What are you playing at the moment? - October 2017

[Shadoko]

Wouldn’t be so sure; a miniature trebuchet no more than two meters high nearly took out half my high-school physics class. Although to be fair that had more to do with the structure twisting and turning in unintentional ways, and less so with the foam projectile loaded unto it. It goes without saying these clowns got a sympathy passing grade for their project.

Trebuchets can be deadly,especially against huge targets, it’s not the problem.
The problem is that they shouldn’t be accurate AND have an acceptable rate of fire. They’re siege weapons and they’re complicated, cutting-edge medieval tech, they shouldn’t fire like a goddamn catapult. In Kingdoms they’re more accurate and fire faster than in the main game, and that means spamming trebuchets is actually a valid strategy…which is as stupid as it sounds.
And really, making early renaissance artillery less impactful than trebuchets is one of the small details that truly annoy me in M2TW. (I know early artillery made lots of noise and not much else but 1500-ish artillery should be better than trebuchets).

Also building trebuchets in high school for a science project ? It sounds awesome. A bit dangerous too.

EDIT : I played a bit this afternoon, what’s up with the HRE, seriously ? They’re even worse than in the base game. They seem to have only two kinds of army composition :
-Huge stacks of dirt-cheap units mixed with one or two high-end ones. They don’t pose any threat because they don’t have any resilience whatsoever, but they force me into repeated, annoying battles.
-Artillery-only armies. They are not dangerous, but they wreck my walls. So I have to fight them in the open. And they hurt. They don’t achieve anything but they hurt unless I ambush them.
Aside from that, my Danish campaign is quite fun, even though I’m starting to get very afraid of the Teutonic Order. I can handle the HRE, Lithuania is doomed anyway, Novgorod loves me, but them…holy crap (pun not intended).

[matt_uk]

I just did it again and dropped on Project cars 2 on the ps4 Pro. I must say, my television is HDR but it’s trash tbh, circa £400 Samsung and In some ways it looks more vivid but also more subdued, like RGB was cartoonishly bright and vivid, hdr seems more lifelike, but in some ways cartoon garishness is seductive.

It also blows my mind that a spectrum correlating with a number variable assigned to a pixel can produce a different look, irrespective of the maths behind it. Beyond a greater scope in variable size, but then if that was what’s profound, they could have done that years ago, and by all accounts the maths is seriously hardcore.

[ToomuchFluffy]

@BillbutnotBen:

I also never tried a magic-based run through of Dark Messiah. The hype was so much about the combat and the physics that it never occurred to me to even try the magic.

As for the game, I found it a little underwhelming. All the things that sounded great ended up being a bit clunky in practice.

Yeah, very much agreed there. Melee combat never felt quite right, but I think it’s just that the system isn’t very easy to learn (aside from the fact that I wasn’t focused on melee-skills). There’s just so much to think of and so much to potentially do. Be it switching between spells, using the environment or just learning to use parry/kick/attack/etc. in the right order and at the right time. One of the reasons why I later was thankful for being allowed to use Charm from the distance quite often.

[Shadoko]

Yeah, very much agreed there. Melee combat never felt quite right, but I think it’s just that the system isn’t very easy to learn (aside from the fact that I wasn’t focused on melee-skills). There’s just so much to think of and so much to potentially do. Be it switching between spells, using the environment or just learning to use parry/kick/attack/etc. in the right order and at the right time. One of the reasons why I later was thankful for being allowed to use Charm from the distance quite often.

So I"m the only one who completed the game by running around throwing crates and stuff at people ?

[alms]

Maybe I just need to accept that it’s the closest difficulty setting to the one I want and be satisfied with that until I get bored.

Sticking with easy seems a good idea, especially if you’re playing the Advanced Edition content and haven’t unlocked everything already.

One of the issues that I had with FTL was that it felt like it was too reliant on a very few RNG checks.
(…)
That same scenario in FTL would be presented as an immediate limited option decision:

The situation you’ve just described is what I would actually refer to as a CYOA element as, IIRC, most of the options in those dialogs had fixed outcomes, rather than being tied to a dice roll.

In fact that aspect of the game was often used as a point to criticize the game, for teaching by punishment.

To be good at FTL, you need to be able to make the most out of what the game throws at you, knowing what what swaps to make along the way. If you tend to play ships in a ‘cookie cutter’ sort of way, you’re bound to paint yourself into a corner, because, to have success, you need the game to give you more or less exactly what you can make work.

