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

[Smellincoffee]

Tried SimCity (2013) again, and....no.

Piddled a bit with Sun Haven because I don't want to exhaust the content in Fields of Mistria before the devs update it, and it's ....frustrating. There are bits to like, but the character walks so slow and the game runs so slow and all this GREAT STUFF in Fields of Mistria, which I am now addicted to, is not there.

Am doing a Mafia (2002) and Mafia DE replay for comparison and nostalgia's sake.

 

[Quintillus]

I've reached 1950 in my Civ V game, and it's been an interesting century.

The first war with Siam ended in stalemate; Siam had more troops but I had strong forts that they couldn't break. We made peace, and I fulfilled my pledge with Carthage to attack Brazil the following turn, to punish them for stealing technologies.

Brazil was a much weaker foe, with only three discovered cities, and two of them fell fairly quickly.

Then, as I was advancing on Rio, Siam declared war on me again.

I was forced to make peace with Brazil, as Siam hadn't lost many troops in the last war and had even more, and now that I'd founded Houston and Portland in place of old Brazilian cities, there was a much larger non-mountainous front. This time, however, I was determined to defeat Siam and convince them that maybe conquering me wasn't their brightest idea ever.

It took some time, as they had a lot of elephants to send our way. Eventually, however, their army was shattered, and two of their cities destroyed, to be replaced by one new American city, Miami. Still, losses had been significant, and by the end we'd lost all frontline troops save a couple Minutemen and a couple Cannons, and had even lost a Great General. Thus we made peace rather than advance on Sukothai, with 37 gpt and Sugar as payment from Siam.

It wasn't time for peace yet, though; Rio was impinging on the expansion of Houston, Portland, and the newly-founded St. Louis, and that meant that Houston had a problem. So after training a few Cavalry, upgrading my Cannons to Artillery (and training a new Artillery), and moving some fresh Minutemen into place, in the early 1940s we invaded Brazil again and took Rio. Apparently Brazil has another city somewhere overseas, as this did not eliminate them from the game. But it eliminated them from our geographic area and meant our northern frontier was now secure.

It also drew the condemnation of most of the rest of the world, who now thinks we're the warmongers, despite Brazil's provocations and Siam's repeated declarations of war. For Ethiopia (Order) and Austria (Autocracy), the differences are ideological. Thankfully, we still have friends. Carthage is our longest-term friend, though their warmongering against China and Morocco concerns us. The Republic of China is our fellow freedom-loving ally, and our shared ideology has patched over their concerns about our friendship with their enemy Carthage, who has yet to choose an ideology. And Venice still thinks we're pretty cool, and buys more blue jeans per capita than any other country.

I am a bit concerned that Arabia, who had been our longest-term friend, denounced us, as they have many Riflemen not far from our southern border (and yes, Minutemen in the 1940s might be a little bit behind state-of-the-art). The good news is that both they and Carthage are invading Siam, so they have other fish to fry.

The map:

I've also added Universal Suffrage as a tenet of American Freedom. I'm currently attempting to get Freedom enshrined as the World Ideology, and while I may not succeed, China at least applauds the effort.

 

[ls612]

Trying to finish God of War (2018) before Ragnarok comes out on steam later this month. Game is really hard on the highest difficulty!

 

[Quintillus]

Still playing V, and it's 19, 19, 1985.

Spoiler Soundtrack :

For a while things had gone well after the Second Brazilian War. We built up our cities, and continued establishing American Freedom, incorporating Urbanization, Avant Garde art, and a Media Culture. Railroads were established across the country, about a hundred years late historically, and public schools expanded beyond New York. Broadway opened in Boston, and the Statue of Liberty was unveiled, also in Boston. Tourists flocked to Boston, and American culture became increasingly popular in Poland and Arabia.

We even succeeded in making Freedom the Universal Ideology, and more and more of the planet was soon rocking in the free world. Byzantium, Morocco, Siam, and Venice joined America and China in loving freedom, and in Austria a revolution brought them to our side of the Iron Curtain, ending Autocracy once and for all. But Arabia spurned the trend, embracing Order, and Carthage would do the same, joining Ethiopia... although our spies tell us that there is a revolutionary wave of anti-establishment revolts going on throughout the Carthaginian Empire.

