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

[Zardnaar]

Started another game of Thrawns Revenge.

Playing as the rebels into New Republic. Sold most things on scattered planets and massed my fleet at Bespin (from Endor) and pushed through Hutt Space and Galactic South to link up with the leadership at Mon Calamari.

Cash rich with large fleet of frigates in the galactic NE. I can either push into the Corporate Sector or Hutt Space both of which have some rich world's.

Probably gonna be reduced to a thin strip of hyperplanes in the galactic east. Hopefully secure Hutt space and Corporate Sector which will give me a lot of resources and can probably defend two or three choke points.

Just need a secure site to relocate my capital. One areas is richer high risk, the other area is easy to grab with some more planets nearby to build ground units decisions decisions.

 

[Ajidica]

This guy gets it!

I really miss the fun traits from Rome/Medieval. Gave my generals so much personality.

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.

Ah, I stopped playing TATW right around the time they started introducing custom battle maps.
Related, you ever play Fourth Age: Total War for Rome BI? Not quite as pretty as TATW but in terms of fidelity to the books and lore, along with depth of campaign, it blows TATW out of the war. The Dwarves have to rebuild the Great Gates of Moria to expand westward (you know, the ones the Watcher in the Water knocked down), while the Elves see basically no population growth so you only have a handful of Elven units and human levies, backed by Glorfindel and his company of Noldor riders, to liberate Rivendell from the New Shadow.

 

[Phrossack]

I really miss the fun traits from Rome/Medieval. Gave my generals so much personality.


Ah, I stopped playing TATW right around the time they started introducing custom battle maps.
Related, you ever play Fourth Age: Total War for Rome BI? Not quite as pretty as TATW but in terms of fidelity to the books and lore, along with depth of campaign, it blows TATW out of the war. The Dwarves have to rebuild the Great Gates of Moria to expand westward (you know, the ones the Watcher in the Water knocked down), while the Elves see basically no population growth so you only have a handful of Elven units and human levies, backed by Glorfindel and his company of Noldor riders, to liberate Rivendell from the New Shadow.

Alas, I only got into Total War when M2 came out, and only got into LotR a few years ago, to my shame.

A day may come when I go back to a TW game even older than M2...but it is not this day

 

[Zardnaar]

My grand strategic galactic scheme.

Overran erm liberated Hutt Space.

Sent Landon to Nap Hurts to run the joint. Richest planet I have plus it can have a capital construct yard. Da Soocha and Kessel make decent money. Luke and Kyle Katarn are in Da Soocha. I plan on moving my capital to Nal Hutta for even more money and making it a trade port.

Mon Mothma the glorious leader is on her way here from Min Calamari. She provided discounts on stuff I build so she can help getting the economy up and running.

North if Kessel is Mon Calamari.

 

[MaryKB]

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

Not a vampire ... a DEVIL!

 

[Lexicus]

The switch to hero and niche combat ruined me.

Me too buddy. Me too.

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.

I have a couple of guys with Brutally Scarred right now. One of them also has Fine Armor. Dude's gonna die of old age.

It's sorta funny, I never really intentionally kill my generals except in case either the faction leader or faction heir has unacceptable traits. Then I send that guy out by himself to die. Probably the biggest single tactical challenge I face in M2 is in those battles where I have to position the unit just right so that they get properly surrounded and all die instead of routing and escaping.

I really only train infantry for field battles in the early stages of the campaign when you just can't afford enough cavalry to defend your borders let alone expand. After I hit the tipping point of having enough all-cav armies to actually fight the campaign, infantry becomes relegated either to garrisons or when I feel like building a seige assault army, in which case I'll bring only enough cavalry to have some defense if the army is attacked in the field.

And I try to spread my bodyguards out throughout my forces. The main juggling is making sure the people I want to become powerful are actually in command, and making sure I have a young promising character to take over from generals who are about to die of old age. I also make sure there is at least one high-loyalty character in each stack.

The cool thing about having all-cav armies is that I frequently have periods of the campaign where I'm hugely negative in actual income, so I'm only sustaining myself by the income from sacking cities. I think my record is having -150k gold once from the Black Death and too many elite cavalry units, but that was also due to a series of other factors leading to a turn where I sacked 6 large or huge cities on the same turn, leading to something like 220k gold from pillaging.

I really miss that feature of M2 "making war pay for war" as Napoleon put it. It's much more difficult in later TW titles - impossible in Empire and Napoleon where you don't even get any gold for pillaging cities.

 

[Phrossack]

Me too buddy. Me too.



