Just spotted that Monster Hunter Rise has a demo up on Steam. Since I don't own a Switch, and since this game isn't on the other consoles, I took the demo for a test spin.
The mouse and keyboard set-up requires a five button mouse, with two thumb buttons. It's not a complete loss (at least in the demo) if you don't have thumb buttons, since you can still do the more basic attacks and combos. But I tried out the Charge Blade, and was stuck in sword mode the entire time since I couldn't switch to axe without the thumb buttons.
I'm sure that lots of people out there have five button mice. However, I am not one of them. Nor do I have a PC-compatible game pad, which I believe the game also allows. And I'm not currently inclined to get either.
So, for the moment, anyway, it looks like I'll be taking a pass on this game when it gets a PC release in January.
XBox game pass has just brought in a new game called The Riftbreaker. Its an isometric resource gathering, big map explorey, base building game. You stomp about in a big mech suit smashing stuff. Its bright, quite pretty and you have to kill an awful lot of bugs that are trying to eat you. Like an awful lot.
While the map itself is big and explorey, the tech research system makes it a bit linear. Research this thing, so you can go search for that macguffin, so you can gather some more resources, so you can research the next thing. Not hard as such, but takes some concentration.
Finally finished up our tww2 run. My ally had the most settlements and most military strength with tomb kings. I guess I'll need to practice getting more under empires going. There's only a couple ways to do it though. I can either conquer a settlement and mine it with under empires which is fast and dangerous and prevents other options or I can use a warlock which is slow but won't risk an army or put me at war with anybody which is very slow.
As far as enemies go the greenskins which were super powerful when we attacked them lost their last territory to our massive empires by game's end. I think the last or 2nd last territory was the desolation of nagash of all things.
Also played Phoenix point for 2 to 3 missions. None of my soldiers are dead yet but I desperately need to expand. I did activate a 4th base but it's infested and I'll need to clean it out before i can use it and then i gotta destroy a small pandoran nest on the start of my next game session.
Powering my way through FFXV. I have determined that the open world is just far too large. However, I think I have finished nearly all of the side content. I'm just starting chapter 6 and I'm already level 54. So the game will probably be a breeze for me from here on out.
Was a fun but pretty flawed game. I’ll probably mess about with the expanded map and uninstall when I get bored.
I'd agree with that, both in terms of gameplay and fluff (why are there so many Orion mech factories on unclaimed worlds in the periphery? And why am I blowing them up?!? Why do pirates have bases in urban centers and multiple assault lances 3 jumps deep into Free Worlds League territory? Also the sheer mass of original star league stuff on the black market is mind-boggling and setting breaking)
I do think that if they do a Battletech 2 (and I do hope so, whereas I hate Harebrained's Shadowrun games), they need to do the clan invasion. A star instead of a lance would involve an easy UI change, and the type of battles they seem capable of setting up as scenarios (single lance vs lots of stuff) requires a lot fewer setting verisimilitude concessions if the player is Clan and the AI is Inner Sphere.
Plus 3050s tech allows for much more varied load-outs.
Metroid Other M and hopefully finish it this time. The Queen's guardian metroids always overwhelmed me...
Watched a bit on the translations issues from this one. There's still..... problematic issues with the script, but its interesting how much worse the translation made them.
I remember liking the gameplay on the whole, even if Adam is really, really, really, really hard to look past at Varia related times.
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balmong7 wrote: Powering my way through FFXV. I have determined that the open world is just far too large. However, I think I have finished nearly all of the side content. I'm just starting chapter 6 and I'm already level 54. So the game will probably be a breeze for me from here on out.
There are aspects of this game that give it the potential of being my favorite in the franchise, but its really hard to look past how unfinished it gets towards the end. I know that's been somewhat patched up, but some of the biggest issues are pretty glaring still.
Just got hold of Dirt 2.0 as it's on sale in the PS Store (£5).
Absolutely incredible. I haven't played a racing/rallying game since probably PS2 games, it's incredible how far they have come along (both the graphics but more importantly the physics of how the cars handle) - absolutely outstanding.
The only downside is that the online competitions/time-trials are absolutely overwhelmed by hackers.
Watched a bit on the translations issues from this one. There's still..... problematic issues with the script, but its interesting how much worse the translation made them.
I remember liking the gameplay on the whole, even if Adam is really, really, really, really hard to look past at Varia related times.
It certainly has its blunders, doesn't it?
But I appreciated what the game was trying to be; something between classic 2D sidescrolling and first person 3D action. Team Ninja action, Sam finally interacting with her own kind( well, she does a bit of that in Prime 3, I guess ), a stab at a story etc. Snazzy CGI...Nintendo had its heart in the right place, trying to deliver a red-carpet experience for players.
...okay, the final game wasn't all we'd hoped for but I loved the trailer and finally settling down for the evening to relive the tragic moment when Mother Brain...the baby...well...it was Father Mathew being murdered in War of the Worlds all over again...
...yup. Other-M reopened some old wounds that evening back in 2010; that innocent little screech will haunt us forever...
I just played back through Super and yeah, that is just a brutal sound effect. The amount of wordless storytelling at the end there is pretty much impossible to top.
I would suggest looking into the translation issues for Other-M. It seems the primary problem is that Adam was originally written as guarded and hard to read. Samus resents him for treating her as weak and comes across more petulant than subservient. In the volcano scene she's specifically ignoring his orders to stay out of the area to force him to authorize the Varia and notably, he breaks his veil a little to make sure she's okay.
It still has problems and doesn't totally work, but its a far far cry from the way their relationship is portrayed in english. It seems like they translated Adam as more of an action movie commander and then tried to overcompensate by making Samus respect him and it just created a weird subservient dynamic through wording choices and tone alone.
The PTSD scene is probably the weirdest. It seems it was originally a super clunky and awkward visual metaphor for letting go of her childish grudge with Adam that had little to do with her relationship with Ridley. It doesn't really work even with the original context, but the english translation added most of the panic attack issues.
Still, I did, like the overall gameplay. I'm not a huge FPS fan and while I did quite enjoy the Prime trilogy, I was pretty thoroughly tired of that version of the formula and Other M was definitely a solid attempt at something new. Overall though, I'm really loving what MercurySteam has brought to the franchise and in particular I'm impressed with how much they've embraced sequence breaking and the speed running community without sacrificing the core experience. Hopefully whatever comes next has a little more of Super's love of random diversions but Dread is just really solid beginning to end.
Thinking of getting Dread but alarm bells are going off in my mind with it being the same developers behind Samus Returns. The difficulty took a nasty turn for the worst when the diggernaut showed up, and the rest of the game was a miserable affair. Which is a shame because I loved the controls and visuals, and the fact that it was a remake of Metroid 2 which is my favourite game in the series.
SamusDrake wrote: Thinking of getting Dread but alarm bells are going off in my mind with it being the same developers behind Samus Returns. The difficulty took a nasty turn for the worst when the diggernaut showed up, and the rest of the game was a miserable affair. Which is a shame because I loved the controls and visuals, and the fact that it was a remake of Metroid 2 which is my favourite game in the series.
It’s a challenging game but I found it a rewarding challenge. There’s just a couple aspects that you Will die from and have to retry. I kind of feel like the game may lower the difficulty a bit each attempt, but it’s also the kind of game where you get the attacks down and beat the boss without taking a hit. I played Super right after and I found myself much preferring the focus on dodging to Supers tendency to lean on damage races based on your super missile and energy tank supply. I will say, I didn’t feel like any boss was as drawn out as the Diggernaut so retrying didn’t feel like it put me back as far as dying to that thing did.
The only other source of frustration is the EMMIs. Those are pretty standard one hit death stealth sections (technically you can dodge it but it requires frame perfect timing). I enjoyed them on the whole because being seen isn’t a problem, getting caught is, and fleeing to safety is pretty exhilarating. There’s one of them I found more frustrating than fun but part of that comes down to a joycon issue making the cloaking device unreliable for me.
Personally I burned through the game. One of my favorites in a while and I’m kind of itching to play it again.
I recently started another playthrough of Assassins Creed Origins and it quickly becomes my favorite game in the series. I love running (and climbing!) around in antique Egypt and Bayek is also one of my favorite protagonists, the same old sarcastic cool guy gets old relatively fast. The additional emotion (at least what I remember that he has more emotion than rage and anger, maybe a bit sadness the other protagonists show) and his kindness are really refreshing.
It’s a challenging game but I found it a rewarding challenge. There’s just a couple aspects that you Will die from and have to retry. I kind of feel like the game may lower the difficulty a bit each attempt, but it’s also the kind of game where you get the attacks down and beat the boss without taking a hit. I played Super right after and I found myself much preferring the focus on dodging to Supers tendency to lean on damage races based on your super missile and energy tank supply. I will say, I didn’t feel like any boss was as drawn out as the Diggernaut so retrying didn’t feel like it put me back as far as dying to that thing did.
The only other source of frustration is the EMMIs. Those are pretty standard one hit death stealth sections (technically you can dodge it but it requires frame perfect timing). I enjoyed them on the whole because being seen isn’t a problem, getting caught is, and fleeing to safety is pretty exhilarating. There’s one of them I found more frustrating than fun but part of that comes down to a joycon issue making the cloaking device unreliable for me.
Personally I burned through the game. One of my favorites in a while and I’m kind of itching to play it again.
Ah, I see. If Prime 4 comes out I'll pick it up. Cheers for clarifying that.
With the upcoming DLC for Hoiv i decided to once again play Hoiv for some rounds.
Fun fact, you can abuse the portuguese focus tree quite heavily.
The focus to the left, allows you to integrate Angola and mozambique via decision, however if you go fascist you can't take that focus.
HOWEVER: If you pick the focus before you switch, you can after you switched still integrate them into core territory. (funny that, maybee an easteregg torwards integralism)? If you integrate both you get another 30% recruitable pop and 10% non core manpower.
Anyways, the run ended with me being basically the undisputed pacific power more or less, since i took over the dutch (if you focus on switching to fascist fast you can easily justify before germany goes and does its thing).
Afterwards i puppeted Siam and as a crowning jewel i unified china under portuguese china, all done under 44.
Fun campaign really, but due to the focus tree design really problematic in many ways, due to being stuck with 2 research slots for quite some time.
I've been playing the Equestria at War mod for HOI4. A ton of work obviously went into it including new mechanics, a ton of unique focus trees for the different nations, event chains, artwork for loading screens and the main menu, even new 3D models for the infantry.
A Town Called Malus wrote: I've been playing the Equestria at War mod for HOI4. A ton of work obviously went into it including new mechanics, a ton of unique focus trees for the different nations, event chains, even new 3D models for the infantry.
Yup that one is well executed.
Nearly aswell as OWB and Kaiserreich.
Lost a game of Phoenix point today. The game has a difficulty spike that totally comes outta nowhere near month 3. For me it’s the fact they can stun, spam mind control and use virus attacks in massive amounts. I’m wondering if bionic troops and vehicles are immune.
Started new campaign and it’s ridiculous how much easier it is. I’m going for supply scavenge run missions where possible and only 2 days in and I found a materials goldmine. It’s crazy how much materials I have now so early. Not like the previous campaign at all.
Heh. That happens to me every time I play a game like that. Getting the hang of the early game amd what good research to go for early takes a bit of getting used to. I tend to play the first bit until it gets super hard, then start a new campaign to optimise that early play.
Flinty wrote: Heh. That happens to me every time I play a game like that. Getting the hang of the early game amd what good research to go for early takes a bit of getting used to. I tend to play the first bit until it gets super hard, then start a new campaign to optimise that early play.
Actually i took a couple soldier deaths, then 3 soldier deaths in one mission and finally 5 of 6 guys in one squad (because 2-3 got mind controlled). I don't even think i had a full squad of 6 left. I may just have to go for bigger ships with bigger troop capacity too. It's hard to say but if it's anything like xcom, xcom 2 and xenonauts then that squad size upgrade matters.
I have spent roughly 10 hours or so in Yakuza’s casinos, and on the way learned how Texas Hold ‘Em is played. It would appear that I have accidentally acquired enough healing items to carry me through the rest of the game.
A Town Called Malus wrote: I've been playing the Equestria at War mod for HOI4. A ton of work obviously went into it including new mechanics, a ton of unique focus trees for the different nations, event chains, artwork for loading screens and the main menu, even new 3D models for the infantry.
Ha! And here I was thinking the MLP community died off. That sounds incredible.
Starting to get the hang of Phoenix Point. I think enemies play off sound and alertness so like visibility. This makes it sorta similar to long war in xcom 2 in that regard. Because of this certain more stealthed units are really good during night missions and it’s best not to pull more enemy soldiers than you have to when you can help it.
Aside from that my 2 missions today was one story mission for a faction to progress faction relationship. I had to eliminate some bandits at night. It went so well I killed all 7 of them without any of them able to take a shot at me. When they crowded to where I was after being alerted they couldn’t act so I killed all but the panicking guy I think and then eliminated him too. Only lost one eighth my squads stamina and took no wounds. After that I defended a disciples of anu haven and I think none of my guys were hurt killing the pandorans either. The siren had me a little worried tho if you don’t disable their dome by bullets in. Was a little surprised it was a nest and not a Pandora’s lair but maybe it depends if one or more leaders dying just like with Pandora citadel in a haven rescue mission then Maybe I’ll only face a nest.
Either way things are going well. 5 labs and 3 factories which are way too much for right now. Just gave my assault troops shotgun the great anu shotguns and some 2 solid grenade launchers. Gonna have to work to get a 5 man squad which only has maybe 3 guys fully equipped. Then I gotta buy maybe the synedripn transport for speed considering all the ground I’ll need to cover.
A Town Called Malus wrote: I've been playing the Equestria at War mod for HOI4. A ton of work obviously went into it including new mechanics, a ton of unique focus trees for the different nations, event chains, artwork for loading screens and the main menu, even new 3D models for the infantry.
Ha! And here I was thinking the MLP community died off. That sounds incredible.
Damnit, I just bought some DLC to go with HoI4 in a Steam sale and it looks like I may not need it.
Just started Far Cry Primal (had downloaded it ages ago and not played it, now all the talk about Far Cry 6 reminded me)
Really enjoying it! I haven't played a lot of the Far Cry games (other than the original, way back when on the PC) so possibly not as critical as some might be, I know some people said it was just a re-skinned version of other games.
But am about 10 hours in and so far it's great fun; the gameplay and action is solid (extremely satisfying getting someone in the back with a thrown spear haha), the characters are amusing and entertainingly done, and I experienced sheer terror trying to run away from a grizzly! Just getting into the village building now, I hope it doesn't bog down like Fallout 4 in the department (which I found a bit overwhelming, I basically turned into a post-apoc landlord of too many properties "What do you mean pipes are blocked" or "oh no raiders attacking again? Can't you fight them off yourselves?")
Pacific wrote: Just started Far Cry Primal (had downloaded it ages ago and not played it, now all the talk about Far Cry 6 reminded me)
Really enjoying it! I haven't played a lot of the Far Cry games (other than the original, way back when on the PC) so possibly not as critical as some might be, I know some people said it was just a re-skinned version of other games.
But am about 10 hours in and so far it's great fun; the gameplay and action is solid (extremely satisfying getting someone in the back with a thrown spear haha), the characters are amusing and entertainingly done, and I experienced sheer terror trying to run away from a grizzly! Just getting into the village building now, I hope it doesn't bog down like Fallout 4 in the department (which I found a bit overwhelming, I basically turned into a post-apoc landlord of too many properties "What do you mean pipes are blocked" or "oh no raiders attacking again? Can't you fight them off yourselves?")
I always get the urge to get back into Primal. I particularly loved the stealth aspect of that game. Was a lot of fun clearing out enemy villages/strongholds without being detected. Hunting was fun too.
In regards to village building, if memory serves, its very much "on rails" compared to Fallout 4.
A Town Called Malus wrote: I've been playing the Equestria at War mod for HOI4. A ton of work obviously went into it including new mechanics, a ton of unique focus trees for the different nations, event chains, artwork for loading screens and the main menu, even new 3D models for the infantry.
Ha! And here I was thinking the MLP community died off. That sounds incredible.
Nah, we're still around, just not quite the fandom juggernaut we were
Damnit, I just bought some DLC to go with HoI4 in a Steam sale and it looks like I may not need it.
Haha, well I'm not sure what DLC the mod requires but I mainly decided to give it a go to tide me over with some new content until No Step Back drops. It is a lot of fun! Just brought back Nightmare Moon and united the continent in the Lunar Empire whilst playing as her puppet state Disciples of the Night.
More Phoenix point but only a couple missions. I was partly dealing with some d-bag hacker that messed with my steam account. Had to change a bunch of passwords.
Far as Phoenix point goes I fought off some Pure cybernetic dudes attacking a haven and then killed a bunch of raiders led by not-Elon Musk wielding a flamethrower. Gonna destroy a pandoran nest and fend off a Pandoran attack of a synedrion haven next time. Destroying the nest should progress my status with disciples of anu (the religious mutants). I’m a bit sad my new Jericho faction progression is so crap right now but hopefully that changes.
I’d keep playing but I have work tomorrow and I need sleep.
My mention of Phantom Doctrine in the Chaos Gate YouTube thread got me started playing the former again. Fun game, imo, though the fact that it discourages a "guns blazing" approach likely wouldn't sit well with many.
I also started up Recettear again. Capitalism, Ho!
Killed 2 to 3 more pandoran nests, had a lair show up, had one base defense, progressed my anu campaign progression more, built another ship for squad 2 (which I’m sending on missions now), protected multiple havens and I’m about to have a big resource gathering now.
I just tried out the demo for a new game on Steam called "Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars". It's an odd game. It's a CRPG. But it's played using cards. And I don't mean a deck of cards. It's literally played using cards. The map is made up of cards laid out like tiles. Map cards are face down (representing a map fog) until you're adjacent to them, at which point they're flipped over to show what is in that "space". The location of your party is represented by a marker that looks similar to a chess piece. Your characters' abilities are represented by cards with a brief description of each ability, and you pick the card you want in order to choose that ability. Gear is represented by cards that have the modifiers that the gear applies to your character. Characters - both your party members, as well as enemies - are represented by cards. Etc...
Since the graphics are, well, cards, the game has a voice over gamemaster who fills in the details about what you see, and what's going on.
It's an interesting idea. The free demo's worth checking out if this sort of thing sounds like it might be interesting. It doesn't take long to play through, and will give you an idea of whether the game might appeal to you. While I'm not entirely sure, it looks like the demo has you playing a different party right before the full game starts, doing something that leads into the plot of the game.
In addition to the cards, there is the aforementioned narrator, the occasional polyhedral die, and crystal tokens used as sort of party-wide "combat currency".
Destroyed the lair, won another base defense, progressed synedrion status to allied (though 3 of my best died for it and won that mission by the skin of my teeth) and got more resources from scavenge runs. My gear feels fairly solid now. I might need more spare troops to replace losses in the future. Also I should have enough resources to build more factories or research again.
Eumerin wrote: I just tried out the demo for a new game on Steam called "Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars". It's an odd game. It's a CRPG. But it's played using cards. And I don't mean a deck of cards. It's literally played using cards. The map is made up of cards laid out like tiles. Map cards are face down (representing a map fog) until you're adjacent to them, at which point they're flipped over to show what is in that "space". The location of your party is represented by a marker that looks similar to a chess piece. Your characters' abilities are represented by cards with a brief description of each ability, and you pick the card you want in order to choose that ability. Gear is represented by cards that have the modifiers that the gear applies to your character. Characters - both your party members, as well as enemies - are represented by cards. Etc...
I think I've seen this concept before, in a couple Euro-boardgames, but can't remember any of the names. Its been a decade or two since I hung out devoted boardgame geeks.
I think I've seen this concept before, in a couple Euro-boardgames, but can't remember any of the names. Its been a decade or two since I hung out devoted boardgame geeks.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's been done as a table top game in the past. It's odd seeing it as a video game, though.
More Phoenix point, more activating bases and cleaning them out, more resource runs, more haven defenses and adding new buildings. It’s getting a bit repetitive.
I have 6 research buildings and I’m about to have 5 manufacturing ones. I might make a bit more of each but not sure.
I have a lot of the tech resource but not so much of the manufacture resource. Ofc there’s a big supply raid I can do later to grab it.
My gear for both squads is pretty nice and I’ve built up enough dudes for a 3rd squad, replacement soldiers or if I build a bigger transport for the tough missions.
