What games are you playing now?

Yeah, remember that one which was a really pleasant surprise. The very detailed aiming at body parts in this RPG was what fascinated me the most.

It also comes with different versions of very cool box art

Isn't it on Steam, is it?
 
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Yeah, remember that one which was a really pleasant surprise. The very detailed aiming at body parts in this RPG was what fascinated me the most.

It also comes with different versions of very cool box art

It also has other very cool mechanics. You can run/walk/crouch and crawl. It features a pretty decent sneaking system.

It also has a very nice crafting system. You use blueprints to craft weapons, add different material types and also imbue magic into them. The same applies to crafting magic spells. You use different runes to craft different mechanics into the spells. But are limited by the magic complexity your character can handle.

Besides mechanics, it also has a wonderful soundtrack, good enough writing, but more tongue-in-cheek and funny, than serious. With very fun voice actors. Such a wonderful little game. Too bad it didn't get the recognition it deserved.

It also had an expansion, but it never made it into English. It was only available in Russian. Too bad, I'm sure more content would have been great.

Nival Interactive was a great developer. I think they're still around under name. They also did the best HOMM since HOMM3. Namely, HOMM5 and its expansions. I hear some of their people went on to found Owlcat who did Pathfinder: Kingmaker?
 
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Put Blasphemous on hold, because I really felt nostalgic for a real gem that I played back in the day, and loved. Namely, Evil Islands. Such an awesome game. Too bad the russian developers at Nival Interactive never managed to get the success they deserved imo.

Oh wow - i loved this game!!

Thanks for the heads up on GOG, i thought this was one of those forgotten gems that I'd never see again
 
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So I finally found a way to play Medieval Total War without it crashing on me.

The problematic crashes occur whenever stacks of armies face off against each other, even if you choose to auto-resolve the combat. As long as they only attack with one stack then it doesn't crash.

So I had to devise a way to play that didn't involve me ever having to face more than one stack of AI units. And then I had to figure out a way to defeat all the AI's without ever putting myself in a position whereby I could get invaded by multiple stacks.

Being an expert at the game, I figured there must be a way. If anyone can, I can. So I set the game to Expert Difficulty and chose the most difficult faction to start the game with, The Sicilians. Ironically, for an expert under these parameters, the Sicilians are not only the easiest way to win but also the only way to win.

My only worry will be making sure the Papacy don't invade me. The Sicilians' unique benefit for this scenario is that they have the buffer of the Papal faction, who start off weak, don't usually gain much over time and are the last faction any other nearby AI will invade. In a game where you desire combat, this is a huge downside, as attacking the Papal faction crashes your reputation, happiness and may cause a civil war, and then they respawn anyway, the only faction to always respawn in a regular game. However, for a defensive game they are ideal to hide behind.

After about 70 years (turns) the plan seems to be working, no-one has invaded me and the game has not crashed:

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And it kept working. After 300 years I had won the game. I had defeated all of the AIs and no AIs had any territories left:

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The last AI and it's 15 men are trapped inside their castle and I will attack the castle next turn with my large golden army.

Unfortunately, this game doesn't have a 'defeat all AIs victory condition'. The only conquest victory condition the game recognises is domination, whereby you own at least 60%ish of all the territories. I own barely 10% of the territories, it's just that the other 90% of territories are in the hands of the rebels rather than any AI faction. In the civilisation series you're allowed a choice, either dominate to 60-odd percent or just wipe everyone else out, but alas, this Total War game doesn't provide that alternative.

So how will the game cope if there's no AI factions for it to play?

It breaks the game, of course. I take the castle and instead of a victory screen I get the Danish respawning:

HazvaXs.png


Then the French respawning:

FXtUzDr.png


As soon as I clear those out the Golden Hoard respawns:

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As soon as I clear those out the Burgundians respawn:

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And as soon as I clear those out the French respawn yet again:

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And by now it's clear that the game simply can't cope with there being no AI faction on the table. Which is a big shame really. While I don't care about this, after all I know I've won and that's all that matters, it does wrangle that the game refuses to acknowledge this and continues flailing on like the limbless warrior of Monty Python fame.

I'd still prefer it if they bothered to fix this one specific bug that they've known about for 10 years, you know, so I could play it normally and have, you know, like, actual decent combat every now and then, but, heh, watcha gonna do. If they don't react to 500 people telling them about the problem over 10 years, what's my voice gonna add…
 
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Well at least you've had fun :)

I played through two Hearts of Iron 4 campaigns using the Kaiserreich mod to break up from Underrail. Was fun, but I remember why I stopped HoI4. I will get back to Underrail soon and finish it before starting a new game.
 
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Currently playing Dishonored 2: Death of the outsider. What a wonderful expansion.

I played the original Dishonored 2 and thought it was OK. It felt railroaded and I did not feel much for the characters and story. It felt like structured hitman levels with medicore gameplay.

