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

[Sommerswerd]

No disrespect to you but starcraft 2 is hardly the type of game that serves as benchmark for high end hardware.

There are other game titles out there that are far more optimized at showing your computer hardware how to sing.

Sure but I dont have any of those games. SC2 is the best I've got... so that's what I use.

Also, it's not just about running the game, its about how smoothly it runs and how high I can put the settings vis-a-vis computers I've had in the past.

 

[HEF]

...its about how smoothly it runs and how high I can put the settings vis-a-vis computers I've had in the past.

Thanks for the reply!


The Nintendo 2D/3D XL can run starcraft 2... at maximum setting.

 

[HEF]

I think it still supports Windows XP…

It used to.

Used to run the [pos] on my low end laptop 10 years ago.

 

[warpus]

The latest Civ6 expansion is worth it for me. It's made the game interesting again. I got stuck in a spot where if you play at King level everyone's an idiot and you can easily win. But if you play at Emperor you have to beeline for one of the victory conditions from the start, or you'll fall behind. And see, what I enjoy about civ is having that leeway to try other things: colonize a continent, invade a continent, etc. These things take a lot of resources, so if you're focusing on a specific victory path you might not be able to dedicate enough resources to properly do it. So you half arse it and then lose anyway.

So hopefully this just isn't a case of "I'm getting used to the new game dynamics". The AI seems a bit smarter, so I hope it's not just me. The barbarians also seem more intense, which is nice. I love it when my maps have lots of barbarians, and especially if there are islands or continents of barbarians. Then you gotta conquer your way in and establish colonies - fun stuff. The problem is that the barbarians used to be a joke. Now you have to be a bit more careful. There seem more of them and they seem stronger and smarter. And in the end your AI civ opponents are also really stupid when dealing with barbarians. They will send out "not the right things at all" for whatever mission they have underway. It's like they have been trained wrong as a joke. Yet they seem a lot better at dealing with you.

The ages thing is interesting, it makes you focus on things you wouldn't necessarily want to.. overall I have put in enough gaming time to warrant the $26price tag

I haven't even tried the Rise and Fall expansion yet, but I heard it's not as good. Too bad there isn't a way to play with both "on". (or is there?)

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

No disrespect to you but starcraft 2 is hardly the type of game that serves as benchmark for high end hardware.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that newer gaming computers struggle to run Crysis 1 because the game is really bad at multithreading and ends up bottlenecked by the CPU.

 

[Sarin]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that newer gaming computers struggle to run Crysis 1 because the game is really bad at multithreading and ends up bottlenecked by the CPU.

Not surprising. A lot of late 2000's-2010's games suffer from that.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

And then on the other end you have some older games that are bound to the CPU clock speed and run hilariously fast on modern computers (or just crash, which is less hilarious).

If you have the Windows version of SimCity 2000 working on a modern computer, never ever ever run on African Swallow speed.

 

[Synobun]

I haven't even tried the Rise and Fall expansion yet, but I heard it's not as good. Too bad there isn't a way to play with both "on". (or is there?)

They only let you play one expansion at a time? That sounds... silly.

 

[amadeus]

They only let you play one expansion at a time? That sounds... silly.

I don’t have Civ6 but I imagine this is restricted to prevent two mods from conflicting with each other?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I don’t have Civ6 but I imagine this is restricted to prevent two mods from conflicting with each other?

Instead of making the expansions....not conflict with each other?

 

[amadeus]

Instead of making the expansions....not conflict with each other?

Well, thinking about it from the developers’ perspective, it’s easier just to code in a single-mod limitation than listen to people complain that Bob’s Super Cool Tank Mod conflicts with Jim’s Hey Tanks Suck Mod.

 

[Phrossack]

I'm clearly the wierdo in that I genuinely enjoy playing infantry-heavy armies in Medieval2.
I rarely include more that 6 cavalry units (not counting general) in my armies.

Can't say that was normally my style other than pike and shot warfare at times. Infantry takes awhile to get anywhere and doesn't hit too hard in the charge. In Rome 2, I'll have mostly infantry armies a lot unless I'm an Eastern or steppe faction, but M2 is where cavalry rules.

I routinely had full stacks of cavalry going. Later in the game, when I suffered from what Peter Turchin calls "elite overproduction," I would form surplus generals into armies of bodyguard units. Bad generals went into the "Wild Bunch." Generals on death's door formed the "Bingo Club." All of them went on death or glory missions and usually got glory, much to the harm of my treasury.

Of course, many mods, like the Thirty Years' War and Third Age, require infantry armies. You'd probably like the Dwarves in Third Age, at least tactically. They're almost purely infantry. Strategically they suffer, but tactically you can sometimes form a shield wall on a hill and just let the Easterlings waste their missiles on you like it's the happy early stages of Hastings.

 

[Synobun]

My Total War armies are super boring. I just stack them with the best infantry I can and a couple units of artillery. On the easier difficulties this is fine enough.

Totally backfired the first time I played Warhammer. Got curb-stomped even with cheats. The switch to hero and niche combat ruined me.

 

[Phrossack]

My Total War armies are super boring. I just stack them with the best infantry I can and a couple units of artillery. On the easier difficulties this is fine enough.

Totally backfired the first time I played Warhammer. Got curb-stomped even with cheats. The switch to hero and niche combat ruined me.