That is, IMO, what the RNG criticism mostly revolves around: “but how am I supposed to win if you don’t give me all the right parts”.

(Or, how am I supposed to win if you don’t drop Ringil and the Boots of Feanor.)

[Tritagonist]

The problem is that they shouldn’t be accurate AND have an acceptable rate of fire. They’re siege weapons and they’re complicated, cutting-edge medieval tech, they shouldn’t fire like a goddamn catapult.

Right, absolutely. Trebuchets seem to be a dev-favourite in the genre. Not sure why. Maybe it’s because of the influence of Age of Empires II on historic strategy games, although it’s certainly possible that it was this way before then.

[Shadoko]

Maybe it’s because of the influence of Age of Empires II on historic strategy games, although it’s certainly possible that it was this way before then.

The funny thing being that trebuchets in AoEII are actually more accurate than in Medieval II, at least they don’t fire shrapnel.
If I had to make a guess, I’d say it’s because trebuchets are the most iconic medieval siege weapon (catapults and ballistas are more likely to be associated with antiquity and cannons with modern times) and have been popularized by TV shows and documentaries. Besides, trebuchets enable movies and games to feature what they think is the equivalent of modern-day artillery, with exploding projectiles and so on, and thus give more familiarity to medieval warfare (that would appear quite alien to us, actually).

In a way it’s exactly that way in Medieval II Total War. It doesn’t depict the medieval art of war, but rather what people think medieval battles looked like. Battles in M2TW are modern/WWII battles with a bit of medieval paint.
Artillery is used for shock and awe, as well as area denial, exactly like modern-day artillery.
Cavalry is always heavily armored and used for shock primarily, like tanks.
Infantry acts as a buffer, absorbs the initial shock and occupies terrain, like modern-day infantry.

(see also : the opening battle of Gladiator).

As much as I like M2TW (and I love it), it always bugs me to see that I can wage war in winter with a full army, keep a functionning army for more than 40 days and recruit peasants like they’re professional soldiers. But I guess accurate medieval warfare would be too hard to emulate for anything but complex wargames.

[theclockworkrat]

Picked up the latest humble bundle for Endless Legend. I’m not much of a 4X type gamer, but this is different enough and the tutorial seemed to explain the basics. My first game is as Drakken on newbie difficulty, but they seem like a fairly standard playstyle and I’m probably better than I thought.

I’ll try another vanilla race next and bump up the difficulty.

[EPICTHEFAIL]

My first game is as Drakken on newbie difficulty, but they seem like a fairly standard playstyle and I’m probably better than I thought.

You haven’t properly played Drakken until you’ve exterminated everyone on the planet without anyone being able to declare war on you because they either have no idea you’re doing it or you’re abusing the force treaty race trait to shut down any attempt at resistance.

[alms]

but this is different enough and the tutorial seemed to explain the basics

Is it better than Endless Space’s ? For reference, in that game, the tutorial was just some grainy screenshots with some panels explaining the basics of the UI.

[vinraith]

I’m taking another stab at playing Total Warhammer (the first one), but I haven’t seriously played a total war game since the first Rome: TW and am finding it a challenge to come to grips with the new interface/strat layer/tactical quirks. I got some good advice here the last time I tried this, but does anyone know of a good (ideally text, rather than video) resource for getting myself up to speed?

[Bobtree]

This guide has some basics. There are a lot of subtle and handy bits of UI in Total Warhammer, so I would suggest revisiting tips and videos between plays and trying elements you are unfamiliar with. I listed some good video channels here.

In the control options, there is an advanced tab that lists stuff like alt+click to drag selected units in relative formation (alt+ctrl+click to rotate), or alt+rightclick+drag to position and aim a ranged unit. Holding spacebar shows unit orders and opens a side-panel that lets you toggle visual bits, like hiding nearby trees so you can see units better. I always play with the detailed unit stats panel open (I key), and classic battle camera.

I don’t use locked control groups much anymore (alt+click to drag big selections is just faster to set up and won’t ruin your hotkeys), but they can be good for engaging a long front line all at once (the units will march in line, then pick targets and charge, which is better than just mass-moving them, and less work than targeting them one by one). You can also re-arrange unit cards (in battle only) and then shift-select and drag-place to make a line in that arranged order. Control+click to select them in a specific order and then drag-place is supposed to work similarly, but maybe it fails for some unit types or is just unreliable.

To overcast spells (extra effect, +miscast chance), you double-click the selection icon before targeting. I don’t recall if this is always available in TWW1, but repeated clicks will cycle through cast/overcast/cancel. In TWW2 overcast is often a per-spell upgrade/unlock. IIRC, you always have it in TWW1, but upgrading decreases the miscast chance.

