What Video Games Have You Been Playing VII: The Real Ending is Locked Behind a Paywall

[Lexicus]

One Civ 4 turn I'll never forget is Monty throwing Jaguar Warriors and Chariots against a couple of my Machine Gunners for almost wo minutes. I'm glad that's over.

Two minutes? I've taken a break from playing to have a quick smoke sesh and come back to find them still attacking.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I noticed Elite Dangerous is on sale for $14 this weekend. Worth a go?

 

[rah]

More info required. Always looking for good games at bargain prices.

 

[cardgame]

Tons of people love Elite, but lots of them like me also hate it.

If you aren't bothered by it being miles wide and inches deep you should probably give it a go just based on how many people do like it.

 

[Synobun]

I hear it is essentially a shallower, but more modern, version of Freelancer. Have not played it myself though.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Hm. I never played Freelancer, either. "Miles wide and inches deep" can be fun if it has some style. I used to play City of Heroes 'til I slumped over with exhaustion.

 

[Synobun]

I'd say you should correct that but I'm not sure they even still sell Freelancer anywhere. It's considered abandonware now, I think.

Edit: If you do get it, though, you should look into Discovery Freelancer. It's a multiplayer mod for it and, AFAIK, still active. At least it was when I played two years ago.

 

[cardgame]

I don't think Freelancer will even run on W10, will it?

That game was the best, though.

 

[Commodore]

I don't think Freelancer will even run on W10, will it?

If I could get Shattered Union to work on Windows 8 after two years of trying, there has to be a way to get Freelancer to work on 10.

 

[Synobun]

I don't think Freelancer will even run on W10, will it?

That game was the best, though.

It does!

I think... I'm trying to remember if I played it on 8.1 or 10. I think it was 10?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It is an old thing, yes. I pretty much settled on Emperor difficulty, as a kind of balance point, in every iteration of the game.


Warmonger penalties have never bothered me the way they do other people. imo, some kind of "you're getting too powerful" penalty would make more sense, and could be applied to things besides capturing cities, such as number of technologies researched or number of cities converted to your religion. This way, taking an enemy city actually wouldn't be a big deal if it's not a great city.


The errors the AI makes are really elementary. I've heard that the AI doesn't ever build air units, for instance. I've only played one game to completion in the last 15 months or so, right after the expansion came out, and I don't remember seeing any enemy air forces, but that was just one game.

The AI does built air units and actually uses them appropriately. I play at a super low level (Warlord or something) and I just fought a war against a country that used their air force to thwart my bombers. They also beelined their ground units for an unprotected (but fully stocked) air base which caused me a massive headache.

At least in IV the bonus at the higher level usually translated into the AI teching better and bigger SOD's which while not perfect was easier to program them to use.
And they never showed up at your gates and didn't attack. hahhahaha. unless they determined that you were really to tough and then sometimes even then. And for those that get a little bored with IV just do the R&R mod for colonization. It will entertain you for a bit. And you still get the IV UI feel, which was really a good UI

One Civ 4 turn I'll never forget is Monty throwing Jaguar Warriors and Chariots against a couple of my Machine Gunners for almost wo minutes. I'm glad that's over.

Yeah dealing with SOD was even less fun than COD. Yeah, it's easier for the AI to use but it's not fun at all. There's very little strategic thought in how they used them or how you would counter them. The idea of 1UPT is great though the implementation by the AI is pretty crappy.

 

[FriendlyFire]

I noticed Elite Dangerous is on sale for $14 this weekend. Worth a go?

X3 when its on sale for $5 if you want a space sim.

 

[Arakhor]

I don't know about Elite, but I would certainly recommend playing Freelancer if you can manage to obtain a copy.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

X3 when its on sale for $5 if you want a space sim.

Seconded.

 

[Takhisis]

I've just installed SC2VN. As the name implies, it's a visual novel about playing Starcraft II… it's the first visual novel I've had on this computer. To me it's a practically new genre.

Bad, @Takhisis, bad!

What now? I've even switched from HoN to DotA as you asked.

More info required. Always looking for good games at bargain prices.

See above, SC2VN. Given that I play on Linux I can provide links to high-quality games that are at $0 (right off the cuff I'll recommend 0AD).

 

[metatron]

I noticed Elite Dangerous is on sale for $14 this weekend. Worth a go?

