Toth Posted June 24, 2018 Share Posted June 24, 2018 Well, to fight my current dark mood, I've started to continue my first Stellaris playthrough last weekend. I've started it a long time ago, so I need to summarize what happened the first 70 years. My idea, essentially, was to role-play the Roman Republic with all its cut-throat politics, just in space. Given that I did write a couple of stories with such a setting before, I thought this would be an enjoyable experience. This is how I cobbled this together: http://fs5.directupload.net/images/180624/emw4epcp.jpg Most aspects, like the militaristic and beaurocratic traits, I conceived would be fitting to how the Romans saw themselves. I wanted them to be very materialist, eager to adapt new technologies, especially being adept Engineers, but also with a knack for opportunistic diplomacy. My grand plan was to act like the Romans always did: Be really friendly, make a ton of alliances with all the neighbors and once one of them steps out of line, mighty Rome comes down on them and bombs them back to stone age. Well... it didn't turn out that well. Right from the start I was squeezed in between the T'Jell Pact and the Nuurian Confederacy, both being hostile xenophobes who refused to talk with me. Since I'm a dumb idiot for whom this is the first Stellaris game, I also thought it would be pretty neat to line up expensive military outposts along my border systems to the Nuurians. Well... after the Nuurians aggressively placed colonies in the disputed territories, shoving the borders into mine, I knew better. Those border systems got peacefully annexed, along with my precious mining stations and of course the military bases, which got dismantled. That was a costly lesson. At least I got an ally later on: The Andigonj Empire, which were located somewhere behind the T'Jell pact. Our first contact was the beginning of a great friendship! A friendship that lasts today. In these early stages of the game, the galactic map looked like this: http://fs1.directupload.net/images/180206/lxanfhz8.png Soon after that picture was made, the first great galactic conflict broke out. The T'Jell and the Nuurians were the attacking alliance, against the Andigonj Empire and the Roman Republic. I could tell stories about how valiantly my Romans fought... but truth be told, it was an embarrassing shit-show. In the first months, the T'Jell occupied my border colony in the Orellia system and blasted my fleet to smithereens that tried to come to aid. It was like I couldn't even touch them... and I was only rescued by the Andigonj attacking the T'Jell territories, forcing them to pull back and not force their advantage. I was able to retake Orellia, pick up the leftovers of my fleet and used my solid economy to rebuild it. Meanwhile I watched Youtube tutorials about the battle system in Stellaris and realized that focusing on missiles was the dumbest thing I could possibly do, given that even the most basic point defense of the T'Jell utterly nullifies my advanced warheads until I get swarmers. Biting into my keyboard about my noob-ness, I grabbed some duct tape and cobbled my tiny lvl 2 lasers onto my ships to go all Legend of the Galactic Heroes on their asses... ... but instead I used the craven "hit them where the enemy isn't!" strategy I learned in Crusader Kings. So while the T'Jell/Nuurian-doomstack was slapping my blue friends from the Andigonj Empire around, I just went and invaded the ungarded Nuurian homeworld with ground forces. Come to think of it, winning a desparate war despite a massive naval disadvantage by bringing your badass legions to bear... well, that is a really Roman way to end this! Long story short, with this I generated enough warscore to single-handedly turn it around enforce my only demand: To vassalize the T'Jell! Several months later, I came back to just that situation. I now learned how war worked, focused more on my laser weaponry and also realized that the naval capacity is not set in stone. The penalty on ship maintenace you get for going over the limit is actually fairly negible as long as your economy is strong enough. And my economy was able to bear it. So as soon as the truce with the Nuurians ceased being an issue, I threw out a dozen more cruisers and invaded, with my admiral going: "Bitches, we are back! And we have figured out how war works!". It was a humiliating defeat for the Nuurians, but for some reason I still couldn't demand vassalization, only for them to release a couple of colonies and cede those stupid border systems with whom they had annexed my system back at the beginning of the game. I don't forget shit like that! Some time afterwards the time was ready to finish it. Like it took three wars to take down carthage, with the last one being a totally one-sided massacre, the Nuurians were also vanquished in three wars. I also reverse engineered their mass driver technology, while I was at it, just like the Romans copied the ships of the Carthaginians. Soon afterwards I figured it would be neat trying out to found a Federation and be all benevolent space police. Unfortunately, none of my larger allies felt like it would be a good idea to join, so the only ones who did were those silly little pockets of leftover Nuurians. Come to think of it, my "Stellar Union" is awfully Roman in character. Given that its only members are... Rome... and those conquered by or dependants of it. Still... After that I had a fairly long lasting peace of at least 25 years, with the map of the galaxy now looking like this: http://fs1.directupload.net/images/180624/67srzran.png This whole south-easter arm is proudly under the control of the Senate and the Roman people! It's now actually a bit boring... or rather, it was boring. I tried to antagonize the isolationist Bos'Pachtux Kingdom, but those suckers are fairly content not wanting anything to do with anyone