What Video Games Have You Been Playing XVII: REMAIN INDOORS!! :D

[Chukchi Husky]

Damnit tomorrow I'll just have to play some Vice City in the Windows partition.

A couple of days ago I started playing a modded Vice City.

 

[thecrazyscot]

On our Minecraft server we finally found a Woodland Mansion due to some random portal placement in the Nether.

Spoiler Rising out of the mists :

Spoiler It's huge :

After clearing it out (which was just so much fun), we started securing some of the rooms and built a safehouse. There was a nearby village that we had used as a base of operations for clearing it out, but the land in between was super dense forest. One of my brothers had the idea to do some slash and burn...and it ended up getting a little out of hand.

Spoiler FIRE!!! :

There is now a steadily spreading half-burnt apocalyptic landscape zone around the mansion.

We accidentally set the Mansion on fire, which resulted in a 10 minutes of panicked firefighting since the thing was spreading so quickly, but we managed to save it except for one heavily damaged part of the facade.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

@thecrazyscot ah I see your brother has an excellent playstyle.

 

[Takhisis]

@thecrazyscot ah I see your brother has an excellent playstyle.

One of my brothers had the idea to do some slash and burn...and it ended up getting a little out of hand.

Spoiler FIRE!!!

For posterity. And, just to honour aimee, I think I'll get a flamethrower and/or molotovs in GTA Vice City.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

In the Witcher 3, I keep forgetting to take the ass ears off. It leads to some unintentionally hilarious moments.

Spoiler :

 

[tjs282]

Spent some of the last couple of weeks away from CFC continuing with Far Cry, doing only a couple of missions per session (though this still resulted in some late nights/early mornings!). Still can't remember what difficulty I started this run at, but suspect it was one of the lower levels, because I'm really not seeing the whole "difficulty ramps up insanely once the Trigens start appearing in force" trope. Yes, the melée-units are fast, but they're only dangerous out in the open areas, where they can jump around freely and flank me; indoors, they're pretty dumb, charging recklessly through narrow doorways when (at least the second or third ones should know that) I'm standing just the other side of it, holding an auto-shotgun I was also expecting the stealthed units to be harder opponents, but they still show up on the night-vision, so not really. Only the Fat Boys give me any significant trouble, and then only because they take a lot of damage, while also being apparently equipped with an infinite supply of rockets (the human mercs do at least have to reload from time to time). The 'Rebellion' mission had an irritating glitch though, where defeated enemies would get stuck in fidget- or run-animations instead of keeling over. On one attempt, during the very last section, I wasted nearly all the ammo for 3/4 of my weapons, desperately trying to chop down a charging Fat Boy 'stuck' behind a tree — before realising that he was actually already dead )

Also tried my hand at salvaging @robbus' Civ3 save, uploaded to the 'Interesting screenshots' about a month back: Standard-size fully-inhabited Continents map, Emperor-level, as the Japanese.

Spoiler How that went... :

Unfortunately, I failed to spot an exposed Privateer docked in one of my home-continent's coastal towns, which provoked an unexpected German DoW on the first interturn. During the following couple of turns, I used the forces already on Otto's home-continent (where he'd already long since genocided his 3 neighbouring Civs) to take a couple of his towns, but quickly lost them again (and all my units, including a couple of Armies) to massed Bomber- and Panzer-onslaughts. But although the first 20-odd turns were spent managing the massive instant WW (apparently left over from a recently ended previous war), I did eventually turn it around.

I sold off/ disbanded some useless/ obsolete units and buildings (broke my own rule and built Temples, though, because Otto held a monopoly on the other 4 Lux-resources, and Kyoto had Sistines, making 80-shield Cathedrals seriously good investments for the core and semi-core cities), set the massive existing Worker-force to fixing terrain-improvements (and then build towns up to Pop12), and pushed the Jerk off my continent (capturing Persepolis gave me Pyramids and SunTzu) and into the sea (twice; he was down to 2 one-city islands before I relented), until Otto was finally willing to talk. Made peace, bought a 5th Lux from him (for 3 of mine!) for WLTPDs, then teched up as fast as I could while prebuilding Hoovers. (When I took on the game, the glorious Republic of Japan had only just learned Combustion, but not yet Medicine — whereas Fascist Germany had built ToE, so was likely already researching AtomicTheory + Electronics). That was successful, and so when Otto DoW'd me the second time, my vastly improved industrial-output let me whip his butt, destroying all his landed troops and and eventually also taking one of his larger islands (where the Jerk had previously 'donated' a foothold to me).

