Video Games: A Far Cry From E3

[Jace, Extat]

Alright, Hearts of Iron update.

Ever since I got all the DLC a few weeks back I've been obsessing over the Balkan states because of the tough choices you're faced with.

I just lost a game as Romania in which I quickly set about to reforming the military (I manually forced a Civil war against Hitler in Germany and set Yugoslavia down the path of Communism). About late 1936 the Hungarians attempted to renounce the treaty of Trianon, to which I responded with mobilization and threat of imminent invasion.

The Hungarians persisted with the backing of the French government, the foreign ambassador paying a personal visit to the Chancellor at a late hour begging to avoid war in Europe.

Undeterred, the King gave a rousing speech to the National Assembly in the early morning of October 23rd promising not to allow Hungarian belligerence to once again plunge the world into chaos and a swift response should they renounce the treaty enforced upon them after the dissolution of their repressive empire.

At 1300 October 23rd, with Romanian armor massing on the border, Hungary committed to reversal of their attempted policy of rearmament.

War was averted, though the tension in the Balkans was growing unstable with Mussolini's ambitions against the Dalmatian coast.

A stabilizing Germany, rebuilding from a ruinous year long civil conflict with Nazism, provided much needed supplies of steel to the exploding Romanian arsenal that allowed the nation to refuse Hungary's weak attempt to secure limited rearmament in the ill-fated Bled Agreement with globally recognized intention to pressure the diminished state into accepting a puppet government.

Not three weeks later the ultimatum was received in Budapest. The Provisional Government refused and twenty-two divisions crashed into the hamstrung defenders who lacked basic anti-tank equipment and coherent officer deployment.

The Bled War lasted fourteen days, during which time twenty-five thousand Hungarians fell in the field. Most of which were in the poorly deployed divisions shattered by the first wave of armor.

Angered by the belligerence of the Hungarians, Romania dissolved the state government completely and annexed all regions.

A coup was launched against the King during the first days of the conflict, a result of several Generals' opinion that he had badly mishandled the political situation, and a month later King Micheal was recognized as the legitimate ruler of Romania and Hungary by the Legislative body.

Seventy days later the Bulgarians submitted to Romanian pressure, installing a Romaniaphile head of state and ceding political autonomy.

In May of 1939 the Kingdom of Romania announced claims on Yugoslavia, specifically areas of Macedonia claimed due to Bulgaria before the First Balkan War and Transdanubia as a de Jure possession of the absorbed Hungary.

The SFR Yugoslavian (Communist) government announced, with a now grossly extended border with both Romania and Bulgaria, that it would remain firm in the face of Romanian aggression.

Uncertain of success, King Micheal appealed to Benito Mussolini for support. The fascist in Italy and the Provisional Dictator August von Mackenson in Germany signed on to agreements to dissolve the poorly conceived state to the satisfaction of all parties but the Soviet influenced Slavs rejected the reasonable offer.

Faced with no other choice thirty-nine divisions of Romanians engaged some twenty-three Slavic while Bulgaria launched attacks into Macedonia.

The Soviet Union unexpectedly launched into the war, despite their recent conflicts in the Baltic states, throwing fifty-four divisions against a poorly supplied ten Romanian divisions of defenders.

Quickly setting to a knockoff version of the Schleffen Plan, the attacks into Yugoslavia were hastened while the remaining fourteen divisions that had been deployed against Czechoslovakia and Austria were rushed to the new Soviet front. 

Italy and Japan quickly formed an alliance with Romania but even as the Yugoslavian front collapsed from pressure on all sides the Soviets were marching into Bucharest.

The armies were quickly turned around and sent back to fight the Soviet menace but it was too late.

I lost

It kinda sucks 'cause I still had like fifty divisions in the field and I was consolidating my line to hold the Carpathians and I was going to get a lot of support from Italy (Bulgaria was going to be under Soviet control for a while though) but the game rules are what they are and for whatever reason the captured territories hadn't contributed enough points to allow me to survive the loss of half my starting territory including the capitol.

