What videogames have you been playing? version 1.22: What's with that plural?

[Zardnaar]

I'm not sure as I haven't played Pharaoh, though it's also on my GOG backlog.

I played another 60 or so turns, until turn 160 (out of 300), and it's both challenging and somewhat forgiving. We did have a famine caused in part by Set, the god of deserts, expanding his realm, but also in part due to not having kept an adequate reserve. But the game seems to not want you to outright lose. Failing a challenge, even miserably, as I did when trying to resist the Scorpion Pharoah's efforts to unite Egypt, may leave you weaker, but the game didn't let me just be conquered by another tribe; you are set up as Memphis, and destined to be an important city.

And it's set up so the challenges are what gives you victory points, and on my first playthrough they are challenging (I've completed one out of 3 or 4 so far). But the gods rarely demand anything directly from you, beyond piety. Fail to build adequate cemeteries and temples, and the odds of bad events are increased, and you can't ask for favors from the gods, but I don't think the gods have outright demanded anything in exchange for avoiding retribution.

---------

I've decided to start a Crusader Kings II game, as Khalid ibn Barmak, Emir of Mosul. The long-term goal of the game is to subvert history and bring about the rise of a neo-Neo-Assyrian Empire, which narrowly won out over Elam in my bring-back-an-ancient-empire plan. But that's not going to start until I'm 1-2 generations in. Khalid was a key early supported of the Abbasids when they overthrew the Umayyads, so I'm being a good vassal to Caliph al-Mansur. Everyone else... not necessarily.

The Caliph decided it would be a good idea to allow himself to revoke titles, but it turns out that's just been a good way to get people to resist him with arms. He fought a four-year conflict from 771 to 775 against the Emir of Damascus, whom he'd tried to revoke a title from, as well as against the Bavandids on the south shore of the Caspian, who both in-game and historically were Zoroastrian vassals of the Caliphate at that point in time (converting to Islam about a century later). Perhaps it's a good example of why the Caliphate let them be Zoroastrian vassals; in-game the Caliph tried to revoke a title, and they rebelled.

After that war, the Caliph went on a housekeeping spree in 775, revoking more titles. In actual history, my character fell out of favor with Caliph al-Mansur in 775, but in-game it was my character's son, Yahya, who fell out of favor, with all of his emirates being revoked, though two sheikhdoms not yet being revoked. He did not fight back, despite having been in a faction seeking independence. But in 776, al-Mansur attempted to revoke some land from the Emir of Oman and Bahrein. This was a poor decision, as it lead to a war not just with eastern Arabia, but also with the western part of Arabia including Mecca and Medina, as well as Christian and yet more Zoroastrian vassals by the Caspian Sea. And this time the rebels have nearly as many troops as al-Mansur.

In both of those major rebellions, I've been invited to join, but have stayed loyal. It's one thing to support a revolution when you're 40, it's another when you're 70 and it would be a rebellion against the first people you helped put in power. Instead, I've been consolidating power locally. Recently I asked the Caliph for more land, since the other vassals seem so disloyal; I'm one of 4 vassals, out of 37, who have a positive opinion of al-Mansur, and that count of 37 doesn't count those in rebellion. He replied, "You are a bedrock of loyalty, a cornerstone of the realm! Truly, there is support for your claim in The Koran. I know that The Greatest will reward you in time!". So yeah, we get along pretty well.

And the funny thing in CKII terms is that being a super-loyal vassal is proving to be a good idea so far. When I declared war on the Sheikh of Samarra, another vassal, the Caliph instead gave me the whole Emirate of Samarra about two days later, before a sword could be unsheathed. Then after the first round of rebellions he gave me Kirkuk as a vassal just to be nice (and probably because the sheikh of Kirkuk didn't like him). Usually I'm all about the scheming in CKII; I'm not sure I've ever played Mr. Loyal and Helpful Vassal so reliably, especially as a moderately powerful vassal, but it's good to see that the AI recognizes a loyal vassal when it sees one.

The only fly in the ointment is that my son is extremely angry with the Caliph, and he's going to get my lands some day, probably not too far in the future. But that can be sorted out later.

CK2 appreciation always respectable.

Often fun playing as Duke let the king deal with the BS you can easily be the real power.

