Nobody makes you buy DLCs. If you cannot afford them, play those cheap, crappy phone games. You are not entitled.
What Video Games Have You Been Playing? #23: Lost in Shalebridge Cradle
- Thread starter EgonSpengler
- Start date
Path of Exile: Necropolis
Full announcement today in 4 hours at 2:00 MDT. The new league starts March 29th.
Announcements - Watch GGG Live on March 21 (PDT) - Forum - Path of Exile
Path of Exile is a free online-only action RPG under development by Grinding Gear Games in New Zealand.
www.pathofexile.com
EgonSpengler
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I'd been thinking about starting a new character. Might as well get into the new League, if they're starting one anyway. Probably a Templar, since I always seem to play Templars. "Necropolis" sounds like it calls for a Templar. No idea what gems to use, but I like the combination of melee and minions.Path of Exile: Necropolis
Full announcement today in 4 hours at 2:00 MDT. The new league starts March 29th.
Announcements - Watch GGG Live on March 21 (PDT) - Forum - Path of Exile
Path of Exile is a free online-only action RPG under development by Grinding Gear Games in New Zealand.
"So which is it, Jacob? Are you a faithless preacher, or are you a mean, mother[lovin'] servant of God?"
"I'm a mean, *mumble**mumble* servant of God."
- From Dusk Til Dawn
Affliction was my best league in a long while. I pushed to get 2 characters to level 95. One with Cyclone and the other with Spark of the Nova (my first non melee guy ever). Both were expensive but the league produced riches.I'd been thinking about starting a new character. Might as well get into the new League, if they're starting one anyway. Probably a Templar, since I always seem to play Templars. "Necropolis" sounds like it calls for a Templar. No idea what gems to use, but I like the combination of melee and minions.
"So which is it, Jacob? Are you a faithless preacher, or are you a mean, mother[lovin'] servant of God?"
"I'm a mean, *mumble**mumble* servant of God."
- From Dusk Til Dawn
I'm curious about Necropolis and to see what gets nerfed, but I would be quite happy with my Affliction guys in Standard. Losing the Wildwoods ascendancy tree will hurt a bit, but I think I can adjust if they don't mess with Spark or Cyclone. The show starts in an hour!
Synobun
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They should be. AFAIK there are no content changes between platform versions, so save file architecture should be the same.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
Ooh, SC3K is on GOG? Hmmm, might have to add that to my wishlist... 
Sarin
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I'm hoping they fixed the issue with EU servers. I quit the league early because EU servers became unplayable.
Synobun
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- Nov 19, 2006
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It is on Steam now as well!Ooh, SC3K is on GOG? Hmmm, might have to add that to my wishlist...
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
I'm not, though
No mention of that in the broadcast or Q&A.
GenMarshall
High Elven ISB Capt & Ghost Agent
Got my hands on Helldivers 2 and Victoria 3.
Sorry to hear that ^^
Played a bit more Skylines. They give a lot more individual detail in Skylines, but that only makes the lack of actionable data more irritating. However, after another half-hour spent perusing mods, I've come to the conclusion that many of Skylines' shortcomings can be addressed by mods.
Take the problem I ran into recently. I had that wide boulevard going in a ring around my city, but it wasn't until today that I put some high-density housing around it, deciding that was a better place to start with it that invoking eminent domain on those living within the nearer rings. People love it, they move to the city, and seemingly overnight the population jumps from 8000 to 12,000. Wonderful! But before long, I notice that unemployment is about 20-25%. I figure there aren't enough jobs, so I zone more industrial areas, but it the industry doesn't blossom like the residential areas had, and I digging in a bit more (with the already-existing mods I'd installed), I find that I have many more jobs than workers. So why are so many people unemployed?
I figure maybe people on the other side of the ring can't get to work, a theory supported by a subset of the new housing being the better part of the way around the ring. So I zone a forestry industry in an area on that general side of town, which takes a while to develop, but eventually does. Unemployment falls, great! But it's still at about 10%, and I now have way more jobs than potential workers. I'm thinking, well, I have jobs at 1:00 and 9:00 (going by arms on the clock around my dodecahedral city), I probably need to some some industry around 5:00.