I really wanna do Turkey or Spain. I hope they get unique trees in the next expansion Ironclad as they're on the list that the producers have released for future content, but I wouldn't be surprised if America, United Kingdom, and Italy got a big update to their National Focus trees since they're the three biggest naval players besides Japan who got the Focus tree expansion last time.

I just have this fantasy of a totally crazy Italio-Turkish alliance that could just gobble up central Europe between them and give the Soviets a nasty potential enemy as they try to face down the Germans and the Japanese.

I'm debating whether to resurrect the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which prevents me from even attempting a naval campaign, or... that's pretty much it.

It's boring to play as the allies 'cause they already control everything and I love Japan and India's national trees but the terrain they have to fight in is so goddamn nightmarish that I just don't have the stomach for it.

Anyway.

[Werthead]

Huh. Valve have bought the Firewatch developers. Which I'm 99% certain is just so Valve can say, "Hey, we've got a new single-player video game coming out next year for reals!" (Campo Santo's next game, In the Valley of Gods, is due next year).

[A True Kaniggit]

5 hours ago, Pony Empress Jace said:

It's boring to play as the allies 'cause they already control everything and I love Japan and India's national trees but the terrain they have to fight in is so goddamn nightmarish that I just don't have the stomach for it.

Have you tried using an ally and flipping them to Fascism or Communism?

Then instead of allying with the Soviet Union or Germany you just take on the whole world by yourself.

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Have you tried using an ally and flipping them to Fascism or Communism?

Then instead of allying with the Soviet Union or Germany you just take on the whole world by yourself.

I've tried playing the Franch, they have a National focus path to Communism now, but I just get bored when it's too easy to bring a country's manufacturing and military online.

It's kinda oxymoronic that I'm most interested in the expansion part of the game but I lose interest if I control too much too fast.

[briantw]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

Huh. Valve have bought the Firewatch developers. Which I'm 99% certain is just so Valve can say, "Hey, we've got a new single-player video game coming out next year for reals!" (Campo Santo's next game, In the Valley of Gods, is due next year).

That game will never see the light of day.

[Jace, Extat]

Alright, update on yesterday's campaign.

I decided to do a Hungary campaign, deposing Hitler in Germany and setting the Yugoslavs on the path to Communism. I merged with Austria quite peacefully by public referendum and after securing Romanian support for re-armament the Austro-Hungarian empire was reformed with Prince Otto von Hapsburg being elected King in Hungary and declaring himself Emperor. This time, though the Imperial seat remains in Vienna, Budapest is where the legislative and judicial bodies reside making it the de facto capitol of the reborn nation. 

With new political capitol the Czechoslovakian state was invited to join the new union. Quite disastrously to the Fascist ambitions in Italy and Romania the Czechs eschewed the support of the Military Junta in Germany and joined their nation's governments fully to the Hapsburg throne in Vienna.

In the space of three years the European landscape was unimaginably altered. Hitler was dead in Berlin, the last of his supporters holding out in the besieged Konigberg. A Hapsburg sat on the Austro-Hungarian throne that now had popular support in Bohemia, adding an exploding manufacturing economy to a new regional superpower. 

The army, now swollen from the pitiful thing that had endured the Treaty of Trianon into a stunningly modern 84 divisions, needed a target.

Eager to display the might of her rapidly growing armored divisions, the shadow Empress Jace organized the invasion of Communist Yugoslavia which was in the throes of a minor civil war.

Having renewed old confidences with the Germans, the crafty Field Marshal set 60 divisions to the Slavic border, ten of them being exclusively organized of the new Skoda Medium tanks.

Moving quickly to take advantage of the isolated nation before Mussolini in Italy could invade himself the Austro-Hungarian Empire went to war for the first time in over twenty years. The Soviet Union and its allies joined the Slavs in support, but without a common border the over matched Serbian and Croat defenders were blown off of their tenuous lines by the crushing invaders.

As the campaign in Yugoslavia was wrapped up the Soviets pressured the Polish kingdom, drawn recently into a burgeoning conflict between Lithuania and Germany, to surrender the entire Eastern portion of the country in exchange for not having to fight a two-front war. This unexpected development left the moderate twelve divisions guarding the short border between Austria and Poland quite over matched by nearly 100 Soviet divisions that were on trains to the new front before the paperwork with the Poles had been signed.