But Otto also had MechInfs by that point, and I lost another bunch of Tanks + Infs + Arty trying to secure a second beachhead/enclave on his continent — and consequently also any remaining inclination towards Domination/ Conquest (would probably have required Nukes, and I don't like going that route). It was way too late in the game to go for either of the Culture-VCs, and a Diplo-win was also very unlikely (only 3 Civs left, and the Jerk hated me), so I defaulted to going for Space. Got into the Modern Era myself and took the tech-lead, and a bunch of Modern Wonders: although I missed out on SETI, I got the UN (mainly to ensure that the Jerk could never vote for Otto) and ManhattanProject (just to waste Otto's Wonder-shields), and I'd nearly finished TheInternet (and also learning Rocketry) before losing interest in grinding through the remaining turns, since by that point there was no way I could lose.

Tried Hero Wars (browser game) a couple of days ago, 'played' for a couple of hours or so, but most of that time was spent watching almost entirely randomly-resolved combat-encounters between my team and increasing numbers of opponents (3 waves per section), which was pretty boring, when I was really only interested in (what turned out to be) the bonus puzzle-sections. As it was, the only other real "gameplay" involved was choosing which team-members I unlocked/ upgraded, using whatever limited XP/ loot the game had decided to grant me after the preceding encounter(s) — or I could buy any resources I needed with real money (nope, not gonna). So basically just pay-to-win crap. I won't be going back to it.

Also borrowed wifey's credit card yesterday to (re)buy* about a dozen of my wishlisted games on the GOG summer sale. Thief I–III and Splinter Cell (to name but 4) now await my pleasure at some still-to-be-determined-point in the near (or not) future.

*(I have Thief on CD, and installed it years back, onto the old laptop, but that machine wasn't particularly powerful, and I never got very far with it).

 

[Synobun]

I have been playing a lot of Minecraft with a friend these past couple weeks. My interest is really starting to wane. I last played this game, and with this person, over five years ago. We played Project Ozone 2. So naturally, with the new laptop and being able to run modded Minecraft at a reasonable level, we decide to do Project Ozone 3. But it seems most of the changes come in the form of inconveniencing you. Progression in several of the mods/quest lines is gated to other mods, and one mod in particular has almost zero documentation, yet is required to progress in several other mods. What's worse is that it is universally disliked. It is seen purely as an unfun, grinding necessity. This is not a feature. And honestly, it's really annoyed me.

I'm not good with the machines. I don't understand them. It really highlights how careful I am about exposing how unintelligent I am, because I am simply hopeless with over half of the modpack's content. That is fine because my friend is really good at it and has an intuitive understanding of computers and machinery. But we have progressed past the point of the usefulness of manual labour and basic crafting, so I have to pull my weight by focusing on a mod and its quests. I picked Mystical Agriculture, and that was straightforward, but I have reached not only a gated portion of the mod but I have also reached the part of the mod where it gets incredibly grindy. Making a single ingredient now requires several different crafting processes and over 21k resources, manually. Automating this is potentially possible, but it'd require a machine and some storage for every step of that process. It would double or triple how many machines we have. And, right now, it is hindered by the fact that the machines don't like to use limited durability crystals, and instead wants to make a new crystal after using the previous one only once. This increases resource consumption to an absurd amount that I simply can't fulfill.

So I've just been avoiding logging in for the past couple days because my usefulness is nonexistent and I simply have no desire to just throw myself at an annoyance for hours.

Another inconvenience is that the modpack's performance is, to put it lightly, awful. The machine mods create an incredible amount of tick lag. Our computers don't struggle, but the server does. But it's a beefy server. The issue is the modpack and how poorly optimized it is. At times, there's a 5-10 second delay between actions. Not great when you're holding shift to avoid falling off the edge of a cliff or when fighting mobs or when building or when collecting crops.

Edit: That being said, I've avoided playing games with people for many years now. This is a friend who I used to play games with almost every night for years. I was hesitant, and I did originally say no to his first idea (Terraria), but I ended up saying yes to Minecraft because we can go AFK at any time and do other things while leaving the game open and neither of us care. There's also no voice chat. It's about as low stress as multiplayer can be. That's nice. It's nice to do something with another human being. So that's one good thing about the modpack.

