ChronoLegion

I know, you can find it on this website (not the forum). Something about Patton-class cruisers being built to combat pirates equipped with refitted Avengers. X-Com Inc. actually left for the Frontier and left the Earth-based "franchise" to Marsec. It's Marsec you're controlling in Apocalypse. The "real" X-Com were fighting space battles with Sectoids & Co.

Yep. That's what I did with them in several random encounters where the enemy was hiding out in buildings. All of my Panzerkleins had some sort of machinegun on them. I just shredded all those structures and then blew them up with mortars. Hehe. Yeah. I'm surprised they even included the feature in THO PKs. Even if you do make your engineer's Hide skill as high as possible and give him/her the "Silent PK" skill, I doubt it would make a difference. Yeah, that's true. The game is fairly easy once you get past the beginning and before the final battle. What's stupid about Toki is that he wears that mask and has tree branches on his head. When he puts on a different outfit, he still wears that stuff. Btw, I never did figure out what the hell I was supposed to do with those outfits. I guess they focused most of their effort on making the ragdoll graphics realistic.

Sorry for the double-post but just wanted to say that I was wrong - the Major is Vali (I'm sure many of you already know that). The ending sucks majorly:argh:. Hell, they didn't even give you the "honor" of killing him. Anyone else think that those robotic units are way too advanced for that time, even considering the Hammer's advanced technology. Making machines like that now is beyond our current technology level. They've been trying for decades to make machines recognize objects visually with the same ease we do it. So far, they haven't done much.

The book actually says that the Brain is in fact a highly-advanced computer, most likely with AI characteristics. Just because it's biological doesn't mean it can't be a computer. We generally think of computers as having silicone chips, wires, etc. Yes, the aliens also seem to use electronic computers in their saucers, bases, and robots. However, those are abacuses (abaci?) compared to the processing power and adaptability of the Brain. We know that a human brain is the most efficient computer known (if you ignore the possibility of other intelligent life on Earth). No reason an alien civilization couldn't create a biological computer to direct something as massive as an invasion of a planet. Well, the book was written before the Interceptor came out, so one really should look at the book in its own time frame. The Psilords might be more powerful psychically, but they may also be controlled by some reliable method by the Etherials. Another possibility could be that there indeed was a rebellion of the Psilords (maybe after the events of the first game) and the Psilords took control of the whole conglomerate. After all, if something is working, why destroy it? They could've simply switched places in the hierarchy with the Etherials. Hell, if that is true, then it's entirely possible that the whole thing was started out millions of years ago by Sectoids, who themselves were overthrown by one of their former slave races. True, but some sources claim that Aquatoids are the original evolution and that the Sectoids are an artificial subspecies adapted for interstellar travel. Actually, if all Secoids are indeed clones, then their situation could be similar to that of the Asgard in "Stargate SG-1". In case you don't know, the Asgard are the Roswell Greys who have been visiting Earth for centuries (for peaceful purposes). However, their reproduction is through cloning. In fact, I wouldn't even call it a reproduction. They simply clone the body of a dead Asgard and give him/her/it all the memories of the previous body. While this does grant them some measure of immortality (unless you believe in souls), their population can't grow - they're long ago lost the ability to reproduce naturally (the fun way). However, millennia ago they used to look very similar to humans, except grey and with big eyes. This could be what happened to Sectoids, although I doubt they copy memories. Most likely they just grow them and implant certain tasks in their brains.

Interesting thing I forgot to mention about Vasiljev's XCom fanfiction: the way Chrysalids are explained. At first, they are not deemed major threat since they were usually killed before they had a chance to approach anyone. However, one time a Chrysalid showed how fast they can be by getting close to an XCom operative before any of them could make a shot. Something came out of it and easily punched through the power armor. The nearest operative killed the Chrysalid but was himself attacked by his former comrade. He tried to shoot him, but the shots kept getting absorbed by the zombie. Eventually, after a few shots, the human skin (along with armor) fell off, revealing a new Chrysalid. He managed to kill that one too. According to the XCom scientists in the book, when a Chrysalid implants its egg into a victim, the egg begins to rapidly grow into a full-sized Chrysalid. However, normal bodily energy can only accelerate the process so much. That is why any external energy can be used to further accelerate the process. This means that any weapon (presumebly projectile weapons too) cannot harm a Chrysalid while it's in its growing stage. All they can do is force it to grow more rapidly and, when a fully-mature Chrysalid emerges from the victim's body, it no longer has the ability to absorb energy. Otherwise it would grow old and die with a few shots. Many XCom fans believe that some unknown race genetically engineered/altered all the races present in XCom and TftD. However, the book says that Etherials are the true leaders of the alien bunch. Since they are blind and deaf, they must have some way of knowing what is going on in the environment. For that purpose they use their subject races as their eyes and ears through mind-control. Btw, I'm still not sure of the real shape of the Sectoids/Aquatoids. Some sources they the Sectoids are the originals, while others claim the opposite.

