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

[Smellincoffee]

Oh great! Was there any other way to build cities, or was every civ confined to a single-city challenge?

Settlers were disabled for every civ, but they (or a village directly joining) could still be found via goodyhuts. I like doing this from time to time because it forces me to rely more on colonies. I always play it on pangea, though. I think I need to modify this one to allow for 16 civs on the same map to see how that changes things.


More recently I explored the latest Sims 4 pack, "Growing Together" or some such. I'm enjoying it for the most part, though it's added to the popup spam that's been an issue with this game since the beginning, even worse than Sims 2 because there are pop ups from different parts of the screen.

 

[Quintillus]

I have taken Attila: Total War off of my Steam backlog, and am giving it a run as the Western Roman Empire. Wow, this is much more difficult than Rome II: Total War! All these barbarians waltzing across our borders, making a mess of things in Dalmatia, Pannonia, Gaul, and Britain, while the Eastern Roman Emperor says we're on our own (to be fair, the Alans have taken up camp just outside of Constantinople). Not to mention a near-continual threat of internal strife. Do we invest in bread so the masses always have adequate rations? Circuses so they are entertained? The military so our borders are defended? Houses of worship to save our citizens' immortal souls? There is not enough money to invest in more than one of the above adequately!

At first I focused on bread, but it quickly became apparent more military investment was needed. I lost 13 of the first 14 battles, including a manually-controlled field battle that we had a good shot of winning, but instead resulted in an early demise for the historically competent general Stilicho. In Rome II, I would typically win 13 of 14! Now I've called up legions from all over, with only token forces in Mauretania and Africa to prevent civil unrest not being sent to the front lines - which themselves are reduced with most of Dalmatia and Pannonia being lost, Gaul being partially devastated, and Britain hanging in the balance as the Picts and Hibernians invade, Jutes having already been repulsed.

It would be all of Pannonia, but for the help of a new people on our frontier, the Huns, in defeating a rebellion. The barbarians claims these Huns are no longer-term friends, however...

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I've also been revisiting Railroad Tycoon III, particularly trying out a new-to-me community-built Ukraine 1865 scenario. I'm a bit rusty on my industrializing, but it's a well-built and challenging scenario, focusing on a period of extensive modernization and industrialization. It also does a good job of illustrating why much of Ukraine's industry is in the east - that's where most of the iron and coal is.

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Based on the title of this thread, it sounds like I should be playing some version 1.22 of Civilization III: Conquests... maybe the latest Game of the Month.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Later, I got into a fight with a moose.

I need an explanation for that. Moose don't fight... they maul and then lose interest and walk off. It's completely one sided... unless something changed

Spoiler :

Also... that gif!! bwahahahahahah

 

[EgonSpengler]

I need an explanation for that. Moose don't fight... they maul and then lose interest and walk off. It's completely one sided... unless something changed

Yeah, he should'a made sure I was dead. Last mistake he ever made. Later I caught up with his cousin, too. Let 'em all know whose [flyin'] mountain this is.

Spoiler :

 

[Sommerswerd]

The Long Dark

I died. Day 25 I think. It was in Milton of all places ... I know, what a noob

So at this point I'd explored all the closed structures, built up a good stockpile, with all kinds of hides, and even started mapping the region for fun... as planned, still looking for a rifle, I headed for the falls Bridge at the northeastern end of the map, and collected a ton of cattail stalks and berries on the way. Of course the bear is there patrolling the bridge. I find that if he is on the far end and you have a rifle, its a relatively easy task to kill him, just snipe him and wait in a car for him to die. But this time I had no rifle, and also he was on the close end of the bridge, hiding behind that first car on the bridge when I arrived (Ninja-Bear ) so he almost got me right then, but I ducked inside the other side of the car. I though I saw him walk away, however, when I tried to get out, he pounced me almost immediately (Ninja-Bear again! ). So I got mauled within an inch of my life and had to retreat back to Gray Mothers to heal up.

Once I'd slept off the mauling for a day, I decided against going back to Fall bridge and decided to explore the "safer" Milton basin, which is almost like its own separate region, because you have to rappel down 2 long ropes to get down there. I stupidly only brought 1 cup of coffee with me, despite having a dozen cups brewed in the fridge and that was what ended up costing me the game in the end, because after spending 2 days fulling looting and foraging the basin, (and finding a distress pistol in the crashed truck , but still no rifle )all in beautiful weather the whole time, I of course got caught in a blizzard that rolled in right as I was trying to leave and I got trapped on a ledge, too fatigued to finish climbing out, and unable to build a fire because of the winds. So I tried to sleep a bit to recover a little strength, but I froze to death on the ledge. Game Over

So I decided to get right back in the saddle and start over right away... as I've mentioned before, TLD is like that. Losing isn't as demoralizing as in other games. This time, full shamed by @EgonSpengler 's tough-guy random map start, I decided to put on my big boy pants and go Co-rando myself. I rolled Broken Railroad (you're right Egon that it sucks that they now announce the region as soon as you spawn, because it completely spoiled the suprise of my spawning location. It would have taken me a little bit to figure out where I was without them telling me. In any case, I got jumped by 3 wolves within 30 seconds of spawning and barely made it to the Maintenance shed with my life. Then I spent the next two days bumbling around the maintenance shed in the dark, too weak to leave (the yard outside the shed is swarming with wolves) desperately trying to heal and not starve and nearly freezing multiple times as the heat in there is very poor. I've stabilized a bit finally, found food by breaking open crates, and I think I may actually be able to make a game out of it .

