What Video Games Have You Been Playing, Part 10: Or; A Shameful Display!

[Takhisis]

Obviously Persia's better. Those Immortals have the most awesome audible sharpness in their blades.

 

[Ajidica]

Playing Divinity OS 2: Definitive Edition, and the balance changes in Act 2 have done wonders in evening out the balance problems that were present even in the (patched) original game.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

The newest patch for Civilization VI has made the game a lot harder. I was playing on the second lowest difficulty and lost.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The newest patch for Civilization VI has made the game a lot harder. I was playing on the second lowest difficulty and lost.

Whoa, does the AI actually play the game now?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Then why add new civs with flavor based on historical nations at all? What cutoff point makes one bother with Scotland but not Bengal?

The only explanation that makes sense is anticipated sales. I'm not convinced by that argument, as I don't expect a German player to have a significantly greater hankering to play as Scotland than Mughals. But it's the only rationale that even sort-of maybe explains the reasoning for picking some of these civs over others.

New stuff is new stuff. I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice, just that it doesn't matter in the same way as it would in an actual historical game where you're not getting to play some interesting civilisations, or interesting points of history. When your "India" in Civ consists of an archipelago of tundra islands in the arctic circle, that's being invaded by Romans in tanks, it doesn't seem to matter as much. You'd be having the same experience whether that civ had been assigned "India" or "Carthage" or anything else.

I almost think it would be cool if they did away with real world civilisations altogether and came up with some sort of procedurally generated ones that grow naturally out of their environment, history etc, with technologies and units that match, but that's a whole other thing and would be a different game of course.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The newest patch for Civilization VI has made the game a lot harder. I was playing on the second lowest difficulty and lost.

I haven't started a new game yet - I downloaded it this morning - but this has me excited to fire it up when I get home tonight.

 

[Lexicus]

Obviously Persia's better. Those Immortals have the most awesome audible sharpness in their blades.

While you were listening to the blade sounds my Sipahis slid into your capital

Sadly, even a stronger AI can't entice me to play Civ VI

Other Civ III civs I really liked playing: Greece, Iroquois, Mongols, China

 

[Broken_Erika]

Pfffft! I play Civ 2 as my own custom civ. The Grottish! A fusion of Greek and Scottish.

 

[Lexicus]

I kind of got tired of the amount of MMing required in Napoleon: TW to stop your units from gunning down their comrades. I'm not talking nuisance casualties, either, I'm talking about like multiple instances of one unit just shooting another unit in the back until the unit getting shot is almost dead.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Whoa, does the AI actually play the game now?

I haven't played it yet, but according to the Civ6 forum the AI is only a little bit smarter. The biggest issue is that there are now far more Barbarian camps.
Best to wait for another patch or hotfix before buying the expansion.
It also has an "amusing" exploit; Mali's unique district gives a discount to gold and faith purchases. With Big Ben, Democracy and the right city state bonus Mali can buy military units for 0 gold.

 

[Phrossack]

Fall of the Samurai is getting tricky.

The campaign is very short, so I have to hustle. I formed a three-way alliance as Tosa with Saga and Satsuma, and helped save Satsuma from Iwakuni.

Then Satsuma betrayed the Imperial cause and went over to the Shogunate. Without breaking the alliance.

As a daimyo may only convert once in his lifetime, and as my Satsuma ally removed himself from supporting the glorious Emperor, my agent caused him to be quietly removed from existence. Still his successor has not converted despite the work of my ishin shishi.

Meanwhile, Obama has become an extremely powerful force for the Shogun and has conquered a vast swathe of Japan. I was forced to declare war, seizing some of Obama's territory and wrecking Obama's navy in beautiful crackling explosions. But Obama's allies are strangling my economy out of existence with blockades, I'm out of time, I'm in the red, and the people are too angry to let me move my invasion forces and keep them moving.

Better luck next time. Thanks, Obama.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm out of time, I'm in the red, and the people are too angry to let me move my invasion forces and keep them moving.

Incidentally, this is why I think medieval 2 was the peak of the TW franchise: that "exterminate populace" option makes rapid conquest possible and fun! It also allowed mechanics that actually mimic the conditions of classical and medieval warfare: I would frequently get -10,000 or -20,000 gold in the treasury while I waited for sieges to finish, then sack 5 cities on 1 turn and suddenly have 100,000 gold. That is exactly how it worked back in the day. And when you can't hold those cities because of public order, you can let them rebel and then reconquer and exterminate and public order is fine.

Julius Caesar went off to be praetor in Spain like 25 million sesterces in debt and then came back one of the richest men in Rome from conquering some barbarians and melting down their religious icons into coins or whatever. Same thing when he conquered Gaul. The same theme turns up over and over again, from the Fourth Crusade sacking Constantinople to defray the debts of its leaders and soldiers to the debts of Hernan Cortes and his soldiers when he destroyed the Aztec empire.

