What Video Games Have You Been Playing #15: Computer not on fire yet? Better add more mods!

[Takhisis]

Another blissful five-hour stretch of playing has seen my Dutch Knights, backed by Ancient Cavalry and Swiss Mercenaries, conquer some Spanish exclaves as well as the mainland. Not to be outdone, the Spanish sailed on to seize a lone Korean city in the middle of a permafrosted island near the south pole, so in the inevitable next war against the Spanish I can get away with not exterminating them because they'll have three permafrosted, coalless islands in the back of nowhere.

As a matter of fact that Spanish-controlled island does have one each of Oil and Rubber, of which I only have one each, so now that I've just made peace with the Greeks (bombarded their homeland and sunk a lot of their wooden ships with my destroyers and cruisers) I am readying an amphibious invasion team, and wondering whether to go after those polar Spanish first or not.

As a matter of fact the war against the Greeks stems from the fact that some 3 or 4 thousand years ago the Maya rushed to establish the city of Bonampak down in the tundra and I never conquered it because I'd never gone to war against them. Needless to say I just bargained with the Portuguese for 20 turns of Coal, built a looong railway all the way down to one tile away from Bonampak, and attacked it with Cavalry. Then, for good measure, I crossed the fortified (on my side only) isthmus on the other end of our sea border and conquered Chichén Itzá and two more cities, taking 2× Silks and the Sun Tzu wonder along the way. Mmm-mmm.

 

[cardgame]

I am now in full control of all the lands between the Yangtze and the Yellow River, and have vassalized Liu Biao to the southwest. Invasion of Song is under way, and I have one of his provinces (Hebei) but he is counter-attacking it.

 

[Synobun]

I am now in full control of all the lands between the Yangtze and the Yellow River, and have vassalized Liu Biao to the southwest. Invasion of Song is under way, and I have one of his provinces (Hebei) but he is counter-attacking it.

How is it compared to Shogun 2? That's the last Total War I've been able to properly play. Rome 2 and Warhammer run very poorly for me.

But if I ever get a new rig, I'll want to dip my toes into the Total Wars I haven't played. I kind of dismissed Three Kingdoms as being like that uh, Britannica one? The really bad one that was poorly received. Is that true?

 

[HEF]

Recorded score from a few years ago; don't recall the scenarios; normal difficulty

Star Wars: Empire at War
Rank: Colonel
Military Efficiency: 71
Conquest Efficiency: 100%
Kill Efficiency: 100%

---
Rank: Wing Commander
Military Efficiency: 0
Conquest Efficiency: 100%
Kill Efficiency: 100%
---

Star Wars: Forces of Corruption
Rank: Admiral
Military Efficiency: 55%
Conquest Efficiency: 100%
Kill Efficiency: 100%

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I accidentally ran into an unwinnable situation in Zoo Tycoon.

• Drop your first animal in an unsuitable enclosure.
• Run out of money trying to make the enclosure suitable.
• Since it's only half-finished, your animal is unhappy and the zoo association won't let you adopt any more animals.
• Sell the animal, planning to demolish the enclosure and make an easier one with less renovating.
• Except you're not allowed to adopt any more animals....

 

[HEF]

Pillars of Eternity: The White March (parts 1 & 2)

 

[Takhisis]

As a matter of fact the war against the Greeks stems from the fact that some 3 or 4 thousand years ago the Maya rushed to establish the city of Bonampak down in the tundra and I never conquered it because I'd never gone to war against them.

Note that this is owed to the fact that the AI can see all the resources from the get-go so it knew there'd be oil there. What a pity that they didn't go paranoid about it and place a dozen Musketmen there. Their Longbowmen attacking my Infantry fortified on a borderland mountain was almost hilariously pathetic.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm trying to remember what I ever saw in Europa Universalis. The outcome is kinda fascinating, but the process is like watching paint dry.

