What video games have you been playing? ΚΔ (24)? More like ΚΔ,Ζ,ΤΞΕ!

[Voidwalkin]

I started a CK3 game today. I'm trying to muscle in on the Byzantines as Roger, count of Messina. I should succeed. I'm pressing the claim of my wife against an unpopular ruler, and have powerful alliances.

It will get complicated after she becomes Empress. She will certainly face a unified revolt by Byzantine vassals with 25x the manpower the current child Emperor can muster. I can handle that too, intitially, but AI rulers are almost always deposed after they start 8 tyranny wars. Attrition will get me. It will depose her for her(and my)son, who will in turn be deposed, by the same process, at which point, it would go directly to Roger, I think? At that point, I'd have control. Two ways to play it after.

A: full hostility. Imprison, defeat, and revoke the title of every single Greek Orthodox vassal I have. It simply isn't practical long term for Norman Catholics to reign over this population peacefully.

B: become Greek Orthodox.

B is much easier, short term. It presents challenges, though. Paradox made characters of Greek culture less likely to start dissolution factions, but more likely to start claimant ones. Effectively, that change will force me to deal with serious effective challenges on every succession, when my position is quite actualy gravely vulnerable, and retinues can be overwhelmed if the AI brings 25x as many men at arms as you, even with your stacked bonuses. I'm kinda incentivized to go hard. It's conflicting.

Oddly, you were kinda incentivized to replace Greek Emperors in CK2, too. In that game, characters who could not see were not eligible to be emperor. The AI Greek emperor would consider every single character for blinding(amongst darker things), every month, rendering them ineligible. There were more than 10000 characters, and # inflates... by late game, lag got intense on the 1st of every month because of that single factor. Put an English guy in Constantinople, lag immediately stopped. Night and day difference in game performance. But you couldn't keep an English guy there without replacing the vassals, so... welp. It wasn't as known as # of pops causing lag like Stellaris, but virtual genocide as a solution to late game lag actually began after the Byzantine CK2 DLC, which otherwise added 2 really great songs I still play as immersion in other games.

 

[Kyriakos]

It was a progression from general loss of body parts - the theory used to be that no one who had any part removed, could be accepted as emperor. This theory was tested and failed with Justinian II, so from then on it was typically blinding.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Still playing Fields of Mistria and am about to enter winter. The mines have additional challenges in this game, with fetch-quests every twenty levels that block the player's progress. However, completing the quests also gives the player some magical perks like being able to summon rain.

 

[Voidwalkin]

So I decided to go with conversion to Greek Orthodoxy and embraced Greek culture.

My wife and son were deposed as predicted. It was pretty untenable to replace all the Greek vassals with Norman ones. I could have won the tyranny wars, but, it woulda run the risk of Roger passing of old age before success. He was 56 at that point, and I knew from past games his base health is unexceptional, meaning, dude always drops dead at 60 if not 55. Winning massive tyranny wars is unpractical on a 4 year time frame. Possible, but pushing it. That's effectively 8 won sieges, and that's too low to compel terms in 4 different wars. After his passing, I'd be too weak to win for some years, and I can't take the chance.

Roger is now Rogeros.

It does have upside. As a Greek Orthodox, I now have access to kingdom level holy wars of my own direction, and I minmaxed the piety to do it. Egypt is about to discover that Normans might change their clothes, language and religion, but never forget how satisfying a good VIKING INVASION is.

I will make of Egypt a place to land the numerous de Hauteville inbreds, so as to increase legacy accumulation. Soon, we will arrive at the making a killing perk, providing the extremely strong 5 gold per 100 troops slain in battle. Always give every family member a title, regardless of their stupidity.

 

[Quintillus]

It's 1848 in my Civ VI England game, and you know what that means - the year of revolutions.

After centuries of being a monarchy, never having got around to writing the Magna Carta, it's out with the old, and England is now a constitutional monarchy, with Victoria II remaining as head of state (Monarchial Legacy policy).

I finished conquering Gaul around 1812, and have been at peace ever since. Probably will stay at peace the rest of the game, although Bordeaux is thinking of flipping to the Aztecs, so I might have to take a couple of their border cities. Hopefully the amenities provided by the new government (New Deal) can forestall that possibility. Tourism is really ramping into top gear as the BBC launches more and more radio services (satellite broadcasts policy), trade routes are established to more lands, and national parks are established in the frigid north; we also plan to open a seaside resort soon on the Hampshire coast. We've yet to strike gold with English rock bands, but surely we will sooner or later.

