear of Master of Magic. It's one of those games that are very hard until you've learned how it works and have a really long learning curve. If you decide to try it anyway read a strategy guide or ask in the Master of Magic forum here on GOG. There are a couple of easy strategies that can give you a early win or big advantage. When you've learned them, they're not that hard, you can take your time learning the rest of the game.
It's one of the truly greats and if you do like it it have almost infinite replayability because there are so many variables you can change and ways to play it.

Lords of the Realm I agree upon. There is really only one thing you need to learn. Cows rule. :)
If you concentrate on getting cows and feed your population with dairy produce you shouldn't have much difficulty winning against the easy computer. It seems like a daunting game but really isn't.
The cows will give you a big, happy and healthy population quickly. Buy mercenaries and camp them close to a neighbouring neutral counties centre. When there's a merchant in the county take it over and immediately make sure the population get food by buying it from the merchant. Cows preferably. :) Oh and don't forget to have some sheep. Their wool sells for lots of money.
That should get you started in Lords of the Realm without much aggravation.

The weird part is that I kind of feel the same. I've been into video games since 1993 (I was a little boy back then) and I've played both Castles games in the first part of the 90's. They didn't seem difficult back then since I had all the time in the world to learn the ropes, scheme & plan.
At this point, it's not that I feel the games are more difficult. It's the fact that recent games have gotten us used to instant gratification (add that to the lack of time, and there you have it).

Castles II isn't about vanquishing your opponents; it's about establishing good relations with your people, the Pope, and your neighbors, and building a large enough dominion to claim the throne.

And the AI won't try to wipe you out; their goal, like yours, is to earn enough points to claim the throne. You, and they, can easily do so without vanquishing anybody. Neutral territories on Normal mode (and presumably on Easy mode) are defended by 1 Infantry and 1 Archer, so don't attack any neutral territories unless you have at least 2 Infantry and 2 Archers. If you take casualties, you must recruit replacements before attacking any other territories. Otherwise, you'll launch unsuccessful attacks that just waste your time and resources.

In any case, your starting army should be sufficient to conquer any neutral territory with no casualties on your side. I tend to suffer fewer casualties if I leave my infantry where they are and deploy my archers as far forward as possible. (Your infantry will catch up at the perfect time.) The main function of "Police Realm" is to stop saboteurs. If one of your neighbors has bad relations with you, it may be a good idea to devote a panel and a couple of Military points to policing the realm. (By the time it becomes an issue, you should have 5 military points and 2 panels.)

Another thing to consider, is that perhaps it is your history of cheating instead of investing the time and energy into developing legitimate gamewinning strategies (or shamelessly ripping off others at least). By having a natural inclination to say "This is too hard, I'm cheating" you've not "exercised" as it were the problem solving skills that some games require. Sure you can give yourself unlimited gold or unlimited health or whatever, but you don't develop the skills to manage a games economy or use proper cover, or whatever else.

Now obviously each game is different, and the exact way to manage the economy in game A is not going to apply to game B, but a lot of times the same general concepts can apply, as can the general acceptance of "I may suck at first, but if I keep trying different things, experiment, get hints, etc. I can eventually overcome this obstacle without cheating"

I agree that these days games spoil us with regenerating health, easy, instant gratification, etc. Go back and play Rainbow 6, the GOOD ones, Raven Shield, or the original RB6, or Rogue Spear, even the original Ghost Recon. 1 shot, you're dead, or severly wounded. By god you learned to use recon, tactical movement, cover, stealth, etc. You mght spend a week on a mission but when you finished, you felt like you really achieved something. Some people would have cheated on day 2, turned on god mode, and just run in and shot everything without having to take the time to practice, learn, adapt, and overcome. Maybe they got what they wanted, if so, more power to them. I'd say they did cheat, cheat themselves out of the full game experiance, cheat themselves out of the sense of pride and accomplishment at overcoming a challenge. That said, it isn't for everyone.

And those habits I learned, I put into use in other games, using cover, going slow, recon where possible, etc, and I feel I'm a better gamer in say, battlefield bad company 2, or deus ex, because I have honed those traits in myself, rather than just giving up and cheating on day 1.

Now my 5th char in Mount and Blade let's say, sure I'll export my character and edit his skills and give him a bunch of money - not because I can't do it, but because I don't want to manually do trade runs, or see half my army die until I level Surgury AGAIN for the *5th time*. But I still have the pride of having done it once, twice, maybe more, and that I could do it again if I needed to. There's definately something to be said for having fun without worrying about normal constraints of hp or mana, or ammo count, etc - but it's not the *real* game experience.

If you literally can't beat a game without cheating either you're not trying hard enough, or you're just not really cut out for that sort of game. I don't generally do well in platformers, because I don't think that sort of puzzle out well. But, guess how many I buy. I'm better at shooters and military sims. Guess what I have bought more of. I actually play a lot more variety but that illustrates the point. I can play b17 the mighty eighth and remember the cold startup sequence to a b17 bomber, I but I can't get that past the like 15th puzzle in portal. Go figure.

Edit to add: I'll also add that about 90% of the time - when I give in to temptation and finally start cheating, that's usually only a very short time before I get bored with the game. When it's a challenge, it can grip me for months, but when I cheat, I have a short period of elation of running around doing whatever I want, whenever I want, but then I feel like I have nothing left to strive for, no more goals to accomplish, no more reason to play. Take the aforementioned Ghost Recon, when it took me an hour to go through a mission, carefully, skilfully, it was very fun and very engaging. What if I go this way.. Oops, he got shot, start over, learn, wait for that patrol, go THAT way instead. I win! Turn on god mode, run around popping everyone in the head with a pistol while they blast away but never hurt you, 5 minutes later, the mission is done! AWESOME! Um, that was anticlimactic... Running around shooting people over and over is pointless, without the challenge, the strategy. I don't want to play this anymore. this is stupid and boring.

I agree with you but for one thing. When some cheat it's because of not enough time and energy.

Before I was like you but the older I get the less time and energy I have for games. The only time I get to really play games is on weekends and usually only for one day.
So sometimes I simply want to finish that god damned game and try a new so I cheat to get to the end. Which isn't always a bad thing. Usually I play it again after a while and this time I don't cheat. I've already finished it so that pressure is gone. Now I can start to learn to play good by, well, just playing around and having fun with it. :)