else. Which irks me, given that they sit on the First League home-world and my archeologists are dying to get their hands on it. Everyone else remained good friends with each other, given that I conquered pretty much the only aggressive xenophobe assholes in the entire galaxy. Well, that was until the awakening... You see that red dot in the upper left corner of the Varelviv Souvereignty? Well that's a Fallen Empire of the Regulator type. An extremely pissed off Fallen Empire at that! For seem reason they have decided that these uppidity young ones have grown too bold and are in need of a nuclear spanking. So they went and beat up the Canthan League first thing in the morning, then turned around and declared war on the Varelviv and Andigonj alliance. Meanwhile my Romans sit in their corner, watching warily. Trying to find out whether I can take on an Endgame crisis, I decided to make a different save-file and do something stupid: Thinking that the Awakened Empire would be too busy bullying its neighbors, I took my fleet of 53k and invaded their home world. It was a fucking disaster! Their ring world was protected by two fleets of 110k strength each. Interestingly, the point defense screen of my Sacrosanctus class destroyers was holding their swarm of starfighters at bay, but their stupidly overpowered deathstar laser lances one-shotted my battleships at the back and I had to retreat. I lost 30k, but interestingly they lost 20k. Somehow. I have absolutely no idea how though... Well then... I think I'm fucked right now. My Romans are now colonizing world after world to raise my fleet strength at all cost, but if an endgame crisis strikes now, I'm pretty much done for. For the moment, I really need to focus on developing lvl 5 mass drivers to better tear down shields and manage my sectors better to further boost my economy, all with the aim to drive mass production of ships ever higher. Those stupid frog bastards haven't seen the Roman Empire for the last time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted June 24, 2018 Share Posted June 24, 2018 Dying Light picks up once it starts assembling side-missions for you to do and you have to do the whole survival horror at night thing. It's actually a brilliant idea to have an open world game with zombies, because it immediately explains away 90% of the contrivances and dubious logic most open-world games have to resort to to explain their setup (hi, Far Cry!). One thing the game really needs is a branching storyline. They clearly had limitations in what they could do in the story, but the "your character will make either the stupidest and more douchebag choice possible when presented with the option" thing gets really old, really quickly. I'm pleased to hear the second game will actually allow you to make these choices and the game will be much more reactive (that's what happens when you draft in ex-Obsidian guys to help out). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Tiger Posted June 24, 2018 Share Posted June 24, 2018 Finished Psychonauts at last. I am never playing a platformer again. Next up, God of War. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Anti-Targ Posted June 25, 2018 Author Share Posted June 25, 2018 7 hours ago, Red Tiger said: Finished Psychonauts at last. I am never playing a platformer again. Next up, God of War. God of war is part platformer. At least the previous games were, perhaps not this one so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorn Posted June 25, 2018 Share Posted June 25, 2018 Recently finished Assassin's Creed III, now playing the Tyranny of King Washington DLC. The main game itself was meh - I had fun with it, but it was outweighed by awful modern-day Desmond parts and some questionable writing decisions in the main Connor story. However, I'm enjoying the DLC a lot, since Ubisoft used the opportunity provided by the silliness of the premise to have fun with both the gameplay (superpowered animal powers) and writing. The next is probably is replay of Assassin's Creed IV, which I never actually finished, although I'm tempted by Hearts of Iron IV. Every half a year or so, I get an itch for a Paradox grand strategy game which nothing else can scratch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matrim Fox Cauthon Posted June 25, 2018 Share Posted June 25, 2018 Picked up a few oldish games on the Steam summer sale: Steamworld Dig 1, Aragami, Hob, Hollow Knight, and a few others I can't recall now. I will likely work my way through Hob first. It's by Runic Games who also did Torchlight 1 & 2: aka reskinned Diablo 1-2 by some of the original creators from Blizzard North. But Hob is more of a Metroidvania style game with the silent protagonist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Tiger Posted June 25, 2018 Share Posted June 25, 2018 4 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said: God of war is part platformer. At least the previous games were, perhaps not this one so much. I mean GOW 2018, which is not a platformer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caligula_K3 Posted June 25, 2018 Share Posted June 25, 2018 On 6/24/2018 at 2:21 PM, Toth said: Well, to fight my current dark mood, I've started to continue my first Stellaris playthrough last weekend. I've started it a long time ago, so I need to summarize what happened the first 70 years. My idea, essentially, was to role-play the Roman Republic with all its cut-throat politics, just in space. Given that I did write a couple of stories with such a setting before, I thought this would be an enjoyable experience. This is how I cobbled this together: http://fs5.directupload.net/images/180624/emw4epcp.jpg Most aspects, like the militaristic and beaurocratic traits, I conceived would be fitting to how the Romans saw themselves. I wanted them to be very materialist, eager to adapt new technologies, especially