 

[Phrossack]

Incidentally, this is why I think medieval 2 was the peak of the TW franchise: that "exterminate populace" option makes rapid conquest possible and fun! It also allowed mechanics that actually mimic the conditions of classical and medieval warfare: I would frequently get -10,000 or -20,000 gold in the treasury while I waited for sieges to finish, then sack 5 cities on 1 turn and suddenly have 100,000 gold. That is exactly how it worked back in the day. And when you can't hold those cities because of public order, you can let them rebel and then reconquer and exterminate and public order is fine.

Julius Caesar went off to be praetor in Spain like 25 million sesterces in debt and then came back one of the richest men in Rome from conquering some barbarians and melting down their religious icons into coins or whatever. Same thing when he conquered Gaul. The same theme turns up over and over again, from the Fourth Crusade sacking Constantinople to defray the debts of its leaders and soldiers to the debts of Hernan Cortes and his soldiers when he destroyed the Aztec empire.

I mean, you can loot in S2. I never do because it hurts your honor and popularity in the city, and I basically always occupied in M2 because I don't like to rule over a pile of rubble. And in M2 you could just spam cheap garrison troops and priests, and lower taxes in just that city, to keep everyone in line.

But ruthlessness has its uses.

M2 was also the last title that allowed total conversion mods--set the game in Middle-Earth, the whole Middle East and beyond, anywhere, really. Newer games don't allow much map modding, and that cripples the modding scene. I still love Third Age: Total War when it doesn't crash. That's why I played it for twelve years straight.

 

[Takhisis]

While you were listening to the blade sounds my Sipahis slid into your capital

Sadly, even a stronger AI can't entice me to play Civ VI

Other Civ III civs I really liked playing: Greece, Iroquois, Mongols, China

The Sipahis never got to exist.

Greece FTW, for obvious reasons.

 

[Hygro]

Conquest Keynesianism drove g

The Sipahis never got to exist.

Greece FTW, for obvious reasons.

Not obvious to me.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Greece FTW, for obvious reasons.

Spearmen beating Mechanized infantry ?

 

[Takhisis]

*hoplites

I finally beat the Mountain Witch RPG! In the next-to-last scenario I simply had to guess how to win it by trial and error (I have the one unit with a special sword who can defeat the enemy leader who holds a key to get out of the dungeon) but i finally got there and later I used grorious magick of savescumming until the RNG stopped cheating me of my well-deserved victory.
I don't always win games on the hardest of hard difficulties, and usually they have more understandable instructions. I'd better give my (quite favourable) report to the creators.

 

[cardgame]

I mean, you can loot in S2. I never do because it hurts your honor and popularity in the city, and I basically always occupied in M2 because I don't like to rule over a pile of rubble. And in M2 you could just spam cheap garrison troops and priests, and lower taxes in just that city, to keep everyone in line.

But ruthlessness has its uses.

M2 was also the last title that allowed total conversion mods--set the game in Middle-Earth, the whole Middle East and beyond, anywhere, really. Newer games don't allow much map modding, and that cripples the modding scene. I still love Third Age: Total War when it doesn't crash. That's why I played it for twelve years straight.

That's maybe why you lost! I looted twice in my Saga campaign, as there are a couple of techs that improve daimyo honor. This gave me over 30,000 gold to use to improve my infrastructure and my domestic income substantially. It's now turn 120 or so and realm divide has occurred, but I've destroyed the Shogunate vanguard and only truly need Kyoto and Tokyo to win. The combined Shogunate navy has sometimes raided the crap out of my trade routes, but in the worst case scenario I was still pulling in 4,000 income per turn, with the usual being approximately 10k. This mostly goes to supporting four full armies and buffing the garrisons of frontier towns.

 

[Phrossack]

That's maybe why you lost! I looted twice in my Saga campaign, as there are a couple of techs that improve daimyo honor. This gave me over 30,000 gold to use to improve my infrastructure and my domestic income substantially. It's now turn 120 or so and realm divide has occurred, but I've destroyed the Shogunate vanguard and only truly need Kyoto and Tokyo to win. The combined Shogunate navy has sometimes raided the crap out of my trade routes, but in the worst case scenario I was still pulling in 4,000 income per turn, with the usual being approximately 10k. This mostly goes to supporting four full armies and buffing the garrisons of frontier towns.

That's a lot of income! I should probably loot some distant province and abandon it so it'll be awhile before I have to worry about managing the people.

 

[Dachs]

Does transporting troops by sea work similarly to older TW games, ie, one ship can transport a full stack of land units?

Since nobody answered this question...even though you've presumably already figured it out...the answer is yes.

The biggest issue is that there are now far more Barbarian camps.

Yeahhhh.