I think I've seen this concept before, in a couple Euro-boardgames, but can't remember any of the names. Its been a decade or two since I hung out devoted boardgame geeks.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's been done as a table top game in the past. It's odd seeing it as a video game, though.
Ah. I've gotten used to some genres of video games being physical-game style just for the aesthetics of it. Several papercraft games, a couple full on miniatures games as video miniature games (some viking one comes to mind- Wartile)
A couple other card games- Inscryption is current popular, Hand of Fate was for a while. Even dice games with dice as models/resources.
Sometimes its cute, other times its bafflingly pointless (beyond saving on animation like in the case of the miniature ones)
A fun spin-off of the Metroid Prime series and unfairly savaged upon release. Never finished it but still come back to it as the missions were fun in a Chibi-Starship Troopers kind of way. Its a bit overwhelming in single player on some later missions, but I reckon its a blast for a team of friends.
Only halfway through but I have spotted Samus' gunship from Prime 3 in one mission. I get the feeling that she is the "Ace Rimmer" of the game...
I've been playing phoenix point. I think i had maybe 5 more soldier deaths. Most of them came from fighting scyllas. I captured the first scylla and fought the second and killed it in a citadel. Sadly i had to let 2 havens fall taking the pandoran citadel down.
My tech is pretty crazy now esp. paralyzing tech like sonic grenades which are actually amazing and the paralyzing sniper rifle which is also great.
Resources are pretty good even though destroying that citadel lost me some good gear.
Funny thing is i don't think either scylla killed any of my soldiers so much as i faced a good amount of other pandorans while killing the scyllas and some of them took me down.
Gloomhaven. Been pondering for a while, but wasn't sure it was entirely my cup of tea (limited story, no real interactions), but watching some videos this weak now that its out of early access, I was impressed and went for it.
Its fun. Its very challenging (took 3 tries for the first mission, 2 for the second, and several 'skin of my teeth' moments on others). Some of that is RNG, some of that is getting bogged down, sometimes its being X-com'd by game events.
In one case, my party is entirely wrong for the scenario- my heroes are mostly melee and I'm in a cave full of critters that can retaliate vs melee attacks (backed up by ranged critters with heavy shields).
Its more a puzzle game than a dungeon crawler- finding the right combinations of moves to take you to the end, but there are a lot of options and just about the right amount of progression systems. One is still unfortunately locked for me, and I have to get by the Ice Cave of Doom first.
On being enticed by the descriptions here, I picked up Phoenix Point on game pass. Wow does it scratch an itch
Playing on easy because I’m lazy, and at this point I just want to drown things.
I really like the scavenger missions. Get in, get the stuff and get out with minimum fuss. I also like how the rescue missions are sometimes based around pushing your guys into the enemy, getting the civilians and returning to the evac point; and sometimes effectively escorting them through enemy held territory. This kind of small difference keeps it fresh.
Still not sure how to pick up the tech research projects for advanced weapons. I have a few things that I can use but not research yet. Might just need to work on my diplomacy a bit more.
Flinty wrote: On being enticed by the descriptions here, I picked up Phoenix Point on game pass. Wow does it scratch an itch
Playing on easy because I’m lazy, and at this point I just want to drown things.
I really like the scavenger missions. Get in, get the stuff and get out with minimum fuss. I also like how the rescue missions are sometimes based around pushing your guys into the enemy, getting the civilians and returning to the evac point; and sometimes effectively escorting them through enemy held territory. This kind of small difference keeps it fresh.
Still not sure how to pick up the tech research projects for advanced weapons. I have a few things that I can use but not research yet. Might just need to work on my diplomacy a bit more.
Worth sharing because i found out late. When you visit a haven even if the haven is found and has a question mark beside it you will find other havens and things nearby. Also if an enemy has return fire range or an awareness range you can usually see it by hovering your mouse button over them.
You can find tech research in scavenge missions or haven defense missions. You can also trade for it at some havens. They should show what resources they have to trade below each haven on the map. Keep in mind they won't ask for more of the resource they already produce.
When you're in the mood for it you can eventually look at gameplay mechanics. There's a ridiculous amount of them but i imagine you won't have to learn them on easy difficulty. Just to help you because it was almost hidden the Sonic ability goes vs Will points and if it passes the will of a unit it will be dazed (only 1 action left, movement possibly halved and all special abilities unable to be used).
Thanks for the tips. I wonder if I’m lagging in the research because I’ve only had to do a few defence missions. The havens are now levelling up so I have a couple of engineer specialists. Looking forward to getting a few more specialist types.
Flinty wrote: Thanks for the tips. I wonder if I’m lagging in the research because I’ve only had to do a few defence missions. The havens are now levelling up so I have a couple of engineer specialists. Looking forward to getting a few more specialist types.
Without the tech resource you're likely to be lagging behind in a lot of things but esp. labs which increase research output. I think you need 200 tech resource and like 100 supply/industry to make each lab and i have about 6. Not to mention without tech resource things like synedrion equipment or higher tech items are heavily out of reach for you. I'm playing on heroic though (about 3rd month in on the 10th or 12th day) and i feel like my research which was good much of the game is starting to slow down a good amount. There are some 2 day research projects and considering the speed of the game it can feel slow. Ofc a lot of buildings take like 3-4 days to build so maybe it isn't all that long for research.
I think your game would be a lot easier to give tips to if i could see it every so often. You want to build bases and satellite uplinks near the mist so that when the pandorans attack from a nest that it can likely be within scanning range. Since i've researched pandoran citadels after destroying one i can actually find pandoran nests, lairs and citadels in scanner range of all my bases with satellite uplinks which is really good. Sadly most of the attacks come from areas either out of my radar range or from an area i don't have a base.
There's about 67-68% or so of the needed human population left in my game and i think i'm pretty close to the phoenix path ending. I may want to try the other factions endings at some point however.
Oddly i don't use technicians much and seem to hate using mutation or augmentation because i feel like i'm gonna make some serious enemies in the 3 sub-factions and i'd rather wait till the end to do that if possible so i can try em out. This usually means i tend to use synedrion gear and somewhat new jericho stuff more than anu stuff. I also don't know what it's like to steal enemy aircraft, raid research or raid buildings for resources since i'm playing a goody two shoes that hates picking sides esp. since they all have some serious negative quirks.
All 3 sides have some amazing gear if you can work up to it and they play better when combined and when you get to the higher tech tiers through increasing your alliance reputation. If i had to describe each faction by how they fight i'd say synedrion are the ninja/glass cannon faction (poison, light armor, best range, stealth, paralysis/non-lethal capture), New Jericho are the crusader/knights (armor piercing, fire, heavy armor, fairly hard hitting, bionics) and Anu are the fanatic/mutant faction (acid, mutations, shotguns, melee weapons, viral weapons, panic and mind altering gear).
Sorry, I meant lagging In things to research, rather than in speed terms. I have unlocked 6 bases at this point and have a healthy resource flow. I seem to mostly be using new Jericho kit at this point as that’s where most of my recruits have come from. I just did a defence mission and activated one of the snipers there, and instructed him to drop all of his kit, while I then picked up and et voila, I could research the NJ sniper rifle
Need some more Synedron kit, but not had many defence missions there. Mostly anu and NJ.
Flinty wrote: Sorry, I meant lagging In things to research, rather than in speed terms. I have unlocked 6 bases at this point and have a healthy resource flow. I seem to mostly be using new Jericho kit at this point as that’s where most of my recruits have come from. I just did a defence mission and activated one of the snipers there, and instructed him to drop all of his kit, while I then picked up and et voila, I could research the NJ sniper rifle
Need some more Synedron kit, but not had many defence missions there. Mostly anu and NJ.
I sorta feel dumb for not thinking of that before. I think if you win a haven defense you pick up all the gear anyway however left on the field of battle. I'm not entirely sure however.
As far as early tech goes i prefer Synedrion guns and armor for basic troops and snipers/pistols due to long range and accuracy. However later on New Jericho stuff can be useful due to armor piercing but paralysis tech of synedrion is also really good. Anu shotguns are also really stellar.
Ofc in the fairly late game i unlocked a heavy acid cannon that has shot an enemy with 480 acid damage in one go and then sniped and shot off some of his armor to which he then acid burned to death. It's crazy because normally acid chews through armor first and then through body parts. Fire is the damage minus armor on every body part so heavy armor tends to survive it better but fire can go a lot of places and really hurts body parts when moved through. Poison avoids armor completely but hurts no body parts and medkits heal it completely. Paralysis gets rid of Action points if you paralyze it enough and you can use medkits to take away paralysis a bit.
I also have access to a hardcore late tier shock lance which has 600 shock and easily outpaces every other melee weapon i currently have.
For 25 years i have been a ps only owner, but after 11 months of hardly any ps5 avalible in my country i gave up, and bought a X series S.
Bought Perfect Dark and that alone was worth the price of the console, considering i have been playing the game on a OG N64 for the past years (and yea i can live with the very bad right stick deadzone). Nostalgia is a powerful emotion.
Deep Rock Galactic a.k.a. Ultimate Squat Simulator got a massive update where every class got a new weapon, new enemies, a new mission type and a free seasonal pass has been rolled out as well. Good time to be a miner on Hoxxes, with every update they improve upon an already great game.
Black Ops Cold War was on sale and wanting to see how the campaign was, still the same overblown Michael Bay gak, also amusing to see how they decided to portray Amsterdam during the 80's, cringy to see a character pay for a pair of drinks with 200 guilders. Instead been sinking a lot time into the various zombies modes, which scratches certain itches really nicely. Also gave warzone a try, not my cuppa, but getting to the 24th place on my second try felt good.
Finally, Aliens: Fireteam Elite, a good Alien franchise game for a change, yay. Combat is a tad basic, but the overall basics of the game are nicely done and it's got the right amount of scenery porn and continuity nods to the good games makes for a rewarding experience. It's fun to see the Working Joes from Seegson make a return.
Picked up Jurassic World Evolution 2, and took it for a spin. The basic campaign has you playing as a member of the US Department of Fish and Wildlife, helping to contain dinosaurs that have spread across the entire continental US (following the last movie).
The campaign doesn't appear to be very long, though. There aren't that many missions. And unlike the five islands in the original game, the campaign missions appear to be focused on helping you to understand the basic mechanics of the new game. A lot of things have changed, and even veterans of the first game (such as myself) need to take some time to figure out how everything works.
There's other stuff to play with (most importantly a sandbox mode) once the campaign is completed.
Jammer87 wrote: I preordered JWE2 but haven’t had the time to play it this week. Looking forward to it with the long weekend.
I like some of the changes, but am unhappy with others.
On the other hand, I've only played the campaign so far, which is basically a tutorial. And while the game doesn't call it that, it also doesn't really go out of its way to hide it. At least a couple of the campaign missions (there are only five) end rather abruptly just as you're getting your facility going. And there's no opportunity to keep playing afterwards. There are also still some features that aren't used in the campaign. For example, the game adds marine animals, but the campaign doesn't include an aquatic facility. And the hatcheries aren't used for their intended purpose.
I finished the fifth and last campaign mission last night. Afterwards, the game suggested that I play the first Chaos Theory mission. The Chaos Theory missions take you to various locations, with set goals. Three of those involve running a park. For example, the first one asks you to create and manage the original Jurassic Park, avoiding the catastrophe that ensued. The preview text for the remaining two suggests other goals, though I don't know how absolute those are to the missions. Presumably the Chaos Theory missions will be more involved and protracted than the campaign. And there's Sandbox, and the inevitable DLC. Plus whatever they have planned in response to the next movie (Dominion), which is scheduled for release next summer. I suspect that DLC will continue the campaign in some fashion, but set after the upcoming movie.
There are plot elements that make me roll my eyes. For instance, my understanding is that the last movie (which I didn't see) ended with
Spoiler:
dinosaurs being released in California.
And this is fine for four of the five campaign missions, as those missions take place in Arizona, Washington state, Oregon, and Yosemite National Park in California. But there is *also* a mission in Pennsylvania. How in the world did dinosaurs somehow get all the way across the continental US (which is massive in size) very rapidly without anyone noticing? Also, some of the characters - Claire in particular - keep talking about how mankind will need to learn to get along with the dinosaurs now that dinosaurs are in the wild on the mainland. I think Claire has it backwards. In a real life situation like this, if mankind gets sufficient annoyed with the dinosaurs, then they're going to go extinct again. At least the big ones that represent a legitimate threat to humanity would. I think that was established quite clearly at the end of the third movie (which is pretty much the only part of that movie I've seen).
Anyway, that's not a gameplay thing. And who knows what horrors the writers are planning on inflicting on the continental US in Dominion. The gameplay itself looks promising. I haven't seen everything yet, so I can't report how it ultimately compares with the first game. But I'm enjoying it so far. I'll have to give a further report after I finish cleaning up John Hammond's mess in the original park.
Been pretty heavy into No Mans Sky recently. My go to chill-out game.
Though right now I'm waiting for the new DLC for Inquisitor:Martyr to come out. Sororitas based inquisitor, aw yiss.
I had to take a break from phoenix point and i've been playing yet another ikit claw tww2 run but this time i've been playing very hard difficulty with hard battles and man it's like turn 120 and after having had so many enemies i was at a standstill. Only reason why i held together was killing so many enemy armies for cash and having a ton of under cities everywhere. I think i have like 10 with 5 under all the wood elf territories.
It annoys me a little when i finally had a couple enemies on the back-foot finally after killing all their numerous armies they confederated into their main faction so i couldn't take settlements back or risk being drawn into a larger war rather than a much smaller one.
Thankfully the only armies currently at war with me are 3 of the 4 wood elf factions. All of which mostly won't leave their magical forest except maybe the main wood elf faction.
Then there's at least 3 high elf factions at war with me currently including the main high elf faction. Ofc i only ever see significant force coming from Teclis's force so i will go to the new world and either loot and raze his territories to the ground or take them. I may just not take them because defending such far reaching territory from enemies will be tough with only a few armies.
Due to getting a lot done on Secret War: The Annihilation Plague during a NaNoWriMo gathering over Zoom so just played some Hades and finally defeated the titular character himself! It's a damn good game.
Playing through Pokemon Sword. Picked it up a ways back, but didn't really have time to give it a chance. Nicely streamlined for the most part, but I don't really have time to put into these games that I'd like sadly.
Been on a Pokemon kick as well. Planning to restart Pearl after more than a decade of keeping the old save file, and Alpha Sapphire. It’s going to be one heck of a nostalgia trip. Hoping to give X and Sun a chance as well. Fell off the games after Gen 5.
Surviving the Aftermath went out of Early Release on Tuesday. I'd purchased it a while back, so I fired it up last night. A couple of big changes have been added to the game. The first is voice narration. The second is a plot arc for the game that involves building a large, underground shelter (an underground shelter to survive a world-shattering apocalypse... sounds familiar...).
Making myself try and play Alien Isolation again. Possibly the third time; not because I don't like the game (I think its really well made) but because I have discovered that basically I am too much of a wimp! I get too scared, freeze, do something stupid and the alien eats me
I have tried watching play throughs where the person is basically like "lol" throwing noise makers and slipping past the Alien while laughing and joking. Nope, I can't do any of that. Instead I hide inside a locker for 10 minutes.
I wonder if it was from watching the first film too young, and boy did I have some serious nightmares (one in particular that was re-occuring) about the beast, when I was a kid. And now playing has brought all of that back into focus, making it way more effective than it really should be. Credit to the game developers because it's so well made and they have captured the atmosphere so well, but I find myself utterly exhausted after just 30 minutes of play because of the fear. Horror movies (which I love) are easier because you are being taken along for the ride, rather than being immersed.
Alien Isolation is one of my absolute favourite games (first game I got every achievement for on Steam). You ever need any advice, feel free to sling me a PM on here
That game looks really great. I love the concept of a kind of open world exploration game, but with cars! And there are some really quite mad videos being posted online of people doing stuff.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Alien Isolation is one of my absolute favourite games (first game I got every achievement for on Steam). You ever need any advice, feel free to sling me a PM on here
Thanks mate I will do!
Just have to muster up the courage to play again, might get myself a stiff drink first!
Insurgency: Sandstorm. A whole lot of it. The newly added “Ambush” game mode is fast and fun.
Also, downloading Red Dead Redemption 2. Going to give it another shot as I got bored with it fast after its initial release. Going to try for the best(least sad?) ending.
Kind of in the doldrums as far as gaming goes. Nothing on the horizon aside from Total War 3 is moving my needle. Maybe perhaps “Expeditions : Rome”, as well.
I’ve been playing total war warhammer 2 and wh40k gladius. It was a preparation gladius game for the admech dlc.
As far as tww2 goes I’ve reached a bit of a snag in my 2nd try of very hard difficulty and hard battles with Ikit claw. I dunno what it is but Ikit often has too many surrounding enemies and it just feels like a lot of them will fight you at once.
This isn’t a huge deal to me as long as grimgor stays off my back and doesn’t declare war on me. Oddly grimgor always has a ridiculous mass confederation mechanic where every greenskin tribe on the map confederates with him and then he has a stupidly huge amount of land.
Currently he has like 52 or so territories and it’s probably around turn 80. Most factions don’t have 12. I have about 8 because defending lots of land with 2 armies isn’t easy and I purposely didn’t grab some nearby land because it wasn’t easy to defend or was near a crap ton of wood elves and their magical bs forest and that always turns into a long drawn out war.
Weird thing is I recently became good buddies with the followers of Nagash and if you know the lore nagash HATES skaven due to a previous betrayal. So at least I have beastmen as my big time ally which honestly feels a little weak and followers of nagash is likely going to be a military ally and he seems reasonably powered.
Hoiv no step back...
I am unsure about the russian/ udssr focus tree and the changes to doctrines and Tank creation.
Too much military xp required.
Otoh, The logistics system is awesome. The AI not so much, i Cut Off the whole Romanian army in hungary as Austria-hungary by reseizing budapest.
More critical i am to the changes to the division meta... Personally i found the 20 width 8inf 1 arty/aa to be one of the best templates again even with mobile warfare as doctrine, whilest motorized Divisions still suck... In general the divisions still not really adapting to doctrine is still a major problem imo.
Edit, also seems Like Discounts for tanktypes doesn't work, atleast f.e. the Spa discount hungary gets.
I haven't purchased No Step Back yet. I'll likely wait until the end of the year. That didn't stop me from stopping by the Steam forum yesterday, and taking a look at the posts. Most of the complaints were focused on the time it takes to create a new supply hub. Apparently it takes a full year, which is a particular problem if you're playing in Asia (where there isn't as much supply already in place) or a country that has barely any civilian factories to spare.
Also, there is apparently a confirmed bug involving supply and warships that are in port. Specifically, they're not getting *any* supply, which means that you can't sortie them. However, I think I saw players mention a way to manually apply some supply to them, which took care of the issue.
I saw a couple of comments from people who liked the weather changes. I didn't read any comments on the new officer system, or the new tank design system.
Trying out Anthem. It’s too bad they didn’t make this like a proper game. You can tell a lot of work went into it but they were chasing that online multiplayer money.
KamikazeCanuck wrote: Trying out Anthem. It’s too bad they didn’t make this like a proper game. You can tell a lot of work went into it but they were chasing that online multiplayer money.
Heh. That reminds me, the senior creative designer suddenly bailed on dragon age 4, so expect another hot mess from Bioware.
RE 6 again, completed Leon's and Helena's campaign. I swear the game can't go ten seconds before an explosion happens. I just played to unlock Ada for Mercenaries mode.
Finally finished my Vampire Campaign in Warhammer Total War 2 and decided I needed a break.
So I dropped 50 bucks on Mass Effect legendary Edition and let it install overnight. Guess Im going to burn through that game again for the 5th time....cant believe they got me to buy it all again.
Adrassil wrote: RE 6 again, completed Leon's and Helena's campaign. I swear the game can't go ten seconds before an explosion happens. I just played to unlock Ada for Mercenaries mode.
Continuing Dark Souls, though I still haven’t quite managed to defeat Ornstein and Smough yet. Fortunately, the Dragon king Greataxe seems to do quite a bit of damage. Just need to manage the timing due to the slow speed. Any tips for a fellow on their first run?
Played Donut County the other day. Got it for like 3 bucks on the black friday sale on PSN. Totally worth it. A short 2-3 hour campaign, cute little story, very satisfying gameplay of dropping items into a hole. Can't imagine if I had paid more than 3 bucks for it though. I probably wouldn't have felt a little ripped off.
