So, after over a year for me (bought upon release), Drezen has fallen. And two decades after Warcraft 3 I'm the Lich King commanding an army of undead. Which is kinda neat.
It's probabably been discussed in here, such a hot topic, but last year I played exclusively TB. For Drezen and surroundings, I went Baldur's Gate mode though. (In TB it would have lasted hours -- it took me two weeks of holidays last year to even get that far.) Only that there is a shitton more stuff going on than in BG. Wenduag alone for me rolls two damage rolls with her first attack -- and then has another two attacks per "turn". Which is to say, within a second or so of real-time play apparently, she makes 3-4 damage numbers pop up over enemy heads. That's just Wenduag and it's nothing fancy (like weapons triggering AoE effects after crits, spells, concentration checks, etc.) To say the game's combat was "busy" would be an understatement, even if you keep on using the "v" key slowing time.
Granted, I'm coming back to this after having finished Solasta -- probably the first ever D&Dish game in which the combat log is "nice to have" -- but in which every important roll is actually displayed right in the actual gameplay. You can even change the appearance of the dice to your liking. 10/10. It's curious that Owlcat have considered going TB exclusively with their next (Warhammer 40k) game. AFAIK it's a lot more "simple" / has less stuff going on than Pathfinder/D&D3ish. And as such would be more suited to RT than this.
That's not an argument about whether RtWP or turn-based would be de facto superior, btw. That wholly depends. I have PS:T installed alongside to this, ditto Icewind Dale, and I'm enjoying myself there quite a bit more in combat. Which is likely at least some to do with the visualization too though. Simpler and less effects-laden times. Hits in the Infinity Engine games are immediately noticeable: There's blood displayed on the simple 2D sprites and a sound. It's simple, visually distinctive and works. Whereas on one of my last random encounters in WOTR, I had barely commenced "attack", and all of a sudden the first enemy was down already.
Anyway, back to war. I made a save upon finally getting "full control" over my army and toyed around with that a bit, simply building and passing time to see how things work -- and I quite enjoy the army management still too, despite its simplicity. Plus, asa Lich I command zombies and skeletons rising in numbers with each enemy defeat -- what's not to like?
