Video Games: Now with a Chance to Win a Complimentary Membership to Gambler's Anonymous

[Toth]

So... I've finished my Stellaris playthrough, I think. Or at least the Res Publica has become so strong that I don't have to fear any strong resistance to taking over the rest of the galaxy anymore.

At first I got the message of the Domination Victory, ironically after colonizing a couple of remaining planets: http://fs5.directupload.net/images/180801/pzlwvbjb.jpg

I'm a little frustrated that I'm lacking so much in the science department, but given how this system works, I can't say I'm very surprised.

This is how the galaxy looked at this point, neatly divided between me and the Federation that formed to oppose me: http://fs1.directupload.net/images/180801/qyxtyi6s.jpg

I must say, the "Canthari High Kingdom" in the upper left corner has an utterly astonishing story behind it. Back when the Xo'lokaku conquered the galaxy, they forced the Canthari League to cede a single 25 tile world. That world successfully rebelled against the Xo'lokaku, becoming independant. I... didn't really expected them to become much more than that, given this new Empire they formed only had that single planet and was surrounded by Canthari and Varelviv borders on all sides, making expansion impossible. And yet, the AI did something astonishingly clever: They built a chain of four frontier outposts to push their way out of this encirclement and reached a single patch of unclaimed space at the edge of the galaxy. A patch with a couple of colonizable planets. So they took them and quickly populated them thanks to a couple of Migration treaties with all the members of that Federation. When the Xo'Lukako lost their wars agains the Federation, the Canthari High Kingdom was granted control over all the other Canthari worlds the Xo'Lukako had conquered... and the Xo'Lukako home systems themselves! This gave them a HUGE boost. Even worse: Because they got their independence by rebelling against the Xo'Lukako, they are not considered a subfaction of the Canthari, but one of the freaking Awakaned Empire. You know what means? A regular empire... with the technology level of an Awakened Empire! No wonder this little kingdom fields fleets that rival the other, much larger Federation members easily. I just thought that was a very interesting story.

In any case... since the Unbidden were such a disappointing endgame crisis, I thought I'm testing out the capabilities of my Empire in the most dumb way imaginable: I actually attacked that huge Federation that controls 60% of the galaxy! Well... what can possibly go wrong?

Okay... this here: http://fs1.directupload.net/images/180801/pulx58rc.jpg

Now this is a doomstack if I ever saw one! The first YEARS of this conflict I barely clung to life. I was defeated in every single engagement, but always managed to pull out before my losses became too high. I was actually afraid that they could recover their own losses faster than I did, given that Federation fleets cost no upkeep and they have the industrial power of five big factions with less sectors to keep their starports running. However, the stockpiles of my sectors were full and I started the war with 1000 influence, so I spent half of it to grab the sector minerals and keep up production in large swathes of my empire up until I actually finally managed to gain a victory.

And what a victory it was! Come to think of it, things took a turn to the better the moment I managed to catch the Federation fleet that had swollen up to 330k fleet power alone, without the rest of the individual fleets. I blasted it down to 180k before its allies arrived and forced me to retreat. The next engagement then was when all was decided. They had gathered at one of their ports under the protection of a fortress and I jumped in with a 360k fleet strength. My losses were heavy, but this time I fought till the end and this time I succeeded. In a battle involving 800k fleet strength of all combatants. That was such an insane massacre that the game became noticeably faster! This single battle was also rewarding me with 10,8% warscore for crying out loud! Instantly evening out all my previous defeats.

The war then continued to rage on for a couple of years. They actually managed to recover enough to build a new sizeable joint fleet that would make any lesser empire cower in fear, but against my still continuously replenishing Roman forces they had no chance of victory anymore. This is how it ended: http://fs1.directupload.net/images/180801/jmb2ah9s.jpg

My main goal was to contain the Kirillians, who were the ones most dangerous to me. And I guess I succeeded with that.

I actually now have updated the game and installed the Star Trek mod. I'm curious how this is going to end up. It looks really cool so far.

[Fez]

Banner Saga 3 is great. It feels like it might be even shorter than 2 though, which was itself shorter than the original. I'm really trying to force myself to go slow to savor the game while it lasts.

My one complaint so far is that, even more than 2, it seems like most of the characters are just in my party, doing absolutely nothing. My guess is because most of them could've died in one of the earlier games, so the game's narrowed in on the characters who would definitely be alive, but its kind of a shame. A few of the could-be-dead characters have had a moment in the spotlight, and those have all been great, but I suspect a lot of them won't before the game ends.

[mcbigski]

Toth, just finished my first stellaris play through last night myself.. Was very anticlimactic when i got a popup that said my federation dominated the galaxy.  I think I had it easy that playing as the UN i ran into a bunch of xenophile races and the galaxy mostly just got along.  I was never involved in a solo war and only claimed one system during a federation war and i was still the single biggest power in the galaxy.  