This split would lead to war. Arabia and Ethiopia declared war on the Republic of China, with whom we were allied, leading us into war with Arabia (but not with Ethiopia, because Civ V defensive alliances appear to be bugged). Soon, China would also be at war with Byzantium, Venice, Austria, and Morocco, and had denounced everyone else except America. Meanwhile, aside from China, only Austria remained neutral towards us, the rest increasingly guarded in their interactions.

I haven't decided on an end game plan yet. A cultural victory appears increasingly unlikely, given the rate of tourism growth required, and we're well behind the space race pace. I'm not really feeling like going out and conquering the world, either, although the world is increasingly hostile. A Histographic victory looks increasingly likely, and I've recently surpassed Austria for first place. If our troops that are approaching Mecca take it, I'll likely have a comfortable lead, assuming Austria doesn't wind up conquering Poland, as they're attempting to do currently.

The future is disquieting. Progress has been being made at home, with plastics, refrigeration, and the radio as well as the railroad, and scientists are experimenting with internal combustion engines. But there's more and more chaos abroad. Are we a kinder, gentler nation, or do we have a machine gun hand? It depends on who you ask.

 

[Kyriakos]

We only deal in ostriches and linen here.

 

[Arakhor]

Is that the new Pharaoh or the old one?

 

[Kyriakos]

The old one. Which sadly is a lot better - but still boring.

 

[Strong Reaction]

Starting new sandbox game of Bannerlord
Character Name Ansturm, ethnic group Khuzait
I just uploaded the latest version of the game from GOG, a version which I might add I contributed to an important bug fix via the bug reporting forums. I just brought it to their attention and they did the rest. Anyway here are the settings, not seen but unchecked are the auto allocate clan member points and ironman mode. Essentially I am playing the hardest level except I have clan member deaths reduced by 50 percent. I should have left at normal since sometimes you want to "kill" off a wife that's not producing heirs. Harsh I know. Currently, all the kit I have is taken from battle loot or won in a tournament.
Banner1 by Porch of Geese, on Flickr
Banner3 by Porch of Geese, on Flickr

 

[Quintillus]

It's early 2022, and the Peace Dividend that we've enjoyed since the end of the Hot War in the early 1990s is ending.

American armies conquered Mecca in the early 1990s, but we're both Islamic, so there was no resulting religious war. Strategists debated whether to also conquer the nearby metropolis of Damascus, and potentially Medina, from which Arabia had launched their incursion towards Atlanta to start the war. But it was decided that capturing Mecca likely would be enough to have the same deterrent effect that our Siam campaign had had, and thus, after 150 years of frequent warfare, we enjoyed several decades of peace.

The service economy in particular developed, with tourism as a focus. Efforts to burnish our image were not entirely successful, though Venice came back around to friendship, but our cultural norms were slowly spreading to the rest of the world. Meanwhile, our boffins invented a telecommunications network they dubbed the ARPANET, and are on pace to launch a publicly-accessible version in early 2024. Some believe that being the first to develop such a network will be key to establishing our culture is the dominant culture of the 21st century. Combined with significant investments in education, building a lot of sports stadiums, and developing our capitalist economic system, it will be yet another plank in our "thousand points of light" strategy.

But not all has been calm in the world. China has fought off many attempts on their lands. Our Warrior witnessed them demolish an invading Ethiopian army thanks to superior technology, most notably including air power. China has also benefitted from Carthaginian defections; Carthage's government stubbornly clings to power despite high levels of internal discontent, and their cities have stagnated as a result.

Now Carthage has decided that the way to stay in power is to embark on a foreign adventure, and has declared war on China - thus invoking our defensive alliance.

So far, this has lead to the Battle of the Buffalo Sea, named after the island in the middle of the sea where great herds of buffalo roam, which in turn is the namesake of the city of Buffalo. Carthage bombed the Minutemen on another island, Oil Island, who are now retreating to Detroit, and in retaliation an American submarine and destroyer sunk a Carthaginian destroyer. But despite the initial success, it's far from clear that we have naval superiority on the Buffalo Sea.

I also plan to make a foray on land. Baltimore was recently founded east of San Francisco, and the possibility exists to secure not just Cocoa, but also the Fountain of Youth, a prize if ever there was one. If that helps our allies in the Republic of China, all the better.

