Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 nels1031 wrote:
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.

This all sounds tempting indeed......now that i have finished my Throg Campaign in Total War Warhammer - which was a long old slogg

I've been playing a bit of Battlefleet Gothic 2, I've had it for a while and never really wanted to sit down and play it.

It's okay so far I suppose? I don't think I'm terribly good at it but hey.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:
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.

This all sounds tempting indeed......now that i have finished my Throg Campaign in Total War Warhammer - which was a long old slogg

Keep in mind, while the stakes are big, its not a big sweeping campaign like TW: Warhams. Its closer to a non-magical Divinity: Original Sin 1/2 at its roots. There is a grand battle part of the game, but its really a numbers game and all you really do is choose 3 options at 3 intervals and that determines victory/defeat and how much loot you get at the end.

Outside of that, its a solid squad turn-based historical RPG.

Discovered a few days ago Disciples: Liberation in a store. Bought it spontaneously as I played Disciples 2 a lot twenty years ago. Great game and a big improvement to Disciples 2!

Started on Expeditions: Rome, got a good laugh at the loading screen tip about having no time limit for an expansive game that has exploration in it, and how slapping a time limit to it all is a terrible design

Started playing Tom Clancy's End War since it's on sale for 3 USD during the current steam sale. It's not bad but in almost every case i'd prefer a point and click RTS vs a voice activated one now that i've started playing it. Don't get me wrong it can be nice since originally it was a good option for consoles, it's also kinda fun but i can't imagine this game being good for a crap ton of units all at once on a screen. So far i have to control 4-6 and it can be a bit frustrating. It's a bit fun but i feel like so many point and click RTS does it better esp. when you want a unit to go to a specific area or to deploy into a building or to deploy behind cover.

Also in some ways i think Act of War or Act of Aggression have a similar enough premise and aesthetic to interest a person more than End War.

Underrail the Expedition DLC. Regretting making a melee/unarmed build for fighting on the jet ski so decided to get my throwing better. Was pretty good as my character also used grenades and throwing knives quite a lot, but need more consistency. It's been a while since I last played it got frustrated after trying to kill some robots that just kept killing me over and over like a year or so ago. Great game...especially if you're a masochist like me lol

SpongeBob Battle For Bikini Bottom Rehydrated.
A remake of an old PS2 licensed game.
Really fun and really good, has alot of the old songebob humor and jokes and got alot of laughs out of me.
Being a game for children it's easy but there was enough platform challenges and such to make it worth it.
If you loved those cartoon mascot platform collectathons you will like this.

I'm continuing my adventures in Cataclysm DDA, in which I finally remembered how to make clean water. Crafting menu? What's that?

Also found a refugee camp, which is a fun bit of new content that I had never seen before.

Got back inte Valheim. I was tired after work one day and fired it up. Man it’s such an enjoyable experience. I’ve beaten the game and I’m now just messing about in the base, finishing projects and such. I also took a trip to the most southern corner of the map. There’s a whole unfinished biome there! So I’ve been messing around there for a bit. I think my next project will be to take some lox and bring them to my base. No idea how to bring them but I’ll finish something out. I wonder if I can put them on a boat or a raft maybe.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Started on Expeditions: Rome, got a good laugh at the loading screen tip about having no time limit for an expansive game that has exploration in it, and how slapping a time limit to it all is a terrible design

Ya, I appreciated that dig at themselves, given the time constraint that Expedition: Viking had.

At first I thought rations might be an issue, a sort of unofficial time limit, but then I started sending my Legion to those hunting camps and that was the end of that.

In my current solo campaign i'm played Brit Land and had to fall back from france in june 1940 or so. A lot of my regiments got trapped in france and surrendered or died. It was kinda bs. I think i'm ok.

Italy is getting hit pretty hard by me in the african colonies and Free France is still helping me but Vichy France is another enemy i really didn't need right now. I'm not sure where Vichy France ranks in power but probably not so much considering they're a weaker version of previous France. Still it's an extra enemy i really didn't need to deal with right now.