I'm also building my first railroads, and dealing with the fallout from a particularly severe band of twisters. The entire Manchester industrial district was smashed, taking production from 170/turn to just over 100/turn, and many people were lost as well, including in Sheffield and Leeds. Much of the damage has been repaired, and Manchester now has 205 production per turn, but the population has yet to fully recover, and construction on our new Cristo Rendentor statue in the hills outside of Manchester was delayed by about a decade while the city rebuilt.

At this point I'm going all-out for the cultural victory, but I'm also curious if I can get a third golden age in a row. Probably not, as the Modern Age just started and the game is likely to end before the next Age. But the Taj Mahal and a significant cultural (and more minor scientific) lead really helps. I wound up with 97 extra era score beyond what was needed for the Modern Age to be a golden age while in the Industrial Age, and if the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus had finished one turn earlier, would have exceeded it by 100. But it's probably better to have that for the next era instead.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think there is an expansion for Factorio.

Not sure if it allows you to use actual math functions in running the belts. If so I would definitely try it.

 

[PhroX]

I'm a little torn on Space Age. The expansion content looks like a cut down version of the Space Exploration mod, which is pretty fun, but I prefer stuff like B&A or pY that just add lots more things to build and produce rather than having to start over on each world as in SE. I'm still going to get the expansion, but I'm not as hyped as I would have thought I would be. Of course, all the QoL features look amazing.

Meanwhile I'm sating my factory itch with Shapez 2. It boils the genre down to the abstract basics, but it's pretty damn good at those basics.

 

[Kyriakos]

All those spaghetti belts look revolting If only the game allowed you to count stuff properly on the belts or the factories, a sushi belt would be by far the optimal solution.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I started Cyberpunk 2077 and I have no idea what I am doing. I just retrieved the "Flathead" drone from the Maelstrom gangers and got out through the firefight between Maelstrom and Militech.

 

[Synobun]

I've been slowly working my way through every Command and Conquer game, as EA released a bundle on Steam a while back for a hilariously low price at the time. I think I spent like $10 for everything.

Some were replays, some were new to me. Of particular note is that the old Red Alert games in the bundle were not the remastered versions (of course), so they have all the pitfalls of being from the 90s. As a result, I only went through them just to say that I did. The remastered versions are better, obviously, and I wouldn't waste time with the originals.

After the original Red Alert and its expansions, I moved onto the Tiberian Sun franchise. I'd never actually played through these before. I remember, long, long ago as a child, that I poked at the first one a little, but that's it. They're... fine. Messy. Each iteration tried to balance equally between Nod and GDI while also overlapping the events, and at times I felt that did not work. They also wasted Kane's stage presence, I found. I did not hate the fourth game like everyone else did, but the story was silly. And not in a good way. I doubt I'll ever play it again.

Then I moved on to Red Alert 2, an old fav. It still holds up. I love the cinematics, the gameplay. It's one of the few RTSs where I "get it" and it's fun. A lot of the time, when I'm not cheating, many RTSs just feel like a pain in the ass to play. I'm sad that remastering RA2 and Generals was reliant on the execs being impressed by the sales for the RA1 remastered collection, because execs are never impressed and I haven't heard a peep about it since.

I only have Red Alert 3 and Generals left to go through. Generals is a replay and I'm "saving the best for last." So that means Red Alert 3 first. It is technically a replay in name only, because I only played it for about 40 minutes nearly a decade ago. I'm not sure why I didn't play it more. I think I had a rinkydink laptop at the time and I didn't feel like dealing with low FPS. Maybe? I'm looking forward to it. If I recall correctly, they maintained the campy cinematics from RA2, and I really think it works with how they handle it.

Unmentioned in this is Renegade, because I couldn't get it to work and I didn't want to invest the time needed to force it. Sad.

 

[Kyriakos]

Iirc I have only played Generals.

 

[Voidwalkin]

Played a Civ6 campaign as TR.

I think America is really underrated in 6. The home continent combat bonus is really powerful. It's particularly obscene given that it effectively boosts you from turn ONE. Vets know ROI patterns. Combat power on turn one can be easily parlayed into thousands of hammers and gold down the line. Earlier combat bonuses have fantastic value appreciation.

Next door militaries aren't competitive. You're not Montezuma, exactly. You can't wildly accelerate development time. But you aren't one of the far more worse off legion of civs with absolutely no early game unique units and no combat edge.

Had a good win time. It helped that I bordered Kongo, Russia and Montezuma. Montezuma seems a worry, but he's far less dangerous given the bonus my archers get, even considering deity.

Conquered Russia first. Easy. Kongo after - I deliberately chose them second, despite closer proximity. I want them to build some campuses, a tech they rush, but I take a minute longer to get to. Victory is assured, so they were effectively developing my cities as much as they were their own. Montezuma last. Similarly to the above, I wanted him to parlay his eagle warriors into numerous improvements, as he was conquering the further off France, effectively developing my cities for me.

