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

[cardgame]

Well there were a couple different submods that seemed to be mandatory for TATW, one of them definitely had options, not sure if it was default, but options for spawning extra armies and stuff. Like 'Mordor Mobilizes' event at turn 100 or whatever.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I've started replaying my way through Warcraft 3. I got an itchin' for it when I saw the trailer for the remastered version coming out, but I got sick of waiting and just reinstalled my old copy and am having at it with Arthas, Thrall and friends.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I spent the evening playing Age of Wonders III (Its free on Steam until tomorrow - free as in you get to keep it), and it's a lot of fun. So far I'm really liking it, though I'm getting stomped after finishing the tutorial.

As I was playing, I kind of thought that it is maybe what Civ5 should have been. It looks very similar, and the mechanics are a lot like Civ5, but it's a heck of a lot more fun.

Oh, and a female protagonist! Woohoo!

 

[Farm Boy]

I've started replaying my way through Warcraft 3. I got an itchin' for it when I saw the trailer for the remastered version coming out, but I got sick of waiting and just reinstalled my old copy and am having at it with Arthas, Thrall and friends.

BlizzAck is recycling both a literal 16 year old game and a 14 year old game as their primary products this year? FFVII seems to at least be changing stuff up. Can't say it's a bad idea, though. EverQuest rocked it with progression servers for at least a decade, should be able to keep WoW rolling until 2029 or so at least if they follow the success model or a better one without screwing it up.

 

[Sommerswerd]

BlizzAck is recycling both a literal 16 year old game and a 14 year old game as their primary products this year? FFVII seems to at least be changing stuff up. Can't say it's a bad idea, though. EverQuest rocked it with progression servers for at least a decade, should be able to keep WoW rolling until 2029 or so at least if they follow the success model or a better one without screwing it up.

If it ain't broke...

You can't teach an old dog...

and so on...

I'm currently on the mission where Evil Arthas is trying to destroy the Elves but Sylvanis keeps screwing with his plans... that annoying beeyatch is gonna get hers soon enough

 

[Akka]

Europa Universalis 3...still. Been about a month I think. Hard to keep track of time...

If I were trying to sell someone on this game I have no idea what I would say.

"EU4 without the bloat" ?

 

[H4run]

playing Yakuza 0, it's even better than Yakuza Kiwami; the emotion, the twist in the story-line, the awesome mini-game, even my wife, a kind of person who are not interest in gaming, keep asking me about the continuation of the story and watching the animation scene that she missed. Today, I sleep at 3 am playing this game, wake up at 5 am, and keep playing this game until I went to work, I only sleep 2 hour, this is how good this game is.

My favorite character, Majima:

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The Third Age mod was so damned good it made CA stop modders from changing their maps in their future games, because the mod was a free competitor to their other main titles.

CAs behavior/treatment of its mod community has been pretty off putting TBH. They make Pdox look trustworthy, and that's not a good look.

 

[Mouthwash]

What has Paradox done?

 

[Farm Boy]

If it ain't broke...

You can't teach an old dog...

and so on...

I'm currently on the mission where Evil Arthas is trying to destroy the Elves but Sylvanis keeps screwing with his plans... that annoying beeyatch is gonna get hers soon enough

I remember thinking, "I don wanna" a bunch of times in that campaign.

 

[Akka]

What has Paradox done?

They milk their games by releasing a neverending stream of DLC while never actually finishing said games.

 

[Arakhor]

They wouldn't make DLC if people didn't keep buying it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

They milk their games by releasing a neverending stream of DLC while never actually finishing said games.

This. However, they also persistently lie in UI with everything from achievement descriptions to "X is required for Y to happen" in-game. I could screenshot in a half dozen examples here offhand in a few minutes, and these are proper bug reports that they've ignored in favor of additional DLC. They even prioritize fixing esoteric exploits over making the game stop lying to players. Since they don't care about whether the game lies to the player enough to fix well-documented examples of it that can be fixed by a simple text edit, they should not be viewed as trustworthy for obvious reasons.

But Pdox has a more egregious offense on their records than those. EU 4 advertised "cross platform MP" for years. After patch 1.5 this has never been true...and the game is on patch 1.28. While that advertising page seems to have been taken down recently, this was an example of literal/unambiguous false advertising present for years.

Yet I'm not sure that's actually worse than CA patching a game to sell DLC and then blocking a competing + functional mod that was already available and active. Pdox's example was false advertising, but it mostly arose from abject incompetence + not prioritizing fixing it. Cross platform DID actually work, for a couple months, until it was broken in a patch and essentially ignored forever. But there's no clear tangible benefit for this being done in a vacuum and it's unlikely Pdox would intentionally make their cross platform MP not work for no reason. The main issue was that they kept the original advertising that it existed when it didn't.

In contrast, CA actively took steps to break access to a popular mod that was completely within the rules because they didn't feel they could outcompete it. I don't see an alternative conclusion to that move aside from "demonstratively malicious".

 

[AdamCrock]

What has Paradox done?

Another much too complex strategy game ?

 

[Phrossack]

Rome 2:

Syracuse has morphed from a lone city-state to a full-fledged kingdom. My forces took the defenseless Carthaginian towns in Italy, from Cosentia all the way to Ariminum. Over time, and together with Massalia, I converted Italia to a majority Greek culture, and Magna Græcia is now overwhelmingly Greek. The war with Carthage continues. They've refused peace and have traded territory back and forth with the united Numidian kingdom, but haven't gone on the offensive.