The Soviets crashed into Transylvania before a front was stabilized in the Carpathians, 72 Austro-Hungarian divisions deployed against the might of the Soviet European war machine.

With support from the Italians and Japanese, Jace was able to crack the Soviet lines in Ruthenia and Northern Transylvania, cutting off the head of the Communist snake and trapping a STAGGERING 58 DIVISIONS in Austrian Territory, trapped in the harsh mountains in the winter.

With a Yugoslavian uprising recently squelched and expeditionary air wings as support the Russian planes were swept from the sky in early spring as the Cluj pocket was inexorably reduced by a comparatively tiny force of 19 Austrian divisions under the command of the Emperor himself. The Austrian Royal Guardsmen and Hungarian 1st worked in coordination to eliminate the last pockets of resistance.

The Soviets still boasted a nominal 200 divisions estimated by Austrian High Command but with a war in Sibera with Japan they were unequipped in every sense. Field commanders reported entire Battalions of Russian prisoners who'd been armed with little more than the Uniforms on their backs.

Eager to get in on the corpse fucking after securing Poland and the Baltics, the German Empire under Kaiser Whilhelm Hoenzolern II attacked along their border into the Soviet's disintegrating line.

 

I made it to Minsk and the Crimea before the faster German forces overtook my lines and stopped me from conquering anymore territory.

The Italians beat the French Commune that rose about the time the Soviets were invading me, and I eventually ended up in war with UK because of the Japanese or the Italians.

Curiously, a Chinese coalition completely cut off the Japanese army in Siberia after they had penetrated deep into the Soviet territory and effectively neutered their land forces in early 1941.

Good game.

Now I'm starting another AH playthrough but this time I'm going to fight Hitler. I'm playing a little bit with the system by making Hitler chase focuses other than Anschlus so that I can get Austria before he invades it, but then I'm gonna be ready to fight the Fascist menace.

[Yukle]

For everyone who has played Papers Please, and for those who haven't you must, here is an outstanding short film based on the game.

 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 4/21/2018 at 5:36 AM, Inkdaub said:

I'll be there.  I already bought the new expansion.  We'll see.

I was warned off Dark Souls 3 because I am not good and Dark Souls is hard.  So I bought it anyway and got my ass kicked.  I haven't been able to kill the first boss.  I should have listened.

I have been playing Borderlands and Dishonored.  I like them both.  I need to stop buying games and play out the ones I already have. 

 

Ha! I remember when I bought Dark Souls (1) and thought, "what was I thinking?" I beat it and played all the games since--I think it changed how I view games. I used to just want to get through them, but now I like the difficulty. 

[RumHam]

Yeah, I very nearly gave up on Dark Souls 1 cause I could not beat that first boss. I'm glad I stuck with it.

[Fez]

On 4/21/2018 at 7:36 AM, Inkdaub said:

I was warned off Dark Souls 3 because I am not good and Dark Souls is hard.  So I bought it anyway and got my ass kicked.  I haven't been able to kill the first boss.  I should have listened.

The Dark Souls games are interesting, especially if you haven't played them before or take long breaks between them (like me). They basically always seem impossible, until something just clicks and it all falls into place (except for a few bullshit bosses throughout the series that you just need to get lucky on).

When I started DS3, I hadn't played a From Software game in about 3 years; I also smashed my head at the first boss around a dozen times. But then it clicked, I started recognizing his attack patterns, when/where it was safe to stand, and how many weapon swings I could safely get in at each moment; I beat him two tries later. It'll happen for you too if you stick with it.

[Werthead]

Frostpunk is out tomorrow. It's the follow-up to This War of Mine, and interestingly spins the premise around. You're now in charge of a huge city in the freezing wastes and have to keep the population alive by making morally tricky choices for the entire population. Sounds pretty decent.

