What games are you playing now?

I don't really care about historic settings, so Crusader Kings 1-3 are equally uninteresting to me. My two cents regarding that particular discussion.

I am, however, slowly getting back into Stellaris after long hiatus and lots of new released DLCs. I think I only played Vanilla once, with the first story pack.

Anyway, the game is very complex and can be very overwhelming in the beginning. It's like learning a new language. Luckily, reading the wiki, watching beginner's guides, creating a race and planning its interstellar development is so interesting to me that it almost becomes a game unto itself. There's just soooo many options and knobs and paths to choose from. Lots of fun.

Originally Posted by Arhu
I am, however, slowly getting back into Stellaris after long hiatus and lots of new released DLCs. I think I only played Vanilla once, with the first story pack.

Anyway, the game is very complex and can be very overwhelming in the beginning. It's like learning a new language. Luckily, reading the wiki, watching beginner's guides, creating a race and planning its interstellar development is so interesting to me that it almost becomes a game unto itself. There's just soooo many options and knobs and paths to choose from. Lots of fun.

Stellaris is my 2nd favorite PDX game. It always manages to suck me in utterly: it's not rare for me to look up from my computer and blink at the clock, only to see it's 3 AM. Though to be honest, I kinda suck at it because I play it more like an RPG, and try to roleplay my species.

But yeah, especially the early, exploration phase is a lot of fun, you never know what you'll come across. Warfare, on the other hand, I find quite meh: the occupation and war exhaustion mechanic is just frustrating.

In general though, as a space strategy game, I'd say it's quite unique. Oh, and I absolutely love the soundtrack-probably my favorite of any game's.

There's by the way a new DLC called Nemesis releasing April 15th, focusing on espionage and you as the player becoming the end-game crisis (or pulling a Palpatine on the galaxy).

Originally Posted by Arhu
I don't really care about historic settings, so Crusader Kings 1-3 are equally uninteresting to me. My two cents regarding that particular discussion.

I am, however, slowly getting back into Stellaris after long hiatus and lots of new released DLCs. I think I only played Vanilla once, with the first story pack.

Anyway, the game is very complex and can be very overwhelming in the beginning. It's like learning a new language. Luckily, reading the wiki, watching beginner's guides, creating a race and planning its interstellar development is so interesting to me that it almost becomes a game unto itself. There's just soooo many options and knobs and paths to choose from. Lots of fun.

Originally Posted by wiretripped
Stellaris is my 2nd favorite PDX game. It always manages to suck me in utterly: it's not rare for me to look up from my computer and blink at the clock, only to see it's 3 AM. Though to be honest, I kinda suck at it because I play it more like an RPG, and try to roleplay my species.

But yeah, especially the early, exploration phase is a lot of fun, you never know what you'll come across. Warfare, on the other hand, I find quite meh: the occupation and war exhaustion mechanic is just frustrating.

In general though, as a space strategy game, I'd say it's quite unique. Oh, and I absolutely love the soundtrack-probably my favorite of any game's.

There's by the way a new DLC called Nemesis releasing April 15th, focusing on espionage and you as the player becoming the end-game crisis (or pulling a Palpatine on the galaxy).

I haven't played it in maybe 1.5 years or so. I have had it installed all that time, but every time I think about playing it again they've released some DLC and I decide to wait for a sale so I can get them cheaper later. And then I forget to buy it the next sale…

BTW @wiretripped, how is the late game performance nowadays? It was really bad when I last played it.

Originally Posted by SveNitoR
I haven't played it in maybe 1.5 years or so. I have had it installed all that time, but every time I think about playing it again they've released some DLC and I decide to wait for a sale so I can get them cheaper later. And then I forget to buy it the next sale…

BTW @wiretripped, how is the late game performance nowadays? It was really bad when I last played it.

Yeah, I feel you. What happens to me is that I find the features in the next DLC to sound so juicy so I decide to wait for that, then there's the usual amount of bugs, so I wait for those to be patched, then they announce the next DLC and I am back where I started from.

As for performance, AFAIK there should be more improvements in the next patch: it's usually the huge amount of pops that exist in the late game, and all the checks constantly being ran for each of them, and I seem to remember them saying that was further optimized. Or that might have been in the previous patch, not sure.
To be honest, for me performance has never really been an issue, and I usually play on the largest possible galaxy settings. Then again, maybe my games don't last long enough? I've actually never played made it until a Crisis.

Originally Posted by Arhu
I don't really care about historic settings, so Crusader Kings 1-3 are equally uninteresting to me. My two cents regarding that particular discussion.

