Video Games: In the Grim Darkness of licensed Games.

[A True Kaniggit]

Indeed. You can't be spreading Freedom with outdated equipment.

Once you have only a single task force selected you should see a list of ships in that task force. Any ships that can be improved will have a yellow upgrade button to the right of their name.

Now get out there and kill some commies!

[A True Kaniggit]

9 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Help me, Broseph!

I've been futzing around with the Monarchist Germans, the Japanese, and Netherlands. How do I refit my ships??? I figured out how to edit the hulls, that's basically the same. But I can't figure out how to give the new upgrades to all existing ships. HELP ME BROTATO CHIP!!! My navies are badly undergunned.

Did you find the button I was talking about? Your navies up to snuff now? Cause that would be Brotastic.

Or were my instructions too vague? I was fairly blasted when I typed them.

 

Edit: My last play through went nowhere. I had no idea that if you were not engaged in a major war after 01 Jan. 1949 the game just ended. My Imperial Japanese Grand Fleet (IJGF), led by 10 carriers of 120 aircraft each, never got the chance to do battle with the U.S. Navy.

So I was forced to restart and am currently doing the early game force build up (currently 1937).

Edit 2: Oops. '37.

[Jace, Extat]

2 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Did you find the button I was talking about? Your navies up to snuff now? Cause that would be Brotastic.

Or were my instructions too vague? I was fairly blasted when I typed them.

 

Edit: My last play through went nowhere. I had no idea that if you were not engaged in a major war after 01 Jan. 1949 the game just ended. My Imperial Japanese Grand Fleet (IJGF), led by 10 carriers of 120 aircraft each, never got the chance to do battle with the U.S. Navy.

So I was forced to restart and am currently doing the early game force build up (currently 1947).

This is just the information I needed.

Destroy those capitalist Wilsonian dogs!

[Toth]

So to celebrate my good progress with my exams, I allowed myself yesterday to play my very first Europa Universalis IV game! And, in a bit of provincialism, I played as the Margraviate of Brandenburg.

So far I really like the game, despite still constantly making grave errors. So... as far as I can see, the main challenge is to juggle your main currencies in the form of the three powers and ducats in order to invest them with best long-term results.

At the beginning I hadn't realized that you have to use power to develop technologies (thinking it works similar to Crusader Kings where technological advance just so happens). So I spent all my power on developing my provinces... which... doesn't seem to have done much. Given how after 50 years of play I am still one of the last German states that has yet to adopt Renaissance. So now I can't develop technologies because the research penalty cripples me. I'm also a bit irritated how hiring advisors essentially bankrupts me. If I hire advisors, I can research or develop my counties better, but don't have any money to build buildings, preventing me from making more money. If I just let my advisors die and don't replace them, I can build structures, but can't develop my counties anymore. Am I even doing this correctly by switching back and forth between these two playstyles?

On the military side, things look a bit better. I conquered Pomerania in two short wars and just got dragged into a second one by my ally where he gave me Anhalt as compensation. It is a bit odd how the game makes war and conquest far easier than any other Paradox games I know of. As if the whole point is to blob like crazy, it handed me casus belli on Pomerania first and now on Poland, asking me to create Prussia as fast as possible. Unfortunately, Poland has right away steamrolled the Teutonic Order and is now the biggest player in the neighborhood (especially since they are allied with the even more scary looking Lithuania). I only have an army of 20k right now and decided against pushing my claims, instead now boxing Bohemia in by allying with Saxonia, Hungary and Austria. It is also very impressive just how ludicrously effective the 'improve relations' option is, turning mortal enemies into best friends in less than a year. Makes it hilariously easy to construct alliances and in war just sit back and watch how they fight for you.

Still have to do something about my dwindling manpower though... it really seems like I'm still too stupid to develop my counties properly...

Also I have seen that in order to maximize my profits from counties I can take them away from their local ruling estate. Is it useful to go Louis IX on their asses and go for absolute control or is that something that would blow up in my face?

Edit: And I just read online that not attacking the Teutons yourself and grabbing their territory before Poland does is pretty much game over for Brandenburg. Great... Because I now went into battle against Poland/Lithuania with Hungary and Saxonia as my allies and got my ass handed to me right away. I thought I found a good opportunity while Poland was occupied defending itself against the Ottomans, but they are just far too strong. I don't know at all what happened their. First they were defeated by the Ottomans, then by Hungary, but somehow slipped through and occupied vast swathes of Hungary while they weren't looking. Meanwhile my army was just... sitting there, taking siege to all their forts because Poland has literally one in each of their territories. How they are able to pay for that is beyond me. Suddenly my 22k army saw itself confronted with about 4 10k stacks of both Poland and Lithuania and got wiped out. End of the war... I have no idea where the Ottomans were in all of this. Hungary was too busy retaking its counties and Saxony didn't do shit at all (had probably to do with some pesky revolts they had to fight down).