Hmm. Thanks. I'll look for the door. Is the Egypt mission the last level or is there another one? Somehow, I don't think the Major is the main bad guy here. At least they should've added the option of turning it off. I think their ragdoll physics and gravity is enough without getting too gory. Does anyone know of a way of disabling it via the console? Pirate? This is post-WW2 world. Pirates are long gone. At least the ones with lost limbs and parrots. Besides, what good would a pirate do in a game like that? I doubt he'd be a very good scout, and machineguns are much more sophisticated than muskets. Hmm, I kinda like the top scout. I barely used the katana and switched to shurikens too late in the game, but he's pretty good at remaining hidden and popping enemies with a silenced pistol from the back. I dunno. Good penetration, high damage. I think those factors are more important than amount of ammo to carry. You can always have someone else carry extra ammo for the sniper. Anyway, I don't think you need that much ammo if you only use the rifle against Panzerklein pilots (headshots) and not a random enemy who can be taken out with a pistol. You can always use an assault rifle (scoped, maybe) in the other weapon slot for those pesky footmen. This reminds me: does carrying two two-handed weapons in weapon slots reduce your overall accuracy like in XCom?

You were half-right. MacArthur was a Patton-class ship.

Hmm.. I'll have to go back and check it out. Well, I didn't even get to any of the bosses yet. I checked the main corridor and the second floor which is accessed through a staircase close to the entrance. Also checked out a set of rooms with the generator in the "South" part of the map (if you assume "North" is the base entrance). That sux. If my sniper had a Sea Devil, he'd have a field day with those PKs. Anybody else here think that having their heads explode in S3 is a bit of an overkill. Especially since that's the only body part that does that. At least in the Fallout series they were (for the most part) consistent (plus it was disableable).

I'm playing the assault version of that mission. After getting into the base and killing everyone in the main corridor and the second floor, I can't go anywhere else. There are a couple of rooms but no other doors or ladders. Help please!

Stonehenge is used to travel along the vertical to the First World on the 10th energy level of the hypersphere. Please ignore this. Or if this is interesting to someone, PM me about it.

Actually, I believe the Ufopaedia in the game says that the tanks are fully automatic. A load of BS, if you ask me. They've tried for decades to make computers visually recognize objects, but couldn't (I'm talking about real life here). Computers simply can't do it fast or efficient enough to be useful on a battlefield. In the 70s, it took a robot hours to cross a medium-sized room with several obstacles. Yes, now it would take it less time but still too long to be useful. Visual recognition algorithms are still way too hard to design and implement. Also, they only work on object the computer already knows. What about aliens never before encountered? They can detect motion and distance, but that would only make it useful as a stationary turret. In a fanfiction novel I recently read, there were human operators sitting in the XCom crafts, controlling the tanks (one per tank). As a side note, that same novel claims that the reason the Battlescape has borders is because whenever a saucer lands, crashes, or deploys terror troops, it sets up a force field that dissipates in a few days. The field is useless anyway, as all XCom crafts (transports) are equipped with nullifying generators to punch through the force fields. Still, the aliens kept setting up those fields. There was one time when XCom crashed a ship that didn't match any alien design seen before and didn't set up a force field. They killed the three aliens inside, only to discover later that those new aliens were themselves victims of Sectoids & Co. and were simply trying to find out where the invaders came from. They went to Earth because the mothership that built the Cydonian base moved on to the new aliens' homeworld. Instead of finding allies, they found their deaths (they weren't even armed). Unfortunately, the novel drops that subplot and doesn't mention it again. But I digress...