Wondering though what's the advantage of running that small food stockpile policy?  Usually theres a couple of hungry empires that will trade minerals for food.

[Toth]

19 hours ago, mcbigski said:

Toth, just finished my first stellaris play through last night myself.. Was very anticlimactic when i got a popup that said my federation dominated the galaxy.  I think I had it easy that playing as the UN i ran into a bunch of xenophile races and the galaxy mostly just got along.  I was never involved in a solo war and only claimed one system during a federation war and i was still the single biggest power in the galaxy.  

That still sounds quite interesting. You see, I attempted to do a very similar diplomatic approach and would have been successful if that Fallen Empire didn't go apeshit and screwed the whole galaxy over. But yeah, this "You won!" thingy is just ridiculously anticlimactic if it doesn't come after a desperate fight against some big extradimensional evil.

19 hours ago, mcbigski said:

Wondering though what's the advantage of running that small food stockpile policy?  Usually theres a couple of hungry empires that will trade minerals for food. 

Was that a question in regards to my Empire? Because I actually used to trade a ton of food all the time to bolster my economy, but at some point they refused to trade because they apparently had reached their maximum population. Then I started to build back my farms, only to run into a damnable food shortage the moment I took over some planets whose food supply was dependant on paradise domes... paradise domes I couldn't keep because I didn't have the harmony tradition.

 

Well then... Today I went all in into my playthrough as the United Earth. The Mod is quite cool, but I already messed up several things that I hadn't noticed had changed in between the different versions. By the time I realized that you don't expand automatically with influence anymore, but by building Starbases, the Andorians and Vulcans already successfully began their encirclement of Earth, grabbing almost all of my expansion possibilities. I was also quite put out of whack by the fact that you can only build starbases in systems that are already surveyed. Surveying Alpha Centauri with its bazillion of planets and dozens of anomalies took me YEARS, I also lost one of my exploration vessels fairly early on to an anomaly, crippling my exploration hard.

On the other end: The story and scripting is fairly awesome. I'm already through the Xindi arc from Star Trek - Enterprise and the final battle was amazing, when my tiny patrol boat fleet guarding Sol was supported by the Enterprise and the kickass Vulcan ship Seleya that, unlike in the series, I actually managed to save earlier. The Xindi were still quite hard to beat, my fleet had to fall back to T'Jem and then reunite with my frantically built coalition fleet equipped with superior Andorian weaponry when their damn doomsday orb was already engaging Earth Starbase. Really, given how every other Star Trek episode ends with an attempt to destroy Earth, I really should boost my defenses there. XD

Shortly afterwards I actually managed to form the United Federation of Planets, though without the Tellarites to my great disappointment. Because right after I made first contact with them they formed their own Coalition with the Denobulans and therefore didn't want to join one with me, the Vulcans and the Andorians. I'm still trying to get a hang on how to maneuver the Federation, which is kinda interesting in the way it gives you absolute control over everything except the member homeworlds. But it seems fairly hard to get other empires interested in joining. So far only the Betazoids seem curious, though a whole series of recent first contacts were eager as well. Even then, they are just as interested in joining the Tellarite coalition... I really have to push more for diplomacy while not forgetting to prop up Starfleet. Because right now I only have 2 NX-classes and a single surviving patrol boat... a few more NX-classes should be needed to keep the Orions at bay. Because right now it seems I'm heading for war with them fairly soon.... Though I am quite stunned how ridiculously expensive ships are by Stellaris standards. A single NX-class costs 1300 minerals, as much as a late-game battleship in the vanilla game.

[RumHam]

34 minutes ago, Toth said:

Well then... Today I went all in into my playthrough as the United Earth. The Mod is quite cool...

That does sound cool. Is it just Enterprise or if you play for hundreds of years does it update through all the shows until you've got the Enterprise-E or whatever they were up to last?

On 7/26/2018 at 11:08 AM, aceluby said:

Looks like I've got another game to hold me off until DS is finally released on the switch. 

So yesterday Nintendo released a promotion with Dark Souls's release date as 2018 instead of "summer 2018." Now we've got Amazon Italy claiming it will come out October 1st. I wonder what the problem is with this version of the port. If you finish Salt and Sanctuary before then you might look into Dead Cells (comes out 8/7.) It's not really a souls-like game but a metroidvania with randomly assembled levels and when you die you go back to level one. I enjoyed it on PC. 

 

[Toth]

15 minutes ago, RumHam said:

That does sound cool. Is it just Enterprise or if you play for hundreds of years does it update through all the shows until you've got the Enterprise-E or whatever they were up to last?