It's the 3rd conquest where I noticed that without the bonus, I wouldn't have been so in control vs Monte, would've had to move earlier, so as to get him before he can focus on me exclusively. Effectively, that would be forfeiture of my development, via inability to effectively use his bonus, as my asset, had I used a different civ. That's a considerable loss.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I've been beating the Elden Ring DLC lately. Am I the only one who thinks its not really harder than the base game? Like, I expected more of a challenge like the DS DLCs were. Not that it ain't fun, mind you.

 

[Quintillus]

All those spaghetti belts look revolting If only the game allowed you to count stuff properly on the belts or the factories, a sushi belt would be by far the optimal solution.

You are in luck: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-405

I'm kind of with PhroX, a longer campaign isn't really what I'm looking for in the expansion, nor balancing things multi-planet. Or at least I don't think it is. Something in the same vein as the base game, but different, is what I had been hoping for. And maybe the additional planets will provide that different and it will wind up being what I'm looking for, I just kind of wish I could just select one of the new planets and play a game just on that new planet with its unique mechanics. Usually I'm ready to switch it up and play a different game for a while by the time I get to space.

----

I'm in 1860 as Vicky in Civ VI, and am two or three turns from victory. But I decided to declare war on the Aztecs.

Why? Because they sent a bunch of cultists into my lands and they're preventing my units from moving around and it's annoying. I thought about declaring war on Vietnam for the same reason, but the Aztecs have sent more cultists, are my next-door neighbors with poorly defended cities, and would be tempting Bordeaux to join their cult if I didn't have a Golden Age. And friends don't let friends join cults. So, we didn't have much of a choice.

I probably won't even get around to conquering any of their cities before the game ends, but at least I've forced all their cultists out.

 

[Kyriakos]

You are in luck: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-405

This might be worth a try
Is any version with the new belt-checking set-up out?

 

[EgonSpengler]

This guy is me. I mean, he's not literally me, but he's me. He's got a Darth Vader poster, a Fallout poster, and a poster for Drive (2011), which I really need to watch again. I even like his coat. Good video, I agree with all his points.

His critique that The Long Dark needs more incentives and fewer punishments/penalties is spot-on. iirc, a good "nudge", per Thaler & Sunstein, is not a punishment for negative behavior, but is either a reward for positive behavior or a way of making the desired behavior the path of least resistance. Thaler & Sunstein's notion of making the desired behavior easier than the alternative - an "opt-out" system on an employee retirement plan instead of "opt-in" - doesn't work in a game, since part of the point of a game is that it's a challenge. Making the journey difficult is a necessary component for a game like The Long Dark, so there has to be some other reason to do it that we can latch onto. Exploration is the game's first hook, but once you're familiar enough with the maps, that incentive is gone. In the early days of a run, there's a need to accumulate sufficient clothing and tools, which can take you on a journey (although at Stalker difficulty or below, that could be as little as 2 or 3 in-game days in a single map region). After that, the path of least resistance is to find a comfortable spot and stay put. At which point, the game is essentially over, unless you're chasing the long-term Achievement badges. (If you're playing at Stalker or Interloper, there's a good chance you have "Faithful Cartographer" already, the only long-term Achievement that's all about exploration. But if for some reason you don't, you could do that. I expect if you took the time to enjoy the scenery, that could take you 300+ in-game days, and you'd be well on your way to getting the other two long-term Achievements, "Will to Live" and "Skilled Survivor", neither of which incentivizes moving around.)

 

[Smellincoffee]

I've been slowly working my way through every Command and Conquer game, as EA released a bundle on Steam a while back for a hilariously low price at the time. I think I spent like $10 for everything.

Some were replays, some were new to me. Of particular note is that the old Red Alert games in the bundle were not the remastered versions (of course), so they have all the pitfalls of being from the 90s. As a result, I only went through them just to say that I did. The remastered versions are better, obviously, and I wouldn't waste time with the originals.

After the original Red Alert and its expansions, I moved onto the Tiberian Sun franchise. I'd never actually played through these before. I remember, long, long ago as a child, that I poked at the first one a little, but that's it. They're... fine. Messy. Each iteration tried to balance equally between Nod and GDI while also overlapping the events, and at times I felt that did not work. They also wasted Kane's stage presence, I found. I did not hate the fourth game like everyone else did, but the story was silly. And not in a good way. I doubt I'll ever play it again.