Hmm. Well, having a super-sniper might be useful for long-ranged combat against several enemies, but once you're surrounded by enemy who overpowers you 3 to 1, you might want to switch to something that can do more than one shot in several turns. I like the "Act first" (or whatever it's called) perk, which ensures that the character will act first in any combat turn (even though the interrupt might be on another character). Of course, I'm not sure how the game will react if the characters interacting (yours and enemy) both have the perk. Probably ignore them and go back to the standard way of calculating interrupts.

Hmm. I remember the energy weapon - the first guy I killed in the base carried one. I just thought it was a standard energy "bazooka." In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't remember the word "Scoped" in the description. It was the only energy weapon I saw thus far on that level. Still, probably more powerful than what I've got now. Anyway, it's a moot point since I can't seem to find a way to proceed with this level. I killed everyone in the main tunnel and on the second floor but can't seem to find a way to go to the rest of the base. Any hints? Thanks. Is the Sea Devil rifle in S3? I've only done 1 random encounter the whole game, so I dunno if there are any special encounters with unique weapons.

Hmm. Doesn't do the same for me, but maybe that's because I've read the trilogy twice, so I know exactly what's going on. But, since I've never been good at expressing myself, my descriptions might seem different from whatever I describe. True, but, once again, this can be called fan-fiction with a stretch. Replace the race/planet names with something new, and you got yourself an original work. Race descriptions, personalities, and languages were invented by the author. Unlike MOO2, where Silicoids look like rocks with arms, legs, and weapons, in the trilogy, they are big floating columns of rock. They have no identifiable organs (by humans, that is) and move and operate by generating powerful EM fields with their bodies. They speak with each other through the same fields and with other races by vibrating their entire bodies. The book describes their voices as chorus-like. Their original spaceships did not have any externally-mounted engines, unlike most races. Instead, the entire crew joined their EM fields to "manually" accelerate their ship before jumping (apparently hyperdrives are not considered external in the book). After seeing the effectiveness of external drives on human ships, they changed their ship designs to incorporate them. Bulrathi are overgrown bears with really high-pitched voices (a quirk of evolution). They are as advanced as most other races, but prefer hand-to-hand combat to ranged weapons. The Meklar (called "Meklons" in the book) started out as reptiles, but then decided to artificially hasten their evolution by replacing most of their bodies with mechanical parts. In one picture in the book, a Meklar is shown to look like an armor-plated reptile about 10 feet in length. They have lightning-fast reflexes and incredible strength. Most of them also have weapons embedded in their bodies, like stunners and plasma cannons. Their leader is called the Perfect One. They actually learned to communicate among themselves by using point-to-point line-of-sight transmissions, which can't be intercepted. They also have speech synthesizers to communicate with other races. Their mechanical bodyparts can also repair themselves when damaged. The Alkari are birds. As such, they are the best pilots in the galaxy, because they are quite comfortable with 3-dimentional thinking. Their physical strength is lacking, though. Unlike many other races, they prefer smaller, more maneuverable ships to cruisers and battleships. They claim that they were the first race in the galaxy to invent interstellar travel. As such, the galaxy should have been theirs. However, they took too long in expanding their empire, and other races beat them to it. Disappointed, they decide to try out their luck in another galaxy. The Psilons are barely mentioned until the third book (which is quite short and takes place before the other two). They are highly-advanced. While being physically weak, they respect strength. The only time they take prisoners is when an enemy fights back and actually does some damage to them. Their troopers usually wear power armor, a handful of which can level a city in just a few hours. When they lost the war with the humans, they closed off their area of space and refused all outside contact. The official story is that Curtis van Curtis bought the aTan technology from the Psilons before their self-isolation. Kay Altos finds out that this is not true. Van Curtis also claims that the reason for the one-resurrection-at-a-time rule is that the Psilons demanded that a person use it only one in their lifetime, as they were terrified of immortality. Van Curtis says that he proved to them that a resurrected person is a completely different person and can, therefore, buy another resurrection. The truth is that whenever someone died and was resurrected by mistake at two different places, only one body was fully conscious. The other one was a vegetable. Basically, the book claims that the reason aTan works is that humans have souls (or "psi-factors" as they are called in the book). Some other races do too, like the Mrrshan and Bulrathi (although Bulrathi religion forbids them to use aTan). During the Hazy War, the humans were ruled by a democratic government. They were losing badly. Then Admiral Grey, who was sent on pretty much a suicide mission, turned his ships around and went back to Earth to demand the surrender of the democratic government. He then established himself as the Emperor, and the tide of war changed. After the Sakkra frogs (who can't control their birth rate) overran the three colonies of the Shedar system (the Three Sisters), the Emperor ordered the planets bombed to hell. After that, the humans proceeded to attack the Sakkra on their own turf and killed them all - the first and only genocide on this scale in galactic history. The Meklar were tricked into surrendering. Some smartass in Imperial intelligence gave them a disinformation that spinach was a vital part of the human diet. They spent years and valuable resources developing a virus whose sole purpose was to annihilate spinach (why they didn't invent a virus to kill humans, I don't know). They then sent fleets of virus bombers to seed human planets with the virus. When the cyborgs finally found out that they've been duped, they were shocked. So shocked that they immediately signed a ceasefire. After the war, the humans allied themselves with the Meklar and Bulrathi, becoming a truly formidable force. Meklar-built ships, crewed by skilled human personnel and containing drop-pods for Bulrathi ground troops.