But it's all a bit wishy-washy, I can see the percentage of unemployed people, but have no idea why. Though I get a hint from some high-density commercial buildings, which close as they can't find educated enough workers, and the offices that barely open there doors before realizing that a single office needs more college-educated workers than my entire city has. Finally, I find another two mods that show the number of workers and jobs by education level, and let me see employment statistics (and a whole lot of other things) by district, and that confirms the problem - I have plenty of open jobs for educated workers, but an insufficient number of jobs for uneducated workers. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, is fairly flat across the city, with the 5:00 area being slightly below average - the only area above-average are the new areas where people moved in after the last uneducated-eligible jobs were already taken.
The mods add a ton of statistics that were always in the model, but not exposed except perhaps as needles in a haystack of useless Chirper chirps. Health levels, age pyramids (we have a lot of 1-year-olds, all those new apartment dwellers are causing a baby boom), but most of all the per-district statistics are invaluable. Before I could set policies on districts, now I can see how a district is doing, beyond just studying the traffic.
And that traffic... I built a cargo train station in my new 9:00 forestry area, thinking all that lumber could be shipped out by train. But in addition to that, my 1:00 industry starts shipping most of their cargo across town to the new train station, creating traffic problems the whole way. So I extend the rail line all the way in to the original industrial area, which solves the traffic problem in most of the city, but results in a huge traffic jam by that train station. A couple months later, I'm seeing notices that the sewers aren't working, which I quickly realized is because the electric grid isn't working, and I then realize that the reason why the electric grid isn't working is that there's so much traffic that the trucks can't deliver enough coal to the power plants to keep them running. This results in a re-work of the road networks near the train station, which doesn't solve everything, but at least resolves the backup of trucks that can't leave the train station.
I think I have the tools that I need to run the city now. Still tempted to hop back to Sim City, and likely will at some point, but I kind of want to get a semi-successful Skylines city going. There's so much potential in this game, it just needs mods to reach those ambitions.
Spoiler Pretty Pictures :
Take the problem I ran into recently. I had that wide boulevard going in a ring around my city, but it wasn't until today that I put some high-density housing around it, deciding that was a better place to start with it that invoking eminent domain on those living within the nearer rings. People love it, they move to the city, and seemingly overnight the population jumps from 8000 to 12,000. Wonderful! But before long, I notice that unemployment is about 20-25%. I figure there aren't enough jobs, so I zone more industrial areas, but it the industry doesn't blossom like the residential areas had, and I digging in a bit more (with the already-existing mods I'd installed), I find that I have many more jobs than workers. So why are so many people unemployed?
I figure maybe people on the other side of the ring can't get to work, a theory supported by a subset of the new housing being the better part of the way around the ring. So I zone a forestry industry in an area on that general side of town, which takes a while to develop, but eventually does. Unemployment falls, great! But it's still at about 10%, and I now have way more jobs than potential workers. I'm thinking, well, I have jobs at 1:00 and 9:00 (going by arms on the clock around my dodecahedral city), I probably need to some some industry around 5:00.
But it's all a bit wishy-washy, I can see the percentage of unemployed people, but have no idea why. Though I get a hint from some high-density commercial buildings, which close as they can't find educated enough workers, and the offices that barely open there doors before realizing that a single office needs more college-educated workers than my entire city has. Finally, I find another two mods that show the number of workers and jobs by education level, and let me see employment statistics (and a whole lot of other things) by district, and that confirms the problem - I have plenty of open jobs for educated workers, but an insufficient number of jobs for uneducated workers. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, is fairly flat across the city, with the 5:00 area being slightly below average - the only area above-average are the new areas where people moved in after the last uneducated-eligible jobs were already taken.
The mods add a ton of statistics that were always in the model, but not exposed except perhaps as needles in a haystack of useless Chirper chirps. Health levels, age pyramids (we have a lot of 1-year-olds, all those new apartment dwellers are causing a baby boom), but most of all the per-district statistics are invaluable. Before I could set policies on districts, now I can see how a district is doing, beyond just studying the traffic.