I have a couple of guys with Brutally Scarred right now. One of them also has Fine Armor. Dude's gonna die of old age.

It's sorta funny, I never really intentionally kill my generals except in case either the faction leader or faction heir has unacceptable traits. Then I send that guy out by himself to die. Probably the biggest single tactical challenge I face in M2 is in those battles where I have to position the unit just right so that they get properly surrounded and all die instead of routing and escaping.

I really only train infantry for field battles in the early stages of the campaign when you just can't afford enough cavalry to defend your borders let alone expand. After I hit the tipping point of having enough all-cav armies to actually fight the campaign, infantry becomes relegated either to garrisons or when I feel like building a seige assault army, in which case I'll bring only enough cavalry to have some defense if the army is attacked in the field.

And I try to spread my bodyguards out throughout my forces. The main juggling is making sure the people I want to become powerful are actually in command, and making sure I have a young promising character to take over from generals who are about to die of old age. I also make sure there is at least one high-loyalty character in each stack.

The cool thing about having all-cav armies is that I frequently have periods of the campaign where I'm hugely negative in actual income, so I'm only sustaining myself by the income from sacking cities. I think my record is having -150k gold once from the Black Death and too many elite cavalry units, but that was also due to a series of other factors leading to a turn where I sacked 6 large or huge cities on the same turn, leading to something like 220k gold from pillaging.

I really miss that feature of M2 "making war pay for war" as Napoleon put it. It's much more difficult in later TW titles - impossible in Empire and Napoleon where you don't even get any gold for pillaging cities.

I have a campaign in Rome 2 as Sparta where my goal is to be an irredeemably nasty slave state that provokes its own destruction. I enslave everyone after a battle and build slave markets, which leads to endless uprisings. Then I crush those uprisings and enslave the survivors to gain money and experience. Then the cycle repeats.

By now over 40% of the population of Macedonia, 80% of the population of Hellas, and 90% of the population of Illyria is in chains. Sadly nobody has been strong enough to defeat me, so I will have to increase my count of enemies.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Not a vampire ... a DEVIL!

Man, pregnancy has some weird effects on the human body.

 

[Zardnaar]

Pushing into the Corporate Sector. Right near game start. What could go wrong?

Warlord Zsinnj in the Iron Fist Super Star Destroyer.

Cheque, Han and Luke make the ultimate sacrifice as well in follow up battles.

Still a better fate than Disney's efforts.

 

[shadowplay]

I've logged 27+ hours in Final Fantasy VII and I'm only at the end of the first disk. How many disks were in the original Psx version, like 5?

I am enjoying this game but I find myself getting lost on the world map a lot. It's not always obvious were to go next.

This is the Xbox version and not the remake.

 

[Zardnaar]

Sidetracked today so no gaming.
What do you guy think the New Republic/Rebels should do in Star Wars Empire At War:Thrawn Revenge.

1. Mop up Zsinjs Empire. I killed the leader and paid the blood price. Nothing to exciting to take though.

2. Secure the Outer Rim, push on Eriadu Authority. Couple of rich world's to harvest plus a Sullust which has discounted cruisers.

3. Become the Galactic Government. Secure Coruscant. Rich world and major shipyards/shipyard denial.

Basically easy/,medium/hard. I've got a third fleet almost ready so can attack on a front and defend my hyperlane empire.

 

[Phrossack]

Sidetracked today so no gaming.
What do you guy think the New Republic/Rebels should do in Star Wars Empire At War:Thrawn Revenge.

1. Mop up Zsinjs Empire
2. Secure the Outer Rim, push on Eriadu Authority.
3. Become the Galactic Government. Secure Coruscant.

Basically easy/,medium/hard. I've got a third fleet almost ready so can attack on a front and defend my hyperlane empire.

I haven't played Thrawn's Revenge yet, but I've heard nothing but good things. How does it handle the late game tedium and AI issues? I found even in Republic at War, the campaign was decided early on and then it was an extended mopping up campaign.

 

[Farm Boy]

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.

Heroes aren't everything though magic is stupid strong. It's just that melee infantry blows on anything harder than normal. It gets more imbalanced the smaller the unit scale is. Infantry doesn't function properly at anything smaller than large and huge is better for it. Cav sucks even worse than infantry. Ranged is king in Total Warhammer.

If infantry is your style, dwarfs are your jam. Though greenskin just got reworked, they probably work now.

 

[Zardnaar]

I haven't played Thrawn's Revenge yet, but I've heard nothing but good things. How does it handle the late game tedium and AI issues? I found even in Republic at War, the campaign was decided early on and then it was an extended mopping up campaign.