I am, however, slowly getting back into Stellaris after long hiatus and lots of new released DLCs. I think I only played Vanilla once, with the first story pack.

Anyway, the game is very complex and can be very overwhelming in the beginning. It's like learning a new language. Luckily, reading the wiki, watching beginner's guides, creating a race and planning its interstellar development is so interesting to me that it almost becomes a game unto itself. There's just soooo many options and knobs and paths to choose from. Lots of fun.

There are a crazy amount of mods available such as game of thrones if you prefer a fantasy setting.

Originally Posted by Arhu
I don't really care about historic settings, so Crusader Kings 1-3 are equally uninteresting to me. My two cents regarding that particular discussion.

I am, however, slowly getting back into Stellaris after long hiatus and lots of new released DLCs. I think I only played Vanilla once, with the first story pack.

Anyway, the game is very complex and can be very overwhelming in the beginning. It's like learning a new language. Luckily, reading the wiki, watching beginner's guides, creating a race and planning its interstellar development is so interesting to me that it almost becomes a game unto itself. There's just soooo many options and knobs and paths to choose from. Lots of fun.

Funnily enough, your post here encapsulates one of the reasons why I posted about the game here. It's as if Crusader Kings 1 doesn't really exist on the internet.

I thought, here, of all places, there might be people who still fire it up and have good knowledge of the game, or at least good enough knowledge to know what's intended and what's not.

It doesn't even have it's own forum on Paradox's own forum network

Every time I've tried googling about any issue I've had bug-or-not-wise I've come up against a solid brick wall of tumbleweed.

Steam's forums are mostly performance issues and mod discussions & very few posts are questions about the game itself & likewise GoG's even smaller forum. Even specifying RPGcodex in the search only really brings you to people's Let's Plays in terms of potentially helpful knowledge & scrolling through a whole Let's Play to only potentially find out one needle in a haystack answer is too laborious by a long shot.

For the above issue I had, for example, I challenge all ye experts of the internet to search the entire pantheon of google for:

"Crusader Kings 1 King stuck on 5 year old stats"

or even

"Crusader Kings 1 forum"

(it's almost as if even Paradox themselves are embarrassed about this bastard son of a game [That's an in-joke regarding the game's mechanics] )

Originally Posted by lackblogger
Funnily enough, your post here encapsulates one of the reasons why I posted about the game here. It's as if Crusader Kings 1 doesn't really exist on the internet.

I thought, here, of all places, there might be people who still fire it up and have good knowledge of the game, or at least good enough knowledge to know what's intended and what's not.

Even though I loved the game, I haven't looked back ever since CK2 came out (which is also why I had nothing to add to the "discussion", it's simply been too long). For me personally, CK1 has been superseded by CK2, completely. The analogy you made between BG1 and BG2 a few pages back IMO doesn't hold, because BG1 still has that storyline to set it apart from BG2, CK has no storyline. It's a historical sandbox.

This is also the reason why multiple people wonder as to why you're playing the first version, while there's a sequel that does the exact same thing (and much more!).

Originally Posted by wiretripped
Even though I loved the game, I haven't looked back ever since CK2 came out (which is also why I had nothing to add to the "discussion", it's simply been too long). For me personally, CK1 has been superseded by CK2, completely. The analogy you made between BG1 and BG2 a few pages back IMO doesn't hold, because BG1 still has that storyline to set it apart from BG2, CK has no storyline. It's a historical sandbox.

This is also the reason why multiple people wonder as to why you're playing the first version, while there's a sequel that does the exact same thing (and much more!).

As I said, because I'm enjoying playing it, sorry if that freaks you out. And even with the limited forums I've found on the subject, yes, CK1 does indeed have significant differences to it's DLC sponging offspring

Regarding Stellaris --

Originally Posted by Pladio
There are a crazy amount of mods available such as game of thrones if you prefer a fantasy setting.

Well, that does sound intriguing! Thanks. I might have a look when I'm done with my current Sci-Fi phase.

Originally Posted by SveNitoR
I haven't played it in maybe 1.5 years or so. I have had it installed all that time, but every time I think about playing it again they've released some DLC and I decide to wait for a sale so I can get them cheaper later. And then I forget to buy it the next sale

I got the humble bundle which includes a lot. It doesn't include some species packs, which I don't really need. The Federations DLC is missing, which is too bad, as well as the Distant Stars Story pack. As I'm only getting back into the game for now, that's fine. I'm going to wait for the next sale. Utopia is the most important, apparently, which is included.

Also, the 3.0 Update was announced the day before yesterday, which is due on April 15th, so I'll probably wait for a proper galaxy exploration and continue to dabble in general gameplay mechanics and all that stuff until then.