[Gorn]

Yeah, playing EUIV as a minor nation isn't very fun, especially if you have a major power on your doorstep. I remember playing as Venice and enjoying myself, right until I hit the brick wall called the Ottomans. I couldn't defeat them no matter what I tried, and my other avenue for expansion (Italian minors) was entangled in a web of alliances that meant any war would involve half of Europe. 

Also, Poland is a seriously tough enemy for any Eastern European nation in the game, I even had trouble with them when I played Muscovy/Russia.

[Fez]

The most optimal strategies for EUIV can vary quite a bit depending on what mix of DLC you have, since they all interact with the core game in different ways. In general though, you want to use power to develop technology when the ahead-of-historical-timeline (I forget the exact term) penalties are low, and use it to develop provinces when the penalties are high. Also, the general rule of thumb for developing provinces or creating buildings is that it's worthwhile to do if you will make back your investment in under 100 years. Which means there are a lot of provinces where most of the buildings are not worth their cost; especially in the New World, Africa, and the Asian Steppes.

There are a variety of factors that influence how quickly Institutions, like the Renaissance spread, but your current tech level isn't actually one of them. The key factors (for the first four at least, the last three are weird) are how much it's spread to neighboring country's provinces and how developed your own provinces are; plus some other factors specific to each institution. The tricky balancing act is that provinces that are very developed take longer to adopt an institution, but once they have it they spread it neighboring provinces much more quickly. Also, being highly developed increases the odds that an Institution will spawn in one of your provinces, the starting locations aren't fixed.

With advisors, you generally want a level 1 advisor in each slot until you are very rich; the high level ones aren't worth it if they are bankrupting you. But the bonus from the level 1 advisors significantly outweighs their gold costs. If the deficit from them is bankrupting you, you can sacrifice them; but if you are able to break even, it's worth it, even if you can't build buildings in the short-term. Remember that when you win a war, you can usually demand quite a lot of gold for a pretty low amount of the warscore, use those gains to finance construction if you don't have the monthly income to do so.

As for manpower, you can boost that that through development of your provinces. Also, it's intended to be one of the constraints against expanding too much too quickly; sometimes you need to stay out of wars for a while to let it rebuild. Also, if you have the gold, or are willing to take loans, you can get around it by hiring mercs. You need to be careful not to go into a bankruptcy death spiral though. Loans are only worth it if you need them for survival or if you plan on getting so rich from winning the war that you can pay them off quickly afterwards.

And lastly, some countries are often simply powerhouses in their regions and will overwhelm you playing a smaller country unless you are very careful. The exact strategies will vary game-to-game, but one thing to keep in mind is that you always want at one of your allies to be one of the main powers in you region. As Brandenburg, you really want to ally with either Austria, Denmark, or Poland to help protect you; an alliance with lots of smaller countries won't cut it if there's no one big in there too.

[Toth]

3 hours ago, Gorn said:

Also, Poland is a seriously tough enemy for any Eastern European nation in the game, I even had trouble with them when I played Muscovy/Russia.

Oh great! Because I now cut off my ties with tiny HRE duchies and instead allied with Russia and the Ottomans, hoping to contain Poland that way. Though admittedly, right now it doesn't look good at all.

2 hours ago, Fez said:

The most optimal strategies for EUIV can vary quite a bit depending on what mix of DLC you have, since they all interact with the core game in different ways.

Thanks for the hints! Though I only have the base game and El Dorado (humble bundle, as usual).

2 hours ago, Fez said:

In general though, you want to use power to develop technology when the ahead-of-historical-timeline (I forget the exact term) penalties are low, and use it to develop provinces when the penalties are high.

That's my intention as well. Since now I'm getting the penalty for not having colonialism (though seriously, nobody does), I'm aiming for filling out my current ideas (went for economy and then the quality army ones, hoping that the latter stacks with Brandenburg's infantry heavy national focus). And when I slightly buffed my troops, I go back to developing my counties. As it is, I don't think I will get colonialism till the 1600s...

2 hours ago, Fez said:

With advisors, you generally want a level 1 advisor in each slot until you are very rich;

Okay. I keep that in mind. The last years I spent without advisors at all in order to start building markets in each of my provinces. Thanks to that I am now making 7 gold per month, but now hired two advisors and am at 4,6 gold. That's okay in my book and allows me to focus more or less on both power and infrastructure.