I’ve been playing wh40k gladius with a friend and since I’m out of practice and not good he’s been doing the heavy lifting. We took out our nid opponents fairly easily on the map but the ork team kept us at stalemate for a long, long time. Somehow we’ve managed to push them back (ally blew up four 20 or more population cities with his thunderbolts flanking em) and there’s ork fungus almost everywhere around my base and through the fighting paths.
Aside from that I think my game in tww2 with Ikit is stabilizing again. Only super strong enemy I have is bretonnia and he seems semi occupied. The other 3 enemies I have that might fight me all do so from not-Africa in the same general position. My top general keeps trying to have low loyalty so I’m thinking about replacing him with a low level but infinitely more loyal lord. I think his loyalty is low due to having a higher level than the faction leader. Nothing except loyalty and character dilemmas seem to increase his loyalty even with suspiciously loyal chieftains with him and 13th scheme trying to boost his loyalty. It’s getting quite annoying and I just want to sit him out on the bench till he’s not my highest level lord.
He has the immortal trait so I dunno if I can replace him. If I can’t I’ll just run him towards the enemy and get him killed so he can rez out of my current generals.
balmong7 wrote: Played Donut County the other day. Got it for like 3 bucks on the black friday sale on PSN. Totally worth it. A short 2-3 hour campaign, cute little story, very satisfying gameplay of dropping items into a hole. Can't imagine if I had paid more than 3 bucks for it though. I probably wouldn't have felt a little ripped off.
Definitely one of the best Katamari inspired games out there. Really enjoyed this one.
Now completed NaNoWriMo (yay!) I began a new game of Disco Elysium with a different build, and I'm only a little way through the game, and it's already very different missed a lot of stuff despite how obsessively I thought I went through all the lines of dialogue in my 1st playthrough, obviously not the case, though. Great game!
Adrassil wrote: Now completed NaNoWriMo (yay!) I began a new game of Disco Elysium with a different build, and I'm only a little way through the game, and it's already very different missed a lot of stuff despite how obsessively I thought I went through all the lines of dialogue in my 1st playthrough, obviously not the case, though. Great game!
Disco Elysium has to be one of the most unique games that I’ve played in awhile.
Decided to pick up Inquisitor Martyr again after gifting a copy to my brother. Played through that a bit in coop, then hopped on over to my main character and have begun the final part of the DLC campaign, which should bring the main story to a close.
Adrassil wrote: Now completed NaNoWriMo (yay!) I began a new game of Disco Elysium with a different build, and I'm only a little way through the game, and it's already very different missed a lot of stuff despite how obsessively I thought I went through all the lines of dialogue in my 1st playthrough, obviously not the case, though. Great game!
Disco Elysium has to be one of the most unique games that I’ve played in awhile.
It is. The things that impress me the most is the writing, the prose in the descriptions, while sometimes border on pretentious, are usually strong. The dialogue is amazing as well, despite some cheesy lines. The characters are so well written, too and many of them are so likeable. Lena the Cryptozoologist being one of the most likeable, so much so I want to help her out despite my RL disbelief in Cryptozoology. And Kim Kitsaragi is a bro.
More Disco Elysium. Helped the HARD CORE! kids on the cutting edge of music get into the church and they're more characters in that game I can't help loving.
Egg head's slogans are pretty entertaining! OHH! MEGA TO ZE HARDCORE! HARDCORE TO ZE MEGA! YEEEEEAAAAHHH!!!
Still a bunch of collectibles and that I can go for, but what a cracking game!
Got Oddworld to play, along with Hitman III and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla coming in the post. A way to combat the long, dark nights that doesn’t involve going to the pub!
Just clocked Disco Elysium for the 2nd time and what a beautiful game that really speaks to me. I hear people disliked the ending, but I like it a lot. Also...
I WISH I COULD I WAS EVEN SLIGHTLY AS AWESOME AS THE CUNO!! No one's as great as THE CUNO! lol
Final Fantasy XIV's new expansion went into "early release" yesterday. You pre-order it, you got to start playing yesterday. For all intents and purposes, that means that the expansion went live yesterday, since if you're a subscriber who bought it right now, you would get access to it right away. The only thing you don't get is a few extra nick-nacks that won't be available until the official launch date next week.
Ordinarily when an MMORPG is about to have a new expansion released, the number of players online at any given time goes down. This is because the playerbase has played out the existing content and is bored with it, and has decided to set the game aside until the new expansion releases very soon. And then when the expansion drops, the number of active players skyrockets up to numbers not seen since the previous expansion went live.
This is how it's supposed to work.
Final Fantasy XIV, on the other hand, has seen the opposite. The number of active players online at any given time has, in fact, gone *up*. These are believed to primarily be refugees from WoW, which I hear has been having... issues... lately. And a number of WoW players have apparently been jumping ship for FFXIV over the last several months. So instead of the active player numbers going down, they've gone up.
And then the expansion went into "pre-release" (which, as I mentioned above, basically means that it's live).
"Welcome to Final Fantasy XIV. This world is currently full Position in queue: 5332.."
Playing Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock for the 1st time in ages. Fun as all hell, but boy does that game encourage early onset arthritis especially in my left hand, ouch lol
Automatically Appended Next Post: Bought Table Top Simulator and downloaded the mod to play Assassinorum: Execution Force with the WD and extra stuff and play with the daemons I thought, it would be fun I thought, but it makes a lot harder and more annoying than I thought (it doesn't help I locked myself out of my room at 2 am last night and had to sleep on the couch in the kitchen/lounge so tired and grumpy as frig) It's funny TTS lets you flip the table which I've done a couple of times, just for fun lol
I finally beat FFXV. Man for what a mess that last quarter of the game was, the ending actually tied up really nicely. I'm excited to play through the DLC in order to experience some of the gaps in the story.
Started up Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Enjoying it so far. Nice that they revealed the villain early on considering how obvious it was who their identity was. Would have felt cheap if they had played up the "WHO COULD IT BE?" aspect.
Xcom 2. I'm proving to some friends it can be beat on Legend difficulty on ironman (one constantly refreshing save). So far i'm in early august, 9 soldier deaths (2 of my 3 named soldiers of friends died) and i'm at full tier 2 tech with elerium researched. First campaign attempted and it looks like this campaign will finish successfully.
Perhaps i shouldn't rub it in too much to that specific friend but he was whining quite hard. Xcom 2 does that to people on hard difficulties but between that and another friend playing xcom 2 i just had to start playing again. I'm months out of practice too and far more out of practice with vanilla xcom 2 wotc without long war mod.
40k Battlesector just dropped into Game Pass. It scratches a nice turn based itch with appropriate 40k aesthetics. The limited repertoire of the units when you select them gets a bit stale after a very short time, but it is satisfying wiping out whole units of tyranid gribbleys with a well placed frag grenade
I also quite like that the force selection mechanics match the tabletop game where you select an army roster of units that can get a bit of experience, and then you have a points limit for each battle. Weapon upgrades can be chosen for more points just as in the tabletop game, so as always it’s a balance between more units, and shiny weapons.
I'm behind the times, but I just started playing Cyberpunk 2077 after having got it for my birthday back in March and am enjoying it nicely so far. Loving the general look and atmosphere, although on occasion the graphics on Xbox One are significantly worse than expected. And the driving model, from my one brief attempt so far, is terrible. And it's weird that there's no stealing mechanic - a tense stand-off with a gang over the sale of a high-tech robot is just made *wierd* by me bimbling around their den and nicking all their stuff mid-negotiation...
But on the flip side, just crafted myself a sniper rifle...
balmong7 wrote: I finally beat FFXV. Man for what a mess that last quarter of the game was, the ending actually tied up really nicely. I'm excited to play through the DLC in order to experience some of the gaps in the story.
XV does so much right. It's almost the best game in the whole series. It's almost so many brilliant overlapping systems that almost create a remarkably satisfying gameplay loop. Unfortunately, its only almost and its incredibly frustrating to see its potential hidden by all the unfinished issues with it all.
I hadn't really considered the comparison until I read this, but I just finished Pokemon Sword and it reminds me of a lot of the same issues. They share a sense of scale that paradoxically makes them feel kind of empty, like walking through the line to a theme park ride when there's no crowd. I've gone back to Pokemon Moon to finish it and I'm kind of surprised how the game systems are very similar, but Sun/Moon's more zoomed in camera puts more focus on things you actually explore and interact with, where Sword's expansive vistas are full of detail, but leave the game you really play kind of vapid. I do have to say, I love the way the Sword/Shield Pokemon league feels like a huge sporting event, and the gym leader battles finally capture the kind of hype the series has generally left to our imagination.
Flinty wrote: 40k Battlesector just dropped into Game Pass. It scratches a nice turn based itch with appropriate 40k aesthetics. The limited repertoire of the units when you select them gets a bit stale after a very short time, but it is satisfying wiping out whole units of tyranid gribbleys with a well placed frag grenade
I also quite like that the force selection mechanics match the tabletop game where you select an army roster of units that can get a bit of experience, and then you have a points limit for each battle. Weapon upgrades can be chosen for more points just as in the tabletop game, so as always it’s a balance between more units, and shiny weapons.
Is it worth getting the game do you think? I have seen that it has just been released on PS4.
Is it a kind of modern Final Liberation, with a few bells and whistles added?
Man this is irritating. Before you can get going on your first mission, there’s an exceptionally long cinematic which you can’t skip. And if you happen to press Circle, you jump out of it, and have to start the whole thing over.
Oh, and I’ve had to uninstall it twice, because it’s data keeps corrupting.
Flinty wrote: 40k Battlesector just dropped into Game Pass. It scratches a nice turn based itch with appropriate 40k aesthetics. The limited repertoire of the units when you select them gets a bit stale after a very short time, but it is satisfying wiping out whole units of tyranid gribbleys with a well placed frag grenade
I also quite like that the force selection mechanics match the tabletop game where you select an army roster of units that can get a bit of experience, and then you have a points limit for each battle. Weapon upgrades can be chosen for more points just as in the tabletop game, so as always it’s a balance between more units, and shiny weapons.
Is it worth getting the game do you think? I have seen that it has just been released on PS4.
Is it a kind of modern Final Liberation, with a few bells and whistles added?
Depends on how much its going for. Its pretty simplistic and it doesnt have the charming fmv cut scenes that really made Final Liberation work, but it is a fun diversion. Very much based on primaris units, so if you don't like that fluff direction its probably not for you.
If they are charging much more than £25, then wait for some kind of sale i think.
Eumerin wrote: I haven't purchased No Step Back yet. I'll likely wait until the end of the year. That didn't stop me from stopping by the Steam forum yesterday, and taking a look at the posts. Most of the complaints were focused on the time it takes to create a new supply hub. Apparently it takes a full year, which is a particular problem if you're playing in Asia (where there isn't as much supply already in place) or a country that has barely any civilian factories to spare.
Also, there is apparently a confirmed bug involving supply and warships that are in port. Specifically, they're not getting *any* supply, which means that you can't sortie them. However, I think I saw players mention a way to manually apply some supply to them, which took care of the issue.
I saw a couple of comments from people who liked the weather changes. I didn't read any comments on the new officer system, or the new tank design system.
Supply and warships has been fixed, recently i belief.
Supplyhub time is honestly a feature not a bug. People complaining about it fail to use the 300% one time boost correctly, or in general are the same people that spammed 40 widths and 40 width tanks for all areas or have a tendency to not plan ahead. And even then i found that 6-7 mills are more than enough to supply a german army in barbarossa or in china for that matter.
2 trains, 2 trucks and 2 -3 for transport planes. Especially the later makes pushes in no supply hub regions a cakewalk. So yes curb your tank spam, which is put bluntly a good thing and yes follow the steel bars on the ground.
Especially in asia for japan it is a non issue if you plan ahead, china f.e. has enough supply hubs with ports and internally that a decent army with some transport plane support can roll all over the chinese army, yes it got a bit more difficult, but honestly it was laughable that AI japan was able to roll china by 39-40 , period. For a player that is still possible (even as my second run it was possible for me to still achieve that.)
The ai is also rubbish with supply still, atleast you now are able to build within your allies and i believe movement rights giver so that you can actually improve the situation.
The tank designer is fun, but i still think specific tank boni are bugged. Otoh, SPAA and SPAT aswell as SPA are now worth it due to non arbitrary lower armor values. Had a lot of fun with Ta-Se' aa light tanks in china and malaysia as japan. Had a lot of fun with Czechoslovak TD's and SPAs.
The only really negative thing is italy being basically borderline completely fethed now. I played them for the atleast the trains are on time achievement.
Their focus tree is seriously gimped at this stage, their army focuses in particular are underwhelming. (when the baltics have in 1 focus 5 civs and you get 4 civs in 2 foci then something is wrong)
PLanes are still more and too effective against fleets,
Flinty wrote: 40k Battlesector just dropped into Game Pass. It scratches a nice turn based itch with appropriate 40k aesthetics. The limited repertoire of the units when you select them gets a bit stale after a very short time, but it is satisfying wiping out whole units of tyranid gribbleys with a well placed frag grenade
I also quite like that the force selection mechanics match the tabletop game where you select an army roster of units that can get a bit of experience, and then you have a points limit for each battle. Weapon upgrades can be chosen for more points just as in the tabletop game, so as always it’s a balance between more units, and shiny weapons.
Is it worth getting the game do you think? I have seen that it has just been released on PS4.
Is it a kind of modern Final Liberation, with a few bells and whistles added?
Depends on how much its going for. Its pretty simplistic and it doesnt have the charming fmv cut scenes that really made Final Liberation work, but it is a fun diversion. Very much based on primaris units, so if you don't like that fluff direction its probably not for you.
If they are charging much more than £25, then wait for some kind of sale i think.
Thanks mate. How much do the Primaris feature in the actual game itself? I don't like the new fluff at all really (don't get me started ) but might be prepared to turn the other cheek if they don't come in saving the day in each scene, while the poor ole classic marines are left jumping up and down on the spot trying to get the attention of their new big bros?
Been playing some barotrauma. It’s all fun and games until the respawn submarine gets nearly swallowed whole by a worm the size of the titanic.
It kinda scratches the same itch as ss13, but with good controls .
Flinty wrote: 40k Battlesector just dropped into Game Pass. It scratches a nice turn based itch with appropriate 40k aesthetics. The limited repertoire of the units when you select them gets a bit stale after a very short time, but it is satisfying wiping out whole units of tyranid gribbleys with a well placed frag grenade
I also quite like that the force selection mechanics match the tabletop game where you select an army roster of units that can get a bit of experience, and then you have a points limit for each battle. Weapon upgrades can be chosen for more points just as in the tabletop game, so as always it’s a balance between more units, and shiny weapons.
Is it worth getting the game do you think? I have seen that it has just been released on PS4.
Is it a kind of modern Final Liberation, with a few bells and whistles added?
Depends on how much its going for. Its pretty simplistic and it doesnt have the charming fmv cut scenes that really made Final Liberation work, but it is a fun diversion. Very much based on primaris units, so if you don't like that fluff direction its probably not for you.
If they are charging much more than £25, then wait for some kind of sale i think.
Thanks mate. How much do the Primaris feature in the actual game itself? I don't like the new fluff at all really (don't get me started ) but might be prepared to turn the other cheek if they don't come in saving the day in each scene, while the poor ole classic marines are left jumping up and down on the spot trying to get the attention of their new big bros?
The game opens with the commander taking out Primaris units to prove themselves. There are a couple assault squads, but its almost entirely focused on Primaris. (Though Assault Terminators and Sang Guard got added as DLC).
The unit roster is incomplete, but they'll be adding more and a new faction at some point.
Right now its BA and some Sisters support vs Tyranids.
Its not the Primaris saving the day as such. Most of the voice over scenes are denigrating the new boys and how they can't be proper Blood Angels without having survived the horrendous environment of Baal.
None of the speaking parts have been primaris as far as I can tell, but most of the units you actually use during the missions are.
The only really negative thing is italy being basically borderline completely fethed now. I played them for the atleast the trains are on time achievement.
Their focus tree is seriously gimped at this stage, their army focuses in particular are underwhelming. (when the baltics have in 1 focus 5 civs and you get 4 civs in 2 foci then something is wrong)
PLanes are still more and too effective against fleets,
Italy's the last of the major powers with just a basic tree, and it shows. There is very little in the way of options with it, and it effectively forces you into Balkans expansion. When compared with the newer trees with multiple paths and options that the nearby countries have, the difference is glaring. I imagine that Italy will be the focus of the next big expansion.
Germany also hasn't had a tree overhaul. But the basic German tree provides options. The Italian tree, in comparison, is almost a straitjacket.
I'd be interested in battlesector, might download it if it's on gamepass.
I've been playing some sea of thieves with my wife which has been quite fun, I forgot about how much I enjoy the game. People go on about it being super boring but I just love sailing about.
Also been playing total warhammer 2, I realised recently that after 400 hours in the game I've never actually finished the vortex campaign. I played it when it came out then stopped and then have played the mega campaign since then. Felt a little embarrassed about that so quickly blasted through it on hard as Tyrion.
Trying to work out Age of Empires IV. I sort of got a handle on what I was doing in III and AoM, but never managed to figure out what to do about even a fairly weak rush in II or IV.
My sons and I are playing a bit of Stardew Valley. It’s a lovely gentle game, and quite engaging (especially if you like watering plants). I sat down to dinner today to the statement of “dad, we’re broke. I had a great set of sales and had five grand, but then I went to a festival and bought a snowman.”
I’m hoping that this is a valuable learning experience about the power of financial care… I can live In hope…
Hades, again, struggling due to a constant frame rate drop. Like, it even chugs on the settings screen too. I looked up online and it seems even high, high tier PCs it lags so it's something up with the game.
I have just finally (finally!) completed Alien Isolation. Ooh boy, what an absolute lovable bastard of a game. I would say one of the hardest games I have ever played, even on easy mode. I could have described every one of the teeth on the Alien's secondary jaw in detail by the end, that's for sure lol.
Really, really well made game. You can tell it was an absolute love letter to the original film and creation, there were just so many instances where (as a big fan of the first film) I just thought "wow, great job". As a criticism, I would say it lasted about 4 hours too long, and the ending felt a bit forced. Almost like one of those films where they don't know when to end it, so it keeps flip-flopping about and when the credits roll you're sat there for a few minutes refusing to believe that it has actually finished.
So I would drop from probably a 9/10 (even 10/10) to a 7 or 8/10, because of the length and it losing its terror based on over exposure of the beast. For the first half of the game, boy if you had measured my heart rate it must have been soaring, moving through the medical facility and the like. But by the end of it I was sat happily munching a sandwich as I got facehuggered or tail-speared for the 832nd time in the last hour. You die so much, it sucks some of the fear and anticipation out of it. That may be in part though because I often suck at games
I love Isolation, but the ending drags on way too long. Usually Dan Abnett can't write a decent ending to his stuff and rushes the final act, but in this case, the final act is way too long.
On my end, been playing more Inquisitor Martyr, solo, due to FFXIV getting it's update and stealing away my coop buddies. Wrapped up the campaign proper, which was okay and am now playing away with the techpriest, who is a lot of fun when you unlock the Kastellans.
I think I'm done with Anthem. It kept me engaged enough to finish it but yeah, it gets quite repetitive. The flying and combat is well done and makes you wonder would could have been if they didn't go for a perpetual online experience.
BrookM wrote:I love Isolation, but the ending drags on way too long. Usually Dan Abnett can't write a decent ending to his stuff and rushes the final act, but in this case, the final act is way too long.
Ah yes I forgot Dan Abnett had written the script. I wonder how much was the game creators following a storyline though, and how much was Dan having to write the script to match what was happening in the game? And he may have been held hostage to that.
He must have got sick of writing "go to X and turn this on Ripley" !
krijthebold wrote:Somehow in my mind Alien: Isolation is a "new" game so when I looked it up and saw "2014" I just had to sit down for a minute.
Yes it's mad isn't it! I had left the game alone for about 6 years, it took me that long to get the nerve and come back to it
Finally managed to get back into Mount and Blade 2: Banner Lord; Electric Boogaloo. Now my character is over 100 in his one-handed skill combat feels awesome. You can sorta do a combo that looks cool and can get through the enemy defences so well. Like even against dudes with shields, kinda get in a rhythm when I hit them, they then try to counter-attack, but by then my next slash is hurtling toward them. They get cut and try to attack again, but then my third slash comes horizontally from a different angle slicing through their skull and killing them (or knocking them unconscious if in the arena) it's pretty badass. Now mostly doing like mercenary stuff with a small fifty-odd detachment of elite troops.
Wealth gathering is much easier than in Warband, so I'm already on like 14k and easily able to gain a profit with a daily cost of 400 odd denars. Uhh thinking of going to work with a lord as I'm a bit tired of running errands for traders and killing lowly bandits.