Spoiler 56k Warning :

Yeah, that Pikeman is slightly obsolete... he's our forward scout. Maybe it's time for that machine gun hand, and some roads to drive to the front. We're now modernizing and ramping up production of military units; most problematically we don't have an Air Force whatsoever. But there's another warning sign on the road ahead.

Now that we have entered the Information Era, the UN has formed, and there will be at least one opportunity for a Diplomatic Victory before 2050.

We secured hosting of the first session of the UN, but are not diplomatic favorites. So we'll have to find a way to keep the Habsburgs... err, Austrians - from winning a Diplomatic Victory. And given their location across the world, large military, and status as the world's only nuclear power, simply vanquishing them is not an option.

 

[Smellincoffee]

We only deal in ostriches and linen here.

View attachment 702346

I can hear the music and the pigs.

 

[Voidwalkin]

Starting new sandbox game of Bannerlord
Character Name Ansturm, ethnic group Khuzait
I just uploaded the latest version of the game from GOG, a version which I might add I contributed to an important bug fix via the bug reporting forums. I just brought it to their attention and they did the rest. Anyway here are the settings, not seen but unchecked are the auto allocate clan member points and ironman mode. Essentially I am playing the hardest level except I have clan member deaths reduced by 50 percent. I should have left at normal since sometimes you want to "kill" off a wife that's not producing heirs. Harsh I know. Currently, all the kit I have is taken from battle loot or won in a tournament.
Banner1 by Porch of Geese, on Flickr
Banner3 by Porch of Geese, on Flickr

Nice.

My current campaign I overinvested into vigor on game start. Ended up with 8, boosted to 10 with perks. Sorta... too high, honestly. Only really need 7 for the 275 perks. Cost me in SOC and had to give up on INT.

Just a mercenary. Going for the famous John Hawkwood type. Have athleticism at 288, using a speed banner. Full armor without any regard to encumbrance, since my man is ridiculously fast no matter what with those boosts. Gonna round it out with 225 engineering for the +5 armor eventually.

Using a 2H axe on foot. I don't think there's a more devastating weapon; cleaving through 2 or even 3 men at once is overpowered, particularly with 300+ 2H skill.

Eventually, I intend for my dastardly mercenary to conquer his own kingdom, promoting only companions to lords. It'll be difficult and make the campaign longer, but I like the idea of an upstart with absolutely no legitimacy despised by all yet fighting on out of greed regardless.

 

[Synobun]

Finally doing the campaigns for Red Alert 3. I had no idea this was made to be done co-op. What an enormous pain in the rear. The AI companion constantly destroys things I'm trying to capture or they rush the objective to push the mission ahead before I'm ready. Each mission, additionally, has the most inane restrictions on what you can build and when. I won't say I'm not enjoying myself but any enjoyment I'm getting out of it is in spite of how this is designed.

 

[Strong Reaction]

Nice.

My current campaign I overinvested into vigor on game start. Ended up with 8, boosted to 10 with perks. Sorta... too high, honestly. Only really need 7 for the 275 perks. Cost me in SOC and had to give up on INT.

Just a mercenary. Going for the famous John Hawkwood type. Have athleticism at 288, using a speed banner. Full armor without any regard to encumbrance, since my man is ridiculously fast no matter what with those boosts. Gonna round it out with 225 engineering for the +5 armor eventually.

Using a 2H axe on foot. I don't think there's a more devastating weapon; cleaving through 2 or even 3 men at once is overpowered, particularly with 300+ 2H skill.

Eventually, I intend for my dastardly mercenary to conquer his own kingdom, promoting only companions to lords. It'll be difficult and make the campaign longer, but I like the idea of an upstart with absolutely no legitimacy despised by all yet fighting on out of greed regardless.

One of these days I'm gonna grow a pair and try a footman build, I have an obsession with cavalry and the only time I get to fight as an infantryman is during sieges, whether its attacking or defending.

 

[Quintillus]

It's garbage time in my Civ V game. I've realized that the AI is voting for itself for diplomatic victory, so unless that changes on turn 490, and they all decide on a common candidate, I've won. The only question is how.

