Videogames - Meanwhile in Poland.

[Heartofice]

Hmm. Well firstly ‘never use force March’ should be your motto. It’s a really bad idea because you always get caught out by it.  
 

Try and defend more rather than attack so that they have to come to you.

Siege defence maps a good rule is to lightly defend your walls but run back into the streets to fight in the bottlenecks. I auto resolve every offensive siege.

I’d also say if micro is a real issue for you then use groupings and quick keys a lot more. I used to do 2 three groups of cav but would get confused so now just use one group and that way I can easily pull them in and out without too much micro. Also using the shift key pathing to draw the line of where you want your troops to go really helps with micro because you can safely avoid the enemy for a bit. 
 

It is fast though, if you are used to Rome with mods which slow it down it can be annoying. And it becomes a lot more about micro and knowing what counters what.

[Corvinus85]

So I started a Repanse campaign in Eye of the Vortex Campaign.

I've destroyed the Followers of Nagash (Arkhan the Black) faction on the western coast, and confederated with the other two Bretonnian factions.

Every time I got one too many new lords, rather than suicide them in a reckless attack, I sent them to exploring the seas, gaining some gold from the various pop up islands, and making contact with other factions. Thus I made contact and a whole bunch of trade agreements with the High Elves, as well as the Lizardmen of Hexoatl.

I'm also allied with the Dwarfs near me, Greybeard's Prospectors. They almost got destroyed by the Skaven Clan Eshin, but I intervened at the last moment, and saved them, for now. So Eshin is my new enemy; they can be a problem.

Despite low relations, Khemri has left me alone so far, and I have not yet antagonized them. 

[The Winged Shadow]

15 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I wish CA had given the Bretonnian knights the ability to dismount. Because the Bretonnians are really hampered in sieges by this, either as attackers or defenders.

I guess they figured once you get flying cavs, it kinda helps with that issue, as those are OP as hell, specially on walls. Just a different way to assault the walls.

13 hours ago, Toth said:

Okay, I stupidly tried to make another go at my campaign, trying to regroup. Wow. Even that failed spectacularly. As I was drawing my armies together Forced March Settra out of nowhere struck out at them. I lost three generals, now I am left with only Repanse and one newbie. Only one of these battles was actually fun, with me managing to divide Settra's attention with two armies, with one of them managing to destroy his damn scorpion and annihilating a surprising number of his experienced elite stacks piecemeal. Still lost though. And the very next turn a village was attacked by just two dudes and a tomb guard squad and I still somehow managed to loose that battle despite getting my archers behind the enemy and riddle their backs with arrows. Fuck this...

While Settra was busy massacring my forces Repanse bee-lined deep behind enemy lines, torching every city I found. I got enough chivalry to unlock the Green Knight, but suddenly I found myself in front of an undefended city whose basic garrison was stupidly filled with constructs. Then, OF COURSE, two more armies ganged up on me from behind and massacred Repanse.

Fuck this nonsense...

10 hours ago, Toth said:

I didn't know that actually, but I'm afraid I still can't see how that might help me. My problem is less getting the right angle for a charge, but more that I shouldn't leave my knights in close combat for more than a second, but am supposed to pull them back immediately and go for another charge. This level of micromanagement combined with my other units constantly breaking causes me to squander quite a lot of effectiveness when the Tomb Kings usually have thrice my number and I have to handle a dozen skirmishes at the same time. I think, at least. I mean... I highly doubt that the even the only good units Britonnia has suck this badly if it wasn't for slow ass me taking charge.

Man, i feel so invested in your campaign now haha. Can you give a gist of your army composition at the moment?

Sounds like you are getting dragged into battles you can't win. If you are save scumming, you just need to avoid those fights. Note that if the enemy is in ambush stance, you can't see their army on the campaign map. Sounds like Settra was ambushing, luring you to attack his weak sauce army and then BAM, that sneaky fucker haha.