 

[Sambers]

Now I'm really hooked on Farming Simulator 22. I didn't think that simulators could be so interesting.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Baldur's Gate 3. I'm playing a Human Noble Wizard, which is a little bit of a departure for me. I almost always play Fighters. I accidentally selected the Abjurer subclass, but the extra shields aren't bad. I may respec later, we'll see. I'm spending most of my time with Lae'zel, Shadowheart and Astarion, your classic Wizard-Fighter-Cleric-Rogue quartet. I'm finding some dialogue that's dependent on who you have in your party, so perhaps a second run-through would reveal different information or plot options. Shadowheart in particular seems to have played a large role so far, which makes me I wonder (a) how things would've gone so far if I hadn't been bringing them with me all the time, and (b) what the other companions have in store for me later. About 10 hours in, I'm 3rd level and helping the Druids & Tieflings deal with the Goblins.

Some early observations and tips (no plot or character spoilers):

Spoiler :

The character creation screen doesn't lead you through the steps, one-by-one. Make sure you've examined all your options before moving on. Like I say, I accidentally selected Abjurer as my subclass - that must be the default, just because it starts with A - and I didn't even realize I'd missed a step. I think you can respec later, but I don't know when, where or how.

You can get past a lot of encounters and earn a lot of Experience Points by talking, even to creatures you would think are "monsters" that you're supposed to fight. The encounters are not scaled to your level for combat, so if you go around starting fights with everything, you're just going to die a lot. I bumped into 3 Ogres at 2nd Level, for example, and I was like, wtf? But I just bluffed my way past them and got the f out of there.

One of the pop-up tips at the beginning tells you that L-Alt will highlight containers and bodies you can loot, but it doesn't highlight everything you can loot. You still have to use the ol' Mk. I Eyeball to spot chests, barrels, crates and baskets for yourself. And there are a lot. In particular, you can pick up a lot of Camp Supplies for free.

Shift-LMB to select a whole bunch of things from your inventory at once, such as when sending junk to your camp to sell later. The first few hours, I think I wasted 15 or 20 minutes managing my items, one-by-one.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Baldur's Gate 3. I'm playing a Human Noble Wizard, which is a little bit of a departure for me. I almost always play Fighters. I accidentally selected the Abjurer subclass, but the extra shields aren't bad. I may respec later, we'll see. I'm spending most of my time with Lae'zel, Shadowheart and Astarion, your classic Wizard-Fighter-Cleric-Rogue quartet. I'm finding some dialogue that's dependent on who you have in your party, so perhaps a second run-through would reveal different information or plot options. Shadowheart in particular seems to have played a large role so far, which makes me I wonder (a) how things would've gone so far if I hadn't been bringing them with me all the time, and (b) what the other companions have in store for me later. About 10 hours in, I'm 3rd level and helping the Druids & Tieflings deal with the Goblins.

Some early observations and tips (no plot or character spoilers):

Spoiler :

The character creation screen doesn't lead you through the steps, one-by-one. Make sure you've examined all your options before moving on. Like I say, I accidentally selected Abjurer as my subclass - that must be the default, just because it starts with A - and I didn't even realize I'd missed a step. I think you can respec later, but I don't know when, where or how.

You can get past a lot of encounters and earn a lot of Experience Points by talking, even to creatures you would think are "monsters" that you're supposed to fight. The encounters are not scaled to your level for combat, so if you go around starting fights with everything, you're just going to die a lot. I bumped into 3 Ogres at 2nd Level, for example, and I was like, wtf? But I just bluffed my way past them and got the f out of there.

One of the pop-up tips at the beginning tells you that L-Alt will highlight containers and bodies you can loot, but it doesn't highlight everything you can loot. You still have to use the ol' Mk. I Eyeball to spot chests, barrels, crates and baskets for yourself. And there are a lot. In particular, you can pick up a lot of Camp Supplies for free.

Shift-LMB to select a whole bunch of things from your inventory at once, such as when sending junk to your camp to sell later. The first few hours, I think I wasted 15 or 20 minutes managing my items, one-by-one.

I can't make my mind up. I've escaped from the Nautiloid half a dozen times and restarted each time.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I can't make my mind up. I've escaped from the Nautiloid half a dozen times and restarted each time.

*shoves @AmazonQueen 's current character through the door and locks the door*

There. You're playing that one.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Baldur's gate 3. Was missing a proper rpg.