Then I moved on to Red Alert 2, an old fav. It still holds up. I love the cinematics, the gameplay. It's one of the few RTSs where I "get it" and it's fun. A lot of the time, when I'm not cheating, many RTSs just feel like a pain in the ass to play. I'm sad that remastering RA2 and Generals was reliant on the execs being impressed by the sales for the RA1 remastered collection, because execs are never impressed and I haven't heard a peep about it since.

I only have Red Alert 3 and Generals left to go through. Generals is a replay and I'm "saving the best for last." So that means Red Alert 3 first. It is technically a replay in name only, because I only played it for about 40 minutes nearly a decade ago. I'm not sure why I didn't play it more. I think I had a rinkydink laptop at the time and I didn't feel like dealing with low FPS. Maybe? I'm looking forward to it. If I recall correctly, they maintained the campy cinematics from RA2, and I really think it works with how they handle it.

Unmentioned in this is Renegade, because I couldn't get it to work and I didn't want to invest the time needed to force it. Sad.

Have you had any performance issues? I noticed with RA2 there were HUGE lags when trying to launch a skirmish game.

For my own part I'm still playing Fields of Mistria. I've bumped up against the early-access limits a couple of times: I can't go further in the caves, for instance. I did discover that there's a full array of winter seeds, though, so no rest for the wicked.

 

[Sommerswerd]

This guy is me. I mean, he's not literally me, but he's me. He's got a Darth Vader poster, a Fallout poster, and a poster for Drive (2011), which I really need to watch again. I even like his coat. Good video, I agree with all his points.

His critique that The Long Dark needs more incentives and fewer punishments/penalties is spot-on. iirc, a good "nudge", per Thaler & Sunstein, is not a punishment for negative behavior, but is either a reward for positive behavior or a way of making the desired behavior the path of least resistance. Thaler & Sunstein's notion of making the desired behavior easier than the alternative - an "opt-out" system on an employee retirement plan instead of "opt-in" - doesn't work in a game, since part of the point of a game is that it's a challenge. Making the journey difficult is a necessary component for a game like The Long Dark, so there has to be some other reason to do it that we can latch onto. Exploration is the game's first hook, but once you're familiar enough with the maps, that incentive is gone. In the early days of a run, there's a need to accumulate sufficient clothing and tools, which can take you on a journey (although at Stalker difficulty or below, that could be as little as 2 or 3 in-game days in a single map region). After that, the path of least resistance is to find a comfortable spot and stay put. At which point, the game is essentially over, unless you're chasing the long-term Achievement badges. (If you're playing at Stalker or Interloper, there's a good chance you have "Faithful Cartographer" already, the only long-term Achievement that's all about exploration. But if for some reason you don't, you could do that. I expect if you took the time to enjoy the scenery, that could take you 300+ in-game days, and you'd be well on your way to getting the other two long-term Achievements, "Will to Live" and "Skilled Survivor", neither of which incentivizes moving around.)

I think the introduction of cooking more complex dishes was an excellent idea, but the benefits you get from them should be stronger, so the incentive towards making them, and therefore finding the ingredients would be much stronger. Maybe permanent (or at least longterm) buffs, rather than short term ones. I also find it a little puzzling that they would have penalties (like headache) associated with the complex dishes. There shouldn't be any penalties for eating a complex crafted food, that just removes the incentive for making it.

The other thing I've always thought... I guess this is sort of a hybrid of incentive and punishment... or maybe a negative incentive... not sure exactly how to describe it... is that animals respawning is too strong of an encouragement to camp, rather than explore/nomad. If animals didn't respawn, maybe with the exception of wolves/timberwolves, which are needed as a adversary... then you would naturally have to move locations constantly as you hunted a region out, and it would be less possible to skip regions entirely. I also think that level 5 cooking could be nerfed to remove the parasite immunity, so wolves never become a viable staple food source.

One more thing, is that I wish we could use cardboard to craft firelogs. As it stands cardboard/paper is almost entirely useless, except in the very early game when you need kindling and have none. Its annoying that you can use books as firewood, but you can't use paper or cardboard as firewood. It makes no sense.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I think the introduction of cooking more complex dishes was an excellent idea, but the benefits you get from them should be stronger, so the incentive towards making them, and therefore finding the ingredients would be much stronger. Maybe permanent (or at least longterm) buffs, rather than short term ones. I also find it a little puzzling that they would have penalties (like headache) associated with the complex dishes. There shouldn't be any penalties for eating a complex crafted food, that just removes the incentive for making it.

