Thanks to James, Jonny, Nathan, and Greg for their other recommended titles. I've repeatedly played the SNES game (it's great, but not as good as 64), and I've tried and enjoyed the Total War series (up to Medieval II, which turned me off) and Romance of the Three Kingdoms (it gets too complicated for me after IV). But Company of Heroes sounds like it should be up my alley, even if it's not quite the same: I'd heard great things about it, but somehow never got around to picking it up. I'll correct that mistake.
I'm getting towards the end. I feel like I'm going to get a 'bad' end because no one has joined my party lately and a lot of characters seem to be dying.
That's not necessarily indicative of anything. Special Characters stop pouring in early in Chapter 4, with the last one being available only if you're Chaotic and don't have any Zenobian. And the plot definitely turns into a bloodbath no matter what, although it's even worse if you missed some characters, or make a few decisions differently.
I remember jumping in blindly on my first playthrough (though only after thoroughly reading the manual and playing the tutorial) and not really taking advantage of all the strategic placements and promotion systems till about halfway through chap 1. After that, it was a blast to play.
Favorite things for me:
-The planning screen- Oh how I would spend hours pouring over stats, quibling over unit placement and grouping, outfiting with new equipment, and deciding who's next in line for a level up. Plus that music during the planning screen is soooo serene. Easily half my playtime was devoted to planning.
-The battles - It's interesting hearing different preferences on strategy games. I really enjoyed OGB64's take on realtime/turnbased and got a real sense of accomplishment when my troops performed admirably all thanks to my planning. Plus, how satisfying is it when your troops get a critical hit and the camera zooms in for extra emphasis!
It's fun to compare experiences with other people about this game, since, not surprisingly, people who've played the game are pretty rare. It's kind of heartening to know that everyone was as lost and confused as I was when I first played it.
![Cheesy :D](https://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/Smileys/default/cheesy.gif)
Nowadays, the prevalence of Gamefaqs means that will never happen again, so I know I'll never get to completely repeat that feeling. That's mostly for the better, of course, but there was something to peicing together the game's mechanics through observation, trial, and error. Jonny kind of exemplified this when he talked about discovering how strongholds recover your HP as well as your stamina: the feeling I got from peeling away the game's layers one by one was strangely gratifying, especially since I wouldn't have this patience with most other games. I guess I just always got the impression that there was a ton of stuff waiting beneath the surface, which encouraged me to push through the frustration.
Well that, and I was a broke teenager, so I had to milk all my games for as much as I could...
As for the battles, the criticals are satisfying, but my favorite part is the various death screams. As simple as they are, they're strangely satisfying.