 

[cardgame]

How is it compared to Shogun 2? That's the last Total War I've been able to properly play. Rome 2 and Warhammer run very poorly for me.

But if I ever get a new rig, I'll want to dip my toes into the Total Wars I haven't played. I kind of dismissed Three Kingdoms as being like that uh, Britannica one? The really bad one that was poorly received. Is that true?

No way, it's fantastic. Troop variety is a bit limited like Shogun but everything else is way better.

 

[Arakhor]

I'm trying to remember what I ever saw in Europa Universalis. The outcome is kinda fascinating, but the process is like watching paint dry.

I almost exclusively play EU IV on two speed - maximum or pause. Multiplayer would be much more turgid.

 

[PhroX]

I'm trying to remember what I ever saw in Europa Universalis. The outcome is kinda fascinating, but the process is like watching paint dry.

As much as I love EUIV, it certainly can be kinda slow at times, especially with mods (I exclusively play M&T these days). But as such, I find it a nice relaxing game after a day grinding my brain away at work, especially thanks to the ability to pause freely. I'll also quite often put on a podcast while I'm playing. I'm not one of those people who aim for the high end achievements (e.g. world conquest) though, they require more focus than I enjoy giving the game.

 

[Arakhor]

The only time I saw M&T played on YouTube, it looked like an overdose of menus inside menus and thus much slower gameplay.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I refuse to watch any anime

I heartily concur.

I accidentally ran into an unwinnable situation in Zoo Tycoon.

• Drop your first animal in an unsuitable enclosure.
• Run out of money trying to make the enclosure suitable.
• Since it's only half-finished, your animal is unhappy and the zoo association won't let you adopt any more animals.
• Sell the animal, planning to demolish the enclosure and make an easier one with less renovating.
• Except you're not allowed to adopt any more animals....

I'd like to think that just speaks to the accuracy of the simulation.

 

[Synobun]

I almost exclusively play EU IV on two speed - maximum or pause. Multiplayer would be much more turgid.

Yes, when I played multiplayer EU4, I always had a book close by. We'd play for ~5 hours and go through maybe 10 in-game years. I'd have spent so much time simply staring at the wall if I didn't have something else to do at the same time.

 

[Arakhor]

The only time I played MP was with some internet friends on voice chat, so at least we were always talking.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

There was a used books/movies/games store that I shopped at. They were pretty overpriced but had a decent selection. I picked up a copy of Alien Syndrome on the Wii which is a good top-down shooter RPG from Sega. It plays like Diablo or Gauntlet Legends but it's sci fi instead of fantasy. I've rented this game a bunch of times but never picked it up before.

Now to see how long I can deal with the frustration of using a basic Wii pointer.... I should have picked up a motion plus unit while I was there but I don't know if pre-motion plus games actually benefit from the add-on. Plus they wanted like $25-30 for one of those units.
Edit: I just looked it up and I'm glad I skipped the motion plus addon because it does nothing for older games and actually doesn't help improve basic pointing; instead it more accurately tracks motion.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The only time I played MP was with some internet friends on voice chat, so at least we were always talking.

Yes, playing with friends is much better when you can talk rather then type.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Once while playing Minecraft with some friends we were voice-chatting on Discord but since I didn't have a microphone plugged in it somehow defaulted back to stereo mix. (Or maybe I was messing with the settings, I don't remember.) I didn't realize this until everyone started asking where the random AC/DC music was coming from.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Wait a second, is that

Hmm.

 

[Takhisis]

The Maya have made the mistake of settling on two Aluminium deposits and carrying on a long-distance war with the Arabs of the type where Caravels show up at random locations on the enemy's continent, drop a couple of attackers, then the attackers are wiped off. So now they are about to fall to an international alliance of the despicable Dutch who joined forces with the Arabs and then a cascade of alliances and MPPs has yielded the Celts storming in from the other end of the continent and stealing some cities which should be Dutch. The solution: Settlers.