Death of the outsider, on the other hand, I found brilliant. Story is great and keeps you hooked, which ties in with the settings, atmosphere and missions. I enjoyed gameplay more in this expansion compared to the original, as it felt more open (even though the number of areas as less than the original), with contracts that you can choose to do, and every area or region felt like a puzzle that was a joy to unwrap.

I am playing the expansion on hard with a stealth non-leathal approach and I am enjoying the time that it takes me (with the new void powers) to unwrap each region (puzzle) to achieve the objectives. Best game/expansion that I played over the last three years.
 
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I'm trying my first Spiderweb game, rolling Queen's Wish. I've put a few hours in at this point, and while it's no Tyranny - i'm staying open minded. It's not that bad

Besides that, I'm pretty obsessed w/ Gloomhaven board game, playing thru the campaign solo, w/ friends dropping in and playing a character now and then. About 12 scenarios in, and still loving it. It feels good to unplug and play a board game.

There's apps to handle some aspects of Gloomhaven, zero interest - it defeats the purpose of playing a board game imo. There's a solace in going totally analog. There's ways to streamline it, for instance, using dice for health counters. Play smarter, you know =D
 
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I'm trying my first Spiderweb game, rolling Queen's Wish. I've put a few hours in at this point, and while it's no Tyranny - i'm staying open minded. It's not that bad

Besides that, I'm pretty obsessed w/ Gloomhaven board game, playing thru the campaign solo, w/ friends dropping in and playing a character now and then. About 12 scenarios in, and still loving it. It feels good to unplug and play a board game.

There's apps to handle some aspects of Gloomhaven, zero interest - it defeats the purpose of playing a board game imo. There's a solace in going totally analog. There's ways to streamline it, for instance, using dice for health counters. Play smarter, you know =D

I've also snagged Queen's Wish. It's fun, which is what matters in the end, but it's no Geneforge or Avernum; it seems to be a stale, 'meh' product. But the setting and plot is intriguing, even if the writing or combat isn't.
 
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The second half of 2019 is simply awesome. Excellent games keep comin' for my trusty Switch:
Astral Chain: crazy-ass Japanese (100% compliment) action game
Daemon x Machina: crazy-ass Japanese (50% compliment, 50% head scratching) mecha game
Zelda: Link's Awakening: ladies and gentlemen, one of the world's best crazy-ass Japanese game (500% compliment) remastered

Also ran:
Divinity 2: although I'm not a fan, I tend to enjoy this game on my 2nd playthru (1st was on PC, 2nd on Switch -- Solo with Fane! For the Win!)
Pillars of Eternity: still not convinced if this game is the "bestest evar" RPG of recent times, but soloing a rogue seems to make this "meh" game to "slightly enjoyable" to me.
 
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Hmm my wow gametime expires in a few hours, so gonna play divinity original sin 2 def edition combined with dirt rally.
 
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It's been exactly a year since the release of Pathfinder: Kingmaker! Guess what I've been playing today? :)
 
My bet is on NWN. :p
 
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For me, that means it's been almost a year since I put Pathfinder: Kingmaker back on the shelf. I really need to get back into that game and finish it sometime. Maybe after I finish Pillars of Eternity two, which I have to say I'm really enjoying, way more than I did their first game in the series.
 
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I'm still messing with Greedfall a little bit and I picked up Queen's Wish as well. It is butt ugly and much more dumbed down than earlier games from Jeff, but it's mildly entertaining. Definitely not worth $20 but I was bored. I'm playing on normal but may have to change to veteran so I don't accidentally fall asleep in combat. We'll see. You can change on the fly, so no big thing.

I'm waiting on updates from several of my early access Survival games, so these will tide me over. I tried installing Dungeon Siege 2, but it takes too much hoop jumping to get it working on Win10. Maybe I should see if GoG has it too. They probably fixed the Win10 stuff as opposed to Steam.

One big negative with Queen's Wish is the punishment for any type of exploration. This game expects you to play in a very specific order. Let's say you decide to explore a day's travel in each direction after leaving the first fort. If you go north, that's what the game expects. If you go any other direction, the quest giver does not really recognize that you've done what she asked and can skip major conversations and plot points.

Basically, you don't want to go anywhere unless you've been pointed there first by conversations. If you do, you may have to clean an area out twice. You may miss extra conversation and quest choices and may miss out on a few rewards. It's super silly in this day and age. Not sure if this lasts for the whole game, but I expect it.
 
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i'm about ten hours into Queen's Wish, i'm having an unexpectedly good time with the game. Glad I gave it a shot

Having some pretty close fights, as I reclaim the appropriately named "Fort Muck" and surrounding resources in the swampy Ukat region of the game.
 
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Ooh, I think this is where I'm headed next, Schnauzer-looking dude. I've been trying to do things in the order the game expects. I've done the town to the west, the town to the ne and the quarry to the se. I'm starting to do the mine n of the town to the west. It is sad that I remember directions but not names, lol, but I'm at work. I've only cleared the landing fort but should tackle one of the other 7? forts soon.

Let me make a thread, so we don't go too far off-topic here.
 
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