being adept Engineers, but also with a knack for opportunistic diplomacy. My grand plan was to act like the Romans always did: Be really friendly, make a ton of alliances with all the neighbors and once one of them steps out of line, mighty Rome comes down on them and bombs them back to stone age. Well... it didn't turn out that well. Right from the start I was squeezed in between the T'Jell Pact and the Nuurian Confederacy, both being hostile xenophobes who refused to talk with me. Since I'm a dumb idiot for whom this is the first Stellaris game, I also thought it would be pretty neat to line up expensive military outposts along my border systems to the Nuurians. Well... after the Nuurians aggressively placed colonies in the disputed territories, shoving the borders into mine, I knew better. Those border systems got peacefully annexed, along with my precious mining stations and of course the military bases, which got dismantled. That was a costly lesson. At least I got an ally later on: The Andigonj Empire, which were located somewhere behind the T'Jell pact. Our first contact was the beginning of a great friendship! A friendship that lasts today. In these early stages of the game, the galactic map looked like this: http://fs1.directupload.net/images/180206/lxanfhz8.png Soon after that picture was made, the first great galactic conflict broke out. The T'Jell and the Nuurians were the attacking alliance, against the Andigonj Empire and the Roman Republic. I could tell stories about how valiantly my Romans fought... but truth be told, it was an embarrassing shit-show. In the first months, the T'Jell occupied my border colony in the Orellia system and blasted my fleet to smithereens that tried to come to aid. It was like I couldn't even touch them... and I was only rescued by the Andigonj attacking the T'Jell territories, forcing them to pull back and not force their advantage. I was able to retake Orellia, pick up the leftovers of my fleet and used my solid economy to rebuild it. Meanwhile I watched Youtube tutorials about the battle system in Stellaris and realized that focusing on missiles was the dumbest thing I could possibly do, given that even the most basic point defense of the T'Jell utterly nullifies my advanced warheads until I get swarmers. Biting into my keyboard about my noob-ness, I grabbed some duct tape and cobbled my tiny lvl 2 lasers onto my ships to go all Legend of the Galactic Heroes on their asses... ... This all sounds excellent, but your problem is that you've made the Romans materialist! The Roman Republic got where it got because of the gods; they respected that pax deorum, and they were rewarded for it! And when they didn't (sacred chickens getting thrown overboard, consuls not taking the auspices) they got punished for it. Make them spiritualists, sacrifice a few hecatombs, get the gods on your side Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Anti-Targ Posted June 26, 2018 Author Share Posted June 26, 2018 Came across this interesting video on youtube about cultivation theory and gaming. Gaming specifically in this case, but more broadly in media. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqxEFNFOVTw The take home for me is that people are hypocritical when it comes to consistency of view on cultivation theory. They like cultivation theory when it supports their view, they don't like it when it opposes their view. For games, the question isn't whether cultivation theory applies, the question is whether cultivation theory has a larger effect with games because of the more immersive nature of games. I'm always of the view that your IRL experiences influence you much more than your media consumption. But if you don't have many IRL experiences, then does your media consumption become your primary influence? Not many gamers really are basement-dwelling hermits, but if you are a basement-dwelling hermit are your beliefs and attitudes about the world primarily shaped by the media you consume? But also, is the media you chose to consume determined to some degree by your pre-existing attitudes and beliefs? Seems pretty logical that it is, at least somewhat, and probably significantly when it comes to media you view as providing factual information about the world and society. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toth Posted June 26, 2018 Share Posted June 26, 2018 On 6/25/2018 at 9:05 PM, Caligula_K3 said: This all sounds excellent, but your problem is that you've made the Romans materialist! The Roman Republic got where it got because of the gods; they respected that pax deorum, and they were rewarded for it! And when they didn't (sacred chickens getting thrown overboard, consuls not taking the auspices) they got punished for it. Make them spiritualists, sacrifice a few hecatombs, get the gods on your side Ugh. Damn, you are right! When I put it together, I thought 'Materialist' would make them pragmatically focused on real world matters, not turn them into total atheists. Yeah, next time I might have them a bit more superstitious... though I have to admit, I am in dire need of that research bonus the materialist ethic grants... