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

[Synobun]

I have that too (only played the tutorial so far, got it months ago in a random weekend sale or something) maybe we could play sometime!

I actually picked up Stardew Valley on sale last week as well, if anyone wants to play the co-op mode (not sure what that entails, but willing to give it a shot)

I'll be real honest with you, I haven't played video games with other people in over two years and as more time passes the idea of doing it again gives me more and more anxiety. Not sure what happened as I used to play games with people at least 15 hours a week, but ever since moving across the country and living with roommates I just haven't been able to convince myself to do it.

Empire At War is a lot of fun though. I wish they'd return to the RTS market in the Star Wars franchise. The expansion pack is pretty fun too.

About Stardew's co-op, right now it's kind of janky. You play on the standard farm map and share currency. The developer is working on a major update right now that will give a new map with farm space for all players and separated banks as well.

 

[Lexicus]

About Stardew's co-op, right now it's kind of janky. You play on the standard farm map and share currency. The developer is working on a major update right now that will give a new map with farm space for all players and separated banks as well.

Hmm. This sounds suboptimal. Will look into when this update might be coming out.

 

[Dachs]

Yeah, Sweden held a lot of the Russian territory around the Baltic before I invaded them and they were forced to move their stacks back to Stockholm to try (and fail) to save it. Russia managed to retake St. Petersburg pretty quick after that.

"retake"

"the Russian territory around the Baltic"

 

[EgonSpengler]

If you're playing on medium campaign difficulty I think that would explain the diplomatic behavior differences. I looked for guides to playing as Prussia, sure I must've been missing something since I figured Hard difficulty shouldn't be too hard, and found several of them advocate allying with Austria, which I didn't think made any sense. Austria won't ally with me in my games, and they always attack in the first 5 turns (sometimes they attack as early as the third turn, sometimes they wait a little longer).

Right, I'm not sure you want to fight Austria-Hungary and Poland-Lithuania simultaneously, at the beginning. Saxony is the complication, for me, and the deciding factor; I went to war with Poland-Lithuania first, so I could take Gdansk and Dresden. I signed as many alliances as I could right from the start, solely for their deterrent value, I had no intention of honoring any of them.

 

[Lexicus]

Right, I'm not sure you want to fight Austria-Hungary and Poland-Lithuania simultaneously, at the beginning. Saxony is the complication, for me, and the deciding factor; I went to war with Poland-Lithuania first, so I could take Gdansk and Dresden. I signed as many alliances as I could right from the start, solely for their deterrent value, I had no intention of honoring any of them.

Yeah, so my strategy initially was to grant poland indefinite military access which I then revoked as soon as Austria agreed to a peace treaty, then declaring war on Saxony so that I could take Dresden and Danzig without dragging Russia into the war (which will happen if you declare on Poland-Lithuania).

I suppose I could try to placate Austria at the beginning but the problem with an early war on Poland is relatively simple: Prussia just doesn't have the revenue to support the forces necessary to simultaneously defend Konigsberg (surrounded completely by Polish/Courland territory) and Berlin while attacked Dresden and Danzig. As far as I can see fighting Poland before taking Breslau and Prague is a recipe for being stuck defending in your starting provinces the entire game. Those two provinces let me support enough troops to feel comfortable warring with Poland, plus they provide a territorial buffer that prevents Poland from going straight for Berlin.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Yeah, so my strategy initially was to grant poland indefinite military access which I then revoked as soon as Austria agreed to a peace treaty, then declaring war on Saxony so that I could take Dresden and Danzig without dragging Russia into the war (which will happen if you declare on Poland-Lithuania).

I suppose I could try to placate Austria at the beginning but the problem with an early war on Poland is relatively simple: Prussia just doesn't have the revenue to support the forces necessary to simultaneously defend Konigsberg (surrounded completely by Polish/Courland territory) and Berlin while attacked Dresden and Danzig. As far as I can see fighting Poland before taking Breslau and Prague is a recipe for being stuck defending in your starting provinces the entire game. Those two provinces let me support enough troops to feel comfortable warring with Poland, plus they provide a territorial buffer that prevents Poland from going straight for Berlin.

My memory of the beginning of that game is hazy, but I think I made the alliance with Austria first, then declared war on Saxony, which drew a declaration of war against me from Poland. I don't remember if Russia declared war at that point, or I just didn't care. But then Austria attacked Poland, too, so I didn't have to worry about defending against a Polish counter-attack on Berlin.

I'm using a mod which, among other things, greatly increases the money each nation starts the game with. That has to tilt the tables some, when considering these opening moves. I was able to build a whole 3rd army, in the first 2-3 turns, and bolster the Konigsberg army.

 

[Takhisis]

Recently I able to move from my Android gaming to my laptop,

On both Android and PC I recommend that you play The Battle for Wesnoth. Some mods come in Turkish, too.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm using a mod which, among other things, greatly increases the money each nation starts the game with. That has to tilt the tables some, when considering these opening moves. I was able to build a whole 3rd army, in the first 2-3 turns, and bolster the Konigsberg army.

That does seem like it would be a big deal. My problem is not that I lack the money at the start to recruit troops but I go bankrupt if I recruit enough to feel safe with only two isolated provinces.

 

[EgonSpengler]

That does seem like it would be a big deal. My problem is not that I lack the money at the start to recruit troops but I go bankrupt if I recruit enough to feel safe with only two isolated provinces.