You don't really get to the mopping up part until you dominate a lot of the galaxy.

7 factions but there's a limit on resource building so smaller factions are possibly stronger than your half the galaxy.

You can be winning and then have your main fleets smashed and lose a major world or two.

Late game a bit tedious mopping up.

Early on it's a nail biter assuming you're playing the galactic map over the smaller scenarios on Admiral difficulty.

Each faction usually has 1-2 key planets where they can produce discounted ships of certain types so you tend to use them a lot.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I've logged 27+ hours in Final Fantasy VII and I'm only at the end of the first disk. How many disks were in the original Psx version, like 5?

I am enjoying this game but I find myself getting lost on the world map a lot. It's not always obvious were to go next.

This is the Xbox version and not the remake.

The PS1 version had 3 discs. I had no idea it came out on XBox. It is basically a port of the PC version?

It was a long game made excruciatingly longer by all the grinding it required IMO. If you want to complete any of the major side objectives (like defeating the optional Weapons [mega-monsters]), it was just that much grindier. I loved the game and it was the only non-tactics FF game I ever finished but I'd never go back to it due to the grinding.

 

[Takhisis]

Not a vampire ... a DEVIL!
<snipped pic>

Nooooo! I was working on making a composite image of you and a Terminator skull.

 

[amadeus]

Still working on the Shadow President stuff and here is something I find vexing: I can change some events to occur but sometimes they don’t work.

I hex-edited Germany into a fascist, militaristic dictatorship. They will invade France, they’ll invade Austria, they’ll invade Switzerland. However, they will not touch Poland or Czechoslovakia. At first I thought maybe the Soviet units stationed in both countries prevented the computer from starting such a war so I edited them out. No change.

I also ramped up Soviet militarism. They’ll invade Poland, Iran, and China if I queue up those events. But even if the USSR occupied Poland, they won’t invade Germany. Germany has also been edited out of NATO, so I don’t think the alliance structure prevents them from doing it. So a few mysteries are getting solved; next, I’ll have the USSR try to invade one of its allies and see if the foreign aid status has anything to do with it (Germany gives aid to Poland and Czechoslovakia, so that might be something?)

Iraq won’t invade Iran, either. Again, I thought maybe some variable like military power was preventing the computer from following through with the invasion. I’ll beef up Iraq to be as powerful as the USSR and see if they follow through with it.

I also need to eat lunch at some point...

 

[Zardnaar]

The New Republic has liberated galactic south and turned Endor into a fortress world.

Landon Calrissian has returned to Cloud City and is in command of a defensive fleet of older ship. Just in case Endor falls as Bespin is adjacent to it.

The Empire has been routed, Thrawn, the clone emperor and Daala have all been routed.

Corelli's Han Solos homeworks has been liberated. Unfortunately Han and Luke were killed in the early campaigns to defeat the Empire.

A new foes has revealed themselves. Grand Admiral Thrawns people the Chris's have attempted to seize Endor.

In the Galactic North the warlord Kaine has a Super Star Destroyer and the Teradic brothers have their own domains.

New technology has been discovered and the new class ships are being built. A Viscount Star defender is under construction to counter any remaining Super Star Destroyers.

Older units are being rotated into defensive fleets such as Lando's. The New Republic stands ready to push on Coruscant and to deny Just to the Warlords.

 

[Akka]

I've logged 27+ hours in Final Fantasy VII and I'm only at the end of the first disk. How many disks were in the original Psx version, like 5?

Three.
The first is for Midgard and a bit of the overworld, the second for the rest of the world, the last for the ending dungeon.

 

[shadowplay]

The PS1 version had 3 discs. I had no idea it came out on XBox. It is basically a port of the PC version?

It was a long game made excruciatingly longer by all the grinding it required IMO. If you want to complete any of the major side objectives (like defeating the optional Weapons [mega-monsters]), it was just that much grindier. I loved the game and it was the only non-tactics FF game I ever finished but I'd never go back to it due to the grinding.

I don't mind the grinding actually, making the characters stronger is part of the appeal for me. Biggest issue I'm having, other than getting lost a lot, is some of the dialogue sequences are incredibly long and tedious to sit through, even for an RPG. There's already been like 2 sequences that were like 30 minutes long apiece.

I'm not sure whether or not the xbox version is a port of the pc version, though it seems probable.

My main party is Cloud/Barrett/Red XIII. I prefer physical attacks and use magic only when necessary. It's really cool how overpowered the summons are.