I guess that just depends on one's favorite approach. Mine is somewhere in-between guns-blazing and ninja-strike. I like to have all my guys snipe at the enemy from cover. Hmm. It's in the list of possible cheat objects: "434. LZS - Scoped Energy Gun". I'm not sure if it's hand-held or PK-mounted, though. I like PKs because they provide armor against most weapons. While the stealth feature is completely useless on them, a properly-equipped PK can be very dangerous. True, THO Panzerkleins are mostly useless except for the energy ones, but I like the Allied kind, especially equipped with the Boys gun, a sniper rifle, or any other gun that can fire farther than 2 feet. I ended up firing a Panzerschrek AP rocket aimed at the guy's head from about 20 feet away, which blew up the PK and killed the guy instantly.

I wouldn't exactly call HG2G a military sci-fi. You really don't have to know MOO to enjoy the book, although the book is a bit on the adult side, if you catch my drift. There's plenty of action in the book I described but not much humor. The book describes a pretty popular theme of a universe where might makes right. Once again, due to copyright laws, it will most likely not be translated into English and sold here, unless all the names are changed, at which point they can do whatever the hell they want.

Amen to that. Right now, I'm at the level where I have to infiltrate the T.H.O. building, but I can't be seen carrying weapons because the cops will shoot me. Unfortunately, after a while, the Hammer people start shooting at civillians. I don't know what I can do about that, so I'm stumped. As for my Hide skill, I think it's over 100 or something, since I hired the best scout in the "drawer" - the one that costs $30,000 and has a Katana. I have managed to get a few more melee kills/stuns in S3 since my last post, but in my opinion it still isn't worh the hassle. 2 or 3 headshots with a silenced pistol seem to do the trick. My other complaint about using stealth to that extent is that the game pretty much boils down to using one character, which defeats the purpose of having a 6-person team. Of course, on the other hand, my regular tactics are giving everybody a rifle and shoot from afar. A side question: Is using the multiple-turn shot option the only way for a sniper to gain sniping skill? You'd think that making a kill headshot from 200 yards from a standing position would earn him/her a few snipe points, but I guess not.