And that traffic... I built a cargo train station in my new 9:00 forestry area, thinking all that lumber could be shipped out by train. But in addition to that, my 1:00 industry starts shipping most of their cargo across town to the new train station, creating traffic problems the whole way. So I extend the rail line all the way in to the original industrial area, which solves the traffic problem in most of the city, but results in a huge traffic jam by that train station. A couple months later, I'm seeing notices that the sewers aren't working, which I quickly realized is because the electric grid isn't working, and I then realize that the reason why the electric grid isn't working is that there's so much traffic that the trucks can't deliver enough coal to the power plants to keep them running. This results in a re-work of the road networks near the train station, which doesn't solve everything, but at least resolves the backup of trucks that can't leave the train station.
I think I have the tools that I need to run the city now. Still tempted to hop back to Sim City, and likely will at some point, but I kind of want to get a semi-successful Skylines city going. There's so much potential in this game, it just needs mods to reach those ambitions.
I'm 99.2% sure they are, since I started my succession session city in the Steam (same as GOG) version, using a real-city terrain file that I'd copied over from the CD version because the Unlimited edition only contains a limited number of the real-city terrains on the CD version.
Oooh, I'll be interested to hear another perspective on Vicky III.
So this is, uhm, a historically accurate game?
GenMarshall
High Elven ISB Capt & Ghost Agent
The pain with mods for Cities Skylines are mostly the assets. I had to cull some a few since, even with the loading mod, has been taking up a long loading time that pushes the limit past 32 GB of ram (though I plan to get an extra set since I have room for two more sticks). The other pain is finding a good map to make for Night Haven that would enable me to make a metropolis that's a mix of Tokyo, Washington D.C., New York City, and Singapore.
I've got it through the steam sale. So far, it's annoying when I'm playing a nation without the ability to subsidize newly built industries (Japan for example). I'd expect the newly made factories to have their cash reserves already preloaded in.
I've only just touched the surface of assets, had to get the gameplay to where I wanted it first. But I did spend some time getting a bunch of primarily 1930s vehicles to replace the default fleet, since my city is theoretically being played in the past. So far RAM hasn't been a problem, but I did max out my laptop's 64 GB last summer when RAM was at an all-time low price point (I think it was $110 for 64 GB of DDR4 then, I see $140 for 64 GB at the same store now, still a reasonable price).
What is the loading mod? I'm slightly acquainted with Skyve, as a playsets mod, but am not sure if it's the one you mean or if there's a different one.
It has occurred to me that I've probably spent as much time configuring Skylines as actually playing the game. Well, not literally, but the time spent configuring it is high relative to other games I've played.
Interesting, did you play Vicky II? That was one of the downsides of laissez-faire parties in Vicky II as well - although in II factories did start with £1000 in reserves, that was often not enough if profitability was variable, and more importantly it wasn't enough if the industry was unprofitable-but-useful. I came to prefer playing as countries that did allow at least subsidizing factories largely for that reason, although it was satisfying when I played a liberal Spain run and wound up with a top-five economy on laissez-faire policies. It helped that, IIRC, I was allied with France and they served as a giant shield, so the boom-bust cycle of armaments industries was not particularly important.
No reserves at all... yeah, even successful Vicky II industries often needed a few weeks to find their bearings, hire workers, get materials imported. I can see why that would be an issue.
That was the exact one I thought of after reading the question but before reading the next line. They've even got a fresh expansion out. Haven't actually played the newest version myself (only the original CD versions and the 2013 version), but I can't imagine it isn't at least decent.
It's back to Sim City 3000! Delightfully complete out of the box, the only thing it's missing is the "agricultural" zoning that Sim City 4 adds - it's a constant and expensive battle to get farms to spawn - and once they're spawned, not to be colonized by industry.
Meet Paradise City:
Mayor Axl Rose is known for lakeside houses, rocking music, and empty coffers. Tens of thousands of simoleons are still owed on loans, but the city is finally profitable. Thanks to the lakes, much of the initial housing was initially of medium land value, a rarity early in an SC3K game. I've gradually expanded outwards, with small commercial areas along the roads, two industrial areas visible, and one more to the west, along with the maximum-security prison that keeps the city afloat.
I think I must have played mainly Easy and Medium back in the day; I don't remember it being so difficult to turn a profit as it is with a $10K loan to fund the initial construction. Land-flattening (even in moderation) drains funds quickly, zoning drains funds, revenue is modest. And Paradise City is not paradise in terms of the tax rate - 10% taxes (default is 7%), with no services other than electricity, roads, and (with about a 70% likelihood) water. Oh, and garbage. Schools? Learn through exploring nature. Medicine? Swing by the local pharmacy and hope they can set your bones. Law enforcement? Do you think a rock star mayor keeps money around to spend on that? Fire coverage? Pyrotechnics on occasion!