 

[Synobun]

All the hype surrounding BG3 is making me reconsider my "no buying games at full release price" position.

In the meantime, I've been playing Hades, Frostpunk, and a little bit of Detroit: Become Human.

Hades is very good, and was once a game that was persona non grata for me. It was a game I was interested in but never played, and then when I was finally introduced to it, it was with my ex, and so I associated it with her from that point on. I've been reclaiming things like that for the past couple months. It's fun. I like it a lot. It is, however, really stressful to play alone, I find, and I can only do one or two runs every couple/few days. Because of that, I think I'm hitting my skill ceiling already since I can't grind at it, which is unfortunate because I have not reached the "end" yet and there's still higher difficulty things to best.

Frostpunk is a lot of fun and I'm grinding the achievements. That being said, I would find this game utterly miserable to play if I was trying to do so legitimately. It becomes a tolerable experience with a resource modifier hack, but even then it happens that I miserably lose because of poor AI pathing or not doing things in a certain, optimized order. For example, in survivor mode, you have 12 hours to put a sick person in treatment, but people treat hunger as more important than health. It can also take them 12 hours just to traverse the map (somehow). So depending on where the sick person is, the pathing it assigns them to get fed and then go to the infirmary can be 20+ hours. Which inevitably results in their death.

Detroit: Become Human was alright for what little I played. It was a recommendation from my ex, and then she mentioned that she wanted to watch me play it, so it's on standby for now until either that happens or I get tired of waiting. I only did the first mission. It seems to be more serious about "your choices have consequences" than other games in the genre (especially Telltale's). I already found, however, that often the available options don't include what I would actually do in that situation, and sometimes all the choices are things I feel would be bad decisions to make. In that sense, it feels a little railroad-y.

 

[Quintillus]

Emir Khalid died at the age of 77, a noble man in multiple sense of the word. A bit decadent, perhaps, but he had loyally served the Abbasid Caliph while making Mosul a respectable power within the realm.

His heir wound up being his grandson, Fezl, who would rule for 11 turbulent years, starting at the age of 16. Nearly right away, the Emir of Jazira declared war, having not been subjugated by Khalid. Khalid's plans had been foiled when he ran out of money, and his mercenaries switched sides. The Emir of Jazira remembered this, and the war would be costly for Fezl, who would lose an eye in combat, not to mention much of his fortune and many troops. The costs of the war weighed on him, and the anger of his subjects who lost their loved ones weighed on him mentally.

But that wasn't all. At some point during the campaign, he also caught rabies. This is not normally a curable disease, but he let his court physician try his most experimental remedies, and miraculously recovered, albeit becoming a bit of a lunatic afterwards.

A pox was on his house, however, namely the great pox. Still trusting to exotic treatments, he lost a hand in an effort to expunge the pox from his body, which unlike the rabies treatment, did not work.

So you have a depressed lunatic with one hand and one eye, who'd become increasingly wrothful over the years - not necessarily the best ruler in the realm. It was at this point that he was approached by some devil-worshippers, who proposed that it was Iblis, not Allah, who had saved him from rabies, and his continued ill fortune was due to his failure to recognize that. The logic of this made sense to him, and soon he was a member of the secret cult of Lucifer's Own.

Iblis did not deliver any more miracles, however. When a vassal rebelled, Fezl led the troops bravely, but misfortune befell him again, and he lost his other eye. Now blind, he continued to insist on leading his troops personally, but met his fate at the age of 27, half a dozen years later than had been expected when he caught rabies.

His epitaph:

Emir Fezl is with the Houris in Paradise at age 27. He died of Great Pox. A disturbed person, Fezl was known throughout his lands as a raving madman. Many are cautiously rejoicing at the news of his death.

He must have gotten away with his devil-worshipping ways to wind up in Paradise, perhaps losing his second eye convinced him Iblis was not doing him any favors.

Now the Barmakid Satrapy passes to a 7-year old orphan, whose mother was executed by his father after she attempted to poison his half-brother's tea. We'll see how he navigates the late 700s.

 

[Synobun]

But that wasn't all. At some point during the campaign, he also caught rabies. This is not normally a curable disease, but he let his court physician try his most experimental remedies, and miraculously recovered, albeit becoming a bit of a lunatic afterwards.

I don't remember this event in the game. Is it from one of the later DLCs?