Getting on in Battlesector. The Sororitas lady has just waxed lyrical about how space marines must have moved on beyond normal mortal concerns as how could they possibly understand the threat of genestealers getting hold in the Baal system. I mean it’s not like Blood Angels have much experience of fighting genestealers… ahem…
I guess one could just put it down to propaganda or the Angels not broadcasting the pasting they took on that one hulk… but based on Lex, the BAngles have gotten stuck in to genestealers on numerous hulks, so I’m going to stay grumpy about this one
Such a fun game. I never expected that I'd enjoy arcadey games so much, but here we are. The progression aspect is satisfying and fast, no two runs are the same... And it has that "Asteroids" aesthetic. Asteroids being the first video game I ever played, it has a special place in my heart.
Speaking of... Asteroids: Recharged is... almost disappointing? The core gameplay is there, but they don't have re-bindable controls, so you're stuck with a weird one-handed WASD+Space control scheme if you're using keyboard. They should at least allow arrow keys even if they don't allow mouse. Might have to buy one of those new USB Atari joysticks... I've been considering the VCS a little...
Can't remember if I said, but I finished FFXV. Overall enjoyed it, just gotta play the DLC at some point to see if it helps fill in the gaps in the story at all.
Started up Returnal as well as Spider-Man Miles Morales. Finally playing some PS5 games on PS5.
So far Returnal has been fun, however, there is a game mechanic where if you find another players body you can scan it and find out how they died, sometimes this grants a chance to either get an item or earn some of the games "ether" currency (which carries over between runs). However, choosing that option spawns a mini-boss that is quite difficult to kill if you are early in a run. Not too hard to avoid, but sometimes if you scan the bodies it doesn't give you a choice and the body itself turns into the miniboss.
Basically, the game keeps throwing these bodies at me, and I keep having to remind myself not to fight them because I am not ready for these fights. but they are way too tempting.
Just clocked Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines with the unofficial patch yet again, too bad I couldn't play the Clan Quest mod due to it not being updated to the latest patch, but oh well. I played as a female Malkavian with a mod that makes the PC look like Jeanette. Man, that game just epitomises everything about the early to mid-2000s that made me nostalgic as frig for that time the music, the aesthetics, everything. Too nostalgic, never felt more nostalgic for anything before in my life, lol. Wish there was more of Joe Dimaggio's Smiling Jack and Michael Gough's Beckett in the game; both are likeable, fun characters.
Knowing how bad the development that game had, it's amazing how well it turned out, even if it was a glitch-ridden mess. Thank goodness for the dedicated people who patched it and patched it up over the years. Reminds me of Fallout: New Vegas a bit, but at least Obsidian was able to fix it up after its release. Both are two of my all-time favourite games as well. Might play as a Tremere next as I've never played through as one before. Really recommend anyone and everyone who enjoys RPGs and Immersive Sims give it a go!
and yes i gamble basically on ea and dice delivering in the liveservice department..
and yes i shouldn't, but as a bf vet, i just want a good bf again...
feth ea.
I was honestly heartbroken when 2042 crashed and burned. I thought for sure the extra year of development time was going to make a huge difference and they still fell flat on their faces. I hope one day the series is good again but I'm not holding my breath.
Conan Exiles - just made a major mistake, accidently triggered a giant croc near my base which managed to get into my base and kill me and most of my thralls....ah well - kept respawning and dying before I realised that logging out would send it back to its lair :(
and yes i gamble basically on ea and dice delivering in the liveservice department..
and yes i shouldn't, but as a bf vet, i just want a good bf again...
feth ea.
I was honestly heartbroken when 2042 crashed and burned. I thought for sure the extra year of development time was going to make a huge difference and they still fell flat on their faces. I hope one day the series is good again but I'm not holding my breath.
yeah, however, so far it ain't looking good in regards to the next title beeing supposedly even more of an hero shooter
Playing some Aliens Fireteam on xbox as its on gamepass. Played the first mission by myself with bots which was dull, played it with a couple of friends which is a lot more fun.
Not a great game at all, seems extremely unpolished. But the sound effects are nice.
I started playing Fallen Order and I'm really glad I got it for under $20. It's a beautiful game, but not my style at all.
Edit: Well I finished it and ended up loving it aside from the combat being clunky with mouse and keyboard. Mainly during group fights. Didn't feel nearly as smooth as AC:Valhalla does.
Parkour/Exploration aspect is really fun and it gets pretty easy once you get Jedi Flip.
The story wasn't anything mind-blowing, but it was executed incredibly well and ended up being very moving, particularly with the flashbacks.
Nightsister Merrin was the off-putting character. I get that the internet loves her because she's gorgeous, but her characterization was by far the weakest part of the story.
I wouldn't say it was ever worth the initial price of $50-60, but it's a great pick up at under $20. Downside is that it so linear that I can't think of a reason to replay it after doing every planet to just 70-80% completion initially.
I made it through the first two biomes in returnal and now the boss of the third biome is giving me trouble. I just gotta get better at dodging and being aware of my surroundings. Or get that one lucky run. We shall see.
Playing Gunk on XBox Gamepass. Its quite a distracting little mystery adventure. Its not hard so far, and the graphics are lovely. Should work nicely as a relaxing play through.
Basic premise - flying in your junker ship with your best friend and detect an energy signal from a planet. Go investigate to see if its somthing that might be valuable, or someone in trouble, and find this horrible bubbly gunk. conveniently your arm is a mechanical replacement that just so happens to have the best vacuum cleaner attachment this side of the Pecos system
So wander about a pretty planet sucking up gunk and finding macguffins, upgrading kit and just moseying along in the story.
Clocked VTMB yet, yet again this time as a Toreador swordsman/sharp tongued/seductive/evasive badass. Managed to kill the werewolf in the park in close combat due to a unofficial patch update allowing it. Took a couple of tries but managed it. Wasn't really worth it as it made me use up a lot of blood bags I could've used storming the Kuei-Jin base and fighting Ming-Xiao one of the most annoying bosses in the games I've played. But got through. Such a great game.
Platforming bits can get squarely in the bin. The puzzles however are pretty satisfying (especially once you grasp that the Gorenest combat challenges will take a couple of attempts each, as it’s very much Horses for Courses weapons wise.
The combat is pretty intense, especially given I’m naturally inclined to sneaky snipe stab in FPS, but rarely feels overwhelming.
However, the intensity does mean I can only play for so long before needing a rest!
Decided to kick off with Dragon Age Inquisition, partly because I've been itching to play an RPG (that's actually finished), and partly because I've never gotten to the Trespasser DLC and kind of want to before DA4 happens in the next few years.
Also want to try a rogue character again (abandoned my first attempt on my first playthrough), and deal with some of the companions I usually ignore (Vivienne, Dorian, maybe Blackwall). Still really dislike Sera and Cole, though, which is another reason to go rogue.
Voss wrote: Decided to kick off with Dragon Age Inquisition, partly because I've been itching to play an RPG (that's actually finished), and partly because I've never gotten to the Trespasser DLC and kind of want to before DA4 happens in the next few years.
Also want to try a rogue character again (abandoned my first attempt on my first playthrough), and deal with some of the companions I usually ignore (Vivienne, Dorian, maybe Blackwall). Still really dislike Sera and Cole, though, which is another reason to go rogue.
The Vivienne+Dorian+Iron Bull combo has some pretty good party banter. I remember Blackwall being really bland even though I used him enough to do his questline.
Right now i'm trying to pick out whether i should buy Hearts of Iron 4 or WH40K: Battlesector. Both look fun but i can't quite buy both due to funds left.
I also bought Tails of Iron since the idea of good guy Skaven reuniting a skaven kingdom to take down evil frog-men (lizardmen) and voiced by Geralt's voice actor from the Witcher games is very appealing to me.
I played a bit of WH40k: Gladius as well recently. I feel like i'm not doing too badly in it but somehow i can't keep playing it for extended periods. I don't know why. Ofc i'm overall finding most of the games i have to be boring either due to not playing anything new for too long (as well as many recent games sucking) or reaching a depressive state with games. On the plus side i've done more painting and a bit more hobbying with 40k than i normally ever do.
For me, Gladius is simply a shallow game. Did you slowly move enough rocks/papers/scissors across the too large and cluttered map? And is it a big enough envelopment to slaughter the ridiculous carpet of enemy units?
Actually, I'm not even sure Gladius has scissors, with the way the damage types work.
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battle sector feels unfinished to me. Needs more units and factions
Battle Sector is typical Slitherine fare: expensive DLC will bulk things out. Necrons have already been announced and the first faction expansions have been put up for sale.
That sounds like you two would prefer hearts of iron 4 then. I kind of want to see what it's like but WW2 isn't as much my thing as cold war alternative ww3 is.
flamingkillamajig wrote: That sounds like you two would prefer hearts of iron 4 then. I kind of want to see what it's like but WW2 isn't as much my thing as cold war alternative ww3 is.
Mods for hoiv have you more than covered.
Problem is the DLC policy of paradox.
Started playing Guardians of the Galaxy and for the most part like it. The combat feels a little MMO weightless though.. It controls like an action game but you're mostly spamming cooldowns. The story is loaded with the stuff that makes both the movies and comics great though and is enough to carry me to the end when I get back to it.
First though, my wife and I picked up It Takes Two and are absolutely loving it. It's basically a barrage of clever pure co-op gameplay that really demands communication and teamwork. I think its biggest weakness is that the levels are overly long. There's some decent breakpoints, but its a solid 2-3 hours to get to a new chapter and that's hard in co-op. It is in no way repetitive though, as the game is constantly switching up mechanics and gameplay styles in endlessly creative ways. It's like a huge pile of experiments that constantly sparks that novel joy. There's just like... a lot of it.
flamingkillamajig wrote: That sounds like you two would prefer hearts of iron 4 then. I kind of want to see what it's like but WW2 isn't as much my thing as cold war alternative ww3 is.
Kind of? I don't really like HoI4, so I didn't really mention it. Its a more complete game (now), but I honestly I find WW2 a little... dull and overplayed.
And I've got too much of a history background to intentionally do it 'wrong.' I just don't find that appealing.
I like the map system and the combat front model, but my preferences are solidly more fantasy or sci-fi.
nels1031 wrote: Decided to get back into Witcher 3, after a year or so abscence because Witcher season 2 was fun for the most part.
Made the poor decision to select “Death March” difficulty. Quickly regretted it, started over at normal.
I think I turned down the difficulty as I found the combat was a bit sloppy, and it was kind of ruining the story for me (which I thought was the strongest part of the game).
I'm actually trying to hold on replaying until the PS5 remastered version comes out later this year, which I think is rumoured. That's assuming I can get hold of a PS5!
Been playing Surviving the Aftermath. Changes made with the release are interesting. Rare metals were removed as a resource you could get from the colony (world map only), though it looks like that's going to be changed in an upcoming patch). And a plot arc was added about building a Fallout-style bunker in your colony to shelter your survivors.
I finally managed to do the "bad romeance" achievement in HOIV.... horrific. Horrific. All i wanted to do was to finally get it so i did run ahisotircal and it went nonsensical really fast.
First the axis took away my core territory via releasing a turkish puppet which went independent due to the focus tree still being broken and a kurdish puppet after i declared byzantium. Which meant that i had to leave the axis and declare on them however to smaller the frontline i had to release albania and bulgaria, which i then had to painfully reintegrate.
then i had to fight tooth and nails to reconnect my rail line due to beeing still cut in half in greece from my already aquired anatolian provinces.
The allies proved incompetent enough that they got nearly kicked out of iraq by a kurdish puppet.
after that i had to grind with medium tanks divisions away.
Conlcusion, i am still fairly sure that the german AI cheats in regards to supply.
Ahistorical can be amazing and really fun but not if you are fighting in the balkans, the second worst place to fight in after china.
Finally finished a playthrough of Expedition:Viking, just to hype myself up for Expedition:Rome dropping late this month.
My opinion, this is a very solid rpg/turn based game. Very much like Fallout 1/2 and the recent Wasteland games. Alot of options for different sorts of build for your party(ies), seemingly branching storylines and some degree in freedom in how you want to play and explore the game. Combat gets kind of repetitive, but thats usually because of the nature of the time setting and that I choose fairly vanilla builds (2 swords and boards, 2 healers in the back with ranged weapons and either a beserker with 2 hander or a warrior with spear fighting behind the shields).
Not sure if I want to try another playthrough as a thegn deadset on war, conquest and pillage(the opposite of my very diplomatic playthrough)or give the predecessor Expedition:Conquistador another shot to see if thats also one that flew under my radar.
Finally started to play the base hearts of iron 4 game. Played the tutorial which felt slow and then started playing the 1936 campaign which is ungodly slow and unfun. I spent hours just to get to the end of 1938 not knowing too much of what I’m doing. I feel like I should’ve jumped into the 1939 campaign. This games really needs a campaign between those 2 others so you have less of a slow burn.
I’m playing as the British because I didn’t want to get roflstomped as France. Also I didn’t want to play as commies or axis. Italy might have been ok but not totally my thing. If I did go Italy I’d probably focus on navy. Perhaps I should’ve gone for the Soviet Union after all.
Well hopefully I don’t get curbstomped as the British. I dunno if the moves I made are any good. I feel like there’s so much about this game I’m clueless about esp. with when to do what.
Anyway fill me in as to how this game is so awesome. So far playing it feels something akin to playing an over complicated game, playing a game you hate with friends (misery enjoys company I guess) and watching paint dry.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Finally started to play the base hearts of iron 4 game. Played the tutorial which felt slow and then started playing the 1936 campaign which is ungodly slow and unfun. I spent hours just to get to the end of 1938 not knowing too much of what I’m doing. I feel like I should’ve jumped into the 1939 campaign. This games really needs a campaign between those 2 others so you have less of a slow burn.
Normally, the 1939 start is all but ignored by players. The reason for this is because starting in 1936 gives you the most time to prepare your country before war breaks out. When you understand how the game works (and it will take a while), you'll be able to set things up much more to your liking during those early critical years.
As for learning the game - the tutorial gives a very basic explanation of stuff. But I don't think it's been updated since the game was released. I recommend that you check out some online videos that will provide a more in-depth explanation of what's going on, and what you probably ought to be focusing on.
Taking a break from Returnal and cranking my way through Miles Morales Spiderman. I'm really enjoying the story, but the combat in this one feels off. I'm having a lot of moments where miles dodges into enemy attacks, or the spider-sense prompt appears after the rocket launcher has already fired, and it's too late to avoid the splash damage. Very frustrating.
balmong7 wrote: Taking a break from Returnal and cranking my way through Miles Morales Spiderman. I'm really enjoying the story, but the combat in this one feels off. I'm having a lot of moments where miles dodges into enemy attacks, or the spider-sense prompt appears after the rocket launcher has already fired, and it's too late to avoid the splash damage. Very frustrating.
I didn't have too much trouble, but they do seem to want you to dodge less and focus more on things like returning rockets with webbing. The main different is just how much Miles relies on the venom sting.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Finally started to play the base hearts of iron 4 game. Played the tutorial which felt slow and then started playing the 1936 campaign which is ungodly slow and unfun. I spent hours just to get to the end of 1938 not knowing too much of what I’m doing. I feel like I should’ve jumped into the 1939 campaign. This games really needs a campaign between those 2 others so you have less of a slow burn.
I’m playing as the British because I didn’t want to get roflstomped as France. Also I didn’t want to play as commies or axis. Italy might have been ok but not totally my thing. If I did go Italy I’d probably focus on navy. Perhaps I should’ve gone for the Soviet Union after all.
Well hopefully I don’t get curbstomped as the British. I dunno if the moves I made are any good. I feel like there’s so much about this game I’m clueless about esp. with when to do what.
Anyway fill me in as to how this game is so awesome. So far playing it feels something akin to playing an over complicated game, playing a game you hate with friends (misery enjoys company I guess) and watching paint dry.
How many DLC do you own? A lot of the interesting stuff is locked behind DLC paywalls since well, paradox.
Basically you also made multiple mistakes which hinder your enjoyment:
1. You picked democratic nations. Quite literally these are the nations most inhibited by design to act and move. That is not to say that they can't be interesting but you are forced into an reactionary position in the initial phase of the game or take them off the rails or just play them as non-democratic.
2. You picked Britain. The combat, division design and the planning and executing of offensives whilest maintaining air superiority and logistics is the strongpoint of this game. Britain by being an island basically is the single worst country to pick to learn the game aswell as to enjoy the game, just like japan, however Japan has the advantage of the china war which is interesting mechanically and challangeing for beginners aswell as also able to teach puppet mechanics.
3. You seem to have first run the tutorial and then face first into the maingame without knowledge about division design, logistical aspects or fundamental game mechanics, f.e. what is the guarantee threshhold, what is world tension and how is that tied to my government ideology for what i can and can't do, what part of the tree will any of the movers go down.
4. Getting your teeth by the AI kicked in is a good way to learn the ropes. Hence why france is a better pick, especially since france teaches you how to defend especially via terrain due to an underdevelopped armaments industry and when to shift from defense to offensives aswell as how to first fix up and make ready a country to be able to be run.
Stellaris, now with all the (Major) DLC thanks to Chrimbus. (No species packs except Lithoids, no Distant Stars, no Leviathans.)
Hoo boy... the vanilla experience is nothing compared to the full game!
Feeling out the new govt types one at a time (Hive minds are fun!) before I finally bump the difficulty up, and slowly making my way through all the most defining civics. I love customization and rp/headcanon-based gameplay, and Stellaris facilitates both marvelously! I've sunk a few dozen hours in already (not counting the plenty in vanilla), and I can easily see myself sinking dozens more
...and eventually, once the well runs dry, opening the floodgates that are the extensive modding scene for the game!
@not_online: So in HoI4 i've mostly played a 2nd single-player campaign and a co-op campaign where i'm probably in early 1938 still as UK and in the co-op campaign (my co-op partner as USA) i think both of us are giving each other useful tips from new stuff we figure out by ourselves. It's actually fun in a way. We're both new so we're discovering it together and sharing our new knowledge with each other.
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Update: war was started with Germany which is pushing through still fairly hard. Managed to fight back Italy in Africa and push them back as well as take a small bit of their territory. Navy seems to be doing alright. France will fall soon and I need to push back out towards the UK. I figure I have a few weeks at best before Paris falls.
flamingkillamajig wrote: @not_online: So in HoI4 i've mostly played a 2nd single-player campaign and a co-op campaign where i'm probably in early 1938 still as UK and in the co-op campaign (my co-op partner as USA) i think both of us are giving each other useful tips from new stuff we figure out by ourselves. It's actually fun in a way. We're both new so we're discovering it together and sharing our new knowledge with each other.
——-
Update: war was started with Germany which is pushing through still fairly hard. Managed to fight back Italy in Africa and push them back as well as take a small bit of their territory. Navy seems to be doing alright. France will fall soon and I need to push back out towards the UK. I figure I have a few weeks at best before Paris falls.
You always need a bit to warm up to HOIV, right now the division meta is a bit up in the air, 10 widths with basically all the support arty seems to have become kinda meta in the multiplayer realm with superior firepower doctrine.
If you need some help or have some questions feel free to ask though.
GL with the war, btw, have you done the fighter production cost reduction foci?
I’m having issues with low manpower. I heard of some ways to handle that (field hospital, volunteers and so on) but I think we lack the expansion that allows me to conscript from my subject nations or whatever it was.
I decided of all my lands I may just need to focus on the Mediterranean, Africa, Gibraltar, the suez and my home country and maybe leave most of the other stuff to their own devices because I don’t think I can handle such distant supply lines.
I’m gonna see if more war support as well as focuses and side things for it helps my manpower situation. It hopefully should.
flamingkillamajig wrote: I’m having issues with low manpower. I heard of some ways to handle that (field hospital, volunteers and so on) but I think we lack the expansion that allows me to conscript from my subject nations or whatever it was.
I decided of all my lands I may just need to focus on the Mediterranean, Africa, Gibraltar, the suez and my home country and maybe leave most of the other stuff to their own devices because I don’t think I can handle such distant supply lines.
I’m gonna see if more war support as well as focuses and side things for it helps my manpower situation. It hopefully should.
You need to get rid of the "war to end all war" national spirits. It lowers your manpower availability by 25% to my knowledge.
Then there is also the conscription law. War support doesn't help with manpower, rather it helps with mobilisation of manpower.
Field hospitals are a trap, as is battleplanning.