2 hours ago, Fez said:

The tricky balancing act is that provinces that are very developed take longer to adopt an institution, but once they have it they spread it neighboring provinces much more quickly.

SHIT! That's actually the polar opposite of what I thought. Especially since the underdeveloped Pomeranian provinces were the ones that stubbornly refused to adapt. Okay... That's bothersome... so I take it, it is more sensible to spread out and develop every county at roughly the same pace?

2 hours ago, Fez said:

As for manpower, you can boost that that through development of your provinces. Also, it's intended to be one of the constraints against expanding too much too quickly;

No worry about that. Right now manpower is the thing that constraints me against surviving. XD

2 hours ago, Fez said:

As Brandenburg, you really want to ally with either Austria, Denmark, or Poland to help protect you;

Ah... As for that...

Well, I did obviously play a bit more this midday and... damn!

So, after the Poland debacle I went "screw this, economy focus again!". Until suddenly Bohemia went crazy. I was so busy crafting my alliances with the Ottomans, Hungary and Russia to box in Poland, I completely missed that Bohemia created a neat little alliance with Ulm, Mecklenburg, Brunswick and another HRE duchy. And then they invaded Saxony, one of my remaining allies in the HRE. The ensuing war was long and tedious, with me going for a 'hit and run' approach, sniping the allies of Bohemia while evading their main army. I managed to conquer Mecklenburg and Saxony allowed me to annex it as it capitulated. Yay for me! But no matter what I tried, the Bohemian army was too strong. It was of equal size of mine, but they were two technology levels above me in every regard and for some reason my morale dropped to the bottom every time the battle started (and no, I was paying them 100%). I managed to destroy the army of Ulm and then white peaced out as I noticed that my manpower was dwindling. Saxony was then divided between Bohemia and Brunswick, with Bohemia now being just another ridiculous blob that hates me and can easily steamroll me. Oh, and they forced me to cut my alliance with Hungary...

Also... the moment I annexed Mecklenburg, Austria suddenly decided that it doesn't like me anymore, breaking our alliance and then rivaling me. Oh bother... Then again, in hindsight it could also be my cozying up to the Turks that made Austria pull the breaks there...

In any case. That's where I am...

[Fez]

7 hours ago, Toth said:

SHIT! That's actually the polar opposite of what I thought. Especially since the underdeveloped Pomeranian provinces were the ones that stubbornly refused to adapt. Okay... That's bothersome... so I take it, it is more sensible to spread out and develop every county at roughly the same pace?

Generally no; although it depends on your exact situation. Every province starts with certain base values for production, trade, and manpower, and if those base values are too low, it isn't worth spending development power on them. You want to invest in your rich provinces, but there are some tricks to it. For some Institutions (though not Colonialism, which is different), they'll spawn randomly among the highest development provinces in the world, weighted towards European provinces; so you could put everything into one province to try to force them to spawn in your borders. Barring that, you probably want your most developed provinces to be bordering the countries where the Institution will becoming from (as well as your key coastal provinces). Yes, that'll slow down the initial spread of the Institution, but will make things go faster once they have it. Also, once provinces containing at least 10% of your country's entire development score have an Institution you can pay gold to immediately adopt it; so it actively harms you to have too much development stashed away far from where the Institution is spreading.

Another trick is that once an Institution is starting to spread to a province, but isn't fully embraced yet, at that point every time you increase development in the province that new development point essentially comes with the Institution "baked in" to it; meaning that it'll give a percentage boost to how close the province is to fully embracing the Institution. At least, trade and production do that, I'm not positive about manpower.

Also, being a little behind on the Institutions isn't the worst thing in the world; though obviously it isn't great either. The Institutions give you a penalty by slowing down your tech research speed, but there is a separate penalty on research speed you get if your too far ahead of where historically you should be. If you stay on top of investing in tech, it's pretty easy to get that second penalty; and if you do, it generally means investing further in tech isn't such a good idea for a while. So if at that point the Institution penalties are starting to rack, it doesn't really matter since you weren't going to be advancing your tech any further anyway for a while. Which gives you a grace period to get things sorted out.

Finally, if you're in Europe, have a coastal province, and pick the Exploration set of ideas, you have an excellent chance of spawning Colonialism in that province.

[Werthead]

Phoenix Point has gone Epic Store exclusive. They've handled this far better than Metro Exodus though. They've given players 6 months of warning (rather than 3 weeks), they've offered a full refund to any pre-orderers or backers unhappy with this and they've offered all DLC free of charge to pre-orderers and backers.

