What Video Games Have You Been Playing? #23: Lost in Shalebridge Cradle

[dusters]

The hacker game is more graphically polished than the rest, but most of the games on the list are complicated.
A good idea, to hack your own body so as to get rid of the lethal virus.

I was thinking of this today. A friend of mine told me - we play games to do challenges we LIKE instead of those in real life we simply HAVE to do.

To add on that. If your job is right brain hemisphere related, like a HEAL job (health, education, administration, literacy), then you play chess or puzzles for fun.

And vice versa- if you are an engineer, you play RPG or Stardew valley or simply any beautiful graphics game to enjoy the atmosphere? Does it apply to you as a writer?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Also, I've decided that I don't care for the name, 'Zone of Contamination.' Clunky. I feel like they could've come up with something a little more poetic.

Yeah I thought the same when I watched the teaser/trailer... "Is that really the final name that they're going with? Not 'Poisoned Mine' or 'Blighted Caverns' or something like that??" sheesh... seems lazy...

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

The problem with playing with about 100+ mods is that once you encounter a bug you have next to no chance to size on which mod is causing it. I once had a bug that caused random civs to have insane amounts of influence with city-states they never met, and was only able to identify the offending mod by disabling all my mods, then enabling each one by one and playing a game with each playset. It is terribly painstaking work, especially because the sheer number of mods means it takes forever for the game to start up, and I also take forever to play the game.

I've just developed another bug: can't purchase units in cities with a majority religion. So pretty much defeats the point of founding a religion in the first place, as you can't purchase Missionaries to spread your religion, or Worship Buildings to take advantage of your Beliefs.

Playing as Tunis (mod) in my last game, founded Islam, and managed to convert almost every city on my continent without Missionaries. I was pumping so much Faith each turn that I was having free Great Prophets spawn. And it looks like the purchase bug also affects the AI, as the Religion Overview tab tells me that all the other religions have only 1-2 cities.

My Tunis run is going splendidly. Originally I was restricted to just three cities, but Sumeria very obligingly razed the Tibetan cities on my west so I settled two more there. Sumeria is on the warpath and is gobbling up empires like crazy, but I have nothing to fear from them as I'm far ahead in tech and I have a Declaration of Friendship with them.

Wallachia was getting bullish with one of my city-state pals, so I declared war on them. They peaced out without fighting a battle. Disappointing, because that was my only war this run, and the game gets drab for me without war. Still, I'm chugging ahead in tech, and have a decent-sized city with good growth and manageable happiness/unhappiness, so getting a victory for once seems achievable.

Still, Civ5 takes forever to start, so when I sit down to play it I do it for a good long while. Don't have the luxury for that most days, and half inspired by that and half inspired by a post in the Civ4 forum I returned to trying out Civ4, which takes no time to load up.

The UI is still unfriendly to me, but I'm learning to love or at least live with it. Playing as the Japanese. No set goal in mind, just getting my feet wet. Built my first-ever wonder in Civ4, so it seems like I might just finish my first-ever Civ4 game as well...

 

[Somebody613]

Still, Civ5 takes forever to start, so when I sit down to play it I do it for a good long while. Don't have the luxury for that most days, and half inspired by that and half inspired by a post in the Civ4 forum I returned to trying out Civ4, which takes no time to load up.

The UI is still unfriendly to me, but I'm learning to love or at least live with it. Playing as the Japanese. No set goal in mind, just getting my feet wet. Built my first-ever wonder in Civ4, so it seems like I might just finish my first-ever Civ4 game as well...

I'm kinda biased here, but I can't even force myself to ever TRY Civ 5/6, due to how much I dislike the weird change in "cities-to-districts".
Whereas Civ 4 + C2C is giving me a huge game that can be played in a ton of ways and probably has more useful gameplay concepts to it than Civ 5/6 anyways.
Like, do you have Animals in Civ 5/6 that you can hunt in Prehistory - and, in fact, you could "mod" the mod to outright not let you out of Prehistory at all, lol.
Boring, you say? Ha, try first - judge later. Hunters and Gatherers for da win, lol!
MWAHAHAHA!!!

 

[EgonSpengler]

Yeah I thought the same when I watched the teaser/trailer... "Is that really the final name that they're going with? Not 'Poisoned Mine' or 'Blighted Caverns' or something like that??" sheesh... seems lazy...

I've encountered some bugs in the new zone. Nothing game-breaking, but it made me wonder if they ran short of time and wanted to get it out before the holidays. "Zone of Contamination" does sound like a working title, like they just never got around to coming up with a 'real' name for the zone and then got stuck.

I was pumping so much Faith each turn that I was having free Great Prophets spawn.

One of my gripes with Civ VI is that Great Prophets and new religions end in the first two eras. As an American, I wouldn't mind seeing Roger Williams, Joseph Smith, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Heck, there could be Aimee Semple McPherson, L. Ron Hubbard, or Billy Graham.