3.0 'Dick' Features:

• New Intel system
• Reworked First Contact
• Reworked Pop Growth
• New Industrial Districts & some changes to production of Alloys/Consumer Goods
• New Espionage system & Gather Intelligence Operation (other Operations will be a part of Nemesis)
• Numerous bug fixes & improvements

Now that Doom Eternal is fully released, I decided to start my Nightmare difficulty run of both Doom games. So I started with Doom 2016. And holy shit, I'm either rusty or I forgot how hard it is. When I see streamers doing it on Nightmare it seems a whole lot easier. I constantly get killed and have to restart encounters for 5-10 times even on the first levels.

I initially played through on Ultra-Violence and only got stuck once on a very hard encounter. But Nightmare is just incredibly hard. I constantly feel like I'm moving through sand and all imps and marines constantly barrage me with projectiles.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
Now that Doom Eternal is fully released, I decided to start my Nightmare difficulty run of both Doom games. So I started with Doom 2016. And holy shit, I'm either rusty or I forgot how hard it is. When I see streamers doing it on Nightmare it seems a whole lot easier. I constantly get killed and have to restart encounters for 5-10 times even on the first levels.

I initially played through on Ultra-Violence and only got stuck once on a very hard encounter. But Nightmare is just incredibly hard. I constantly feel like I'm moving through sand and all imps and marines constantly barrage me with projectiles.

I'm impressed with your patience. I used to do things like that, but nowadays I end up not finishing the game if it is too difficult…

Originally Posted by SveNitoR
I'm impressed with your patience. I used to do things like that, but nowadays I end up not finishing the game if it is too difficult…

Oh, don't worry. I often end up that way. I remember playing through Bioshock Infinite on the highest difficulty, wanting to prolong the game as much as possible, since I loved it so much, and I reached the final battle on the airship, and after about 20 or so tries and fails, I just quit (since the game also didn't allow lowering the difficulty on a current save), and saw the ending on youtube. I'm a bit sad about that.

I usually play on the highest difficulty for games I love, or expect to love. For some though it doesn't work out. Either because it's way too difficult. Or because it's difficult only at the start (Witcher 3 was this way on Death March).

I'm playing this brand new game with incredible graphics; it is called Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor I play this every year, so 22 years and counting. This may or may not be followed by MM8 and MM6. So several hundred hours of blobbers for me.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
I'm playing this brand new game with incredible graphics; it is called Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor I play this every year, so 22 years and counting. This may or may not be followed by MM8 and MM6. So several hundred hours of blobbers for me.

I'm debating hitting up MM8 myself after my MM6 run is finished. I actually haven't played MM8 since it came out, so it's probably going to be completely "new" for me.

Of course, since my gaming time is so limited and scattered, it may be a month before I manage to finish the last quarter of MM6.

Inbetween DOOM sessions I'm also playing the Demon's Souls remake. And usually I would play console games from bed, since I've setup the tv right at the foot of my bed. But I've routed the HDMI output from the console to my desk, to one of my monitors and started playing sitting up, in my usual pc gaming setup. And I'm shocked what a difference it makes in how I'm able to react, compared to lying down in bed. It's not as comfortable as lying in bed, but my performance is much better. Also, the screen is smaller and closer, and somehow not as impressive. But I think I'll continue like this.

Don't forget to stretch before playing too. Makes a big difference!

I'm still romping through and around Eredia, advancing the main quest and snagging some side adventures at the same time. I ran into an area that gave me pause combat-wise, so I had to hone my craft a little before proceeding. The sheer amount of exploration in this game is beyond reproach, and I think I've still not uncovered all the character side quests!

Still playing to Elex. Suddenly, after upgrading my weapon, I went from pray to predator. Mopping easily those creatures I once wasted half my ammunitions killing. After being bloody difficult for 30 hours or so, the game suddenly became really easy. Weird.

Originally Posted by vanedor
Still playing to Elex. Suddenly, after upgrading my weapon, I went from pray to predator. Mopping easily those creatures I once wasted half my ammunitions killing. After being bloody difficult for 30 hours or so, the game suddenly became really easy. Weird.

I found Elex fairly challenging for longer than that, but I also played on the harder difficulty. What faction did you choose?

There is a rubicon that, at some point, once you cross it combat becomes a lot more possible in Elex, and even enjoyable. I don't remember exactly what level or skill seemed to do it for me, yet it was noticeable that I could withstand more damage and didn't have to kite everything in sight. For me that's when the game really opened up, and quests took a back seat to exploration for a while.