Aside from all that i think my naval supremacy went into the crapper so i may need to build some coastal forts or really focus on navy soon. Also fighter, heavy fighters and naval bomber spam should be helpful.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
In my current solo campaign i'm played Brit Land and had to fall back from france in june 1940 or so. A lot of my regiments got trapped in france and surrendered or died. It was kinda bs. I think i'm ok.

So kind of like what happened historically.

Yes, historically most of the British troops got out. But there was at least one British division that was forced to surrender, iirc. They spent almost five years as PoWs in Germany - longer than anyone else.

They have my sympathies.

Italy is getting hit pretty hard by me in the african colonies and Free France is still helping me but Vichy France is another enemy i really didn't need right now. I'm not sure where Vichy France ranks in power but probably not so much considering they're a weaker version of previous France. Still it's an extra enemy i really didn't need to deal with right now.

Vichy France is technically part of the Axis, but generally stays peaceful unless you specifically antagonize them. Historically, this actually did happen (a joint British and Free French army attacked Syria, which was under Vichy control). But there's no reason to do so in the game - especially since, unlike what happened historically, fighting Vichy in Syria will likely cause them to become an active participant in the war..

The Italian navy's a real pain (something I've learned while playing as Greece, and having to position troops to defend against naval landings). But you can beat it with effort. And so long as you control both Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, the Italians can't break out of the Med.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
In my current solo campaign i'm played Brit Land and had to fall back from france in june 1940 or so. A lot of my regiments got trapped in france and surrendered or died. It was kinda bs. I think i'm ok.

Italy is getting hit pretty hard by me in the african colonies and Free France is still helping me but Vichy France is another enemy i really didn't need right now. I'm not sure where Vichy France ranks in power but probably not so much considering they're a weaker version of previous France. Still it's an extra enemy i really didn't need to deal with right now.

Aside from all that i think my naval supremacy went into the crapper so i may need to build some coastal forts or really focus on navy soon. Also fighter, heavy fighters and naval bomber spam should be helpful.

Vichy only intervenes if you attack it, or the USA. It's basically half a france with a decent navy... still half a france...

Hard not to intervene when France falls and you gotta make your way out of Occupied france by attacking dudes in between.

Also too little too late because france is attacking me now or at least holding ground. I'm taking out most of Vichy France's territory in Africa.

Germany has almost knocked out the Soviet Union in my game i think. At least 50% down if not more. Both the USA and Soviets are fighting against Axis right now and have been for some time.

I'm trying to learn how to supply correctly and i understand more of it. I upgraded motorization a lot, have more trucks and other things i could need, i'm upgrading railroads, adding more supply depots (which takes ungodly long), connecting track to depots and naval dockyards so they can keep the supply lines to my capital and i'm upgrading infrastructure along supply lines. I think all i need now is to upgrade rail and motorization between my capital and dockyards in my home territory in the UK to make sure this absurd supply line stays intact.

All said and done supply is one of the far more irritating parts of this game as far as i've seen. So much so a protracted combat with lots of units becomes Infrastructure, Supply Lines and Resources the Game esp. in undeveloped lands like Africa. I'm really wishing i took the upgrade that decreases supply use because lord knows i need it.

Finally all this supply shenanigans is forcing me to need more troops and better troops again. I easily have air superiority everywhere to a ridiculous degree and naval superiority last i checked.

Sadly i had to give up the Canal in Egypt but i've managed to hold the Arabian Peninsula's area but not from both sides sadly due to getting attacked by multiple sides from Germans, Italians and Vichy France and i blame Vichy france in Iraq for that. Perhaps if i had sent forces there for when they inevitably fell. Still this game is massively about being stretched thin.

I'm still holding gibraltar and some mediterranean islands however which should make holding the Mediterranean easier overall.

There's a saying - "Amateurs study tactics. Professionals study logistics."

Supplies *should* be a big nuisance. Campaigning in Africa has always sucked (particularly when your AI ally "helps" by landing a bunch of troops and sucking up all of a region's supply capacity). China's even worse.

I played for a while and it was sloooow….driving the enemy from Africa but taking Italy was slow too. Things were going well: Japan was taken out and on our side, Italy had either capitulated or almost, the Soviet Union was knocked out by the Germans but we had numerous beachheads and some were working….and then China joined the fascists and later joined the war. Sigh.