I hope to eventually have a rockin' downtown centered around the third, much larger, lake to the southwest, perhaps a busy seaport, and more. But reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio is the short term priority.
Meet Paradise City:
Mayor Axl Rose is known for lakeside houses, rocking music, and empty coffers. Tens of thousands of simoleons are still owed on loans, but the city is finally profitable. Thanks to the lakes, much of the initial housing was initially of medium land value, a rarity early in an SC3K game. I've gradually expanded outwards, with small commercial areas along the roads, two industrial areas visible, and one more to the west, along with the maximum-security prison that keeps the city afloat.
I think I must have played mainly Easy and Medium back in the day; I don't remember it being so difficult to turn a profit as it is with a $10K loan to fund the initial construction. Land-flattening (even in moderation) drains funds quickly, zoning drains funds, revenue is modest. And Paradise City is not paradise in terms of the tax rate - 10% taxes (default is 7%), with no services other than electricity, roads, and (with about a 70% likelihood) water. Oh, and garbage. Schools? Learn through exploring nature. Medicine? Swing by the local pharmacy and hope they can set your bones. Law enforcement? Do you think a rock star mayor keeps money around to spend on that? Fire coverage? Pyrotechnics on occasion!
I hope to eventually have a rockin' downtown centered around the third, much larger, lake to the southwest, perhaps a busy seaport, and more. But reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio is the short term priority.
Senethro
Overlord
2024's hottest take!
Bonyduck Campersang
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Found a performance-enhancing mod that allows EU4 to run more smoothly on my computer, so I started a new run, this time playing as Tunis. My plan is was to eat up Tlemcen to my west, pal up with the Ottomans and take as much of Egypt as I can, and take the remaining scraps of what would be left of Morocco after Spain and Portugal were done with them.
At first life was good. With the Barbary States' coastal raiding abilities, I raided the Spanish and Italian coastlines, taking lots of gold and slaves which allowed me to double the size of my navy. I allied Morocco and the Ottomans, and declared war on Tlemcen. Shortly after, however, Granada got into a war with Castile and Portugal, so Moroccan troops were busy in Iberia. Left on my own, I managed to engage each of my three enemies' (Tlermcen, Touggourt and Djerid) armies individually to prevent them from amassing, and took my desired provinces. Wanting to eat Touggourt and Djerid in one go, I was busy trying to siege down their forts in the pre-cannon era. By this time, having been thrashed in Granada, the Moroccan armies decided to swoop in on an easier opponent and finished off what little was left of the enemy forces and made my life easier. War ended, I took one province from Touggourt, annexed all of Djerid, took three provinces from Tlemcen, and gave two to Morocco.
Things were looking up. To my north, Naples had lost their alliance with Aragon, and were only allied with three landlocked minors. I had more galleys than Aragon, so taking their island territories looked like a very viable plan. My idea was to take Sicily, Sardinia and Malta. To my east, once the Ottomans were sharing a land border with the Mamluks, I would call them into a war against the Mamluks to take their western provinces, hopefully take the valuable port of Alexandria as well.
But I had to mess things up. Out of curiosity I looked towards the situation in Iberia. The war on Granada was still on; despite taking all the Granadine provinces Morocco and Granada surprisingly had naval supremacy, preventing the Iberians from pushing into Morocco to finish the war. In a warm glow after Morocco's help in my war, I decided to join on Granada's side, partly from wanting to help out my Morocco bros, partly from an immersion PoV (the Muslim North African states teaming up to prevent the last of the Andalusian falling into Christian hands), and partly from an idea of containing Castile and preventing them from growing into a huge threat.
At first, things went well. The Tunisian navy blockaded one side of the Iberian peninsula, the Granadine another side, the Moroccan another side. Any time the other two navies got into a battle I would swoop in my gallies and win every battle. The Tunisian army showed up at an important time during the Second Battle of Málaga to win a defensive battle for their Moroccan and Granadine allies.