[Corvinus85]

Well I guess I'll be playing Phoenix Point a year after its release, when it, hopefully, becomes available on Steam.

[KiDisaster]

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is finally confirmed for a PC release https://kotaku.com/the-master-chief-collection-is-coming-to-pc-adds-halo-1833244157

It'll be on Steam as well, not a Windows Store exclusive which is a really nice change. I can't wait to play through these games again. 

Apparently they're going to be releasing one game at a time to ensure everything is working properly. Weird but probably for the best given the terrible launch the XB1 version had. 

[Iskaral Pust]

On 3/4/2019 at 10:10 AM, aceluby said:

Picked up Civ 6 on the Switch, which was fun for the few games I played.  Haven't played a civ game since civ 2.  Seems to be less opportunity for domination via war and more focus on religion or winning the space race.  Taking a break after the last win I had for now.

I’ve given Civ6 a fair shot on PC and then on iPad (even though I had to pay for it a second time).  I just cannot get into it.  The one-unit-per-tile makes the map basically impassable, especially with most civs spamming missionaries or other religious units.  The new approach to city management (and potential tile expansion) is good, but the overall gameplay is slow, excessively technical and not much fun.

Civ2 is still the peak of the franchise. 

[Whiskeyjack]

Just beat God of War.

What an amazing game.

Probably rank it as my 2nd favorite that I've ever played, after The Last of Us.

Pretty much did everything before I finished the last part of the main quest.  But still have 4 Valkyries and Niflheim to finish off.  Glad I left something to go back to - don't think I'm quite ready to walk away from it yet.

[Heartofice]

6 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I’ve given Civ6 a fair shot on PC and then on iPad (even though I had to pay for it a second time).  I just cannot get into it.  The one-unit-per-tile makes the map basically impassable, especially with most civs spamming missionaries or other religious units.  The new approach to city management (and potential tile expansion) is good, but the overall gameplay is slow, excessively technical and not much fun.

Civ2 is still the peak of the franchise. 

I really want to love Civ 6. I picked up Gathering Storm to motivate myself to go back to it. It does have a ton of cool features and there are now a lot more ways to play the game than ever. 

However it has some of the same problems. The AI cannot engage in combat properly; randomly throwing units at you in an uncoordinated manner. Worse is that they rarely upgrade so you are just steam rollering them. I play mostly on Emperor or Immortal level but it’s not that much of a challenge once you understand how to play the early game.

The game has a ton of potential but yeah there have been better versions. My fave is probably IV , the ability to really specialise cities made it feel far more strategic 

[Inkdaub]

Playing Resident Evil 2.  Enjoying it until this big guy starts following me everywhere.  What a dumb idea.  Then I look him up online to see what can be done.  Nothing.  Just keep running from him and always be in a hurry whatever you're doing.  Also, from what I read, I'm the only person who doesn't like this guy.  I can dodge his punches usually and I notice he doesn't follow me into the little hub rooms with typewriters in them.  He will go into the police station main hall, though.  Still, I gotta save this kid and find out what's up with this pharmaceutical company that I know is neck deep in this situation.  Okay then.

[Werthead]

16 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is finally confirmed for a PC release https://kotaku.com/the-master-chief-collection-is-coming-to-pc-adds-halo-1833244157

It'll be on Steam as well, not a Windows Store exclusive which is a really nice change. I can't wait to play through these games again. 

Apparently they're going to be releasing one game at a time to ensure everything is working properly. Weird but probably for the best given the terrible launch the XB1 version had. 

Excellent. I enjoyed most of Halo (apart from the ending the Flood, which was crap) but certainly not enough to buy a 360 or XB1 and check out the sequels (Halo 2 got a very poor PC port way back in the day). I'll probably check these out, and Steam is a pleasant surprise.

[Jace, Extat]

39 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Excellent. I enjoyed most of Halo (apart from the ending the Flood, which was crap) but certainly not enough to buy a 360 or XB1 and check out the sequels (Halo 2 got a very poor PC port way back in the day). I'll probably check these out, and Steam is a pleasant surprise.

You are a strange, strange, man.

And I applaud you for it.

[Toth]

On 3/11/2019 at 2:49 AM, Fez said:

Generally no; although it depends on your exact situation. Every province starts with certain base values for production, trade, and manpower, and if those base values are too low, it isn't worth spending development power on them. You want to invest in your rich provinces, but there are some tricks to it.

This doesn't seem quite right. All my provinces look equally bad, I have none that stand out in regards to their base values before development gets calculated in. The only difference is the production income due to all the different products.