Particularly paradox games, which individually have a tendency to spontaneously evolve (or devolve) into completely different ecosystems at the at drop of a hat.
I remember when you got to pick from three flavors of space travel in Stellaris, and your borders were decided by cultural influence. Things really have changed fundamentally since then, and it's kinda cool that Paradox are willing to risk alienating their audience to improve their game.
Obviously that exact line of thought has lead so many games down the path of aimless teardowns and bloat, but it seems that Paradox is handling it better than that thus far.
Squidsy22 wrote: I remember when you got to pick from three flavors of space travel in Stellaris, and your borders were decided by cultural influence. Things really have changed fundamentally since then, and it's kinda cool that Paradox are willing to risk alienating their audience to improve their game.
Obviously that exact line of thought has lead so many games down the path of aimless teardowns and bloat, but it seems that Paradox is handling it better than that thus far.
I definitely don't agree with that.
EUIV got driven into the ground by its changes, and ever-more-minor DLC packs (the beginning of the end were the tech changes to be 'more realistic' with institutions). Its nothing but bloat at this point.
Imperator was a disaster made into slightly less of a disaster and then abandoned,
HoI4 is purely about the dev's favorite factions.
Stellaris is a very swingy hit and miss (and I really don't look forward to abandoning Admin Cap and edict capacity for a vain attempt at overhauling Unity and spiritualists), and still often feels like a spreadsheet accumulating meaningless numbers. I still miss the different travel modes, to be honest. Chasing down fleets is still annoying, so I never really 'got' the supposed improvement here.
CK3 is... ok, but not great, and very delayed in getting more content off the ground (though less than a month now. Finally. Hopefully.).
flamingkillamajig wrote: Right now i'm trying to pick out whether i should buy Hearts of Iron 4 or WH40K: Battlesector. Both look fun but i can't quite buy both due to funds left.
I also bought Tails of Iron since the idea of good guy Skaven reuniting a skaven kingdom to take down evil frog-men (lizardmen) and voiced by Geralt's voice actor from the Witcher games is very appealing to me.
I played a bit of WH40k: Gladius as well recently. I feel like i'm not doing too badly in it but somehow i can't keep playing it for extended periods. I don't know why. Ofc i'm overall finding most of the games i have to be boring either due to not playing anything new for too long (as well as many recent games sucking) or reaching a depressive state with games. On the plus side i've done more painting and a bit more hobbying with 40k than i normally ever do.
I'm almost done with Battlesector and I can say I've enjoyed it. Really scratches the 40K itch since I don't play the tabletop game anymore.
Just bought myself a new gaming laptop and been playing Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord: Electric Boogaloo and it now runs smooth as silk on the highest specs and the game looks very pretty on some battlefields as my soldiers battle the enemy!
flamingkillamajig wrote: Right now i'm trying to pick out whether i should buy Hearts of Iron 4 or WH40K: Battlesector. Both look fun but i can't quite buy both due to funds left.
I also bought Tails of Iron since the idea of good guy Skaven reuniting a skaven kingdom to take down evil frog-men (lizardmen) and voiced by Geralt's voice actor from the Witcher games is very appealing to me.
I played a bit of WH40k: Gladius as well recently. I feel like i'm not doing too badly in it but somehow i can't keep playing it for extended periods. I don't know why. Ofc i'm overall finding most of the games i have to be boring either due to not playing anything new for too long (as well as many recent games sucking) or reaching a depressive state with games. On the plus side i've done more painting and a bit more hobbying with 40k than i normally ever do.
I'm almost done with Battlesector and I can say I've enjoyed it. Really scratches the 40K itch since I don't play the tabletop game anymore.
How are you liking Hearts of Iron?
Hard to say. There’s like a million different stats and it feels over-complicated. I think I’m starting to get the hang of it though. My co op multiplayer campaign ended badly. About 1940 and only had maybe 7 divisions left total and my USA partner finally was about to join the war. I basically lost almost all my territory in 1940, the soviets lost Moscow and it was just ridiculously ugly at that point.
We both figured out more things. I also learned more about war support and a bit of what to research and when. He showed me tanks and other vehicles have different variants you can research. In my new solo campaign I got 3 normal light tanks with an aa light tank, artillery light tank and a heavy tank killer tank all in my tank division.
I’m also reading what each infantry support upgrade does and I’ve decided to get most except field hospitals and military police. I think infantry battalions can also do without maintenance crews or repair crews. I guess we’ll find out.
I showed my friend that after you do enough national focuses you can unlock some that stay until you change focuses. I also showed him that depending on how elite a unit is supposed to be you can prioritize upgrades to certain units to differentiate defensive infantry from elites or infantry which are meant to attack.
I feel like the only Paradox game I really "got" was Crusader Kings 2 (still haven't had a chance to try 3)
I think it's because it's just much more of a complete sandbox, you have the option of pursuing "win" conditions, but there's absolutely no need to. You can hang out as a count, and see what happens with your family. You can conquer, or not conquer.
The other games are sandboxes in one sense, but they're also much more stringent in what the "right" way to play is.
I still rather miss the old planet management from Stellaris. The visual of plopping down pops on tiles may not have been what they wanted, but I enjoyed it.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Right now i'm trying to pick out whether i should buy Hearts of Iron 4 or WH40K: Battlesector. Both look fun but i can't quite buy both due to funds left.
I also bought Tails of Iron since the idea of good guy Skaven reuniting a skaven kingdom to take down evil frog-men (lizardmen) and voiced by Geralt's voice actor from the Witcher games is very appealing to me.
I played a bit of WH40k: Gladius as well recently. I feel like i'm not doing too badly in it but somehow i can't keep playing it for extended periods. I don't know why. Ofc i'm overall finding most of the games i have to be boring either due to not playing anything new for too long (as well as many recent games sucking) or reaching a depressive state with games. On the plus side i've done more painting and a bit more hobbying with 40k than i normally ever do.
I'm almost done with Battlesector and I can say I've enjoyed it. Really scratches the 40K itch since I don't play the tabletop game anymore.
How are you liking Hearts of Iron?
Hard to say. There’s like a million different stats and it feels over-complicated. I think I’m starting to get the hang of it though. My co op multiplayer campaign ended badly. About 1940 and only had maybe 7 divisions left total and my USA partner finally was about to join the war. I basically lost almost all my territory in 1940, the soviets lost Moscow and it was just ridiculously ugly at that point.
We both figured out more things. I also learned more about war support and a bit of what to research and when. He showed me tanks and other vehicles have different variants you can research. In my new solo campaign I got 3 normal light tanks with an aa light tank, artillery light tank and a heavy tank killer tank all in my tank division.
I’m also reading what each infantry support upgrade does and I’ve decided to get most except field hospitals and military police. I think infantry battalions can also do without maintenance crews or repair crews. I guess we’ll find out.
I showed my friend that after you do enough national focuses you can unlock some that stay until you change focuses. I also showed him that depending on how elite a unit is supposed to be you can prioritize upgrades to certain units to differentiate defensive infantry from elites or infantry which are meant to attack.
Honestly most of the stats are pretty meaningless for many units and playstyles.
F.e. Infantry to fill out the frontline is basically only dependent upon HP, Organisation, and the occaisional support company.
For a cockroach type build which smaller or threathened nations like france can rely upon, maintenance is king due to not only making your own guns reliable and therefore break less but also increasing the ratio at which they capture enemy equipment.
Mp is only need and advised if you have to garrison regions and should be in ALL garison divisions. (incidentally designing a garrison template is a good way to reduce infantry and support equipment cost, preferablly full cavalery and MP.)
also the game is in a wierd state right now in which Airpower is once again too dominant and the tank designer and tanks having become less usefull overall. (still a good way to have 3-5 tank divisions and cut the AI appart piece by piece. but in MP tanks have fallen out in favour of 10 width support arty spam.)
I’m also playing Halo Infinite. I’m pretty out of the loop on game news and hype so this one came as quite a shock. Thought it was just going to be another quick campaign of Halo. Didn’t know I was in for Halo: Farcry.
Decided to hop into Breakpoint and work my way through the new endgame content. Not bad, maybe a bit too simplistic in execution, but probably for the best in the long run, so it doesn't wear out its welcome. About halfway done I think, so maybe two or three more sessions to go, then it should be over.
Hades again on my new laptop and have managed to complete it twice in a row. Now with the buttery smooth frame rate it seems to make a huge difference. Although, I did it the 2nd time with the shield which is OPlol
2nd co op campaign in HoI4 and my friend and I chose the same countries and we are doing infinitely better. Oddly France is where our shield wall has stuck and we are in 1940 somewhere. Somehow we managed to get republican spain to entirely beat nationalist Spain. Italy took a little ground from me but mostly lost it due to France grabbing their territory of all things. The ai seems to not want to attack me when I have units defending an area.
Our air and navy advantage stuck around for a while and I mobilized and got a decent amount of conscription going on.
I stationed navies or subs (I put the subs on convoy intercept) around Gibraltar and the sea between norway and Germany as well as parts around Italy. I think my ships are getting outdated but it was a good choke point while it lasted.
I probably should’ve made more planes too. I stationed a lot of them in France.
I think I’ll cut down on infantry in my infantry template armies and replace them with artillery and then produce planes and a bit better navy. Tanks seem to be doing fine. I have 60 plus military factories right now and a bit more than that for civilian ones.
Anyway we’ll see how it goes. Soviet Union is fighting the Germans as well and seems to be losing ground but not quickly. If I get bored I might call Portugal to help us too but it probably isn’t a big enough boost to us and costs a lot of political power besides that I can’t spare.
So lately I've been getting into Wolfenstein. Got it on Game Pass a little while ago and only recently actually decided to play it.
Bloody hell, it has to be one of the best franchises I've every played. The extent of the worldbuilding, so many things they didn't need to add, but did it anyway because they want to make it more immersive or to fully set the scene. The first "between levels" part where you're hiding in your hangout I spent the best part of an hour just reading all the news clippings and excerpts as it was so interesting.
The cutscene with the brain though; that has to be the first time I've had to put the controller down and make a cup of tea. Still gives me shivers.
It's a brutal scene and Totenkopf is an amazing villain, whenever he says "William. Joseph. Blazkowicz." it just oozes with evil. Just wait until you meet the other big bad of the game.
Finished up Guardians of the Galaxy. Really kind of shocked at how much I liked it. Probably my favorite bit of Guardians content since the first movie.
It's definitely not optimized for the original PS4 though and some of the later levels turn into slide shows. Luckily the game is more MMO styled than action oriented with a focus on spamming cooldowns as gameplay.
The main draw is the story, which does a fantastic job of giving you fun dialog options and sometimes making them important. It took me a bit to click with the blend of MCU and comic versions of the characters, but by the end managed to tell a really strong story about accepting loss and finding new family to care for.
It's kind of mind blowing that this game showed up out of the blue and really shows how good Avengers could have been if it hadn't been warped into a mess of cash cow.
flamingkillamajig wrote: 2nd co op campaign in HoI4 and my friend and I chose the same countries and we are doing infinitely better. Oddly France is where our shield wall has stuck and we are in 1940 somewhere. Somehow we managed to get republican spain to entirely beat nationalist Spain. Italy took a little ground from me but mostly lost it due to France grabbing their territory of all things. The ai seems to not want to attack me when I have units defending an area.
Our air and navy advantage stuck around for a while and I mobilized and got a decent amount of conscription going on.
I stationed navies or subs (I put the subs on convoy intercept) around Gibraltar and the sea between norway and Germany as well as parts around Italy. I think my ships are getting outdated but it was a good choke point while it lasted.
I probably should’ve made more planes too. I stationed a lot of them in France.
I think I’ll cut down on infantry in my infantry template armies and replace them with artillery and then produce planes and a bit better navy. Tanks seem to be doing fine. I have 60 plus military factories right now and a bit more than that for civilian ones.
Anyway we’ll see how it goes. Soviet Union is fighting the Germans as well and seems to be losing ground but not quickly. If I get bored I might call Portugal to help us too but it probably isn’t a big enough boost to us and costs a lot of political power besides that I can’t spare.
Is the combat fun? I checked out some videos and seems mostly like some lines moving on a map?
Well updates on hoi4 and we managed to reduce Italy and it’s colonies to basically a smidge of land in Italy and they capitulated. We also took land back in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands which have all decided to help against the Germans. Of course Japan also joined the Germans and the Chinese joined the allies and Comintern.
Now that my armies are done taking Italy’s colonies in Africa and France took out most of italy itself we are freed up to attack the Germans more decisively. I should have between 20-30 regiments freed up to fight in Europe now and that should help a lot.
The Soviet Union has fared about as well as it did in the real ww2 but France never fell and never really lost any land either.
I’m starting to get the hang of naval and air units too. I guess we’ll see.
@kamikaze Canuck: It can be a bit slow early on to play hoi4. If you don’t mind strategy games with an absurd amount to do and keep track of during the war and a ridiculously complicated amount of stats with a long boring lull for 3 solid years then go ahead. My friend seems to be addicted to the game now and I’m interested but likely not as interested as him. Both of us aren’t really into ww2 as a game setting so I suppose those are glowing reviews.
Got an oldie, kings of dragon pass. I absolutely love it. There’s (seemingly) so much going on beneath the surface. The game doesn’t judge you on morality but accepts what the setting implies. It’s simplistic but man is it interesting. I just find the hero quests very dull. It feels so unfair when characters randomly dies on hero quests even if you pick the right choice. Really feels like being a tribal chieftain. Looking forward to playing the successor game once I’ve beaten this one.
Nerak wrote: Got an oldie, kings of dragon pass. I absolutely love it. There’s (seemingly) so much going on beneath the surface. The game doesn’t judge you on morality but accepts what the setting implies. It’s simplistic but man is it interesting. I just find the hero quests very dull. It feels so unfair when characters randomly dies on hero quests even if you pick the right choice. Really feels like being a tribal chieftain. Looking forward to playing the successor game once I’ve beaten this one.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Well updates on hoi4 and we managed to reduce Italy and it’s colonies to basically a smidge of land in Italy and they capitulated. We also took land back in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands which have all decided to help against the Germans. Of course Japan also joined the Germans and the Chinese joined the allies and Comintern.
Now that my armies are done taking Italy’s colonies in Africa and France took out most of italy itself we are freed up to attack the Germans more decisively. I should have between 20-30 regiments freed up to fight in Europe now and that should help a lot.
The Soviet Union has fared about as well as it did in the real ww2 but France never fell and never really lost any land either.
I’m starting to get the hang of naval and air units too. I guess we’ll see.
@kamikaze Canuck: It can be a bit slow early on to play hoi4. If you don’t mind strategy games with an absurd amount to do and keep track of during the war and a ridiculously complicated amount of stats with a long boring lull for 3 solid years then go ahead. My friend seems to be addicted to the game now and I’m interested but likely not as interested as him. Both of us aren’t really into ww2 as a game setting so I suppose those are glowing reviews.
Actually I do like ridiculously completed amounts of stats. Alright, I'll get around to playing one of these days...
Played a couple more hours of hearts of iron 4. We pushed back and took almost all of Italy as well as took back all of Netherlands and Belgium and a chunk of Germany. I figure most of Germany’s factories are in its home land or at least all its best ones. Taking Germany therefore while hard is depriving them of factories to keep up its war effort against us and currently each of us has more factories than Germany so it’s a matter of outlasting them so we can build more units overall than them of why I may have only 1/3rd their numbers and the troops are still fairly strong a couple things to watch about but when you fighting may be to swarm them with frace, uk, USA and any liberated countrys armies that wants to help out.
Siege Extraction released yesterday, so far surprisingly good. Okay, weapon recoil is a direct copy from the main game, so for some guns, horrible beyond reason. But damn it, good stealth mechanics, a solid loop and some good mechanics behind the characters to make you play with more than just one or two same ones all the time. Best of all, proper solo play, so no need to get stuck with fething morons.
Also picked up Resident Evil Village and am at that one part now.
You know the one.
Me gusta.
Jokes aside, looking forward to exploring the game thoroughly, love to explore in these games.
It's a long way from what Siege set out to be, but for what it is, it works well enough. Not for everybody, if you don't like Siege, then it'll be a hard pass.
Booted up Expedition: Rome after installing it last night.
Damn near immediately lost the campaign on the first mission because I positioned a central plot character in the wrong spot in an early mission. He bled out before I could kill the enemies and... "Game Over".
Its like X-com in the Roman world, so I think I'm going to sink a good amount of time into it.
M&B 2: Bannerlord: Electric Boogaloo, again, but kinda quit, I'm now a lord in the Vlandians who owns a lot of castles and a town now and quit because one of my villages was attacked by the Eastern Empire (it once belonged to them) and ransacked by a gathered army of over 460. I couldn't stop them due to having less than half that number and a whole lot injured from a prior battle. It had to be one of the pettiest moves I've ever seen in gaming or otherwise all because they kept failing in retaking my castle. So I was like, "Yeah, nah, I'm done for now" lol
Finished yet another play through of Mass Effect, this time the Legendary Edition. Only missing 7 achievements now as some need a second play through to get. At least I have my save for when ME 4 comes out.
After all the hype for Warhammer 3 I'm gunna re-install 2 for prep.
I’m most of the way through the first one and it’s pretty much the same. The graphics update is nice, but there is no real changes ive been able to notice. If you get it through game pass it’s worth playing again, but I wouldn’t pay full price for it if you already ha e the originals.
nels1031 wrote: Booted up Expedition: Rome after installing it last night.
Damn near immediately lost the campaign on the first mission because I positioned a central plot character in the wrong spot in an early mission. He bled out before I could kill the enemies and... "Game Over".
Its like X-com in the Roman world, so I think I'm going to sink a good amount of time into it.
I'd be interested to know how you enjoy it after a bit more game time. Sounds like a game I'd like a lot.
nels1031 wrote: Booted up Expedition: Rome after installing it last night.
Damn near immediately lost the campaign on the first mission because I positioned a central plot character in the wrong spot in an early mission. He bled out before I could kill the enemies and... "Game Over".
Its like X-com in the Roman world, so I think I'm going to sink a good amount of time into it.
I'd be interested to know how you enjoy it after a bit more game time. Sounds like a game I'd like a lot.
Its very solid. Combat is a bit challenging at first, but once you get the hang of it and get the right skills/equipment, it becomes even more fun. I just finished the tutorial missions and am in charge of a full legion, it seems. I’m having a blast.
Combat is pretty deep and open ended to a degree, with multiple ways to win some scenarios. I had a mission where I had to burn lumber that was slated to go to building an enemy fleet or fortification, I can’t remember. Point was, I needed to burn it. The map design would lead you to believe that you need to go down to the lumber piles and light them on fire, killing your way down. But I was able to kill just a few of the defenders and then lob torches and oil pots down from the cliffs onto the lumber and enemies, instead of going full fisticuff. Mission completed with little to no damage to my party.
Alot of dilemmas/events that happen on your journey are written with seemingly no right/wrong answers evident. For instance, my party came upon a woman being abducted, with the womans family in full pursuit. Me being a modern, decent(mostly) man, I intervened and drew swords on the abductors. Lo and behold, that was just a local custom and the guy in charge of the pursuers then drew on me, to protect his future son in law and his crew(the abductors)! Then I had to kill all the men…
The non RPG base building, upgrading, legion recruitment and all the other non-rpg stuff is still a mystery to me as the game doesn’t really hold your hand too much. That might be where this game falters, as I look at some of these systems and have no clue whats going on. I had a similar problem with the previous Expedition games, but the scope of this game is just so different.
8/10 is my rating, a few hours in.
I think there is a Demo available on steam. Give that a whirl!
Hearts of iron 4 co op campaign as Uk and friend as USA. A bunch of units are about ready and mostly just being trained including tank divisions. However I’ve dedicated a crap ton of military factories to full factory research for infantry equipment.
I also made a fairly beastly artillery and rocket artillery Template with lots of boosts. It’ll be nice once they hit the ground. I’ll probably do the -25% for training considering how many of my guys are training atm and the fact it’s slowing our invasion of Germany.
We are both researching rockets and nuke tech so that’ll be fun.
I’d say my biggest concern is keeping updated units constantly supplied and upgraded which tends to take so long as does template changing a list. You change a list too drastically at once and suddenly you need to reinforce units being made and it slowed the unit coming out.
Anyway I guess we will see. I have made new templates just to avoid seeing the old regiments have a million upgrades that will take forever to upgrade and refit.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Hearts of iron 4 co op campaign as Uk and friend as USA. A bunch of units are about ready and mostly just being trained including tank divisions. However I’ve dedicated a crap ton of military factories to full factory research for infantry equipment.
