Do you feel bad when losing units in strategy games?

[Muggizz]

I shred a tear for every last one of my little self-combustive Baneling when I see their small little bodies explode to tiny little pieces trying to protect their society or sometimes just because I had selected them all and accidentally pressed "X".

My Mom ask me if I need professional help when she finds me inside my room crying, and I tell her "The Banelings just explode mom, THE BANELINGS JUST EXPLODE!!!"

SC2 Serious shit.

 

[Zakarath]

Depends... In some games it sometimes kinda feels like you need to throw men away if you want to get anywhere (King Arthur), but on something else like Dawn of War 2, when I'm playing as the Eldar I do my damndest to keep every last one of my troops alive. Sometimes I even succeed, and it makes me happy
In civilization I often play as the Romans, and I'll usually have a couple of legions that I try to give tons of xp to, and it makes me sad if those units fall, but I don't really care about the rest.

 

[sergnb]

Bad as in sad? No. Bad as in "I needed that to win"? Yes.

If your answer to the first question was "Yes", you might want to get that checked by a professional. I'm not joking.

 

[Deleted]

In games like fire emblem where the characters are actually characters and not units, then yes I would feel bad.

In a game like starcraft, death is just a small inconvenience.

 

[Amishdemon]

Fire Emblem.



And im not talking that New fancy pants DS version where your characters are thrown around like paper and no one talks to you, im talking about Eliwood, Lyn and Hector, the three of them developing a bond that nothing can shatter. and not to mention the many other characters, all of whom were given emotional baggage....God, if lost even a single unit, I shut off the game. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't leave a man behind.

It took my years to beat the game.

I know how you feel man

 

[Chris Barber]

I don't feel bad about the loss of units under my command at all. FFXI did manage to make me feel genuine empathy for my pets playing Puppetmaster and Dragoon though. I'd go well out of my way to ensure the safety of them because I didn't want them to die. The cutscenes and class specific stuff did a good job of establishing them as your friends and that really stuck with me.

I had no such feelings for my WoW Hunter's pets though. They were just tools throw at monsters. And the game treats them as such.

 

[FirstPersonWinner]

Sometimes. Especially in games like Fire Emblem where they all are individual characters.

 

[Corporal Yakob]

Depends on the faction I'm playing as-every fallen battle brother and landser in the DOW and COH series is mourned and avenged with much slaughter of the enemy that dares to even stand before me. Playing on the opposite side on the other hand, I just hurl wave after wave of my now expendable men at the enemy with a shrug.

 

[Jakub324]

In Rome Total Wwar? No. In Dawn of War? yes, I'm playing as the Imperial Guard. I'll lose three Guardsmen and yell "FALL BACK!"

So you yelled fall back on contact then? I love the Imperial Guard, but the numbers dropped faster than a whores pants.

OT: No, not that I can remember anyway. I've recently been playing Eufloria, a game where your units are made automatically over time, and I really don't care for their deaths. In games where I had to spend resources for my units I was only really careful about their cost, even then it was often only when it was a game turning battle.

Well, no. I'll make them hang about until reinforcements show up, but when I've upgraded their armour and shit I feel bad for them.

 

[Trucken]

I rarely play strategy games, but I often feel responsible for allied NPC's in the games I play, like Saints Row. If I recruit some gang members to do a mission with me I feel like I have to do my very best to keep them alive.

 

[Esotera]

In a recent battle on Rome Total War I somehow managed to hold off 300 Egyptians with only 30 troops. Only two of mine survived, but we won. It was more a feeling of pride than anything else. But preventable losses can be very demoralising.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Only if they are my Veteran units.

Like, yesterday in Rome Total War, One of my Legionary Cohort armies who had help me conquer most of the known world were ambushed by an army of Rebel Gladiators. I was not prepared for the horror that took place. I had 2 archer units that I used to fend off the enemy horde as long as I could, but soon enough they Legionaries were swarmed and they were dying way too fast.

So I sent my archers back as far as possible while still in firing range, and I used fire arrows on the entire mass of friendly and enemy soliders.

I won the battle, but I felt like a **** about it.

I'm much the same way. In RTS's, I'm not that bothered, but for the Total War series (which I totally nerd out over) I make sure I lose none of my units in their entirety.

In R:TW, I combine units so as not to lose any of them and retrain... none of my battles have been quite as frenetic as you mentioned, but I feel your pain nonetheless. Nothing hurts me more than seeing my Spartan Hoplites getting mauled by an enemy that outnumbers them 4+ to 1. *hrk*

In E&N:TW, since all the regiments are numbered, late game turns take forever since I make sure all of them are still present and accounted for (disbanding only the shit militia/early game tripe units). And the ships... I rename all of them and I've cried after losing a fleet of five third-raters.

 

[ELD3RGoD]

Company of Heroes does it for me, when I have a squad holding a defensive position and out of nowhere I hear a sniper shot or see the slow fall of a Mortar, I feel bad for what has/is going to happen.

I try not to reinforce squads if i'm playing skirmish until I get them back to HQ, just for that extra bit of realism, considering Paratroopers reinforce anywhere.

 

[ediblemitten]

I've lost so many hundreds of thousands of soldiers playing TW games (I own all of em, excluding the first Shogun, and the 1 of the RTW expansions) that losing half a full stack barely registers. However, I have become pissed off when I've either lost a battle I had in the bag, or been shit on unexpectedly from behind by the treacherous AI.

 

[MetalMantheRevenge]

Depends how zoomed in you are.

If you're leading your men from the front lines(Battlion Wars) and you can see the bullets tear up their bodies as they tell you to tell their wife and kids how much he loves them. Then yea. Depending if I liked that unit.

If I'm in a space station about 20 light years away from battle and every unit looks like Mario's 8-bit nipple. Then not really. That's like feeling bad for every pixel I erase in Paint.

 

[Aean]

Its rather selective I suppose. I mean, in Pikmin and Fire Emblem I feel horrible losing units (which led to some awkward antics in Pikmin 2 involving me leaving all my pikmin at dungeon entrances and punching everything to death!) That said, in Starcraft 2 or Lord of the Rings I didn't feel especially bad.

 

[Fanfic_warper]

I'm on god-knows-what hour of fire emblem playing a level for the same god knows how many times because I keep losing a unit....YES I FEEL BAD!!!!!!

 

[wkim564]

Only in Men of War and Fire Emblem

Men of War cause of all the detail, every soldier with their own names, guns. Some say the most disturbing things, like on yelled "MY LEG!!!" after a grenade went off near him. The most touching (take the word with a grain of salt) moment was when I ordered a lone soldier to throw an anti tank grenade at a tank, and I swear he crouched and prayed before going to his death.

Fire Emblem cause of the whole, oh shit now I have to reload now.

 

[New Frontiersman]

Depends on the game, and the unit.

I always try really hard not to lose Pikmin, but after losing a few I became desensitized to their cries. I still try really hard not to lose any, but it's not sad for me when they die.

In Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, I had a few units I wouldn't sacrifice because I liked them, but since as soon as you finish each individual characters story arc they no longer contribute to the story and essentially become cannon fodder, it became harder and harder to care about them. I began to see them less as individual characters and more as expendable units. This is I think one of the main flaws to an otherwise great game, I think they should have done something similar to the Paper Mario series of games where even after an individual character's story arc is finished, if you keep them around the continue to contribute dialogue appropriate to the situation and fitting with the character. It would have gone a long way to building more believable characters and adding immersion to the game.