In Rome 2, I sometimes skip artillery just because of how broken it is. Ballistas are the easiest artillery to get and the best by far, able to wreck buildings and kill infantry better than Napoleonic cannons.

But usually I bring them along. It's deeply satisfying to wipe out a whole fleet of transports as they try to land on the beach.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I remember in Civilization 4 being confused on why my artillery kept getting destroyed so easily. Then I realized you had to stack them with other units so that they don't get destroyed.

 

[MaryKB]

They only let you play one expansion at a time? That sounds... silly.

No, you can play all expansions on top of each other.

 

[Sommerswerd]

@MaryKB Why are you a vampire? Who bit you? I'll kill them!

 

[Zardnaar]

Been playing Star Wars: Empire at War using the Thrawns Revenge mod.

Ran as what's left of the Galactic Empire Art of War grand campaign on Admiral difficulty.

Promptly lost the outer rim holdings and was reduced to the deep core and core world's.

Piggy in the middle with repeated gang bangs and several of the warlords have super star destroyers.

At various points lost Bilbringi, Carida and Kuat and Borleias. Crap income but I had some fortress world's where I managed to hold the line.

Eventually managed to secure a slice of the outer rim that had good income planets and created some new fortress world's.

Thrawn did his job but got killed progressing to the dark empire timeline. New superweapons and units opened up.

Using the income and Buss, Coruscant and Kuat I managed to start building super star destroyers with superlasers and they spearheaded the counter attacks.

Clone Emperor dumped him for the economic options in the second dark empire with the advisers.

Translation spam lots of frigates and tanks.

Went to era 4 with Daala. Plan was to spam lots of Crimson Command Victory Class cruisers. Built a grand total of 5 before Daala got killed early on and on to the 5 and final era under Pellanon.

Pellanon is a good commander in a Star Destroyer and another commander cones with a Bellator SSD.

The writing was in the wall at this point. Mopped up a had a couple of big defeats but could field 4 super star destroyers and a fleet in ever sector so just deployed said fleets on fortress world's a d used 4 planets with discount production facilities to crank out the units.

Buried what was left under waves of tank droids, star destroyers and strike cruisers. All up got a bit boring. Early on just grind then down with WW1 style battles with very limited counter attacks just to survive.

Next up play as the New Republic or test out the giga engineering mod for Stellaris.

 

[Ajidica]

I routinely had full stacks of cavalry going. Later in the game, when I suffered from what Peter Turchin calls "elite overproduction," I would form surplus generals into armies of bodyguard units. Bad generals went into the "Wild Bunch." Generals on death's door formed the "Bingo Club." All of them went on death or glory missions and usually got glory, much to the harm of my treasury.

Ah yes, gathering all my inbred, alcoholic, ****olded, cross-dressing, secretly homosexual generals and throwing them against enemy armies where they either die or become battlefield legends with a bajillion HP and high dread.

Of course, many mods, like the Thirty Years' War and Third Age, require infantry armies. You'd probably like the Dwarves in Third Age, at least tactically. They're almost purely infantry. Strategically they suffer, but tactically you can sometimes form a shield wall on a hill and just let the Easterlings waste their missiles on you like it's the happy early stages of Hastings.

Unfortunately, I was never able to get 30YW to work. Too much scripting and messy installs. As far as TATW, I didn't like the dwarves because they were too focused on infantry, especially as their primary early game foe's entire armies consist of light and fast skirmishers. I enjoyed playing Gondor and Dale, at least until the AI army scripts started firing off.....

 

[Phrossack]

Ah yes, gathering all my inbred, alcoholic, ****olded, cross-dressing, secretly homosexual generals and throwing them against enemy armies where they either die or become battlefield legends with a bajillion HP and high dread.

This guy gets it!

Although I should add that mentally ill or secretly gay generals make for outstanding faction leaders. An overflow bug means that generals with enough negative Authority end up with the maximum of 10 Authority, making them the ultimate kings!

But being wasteful with money, or bad at administration, or alcoholic, or being cheated on is indeed grounds for being assigned on a lengthy series of exciting battlefield challenges.

Unfortunately, I was never able to get 30YW to work. Too much scripting and messy installs. As far as TATW, I didn't like the dwarves because they were too focused on infantry, especially as their primary early game foe's entire armies consist of light and fast skirmishers. I enjoyed playing Gondor and Dale, at least until the AI army scripts started firing off.....

TYW did crash a lot, but I'll have to try it again. I haven't played in years.

Third Age is great and I need to try out Divide and Conquer for it.

The Dwarves are indeed a pain. Divided kingdom, lots of fast enemies...it isn't easy.

Dale gave me trouble because I had to deal with so many Easterlings and so little cavalry. Unarmored freemen with seaxes on horses just don't cut it.

Maybe I'm just a bad player, but I only had success with Rohan and Eriador. Rohan obviously has cavalry spam. Eriador starts weak and surrounded but Generalissimo Gandalf led my forces to victor with Dúnedain Rangers and ballistas to kill trolls at fords. Amon Sûl makes for an excellent meat grinder with Rangers stationed atop it - their arrows kill most enemies, while stakes kill any cavalry who rush to the top. Transforming into Arnor was hard won but glorious, and Gandalf's flying column was able to storm Mordor and throw the Ring into Mount Doom.