I also made a fairly beastly artillery and rocket artillery Template with lots of boosts. It’ll be nice once they hit the ground. I’ll probably do the -25% for training considering how many of my guys are training atm and the fact it’s slowing our invasion of Germany.
We are both researching rockets and nuke tech so that’ll be fun.
I’d say my biggest concern is keeping updated units constantly supplied and upgraded which tends to take so long as does template changing a list. You change a list too drastically at once and suddenly you need to reinforce units being made and it slowed the unit coming out.
Anyway I guess we will see. I have made new templates just to avoid seeing the old regiments have a million upgrades that will take forever to upgrade and refit.
Just a slight highlight. Rocket artillery is far superior to regular Arty in normal divisions, especially as line battery IF you have done rocket research.
Voss wrote: So whats your take on the legendary edition over the existing versions of the game? Worth the shot, or not?
To be honest it's that long since I played the original I would be hard-pressed to tell you. I played ME1 back in the pre-HD days, so would assume the graphics are somewhat better. Apparently they have tightened the combat a lot, which was one area that the original had aged quite badly. Again, I'll be honest, not having them side by side it's difficult to compare. But, I will say it plays pretty well, I've not found myself getting frustrated by it, so they must have done something right.
They really are such great games. I'm about 10 hours into the original so far and really enjoying it.
@not_online: Updates! So we took out Germany and at the end the western front was rolling Germany hard. I guess we just had too many forces. Slovakia kept fighting us after but I let my co op partner and the remaining ai take them out. Diplomacy still confuses me in this. Even the treaty part where you take land or ask for govt change confused me. I guess democracies can’t take land. It makes sense but in some ways post battle hurt more due to me ceding territory I grabbed from enemies in Africa somehow.
We then went on to fighting Japan which feels much easier of the two countries but A different fight overall. I’m more used to fighting by land so that’s exactly what I was getting close to do. Changing theaters certainly from mostly Europe to mostly Asia takes a while. I had to stop gaming for work tomorrow but at this point it’s basically a decided game. As long as Soviet Union don’t declare war on anybody important somehow that pushes our sides to fight the game will end.
Somehow I wonder if Stalin partly stopped fighting because though he took a lot of land irl he lost a lot of men, the infrastructure was wrecked and the idea of allied nukes vs a nuke-less Soviet Union wasn’t too thrilling after just fighting such a harsh war. In this we don’t have nukes yet despite my ally researched final nuke tech and he’s over 500 days from it due to being so early and the tech being so research intensive.
Btw the entirety of Germany and likely most of its states are back to normal now with democracy changes. I think my USA partner made Germany and Italy puppet states for him. I guess it’s a way of making a country your bitch and then your bottom bitch.
Anyway it’s good we rolled Germany’s homeland so hard in the end as the country started to fall apart hard and with all the victory points in Germany it basically capitulated despite still having massive land and conquered territory in Eastern Europe. Soviet Union was getting close to capitulation too so taking out all the factories and whatever in Germany helped a ton.
As for how we tackle the Japan war vs China I’d say China is close to capitulation so I’m gonna fight through to save them so they don’t go under.
——
On another note. Spamming units, figuring out maneuvers using boat transports to supply with resources, learning cancel all orders, making entirely new army templates so your old units don’t spend forever updating and rocket artillery spam are good. I also made an armored carrier template and a medium and hopefully heavy tank only template for when a little muscle is absolutely needed but somehow the current ai seems to hate using armored units.
flamingkillamajig wrote: @not_online: Updates! So we took out Germany and at the end the western front was rolling Germany hard. I guess we just had too many forces. Slovakia kept fighting us after but I let my co op partner and the remaining ai take them out. Diplomacy still confuses me in this. Even the treaty part where you take land or ask for govt change confused me. I guess democracies can’t take land.
You should be able to seize territory, afaik, even if you're a democracy. AI democracies generally don't, but players should be able to.
But the peace settlement interface is frustrating, particularly if you're getting used to it, and you're a minor player in the war. There are some obtuse rules about how you spend your points (there have to be so many points left over in your pool in addition to whatever you want to spend). And it's not very well documented. The process really needs a tutorial of its own to explain how it works, and just as importantly *why* the rules for it function the way that they do.
flamingkillamajig wrote: @not_online: Updates! So we took out Germany and at the end the western front was rolling Germany hard. I guess we just had too many forces. Slovakia kept fighting us after but I let my co op partner and the remaining ai take them out. Diplomacy still confuses me in this. Even the treaty part where you take land or ask for govt change confused me. I guess democracies can’t take land. It makes sense but in some ways post battle hurt more due to me ceding territory I grabbed from enemies in Africa somehow.
We then went on to fighting Japan which feels much easier of the two countries but A different fight overall. I’m more used to fighting by land so that’s exactly what I was getting close to do. Changing theaters certainly from mostly Europe to mostly Asia takes a while. I had to stop gaming for work tomorrow but at this point it’s basically a decided game. As long as Soviet Union don’t declare war on anybody important somehow that pushes our sides to fight the game will end.
Somehow I wonder if Stalin partly stopped fighting because though he took a lot of land irl he lost a lot of men, the infrastructure was wrecked and the idea of allied nukes vs a nuke-less Soviet Union wasn’t too thrilling after just fighting such a harsh war. In this we don’t have nukes yet despite my ally researched final nuke tech and he’s over 500 days from it due to being so early and the tech being so research intensive.
Btw the entirety of Germany and likely most of its states are back to normal now with democracy changes. I think my USA partner made Germany and Italy puppet states for him. I guess it’s a way of making a country your bitch and then your bottom bitch.
Anyway it’s good we rolled Germany’s homeland so hard in the end as the country started to fall apart hard and with all the victory points in Germany it basically capitulated despite still having massive land and conquered territory in Eastern Europe. Soviet Union was getting close to capitulation too so taking out all the factories and whatever in Germany helped a ton.
As for how we tackle the Japan war vs China I’d say China is close to capitulation so I’m gonna fight through to save them so they don’t go under.
——
On another note. Spamming units, figuring out maneuvers using boat transports to supply with resources, learning cancel all orders, making entirely new army templates so your old units don’t spend forever updating and rocket artillery spam are good. I also made an armored carrier template and a medium and hopefully heavy tank only template for when a little muscle is absolutely needed but somehow the current ai seems to hate using armored units.
No, democracies can take just aswell.
It depends on how much warscore you have had AND more importantly you pay 5x as much on land you didn't occupy, ergo if you attacked from france and the benelux these will have cheaper prices whilest you, since you didn't occupy it, will pay 5 x as much.
as for the underlined bit.
don't do that.
The reason for that is organisation, tanks don't have much organisation, if you lack organisation your divisions become disorganised and retreat, organisation is what allows divisions to stay in a fight, hence why infantry, with the highest organisation, is the best defensive division in the game as it was IRL.
a tank division with no organisation is basically not able to fight prolonged, (basically about a 3 hours according to my experience), and will just get shoved out, since they also don't recover.
The ballpark for organisation that you should NEVER go under for tank divisions is an organisation stat of 30.
By armored carrier division I meant like transports for infantry. Do they have low organization too. It’s basically just mounted versions of infantry units I have.
flamingkillamajig wrote: By armored carrier division I meant like transports for infantry. Do they have low organization too. It’s basically just mounted versions of infantry units I have.
Nope , they are awesome , the armored carriers (what you mean is mechanised) and make for good fast Organisation givers to Tank divisions that need more mmph.
These have some of the highest organisation in the game and especially mechanised has awesome Stats for their price overall offensively and defensively ( you can modify them to half production cost), can therefore also be used without even going into tanks.
Just never do tanks (or artillery) only divisions.
Yeah we were doing some invasions of Japan or it’s islands it took and gotta say landing invasion forces are a pain in the game like so many teeth pulling things in this game. You need your forces about bordering one particular friendly dock, a bunch of ships selected to surround the invasion transports starting sea region to escort them and like 72 to 75 or so days to get this gak done hoping all you 2 months of in game planning won’t go to waste. Of course mine did a few times. The first I didn’t land and take a naval yelled to keep the supply line going. 2nd attempt I made I had 2 to 3 army groups trying to take Japan itself. Sadly the first division didn’t select a naval base as one of the invasion targets and during preparation China cancels not aggression pact and suck and kicks me out of all land they had I was using to start my naval invasion points which probably prevented 2 and left only one army group to attack Japan while unsupported and not taking a naval base. If it was allowed to go as it was supposed to I’d have had Japan hit with 48 units and at least 1 dockyard for resupply but China screwed me yet again esp when I tried fighting them on the occupied mainland China. Are we supposed to be nuking Japan or China because China is making good arguments for it.
Also I embarrassingly figured out what increasing infrastructure does. Shame because it would’ve definitely helped with resource shortages sooner. I figured what it likely did but never knew till I saw it in action because the info on it is kind of bad.
Or you can drop two atomic bombs on the country in quick succession. They'll immediately surrender, provided you haven't used a-bombs elsewhere up until that point.
Also, the No Step Back DLC (which I don't own yet) added Mulberry Harbors to the game. So for the really big invasions - such as an invasion of Japan - you can add temporary harbors to keep your troops supplied until they can seize a port city.
Finally figured out how to pacify the regions in Expedition: Rome and have Asia Minor(Mostly modern Turkey) under control, aside from the last mission of this chapter. Its a siege, wherein one portion of your party is a Forlorn Hope, drawing the besieged to where they think the assault is coming. The other half of the party is tasked with infiltrating the city and destroying as much of the enemy artillery as possible, then freeing the prisoners. Once that's done, the frontal assault supported by Roman artillery happens.
I think I'm on the last part of the mission, where I've achieved all of the above. Just gotta kill the king. Its challenging, in that consumables, health and tactical items like Pilums and caltrops aren't replenished, but not so challenging that I want to rage quit or feel like its an impossible task.
This game is a solid fun turn-based RPG. Probably closer to Divinity: Original Sin 1+2 in that the environment is part of the tactical toolkit. I may have to do a restart now that I've grasped the mechanics and skills though, as well as conserve consumables better.
Bobthehero wrote: Solid sequel to Expedition: Viking? I had a lot of fun with that one
Yeah, I'd say so. I did a playthrough of Expedition: Viking earlier in the month, just because I was impatient waiting for Rome so E:V is pretty fresh in my mind. I feel like dialogue plays a bigger part in the story and how it unfolds, but I'm only on the first playthrough so can't say for sure. I like the combat in this one a bit better. Cover and terrain play a bigger part, and the enemy AI seems improved, having abilities and utility items and knows how to use them, generally. My only beef so far is the AI's propensity to use flaming arrows, as well as repetitive story events while traveling. That could be because I spent so much time running around the map, not knowing what to do.
So taking normal land in territories japan took was a bit annoying but not that bad. However combined with china leaving the war and other mishaps japan became an absolute slog of a fight.
You couldn't invade mainland Japan for long even when taking a port and eventually just got pushed into the sea or otherwise lose a crap ton of units even with two to three full army groups invading at the same time. It was hard to make air units near Japan due to lack of land meaning naval carriers were somewhat needed if you wanted to nuke them as well as just to have air power in the area. Nuking them takes 75% air superiority in an area, strategic bombers and nukes available which are dependent on reactors built, research accomplished and time. Finally you need at least 50% naval superiority just to do a naval invasion at all which took forever just to do (probably about 3 days per division in an army group meaning doing lots of small army groups is likely better than a few really big ones).
Anyway that was a slog. Considering all the army groups i had that got wiped i'm glad my co-op partner said he nuked them about 12 times in the first volley and got each airport area too just to maintain air power so we could nuke them more. I nuked a total of only 4-6 times maybe but it certainly helped. I think he nuked right on top of our army groups and killed 3-4 of them that way but i'm not sure. Either way it softened japan up so much we just rolled over them when we did the normal invasion of Japan.
Eumerin wrote: You can launch a naval invasion of Japan.
Or you can drop two atomic bombs on the country in quick succession. They'll immediately surrender, provided you haven't used a-bombs elsewhere up until that point.
Also, the No Step Back DLC (which I don't own yet) added Mulberry Harbors to the game. So for the really big invasions - such as an invasion of Japan - you can add temporary harbors to keep your troops supplied until they can seize a port city.
Try about 12 from my co-op partner and another 3-4 from me during the first volley of nukes . I did see that option available but it was gonna take like 600+ days. Whatever, video game version of Japan had it coming. I'm not saying irl Japan did but seeing how dug in they were in the computer game version i dunno what else you could do besides surround em and basically ruin all of their trade routes and supply chains. I don't know if that was an option though seeing as Japan was developing nukes too.
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Oh and i also grabbed the entirety of japan except for Tokyo during negotiations which was pretty funny.
Try about 12 from my co-op partner and another 3-4 from me during the first volley of nukes
Nope. Drop exactly two atomic bombs, and Japan immediately surrenders. From the Hearts of Iron 4 wiki (which is on a Paradox website) -
After the 2nd nuclear bomb has been dropped on a Japanese core state, Japan has a special decision for surrender (note: prior to dropping the 2nd nuclear bomb, Japan's navy must be reduced to less than 40 ships and Japan must not be the controller of Okinawa or Iwo Jima)
I suppose but in game terms our way was more fun. Also I think there’s a cool down where you gotta nuke Japan twice in the decisions board. Taking almost the entirety of Japan was pretty funny during the treaty conference. We basically confirmed Japan would cede most of its land to us therefore turning them into pre ww2 Germany or likely a brand new colony/puppet state of the uk with next to no notions of independence for a long long time.
For invading mainland Japan, I'd recommend making sure you have their military capacity completely drained first.
Bomb their economy into the ground (Civ factories first, then mils once they cannot repair them any more), make sure you have total control of the skies and back up your invasions with a ton of CAS, which is incredibly strong at the moment. If you can grab Korea then you'll have plenty of airfields in range (may need to build some but by this point that shouldn't be an issue) to launch these planes from. Even if they develop nukes, they cannot use them without aerial control, and it is unlikely they will have the planes or the production capacity to gain said planes to defeat your own air force if you haven't been neglecting it.
If possible, perhaps lure them into wasting their manpower and equipment first by cheesing the ai's love of futile naval invasions. Allow them to land and begin to move inland before taking the port behind them and crushing their invasion force. Then repeat.
Was playing xenonauts again. Practically got squad wiped and retreated (but was shocked there was only 5 enemies left) and had to replace laser weapons with plasma weapons as well as take like a month or two just to rebuild my lost soldiers with crappy new recruits and to replace the old laser weapons with much more expensive plasma weaponry.
Hopefully I’m still in the game but it’s possible I’m not. Battle cruiser ships are everywhere now and this is at least the 2nd big financially wasteful thing ive done in this campaign. The biggest was trying to make a 3rd base early only for the base to get invaded so early the defenses I built didn’t even get the chance to help.
In Bannerlord the Aserai declared war on the Vlandians which makes sense as we've been quite effective in our expanse. This is the second time we have but for some reason, the Aserai have become OP or something. The first battle was an army of us at 13 odd hundred against 1100 of them but for some reason, they beat us with ease. That's even with my character who has high tactics skill leading the attack. So yeah, a bit annoyed. Last time we fought them it was pretty even so I don't know what's going on.
Tried out Aliens Fireteam with Graphite recently. It was entertaining. Bug hunting galore. The funniest bit though is the terrible status of maintenance on the refinery you are scrambling through… so many bits falling off the ceiling!
Hmm… struggling with the final mission of the first campaign on Aliens. Two grunts didn’t cut it, and a doc and a technician failed spectacularly tonight. Next up is trying out the smart gun operator. We need to level our duders up a bit more methinks. Or, just be better at shooting stuff
What is with this game (hearts of iron 4)? I hate ww2 as a setting and hate the semi neutering of the super evil bad guy flag of mustache man by using an iron cross. I dunno it’d be like if Jesus got a slap on his wrist during his trial on the cross and left with a stern warning. Seriously don’t neuter villains or lots of things. We might not take it so seriously otherwise and while I hate seeing people always offended mr super bad should be portrayed that way .
If you want to go the extra mile and show the world was falling apart due to morons in govt or business and how getting screwed In a war and not being able to put food on the table can get people to trust something far worse due to desperation that complex and smarter people probably look at and chat with each other and I’m gonna hope they don’t instantly fall back on mustache man pure evil with no one possible to fix him at any point.
Anyway I sort of went off on a rant. I played as France and I somewhat get it I think. Radio in certain ranges shows enemy movements and planes. I’m not sure on level of info for encryption and decryption. I’ve also understood somewhat the point of putting forts down on borders since they see not too expensive and could force hitler to switch what he does.
If you plan to defend hard high defense generals and commanders are great for entrenching purposes. If I had to do it again I’d have made a wall of land forts near the small countries the Germans just rolled over.
It’s fun to learn with but definitely a hard mode and I’d suggest only learning it in single player once you figure out what each thing does.
Not online is right though about feeling like I get better playing it. Maybe in a few solo French wins I might even win or get close.
Maybe my co op buddy would like a uk and France bro shipping. Oddly in some ways France feels weaker but easier. All your lands aren’t put in such a good awful spot to be attacked like the uk.
Also timing could help a lot with Spanish civil war.
Been playing some Assassinorum: Execution Force on Table Top Simulator with the extra Daemon rules again and this time having a lot of fun. I also house rule that the Vindicare Assassin gets 2d6 in close combat instead of 1d6 as it doesn't make much sense a random cultist with a close combat weapon gets a better cc stat than a highly trained Assassin who hits on 2+ in close combat in the table top game. Changing that has been a life saver on a few occasions. But still want to use him as a sniper when not moving with 1d6+2 dam and dealing two wounds especially if it's a Chaos Marine.
flamingkillamajig wrote: What is with this game (hearts of iron 4)? I hate ww2 as a setting and hate the semi neutering of the super evil bad guy flag of mustache man by using an iron cross.
Putting in the swastika causes legal problems in some European countries. For example, the game would likely be completely banned in Germany. As for the rest... what are you going to do? Put in political decisions as Nazi Germany and the USSR where you send millions of your population to camps where they're starved and worked to death? Where Japanese soldiers randomly murder massive numbers of civilians in occupied countries? Yes, it can sometimes be troubling that the inhumane misdeeds of some participants in this conflict are swept under the rug. But if you actually put decisions involving that into the game, players would be understandably upset, and it would be disrespectful to the victims.
flamingkillamajig wrote: What is with this game (hearts of iron 4)? I hate ww2 as a setting and hate the semi neutering of the super evil bad guy flag of mustache man by using an iron cross.
Putting in the swastika causes legal problems in some European countries. For example, the game would likely be completely banned in Germany. As for the rest... what are you going to do? Put in political decisions as Nazi Germany and the USSR where you send millions of your population to camps where they're starved and worked to death? Where Japanese soldiers randomly murder massive numbers of civilians in occupied countries? Yes, it can sometimes be troubling that the inhumane misdeeds of some participants in this conflict are swept under the rug. But if you actually put decisions involving that into the game, players would be understandably upset, and it would be disrespectful to the victims.
you realise that if you are fascist or communist you can change occupation laws to, well, how to put it, not nice contraproductive behaviour ...
flamingkillamajig wrote: What is with this game (hearts of iron 4)? I hate ww2 as a setting and hate the semi neutering of the super evil bad guy flag of mustache man by using an iron cross.
Putting in the swastika causes legal problems in some European countries. For example, the game would likely be completely banned in Germany. As for the rest... what are you going to do? Put in political decisions as Nazi Germany and the USSR where you send millions of your population to camps where they're starved and worked to death? Where Japanese soldiers randomly murder massive numbers of civilians in occupied countries? Yes, it can sometimes be troubling that the inhumane misdeeds of some participants in this conflict are swept under the rug. But if you actually put decisions involving that into the game, players would be understandably upset, and it would be disrespectful to the victims.
you realise that if you are fascist or communist you can change occupation laws to, well, how to put it, not nice contraproductive behaviour ...
Only fascists get the brutal oppression occupation law, communists get Liberated Workers.
But that isn't the same as clicking the button to set up Treblinka at a railway stop, or open Auschwitz and then when it is full and you can't kill the jews, communists, roma, slavs etc. fast enough you can then expand and open Birkenau. You're not making use of the new railway system to ensure you can transport millions of people to their deaths in overstuffed cattle cars with no food, no water and only what possessions they could throw into a suitcase (which will be promptly stolen from them when they arrive and all those valuables will be sent back to Germany).
flamingkillamajig wrote: What is with this game (hearts of iron 4)? I hate ww2 as a setting and hate the semi neutering of the super evil bad guy flag of mustache man by using an iron cross.