I'm kinda biased here, but I can't even force myself to ever TRY Civ 5/6, due to how much I dislike the weird change in "cities-to-districts".

I feel like this is part of the larger problem that a lot of games have in presentation. 'Districts' in Civ VI should represent, in many cases, whole other cities. Just as City-States represent smaller nations that aren't 'qualified' to compete as full-fledged Civilizations, there are many cities around the world, famous for one thing or another, that perhaps aren't quite up to the level of being one of the world's great cities. The city of Piraeus, for example, is a Harbor District associated with Athens. Cambridge would be a Campus District associated with London (and Oxford is a World Wonder, also 'in' London, as far as Civ is concerned). Here in the Northeast U.S. the city of Philadelphia has a Harbor District 2 hexes to the south called 'Baltimore', and an Industrial Zone District 3 hexes to the west called 'Pittsburgh.' North of New York City is an Encampment District called 'West Point', and south of NYC is an Entertainment Complex District called 'Atlantic City.' Boston, Massachusetts has a Campus District right adjacent to the City Center, called 'Cambridge', like its UK namesake.

The whole Districts thing makes a ton more sense to me when I think of them this way, as smaller cities in their own right, but the game doesn't present them that way. I just have to use my imagination. Attaching a name for every possible District in every possible City in Civ VI would be too much work, but maybe a mod could scrape names from the depths of each Civ's list of cities and attach them to Districts, just for color. So the Campus District near London in a given game might end up being Brighton or Norwich instead of Cambridge, and the Harbor District of Athens might end up being named Ioannina or Kalamata. I'm not a modder, so I don't know if that's even possible.

 

[Somebody613]

I feel like this is part of the larger problem that a lot of games have in presentation. 'Districts' in Civ VI should represent, in many cases, whole other cities. Just as City-States represent smaller nations that aren't 'qualified' to compete as full-fledged Civilizations, there are many cities around the world, famous for one thing or another, that perhaps aren't quite up to the level of being one of the world's great cities. The city of Piraeus, for example, is a Harbor District associated with Athens. Cambridge would be a Campus District associated with London (and Oxford is a World Wonder, also 'in' London, as far as Civ is concerned). Here in the Northeast U.S. the city of Philadelphia has a Harbor District 2 hexes to the south called 'Baltimore', and an Industrial Zone District 3 hexes to the west called 'Pittsburgh.' North of New York City is an Encampment District called 'West Point', and south of NYC is an Entertainment Complex District called 'Atlantic City.' Boston, Massachusetts has a Campus District right adjacent to the City Center, called 'Cambridge', like its UK namesake.

The whole Districts thing makes a ton more sense to me when I think of them this way, as smaller cities in their own right, but the game doesn't present them that way. I just have to use my imagination. Attaching a name for every possible District in every possible City in Civ VI would be too much work, but maybe a mod could scrape names from the depths of each Civ's list of cities and attach them to Districts, just for color. So the Campus District near London in a given game might end up being Brighton or Norwich instead of Cambridge, and the Harbor District of Athens might end up being named Ioannina or Kalamata. I'm not a modder, so I don't know if that's even possible.

Since I haven't actually played (much) Civ 5/6, I may be speaking of something else.
But my point was the "exportation" of Civ 1-4 "buildings" from within the "cities" to "outside".
Again, this is a very "superficial" view that I have of it, so it may be just wrong - but I THINK that's what Civ 5/6 does.
Yes or no?
Also, there's plenty of "improvements", and more can be modded in, to the degree of literally having UNIQUE improvements representing certain "districts" and requiring UNIQUE conditions.
This is why I find C2C to be so adorable - it has "cultures" (buildings) and "natural wonders" (plot features), which could be easily combined to produce unique requirements for "districts".
Say, "Cambridge" could be an "improvement" that can only be built by a city with the "English culture" on a plot that has a manually placed (via a special unit action) "campus feature".
All of that is easily moddable in Civ 4 (and C2C in particular), and also doesn't look "weird" to me, lol.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Districts were introduced in Civilization 6 not 5. Civilization 5 still uses normal city buildings and wonders.

 

[Somebody613]

Districts were introduced in Civilization 6 not 5. Civilization 5 still uses normal city buildings and wonders.

I've only played it very superficially and VERY long ago.
Not sure what I hated about Civ 5, but I'm 100% sure I never wanted to switch from Civ 4 to Civ 5, that one I'm sure about, lol.
May be the comparably ugly hexagons, actually. MarySue me for that, lol.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Not sure what I hated about Civ 5, but I'm 100% sure I never wanted to switch from Civ 4 to Civ 5, that one I'm sure about, lol.

Perhaps it was the 1 unit per tile turning late stage games into massive sliding puzzles.