America has landed a man on the moon, and is starting to explore looking to the stars. But it's 2036, we're not launching an interstellar mission before 2050.

Cultural victory looks unlikely but is not necessarily impossible. A Lancer has been escorting a Great Musician to Austria to give us about 8 turns' worth of bonus tourism there (and 1.6 elsewhere). I don't think it will be enough, but it might be.

The Carthaginian War is over. It was a panormusly bad decision for Carthage. I destroyed four of their cities (including Panormus), liberated Shanghai to China, liberated Ragusa to itself, and gained Gabes (and with it more uranium) in the peace deal. Carthage is left with three cities, including their capital, and to add insult to injury, the UN passed a universal embargo of Carthage as well. Hopefully, the liberations also canceled out the conquests.

The focus now is on building as many nuclear weapons as possible before nuclear proliferation is banned in about 8 turns. Our spies tell us the ban, which we proposed, will pass nearly unanimously. In recent years five countries, ourselves included, have split the atom, and Austria has informed us that their words are backed by nuclear weapons. We'd rather keep it to just ourselves and Austria, but with numerical superiority, if possible. Interestingly, as a veteran of Civ III, the nukes seem rather limited in V - their radii are 10 and 12 tiles, and while the tactical nuke in III only has a range of 6, ICBMs have planetary reach. Thus Austria's words are not of much concern to us - they're too far away to be a serious concern.

Largely, though, it's going through the motions until victory is achieved. I have twenty-odd cities - finally a wide empire in Civ V - but it largely doesn't matter what they build at this point. So I'm glad Firaxis is thinking about the "not many people finish the game" challenge for VII.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Finally doing the campaigns for Red Alert 3. I had no idea this was made to be done co-op. What an enormous pain in the rear. The AI companion constantly destroys things I'm trying to capture or they rush the objective to push the mission ahead before I'm ready. Each mission, additionally, has the most inane restrictions on what you can build and when. I won't say I'm not enjoying myself but any enjoyment I'm getting out of it is in spite of how this is designed.

What makes it worse is that the multiplayer was done through GameSpy, which doesn't exist any more.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Largely, though, it's going through the motions until victory is achieved. [...]I'm glad Firaxis is thinking about the "not many people finish the game" challenge for VII.

Agreed. In fact, I would say that if they haven't addressed that problem, nothing else they do matters to me. I haven't seen any details yet - I don't know if they've released any details yet - but this "Ages" thing sounds like they're at least trying to crack that nut. For me, every other improvement they might have is just noise, until and unless they've done something to make the 2nd half of the game fun. I can use any leader with any Civ? Great, but what about the late-game? Military commanders let me control whole stacks of units at the press of a button? Great, but what about the late-game? Navigable rivers? Great, but what about the late-game? City-States expanded into 'Minor Powers'? Great, but what about the late-game? Improved diplomacy? Great, but what about the late-game? Yadda-yadda-yadda. Blah, blah, blah. What about the late-game? I won't buy it if I'm not getting the sense they've at least taken a big swing at that. So far, it looks like they have. Fingers crossed.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

About the late game issue, I have a somewhat unique take. So bear with me for a moment.

I have played a lot of strategy games over the years. And so I am intimately familiar with the dreaded late game issue. And I think the reason why it is newer solved right is because it is always misidentified. The so called late game issue is actually better called the post game issue. Because that is what it actually is. The late game boredom in strategy games comes from a lack of challenge which leads to a lack of engagement. And this in turn comes from the fact that you are playing the game past its due date. As in you have already won and the game just is not programmed to recognize that.

And that is why I think a lot of strategy games fail at addressing it. Because they try and fix the game by adding more things to do in the late game. But that just adds more chores rather than solving the underlying problem. So I guess the actual solution is to try and make it so that the victory conditions are more flexible or more organic or something.

I don't know really. Just wanted to share my thoughts.

 

[Quintillus]

Yeah, I think PPQ_Purple put it well. If there's no challenge, engagement falls, and that leads to not finish games. I see it in almost all the strategy games I play.