 

[thecrazyscot]

I just played a lovely game of the Vikings, Traders, and Raiders! scenario in Civ 6 to get my Deity achievement. You play as one of 3 Scandinavian warlords, representing Norway, Denmark, or Sweden. You are allied with the other warlords, and you have 60 turns to get the highest score by building up your empire, creating trade routes, and pillaging - oh, the pillaging. All the screenshots are from the end of the scenario, so everything is a bit more built up than you have at the beginning.

You start off with a handful of cities and a Longships and Berserkers. I promptly sent everyone west towards the British Isles to pillage and burn.

Spoiler Norse homeland :

After reaping rich spoils, the cities of Scotland fell, and then Wales, England, and Cornwall as my armies marched southward. No Viking conquest is complete without Normandy, so Rouen was annexed and then defended with walls of pikes against the Frankish knights. The knights were too numerous and strong to make rapid progress, so the Viking host set its eyes on another prize...

Spoiler Viking Britain and Normandy :

Spain!

After sacking the city-state of Asilah (in Morocco) to establish a base of operations, the rampaging Berserkers pillaged and slaughtered their way up from the southern coast of Spain, bringing about the end of the Caliphate and ushering in a glorious new era of Viking rule. The Andalusian heavy knights proved a staunch foe, but willing conscripts were readily available to fight their previous masters by forming pike battalions.

Spoiler Viking Andalusia! :

Meanwhile, Iceland was settled...

Spoiler Iceland :

...and an expeditionary fleet rampaged around Italy and sunk multiple Byzantine fleets...

Spoiler Oh hello Venice :

...and then the Age of the Viking passed into legend.

Spoiler Well golly that's a lot of points :

This was a really fun challenge, as I have never conquered al-Andalus before in this scenario, always focusing more on the closer prizes in Britain and France. I think it's possible to conquer France as well as I had plenty of gold to purchase additional armies in Britain, but I didn't attempt that this time. I don't know if the scenario is long enough to sack Italy, as you don't get any additional embarked movement, but I suppose you could try to blitz through France to get there.

I also somewhat belatedly realized that you could "slingshot" Berserkers as they get 2 extra movement when starting in enemy territory, so you could hop from enemy-controlled water and rapidly make your way into the Mediterranean, but you will need to protect them with ships otherwise they will get eviscerated by the cities and archers while embarked. It might be possible to conquer Tunisia and Italy that way, but I'm pretty sure the only way to get to the Byzantines is if you play the Swedes or Denmark and conquer Russia.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I was just reading the notes on Brands for Path of Exile: Harvest. They're adding a cold-damage Brand and a do-it-yourself Brand that uses a spell that you link to it. There'll also be a Support Skill for Brands that shortens the duration but quickens the activation speed. I haven't played a Brand-caster in a while, I may give it some thought.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Ah, the perils of trying to search for video game mods.

Spoiler :

I swear after the first few entries it just threw its hands up and went "I don't understand what you're looking for!"

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I forgot that rugs were flammable.

 

[Ajidica]

I forgot that rugs were flammable.

At this point in The Sims, haven't you learned everything is flammable?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

At this point in The Sims, haven't you learned everything is flammable?

Mrs. Crumplebottom isn't flammable.

 

[Zkribbler]

Flowscape isn't a game but rather is a toy, in which you can render landscapes, trees, animals and buildings.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Well, as I mentioned upthread, I have been playing a wee bit o' Civ6. I have a couple of games under my belt (unless you count my previous drunken sprees with the game on my friend's computer when it first came out) and I am really struggling with it. Rather than just beat the crap out of everyone on Deity and winning like the last time I played (I don't remember how I did that, but in my defense I was clouded, shall we say), this time I am playing on Settler and trying to learn the mechanics...

The first thing I noticed is that you can build a wide empire again, there is no stupid happiness penalty. In fact, happiness doesn't seem to matter at all. Same with unhealthiness. I like big empires as it feels like you are really accomplishing something. Districts and policies are a nice touch, though I don't really understand them just yet. They do seem to cut into farmland though. Farms don't seem to matter all that much, and neither do mines, as far as I can tell, but I could be wrong. So far, I haven't seen my production increase from building extra mines, or my city growing faster because I have extra food. This may be due to the fact that I don't know the mechanics of the game very well, and I am comparing it to Civ4.

I guess the game is OK, and since it is free I will probably play more of it, but I do have some criticisms:

1. It is very hard to see what territory is yours in some cases. The map colours are all yellow and I am currently paying Russia, whose color is yellow. Arrrgh!
2. Units are hard to see, as they sort of blend into the background.
3. If you build a big army, there is nowhere to put it, and if you have your army all scattered around, you will never find the units again. (See #2)
4. The UI isn't bad, but is lacking in some areas. (see #5)
5. I miss BUG. It is very hard to find information (so far as I can see). I can't even tell if I am doing well, or if I am at the bottom of the heap.
6. 1 UPT. I hate slider puzzles, and that is what the game feels like when shuffling units around.