One good rule of thumb is to always be the attacker. Because AI tends to attack when they have the upper hand, so if you get attacked, chances are the odds are even or in the enemies favour. Multiple army battles will ALWAYS favour the AI as they are much better at micro than humans. If both of you have multiple armies, try unticking the "Control Large Army" tick box when they (or you) make the attack. This allows maximum of 20 units on the battlefield (if ticked, then its 40 units). When one unit dies/routes, another unit from the other army will come in. This allows you to have easier time microing your units.

One way you can control not getting attacked during enemy turn is to click on the enemy general during your turn and look at their movement range. The enemy cannot initiate attack in force march stance, so you want to make sure you are outside their normal march zone (usually shown as shorter radius solid outline, force march is dashed outline and have larger radius). You can also create your own ambush situation by hiding your main army in ambush stance (not to ambush since Bretonnians suck at it, but really to hide your army from the campaign map) and lure the enemy with a crap stack (similar to what Settra did to you). Once you get Lightning Strike, you don't have to worry about all this ambushing (and I really hope you are rushing Lightning Strike on at least one of your Lords).

Try to avoid being in force march stance in enemy territory unless you have an army that won't be phased by having reduced combat stats (lots of units with perfect vigour (Grail Knights/Guardians), doom stacks, etc). Force march will give ALL your units the tired debuff, so less speed and combat stats. This could be why your units aren't performing to their full potential. In normal stance (as opposed to force march), your units start at 'rested' state which allows them to perform at their peak combat stats. They use up Vigor as they run and fight, getting 'tired' and 'exhausted' and losing some combat stats as a result. They recover vigor when they are standing around, potentially getting back to 'rested' state. Forced marched units will never be able to reach anything higher than tired (iirc), even if you allow them rest during the battle. So it is a massive disadvantage.

Did you leave Rapanse within enemy settlement reinforcement range? Sounds like Settra was hiding his armies in ambush stance close to settlement and you rushed in and got ganked by two armies+settlement garrison?

I am rooting for you to turn this around. Fucking Settra....

 

[The Winged Shadow]

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

So I started a Repanse campaign in Eye of the Vortex Campaign.

Hahaha I did as well. But Mortal Empires. Just hooned the vamps and heading down to hoon Arkhan.

[Toth]

Okay, now that's embarrassing. After complaining so much yesterday about getting hammered... when I finally went back into the game in the night, the defense of the Tomb Kings just kinda crumbled and that left me very baffled.

So... somehow Settra disappeared and instead the Tomb Kings constantly attacked me with small "armies" that looked overwhelming on the autoresolve screen, but were actually small enough for me to handle easily. In fact, several times they attacked undefended settlements or my minor lord whenever he had to split up with Repanse with just lords, causing me to get a bunch of Heroic Victories in. I was stumped how easy it suddenly was. I guess it also helped that even the bigger armies lacked constructs.

Then I noticed what happened: The elves in the south attacked Settra and he turned all his attention towards their invasion. Damn! On the one hand I am really glad, on the other hand I am kinda bummed I never figured out how to beat Settra on my own. Well... he still has four cities left, so I guess there is a high chance I will run into him eventually again.

3 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

So I started a Repanse campaign in Eye of the Vortex Campaign.

I've destroyed the Followers of Nagash (Arkhan the Black) faction on the western coast, and confederated with the other two Bretonnian factions.

Every time I got one too many new lords, rather than suicide them in a reckless attack, I sent them to exploring the seas, gaining some gold from the various pop up islands, and making contact with other factions. Thus I made contact and a whole bunch of trade agreements with the High Elves, as well as the Lizardmen of Hexoatl.

I'm also allied with the Dwarfs near me, Greybeard's Prospectors. They almost got destroyed by the Skaven Clan Eshin, but I intervened at the last moment, and saved them, for now. So Eshin is my new enemy; they can be a problem.

Despite low relations, Khemri has left me alone so far, and I have not yet antagonized them. 

That's pretty much exactly what happened in my playthrough's beginning. I will be curious how you'll deal with Khemri!

2 hours ago, The Winged Shadow said:

Man, i feel so invested in your campaign now haha. Can you give a gist of your army composition at the moment?

Here is the situation: https://s12.directupload.net/images/201121/22y2xnll.png

Note that this is immediately after I took Khemri, so I had quite some losses thanks to autoresolve.