On 3/11/2019 at 2:49 AM, Fez said:

Another trick is that once an Institution is starting to spread to a province, but isn't fully embraced yet, at that point every time you increase development in the province that new development point essentially comes with the Institution "baked in" to it; meaning that it'll give a percentage boost to how close the province is to fully embracing the Institution. At least, trade and production do that, I'm not positive about manpower.

Thanks. I also looked up and saw that if you have trade dealings with those who have an advancement, it spreads more to your provinces. Given how it's 1530 and I still have 0% colonialism, I guess I will have to figure out how to make a trade route with Portugal.

On 3/11/2019 at 2:49 AM, Fez said:

Also, being a little behind on the Institutions isn't the worst thing in the world; though obviously it isn't great either. The Institutions give you a penalty by slowing down your tech research speed, but there is a separate penalty on research speed you get if your too far ahead of where historically you should be. If you stay on top of investing in tech, it's pretty easy to get that second penalty; and if you do, it generally means investing further in tech isn't such a good idea for a while. So if at that point the Institution penalties are starting to rack, it doesn't really matter since you weren't going to be advancing your tech any further anyway for a while. Which gives you a grace period to get things sorted out.

Heh. I looked at that percantage and right now I have a +15% research bonus for being so ridiculously behind... I'm nowhere near the danger of getting a penalty. Except of course the 29% penalty for not having heard of colonialism yet, but this isn't really strange because nobody outside the Iberian peninsula has it at the moment anyway. Colonialism is strange. How the hell am I ever supposed to spawn the printing press? (and why the hell do the two things depend on each other?1?)

On 3/11/2019 at 2:49 AM, Fez said:

Finally, if you're in Europe, have a coastal province, and pick the Exploration set of ideas, you have an excellent chance of spawning Colonialism in that province.

I'm Brandenburg. I am so far away from any potential colonies that get discovered, I think exploration is a waste of resources for me. Though I do think that in a later game playing Portugal or Spain I will try it out. Right now my focus is becoming a continental power.

... which... I'm now honestly more confident in being able to do.

I just played one hour more during the last week and it was the oddest thing that happened yet. The German Peasants' War seems to be in full swing and the entire southern part of Germany is on fire. Amidst that I reforged my alliance with Hungary after the truce forced upon me by Bohemia expired. And Hungary still had a 19k army stack sitting at their border to Bohemia, ready to strike. With all of Bohemia's allies being busy against religious revolts I thought "why the hell not?" and attacked. Brunswick peaced out right away, Lüneburg was annexed by me, Ulm got its army crushed and territory taken by Hungary and suddenly Bohemia's army stood alone against me and Hungary. A few years later pretty much all of Bohemia was occupied and my treasury was filled to the brim with loot.

Final verdict: I annexed two Silesian provinces (barely avoiding a coalition forming), gave Saxony some of its territory back and took another 500 gold as tribute. Bohemia is a broken shell and I feel rich as hell, now having 1000 gold stored up and aiming to achieve the mission to gather 2000 gold (intending to then immediately invest it in manufactures for the next economic mission). Since I'm now making 11 gold per month... things are looking bright for Brandenburg! Now if only that giant Polish-Lituanian blob wouldn't be looking so threatening...

[A True Kaniggit]

 

18 minutes ago, Toth said:

Heh. I looked at that percantage and right now I have a +15% research bonus for being so ridiculously behind... I'm nowhere near the danger of getting a penalty. Except of course the 29% penalty for not having heard of colonialism yet, but this isn't really strange because nobody outside the Iberian peninsula has it at the moment anyway. Colonialism is strange. How the hell am I ever supposed to spawn the printing press? (and why the hell do the two things depend on each other?1?)

For early game Institutions there is a work around.

What I usually do after getting the first tech boost (when there is still no penalty yet) is save my Monarch power. Don't waste any improving provinces yet.

Then once Colonialism starts (usually in the Iberian peninsula like you mentioned) you can use all of your saved up Monarch points to upgrade your capital until you get Colonialism there. (Improving provinces advances your Institutions in provinces)

You know what? I'm gonna go be Brandenburg and conquer the world. You've talked me into it.

Edit: (Reads over post) Sorry this is so messed up. I'm fairly drunk right now. But I think I got the main point across. You can get Institutions early by gaming the system. 

If there's something you don't understand just let me know, and I'll make an effort to explain it better. 

[A True Kaniggit]

On 3/13/2019 at 1:07 PM, Jace, Basilissa said:

You are a strange, strange, man.

And I applaud you for it.

You know, I play BG I and BG II multiplayer sometimes, and I see a screen name that is the same as the one from his blog. I know it's only a million to one chance it's him, but I'd like to think that it is.