With ED you sort of need Horizons. The base game is fine and all, but half the fun.
Said fun is very much worth a go in my view, but even the people who passionately play the game admit that it is a bit on the... well... i don't know what side; But it helps if you're British i suppose (or Dutch or German*, evidently).
It's an open world mmo with no set goals, you have to make your own goals.
The people who do pvp in it largely ignore the game world.
The people who trade in this game are happy to call it a trucking simulator.
Explorers do this** for extended periods of time. Which i deem a nightmare.
But hey, who am i to judge.

*Seeing how i am in it mostly for the tourism and engineering (with an occasional side of combat, because hey, you don't overengineer a Fer de Lance to never use it) we have the cliche quota all maxed out.
**I just realised this may be old enough to have the old witch space animation. Well, same difference, i suppose.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I don't think Freelancer will even run on W10, will it?

That game was the best, though.

If I could get Shattered Union to work on Windows 8 after two years of trying, there has to be a way to get Freelancer to work on 10.

It does!

I think... I'm trying to remember if I played it on 8.1 or 10. I think it was 10?

I found a second hand copy of Freelancer around two years ago and I got it to work on my Windows 10 computer. The only problem was that cutscenes didn't play. I didn't even know there were cutscenes until I looked within the game folder.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Svensgaard's last word: Aaaaaaarghhhhhhhh!!!!

Always a joy to hear.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Two minutes? I've taken a break from playing to have a quick smoke sesh and come back to find them still attacking.

I wrote two minutes because it was over a decade ago and I don't remember it that clearly, and I have an aversion to overstating things.
Now that I'm trying to reconstruct that memory in more detail, I think had a toilet break and made a cup of tea and Monty was still at it...
The moral of the story: Civ 4 was an awesome game for its time but had real issues, and anyone who thinks it was better than fully patched and expanded Civ 5 or Civ 6 with Rise and Fall has an inaccurate memory warped by nostalgia.
I still want my sliders back.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Recently got dragged into Fortnite, pretty good for what it is and the fast pace keeps it entertaining while learning.

Still doing EU 4. Still a flawed title with questionable DLC practice and a big learning curve but fun to be had.

I was playing Hearts of Iron 4 for a while but the core mechanics in HOI 4 don't work (they're bugged and devs are ignoring this) so I'll take this opportunity to throw some sludge on them. Especially after they arbitrarily nerfed right-click moving units because reasons.

Civ 6 I play on occasion with Polycast crew but the UI is still pre-beta and it's still not tuned well. The design tries to play pretend too much with different victory conditions and diplomacy while not bothering to make mechanics that actually support the victory conditions and diplomacy. They also make the AI play the pretend game rather than the game dictated by the mechanics in practice, which is part of the reason everyone says the AI sucks (the other part is that making good AI is hard, but they didn't need to make it worse by playing a different game from the player).

Into the breach and FTL by Subset games are both excellent, I still play both of them, and recommend both of them.

Rimworld is nearly to 1.0, but it's been an excellent game for a long time, lots in common with Dwarf Fortress.

Haven't done it as much in the past month, but I've been doing quite a bit of Binding of Isaac over the past year. Delirium is a cheap fight (there are frames you can be hit before stuff appears), but overall it's a great roguelike with a ton of replay value.

The moral of the story: Civ 4 was an awesome game for its time but had real issues, and anyone who thinks it was better than fully patched and expanded Civ 5 or Civ 6 with Rise and Fall has an inaccurate memory warped by nostalgia.

It was and remains better. It has objectively the best UI from a # input and "time to complete a turn" perspective out of any title in the series by a wide margin. You could grab any top SC2 professional and put them on Civ 6 and I'll control more cities faster in Civ 4. Across a game it's a 1.5-2 hour difference between the two, minimum.

Civ 4 hides fewer of its rules (still hid them though, still don't respect any strategy title that does this). Where it really wins out, however, is how often you make a meaningful choice on a per-turn basis (defined as a choice that has a material impact on whether you win or lose). A much greater proportion of inputs in the newer titles are rote. That remains true to a lesser extent even if you were to fix up the sorry excuse for a UI Firaxis tries to pretend it implemented into Civ 6.

Seriously, compare how you can interact with the city screen lists between 4 and 6 and try to tell me 6 is even competitive in this regard.