In What Electronic Entertainment Have You Been Partaking #18: Reticulating Splines

[Zardnaar]

I really ought to start playing EUIV again....

Played it last night MP.

Portugal into Morocco into Andalusia.

I own 7 gold mines, colonial brazil has 9, La Platta one, all the inca and mexico gold mines as well.

Number III great power, Austria and Russia are terrifying though. And otto's to a lesser extent.

 

[Zardnaar]

Went digging moar.



Gameboy advance held a charge despite not being used for over a decade.

Found PSP as well, finding the cord was harder. Charging it now. Still has the sega genesis collection in it.

Want to do some 16bit gaming without digging out the Megadrive.

 

[AdamCrock]

It's my fault. I am the duche bag , the one who affiliates duches with bags ! And I am sorry my ultimate NZ friend I have failed You .... plese take this mask off .......

...

 

[Zardnaar]

It's my fault. I am the duche bag , the one who affiliates duches with bags ! And I am sorry my ultimate NZ friend I have failed You .... plese take this mask off .......

...

Reminds me of an ex.

PSPs charging. Glorious Shining Force 1&2, Phantasy Star III and IV maybe even Sword of Vermilion!!!.

 

[AdamCrock]

I am in the nether now , my lightsaber is useless !

 

[Zardnaar]

I have the powah....

 

[AdamCrock]

Do You not remember ancient Jedi ? Do You not remember Malakore V !? Kreia ?

 

[Takhisis]

But do I really? Will I really benefit from it more than it costs me in inconvenient wars?

England might have been perfect if they hadn't rivalled me. After Poland made peace with Hungary (releasing Brabant and taking most of Moldavia for themselves, along with a couple Hungarian provinces), England declared war on Hungary, something they had never done against Burgundy. But England was ready, with the second-largest army in the world. I had to double check - sure enough, England has a larger army than I do, being surpassed only by Ming. With Hungary already worn down, England will likely be the dominant power in France in five years' time.

I think having both Poland (and partner Lithuania) and Muscovy have been the most important, as no one has dared challenge me even when my manpower was depleted after successive wars with Hungary, the Great Horde, Qara Koyunlu, and the Mamluks. Florence has also been helpful, providing knowledge sharing that boosted my tech pace. But part of what has been so great is that for the first 60 years, no ally dragged me into a war, unless you count Georgia calling after I'd warned the Horde and the Horde attacked them anyway. So pretty much, when I needed a few years for war exhaustion to fall or manpower to recover, it was Pax Ottomanica.

Basically you need to prevent the Battle of Lepanto from happening. Keep the western end of the Mediterranean fragmented and/or support whichever power is the 2nd/3rd against the 1st so as to keep them fighting one another instead of you.

 

[Zardnaar]

Do You not remember ancient Jedi ? Do You not remember Malakore V !? Kreia ?

I do. I own that game and kept the original xbox to play it.

 

[Zardnaar]

I need to resume my Stellaris game from September. I'm admittedly partial to the historical grand strategy games, but I was having a good time as the Commonwealth of Man.



But do I really? Will I really benefit from it more than it costs me in inconvenient wars?

England might have been perfect if they hadn't rivalled me. After Poland made peace with Hungary (releasing Brabant and taking most of Moldavia for themselves, along with a couple Hungarian provinces), England declared war on Hungary, something they had never done against Burgundy. But England was ready, with the second-largest army in the world. I had to double check - sure enough, England has a larger army than I do, being surpassed only by Ming. With Hungary already worn down, England will likely be the dominant power in France in five years' time.

I think having both Poland (and partner Lithuania) and Muscovy have been the most important, as no one has dared challenge me even when my manpower was depleted after successive wars with Hungary, the Great Horde, Qara Koyunlu, and the Mamluks. Florence has also been helpful, providing knowledge sharing that boosted my tech pace. But part of what has been so great is that for the first 60 years, no ally dragged me into a war, unless you count Georgia calling after I'd warned the Horde and the Horde attacked them anyway. So pretty much, when I needed a few years for war exhaustion to fall or manpower to recover, it was Pax Ottomanica.

If it's single player you can roll your face in the keyboard and win.

Build forts on mountains in serbia. 1507 your units are better, you should have all the monies to hire mercs plus you can recruit janissaries.

Even with 0 ducats you win. Just stay out of western europe.
. You can also switch to orthodox it's the most powerful religion in the game.

Economics plus quantity gives you -30 dev cost reduction. Orthodox gives you another 10 and merchant estate another 10.

You can get it down even lower. Add in offensive or quality you get a heap of discipline or cannon fire.

At mil tech 16 your units suck relative to the west. Lots of cannons and large economy mitigate that.

Gold mine in serbia, levant, Egypt and Mespotamia is the minimum you should have.

English troops suck.

I wouldn't bother with western europe early on until you decide to eat Italy.

Arabia's also good for you so that's another place. Spread your wars around to avoid AE.

That serbian gold mine and trade will be your main income. Just build workshops on all half decent trade goods.

 

[AdamCrock]

I do. I own that game and kept the original xbox to play it.

It is awesome

 

[amadeus]

Sims 3: I'm having more fun with the building...building than the actual life simulation itself. Oh well.

As nice as having the factory was, it was time to move into some new digs and really get this company off the ground. Keeping in mind that I'm still really the only employee, as the land is technically residential. I could rezone it, but then busybody townies would start poking their noses around where they shouldn't be.

Spoiler company, work in progress :

Simadeus Advanced Research Corporation
Construction update I

Office space

View from second floor lobby

Advanced tiberium weaponization enrichment "clean energy" research projects

 

[AdamCrock]

I wouldn't bother with western europe early on until you decide to eat Italy.