Despite having superior overall numbers, Castile was not enough for the combined armies of the three Muslim states, and there was suspicions no sign of the Portuguese. Then a Castilian 14 stack moved into Málaga to attack the Morocco-Granada 12k stack. I joined in with my own 14k stack, thinking of winning another crushing victory, when to my consternation another Castilian 14k stack moved in. The battle had flipped certainly into Castile's favour. Then 1k stacks from all over the Castilian side of the border jumped into the fray, and our armies were pushed back into North Africa.
At some point my naval allies betrayed me, and my 10 galleys were reduced to just 2 while fighting 19 enemy ships. The remaining 2 were wiped out by a Portuguese flotilla on the way back to Tunis. I then thought of making a stand in Morocco's formidable mountain forts, however both of my allies seemed to have lost the will to fight, and didn't join in when I attacked a sieging Castilian force, ending up taking large casualties.
I will be returning to this campaign shortly. See if I can salvage something from this disaster, and build up my navy and army again to expand into Italy. If not, I still have my Kazan run from months ago which I can return to.
At first life was good. With the Barbary States' coastal raiding abilities, I raided the Spanish and Italian coastlines, taking lots of gold and slaves which allowed me to double the size of my navy. I allied Morocco and the Ottomans, and declared war on Tlemcen. Shortly after, however, Granada got into a war with Castile and Portugal, so Moroccan troops were busy in Iberia. Left on my own, I managed to engage each of my three enemies' (Tlermcen, Touggourt and Djerid) armies individually to prevent them from amassing, and took my desired provinces. Wanting to eat Touggourt and Djerid in one go, I was busy trying to siege down their forts in the pre-cannon era. By this time, having been thrashed in Granada, the Moroccan armies decided to swoop in on an easier opponent and finished off what little was left of the enemy forces and made my life easier. War ended, I took one province from Touggourt, annexed all of Djerid, took three provinces from Tlemcen, and gave two to Morocco.
Things were looking up. To my north, Naples had lost their alliance with Aragon, and were only allied with three landlocked minors. I had more galleys than Aragon, so taking their island territories looked like a very viable plan. My idea was to take Sicily, Sardinia and Malta. To my east, once the Ottomans were sharing a land border with the Mamluks, I would call them into a war against the Mamluks to take their western provinces, hopefully take the valuable port of Alexandria as well.
But I had to mess things up. Out of curiosity I looked towards the situation in Iberia. The war on Granada was still on; despite taking all the Granadine provinces Morocco and Granada surprisingly had naval supremacy, preventing the Iberians from pushing into Morocco to finish the war. In a warm glow after Morocco's help in my war, I decided to join on Granada's side, partly from wanting to help out my Morocco bros, partly from an immersion PoV (the Muslim North African states teaming up to prevent the last of the Andalusian falling into Christian hands), and partly from an idea of containing Castile and preventing them from growing into a huge threat.
At first, things went well. The Tunisian navy blockaded one side of the Iberian peninsula, the Granadine another side, the Moroccan another side. Any time the other two navies got into a battle I would swoop in my gallies and win every battle. The Tunisian army showed up at an important time during the Second Battle of Málaga to win a defensive battle for their Moroccan and Granadine allies.
Despite having superior overall numbers, Castile was not enough for the combined armies of the three Muslim states, and there was suspicions no sign of the Portuguese. Then a Castilian 14 stack moved into Málaga to attack the Morocco-Granada 12k stack. I joined in with my own 14k stack, thinking of winning another crushing victory, when to my consternation another Castilian 14k stack moved in. The battle had flipped certainly into Castile's favour. Then 1k stacks from all over the Castilian side of the border jumped into the fray, and our armies were pushed back into North Africa.
At some point my naval allies betrayed me, and my 10 galleys were reduced to just 2 while fighting 19 enemy ships. The remaining 2 were wiped out by a Portuguese flotilla on the way back to Tunis. I then thought of making a stand in Morocco's formidable mountain forts, however both of my allies seemed to have lost the will to fight, and didn't join in when I attacked a sieging Castilian force, ending up taking large casualties.
I will be returning to this campaign shortly. See if I can salvage something from this disaster, and build up my navy and army again to expand into Italy. If not, I still have my Kazan run from months ago which I can return to.
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