They have a certain era system of scripted events with which you give a total overhaul of every ship design and even gives your leaders the appropriate uniforms of the respective time. I have to see it yet working since I'm still in the 22nd century, but so far everything looks amazing. You start with Franklin class science ships and fairly primitive looking patrol boats of the Enterprise era, the NX-class itself can't be built but you get them as rewards for event chains involving its development. Then when you unlock cruisers you can build the non-canonical NX-refits which are outfitted with TOS-style engineering sections, making it a smooth transition into the next era despite their ludicrous costs.

I'm also quite surprised how quickly the Federation found itself together, though it shouldn't be quite a surprise given how insanely crowded the galaxy is, I'm making roughly two first contacts per month.

The only thing I am quite weirded out about is that the Klingons and Romulans have yet to appear. I guess I have jumped the gun there a little, having already formed the Federation but within the story I'm still at the beginning of the Augments arc, having just sent the Enterprise to answer a distress signal from Cold Station 12.

And now I just watched Prelude to Axanar again to fire myself up for the Four Years War. XD

[aceluby]

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

So yesterday Nintendo released a promotion with Dark Souls's release date as 2018 instead of "summer 2018." Now we've got Amazon Italy claiming it will come out October 1st. I wonder what the problem is with this version of the port. If you finish Salt and Sanctuary before then you might look into Dead Cells (comes out 8/7.) It's not really a souls-like game but a metroidvania with randomly assembled levels and when you die you go back to level one. I enjoyed it on PC. 

 

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, this was the main selling points on the switch for me and I figured I'd get through my two games I got and then have DS to battle through.  Anyway, I ended up picking up Wizard of Legend for like $12 or something, and it's like a harder, faster version of diablo w/ kinda crappy graphics.  I'm kinda digging the vibe, even though I'm pretty awful at it.  S&S will be next, plus there's some free DLC coming out for Hollow Knight to tide me over.

[Werthead]

Good grief, after 4 hours Dragon Age: Inquisition is proving itself to be soulless, vacuous nonsense with execrable combat and an infinite number of pointless fetch quests and tiresome grind needed to level up enough to progress through the inexplicably vague story ("Dude! You've now have this magic tattoo because reasons and we met you 5 minutes ago and now you're in charge of the Inquisition! Or something!"). This is making nostalgic for the repetitive-but-at-least-half-interesting Dragon Age 2.

[Derfel Cadarn]

46 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Good grief, after 4 hours Dragon Age: Inquisition is proving itself to be soulless, vacuous nonsense with execrable combat and an infinite number of pointless fetch quests and tiresome grind needed to level up enough to progress through the inexplicably vague story ("Dude! You've now have this magic tattoo because reasons and we met you 5 minutes ago and now you're in charge of the Inquisition! Or something!"). This is making nostalgic for the repetitive-but-at-least-half-interesting Dragon Age 2.

DAI's Hinterlands proved a slog.  I quite like telhe game but playing it casually. 

[Guy Kilmore]

You can skip through a ton of the side quests. 

[Shaun Snow]

I'd say that's the best way to play it actually. My sister didn't think much of it first time through, but on her second playthrough she only did the main quests and companion stuff and ended up loving it.

[A True Kaniggit]

15 hours ago, Toth said:

Well then... Today I went all in into my playthrough as the United Earth. The Mod is quite cool, but I already messed up several things that I hadn't noticed had changed in between the different versions.

This is the reason I, and I'm sure some of the other seasoned Stellaris players, didn't try to give you more advice during your last playthrough. 2.0 is so different from the previous version that any advice could've turned out to be detrimental.

[Toth]

54 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

This is the reason I, and I'm sure some of the other seasoned Stellaris players, didn't try to give you more advice during your last playthrough. 2.0 is so different from the previous version that any advice could've turned out to be detrimental.

Mmmh. I see. Well, I have just one little question that still arose: Is installing fleet depots in your starbases the only way now to raise your fleet cap? Because I'm still struggling to have more than three ships at the moment.

Though admittedly, even if I'd manage to build more ships, I would have a hard time actually building some. I now developed an "Advanced Assault Cruiser" that costs a whopping 1900 minerals. These prices are just insane. I'm barely making 80 minerals per month...

In any case, here a few pics I made yesterday...

The current state of the (known) Alpha Quadrant: http://fs5.directupload.net/images/180802/dnl3dwys.jpg

A little weird that I made contact with the Son'a and Cardassians before the Klingons... I also find it funny how the Tamarians actually talk Tamarian in their diplomacy screen. To bad that I can't seem to get them into the Federation because they are isolationists. And while I find it funny that there are some Fallen Empires, I'm a bit surprised that neither the Organians nor the Voth are ones. In fact, the Organians are a primitive species (duh) that someone managed to conquer, while the Voth are a fairly regular Empire with a huge tech advantage. Then again, so are the Borg... (which I thankfully haven't met yet).