 

[Somebody613]

Perhaps it was the 1 unit per tile turning late stage games into massive sliding puzzles.

I don't think I bothered to get to "later stages", though.
But the reason MIGHT have been this - and knowing my playing style, I'd immediately hate it already in the very beginning.
This sure MIGHT be the correct answer, though I can't recall it now.
Or it was just plain UGLY, lol.
Still IS, to be honest - I utterly hate hexagonal grids (exception: HoMM).

 

[Kyriakos]

I was thinking of this today. A friend of mine told me - we play games to do challenges we LIKE instead of those in real life we simply HAVE to do.

To add on that. If your job is right brain hemisphere related, like a HEAL job (health, education, administration, literacy), then you play chess or puzzles for fun.

And vice versa- if you are an engineer, you play RPG or Stardew valley or simply any beautiful graphics game to enjoy the atmosphere? Does it apply to you as a writer?

The game is in one's head, so I am not of the view the distinction is formal. I wouldn't play a game (loosely) about chemical reactions, though

 

[Birdjaguar]

Haven't played for a year due to burnout, but the new league got me in the mood for Path of Exile again. Went with a TR ballista PF as its a reliable SSF starter, and up to T5 maps it's been very smooth so far. Not sure about the league mechanic: the ascendancies are great - having +30%MS and +50% all res during the campaign feels amazing and there's some really spicy stuff you can do with the charms - but the buffed mobs can get silly (I've had rares I literally cannot kill) and it's kinda hard to tell how much impact the extra reward stuff is having. It feels like I'm getting more stuff when I get a lot of the extra currency wisps but the other two are hard to see. I guess rarity/quantity are are the sort of modifiers that are best measured over time, but it would be nice to have some immediate tangible rewards for doing the mechanic.

I ran a duelist to get the medicine chest and stopped to wait for all the patches and comments. I've been playing in standard, fixing up my Boneshatter from the last league and adding tattoos to my older characters, etc. I've been running ultimatums with my better characters to see how that has changed.

If the Affliction ascendances move to standard at the league's end, it will be worth pursuing for sure. So far though, I'm not in a hurry.

 

[Gori the Grey]

turning late stage games into massive sliding puzzles.

ha ha ha. yes, that's it exactly

 

[Quintillus]

I tried Caveman2Cosmos some time last decade. The idea was appealing. The execution, at that time, less so. Too many additional turns over base Civ IV BTS, and increasingly wacky the later you played - not that it wasn't wacky early, with the possibility of people riding deer rather than horses, for example. But it felt to me like everything had been added - the kitchen sink mod - but not much had been polished to form a good cohesive experience. I can't remember what the latest I played a game to was, probably Medieval or Renaissance, but other than perhaps letting a game autoplay over a day or two to the modern era, I never finished one.

My takeaway was to instead play mods that did more with less, such as History Rewritten. But I am curious if the consistently-active Caveman2Cosmos team managed to smooth out the gameplay over the past 5-7 years. Their vision was impressive, they just needed more time, and more willingness to say no to additions, and perhaps an engine that scaled more than that of Civ IV. They've at least had time since then.

---

Side note, that artillery train in Factorio that Kyriakos posted a couple pages ago is impressive. I build a train with three cargo carriages and think it's a decent train. That guy builds a train with hundreds of artillery wagons.

Anyone plays Bloons 6?

It's on my radar as a potential next tower defense game. The recent winners in that category for me have been Deathtrap and Warstone TD. Bloons seems to have a blindingly bright color palette, but gets good reviews on Steam.

A friend of mine told me - we play games to do challenges we LIKE instead of those in real life we simply HAVE to do.

Yeah... this is why although I have one or two on my Steam backlog, I've yet to play a Zachtronics game. I've considered it and looked at it and saw, hmm, TIS-100, there's a manual to read to learn how to program this... and why would I play this game over learning x86 assembly language?

And though I occasionally do program in my free time, it's usual towards some other goal; it's a tool that I know how to yield to get results. Like a carpenter building some furniture for their own house because they know it will be well-built if they do it.

I still tend to prefer games where I have to think some over ones that are just pretty - I've played Stardew but it never drew me in - but I prefer games where I think in different ways than what I do for my career.

(Although I can appreciate atmosphere, I've just found that the atmosphere I prefer to enjoy is the real outdoors. Ideally, this time of year or later, with a light layer of snow to brighten everything up)

 

[Kyriakos]

^The aliens never had a chance. Makes me feel a bit sad, since it's their planet after all.

Doesn't help that they don't attack as a horde either. Only relatively small groups.