It's also interesting to see that that massive lizardmen empire in the south just kinda imploded. Empire, Dwarves took one province each, Elves took two, the rest was eaten by Skaven. I'm preparing an expedition right now to deal with the last lizardmen city while Repanse is still busy dealing with Settra.

2 hours ago, The Winged Shadow said:

Sounds like you are getting dragged into battles you can't win. If you are save scumming, you just need to avoid those fights. Note that if the enemy is in ambush stance, you can't see their army on the campaign map. Sounds like Settra was ambushing, luring you to attack his weak sauce army and then BAM, that sneaky fucker haha.

No, that's not it. He was attacking on his turns. The basic strategy how he was able to be everywhere at once was by having Settra just come close enough to be reinforcements. Then a single lord recruited from a city close near my army started the actual battle. That was pretty damn clever. I never triggered an ambush so far.

Amusingly, yesterday Settra himself fell into the forced march trap. When I threatened that stupidly large city in the north again, Settra forced march an army right into plain view of Repanse, causing me to bring down my knightly hammer and destroy it before marching up to Khemri. And it was not like Settra's forced marching wasn't biting him into the ass occasionally before. In that battle where I managed to divide his army I was only able to kill his constructs because they started the battle slow and exhausted.

[Heartofice]

Lol no wonder you are so frustrated with micro with that many cav in your army. Who is screening your archers??

[Toth]

8 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Lol no wonder you are so frustrated with micro with that many cav in your army. Who is screening your archers??

The cavalry of course! XD

[Heartofice]

33 minutes ago, Toth said:

The cavalry of course! XD

Haha.. *facepalm*
 

yeah I would go less cav, especially if you as bad at micro as me

[The Winged Shadow]

Funnily enough, having more Cav units makes it EASIER to micro, not harder. At the moment, the micro struggle is due to all the units that he has to protect (archers and arties). If he had all Cav, he could pretty much avoid any engagement he doesn't want to be involved in (like melee infantry engagement) and just purely focus on charging in and disengaging with a group of Cav units. Hopefully he isn't trying to micro each cav unit, cause that way lies madness!

[Heartofice]

6 minutes ago, The Winged Shadow said:

Funnily enough, having more Cav units makes it EASIER to micro, not harder. At the moment, the micro struggle is due to all the units that he has to protect (archers and arties). If he had all Cav, he could pretty much avoid any engagement he doesn't want to be involved in (like melee infantry engagement) and just purely focus on charging in and disengaging with a group of Cav units. Hopefully he isn't trying to micro each cav unit, cause that way lies madness!

Well depends. His cav is not super fast, and when it blobs up like that it’s hard to direct them all and avoid units. That’s why I prefer 4 cav units max. You can do a lot of damage with their charge bonus. The infantry is there to die. Use heroes and spells to keep them alive while you charge in and out 

[Toth]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Well depends. His cav is not super fast, and when it blobs up like that it’s hard to direct them all and avoid units. That’s why I prefer 4 cav units max. You can do a lot of damage with their charge bonus. The infantry is there to die. Use heroes and spells to keep them alive while you charge in and out 

The thing is... while I certainly can't claim yet that I have figured out how Bretonnia works, I do have noticed that it is a severe mistake to try to construct a static defense line. That simply doesn't work because your units are just too squishy and after I watched enemy heroes and constructs casually strolling through my infantry lines to go slaughter my archers half a dozen times, I simply gave up on trying. I guess it was especially apparent when Settra attacked those village garrisons with just three units: Even when my numerically superior infantry utterly surrounded them from all sides, they still got horribly slaughtered, that's how bad they are!

What I have seen players on Youtube doing and what I have managed to do on small scale battles is to draw the enemy attention to my heroes and knights while my archers sit back and pelt them with arrows as they are too busy chasing the wrong units. Once an enemy turns their attention towards my archers, I immediately pull them back a few steps, oddly enough the AI will interrupt the pursuit immediately and go back to chasing my heroes. It of course doesn't work as neatly when the enemy has massive numerical advantage, as I have seen in my horrendous defeats before, but thanks to the elves smashing Settra's main army, I can manage for the moment.