Then I started having manpower problems again so I finally semi fixed it by disbanding some in progress units because nothing else was working and I needed manpower just to move all the air units I had.

Not to mention the mountains of Italy are becoming some of the biggest type of quagmire so I started making mountaineers and researching them to counter it as well as maybe paratroopers. Dunno how useful special forces would be right now.

I’ve reached 1948 so most worthwhile tech has been researched. I imagine some of the bigger nations are really showing how strong they are right now. I may need to go flyer heavy if my manpower shortage continues and then just nuke the enemy with my 13 silos and assorted rocket bases. Tier 3 rockets seem far softer to use than anything else because they pretty much have the range of icbm nukes in current year but less killing power. Wonder if I can get like 13 or 20 rocket silos and just wait till each silo is filled with max rockets and just strategically bomb an area with an absurd amount of rockets. If that still doesn’t soften up the enemy’s infrastructure and make it easier to fight them or at least outlast em I don’t know what will. Nukes require too many conditions and 75% of the air supremacy seems to be significant enough. Rockets feel a bit fire and forget without worry you need special conditions. If anything the enemy has gotta prepare defenses just for you or get rockets all over their stupid heads

Oh and I demanded armies from my puppet states which I think totally will swing this somewhat when I play this again for tomorrow. I know I need sleep and the ridiculousness of supply lack of troopships is setting me up for a nightmare esp combine with multiple hour outbreaks.I won’t dump a full puppet state unless I feel they get next to nothing

Btw would it be possible or weird if I took their manpower abut none of their crap gear? I’d rather them use the best of the best as manpower but I can already make better. Maybe I can see if I can trade for flat manpower from a uk colony like Indian rah, aussies land, New Zealand, south Africa and others.. It’s would totally make up for the uks crappy manpower issues. I think if they look safe from enemies I’ll grab most of their troopr

If you want your puppets to have better gear, then send them Lend-Lease equipment. Doing so also influences the "puppet" score in your favor, which allows you to bind them more closely to you. Demanding manpower, on the other hand, reduces the "puppet" score, which allows them to become more independent of you.

Still feeding my Terraria addiction over here. Why is this game so all-consuming when it comes to my free time? I've played a lot of other games and none of them have been quite this addictive (Star Valor came fairly close
for a little while though).

I've been playing more battlefleet gothic 2 and I'm getting better, battles are less of a slog and I've finally got a bigger ship.

 nels1031 wrote:
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.

How did you beat the mission in Africa where you have to burn two bridges before the time runs out. Either I try to clear the way for a torch bearer and run out of time, or rush in and get everyone killed. It's putting a black mark on an otherwise good game so far D:

 Bobthehero wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:
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.

How did you beat the mission in Africa where you have to burn two bridges before the time runs out. Either I try to clear the way for a torch bearer and run out of time, or rush in and get everyone killed. It's putting a black mark on an otherwise good game so far D:

Took me a while too. I even reloaded my game to prior to the mission and built the tactical items that I needed. As well as picking the right group to send. I went with speed mostly, with one Princeps to tank.

I equipped every member of the bridge demo team with either a torch, oil or the rare greek fire jug as well as at least one archer with a bow that allowed flaming arrows. I deployed heavy on one side of the map, getting as far as I could undetected. Once combat started, it was just a fighting retreat to whatever bridge I was heading to. The bottom bridge seemed an easier route. I'd use Bestia with a dodge ability, or sent a princeps through first to tank any of the Attacks of Opportunity, then sprinted any of the torch bearers/fire jugs as far as possible to get them in range. Then torch it. I did very little combat, outside of the first group that barred my path.

It was all pretty intense and very close. Might've been the hardest mission, looking back.

edit: I went with a Princeps to tank, a healer with a staff to stand behind him and to attack over his shoulder and heal as needed, Bestia and an archer doing the running to the bridges with torches.

I have a team with one each class, though I kept all the story companions in a group with my main for the main assault, which goes stupidly smoothly. I'll have to go back to a previous save and craft torches, I think, yeah.

 Bobthehero wrote:
I have a team with one each class, though I kept all the story companions in a group with my main for the main assault, which goes stupidly smoothly. I'll have to go back to a previous save and craft torches, I think, yeah.