What don't I see it in: Ozymandias: Bronze Age Empire Sim. In that game, the goal is to get 10 victory points, and quite often, it's very competitive seeing who can get to 10 first. Kind of like a good board game - the victory conditions are set such that most of the time, it will be a close contest for who will win, and then the game will end. Old World does a pretty good job of this too, and again, it's a "first to a certain number of victory points" system, and if anyone ever reaches double the number of points the second-place candidate has, even if they don't have the original goal, they also win the game, eliminating the "waiting forever for victory" phase.

In a long-running game, it's a careful balance. Push too much towards making sure it's competitive at the end, and you make the early-to-midgame feel inconsequential and thus potentially boring. Don't put some guardrails on it, and the game's over far before it's officially done.

Not that it's necessarily a huge problem that I rarely finish an EU4 or Total War game and only sometimes finish a Civ game, but I agree it would be nice to see the finish line more often, even if that's due to the finish line being modified.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yeah, I think PPQ_Purple put it well. If there's no challenge, engagement falls, and that leads to not finish games. I see it in almost all the strategy games I play.

What don't I see it in: Ozymandias: Bronze Age Empire Sim. In that game, the goal is to get 10 victory points, and quite often, it's very competitive seeing who can get to 10 first. Kind of like a good board game - the victory conditions are set such that most of the time, it will be a close contest for who will win, and then the game will end. Old World does a pretty good job of this too, and again, it's a "first to a certain number of victory points" system, and if anyone ever reaches double the number of points the second-place candidate has, even if they don't have the original goal, they also win the game, eliminating the "waiting forever for victory" phase.

In a long-running game, it's a careful balance. Push too much towards making sure it's competitive at the end, and you make the early-to-midgame feel inconsequential and thus potentially boring. Don't put some guardrails on it, and the game's over far before it's officially done.

Not that it's necessarily a huge problem that I rarely finish an EU4 or Total War game and only sometimes finish a Civ game, but I agree it would be nice to see the finish line more often, even if that's due to the finish line being modified.

There is a phenomenon which while outwardly seems to be about aesthetics, more deeply has to do with the repetition of a move in a setting which has a lot of "noise". An example: if you were playing a game where you needed to get somewhere following a series of steps (the most direct example of that would be a linear adventure) there is either no or very little noise, and the game is primarily about how you sense the world. On the opposite extreme of having both a win state and multiple routes to that, would be the Paradox and Civ games; you still have a win state, and still have more or less tested strategies to reach it, but there is a vast amount of noise in different adversaries, starting position, map dynamic and so on, which for a short game like a RTS doesn't get to become the overall focus, but if the game takes days to complete it will. I think it is similar to having an athlete train and then compete, say in long jump or something of that variety; every jump will be different, but it still consists of the same parts and the noise is very limited so they have an immediate sense of competing against their previous "games". In civ or such, on the other hand, you may often find yourself trying to improve on your previous "jump", but now you have an entire stadium of noise/adversaries which if beaten down enough just become unrelated to the game yet remain there.
To bring this back to the adventure game case, while you "win" by getting to the end, in an adventure you are supposed to move about in a world which isn't to be won, while I have yet to see a Civ-type game where you typically treat the world as not to be won. I suppose it's part of why so many Paradox-games players are all about forming a specific border and stick to the same country; it provides a sense of a world within the game, and pushes the noise to the side - for a little while.

 

[Voidwalkin]

I suppose it's part of why so many Paradox-games players are all about forming a specific border and stick to the same country; it provides a sense of a world within the game, and pushes the noise to the side - for a little while.

This is a huge part of why I love England, Denmark and Sweden in EU. The volume of that noise is much quieter because your borders are geographically very sound. You have far less worry about a coalition of allies forming and overwhelming you. Even during the power projection, you're largely picking your theater with detachment from continental power.

Any German state is awful. Drowning in politics, attention to every detail, constantly aware and balancing if focus on front A leaves you vulnerable on front B.

France is ok... largely because you're so strong the diplomacy doesn't matter. Spain, you spend the whole game thinking about France. Italy too. France is a boombox with either, deafening. Every achievement is assessed according to its effects on your position relative to France.

Ottomans and Byzantines are ok... I guess. They get worse if you decide to involve yourself in the power struggles of the Danube. Any expansion north of today's Greece and it starts getting tedious. Similarly, widen out from Anatolia, and suddenly your borders are no longer tight. That means long wars with slow movement times, in a not particularly valuable desert. Not good.