 

[Quintillus]

I don't remember this event in the game. Is it from one of the later DLCs?

Probably from The Reaper's Due. I don't recall having seen rabies, or it being cured, previously. But it added a lot of diseases, as well as the court physician role.

Now it is April 12, 803. Fezlun Barmakid had a surprisingly normal childhood, well, normal considering how it had looked to be as a 7-year-old orphan. Only one of his uncles plotted to kill him, and the spymaster discovered the plot before it was attempted. Instead, he spent his days learning of the world from a gregarious Turkish man, who would eventually become his third regent. His councilors ran the country well, there was peace, and shortly before he ascended to the throne, his aides secured numerous betrothals, with the aim of securing the realm. Among these was Fezlun's own betrothal to the youngest daughter of the Caliph.

The gregarious Turk proved to be ambitious and became a rival once Fezlun came of age, but overall the realm was in good shape, with an overflowing treasury, years of peace, and generally happy vassals. Fezlun himself was prepared to be a loyal vassal of the Caliph.

But the Caliph, al-Mahdi I, lasted less than 18 months after Fezlun came of age. On April 4th, the Caliph's middle and most powerful son died. This made said son's son the most powerful descendent of the Caliph, and thus technically first in line. So when the Caliph died 8 days later, not yet having readjusted the balance of power, al-Mahdi II became the youngest Caliph in history at 1 year, 7 months, and 7 days (the youngest I could find in actual history was an 11-year-old Fatimid caliph, followed by a 13-year-old Abbasid caliph).

This should be an interesting time. There's already a sizeable faction advocating for al-Mansur's youngest son to take over. Will it still make sense to be loyal to a 1-year-old?

 

[Sarin]

Baldur's Gate 3. I'm playing a Human Noble Wizard, which is a little bit of a departure for me. I almost always play Fighters. I accidentally selected the Abjurer subclass, but the extra shields aren't bad. I may respec later, we'll see. I'm spending most of my time with Lae'zel, Shadowheart and Astarion, your classic Wizard-Fighter-Cleric-Rogue quartet. I'm finding some dialogue that's dependent on who you have in your party, so perhaps a second run-through would reveal different information or plot options. Shadowheart in particular seems to have played a large role so far, which makes me I wonder (a) how things would've gone so far if I hadn't been bringing them with me all the time, and (b) what the other companions have in store for me later. About 10 hours in, I'm 3rd level and helping the Druids & Tieflings deal with the Goblins.

Some early observations and tips (no plot or character spoilers):

Spoiler :

The character creation screen doesn't lead you through the steps, one-by-one. Make sure you've examined all your options before moving on. Like I say, I accidentally selected Abjurer as my subclass - that must be the default, just because it starts with A - and I didn't even realize I'd missed a step. I think you can respec later, but I don't know when, where or how.

You can get past a lot of encounters and earn a lot of Experience Points by talking, even to creatures you would think are "monsters" that you're supposed to fight. The encounters are not scaled to your level for combat, so if you go around starting fights with everything, you're just going to die a lot. I bumped into 3 Ogres at 2nd Level, for example, and I was like, wtf? But I just bluffed my way past them and got the f out of there.

One of the pop-up tips at the beginning tells you that L-Alt will highlight containers and bodies you can loot, but it doesn't highlight everything you can loot. You still have to use the ol' Mk. I Eyeball to spot chests, barrels, crates and baskets for yourself. And there are a lot. In particular, you can pick up a lot of Camp Supplies for free.

Shift-LMB to select a whole bunch of things from your inventory at once, such as when sending junk to your camp to sell later. The first few hours, I think I wasted 15 or 20 minutes managing my items, one-by-one.

My usual MO is to let games lie till they're patched and DLCs are out...but BG3 is making me reconsider.

Is it possible to import character from BG2?

 

[AmazonQueen]

My usual MO is to let games lie till they're patched and DLCs are out...but BG3 is making me reconsider.

Is it possible to import character from BG2?

Pretty certain thats not possible. The excuse being its a separate story many years later. In a universe where several races have century long lifespans.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

My usual MO is to let games lie till they're patched and DLCs are out...but BG3 is making me reconsider.

Is it possible to import character from BG2?

I would neither advise against nor in favour of buying it yet since I have not even reached the main part of the game where you play in a huge map but the preliminary part which happens in a smaller map 'the wildeness'.