I guess maybe my criticisms will be mollified somewhat as I play more games and learn the mechanics better, but I will never get used to 1 UPT. War is an absolute slog with it (and the warmonger penalty is ridiculous), and I miss the strategy of stack composition, splitting and fanning out my units for best effect, etc.

I don't hate the game like I hate Civ5, but it doesn't really wow me either. I will play some more. Maybe I'll get the "one more turn..." feeling if I play enough.

 

[H4run]

1. It is very hard to see what territory is yours in some cases. The map colours are all yellow and I am currently paying Russia, whose color is yellow. Arrrgh!
2. Units are hard to see, as they sort of blend into the background.
3. If you build a big army, there is nowhere to put it, and if you have your army all scattered around, you will never find the units again. (See #2)
4. The UI isn't bad, but is lacking in some areas. (see #5)
5. I miss BUG. It is very hard to find information (so far as I can see). I can't even tell if I am doing well, or if I am at the bottom of the heap.
6. 1 UPT. I hate slider puzzles, and that is what the game feels like when shuffling units around.

All of these are crucial, especially point 2, 3 and 5. And I cringe in pain when I read point 2 and 3.

 

[PhroX]

I was just reading the notes on Brands for Path of Exile: Harvest. They're adding a cold-damage Brand and a do-it-yourself Brand that uses a spell that you link to it. There'll also be a Support Skill for Brands that shortens the duration but quickens the activation speed. I haven't played a Brand-caster in a while, I may give it some thought.

I'm kinda worried the changes are going make brands lose much of their unique playstyle, with them ending up much closer to totems - i.e. you have to recast them on every pack of enemies. I know something needed to be changed - Archmage Stormbrand was really dumb last league - but my initial impression of this is that they've gone to far in changing how it will play, as opposed to simply changing how strong brands are. I guess we'll see for sure in a couple of weeks.

Been playing quite a bit of Monster Train recently. It's a deckbuilding roguelite in the vein of Slay the Spire, and if you like the latter (which I really do), you'll probably like the former, but it has enough new ideas to feel like a fresh game and not just a rip-off.

 

[Sommerswerd]

1. It is very hard to see what territory is yours in some cases. The map colours are all yellow and I am currently paying Russia, whose color is yellow. Arrrgh!
2. Units are hard to see, as they sort of blend into the background.
3. If you build a big army, there is nowhere to put it, and if you have your army all scattered around, you will never find the units again. (See #2)
4. The UI isn't bad, but is lacking in some areas. (see #5)
5. I miss BUG. It is very hard to find information (so far as I can see). I can't even tell if I am doing well, or if I am at the bottom of the heap.
6. 1 UPT. I hate slider puzzles, and that is what the game feels like when shuffling units around.

I don't understand your point #1, but the rest I agree with. 1UPT is

I'll add that its simultaneously cool, but annoying that you can't name units until they've been promoted twice. I'd rather they change the unit art or something for promotions. And yes, the units need to be bigger or something. They're too hard to see. Nowhere near as bad as Civ 5, but still... too small. Overall, the game is a big improvement on Civ 5, but not as good as Civ 4.

Are you playing "Gathering Storm" or just vanilla?

 

[Farm Boy]

So I wasn't the only idiot missing a menu that would actually show where all my murdergoblins are roaming about? Whew.

1UPT blows. Tedious. It's just tedious. The city building is too. Everything is about adjacency. So little triangles of districts with damns sticking off their rear, triangles of farms. Cities packed in tight to share infrastructures but also wide as possible. It's making a pretty heavy handed point about intentionally murdering the hell out of your digiplanet. You're sort of trying to pave the whole thing over as fast as possible.

 

[Synobun]

EA is ending their Origin-exclusivity for some of their titles and finally adding them to Steam.

https://www.ea.com/news/ea-games-come-to-steam

Re: Civ 6, I also find the art colouring difficult to parse. It's really not intuitive at all. And I despise the district system. I first experienced it in Endless Legend years and years and years ago, suffered through it for half an hour, and have never picked that game up again since. I think I put in 40ish hours into Civ 6 before giving up, and it's now sat in my library for a couple years. Perhaps I should try it again. Maybe it looks better when the settings aren't set as low as they go.