Here are the Enterprise and Columbia heading for Cold Station: http://fs1.directupload.net/images/180802/vx28mofj.jpg

Notice that the uniforms actually changed to the ones of that era as portrayed in Star Trek Beyond...

Ironically, just as they arrived they were attacked by the Augments in stolen Bird of Preys: http://fs5.directupload.net/images/180802/poirmf48.jpg

I think I broke a possible event chain there, because the message declaring that I successfully prevented them from rescuing the augments by destroying them all sounded like there would have been more of a story if I was pushed back. Unfortunately the USS Spider exploded on the way home... because of yet another random event. Like... what the hell? The ships in this game are all ludicrously expensive and then the game just randomly decides to fuck me over and destroy them again and again? This is just insane! Especially now that I've unlocked a 'Medium Range Science Vessel' that costs a whopping 500 minerals. I can't afford to lose that one.

Btw, the most recent developments were me starting the membership process for the Betazoids and learning through that that being in a coalition is the only precondition, I just have to join the Tellarite/Denobulan coalition to eat them up. I also build a destroyer and one of these here to boost my fleet and fight the regularly popping up pirates: http://fs1.directupload.net/images/180802/57u2bdzb.jpg

I also now made first contact with the Klingons... and have +28 attitude right away. Which... is a bit surprising. Well, let's see whether I can expand my peaceful Federation even more! And what kinds of quests await me now that I've reached a little gap in canon regarding the early Federation years.

[A True Kaniggit]

7 minutes ago, Toth said:

Mmmh. I see. Well, I have just one little question that still arose: Is installing fleet depots in your starbases the only way now to raise your fleet cap? Because I'm still struggling to have more than three ships at the moment.

The other way is through technology. Some of the things you research raise fleet cap. (and some traditions)

Best way to raise your fleet cap is to have dedicated star bases that do little else. When possible try to have these "anchorage stations" around black holes so they can also have the add on that increases your physics research.

Edit:  And as for the increased price of ships. This was intentionally done in the latest versions to make every ship an investment. So that every loss was actually felt by the player. That was the intention as I understand it anyway. 

[Toth]

10 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

The other way is through technology. Some of the things you research raise fleet cap. (and some traditions)

Best way to raise your fleet cap is to have dedicated star bases that do little else. When possible try to have these "anchorage stations" around black holes so they can also have the add on that increases your physics research.

That's... unfortunate. Well, I guess I'm doing that now. Though I don't own any black hole sectors yet, which might bite me into the butt. Then again, I haven't seen any around so far... Well, I don't have much in terms of modules yet anyway.

10 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Edit:  And as for the increased price of ships. This was intentionally done in the latest versions to make every ship an investment. So that every loss was actually felt by the player. That was the intention as I understand it anyway. 

A bit weird since they also added that needlessly complicated menu to remotely order ships for your fleets as if you are ordering a pizza...

[A True Kaniggit]

3 minutes ago, Toth said:

That's... unfortunate. Well, I guess I'm doing that now. Though I don't own any black hole sectors yet, which might bite me into the butt. Then again, I haven't seen any around so far... Well, I don't have much in terms of modules yet anyway.

A bit weird since they also added that needlessly complicated menu to remotely order ships for your fleets as if you are ordering a pizza...

Hell. Even now I'm leery about trying to give you advice. You say you're using a Star Trek Mod.

I have no idea what version of the game that is, or what changes that makes from the current base game.

[Toth]

Ahaha, no, no! I was talking about the Fleet Manager and I've seen that thing in vanilla games on Youtube, too.

Though yes, the modules on the Starbases were probably swapped a bit with the mod. There are two areas right now. In the first I can build shipyards, Trade hubs (+4 energy) and Fleet depots (apparently vanilla anchorages). In the second one I can only build Traffic Controls (+20% impulse speed in the system) and Hydroponic bays (+3 food) and Crew Quarters. Those are all options as of now, but I'm fairly certain I'll get more when I progress in the technology trees.

[Werthead]

I didn't realise that Phantom Doctrine ("XCOM but in the Cold War") is out this month! On the 14th precisely. And it looks good.

[Corvinus85]

I did see a preview of that, and I am interested.

[Werthead]

Good that Phoenix Point got delayed to summer 2019, so the XCOM-alike genre gets some breathing space. We've got Phantom in a couple of weeks and then Valkyria Chronicles 4 in September.

Meanwhile, Dragon Age Inquisition's blandness was offending me so I've booted it for now and am replaying the whole Banner Saga, with the third game for the first time. Sweet.