Putting in the swastika causes legal problems in some European countries. For example, the game would likely be completely banned in Germany. As for the rest... what are you going to do? Put in political decisions as Nazi Germany and the USSR where you send millions of your population to camps where they're starved and worked to death? Where Japanese soldiers randomly murder massive numbers of civilians in occupied countries? Yes, it can sometimes be troubling that the inhumane misdeeds of some participants in this conflict are swept under the rug. But if you actually put decisions involving that into the game, players would be understandably upset, and it would be disrespectful to the victims.
you realise that if you are fascist or communist you can change occupation laws to, well, how to put it, not nice contraproductive behaviour ...
Only fascists get the brutal oppression occupation law, communists get Liberated Workers.
But that isn't the same as clicking the button to set up Treblinka at a railway stop, or open Auschwitz and then when it is full and you can't kill the jews, communists, roma, slavs etc. fast enough you can then expand and open Birkenau. You're not making use of the new railway system to ensure you can transport millions of people to their deaths in overstuffed cattle cars with no food, no water and only what possessions they could throw into a suitcase (which will be promptly stolen from them when they arrive and all those valuables will be sent back to Germany).
you do kinda, with the wasted compliance and by extention spikes in resistance and higher ressource gather quotes in exchange for long term damage to compliance and infrastructure.
That being said shadow hitler is a necessity for paradox if they want to sell HOIV in germany.
Alas yes HOIV is and should stay on the fun simulator side and not depict the war for the sake of it in an unrealistic way entirely, since it also is a type of sandbox and for that is infinetly more fun and replayable.
flamingkillamajig wrote: What is with this game (hearts of iron 4)? I hate ww2 as a setting and hate the semi neutering of the super evil bad guy flag of mustache man by using an iron cross.
Putting in the swastika causes legal problems in some European countries. For example, the game would likely be completely banned in Germany. As for the rest... what are you going to do? Put in political decisions as Nazi Germany and the USSR where you send millions of your population to camps where they're starved and worked to death? Where Japanese soldiers randomly murder massive numbers of civilians in occupied countries? Yes, it can sometimes be troubling that the inhumane misdeeds of some participants in this conflict are swept under the rug. But if you actually put decisions involving that into the game, players would be understandably upset, and it would be disrespectful to the victims.
you realise that if you are fascist or communist you can change occupation laws to, well, how to put it, not nice contraproductive behaviour ...
Only fascists get the brutal oppression occupation law, communists get Liberated Workers.
But that isn't the same as clicking the button to set up Treblinka at a railway stop, or open Auschwitz and then when it is full and you can't kill the jews, communists, roma, slavs etc. fast enough you can then expand and open Birkenau. You're not making use of the new railway system to ensure you can transport millions of people to their deaths in overstuffed cattle cars with no food, no water and only what possessions they could throw into a suitcase (which will be promptly stolen from them when they arrive and all those valuables will be sent back to Germany).
you do kinda, with the wasted compliance and by extention spikes in resistance and higher ressource gather quotes in exchange for long term damage to compliance and infrastructure. That being said shadow hitler is a necessity for paradox if they want to sell HOIV in germany.
Alas yes HOIV is and should stay on the fun simulator side and not depict the war for the sake of it in an unrealistic way entirely, since it also is a type of sandbox and for that is infinetly more fun and replayable.
But Germany isn't forced to use Brutal Oppression, is it? If they were locked to that occupation law you might have a point, but they can use the normal ones such as local police force for the balance between garrison manpower, resistance suppression and compliance like everyone else. Them being locked to an occupation law which requires double the manpower and equipment and trashes your compliance gain could be a good balance between historically accurate and wehraboo-ism.
creeping-deth87 wrote: I think the better question is if you hate ww2 as a setting what the hell are you doing playing HOI?
I'm asking myself that question and i dunno what this game has done to me but strategy games seem not to fall under the ww2 frenzy that grasped the Shooter Genre in the early 2000's and therefore i don't mind ww2 strategy games as much (company of heroes or Steel Division). Normally i prefer cold war-ww3 simulations like Wargame but there's not that many of those games left. I also heard WARNO the spiritual successor to Wargame is kinda looking balls right now. Ofc i suppose Russia as the bad guy has been done a lot but i'm not super fond of Shooter games either. At least some Call of Duty games based around the Cold War are fun though.
Also i don't know what it is but alernate cold war-ww3 really interests me. I think it's because it's timed around the 80's or 90's and i have great nostalgia for that time period when i was still just a young dude. Also the tech is modern enough and the enemies on pretty equal terms that you can still get some good tech but this is before drones and serious cyber warfare. Honestly it generally just hits all the right vibes for me between usa and soviet equipment. I have a great interest in equipment from both groups during that time period. Also since it's alternate history like with Wargame it can come from multiple different time periods and history nuts can't complain something is inaccurate because well....it never happened. I suppose they'd just whine if their favorite units aren't represented as well as they could be but Wargame imo had so many units that making them all super unique would be a bit difficult.
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I suppose my one comment caused an entire thread derail. At worst i only really want ww2 games to hint at bad things going on or show the actual flag. It just feels like neutering the villains when you're not. Don't get me wrong i don't care what you guys do with most ww2 games as i normally don't like them anyway.
flamingkillamajig wrote: What is with this game (hearts of iron 4)? I hate ww2 as a setting and hate the semi neutering of the super evil bad guy flag of mustache man by using an iron cross.
Putting in the swastika causes legal problems in some European countries. For example, the game would likely be completely banned in Germany. As for the rest... what are you going to do? Put in political decisions as Nazi Germany and the USSR where you send millions of your population to camps where they're starved and worked to death? Where Japanese soldiers randomly murder massive numbers of civilians in occupied countries? Yes, it can sometimes be troubling that the inhumane misdeeds of some participants in this conflict are swept under the rug. But if you actually put decisions involving that into the game, players would be understandably upset, and it would be disrespectful to the victims.
you realise that if you are fascist or communist you can change occupation laws to, well, how to put it, not nice contraproductive behaviour ...
Only fascists get the brutal oppression occupation law, communists get Liberated Workers.
But that isn't the same as clicking the button to set up Treblinka at a railway stop, or open Auschwitz and then when it is full and you can't kill the jews, communists, roma, slavs etc. fast enough you can then expand and open Birkenau. You're not making use of the new railway system to ensure you can transport millions of people to their deaths in overstuffed cattle cars with no food, no water and only what possessions they could throw into a suitcase (which will be promptly stolen from them when they arrive and all those valuables will be sent back to Germany).
you do kinda, with the wasted compliance and by extention spikes in resistance and higher ressource gather quotes in exchange for long term damage to compliance and infrastructure.
That being said shadow hitler is a necessity for paradox if they want to sell HOIV in germany.
Alas yes HOIV is and should stay on the fun simulator side and not depict the war for the sake of it in an unrealistic way entirely, since it also is a type of sandbox and for that is infinetly more fun and replayable.
But Germany isn't forced to use Brutal Oppression, is it? If they were locked to that occupation law you might have a point, but they can use the normal ones such as local police force for the balance between garrison manpower, resistance suppression and compliance like everyone else. Them being locked to an occupation law which requires double the manpower and equipment and trashes your compliance gain could be a good balance between historically accurate and wehraboo-ism.
Honestly i never understood why paradox didn't implement occupation law tieing to ideology.
Like local police force, labour quotas etc for the totalitarian states, local autonomy for colonies and democracies, Civil oversight should only be available if you have a Base compliance, etc.
Because right now occupation is basically if territory occupied then-->
Civil oversight or op local authonomy.
If slight resistance boosts Like France or poland, local police force if you didn't get a collaboration government in.
If you got a collaboration government don't bother at all.
creeping-deth87 wrote: I think the better question is if you hate ww2 as a setting what the hell are you doing playing HOI?
I'm asking myself that question and i dunno what this game has done to me but strategy games seem not to fall under the ww2 frenzy that grasped the Shooter Genre in the early 2000's and therefore i don't mind ww2 strategy games as much (company of heroes or Steel Division). Normally i prefer cold war-ww3 simulations like Wargame but there's not that many of those games left. I also heard WARNO the spiritual successor to Wargame is kinda looking balls right now. Ofc i suppose Russia as the bad guy has been done a lot but i'm not super fond of Shooter games either. At least some Call of Duty games based around the Cold War are fun though.
Also i don't know what it is but alernate cold war-ww3 really interests me. I think it's because it's timed around the 80's or 90's and i have great nostalgia for that time period when i was still just a young dude. Also the tech is modern enough and the enemies on pretty equal terms that you can still get some good tech but this is before drones and serious cyber warfare. Honestly it generally just hits all the right vibes for me between usa and soviet equipment. I have a great interest in equipment from both groups during that time period.
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I suppose my one comment caused an entire thread derail. At worst i only really want ww2 games to hint at bad things going on or show the actual flag. It just feels like neutering the villains when you're not. Don't get me wrong i don't care what you guys do with most ww2 games as i normally don't like them anyway.
Theres a Lot and i mean a Lot of mods out there that fit that bill, nvm the really Big overhaul mods that shake the game up in timeframe massively.
Oh apparently when i said what is with this game i meant "What is with hearts of Iron 4 and what has it done to me?". This is referring to me hating ww2 as a setting and yet somehow i'm really finding myself coming back to it despite the 3 year gap of no fighting for Democracies after so far only exclusively playing them, despite evil mustache man being sorta neutered and despite a bunch of things and yet here i am....addicted.
I blame you guys esp. Not_Online. You guys are enablers....but this time i thank you for it .
Flinty wrote: Whaddaya know… smart guns makes gunning down waves of close combat drones super easy, barely an inconvenience
Planning to try out my new micro-rpg launcher tonight! The. Saving up for the plasma rifle
Plasma rifle is a lot of fun, maybe disgustingly so as it has good damage, accuracy and rate of fire. Stun-lock certain elites and you can quite handily eat away at both their armour and health before they can recover.
I've been plugging away at levelling the big flamethrower myself, I've found the other heavy weapons not really doing it for me. Though the smartgun also starts to lag behind at later instances sadly. Then again, shotgun engineer with flamethrower turret for life.
Flinty wrote: I’m just starting in the game. What do you get for levelling the weapons?
You get the most mileage out of your guns by putting the right upgrades in there that work for you. Levelling guns only gives you minor buffs that vary from weapon to weapon (+5% something -> +5% something -> +5% something -> +X% something that stacks X-amount of times). All in all though, most weapons work well enough, especially when paired with class perks, which again give certain bonuses, which can stack.
If you want a filthy good gun, use the bog standard pump-action shotgun, it carried me through the entire game, bar one section where I was up against nothing but ranged enemies, but even then, it has amazingly good range. Pair this shotgun with either the gunner class or have someone else play as one, use the overclock ability when confronted by elites and slamfire that bastard into a paste. If timed right you can empty a shotgun twice into the same target, just ignore the insanely fast reloading animation as your marine smashes shells into the gun.
Just, don't play as a medic. That class is as of right now a bit useless due to how you need to recharge your first aid station.
Played my second run as France in Hearts of Iron 4 in 1936 and lasted till about July 1940 when my country was about to capitulate. Honestly it'd have gone much better if the UK actually decided to land troops in France at any time esp. during the war but for some reason they completely left me alone even when my country started to fall apart in the italian sphere. I tried pulling back in my colonies to reinforce in France but some of my units were encircled and destroyed by Italy. Honestly i would've done infinitely better if i had made more forts on the Italian border but i figured Italy wouldn't be quite so hard and that those lines wouldn't start falling so fast.
It's a real shame because if i had actual British help in France i actually could've held off both the Germans and Italy instead of being sort of screwed and being forced to re-direct forces which forced multiple lines to collapse.
We also managed to win the Spanish Civil War for Republican Spain which helped but would've been nicer if they actually decided to help me in my war with anybody once i helped to save them. In fact despite what i did for em they had a negative opinion towards me. I suppose i went the more democratic path but even so that was a bit messed up they wouldn't help me when i was there making sure they'd win their war. What a bunch of jerks.
Flinty wrote: I’m just starting in the game. What do you get for levelling the weapons?
You get the most mileage out of your guns by putting the right upgrades in there that work for you. Levelling guns only gives you minor buffs that vary from weapon to weapon (+5% something -> +5% something -> +5% something -> +X% something that stacks X-amount of times). All in all though, most weapons work well enough, especially when paired with class perks, which again give certain bonuses, which can stack.
If you want a filthy good gun, use the bog standard pump-action shotgun, it carried me through the entire game, bar one section where I was up against nothing but ranged enemies, but even then, it has amazingly good range. Pair this shotgun with either the gunner class or have someone else play as one, use the overclock ability when confronted by elites and slamfire that bastard into a paste. If timed right you can empty a shotgun twice into the same target, just ignore the insanely fast reloading animation as your marine smashes shells into the gun.
Just, don't play as a medic. That class is as of right now a bit useless due to how you need to recharge your first aid station.
I had a huge amount of fun as the gunner, the shoulder rockets are quite literally a blast. Me and two buddies went as gunner, medic and I think engineer? great combo. We have yet to finish it but I think we are at the end of the story mode or thereabouts. It's become extremely HR Giger.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Played my second run as France in Hearts of Iron 4 in 1936 and lasted till about July 1940 when my country was about to capitulate. Honestly it'd have gone much better if the UK actually decided to land troops in France at any time esp. during the war but for some reason they completely left me alone even when my country started to fall apart in the italian sphere. I tried pulling back in my colonies to reinforce in France but some of my units were encircled and destroyed by Italy. Honestly i would've done infinitely better if i had made more forts on the Italian border but i figured Italy wouldn't be quite so hard and that those lines wouldn't start falling so fast.
It's a real shame because if i had actual British help in France i actually could've held off both the Germans and Italy instead of being sort of screwed and being forced to re-direct forces which forced multiple lines to collapse.
We also managed to win the Spanish Civil War for Republican Spain which helped but would've been nicer if they actually decided to help me in my war with anybody once i helped to save them. In fact despite what i did for em they had a negative opinion towards me. I suppose i went the more democratic path but even so that was a bit messed up they wouldn't help me when i was there making sure they'd win their war. What a bunch of jerks.
British Ai is Hardcoded to not send divisions into france to avoid it getting completly Cut off and destroyed.
Spain btw is , if you Run historical, completly irrelevant for your run.
Indeed Nationalist spain is safer because it ain't a soviet puppet and the soviet tree is and it's behaviour are far more unpredictable.
Also if you do army reform as France , you literally always should pick the Air branch... Cas and green Air will Ruin germany, whilest logistical strikes will slow it down to manageable levels.
Odd. Considering the amount of air units the Germans were using i'd have figured a fighter approach would be nice to start with to keep the enemy grounded and forced through a wall of forts. Not to mention if you have over 50% naval strength in a region anywhere near your coasts you should be able to prevent any invasions by sea which means they'll be stuck at your borders unable to do anything. Ofc even if i don't have over 50% naval power in my coasts i can still have units plink away at any incoming troop invasions by sea.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Odd. Considering the amount of air units the Germans were using i'd have figured a fighter approach would be nice to start with to keep the enemy grounded and forced through a wall of forts. Not to mention if you have over 50% naval strength in a region anywhere near your coasts you should be able to prevent any invasions by sea which means they'll be stuck at your borders unable to do anything. Ofc even if i don't have over 50% naval power in my coasts i can still have units plink away at any incoming troop invasions by sea.
Fighters are needed, you didn't do wrong, but France has not a war industry to afford a whole lot.
Preferntially you build 21 widths for every thing.
(21 widths are 9inf /1 arty per division.)
Optimally you add engineers to them, Aa support.
Avoid pushing with these Divisions, for that a handfull of 27s ( 3 Art, rest inf) is better.
The majortity of your war industry should go into fighters and for every 4 fighters you should have one cas producing Facility.
It is advisable to use the bombers and naval bombers you got from the start, to prepare them over the med.
Cas can help out aswell.
Yeah I sorta messed up. Went a little too hard on forts this time by a lot without the forces to hold the enemy back. More military factories to build more fighters would’ve helped a lot.
I did get rid of the economy problem France has but I think I went down the wrong paths at the wrong time. My stability got a lot better though. I keep trying to save republican Spain and did manage it again. When you have the proper forces forcing enemies into pockets you can destroy them in is really good. It’s a bit tricky but you can cut them off from supplies and then wipe out multiple enemy units rather than having them fall back all the time.
If I try this again I might extend the magninot line through focuses rather than doing it the frustrating way but even that may be a waste of time.
I still think it’s bs the British didn’t send anything to help in France despite what you say. They could’ve sent one army group my way. Hell I sent more help to republican spain in their civil war as volunteers. God that’s so dumb.
Olthannon wrote: I had a huge amount of fun as the gunner, the shoulder rockets are quite literally a blast. Me and two buddies went as gunner, medic and I think engineer? great combo. We have yet to finish it but I think we are at the end of the story mode or thereabouts. It's become extremely HR Giger.
If it looks like a xeno sneezed all over it, you're going in the right direction.
Gripes about the medic mechanic aside, so far I've had fun with all classes bar the phalanx. Engineer for life though, but already maxed that one out, along with a handful of pistols and CQW's.
Tried out the first of the Giants missions with the microburst launcher. I dont like it as much as the smart gun, so swapped back for the second Giants mission. Very glad I had paired it up with the DMR as there is a lot of longer ranged work. And now I know why they bothered with the cover mechanic. It was not necessary in the first 3 missions
I do like how the perks you unlock In Each class have at least some overlap to other classes, so you do t need to go all the way back to the start if you want to swap out a bit.
Flinty wrote: Tried out the first of the Giants missions with the microburst launcher. I dont like it as much as the smart gun, so swapped back for the second Giants mission. Very glad I had paired it up with the DMR as there is a lot of longer ranged work. And now I know why they bothered with the cover mechanic. It was not necessary in the first 3 missions
I do like how the perks you unlock In Each class have at least some overlap to other classes, so you do t need to go all the way back to the start if you want to swap out a bit.
For a while I ran engineer with two identical CQW perk blocks, which really worked well for me with the shotgun.
And yes, some weapons work better in certain campaigns, even the useless sniper rifles have their uses in the Giants missions, they're awfully crap everywhere else. DMR is a good allrounder, I gladly lugged that around any mission.
Not Online!!! wrote: Extending the maginot focus is locked behind the worst reform focus tree though, you can always build lvl 2 forts on your own in better terrain.
Yikes I found that out the hard way. Honestly looking at regular enemy ai they don’t seem to have much anti tank (unless it’s air based). A bunch of good high tier medium tanks with support infantry might wreck em as long as I keep my tank tech top notch.
You did say most enemy ai have issues handle one stack of heavy tanks. I’ll figure it out at some point. Looks like tanks are best for breakthroughs too.
Not Online!!! wrote: Extending the maginot focus is locked behind the worst reform focus tree though, you can always build lvl 2 forts on your own in better terrain.
Yikes I found that out the hard way. Honestly looking at regular enemy ai they don’t seem to have much anti tank (unless it’s air based). A bunch of good high tier medium tanks with support infantry might wreck em as long as I keep my tank tech top notch.
You did say most enemy ai have issues handle one stack of heavy tanks. I’ll figure it out at some point. Looks like tanks are best for breakthroughs too.
Don't do mediums and infantry, if you want to go infantry tank, go heavies. ( requires less and speed is less of an issue)
france also starts out with researched basic heavies. (altough you need to slap on a radio, because france.)
Further the AI can barely handle competently designed light tanks, all you need in my experience are 3- 5 tank divisions of your choising designed competently with some air support or superiority and you just peacemeal cut appart the AI.
I just started a co-op campaign where i was french and he was british. So how could it go wrong? Well i did much of what i normally do although i was worried about commie spain and decided to send some forces. Sadly i seemed to need over 25% stability which i knew about and had planned for. Unfortunately i didn't have enough time to have "improved worker conditions" go off for long enough (only like 0.5% stability increase per week starting off at 23% with a bit over 2 weeks left) so Half of my fething country rebelled, taking half my land, a bunch of my regiments, probably over half my generals and a good chunk of my airforce. I try to split them in half but some of there forces just walk past mine and encircle a bunch of my dudes. I try to fight out and do in some cases but get stuck. Eventually i capitulate because france's disjointed government forces it sooner.
