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I've been deciding what to get my brother for christmas and have narrowed it down to Dawn of War and Command and Conquer 3. The Dawn of War comes with all the expansion packs currently out.

Which do you think I should get?

Dawn of War

They're both awesome games, but for the price you will pay...you can get DOW plus the expansions, so its the better buy.

For reference, CC would normally be 100 AU, but due to an awsome christmas sale thingy they are doing it half price. And Dawn of War would be 80 bucks, but it's been lowered down to 60.

Also, do either of these games offer anything new from the classic forumla of Age of Empires-esqueness?

There's also a pack out now that contains C&C: The First Decade and C&C 3. Not a bad deal if you're looking for some nostalgia points. However, if you are in OZ, you may or may not have that bundle available.

Of course, I have to mention Company of Heroes, which is awesome, but hardly in a proper budget pack at this point.

Dawn of war, more replay options.

Dawn of War has an uncommon resource system, requiring players to get out and fight for territory from the first minute of the game. It also has an extremely productive mod community - there are three full race mods that are complete, and at least two more on the way, plus countless less ambitious projects.

Ok, Dawn of War, no question. Wikipedia said that the Winter Assault thingy 'simplified' the units, but it was kind of vague, can anyone clarify what it meant?

Zablorg wrote:Ok, Dawn of War, no question. Wikipedia said that the Winter Assault thingy 'simplified' the units, but it was kind of vague, can anyone clarify what it meant?

Dark Crusade fixes some of that, as do a number of mods (such as my personal favorite, Dawn of Warhammer 40,000).

Basically, they chopped off a lot of unit options and did some rebalancing that dumbed down some of the unit distinctions to the point of absurdity - Tactical Marines and Assault Marines, for example, had completely different stats, capabilities, and performance, despite being the exact same thing, only one type had jetpacks on their back and chainsaw swords.

I think there was a vehicle resize in there somewhere as well, which bugs the piss out of me. But as long as you don't mind a tank taking the same amount of space as two people, it's not a problem.

And what of the AI, do you think?

Zablorg wrote:And what of the AI, do you think?

The AI is challenging because it can micro, rapid build, and generally is all out superhuman at the highest levels. A 4v1 against the highest level computer is a fun game. However, the vanilla AI is basically unaggressive and asleep. You need mods to make it actually press its advantages when it gets them.

IMX, maybe I suck at it.

yeah with Vanilla DoW AI could have something like 1v7 matches with a fair chance of comming on top on easy, but the mods fix that to certain degree.

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:

Zablorg wrote:Ok, Dawn of War, no question. Wikipedia said that the Winter Assault thingy 'simplified' the units, but it was kind of vague, can anyone clarify what it meant?

Dark Crusade fixes some of that, as do a number of mods (such as my personal favorite, Dawn of Warhammer 40,000).

Basically, they chopped off a lot of unit options and did some rebalancing that dumbed down some of the unit distinctions to the point of absurdity - Tactical Marines and Assault Marines, for example, had completely different stats, capabilities, and performance, despite being the exact same thing, only one type had jetpacks on their back and chainsaw swords.

I think there was a vehicle resize in there somewhere as well, which bugs the piss out of me. But as long as you don't mind a tank taking the same amount of space as two people, it's not a problem.

The game is rather inconsistent (yet fun). It turns out that the left Heavy Bolter Sponson does more damage against infantry than the right Heavy Bolter Sponson, but the right one does more damage against buildings. This is on the Leman Russ Battle Tank.

And the scale is a bit weird. The two marines who sit in the Land Speeder are tiny compared to the infantry.

Well, I went out and bought it. One question remains: Does it work if while playing it you pop out the CD?

Dark Crusade does. DoW and Winter Assault require a cd in the drive to play.

So in theory if I wanted to do multiplayer with Dark Crusade (with DoW and Winter Assault applied to it), I could start up the game, take out the disk, and put it in another computer?

You don't even need the disk to start the game. Install it, and keep it in the box in case you ever need to do a system restore.

Feil wrote:Dark Crusade does. DoW and Winter Assault require a cd in the drive to play.

Not they definitely dont. I played several games of both DoW and WA with only 1 cd between 6 people and that wirked fine. DC has never needed the cd, but only recently did we realise that so that has been a wasted few minutes of cd swapping there

Really. Well, that's good to know.

Well, we installed it and I have to say the Tau suck donkey balls. How do I get the other races?

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:

Zablorg wrote:Ok, Dawn of War, no question. Wikipedia said that the Winter Assault thingy 'simplified' the units, but it was kind of vague, can anyone clarify what it meant?

Dark Crusade fixes some of that, as do a number of mods (such as my personal favorite, Dawn of Warhammer 40,000).

Basically, they chopped off a lot of unit options and did some rebalancing that dumbed down some of the unit distinctions to the point of absurdity - Tactical Marines and Assault Marines, for example, had completely different stats, capabilities, and performance, despite being the exact same thing, only one type had jetpacks on their back and chainsaw swords.

I think there was a vehicle resize in there somewhere as well, which bugs the piss out of me. But as long as you don't mind a tank taking the same amount of space as two people, it's not a problem.

I remember when Winter Assault came out and the Imperial Guard Commissars granted squads they were attached to unbreakable morale. *snicker*

In order to use races other than Tau and Necrons with Dark Crusade, you have to have Dawn of War and Winter Assault installed first.

Not really. You just need the exe files and the proper registry entries. There's a handy tutorial page over at forums.relicnews.com somewhere, but it's straightforward if you already have DoW and WA installed - just delete any DoW or WA file that isn't a .exe, then install DC, and fill in the cdkeys when prompted.