As an aside, the Maintenace Shed has yeilded enough materials to fix a transmitter, so I can add that to my early to do list

 

[EgonSpengler]

The Long Dark

I of course got caught in a blizzard that rolled in right as I was trying to leave and I got trapped on a ledge, too fatigued to finish climbing out, and unable to build a fire because of the winds. So I tried to sleep a bit to recover a little strength, but I froze to death on the ledge. Game Over

Emergency Stim.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Emergency Stim.

At 25 days in I had found no stimpack and no Go-juice! Not even at the gas station , (If I was a Starcraft 2 Space-Marine I would have been screwed ) but hilariously, I'd found 5 cans of coffee and brewed them all to have them ready for each mornings prep at Gray Mother's. Coffee first thing in the morning really allows you to maximize the day by delaying fatigue until you actually get to wherever you are going for the day first.

But yes... stimpack has saved my life too many times to count when I had to get up a rope in a pinch. Coffee works pretty good too though, you just have to remember to carry some when you are going climbing. I don't usually carry around coffee unless I am planning to climb. My standard medkit is 6 pain meds, 1 bottle of antiseptic, 2 bandages, 6 antibiotics 1 go juice and 1 stimpack, but I hadn't found the later 2 yet. They really did scramble the gear locations around alot. In my current game I've already found 2 polaroids and a key (which reveal mini-missions/cache locations) and enough gear to activate a transponder. In my prior game I was 25 days in and hadn't found any polaroids (I actually finally found one on the way to Falls bridge in the car halfway to the bridge a few days before dying).

Finding a polaroid or key or other goodies behind a car visor is really cool as they actually show it stuck up there for you to grab it. Its an exciting visual ... then you get a map reveal like in story mode (minus the "Law and Order"'ish musical effect).

Now that I'm healthy again I will finish up setting up the Maintenance shed as a fallback position to craft arrowheads/tools later, (no hammer or hacksaw in the Maintenance Shed of course, so I can't use forge yet ) the I guess I will set out for the Hunting Lodge. This is going to be tricky with no weapons, since there is a bear at the base of the trail up the hill and a pack of wolves guarding the path up to the lodge, but I found a rope in the Maintenance Shed, so at least if I make it to the top, I will be able to rappel down rather than having to face the wolves again to come back down the hill. With any Luck I might find a custom rifle in the lodge. The alternative is to turn around and head back for Mystery Lake, but that means crossing... you know where, so eff that for now, I'm not ready to go there.

 

[Spidernova]

I've been trying and failing to get some guilty gear strive matches, these servers are completely unusable right now.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The alternative is to turn around and head back for Mystery Lake, but that means crossing... you know where, so eff that for now, I'm not ready to go there.

Forlorn Muskeg is nbd if you're just heading straight across. There's another alternative from Broken Railroad, if you're feeling intrepid, but I don't recommend it until you have more gear: Forsaken Airfield.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Forlorn Muskeg is nbd if you're just heading straight across. There's another alternative from Broken Railroad, if you're feeling intrepid, but I don't recommend it until you have more gear: Forsaken Airfield.

That was another reason I was actually happy to have rolled Broken Railroad. I was already aware that it would give me an opportunity to discover and explore the new zone. I wonder if the next story mode will take place there. I'm not sure how long I will be staying in Broken Railroad before I set out for it, but I definitely would rather go there first than head back to Mystery Lake.

 

[EgonSpengler]

That was another reason I was actually happy to have rolled Broken Railroad. I was already aware that it would give me an opportunity to discover and explore the new zone. I wonder if the next story mode will take place there. I'm not sure how long I will be staying in Broken Railroad before I set out for it, but I definitely would rather go there first than head back to Mystery Lake.

Go for it!

 

[Birdjaguar]

PoE Crucible launches in a couple of hours! I’ll be in the air over west Texas.

 

[Fippy]

Dreams in the Witch House (SP)

Good deal for 9 euro..has some classic adventure game charme.
Was very difficult for me in the beginning (there are some survival elements), but now things got fun and it's not repetitive when i have so much to do.

edit for link https://www.gog.com/en/game/dreams_in_the_witch_house

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Last weekend I played through The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. For a free game that was made as an April Fool's joke, it's surprisingly good, better than some of the other Sonic games and that's after playing through Sonic Frontiers. The game is short, I finished it in about two hours, but it felt like playing through a one off light hearted issue of the current comic series and it had the best use of the extended cast in any recent Sonic game.

 

[FredLC]

Finished my experiments in witcher3.