[Fiddler]

6 hours ago, Fez said:

The Dark Souls games are interesting, especially if you haven't played them before or take long breaks between them (like me). They basically always seem impossible, until something just clicks and it all falls into place (except for a few bullshit bosses throughout the series that you just need to get lucky on).

When I started DS3, I hadn't played a From Software game in about 3 years; I also smashed my head at the first boss around a dozen times. But then it clicked, I started recognizing his attack patterns, when/where it was safe to stand, and how many weapon swings I could safely get in at each moment; I beat him two tries later. It'll happen for you too if you stick with it.

Man, I remember playing DS3 on release and struggling for like 3 hours with that first boss.  Then I decided to try and cheese it by playing a cleric with bombs as the starting item.  Then I used bombs to weaken him a lot and he was much easier.

The more I played, as you said, the easier he became, but at first he was a bear.

[Werthead]

BattleTech reviews coming in. Very  strong  reviews so far, although RPS cautions about slow unit animations slowing down the game.

[Inkdaub]

Well I am back on Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen for the time being.  This game is great even if I feel lost much of the time.

I'm not sure what I'll do with Dark Souls 3.  It's still downloaded so I haven't given up.  I only play once or twice a week, though, so the prospect of spending hours on a single boss isn't very appealing.  I bought a game called Lords of the Fallen that is supposed to be just like Dark Souls but easier.  I haven't beaten the first boss in that one either.  We'll see what happens.

 

[KiDisaster]

Battletech and Frostpunk both look great, looking forward to picking both of those up in the near future. 

For now though I'm working on Dad of War. This game is pretty fucking awesome so far. Combat can be pretty tough even on normal difficulty. I'm playing on a Pro at 4K HDR and this might take Horizon's spot as the best looking console game I've ever played. 

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

BattleTech reviews coming in. Very  strong  reviews so far, although RPS cautions about slow unit animations slowing down the game.

That seems like a bit of an undersell. That review was negative on a lot of aspects of the game and is making me really reconsider whether its worth buying the game.

[Fiddler]

2 hours ago, Inkdaub said:

Well I am back on Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen for the time being.  This game is great even if I feel lost much of the time.

I'm not sure what I'll do with Dark Souls 3.  It's still downloaded so I haven't given up.  I only play once or twice a week, though, so the prospect of spending hours on a single boss isn't very appealing.  I bought a game called Lords of the Fallen that is supposed to be just like Dark Souls but easier.  I haven't beaten the first boss in that one either.  We'll see what happens.

 

I enjoyed Lords of the Fallen, but as you said, it is similar to Dark Souls. Like Dark Souls, it does become a little easier as you get used to the game itself, but it never becomes easy.  I played Dark Souls 3 for over 200 hours then played through Lords of the Fallen.  After that I had to switch to Diablo 3 just to have an easy game in which I didn't have to sweat every single enemy.

Dragon's Dogma is one of my all time favorite games.  The combat in it is so much fun and the pawn system is one of my favorite systems in an RPG.

[Caligula_K3]

If you are going to try out Dark Souls, 3 is the place to start, I think. It's still really hard, but it's the most beginner friendly in some ways, and it cuts down on a lot of the tedium from the other games, with generous bonfire placements and few super cheap bosses and moments. But if it's not for you, that's cool too!

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Fez said:

That seems like a bit of an undersell. That review was negative on a lot of aspects of the game and is making me really reconsider whether its worth buying the game.

I'll give it a go later. Pretty much every other review has been very strong and Harebrained has a superb track record so far. Whilst I also generally rate RPS as a review site, the same reviewer was also not very keen on the three Shadowrun games, whilst I thought all three were excellent, and was also down on the Banner Sagas, which are two of the finest fantasy games of the last decade, so I know this is a reviewer whose opinion I respect, but also diverges from mine in many key areas.

[RumHam]

Well, they've publicized the Switch exploit that someone showed off weeks ago. You just need to short a wire on one of the joycon connectors and you can overflow the memory and get linux running. Apparently the exploit can't even be patched. So if you're at all interested in running custom content on the switch I'd buy one in the next few months before the fix it in the hardware.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/04/the-unpatchable-exploit-that-makes-every-current-nintendo-switch-hackable/