Hehe. Maybe they already have, human... You will be as... umm, what was I talking about? On a side note, there is another great work that won't be published here that people in Russia, I personally, liked - Lukyanenko's "Dream Line" trilogy. The race and planet names were taken from Master of Orion (1, I think), but everything else is completely original. There are no Antareans, Orions, or Guardians even mentioned in the books. Basically, the events in the stories take place shortly after the so-called Hazy War, in which the Human Republic and later the Human Empire (historical parallel anyone?) faced off against pretty much every other race in the galaxy. In the end, the humans won the war, which came as a big surprise to the other races, since we are neither the smartest nor the strongest. The humans, along with the Meklar and the Bulrathi, formed the Trinary Alliance, while the other races pretty much kept to themselves. The Psilons - the most advanced race in the galaxy - went into self-isolation and refused any contact with the other races after the war. The Silicoids are bent on the complete balance of the universe but leave the humans alone because they don't screw up the balance (too much). The Alkari, seeing as how their dream of galactic domination has died with the human victory, are preparing to leave the galaxy. The Mrrshans... they aren't really doing much, except make the best wine in the galaxy. Oh, and they are described as foxes instead of felines (probably due to poor-quality graphics of the first game). The Sakkra have been annihilated by the Human Empire after their uncontrollable spawning caused them to invade three human colonies, forcing the Emperor to incinerate those worlds. Their birth rate was deemed too much of a threat to the Empire to leave them alive. As far as I know, the Klackons weren't ever mentioned in the trilogy. The Darlocks turned out to be something very close to the Goa'uld from "Stargate SG-1" - their true forms are snakes that bury into people's spines and overwrite their personalities with their own. That is why they make the best spies/saboteurs in the galaxy, at least until their true nature is discovered by the Imperial Intelligence. At the end of the War, a company called "aTan" ("anti-Thanatos") which offered (for a hefty price, of course) insurance from death, or resurrection. They'd scan your body and put a neural net in your brain to constantly transmit information. The end of transmission would signal the death of the "client". A new body would be made from the template and brain information uploaded. Only one aTan could only be paid in advance and only for one resurrection in advance. Emperor Grey took power from the Republican Earth government during the War for their incompetence in military matters. When the events of the trilogy take place, he is still the ruler (due to aTan). He strict laws for the purity of the human race. No inter-species mating, no cloning, no genetic engineering. The main characters of the book are Kay Dutch (goes by Kay Altos), a professional bodyguard, whose homeplanet was burned after the Sakkra invaded it. One of his greatest dark secrets is that he is a genetically-engineered "super". All of his physical and mental abilities (except psychic) are much greater than that of a normal human. Hell, in the book, he goes one-on-one with two Bulrathi, a Silicoid, and a Meklar (all very strong species). After his supposedly final death (he forgot to pay for his next resurrection), he was resurrected on Terra (for some reason they decided to rename Earth) by the owner of "aTan" Curtis van Curtis (what kind of parents name their kid like that?), who hires him to guard his son Arthur, while he runs an errand for daddy on a fringe planet Grail (Arthur, Grail?). His prize if he succeeds - unlimited free aTan. His punishment in case of failure - eternal torture. Their cover story: a merchant and his son (Kay and Arthur Ovald) have an accident in hyperspace and their ship suffers explosive decompression. They are resurrected on the nearest planet, which is going through a civil war. The way from the aTan local offices to the starport lies through a contested territory. On the way, Kay gets infected with the Doom Virus (I think MOO1 had that). His "son" manages to get him to the starport, where he is questioned by the ISS (Imperial Security Service). After they leave the planet on a luxury liner, the chick in charge of the local ISS office finds out the real identity of the boy and takes off after him with a small team of ISS pros. Her goal is to capture the boy and force him to disclose his father's secrets - how to kill an immortal and how to build an aTan machine. Kay knows that there will be an ISS ship waiting at the liner's next stop, so he books himself and his "son" a passage on a ship-to-surface shuttle that would take them to the closest planet where the ISS won't expect them. However, the shuttle is intercepted by Darlock agents, whose goal is to turn all the passengers into agents. The Darlock take the prisoners to one of their colonies and are about to implement their plan, when the planet is attacked by thousands of Silicoid ships, who take Kay and Arthur aboard to meet with the Foundation of the Silicoid Basis (their emperor). Sedimin (his name is from the game too) threatens to keep prisoner them indefinitely if he doesn't like Arthur's answers. They kick Kay out of the room and, after a while, Sedimin tells him that he no longer believes that Arthur's mission is a threat to the balance, so they are dropped off on Tauri (hmm, I don't remember when exactly the book was written, but the planet name is suspiciously similar to the Goa'uld name for Earth in "Stargate SG-1"). Anyway, while they are resting on this Eden-like planet, the ISS finds them and kidnaps Arthur, while Kay is away on business. Kay's next mission is to rescue him, but for that he needs help. He returns to the planet where his "final" death was registered to find his killer Tommy, who turns out to be Arthur's copy, who remembers nothing of his past life. Kay takes him and goes to see his semi-sister, who is a Godmother of a criminal Family. She heps him get the equipment, intel, and manpower he needs to storm an Imperial space station, where Arthur is being held. They infiltrate the station and free Arthur, whose body is already dying from torture. They escape and head to Grail, making a pit-stop on Ursa (Bulrathi homeworld). When they get to Grail, an Imperial cruiser is waiting for them with the ISS chick on board. They crash into the cruiser's shields and get resurrected on Grail. The ISS chick wants to follow them, but the ship is ordered to return, as the Empire has declared war on the Darlock. She kills her subordinate (not knowing that he didn't buy his next aTan), forcing an Imperial officer to kill her. Kay and the boys head to a Bermuda-Triangle-like area on Grail, where Arthur says they will find the gateway to God. The ISS chick catches up to them, but goes crazy and kills herself, forgetting that she bought her resurrection (which only heals the body, not the mind). Arthur explains that God offered Curtis van Curtis a chance to create a universe to fit his innermost desires (a scary thought), but van Curtis was afraid to make that step and asked for an extension. That is how he got the technology for immortality. His next step is to ask God for the technology to let people leave into their own universes (forever) for a price. Curtis appears by Arthur, and they walk towards the gateway (on water, I might add). Tommy decides to stay with Kay, and they turn around and leave the way they came. Thus ends the first book. If anyone is still awake and is interested, I can summarize the other 2.