I made this mod list of quality of life stuff on the workshop. I used to use “less op agents” and “home region movement bonus” too, but game updates have improved balance/AI and made them unnecessary.

[MantisTobogganM.D.4]

I just recently reinstalled tw1 also, and installed radious, I’ll have to check it out soon.

I was finally able to pry myself away from elite (though by the end of my session tonight I wanted to get out the old hotas and blow some shit up so I’m far from burned out lol). I tried a few games I’ve recently got from bundles after I played some dishonored 2. I’m very early in, but I like how different Emily’s powers are. I just love that game universe too.

First up was lichdom battle mage. It was… Ok. From some of the reviews and some of what I’ve heard about the game I expected more grand use of magic, instead it was like hey fireball and ice beam. Cool I guess, but I wouldn’t say oh my God magic unleashed cool. I expected like top level Skyrim spells just being thrown around, I throw around ice beams and fireballs in Skyrim all the damn time. I didn’t delete it or anything but I don’t have much desire to play again soon.

Second was bionic commando. So incredibly bad. I knew it was older, but I didn’t realize how old it was, the graphics were terrible. But as long as it’s fun I don’t care, oh wait the shooting is bad and the grappling awful? At least some cool characters or story? Nope cringe worthy and “jam on skip button” inspiring. Immediate deletion. Bonus points for only displaying controls as Xbox controller bindings.

A story about my uncle was the last I played. It has a really novel way it telling the story(kind of princess bride movie style), and the controls are incredible. The first few times you grapple or jump it’s like, this isn’t too bad. Then 45 seconds later it’s so immediately natural that you’ve forgotten what you’re even pushing to do it. I’ll probably go between this, dishonored 2, elite, and probably just cause 3 and total warhammer 1 radious for a bit. Over Christmas break I’ll tear into them, I won’t have work or classes then.

[theclockworkrat]

Probably. It doesn’t let you progress through the tutorial unless you’ve actually done the step.

[ToomuchFluffy]

@Shadoko:

So I"m the only one who completed the game by running around throwing crates and stuff at people ?

Well, I tried to use the environments and physics, but most of the time I had other things on my mind. Like failing at melee and such. Really curious though how an Archery/Stealth-build might turn out. Not in small part due to the fact that I rather enjoyed sitting in the dark somewhere while some charmed Vampire Knight was beating up his fellows.

[BillButNotBen]

Well, I tried to use the environments and physics, but most of the time I had other things on my mind. Like failing at melee and such

I think part of my disappointment with it was that I wanted to use the environments and physics and such in cool ways, and it very rarely worked out.

That might have been my personal crapness, but it was a game that screamed “put ice on that bridge so the orcs will charge you and go flying off in a humorous way” and where it was generally much easier to just stab the orcs.
I remember spending ages trying to pull off cool tricks and traps, or cool moves to send people flying off ledges, and then mostly having to reload because it never really worked that well.

I haven’t played dishonored, but I get the sense that those games took the basics of Dark Messiah and made them much smoother and more satisfying to pull off.

Still, it was a fun game and I don’t mean to suggest it was bad… just that it only very rarely lived up to my expectations.

[arathain]

I understand and share your preference for text, but the Party Elite beginners guide videos are very good- concise, with each example efficiently demonstrated.

Knowing some of the tricks of the battle interface makes battles easier and more fun. TW lets you get large armies within the first few turns, so being able to manage them without a lot of time paused makes the game more fun.

Watch 4 and 6, if nothing else.

[vinraith]

Those are short enough to be tolerable, I think, and I appreciate the suggestion. I really hate this move to video, though - the lack of searchability and the generally low information density makes them vastly inferior for most things in comparison to a good wiki. Damn kids and such.

[Qazinsky]

Really curious though how an Archery/Stealth-build might turn out.

Twice now have I played through Messiah and twice now have I been the archer/stealth guy. I’ve tried to start a mage but then just get the urge to drop points in my bow and my knives so that I can sneak up and attempt to backstab things, fail at staying undetected and boot them over an edge/into spikes/away from me.

[MantisTobogganM.D.4]

Those are short enough to be tolerable, I think, and I appreciate the suggestion. I really hate this move to video, though - the lack of searchability and the generally low information density makes them vastly inferior for most things in comparison to a good wiki. Damn kids and such.

Text guides are dying, and it sucks.