Right, the Prussian starting position in untenable. I like to sign a bunch of trade deals and alliances on the very first turn. Then they can take maybe a turn or two to build up their army, but they've got to start a war and not be the target. I like to start a war with Poland by way of invading Saxony. That way, Poland can't call its allies. Saxony has to be a bug on my windshield, though, I don't want to give them any time to build their army. Every turn it takes Prussia to finish them is a risk; 1 or 2 is ideal. Then you want to kick Poland where it hurts before Russia or France attacks you. Like I say, I had some luck in getting Austria to not only ally with me, they then declared war on Poland too (like I say, I was surprised it worked out so well and held so long, and now I'm wondering if I agreed to a military access deal without knowing what that did - I never allow military access, but it possible I did the one time, because keeping Austria off my back was so valuable). It meant Austria got the Lion's Share of Polish territory, but I was okay with that, for a while. Courland gets you a 2nd Baltic port, and I think a 3rd appears in West Prussia after a few years.

When I drifted away from that campaign and started playing something else, Catholic Austria and Protestant Prussia were staring at each other across a border that stretched from Stuttgart to Vilnius, Prussia was just about to develop Fire by Rank, and I don't think they can abide Austria taking Moscow.

 

[Mouthwash]

 

[EgonSpengler]

Path of Exile: Legion - I wasn't loving the Duelist for some reason, so HuatareTheLion was born. Axe & shield Marauder. Molten Strike; found a Tabula Rasa; Ancestral Call Support - Combustion Support - Rage Support - Added Fire Damage Support. Massive Mana problems. Ancestral Protector. Blood & Sand. Herald of Ash. Leap Slam.

I tried Molten Shell and Steelskin, but they expire so fast, I'm not quite sure how to use them. I end up forgetting about them altogether. I'm hanging onto the Guard gems, though, I feel like they might make more sense later on. Maybe they can be combined with a trigger gem, Cast When Damage Taken or Cast When Stunned or something.

 

[Phrossack]

Now I feel guilty.

After I slaughtered the last of the Lugii in Ponto-Caspia, they sent a shieldmaiden to kill my shiny new diplomat. I recruited a warlord to protect him, and he had pretty high stats, while the shieldmaiden did not.

She killed him anyway.

The next turn, she attacked my diplomat.

She killed him.

By now my king and his horde arrived en route to the Lugii cities. He had crazy high stats for self defence, he had the Excellence trait, he was young, and he was king: the lord of a fell people. And he had a Rank 9 warlord for even more protection.

She. Killed. Him. Anyway.

I reloaded in rage. Her first two assassinations were improbable, but killing my king defied all chance itself, and once agents in Rome 2 get strong, you can't stop them at all, making the game much less fun.

The second time, she failed, and my elite warlord counterattacked and slew her. As penance, I tried to spare the Lugii with a peace treaty, but they rejected, so I built a temple I didn't really need to appease the spurned RNGesus.

I still feel bad about it, but sometimes I gotta counter cheating with cheating.

 

[Synobun]

The AI actually uses agents in Rome 2? That's interesting.

 

[Lexicus]

The AI actually uses agents in Rome 2? That's interesting.

AI uses agents in every TW game I've played except possibly Rome.

 

[Phrossack]

The AI actually uses agents in Rome 2? That's interesting.

And somewhat aggressively. If the AI gets stronger agents than you have, they become nearly impossible to get rid of, because with each success they grow even stronger until your feeble Level 1 agents can never stop their Level 10s.

At least in Shogun 2 every agent could defeat other agents, and there was a rock paper scissors relationship between them so you always stood a chance.

 

[Lexicus]

And somewhat aggressively. If the AI gets stronger agents than you have, they become nearly impossible to get rid of, because with each success they grow even stronger until your feeble Level 1 agents can never stop their Level 10s.

Yeah, it works similarly in Attila...you have to build your agents up to get a decent chance of taking out the enemy's high-level agents. I've done it a few times, AI likes using spies to cut my armies' movement points so I had to counter them with my own spies.

 

[Synobun]

AI uses agents in every TW game I've played except possibly Rome.

Hmm. That... hasn't been my experience at all.

AI agents actually annoyed me in earlier games because they'd just aimlessly walk around in my line of sight every single turn, doing nothing except taking up time. Especially in Empire. During the late game I'd have 20+ gentlemen just aimlessly walking around my territory again and again and again. Spies and assassins, meanwhile, just never showed up unless they got discovered.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, in Medieval 2 AI sometimes masses huge numbers of priests. When I captured Sardinia in my most recent game Sicily had about a dozen priests just sitting there. Very annoying when they turn into heretics and you don't notice until your province revolts. AI also uses assassins quite frequently, they have occasionally even managed to assassinate some of my good generals. Papal States' Inquisitors are also quite annoying and they tend to be prime targets for my own assassins.

In Empire the AI doesn't seem to actually use agents much, though they definitely build them and move them around the map. They seem to like parking gentlemen in my schools and universities for some reason.

Haven't played much Shogun but definitely remember building some agents myself to counter enemy agent activity. Attila is probably the one where I spend the most time dealing with AI agents because when you're a horde the spy reducing your movement points is a serious problem.

FWIW I tend to play on Hard or Very Hard difficulty in all these games.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

any day now.. personally I can't wait, been interested in this project for about 7 years now lol

 

[Synobun]

FWIW I tend to play on Hard or Very Hard difficulty in all these games.

That might be the difference maker here. I rarely go over Easy. I'd be surprised if the difficulty level changes it, my experience with difficulty levels is that it just makes the AI cheat or have more resources, not that it changes their behaviour in any appreciable way. But that seems like the most likely cause.