So yeah the most embarrassing ending i've had as france in any game and i was try to help those commie spain bastards and i get repaid by having them take my whole damn country? I hope hitler burned both spain and France down to the ground. Seriously that's likely the last time i try to help out Republican Spain. Screw them seriously.
Also yeah i know there are other options to increase stability but i had no idea the riots would go that bad. I was expecting de-buffs to my overall city or perhaps some insurgents or even needing MP's to quell rebellious intent but never did i expect it to go down that badly. For 20-30 or so percent of the vote they sure seem to throw down like they're legit half the population.
flamingkillamajig wrote: I just started a co-op campaign where i was french and he was british. So how could it go wrong? Well i did much of what i normally do although i was worried about commie spain and decided to send some forces. Sadly i seemed to need over 25% stability which i knew about and had planned for. Unfortunately i didn't have enough time to have "improved worker conditions" go off for long enough (only like 0.5% stability increase per week starting off at 23% with a bit over 2 weeks left) so Half of my fething country rebelled, taking half my land, a bunch of my regiments, probably over half my generals and a good chunk of my airforce. I try to split them in half but some of there forces just walk past mine and encircle a bunch of my dudes. I try to fight out and do in some cases but get stuck. Eventually i capitulate because france's disjointed government forces it sooner.
So yeah the most embarrassing ending i've had as france in any game and i was try to help those commie spain bastards and i get repaid by having them take my whole damn country? I hope hitler burned both spain and France down to the ground. Seriously that's likely the last time i try to help out Republican Spain. Screw them seriously.
Also yeah i know there are other options to increase stability but i had no idea the riots would go that bad. I was expecting de-buffs to my overall city or perhaps some insurgents or even needing MP's to quell rebellious intent but never did i expect it to go down that badly. For 20-30 or so percent of the vote they sure seem to throw down like they're legit half the population.
you just learned why the "revive the nationalist block" even for democratic play throughs, is far superior AND more stable. the hard way, my condolences, btw the revolt is funnily enough smaller if you deny rhineland and it escalates.
So yeah the most embarrassing ending i've had as france in any game and i was try to help those commie spain bastards and i get repaid by having them take my whole damn country? I hope hitler burned both spain and France down to the ground. Seriously that's likely the last time i try to help out Republican Spain. Screw them seriously.
For what it's worth - and since this seems to be something you consider in your choices - the Nationalists under Franco are probably the more humane choice in the Spanish Civil War. From what I've heard, historically the Republican forces were engaging in "more leftist than thou" assassination and liquidation campaigns against each other as the civil war progressed, with the full backing of Stalin.
Really, though, as France, your primary concern with the Spanish Civil War - if you have any concern at all - should be to get some military experience for your army. It's an interesting diversion otherwise, particularly since there's no "Democratic" side in that fight.
So yeah the most embarrassing ending i've had as france in any game and i was try to help those commie spain bastards and i get repaid by having them take my whole damn country? I hope hitler burned both spain and France down to the ground. Seriously that's likely the last time i try to help out Republican Spain. Screw them seriously.
For what it's worth - and since this seems to be something you consider in your choices - the Nationalists under Franco are probably the more humane choice in the Spanish Civil War. From what I've heard, historically the Republican forces were engaging in "more leftist than thou" assassination and liquidation campaigns against each other as the civil war progressed, with the full backing of Stalin.
Really, though, as France, your primary concern with the Spanish Civil War - if you have any concern at all - should be to get some military experience for your army. It's an interesting diversion otherwise, particularly since there's no "Democratic" side in that fight.
Actually there is, if you as a player maintain the republic but don't call in the soviets, you don't start that nonsense funily enough, you also don't end up as a puppet.
Actually there is, if you as a player maintain the republic but don't call in the soviets, you don't start that nonsense funily enough, you also don't end up as a puppet.
Since no player is running Spain, and he appears to be playing with the Historical option, I think it's safe to say that a Democratic Spanish faction is almost never going to turn up.
We played another co-op campaign. Interestingly enough we helped out slovakia as it was being attacked or some of the early victims to the fascists. Was rather interesting how much europe stood together when france and the uk didn't just abandon them.
Ofc this wasn't a historical run and we were playing the war going off early in 1938. Turns out we did a much better job. Germany never attacked netherlands or belgium like they historically did which was stupid because it allowed us to focus our forces in one area to fight them even with my forts protecting the belgium and netherlands flank should they have fallen.
He also has some weird dlc added so 3 spains tried winning with nationalist spain ending up on top, the soviet union had a civil war and overthrew stalin for a different soviet socialist republic (huh?), mexico had a civil war and i think the socialists overthrew catholic mexico, portugal had a civil war but retained control of their nation, japan is led by the shogunate for some reason, hitler was assassinated (i won't shed tears for either him or stalin personally) and the whole world is some alternate crazy-verse.
Non historical HoI 4 is really weird man or is that just the dlc?
Anyway in my co op game with me as france and my friend as the UK we actually held together pretty well. He always seems to handle navy much better and even though he never has the unit numbers he always seems to have decent units. Ofc maybe that's because i'm always more and more on a border with my enemies.
He also has some weird dlc added so 3 spains tried winning with nationalist spain ending up on top,
La Resistance adds a lot to the Spanish Civil War. The Republicans invariably break up into two factions, and the Nationalists will likely break up into two factions if Franco doesn't take charge of them. If Franco keeps the Nationalists together, they usually win easily. Otherwise, the Republicans tend to win.
the soviet union had a civil war and overthrew stalin for a different soviet socialist republic (huh?),
Added in the latest DLC, No Step Back. One of the big draws for it was that it added all sorts of paths for the USSR if you wanted to try a different form of government. They put in just about every option possible... except for a Democracy option. For some reason, they got it into their heads that the USSR (or Russia) shouldn't have a focus path option that pushes them to become a Democracy. Russia can embrace fascism, but not democracy. I haven't purchased this DLC yet, so I don't know how frequently Stalin gets overthrown. Oh, and if Trotsky is still alive, he can end up in charge of the Soviet Union. This was a possibility even before the latest DLC.
mexico had a civil war and i think the socialists overthrew catholic mexico,
Mexico almost always has a civil war (and sometimes two) in the ahistorical games. Usually it's a pretty one-sided civil war.
portugal had a civil war but retained control of their nation,
This one is actually uncommon.
japan is led by the shogunate for some reason,
Waking the Tiger added a bunch of options for both Japan and China. Japan *usually* still follows its more or less normal path (with one change - see below). But sometimes you get stuff like what you saw. The fun option, imo, is playing as the Last Emperor of China in Manchukuo (Manchuria), declaring independence from being a Japanese puppet, and then both uniting China and conquering Japan (not necessarily in that order).
hitler was assassinated (i won't shed tears for either him or stalin personally)
Surprisingly, this is *not* a DLC. Unlike all of the other major nations, Germany had a lot of options in its national focus tree right from the release of the game. Usually the first choice Germany makes is whether to remilitarize the Rhineland (as it did historically), or overthrow Hitler. If you pick the latter focus tree option, Germany's generals decide to remove Hitler, and a civil war starts. If the generals win (and they usually do), then Hitler is usually killed (sometimes no body is found, and if that happens then *very* rarely he will turn up somewhere else; finding out where exactly he might turn up is part of the fun). More often than not, the German generals turn against Hitler in an ahistorical game.
and the whole world is some alternate crazy-verse.
Non historical HoI 4 is really weird man or is that just the dlc?
It does get weird, especially if there are DLCs. The only country that pretty much *will* try and follow the same path as its historical route (albeit faster) is Italy, since Italy has only one main route (as Fascists into the Balkans), with only a couple of minor variations on it. I expect that the next DLC will have a lot of changes for Italy. Everyone else is pretty much up for grabs. Great Britain frequently goes fascist. France often goes Communist. Incidentally, AI France pretty much *always* goes to war with Germany even if Germany decides to be nice to everyone.
The US *usually* stays as a democracy. But it also tends to sit out the war unless Japan attacks it. Japan usually doesn't attack it.
Actually there is, if you as a player maintain the republic but don't call in the soviets, you don't start that nonsense funily enough, you also don't end up as a puppet.
Since no player is running Spain, and he appears to be playing with the Historical option, I think it's safe to say that a Democratic Spanish faction is almost never going to turn up.
Nope it's the Start republic, it always turns up actually it's just that the republican Ai is.... How to put it, not confident in it's ability to win. Their lack in republicanism is lacking so to say
Meanwhile as a player you can easily sabotage the nationalists, f.e. by moving the Navy to a republican port beforehand and intercepting the army of africa, or by destroying all Military industries in the northern garrison pre war, both of which neuter the nationalists severly so that you only have to bypass the volunteers.
Played some xenonauts. It was just one mission today and just one low health but full health lady with average to low armor died from one direct shot. Aside from that the mission to secure the alien crash site went off ridiculously well. Well I suppose I did allow one guy to get hit for little reason but his shield took most of the shots.
The previous mission I played was a base defense and went off so well that nobody I had was even hurt and nobody died. Pretty sure that’s medal worthy as that game does present them. Ofc I also had a general idea of where the enemies were too.
I also saw someone play Tom Clancy’s end war the rts that is entirely voice activated. I’m shocked by looking at it that it didn’t change rts as a whole similar to how Star Wars empire at war did with a campaign, space battles and hard point system.
One of these days I gotta get not_online into some game whether that be xcom eu or xcom 2 or xenonauts or something. He converted me to hoi 4 so it’s only fair I return the favor with some game I like.
I also saw someone play Tom Clancy’s end war the rts that is entirely voice activated. I’m shocked by looking at it that it didn’t change rts as a whole similar to how Star Wars empire at war did with a campaign, space battles and hard point system.
I played that back in the day.
The voice activation was super useful, when it worked
It may just be that it was really handy on a console, but mouse and keyboard provide greater fidelity and speed and you don't need to keep repeating yourself to do stuff.
We have Alexas around our house, and even modern voice recognition is not sufficiently good to prevent frustration when you forget the correct command names or the mic doesn't pick up the sound properly.
I played a voice-activated Japanese PS2 game back in the day. I can't remember the name of it, but the plot was that you were trapped in a room on a space station with only security cameras and a microphone, giving directions to a young woman with a gun. Sometimes the voice commands worked fine. Other times she would stand there complaining that she couldn't understand you as one of the horrific creatures in the game attacked her.
IIRC, I got to very last fight in the game, couldn't get the voice commands to work consistently enough to win, and finally quit playing in frustration.
Eumerin wrote: I played a voice-activated Japanese PS2 game back in the day. I can't remember the name of it, but the plot was that you were trapped in a room on a space station with only security cameras and a microphone, giving directions to a young woman with a gun. Sometimes the voice commands worked fine. Other times she would stand there complaining that she couldn't understand you as one of the horrific creatures in the game attacked her.
Picked up Pokemon Legends: Arceus over the weekend and really enjoying it. I think its the game a lot of people have been clamoring for for decades. It's still fundamentally Pokemon, but its significantly snappier, with battles happening directly in the overworld and catching Pokemon not being as dependent on battle. It's just very smooth, with exploration, battle, catching and the like all flowing together quite well.
The big knock against it is that presentation wise its nothing special. The story has a very PS2 era JRPG vibe to it, though thankfully it does a pretty good job of staying out of the way of the gameplay once you get through the hand holdy opening (which isn't really any worse than most modern games). The environments are a little ugly, with a lot of boring textures, but are pretty easy to look past when all the focus is on the Pokemon that fill the world with a lot of its character.
Overall it seems they've finally found a way to move the franchise forward. I think there's a lot of quirks to work through still. I'm not sure the new FFIX style system is quite primed for PVP which you can really feel in the relatively sparse trainer battles. I think though if they got that worked out, I'd LOVE to see the next mainline game follow this gameplay formula focused around the gym trainer challenge, particularly if given the feel of Sword and Shield's arenas.
About to assault Vercingetorix's hall in Expedition: Rome, having pacified Gaul. Had to force myself to save it and go to bed late last night. It was a pretty exciting mission, where one team had to take the front gates while killing as much as possible to take pressure off of my infiltration/rescue team. Once the infiltration team got to Vercingetorix's hall, the mission then shifted back to the front gate where my team then had to fend off reinforcements. A third team was tasked with destroying the dam that was built to take away the cities natural moat, killing the reinforcements and of course cutting off. It was all pretty precarious, aside from the A-team who had an easy going towards Verci's hall.
I'm pretty enamored with this game. I think I'm close to the end of the game, and I'm hoping there is a "New Game+" mode where I can take my high level and skilled up characters through another playthrough with more tactical options, with the enemy also having access to those abilities. I highly doubt it though, but I can dream.
Graphite wrote: Maybe Synths are a bad idea (Except Alpha, who kicks ass and tends to pick me up after the jumpy red gits knock me over).
It can therefore be pretty safely ignored in favour of making snarky comments over chat about the NCO giving you directions.
It feels like being in Aliens as Hudson. Which is great.
It's a game which knows exactly and unashamedly what it is.
Also - seconding the Medic station recharge ability. Thats... silly. Technician with shotgun and sentry gun for me for a while!
What I like about the synths is that they continue the naming conventions taken over from the films, calling their synth Esther, following on from Ash, Bishop, Call and David. But yeah, if you want to play solo beyond normal difficulty, don't. The game straight up advises you to get some friends involved, the synths will not cut it.
And sarge being a snarky bitch is a lot of fun, some of the remarks she makes are just dripping with gallows humour, which fits in nicely with a Marine Corps that has knows about xenos and has been fighting them for a couple of decades now. None of that "Oh no, my throat is itchy" bs from the previous games, just straight up Bug Stompers - We Endanger Species mentality, love it. You're there to rescue civvies, don't take gak from the corporations and nuke them from orbit.
The game is a massive love letter to the franchise for me, it takes all the good stuff and rolls with it. High time they update the roadmap again, curious to see what the next free class and suite of weapons will be. Still got my fingers crossed that they'll somehow manage to work a pulse rifle with grenade launcher into the game.
You are there to rescue the civvies, even when they repeatedly tell you not to rescue them. You have come all this way and by god, someone is getting their ass rescued! And you even have the law on your side while you do it (as well as some sharp sticks and other gear).
I also quite like the bizzaroness of using an active hangar deck smothered in munitions and other marines for running around testing out your latest blasty toys…
While noodling about with weapon skins and decals I had a wander about the hanger/weapons-test-area and did talk to some of the NCOs hanging about. Seems that after <shenanigans> the Marines stopped working as contract mercs for WY (and they're a bit salty about that part of their past) and became the main authority out in the Rim. (Which presumably leads on to the unfairly maligned Alien 4 where the Corps aren't anywhere in sight). I was wondering why the Marines would arrest people.
Also that Alpha and Beta have "Marine Machine" and "Synthetic Person Badass" on their armour is a great touch. That they're the make of Synth from Isolation is very neat. Partly because it makes them distinct from human players, partly on a worldbuilding level that makes it clear that the Corp really doesn't entirely trust WY any more. Bad feelings about Esther. Which reminds me, must play a bit further into Isolation, I heard a rumour that it's leaving Game Pass at the end of March and I'd like to either finish it or get far enough to work out if I want to buy it.
I make it a point to customize every gun I have before taking them out in the field, so they're all Armat battle-tested green and they all have a slogan or graffiti on there somewhere, it just feels right. I love that they did the same to Alpha and Beta, goes to show that they are part of the squad, even if they both lack a personality. That they're Seegson synths is just icing on the cake, as this game takes fluff and lore from the entire franchise, but only the good stuff. Like the recon marine getting the PUP droid from Prometheus, or your CO being the character from a novel.
Also, highly recommend replaying the game with some of the more special challenge cards in play, the filter effects (noir, retro and tactical) are just ace, spoilered for size.
Spoiler:
Or if you want to have a real bug hunt on your hands, use the "They'll Breed, You'll Die" card, which ramps up the spawning of runners at an insane rate, making for some truly epic moments. I dare you to play that card on the final-final mission of the campaign.
We played a card where your gun jams and you have to reload it to start firing again. I can't remember exactly what it said about the percentage but it was a lie. Rarely that infuriated by a game but being able to fire 3 rounds of the smart gun before having to reload about 5 times in a row was not amusing.
Finally finished the campaign for Halo Infinite last night. My thoughts are...mixed...
Spoiler:
The Good
- I was hesitant of the open world dynamic but it seems to have worked out ok to an extent. - Random armoury drops scattered around the map is good, means I can have some degree of customisation without having to fork out for a Season Pass. - The real make/break part of this game was wherever they'd explain the plot between 5 and Infinite, which they have done somewhat although the plot's just left wide open (see below). - Nice that they haven't deviated too much from the older aesthetics.
The Bad - While the plot between 5 and Infinite was explained to a degree, too much has just been left unanswered. What's happened to the Infinity and Lasky? Where are Chief's teammates that were just shoehorned into Halo 5? Some of the plot points that were explained could have been done better. - Similar to the point above, 343i seem to just keep wanting to add more generic sci-fi to the game without closing up existing plots. Who is this Endless race we're suddenly exposed to, and why should I care that they want this "Auditorium" whatever it is? I was hoping that the "Silent Auditorium" would be a callback to the Silent Cartographer or the Library from Halo CE but unfortunately not. - The game is too clean in some points. It's too bright in places and lacks that gritty atmosphere that made the first games so good. Obviously they've done this to reduce the age rating and sell more copies but as with the Season Pass it just shows how 343i has sold out. - The open world mechanic is good, but once you build up enough points to call in a Scorpion whenever you want the game becomes just piss-easy.
The Ugly - Vehicle controls. Just bloody awful. Scorpions are almost undriveable and any other vehicle either dies too quickly to enemy fire or is similarly uncontrollable. I gave up on using a Mongoose as it just flips over on the slightest bump or pebble. - No level playback. Come on 343i, this is something that should have been developed from day 1. - The Harbinger fight at the end. Quite possibly one of the worst boss battles I've ever dealt with. - Checkpoints. For some reason the game almost arbitrarily decides what your last checkpoint was. I got about halfway through the Harbinger fight and reach a checkpoint, decided to call it quits and finish the next day. Later on the game just decides to respawn me a couple of rooms before the fight even began!
Do I like it? Yes, but it's a shadow of what Halo used to be.
Olthannon wrote: We played a card where your gun jams and you have to reload it to start firing again. I can't remember exactly what it said about the percentage but it was a lie. Rarely that infuriated by a game but being able to fire 3 rounds of the smart gun before having to reload about 5 times in a row was not amusing.
The bug hunt one sounds good fun.
I feel you on the randomness of some of these cards, I played the card that spawns a drone at irregular intervals throughout the entire mission duration, Beautiful Butterflies I think it's called? But fething hell, the moment I dropped one the game decided to spawn in a new one straight away, four drones in a row on top of regular swarms was a tough fight and a massive drain on ammo.
Update on My Bannerlord campaign. Still at war with the Aserai and I realised that the last war I had the difficulty down. So it seemed if I wanted to stand a chance on even footing I had to turn down the difficulty again. Now I can win but the casualties are high no matter how well I command or perform tactics. I've also been struggling to keep my money up with the daily cost my forces have going into the red a couple of times before I can sell off my loot and ransom my prisoners. Then, the king of The Vlandians and his lords decide to announce war against the Battanians overwhelmingly too I might add one hundred per cent. So the first thing the Battanians do is ransack a couple of my villages as they were once there's so now I'm earning even fewer denars. Of course, I have to be the one to deal with the immediate consequences of such a war, not the fools who voted for it lol. Had a break from the game after that lol
Lol indeed. I'm about 600 turns into a marathon Civ 6 game at the moment on the Switch. Trying to get the conquest victory on a huge map, which is pretty difficult, but I am barely getting a couple of turns in for each play as the empire is so large!
Am currently playing through the Legendary Edition of Mass Effect (just on the first one at the moment, about 15 hours in). Forgot how well made the game was, the environments and graphics design (the suits, wargear, background scenery etc.) is just so well done. I still think, in video gaming terms, it is the closest any game has got to the feel of something like Star Trek, where you have your crew and ship, and are adventuring around the cosmos.
Finished a playthrough of Expedition: Rome. Went with a fairly benevolent Roman Republic loyalist throughout all of the story choices. Overall was alot of fun with a decent enough alt-history story (Julius Caesar dies early on) and was paced well enough that it didn't feel grindy.
Probably won't do another playthrough too soon, despite enjoying the campaign as I'm just not up to the time investment, but next time I'm going to will myself to go as full power hungry villain as I can be and try to take over Rome.
. I did see that option available but it was gonna take like 600+ days. Whatever, video game version of Japan had it coming. I'm not saying 
.