Both the forgotten wolven and the cat builds I tried are underwhelming. Good damage, but very frail. The piercing cold build probably could work very well, but with the Griffin armor bonuses, instead of the forgotten wolven. Of the builds I created, the bear, Griffin and wolven are the ones viable for nightmare.

Never tried a build with the manticore armor, but I couldn't think of enough concoction combinations worth dedicating a build to it. The venomous armor is too generic to even try...

 

[FredLC]

Now done with the witcher, I decided today on a new playthrough of the 2018 God of War, increasing the difficulty from normal to hard (give me a challenge mode). Considering I died about 10 times in the tutorial, I'm guessing I don't have the reflexes for nightmare (give me God of War mode) on this one. I mean, 10 deaths before the "and the journey begins" trophy even appeared... . Kinda embarrassing...

That said, I'm building muscle memory and finished the first set piece in the first try. I had to redo it a few times when I played on normal a few years ago. So, mixed impressions so far.

But gotta say, darn it, almost forgot how gorgeous that game looks. I imagine Ragnarok is even better, but I'll wait for price drops...

 

[Grendeldef]

PoE Crucible launches in a couple of hours! I’ll be in the air over west Texas.

You'll get some hp reduced due to this but few brownie points for situational awareness as at least you realise you'll be positioned very wrongly at the time.

I didn't login yesterday with the launch and this morning the game already had two patches before I started but with very limited playtime - didn't even finish Act I yet - Crucible seems to be running smoothly. I don't think that this is now melee-friendly by any means but at least the last leagues' open hostility has been dropped off so I even purchased a few leagues postponed Supporter pack.

An interesting sidenote: my playing time with Civ 5 seems to have strong negative correlation with time spent on OT

 

[Synobun]

I have been playing:

DodecaDragons. An idle game in the browser. There's comfortable progress every day, in a way that feels worthwhile to stick with. That said, the appeal is wearing off already (well, it's been 3-4 weeks, but with these sorts of games I usually go around 6-8). While there is progress, it's noticeably slowing in true effectiveness and change.

Call of Duty: Warzone. I am not really one for multiplayer shooters, especially battle royales. But a friend has been playing this for a year and finally convinced me to start playing with them, so now we're an egirl squad getting 15th place finishes. It's fun. I have never played it without them, and likely never will.

Overwatch 2. Playing this with another friend. I am not great at it, and still haven't won enough games to unlock ranked mode, which is what the other friend wants to play. I am not a competitive person and have no real desire to "git gud," but maybe toiling in the silver mines might be fun if it's done with friends. League of Legends was okay in ranked when I had someone to play with. My current top heroes are Orissa and Soldier 76. I would play a support, but I can't bear the thought of trying one out in a game that matters. I would need to play alone to practice. In the meantime, I'm dipping my toes also in Sojourn and Junkrat. I played Junker Queen a bit but I'm awful with her.

Final Fantasy XIV Online. I played this occasionally with my ex and her friends last year during the summer. Things got busy, we stopped, then the relationship ended and I uninstalled it because I needed the space for Warzone. The new PC offers me enough space to have both, and I've decided to return to it to see if there's something there worth sticking with alone, or maybe playing with other friends or making new friends. Or maybe I'll go back to the old group; there was a request made for me to join, since they are apparently returning to the game as well. Not sure about that. We'll see.

It might be nice to play a singleplayer game at some point, but I can't pick one. None really appeal to me. Maybe I might do a GTA 5 replay. I played it on my laptop years ago, and it was passable. I wonder if I'd like it better if it actually ran well. It is eerie to me that the only way I play games now is with other people. From 20-28, I would have rather eaten my own shoes than play with another human being.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The Long Dark: Tales from the Far Territory

Stalker, Day 45. En route to Forsaken Airfield, I froze to death while sleeping in a rail car, just outside the rail tunnel on the other side of Broken Railroad. Took me completely by surprise. I think maybe those yellow utility cars aren't as windproofed as I thought they were, and a blizzard blew out my fire. I was looking forward to starting "Signal Void." Tough one.

 

[Ajidica]

I've been playing a lot of video games the last few days thanks to having Good Friday off.

Steam has Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock available for free to keep. Definitely worth picking up for a fun space fleet combat game. Good visual design and soundtrack. Battle difficulty can be a little uneven, and especially starting out you are railroaded into having certain equipment unlocked or you are screwed.

I played Warhammer 40k: Mechanicus after getting it for free on Epic Games. Very good and fun game, sort of like XCOM but with a greater focus on dynamic battlefields and character customization. (Your Tech-Priests can't die, they just cost a lot of resources bringing them back to health.)

Also played Encased, an isometric RPG I got for free on Epic Games. It's okay. Soundtrack is basically not present, not even an electronic burble, so what should be tense fights or awe inspiring locations are just quiet. It feels a lot like Fallout 1 and 2. The game does a lot of things well, but very little good.
EDIT: Nevermind, the soundtrack is present, it just doesn't want to play through my speakers but is good with my headphones.