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcbigski Posted June 27, 2018 Share Posted June 27, 2018 God I hate Steam. It's just bloat ware that makes it harder to start games I already paid for. And if you forget your password and try to change it to "steamsucksc..." so you have a halfway chance of remembering it, it tells you 'Choose a less commonly used password'. True story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aceluby Posted June 27, 2018 Share Posted June 27, 2018 Started up Mario Odyssey on Sunday while resting my ankle and finished it up last night. Hadn't played a 3D Mario game before, so it was a pretty fun experience. I really liked the puzzles that required you to capture an enemy and use their abilities. The bosses were pretty fun even though they all had the same relative pattern. Will probably return to Zelda now until Dark Souls, which still doesn't have a release date, comes out this summer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted June 27, 2018 Share Posted June 27, 2018 Steam has been annoyingly slow this sale period. It's never happened to me before. I got Spellforce 3, but haven't had time to try it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caligula_K3 Posted June 27, 2018 Share Posted June 27, 2018 6 hours ago, aceluby said: Started up Mario Odyssey on Sunday while resting my ankle and finished it up last night. Hadn't played a 3D Mario game before, so it was a pretty fun experience. I really liked the puzzles that required you to capture an enemy and use their abilities. The bosses were pretty fun even though they all had the same relative pattern. Will probably return to Zelda now until Dark Souls, which still doesn't have a release date, comes out this summer. Mario Odyssey isn't my favorite Switch game, but it is just pure fun and joy. The hat mechanic is brilliant and I really loved some of the levels in this one, especially the steampunk forest kingdom and New Donk City. My only wish is that the Dark Souls style one with the dragon had more content. I'm also excited for Dark Souls Switch. In the meantime, because I'm doing so much traveling this summer, I picked up Skyrim on it. It's a very well done port, and has sucked me back into a game I already put way too much time into back in the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vin Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 On 6/25/2018 at 11:20 AM, Gorn said: Recently finished Assassin's Creed III, now playing the Tyranny of King Washington DLC. The main game itself was meh - I had fun with it, but it was outweighed by awful modern-day Desmond parts and some questionable writing decisions in the main Connor story. However, I'm enjoying the DLC a lot, since Ubisoft used the opportunity provided by the silliness of the premise to have fun with both the gameplay (superpowered animal powers) and writing. The next is probably is replay of Assassin's Creed IV, which I never actually finished, although I'm tempted by Hearts of Iron IV. Every half a year or so, I get an itch for a Paradox grand strategy game which nothing else can scratch. Hearts of iron IV is definitely awesome , currently invading the UK after annexing France as fascist Belgium . They will all submit to the waffle union. On 6/25/2018 at 1:33 PM, Red Tiger said: I mean GOW 2018, which is not a platformer. Get ready for a grind . And I mean a GRIND . Early game is very bad but picks up midway . Definitely not the best god of war game imo . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Tiger Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 10 hours ago, Vin said: Hearts of iron IV is definitely awesome , currently invading the UK after annexing France as fascist Belgium . They will all submit to the waffle union. Get ready for a grind . And I mean a GRIND . Early game is very bad but picks up midway . Definitely not the best god of war game imo . Im about 66% in. Not a fan of the clunky gameplay (or honestly, the game in general), but i'll finish it for the sake of clearing out my backlog. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aceluby Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 15 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said: Mario Odyssey isn't my favorite Switch game, but it is just pure fun and joy. The hat mechanic is brilliant and I really loved some of the levels in this one, especially the steampunk forest kingdom and New Donk City. My only wish is that the Dark Souls style one with the dragon had more content. I'm also excited for Dark Souls Switch. In the meantime, because I'm doing so much traveling this summer, I picked up Skyrim on it. It's a very well done port, and has sucked me back into a game I already put way too much time into back in the day. I've been contemplating getting that one, but I have so many hours invested in the PS4 version with SO much left to do that the thought of starting up a new character seems daunting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 5 hours ago, Red Tiger said: Im about 66% in. Not a fan of the clunky gameplay (or honestly, the game in general), but i'll finish it for the sake of clearing out my backlog. I'd be interested if anyone with Hearts of Iron IV could take a gander at the Fallout mod. It's an odd fit, but apparently it works really, really well. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/05/18/old-world-blues-translates-fallout-to-grand-strategy/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jace, Extat Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 3 hours ago, Werthead said: I'd be interested if anyone with Hearts of Iron IV could take a gander at the Fallout mod. It's an odd fit, but apparently it works really, really well. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/05/18/old-world-blues-translates-fallout-to-grand-strategy/ It's very well done. I'm not a Fallout apologist so I wasn't too into it, but it's a slick ass mod no doubt. The first four focus events are linear and allow you to do a bit of retroactive roleplay with your faction too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Anti-Targ Posted June 28, 2018 Author Share Posted June 28, 2018 I just picked up Age of Empires II and III on the Steam sale for a ridiculously cheap price. I played the heck out of AoEII several years ago, but never got around to AoEIII. I also only got the Conqueror's expansion pack, and this bundle came with all the DLC and civilisations. So there's lot's more to do. I hear AOE III isn't as good. But I'm still looking forward to giving it a go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.