What Video Games Have You Been Playing #11: I should go

[Synobun]

I wish I could "get" HoI4 enough to do well. No amount of explanation or experimentation seems to yield results.

 

[Lexicus]

The penetration attack could use some adjustment. Tactically, it's best to lead with your armor, not your motorized infantry, because of its hardness and breakthrough. MOTs should be used for exploiting breakthroughs (with no enemy reserves) or walling off the flanks behind the advancing armor (with enemy reserves counterattacking). I also recommend having your armor attack from more than one province if at all possible to get flanking bonuses and rapidly increase combat width at the beginning of the battle. This particular axis of attack doesn't do you many favors, and it's a little hard to tell where the province boundaries lie, but something like this might be better for you:

Well I do know to attack with armor and use the motorized infantry to cover the flanks of the breakthroughs. Here we are two and a half years later:

I usually split the armor into two provinces though because having penetrations only one province wide is annoying.

Anyway so far I've inflicted 11.3 million casualties on the Soviets in exchange for 637,000 and I've captured all of the Caucasus and Ukraine and then some:

Those British divisions are encircled in Amsterdam and not a problem. They got quite a foothold in Belgium for a while but I eventually was able to mass 120 or so divisions against them and used Panzers to lever them off the coast. Now just kinda waiting for them to be out of supply. On the eastern front it's kind of mopping-up actions, encircling the remaining Soviet troops and taking the remaining victory points.

edit: gah, those frontlines need cleaning up but I have to go to bed

 

[AmazonQueen]

Bought 2 "new" games today as I have itchy fingers waiting for the Steam sale.
1 was an old classic I've never played, Arcanum, and the other was an old classic that wouldn't install from disc anymore, King of Dragon Pass.

 

[Arakhor]

You should have got them from GOG. They've been available there (and frequently discounted) for years now.

 

[FriendlyFire]

edit: gah, those frontlines need cleaning up but I have to go to bed

1 German division holding like 120 Km front against 8 Russian Divisions
Someone WAKE Lexicus up and tell him to fix it up before the German 3rd Army is encircled !!!!! Take some Meth to stay awake if you have too.

 

[Lexicus]

1 German division holding like 120 Km front against 8 Russian Divisions
Someone WAKE Lexicus up and tell him to fix it up before the German 3rd Army is encircled !!!!! Take some Meth to stay awake if you have too.

The AI is stupid

The Moscow operation turned out successful natch but the Soviets are still only like 88% of the way to capitulation

 

[FriendlyFire]

The AI is stupid

You spelt Stalin wrong
Its weird seeing that the Soviets having so many Calvary divisions.

In Unity of Command the AI will really punish you for making any mistake. The Soviets would sacrifice a few divisions to sit onto your supply lines and temporary cut your logistics.
Well They dont call Ivan crazy for nothing.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Polytopia introduced a new civ which has a cool mechanic. Their spiel is that they are from the frozen artic regions and they have a special unit which allows them to freeze ocean tiles into ice which they can then put trade routes on and zip across quickly on skis. This is a lot of fun to play with but it's very unbalanced in my experience.

I tried fiddling with the rules of Resident Evil 2: The Board Game but found that I made things worse. I did improve the pacing with my changes which was a primary goal but overall I unbalanced the mechanics.

 

[Broken_Erika]

The AI is stupid

The Moscow operation turned out successful natch but the Soviets are still only like 88% of the way to capitulation

Heh, you should have seen what it took to make the Soviets capitulate in Strategic Command. They kept moving their capital and i ended up having to take nearly every last soviet city before they finally gave up.
That game also had awesome graphics.

 

[Lexicus]

I had to go clear past the Urals and up to Archangelsk to make them capitulate

Now as I suspected it would the game ended in a sort of mess as I failed to build the ability to project power across the ocean while finishing the USSR off and it will probably take 5+ years to build fleets required to invade the USA and I just don't feel like it. So I'll probably play again as Germany before too long and try to focus more on the navy side of things from an earlier point.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Looking back, the jungles around Iqtaaq should have been a warning. I was pushing my scouts well beyond the ice fields of home, far afield from the shadow of the mountains surrounding Iqpido'il. The air didn't bite and threaten frostbite, instead it all but splashed our faces with hot, humid winds.

My greed pushed me to send the scouts into the jungle and claim the first village they came across there. When the first Quetzali warrior arrived on an ostrich mount, I thought, hmm those ostrich feathers would look great on my mobile ice fortresses. I had the technology to still the waves into new sheets of ice, I could lob fireballs over city walls to terrorize the foes of the Polaris nation. These men on their strange bird-steeds did not threaten me, they should instead bow before the power of the ice and it was my intention to make them!

What I did not have was numbers. The Quetzali fell on my nation like locusts; they shattered and melted the great ice fields and stripped bare the farms and forests of my lands.

At least the ending came quick so my people did not have to suffer my arrogant mistakes for long.
(Polytopia)

 

[Hygro]

Civilization is crap co-op game. Make it dota autochess and I'm in!

Civilization is a fantastic multiplayer game.

How could you prefer playing against an AI than another person?

 

[Synobun]

Civilization is a fantastic multiplayer game.

How could you prefer playing against an AI than another person?

Competitiveness is boring, tbh. I'd rather collaborate with someone than work against them.

 

[Lexicus]

The problem with playing Civ 4 against other humans is it will come down to the luck of the combat results for a handful of units, unless you introduce metagame rules to prevent rushing.

 

[Hygro]

Competitiveness is boring, tbh. I'd rather collaborate with someone than work against them.

Is it boring or is it difficult?

 

[Lohrenswald]

I was playing Hearts of Iron 4 earlier and then it like struck me that I wasn't having fun at all so I quit and uninstalled it

 

[Hygro]

Competitiveness is boring, tbh. I'd rather collaborate with someone than work against them.

And you're competing either way, to win against the computer or a person. How is it better that your opponent is effectively scripted and can't think? How is that less boring?

 

[Phrossack]

And you're competing either way, to win against the computer or a person. How is it better that your opponent is effectively scripted and can't think? How is that less boring?

I find competing with a person a little more stressful, and when I play games I generally just want to relax. At the same time, it would be nice if "AI" didn't stand for "Artificial Idiocy."

 

[Socrates99]

I dusted off Dungeon Keeper 2 and installed it. It took some work to get the 1999 software to play but omg I forgot how fun it is! It's good to be bad.

 

[cardgame]

And you're competing either way, to win against the computer or a person. How is it better that your opponent is effectively scripted and can't think? How is that less boring?

I feel like competing against a person - in strategy games, particularly, due to the wide array of strategies and competencies - is just asking for a bad time because it is very unlikely you will be closely matched so it will be a disaster for at least one person, and I don't find that to be very fun even if I'm the winner.

AI is better in campaign games like for example Total War because they're a bit more reliable/consistent in what they do, I'm not interested in crazy nonsense that shouldn't work but people have found exploits for or, for a better analogy, the world champion fencer is not afraid of the #3 ranked fencer, he is afraid of the untrained noob who doesn't know what not to do, because he cannot be expected to follow the meta he may think around the meta and thus be dangerous.

Plus what Phrossack said about stress. I'm absolutely a tryhard so I will be stressed out