And on top of all that, cooking food is just another thing that incentivizes camping in one spot for a long time, because the ingredients weigh a lot and are useless by themselves. The only "ingredient" I ever carry with me is oats, 'cause you can make a serving of hot food with just oats and water. Oats also don't attract predators, unlike the pies and stews that you can make with meat. At Stalker, there's no need to stretch your supply of meat by using some of it in stews & pies. Maybe that has more value at Interloper, I haven't gotten far enough at Interloper to find out.

The other thing I've always thought... I guess this is sort of a hybrid of incentive and punishment... or maybe a negative incentive... not sure exactly how to describe it... is that animals respawning is too strong of an encouragement to camp, rather than explore/nomad. If animals didn't respawn, maybe with the exception of wolves/timberwolves, which are needed as a adversary... then you would naturally have to move locations constantly as you hunted a region out, and it would be less possible to skip regions entirely. I also think that level 5 cooking could be nerfed to remove the parasite immunity, so wolves never become a viable staple food source.

I recall that we were discussing that very thing a few months ago.

What I liked about them introducing the Cougar, is that it would force me to leave a comfortable region/position/setup.

The constant irony in The Long Dark is that the most exciting part of the game is struggling to get yourself set up with a new basecamp in a new region. Every region pretty much has what you need to survive if you look hard enough.

[Forcing the player to move around] would be an easy thing to do, if the developers wanted to make it an option: Increase the respawn timers for everything by 1,000%.

If deer normally respawn in 12 days, they'd respawn in 120 days instead. If sticks respawn in 2 days, they'd respawn in 20 days. Obviously, you'd have to playtest it to see what the best timer is to encourage a player to move around among, let's say, 8 of the 15 major regions. (With the cougar as it was implemented, you only needed to yo-yo between two regions.) Or maybe you'd want players to move around 10 out of the 15 maps. That way, players could pick 5 regions they really don't like.

I think a reasonable target on this mechanic would be to encourage the player to relocate to a new zone every 2-4 weeks, and to not return to a given map for 4-6 months. A more efficient player would be able to stretch their stay in zones they enjoy and/or visit them more frequently. Plus, you could use the travois to take a short trip to a neighboring zone to collect materials, to extend your stay in a zone you like.

 

[Birdjaguar]

His critique that The Long Dark needs more incentives and fewer punishments/penalties is spot-on. iirc, a good "nudge", per Thaler & Sunstein, is not a punishment for negative behavior, but is either a reward for positive behavior or a way of making the desired behavior the path of least resistance. Thaler & Sunstein's notion of making the desired behavior easier than the alternative - an "opt-out" system on an employee retirement plan instead of "opt-in" - doesn't work in a game, since part of the point of a game is that it's a challenge. Making the journey difficult is a necessary component for a game like The Long Dark, so there has to be some other reason to do it that we can latch onto. Exploration is the game's first hook, but once you're familiar enough with the maps, that incentive is gone. In the early days of a run, there's a need to accumulate sufficient clothing and tools, which can take you on a journey (although at Stalker difficulty or below, that could be as little as 2 or 3 in-game days in a single map region). After that, the path of least resistance is to find a comfortable spot and stay put. At which point, the game is essentially over, unless you're chasing the long-term Achievement badges. (If you're playing at Stalker or Interloper, there's a good chance you have "Faithful Cartographer" already, the only long-term Achievement that's all about exploration. But if for some reason you don't, you could do that. I expect if you took the time to enjoy the scenery, that could take you 300+ in-game days, and you'd be well on your way to getting the other two long-term Achievements, "Will to Live" and "Skilled Survivor", neither of which incentivizes moving around.)

This is the larger question of "How do you make endgame play fun and interesting once players have plateaued?" Apparently in TLD (I've never played it) once players reach X level of experience and character comfort, the game excitement and incentives to keep playing fade away. In Path of Exile there is the same problem. For each 3-4 month league the game progression goes like this: run through the 10 Acts as fast as possible; Build your character's gear and skills in the first 2 tiers of mapping; Polish your character to shining in the top map tier and then go on to the uber bosses and building in game wealth. For some that takes 2 weeks. For most it takes longer and for slow pokes (like me) a month or more. Because POE has leagues that begin and end, every new league has new content as well as changes to the existing content. In some cases the changes are huge in others less so. Builds are nerfed or enhanced. What worked well last league doesn't work any more. this approach is certainly not perfect and is frequently criticized. Over 12 years the game has evolved.

It seems to me that TLD needs more regular shake ups or added content that forces new player skills and actions to prevent/delay the fall off in interest once the comfort level exceeds the need to keep exploring. Much depends upon the goals of the designers and their expectations for player involvement. Given the attempted realism of TLD, change ups are challenging. I'm sure there are interesting ways to shake up late game malaise to push players to new levels of experience that can be added to the game on some regular basis to keep you playing longer.