 

[Somebody613]

Caveman2Cosmos

It has made a HUGE improvement over the last years, but I'm not sure about the details compared to specific time frames.
As of "whacky" - dude, while it's a "matter of one's taste", C2C tries to be "more content is better" and also "more accuracy is better".
Maybe it isn't exactly managing to DO all of that, but they do try, and it shows.
Also, there's a huge variety of Game Speeds - one is LITERALLY tens of thousands of turns, another is so quick that you end up in the "present" while still barely out of Medieval.
And as of turn SPEED - play a Duel map, it will never have turn times longer than maybe 5-10 seconds (unless you let AI to overcrowd it, so maybe you should be more active, lol).

Bloons TD 6 is an acquired taste, I admit, but it's fun and has interesting mechanics, so I suggest you try it (and play at least for an hour, because it takes time to accelerate).

Which reminded me of another superb TD:
GemCraft - Frostborn Wrath (from Steam).
Once again, it's an acquired taste (it's essentially Flash, lol), but once you get into it - it's marvelous.
Easy to learn, difficult to master, lol.
I just adore such games.

 

[Quintillus]

Interesting, I'd never heard of GemCraft. It looks solid. Slight bummer that it's single-player only, as I play most of my TD in multi-player co-op, but Warstone was fun in single player as well. *adds to wishlist*

Hmm, I might have to give C2C another try then. Figure out which speed I was playing it on previously and speed it up a notch or two. I don't recall AI in-between-turn time being a big issue, and have a much more powerful computer than I used to have, just the total number of turns adding up.

----

Kyriakos, is that really your screenshot? Jumping from small base to huge hordes without any details? Playing Factorio 24/7 in the process?

I've now mostly automated blue science (still no gray science). Built my first train route. Basic oil processing in place. The first interaction with biters - six of them attempted to move into our base to form a new spawning area but were stopped. No pollution in that part of the base and still no hostilities due to pollution. This is largely due to convenient positioning of forests, as there's nothing particularly efficient about the factory. Coal-powered, no modules of any sort, steel furnaces.

I did some calculations and found that, based on preliminary data, it would be somewhat cleaner to switch to oil, at least in the short term... but inefficient older oil wells would cause oil to be less efficient over the long term. Either way though, in Factorio, oil and coal are equally dirty when you burn it, it's just that the extraction process, which accounts for 20-25% of emissions, appears to be cleaner with oil. Normally I'd probably be partially switching to solar around this point, but I'm considering going the "Steam all the way" route for a change.

I'm also considering building some elaborate Rube Goldberg power systems, where the boilers are separate from the water sources and the power plants, and they're all connected by trains. Train loads water from shore, transports to boiler, boiler makes steam, train transports steam to steam engine to convert to electrical power. Why go to the trouble? To move the boilers to the center of the base, where the pollution will be absorbed before it reaches the biters.

It would most likely present all sorts of reliability challenges, but sounds like a fun new distribution system to try. Probably ought to add some battery backups to it though.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I've played loads of multiple iterations of BloonsTD on browser, don't remember whether the last one was 6 though

But very bonkers, and very fun

 

[Somebody613]

I've played loads of multiple iterations of BloonsTD on browser, don't remember whether the last one was 6 though

But very bonkers, and very fun

I don't think Bloons 6 was released outside Steam.
I definitely don't see on Kongregate.
Yeah, it takes a while to get used to the concepts, but it's rather fun after that.
The game technically has two phases: Unlocking everything, and then Just playing.
In a way, it'd be less confusing if you didn't need the first phase altogether, especially since it's only for a limited time until you fill up everything.

Interesting, I'd never heard of GemCraft. It looks solid. Slight bummer that it's single-player only, as I play most of my TD in multi-player co-op, but Warstone was fun in single player as well. *adds to wishlist*

Hmm, I might have to give C2C another try then. Figure out which speed I was playing it on previously and speed it up a notch or two. I don't recall AI in-between-turn time being a big issue, and have a much more powerful computer than I used to have, just the total number of turns adding up.

Just like Bloons, GemCraft takes a while to reach the "actual game" (as in, fully unlocked stuff), but after that, it's super addicting.
And it kinda doesn't have an end - even after you finish all the fields AND all the achievements, you still can play... for fun, lol.

You don't exactly need a "powerful computer" for C2C - since it's Civ 4, it can't use Memory beyond a fixed amount.
They did a fantastic job on increasing this limit twice or so, but super new computers wouldn't provide much benefit anyways, sadly.
Aaand just like with Bloons and GC, C2C takes even longer to "get into the fun stuff" - so be prepared to play for quite a while until you "see the light"... or you don't, lol.
Enjoy!

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I don't think Bloons 6 was released outside Steam.
I definitely don't see on Kongregate.
Yeah, it takes a while to get used to the concepts, but it's rather fun after that.
The game technically has two phases: Unlocking everything, and then Just playing.
In a way, it'd be less confusing if you didn't need the first phase altogether, especially since it's only for a limited time until you fill up everything.

Then they must've been older Bloons.

Just so we're on the same page, Bloons is the game where monkeys fight relentless waves of invading balloons, right?