Lord Zardi the rebel scum are forming a resistance , what shall we do ?

 

[Zardnaar]

Lord Zardi the rebel scum are forming a resistance , what shall we do ?

Crush them, rebels are easy.

Or you take humanist ideas and stack rebel reduction.

Otto's if they take say administration, influence , military idea, humanist as first four ideas that's the we want to blob the most as otto's.

Otto's going quantity, economic, offensive/quality and trade gives you the best troops along with the economy to support them.

One could replace trade with religious.

That lets you stack policies as well.

Religious/quantity 10% morale
Economic/quantity 10% dev reduction
Economic/offensive 10% cannon
Economic quality 5% discipline
Religious/quality 5% morale

Those 5 ideas give you best army in game.

Trade/quantity 20% goods produced.
Trade/quality trade efficiency

Add that as 6th idea you're rich, or take it earlier. Otto's don't really need the best army in game until after mil tech 16./ Even then vs ai quantity is fine.

Crimea, Serbia can make good marches if your going for the influence blob thing. Khorasan in the east iirc.

You get a huge chunk of the middle east as accepted cultures. Basically just follow your mission tree. Vassal feed Syria to keep your AE down. By that I mean first war vs Mamluks just take a couple of Syrian provinces and some dirt in Egypt.

Second war use reconquest cb, feed Syria the cores and annex.

Avoid wars with France if they have elan unlocked. Western europe can be ignored for the most part unless you're going for a mega blob. Can vassal feed Barcelona and early war France (before Mamluks).

If your economy can support it perma war with mercenaries is also doable. Just have to spread your empire around, have the economy to do it.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The Long Dark

After taking a months-long break from my game, I finally decided to head into Bleak Inlet for the first time. Freakin' Timberwolves, man.

Spoiler :

I imagined someone in the next valley hearing what must have sounded like a week-long gun battle and thinking "What in God's name is going on over there?" I mapped the place as quickly as I could and got the [frack] out of there.

 

[Takhisis]

BOOM.

Managed to establish the People's Republic of Paradise Island after eradicating the Zombies, police and Farmers, in a completely democratic way.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The Long Dark

I hit 127 days in my Stalker game last night, making it my longest game ever.

Some highlights:

• I've reached Level 5 in Harvesting, Fires, Revolver and Cooking.
  
• I already knew that you no longer need kindling when you reach Level 3 in Firestarting, but kindling doesn't provide any benefit after that, at all. I was thinking it ought to shorten the lighting time, or something. I also think Level 5 should allow you to dig a little wind-shielded pit for your fire (heck, I can do that irl, and I'm no woodsman).
  
• I started this game with the Book Smarts perk, and I'm thinking now it wasn't that necessary. It's only useful for ~100 says or so, and it does nothing to get you through that perilous first week or two.
  
• The shorter of the two books for training your Rifle skill no longer provide any benefit when you reach Level 4.
  
• I knew that Level 5 Cooking meant you no longer risked getting parasites from eating meat, but I didn't realize it also makes you immune from food poisoning.
• I've killed 67 wolves. I'm a one-man ecological disaster. I think the RCMP and park rangers, if there were any in the game, would have a quiet "shoot him on sight, make up a story afterwards" agreement between them by now. Are there even 67 wolves in all of Yellowstone or Banff? Yikes. If I do another game, I might adopt a "no shooting wolves" house-rule.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I spent the last two days playing Total War: Rome 2 using the Divide et Impera mods. Great game. I'll see how long I can stay away from PoE.

 

[thecrazyscot]

I've really been enjoying They Are Billions (TAB), which I picked in the Steam Autumn Sale. My favorite kind of RTS games are ones where I have to build massive defensive fortifications to weather overwhelming assaults... basically "survival RTS".

TAB hits pretty much all the right notes for me. The map starts off completely covered with infected, who are mostly passive unless disturbed. The area you spawn in is the only clear pocket, and you have to carefully build up and expand as you cleanse territory. It's easy to be overwhelmed if you attract too many infected, who are attracted to noise and particularly fighting. This results in a fairly methodical pace, with careful pacification operations closely followed by fortification and entrenchment in the newly cleared land to allow safe expansion of your city.

You can't take too long, though, as a series of ten progressively more massive hordes rush you throughout the game, and if you survive the final horde (which comes from all directions simultaneously in truly awe-inspiring numbers) and kill all infected you are victorious.

In order to survive these massive onslaughts you must expand to grab enough resources to build enough firepower to kill the infected before they make it into your city, because once inside your city they tear throughout your buildings like paper, and every building they infect spawns new infected, so even a single infected getting through can spell disaster in short order. Additionally, infected towns can spawn on the map, which will send streams of zombies your way periodically, but will really boil out of control if you get too near and disturb them, so clearing them out takes a lot of cautious planning and judicious retreating.

The planning aspect is supported by the ability to pause and issue unit and build orders, which can be a lifesaver when you are being assaulted on multiple fronts at once.

I'm finding it to be a great balance between pressure to expand and methodical turtling, and there's something really satisfying building an epic defensive line with walls, turrets, snipers, barbed wire, and landmines and watching an absolute tsunami of zombies break on it...

And the sheer panic of seeing them break through your walls and butcher your entire city as you desperately try to stamp out each new hotspot is absolutely glorious in its own way.

 

[aelf]

Been replaying Total War: 3 Kingdoms after buying some DLCs during the sale.

Started a H/VH Sun Jian campaign. First time playing his faction and I'm not sure I can handle VH/VH with the new additions. But the AI still sucks at attacking low-level settlements.

Spoiler :