Till now it looks pretty nice. It has all the stuff of classical isometric rpgs but better graphics.

 

[Akka]

My usual MO is to let games lie till they're patched and DLCs are out...but BG3 is making me reconsider.

Is it possible to import character from BG2?

It wouldn't make any sense, considering the endings of the Bhaalspawn saga.

 

[Smellincoffee]

After a month or so of Stardew Obsession, I booted up The Sims 4 last night, which I've finally got working again after the next-to-last patch broke some of my mods. I decided to play a version of the Goth family from TS1, available on the gallery, and have been focusing on Cassandra who is now in college. I decided to let her move in university housing, which I've never done before and doubt I will do again. She's in a house, but I can't have a full refrigerator so she can cook properly? Nonsensical.

 

[Kyriakos]

If you don't mind the worst lisp ever, this is a good summary of his career:

But I've only played some of the Bullfrog games: Populous II, Powermonger and Theme Park.

Was it a coincidence that Larry Laffer looks like him?

 

[EgonSpengler]

Baldur's Gate 3.
~14 hours in. Level 4. The Wilderness.

I discovered another little trick last night. Not a plot or character spoiler.

Spoiler :

You can access the Fast Travel portals from anywhere. You don't need to be standing at one of them. I couldn't find a way out of the Goblin Camp that didn't result in my death, so I just went ahead and tried one of the portals on my map, et voila. It feels like cheating a little bit, so I'll try to use it sparingly.

If I remember my D&D correctly, Level 5 is a big power-jump for spellcasters, earning them access to Level 3 spells. So my Wizard should be able to cast things like Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Dispel Magic, if he can find the scrolls to learn them.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Now I'm really hooked on Farming Simulator 22. I didn't think that simulators could be so interesting.

I've enjoyed Farming Sim 2019. Do you find the seasons challenging to work with?

In Stardew Valley, I'm about to finish year 3 and am focusing on getting iron and coal (for bombs) and jade and stone (for staircases). I'm trying to get to level 100 of the Skull Caverns. My current plan is to hoard bombs and staircases and then make an all-out balls-to-the-wall effort on a good luck day.

 

[EvaDK]

My thoughts on Diablo 4 with a +80lvl character and +40lvl seasonal character:

+ tried 5-6 different paragon boards builds by now (Sorceress) and the system is still brilliant. Why you can't reset the boards with a single button is still a minor minus, which I have no idea why the devs can't implement. I've worked as a programmer and this is ridiculous; there's no excuse for this.

+ crafting and customizing your own legendary items is also still a great idea. But the mechanic and your stash desperately needs a better sort and search functionality, to which I refer to my previous opinion above.

- season 1 is just very disappointing; way too slow to accumulate experience and you are doing 95% of the same crap that you already did with your non-seasonal character. There's a new kind of gem and some new aspects added in this season; that's it. No new mechanics and a lot of nerfs and confusing statements made from the devs - strongly suggesting that this season is simply a testbed for them to iron out more bugs are 'test' things.

- there's still no meaningful endgame in D4. I hear the same sentiment from practically everyone invested in the game; when you reach lvl 65-70ish, the game just slows way down and you run out of new paths and new things to do. It all becomes about repeating the same things (select Nightmare Dungeons and Hellfire Tides) over and over and over, to get the last paragon points.

So, for new players I maintain my 7/10, but for experienced players with +100 hours into the endgame and spread over several classes, I can't give D4 more than 5/10.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Baldur's Gate 3.
~14 hours in. Level 4. The Wilderness.

I discovered another little trick last night. Not a plot or character spoiler.

Spoiler :

You can access the Fast Travel portals from anywhere. You don't need to be standing at one of them. I couldn't find a way out of the Goblin Camp that didn't result in my death, so I just went ahead and tried one of the portals on my map, et voila. It feels like cheating a little bit, so I'll try to use it sparingly.

If I remember my D&D correctly, Level 5 is a big power-jump for spellcasters, earning them access to Level 3 spells. So my Wizard should be able to cast things like Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Dispel Magic, if he can find the scrolls to learn them.

I am still going around the wilderness which seems to not end ever, the goblin camp, the underworld, etc... with the damn worm in my head nobody has a pair of tweezers to extract it. It is getting a big exasperating. I want to reach the main map with the baldur's gate city once for all. I think they made this first part too long.