Hmm. While I do appreciate the subtlety and necessity of stealth, I never quite took it that far. I mostly use my scout for the missions where stealth is required by the objectives (my current scout is the most expensive one - $30,000, and wears a mask) or when I need a spotter for my sniper(s) (pretty much all of my characters carry rifles). But even then, I hardly ever use throwing knives/shurikens; I prefer a stealth pistol/SMG with plenty of ammo. Btw, am I correct in assuming that S3 has a scoped energy rifle available at a later point in the game? Also, is there a reason why I can't get any of the THO Panzerkleins? Every time I destroy them, they blow up, unlike the Allied ones they used the first time you see them.

I seriously doubt there will be one that has the guts to risk bringing down Atari lawyers on their heads. Even if Atari sent an official letter to them that they allowed the book to fully use the concepts in the game, there'd still be a large enough risk. Oh, btw, the copyright law actually grants companies 95 years of ownership, not 75. It used to be 75 (and lifetime + 50 for single author) until Disney got scared they'd lose Mickey Mouse in 2004 to the public. Basically, they (and other big companies) used money to get the copyright law extended by 20 more years. Of course, this does nothing for single authors, as nobody really cares how long after their death they will still own their work.

Hmm. Is it still possible to get that weapon through cheats (not that I'd do it)? I checked out the cheats (just to see if it's there), and the Prototype 8M1 is in the list of objects that could be spawned. Except, I'm sure, the ammo wouldn't spontaneously spawn in Arm Dealer's inventory or the cabinet. I also doubt the weapon (or the ammo) have been given a monetary value in S3.

No prob. Know what you mean. True. People read the book and say, "Ooh! This stuff is good! Lemme try out that game" Actually, I read a sort-of fanfiction of Master of Orion (I say "sort-of" because only race/planet names and looks were taken from the game, the events are completely different), way before I even saw the game. When I first saw race selection screen, this caused me to continue playing, even though I didn't like the game initially. Makes sense - they don't want to get into legal trouble with anyone. However, what if that threat was almost nonexistent? For example, a Russian or European publishing company decides to translate the book into English and sell and promote it online. I don't think this company will be too worried about Atari sicking its lawyers on it. International laws don't work as well as they should, especially copyright laws.

As you can see in my previous post, I know fully well that abandonware is not a legal concept. This does not stop many popular abandonware websites from posting games that are older than 5-6 years. I also know that the only reason websites like HotU have those games is because the copyright owners allow it (or they don't care). Sometimes, actually, it can be an effective tactic to release a good old game to promote the sequel. This happened to Ground Control. Ok, the question is then, would a fanfiction novel harm them? I think the answer's pretty clear here - no. The other problem might be that Atari might want royalties from the sales of the book (hypothetically). In this case, the publisher would either have to pay or not print the book. If they decide to pay, then the price of the book would probably double. I dunno the intricacies of publishing a book, so at this point I'm just guessing.

Thanks! Yeah, once you get PKs for most of your squad, the game gets a hell of a lot easier, except for certain levels where speed and stealth are essential. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that Nival's gonna try to fix those problems. Mostly because the game already receives high ratings from reviewers and players. Or, perhaps, because Nival's not its own company anymore and can't choose what to do, ever since their company president sold out. On the other hand, screenshots and trailers from HoMM5 look promising, but that's beside the point.

I tried the melee option, but in all my playing through (both Allied and Axis), I only got maybe 3-4 melee kills. Maybe I never trained my scouts to be stealthy enough, but whenever I try to get too close (in crouched position, at night, hidden, from the back), they spot me and shoot (usually with fatal results).