I formed an alliance with the Cretan state of Knossos, but Sparta and Athens declared war. Oddly, Athens kept changing its its mind and buying peace from me without ever attacking, but the Spartans tried to cross from Epirus to attack. Again, my navy slaughtered their transports, allowing my army across and into Spartan Macedonia. Bizarre how the pitiful rump state of Sparta is a powerhouse in Rome 2 that consistently conquers Macedonia, but it do be like that sometimes.

After a messy sea battle and a messy amphibious assault that cost me two admirals, I seized Apollonia and moved to take Sparta itself with a second army. The war dragged on - I lost Larissa at one point to a counterattack, retook it, and lost much of my second army in another counterattack. But in time, with the Thracians and Illyrians raiding Macedonia, I was able to besiege and storm Pella itself. Sparta now consists of a lone fleet without a harbor.

I'm thinking of storming Athens with the help of some ballista batteries to complete the conquest of Hellas. After that, I may need to go on the offensive against Carthage. It seems Iberia is split between Nova Carthago and the Arverni Gauls, while the Galatians rule all of Anatolia and much of the Middle East as far south as Petra. Combined with the powerful Nori, Helvetii, and other Celtic realms to my north, and it's starting to look like a Celtic world in the wake of Rome's fall. I may need a way to recruit some Hippeus Lancers to counter their swordsmen.

 

[Lexicus]

My campaign as Parthia is going decently, I have now unified most of the Iranian plateau under Parthian rule while warring with a couple of miscellaneous factions, Sagartia and Alexandria Aarchosia, that I had never heard of before playing Rome II.

According to wiki Sagartia is an Iranian-speaking tribe and Alexandria Arachosia is now the Afghan city of Kandahar.

Anyway Sagartia had occupied much of the Iranian plateau after fighting a successful war against Persia (one of the Seleucid satraps) but their armies don't cut it against my horse archers. They've made peace though I expect them to jump back into the war soon, all they have left are a couple of settlements on the Persian gulf coast as well as Seleucia in Mesopotamia. Now swinging east to deal with Alexandria Arachosia. Assuming Sagartia doesn't "join my enemies" I'll deal with them afterwards.

To my northeast Baktria has a really low opinion of me due to warring on their allies and cultural buddies. This is ominous.

 

[Phrossack]

My campaign as Parthia is going decently, I have now unified most of the Iranian plateau under Parthian rule while warring with a couple of miscellaneous factions, Sagartia and Alexandria Aarchosia, that I had never heard of before playing Rome II.

According to wiki Sagartia is an Iranian-speaking tribe and Alexandria Arachosia is now the Afghan city of Kandahar.

Anyway Sagartia had occupied much of the Iranian plateau after fighting a successful war against Persia (one of the Seleucid satraps) but their armies don't cut it against my horse archers. They've made peace though I expect them to jump back into the war soon, all they have left are a couple of settlements on the Persian gulf coast as well as Seleucia in Mesopotamia. Now swinging east to deal with Alexandria Arachosia. Assuming Sagartia doesn't "join my enemies" I'll deal with them afterwards.

To my northeast Baktria has a really low opinion of me due to warring on their allies and cultural buddies. This is ominous.

I'd never heard of half the factions in Rome 2, either. Always fun to learn about an entirely new culture.

Baktria will probably be your biggest threat due to its position. In practice, I find that only armies with plentiful melee cavalry can threaten horse archer / lancer armies, and the AI doesn't normally have more than three or four cavalry units per army at the most. Eastern factions that rely on Eastern Spearmen are just target practice. I may have to look for any mods that add more cavalry to enemy armies.

Once you secure the east, you'll have a lot of regions that are safe from invasion and which can be used mainly for farming and industry, which will fuel your economy.

I'm guessing you already have Zadrakarta, the Parthavan town on the southern shore of the Caspian. Great for upgrading your cavalry movement speed. Tushpa and some other settlement in Media Atropatene (starts with an R?) have smithing settlements, which are great for upgrading armor or weapons. Ideally you'll have both, but they take time and a lot of Siege tech to fully upgrade. I love it when my Royal Cataphracts get three armor upgrades and some general skills for extra armor. Having over 130 armor points is overkill, but it never gets old seeing arrows literally bounce off or snap in half when they hit the mail and plate.

 

[Lexicus]

My Royal Cataphracts have only 1 armor upgrade as of now but they already are nearly invulnerable to everything I've faced. They laugh at slingers and archers and even when I screw up the micro and they have to accept an enemy cavalry charge they go through the enemy unit like a knife through butter without taking more than a few casualties.

Playing on Hard campaign difficulty, the AI seems to have plenty of cavalry in its armies, they are usually about 1/3 cavalry and 2/3 infantry though I have beaten a few stacks with 10 cavalry and 10 infantry units.

I do indeed have the entire province of Parthia as well as Media and the two immediately to the south whose names I forget (this adds up to something like 12 settlements I think). I've also got a couple of odd settlements, one in the steppe province immediately east of Iran and the southernmost settlement (on the Persian Gulf coast) in Mesopotamia.

 

[Mouthwash]

They milk their games by releasing a neverending stream of DLC while never actually finishing said games.

That's why people like them, dude.

 

[Akka]

That's why people like them, dude.

Obviously not everyone.