Screenshots!

Woo! Thats a nice minecraft mod!

 

So, uh, yeah, I like Nicolas Un-Caged. A lot.


Aaaaaaaaaaaand that happened.

 

That is beautiful.

 

Did I at least out live Kan?

 

Not really, maybe by a few turns.

 

Good enough

 

Now let's see what Minecraft 2 will look like, since now it gets a MS-level budget.

 

I've been playing Empire: Total War and doing a Poland-Lithuania campaign.

Here's a picture of how my fortified city assaults usually go: 1. Punch a hole in the wall.. 2. Send your whole army at that hole 3. Maybe send some guys in through the back as a surprise

 

How to win attack sieges in Empire: Total War:

1. Punch two holes or more into wall (if possible).

2. Send in at least a few units through the breaches as the enemy more or less abandons the walls.

2.5. Rest of army climbs walls to flank enemy.

3. Hammer them against your anvil.

4. ???

5. Profit

How to win defenses:

1. Sit back while the enemy puts its pants on its head and dances.

2. Wait for timer to run out.

3. ???

4. Profit and curse CA for crappy AI.

 

I think I have extended time for battles, so my sieges started with several minutes of bombardment including howitzers to weaken the garrison troops, followed by the assault.

But yeah, the AI was a real let-down in that game.

 

It is pretty broken when it comes to sieges in Empire. Darth mod does little to nothing to fix that.

I always set it to 60 minutes just in case, I used to have no time limit but then I spent a battle in Rome chasing around a unit of skirmishers that just kept running away.

 

The Total War games, for as fun as the real-time battles look, can just be a drag. Either you have to use cheesy tactics to exploit the crummy AI, sometimes taking an hour at a time, or you have to auto-resolve battles and accept the significantly greater casualties. And if you are just auto-resolving battles, there are much better games like the AGEOD ones for that kind of gameplay.

Speaking of which, I think I was promising I would do an LP/AAR of one on the forums here. When my life settles down a bit, I'll have to fulfill that.

 

I only have fixed cannons available to me for now, so I can't move them around. Usually my strategy would be to move them in a bit closer after I punch a hole in the wall, and target the troops.

For a while I couldn't figure out why I wasn't able to move my guns.. Turns out they are "fixed". Even though they have wheels? That's pretty logical.

And yeah, the siege AI seems pretty bad at times. In one of my battles most of the Prussian army CLIMBED DOWN the walls, right beside the hole in the wall, and tried to start a "2nd front" there. My army surrounded them and crushed them. The units the Prussians left behind to defend the hole was just like 80 guys or something.. So when I was done slaughtering those idiots who lowered themselves down the wall, I was easily able to march into town.

I also love it how when you have a whole bunch of units selected and you tell them to go somewhere or attack something.. The arrows end up sort of random.. This unit will start walking to the left, another one to the right, this one here, this one there. The functionality doesn't work at all. It also sucks moving around units in pre-battle mode. I'll group them the way I want, but then move around a group and.. all of a sudden one of my units is way the hell over to the left.. wtf?

The rebels suck too, they'll attack your towns no matter how many of them there are. 80 rebels facing 600 defenders? No problem, they'll attack you and you can wipe them out from the safety of your walls.

As annoying as some parts, I've been enjoying myself.. enough. After I finish this Poland campaign though (need 2 more regions to win) I am probably uninstalling and moving onto another game. Any recommendations? Which game in the total war universe do people recommend? I have a bunch of them.

 

Yeah they just had the wheels so they could be moved long distances, but it would take them far too long to actually reposition them on the battlefield.

 

That's what I figured, but then you can see the little dudes move the cannons short distances when they acquire a new target anyway. So for a while I thought I was just missing something..

 

Been a looooong while since I played any of the Total War games (Medieval Total War to be exact): I also got fed up with the crappy AI in the Real Time Battle mode, and just Auto-Resolved the battles as well, and figured, "Eh, might as well just play Civilization at this rate."

 

The boob physics are very noticeable in the actually amazing and awesome new halloween outfit.

Spoiler :

 

My band of survivors head out to a fast food restaurant to stock up (I'm the one in protective goggles). Sadley we're already pretty beat up!

Spoiler :

This is what we find.

Spoiler :

 

I wish that restaurant existed in real life. Like Chik-Fil-A with more profanity.

 

Campaign as the Humans in Sword of the Stars besieging a Liiran planet with my Siege Cruisers backed up by an anti-ship cruiser.


Brilliant strategy game if you see it on a Steam sale. Think Total War in space: turn based empire management with real time battles.
The tech tree is randomized each game with different races having different affinities (ie: The Liir have a better chance of getting high end energy weapons that the Humans do, but are less likely to get good quality armor) and each race has their own version of FTL travel that radically alters how you play the game.