I feel your pain. It was the first time that I had to go back and actually tailor make what I gave my team. Usually its Pilums and bandages with the odd caltrop or greek fire.

Pretty much. Spread pillums around, try out the vinegar bandages. Now that I am at high levels, and that the enemies use poison over fire, bandages aren't as critical, since poison doesn't lower your max HP.

Finally got the hang of HoI4. I attached several hundred CAS and a crap ton of tactical bombers to each army group and upgraded range and explosions on each (which costs a lot of air xp but is infinitely worth that cost). The fighters I had tore through enough aircraft when upgraded it didn’t matter that I attached them to army groups or not. I crapped all over Italy like it was nothing but maybe all their best were busy fighting Greece. I saved Greece anyway and was surprised how fast it all went once I tore through Italy. I dunno if that was Italy’s best or just a standing army for when Italy was out conquering. Either way i went hard and fast and Italy probably cried to its mommy. Beautiful. It capitulated not long after I at up Sicily and most of mainland Italy.

I decided to play a lumberjack in Cataclysm DDA and dang.

Chopped about 20 zombies to pieces on a farm. Time to build a base, I guess?

Fired up CK3 with the new DLC release.
Honestly, I'm not noticing much from the DLC- there are changes, but I... don't really care about most of them? Some things with the Dynasty and Splendor are less transparent now, which is annoying.

The big 'Court' feature is King or Emperor only (which I never start as). The Court Positions are... neat, but money sinks, especially early on.

Anyway, I started as Count Poppo of Orlamunde (who owns 3 of 4 counties in Thurigia. Immediately tried to murder my Brother in law (son of the Duke, which would have made my wife the primary heir to the duchy, which would pass on to my existing kid), but that failed. Declared independence a few years later after my father-in-law died, won handily, then after that truce was up, took the last county by force and eventually amassed enough money to reform the Duchy.

Died Obese on a pilgrimage after developing a food avoidance trait after the death of the wife. (which... yeah).

Started as the firstborn son (who was too old to influence his traits, and Sadistic, Gluttonous and Shy is a really unfortunate combination. Though Martial 20 and Prowess 19 is pretty good. Piety is buried in the negatives (-440), his wife was a known adulterer with the Prince Bishop of Munster (the German city, not the Irish province) who she served as his antiquarian for... reasons. So 1 of 3 daughters is known to not really be, divorce wasn't an option due to the tanked Piety , so... murder it was. Successful, but discover, so between the major sins of Gluttony and Sadism and adding murder, I'm pretty universally disliked.

Remarried a Lazy, Paranoid, Glutton, but at least she has multiple inheritable traits? (Quick and Comely)

And my brother is plotting against me, despite being content, trusting and fickle. And he's now a drunkard (which he apparently picked up from his wife, who was picked for being Hale- didn't notice the drunkard trait). Oh and Improvident, so he gives money away.


The game is weird, but it has its moments of sheer... wth? Which tends to make it fun.

Oh, excommunicated. That's fun. Time to persuade my king I'm not such a bad guy.
And within 6 months, Imprisoned.
Then escaped.
Now, 6 months after that, he is (unhappily) offering me the position of Spymaster.

So updates. My allies and I took down Germany and freed the western countries mostly on our own. The soviets helped sure but we conquered mainland Germany and their western occupied territories on our own as well as all of Italy and its territories on our own.

I started up the fight with Soviet Union since they declared war on us way way back and it’s going somewhere but it’s horribly slow. I’m gonna try to fix up my armies again and see if I can’t get them in better fighting shape. I also need more airfields around to station the bulk of my unengaged Air Force now that most air fields are crap in level. Supply and attrition are probably an issue since it’s winter early 1944 atm in the game but I may need to make sure supply lines are alright too.

I’m going to guess radar will help for my aircraft in air vs air battles. So most importantly grab radar, fix my armies up in army manager a little bit (and make entirely new divisions so every unit doesn’t update super slowly) and make enough airfields for all the planes I’ve built. After that I’ll hope for the best and if it doesn’t work out I’ll reaccess the situation.