Though I should also tell the tale my most hilarious battle: Early on after Repanse got murdered at that northernmost city my lone general who accompanied her got stuck in the enemy zone of control, meaning he was unable to return to safe territory. But instead of sending an army against him, Settra oddly enough decided to just send one Lord and one Tomb Prince. Literally just two guys. Afoot. Against my one guy on horseback.

Fun fact: If you charge an enemy lord, there is a very high chance he'll flop to the ground, unable to fight back for a second! XD

I spent the next five minutes giddily watching my dear Duke Gillaume comically run over two mummies. After all the suffering against Settra, that felt very satisfying.

[Heartofice]

42 minutes ago, Toth said:

The thing is... while I certainly can't claim yet that I have figured out how Bretonnia works, I do have noticed that it is a severe mistake to try to construct a static defense line. That simply doesn't work because your units are just too squishy and after I watched enemy heroes and constructs casually strolling through my infantry lines to go slaughter my archers half a dozen times, I simply gave up on trying. I guess it was especially apparent when Settra attacked those village garrisons with just three units: Even when my numerically superior infantry utterly surrounded them from all sides, they still got horribly slaughtered, that's how bad they are!

I dunno, I always construct static defence lines and it works out just fine. I just expect them to die. Their job is really to just hold the enemy in place so I can hit them with magic, arrows and damage dealers. Honestly I think spears or halberds should do the job, just keep them in a deeper formation because if you go into a long thin formation the high mass units can barge right through.
 

44 minutes ago, Toth said:

What I have seen players on Youtube doing and what I have managed to do on small scale battles is to draw the enemy attention to my heroes and knights while my archers sit back and pelt them with arrows as they are too busy chasing the wrong units. Settra, that felt very satisfying.

One thing about Youtubers is that they mostly play campaign on higher difficulties. Probably the most popular is LegendofTotalWar who only plays on Legendary difficulty. The thing about that is, the only way to win at that difficulty is to cheese the game and use a ton of exploits all the time. And because infantry at legendary difficulty is basically worthless, they tend to go without. That really doesn't apply at normal difficulty, even with the Bretonnians (whos infantry is basically the same as the Empire). 

48 minutes ago, Toth said:

Fun fact: If you charge an enemy lord, there is a very high chance he'll flop to the ground, unable to fight back for a second! XD

Funnily enough the upcoming patch has fixed this, so now lords have a very small chance to be knocked to the ground. It was an exploit people like LegendofTotalWar were using over and over

[The Winged Shadow]

5 hours ago, Toth said:

Here is the situation: https://s12.directupload.net/images/201121/22y2xnll.png

My army composition is very similar at the moment. Still got my 4 starter infantry and arty since i don't have flying cav yet. So still need it for siege battles. Got 6-7 archers and 6 cav. I use similar tactics to what you described. Use my Lord and hero in the centre to get them to mob around them. Artillery and arrow bomb that zone. Anything that ignores my hero/lord gets focused down hard with ALL my archer units. Specially if fast/cav units. I usually use a square formation with the archers (allows them to rotate a lot quicker) with a fair bit gap so if one of them gets charged, a second unit doesn't get caught in melee as a result.

At the moment running 3 cav on each wing. I usually run behind their lines to attract some of their units. They usually send their spearmen/infantry. Once there is enough gap between their chasing unit and their Archer/Arties, i just run straight past the melee infantry and charge the artillery and archers.

Just got my cavalry building to Tier 4, so I should be able to recruit some Knights of the Realm and Questing Knights. And then its ON! Repanse is gonna get the full cav stack. My second army will be all archers and artillery in preparation for Khemri, which is all walled and garrisoned up.....

[Caligula_K3]

On 11/20/2020 at 2:49 PM, Whiskeyjack said:

I just got it for my kids, downloading now.  They love Zelda and the Warriors-style games and have been really looking forward to it. 

Not the main type of game I usually seek out, but have definitely had fun playing co-op with them in the past on Hyrule Warriors and Fire Emblem Warriors.  My guess is it will be basically the same style, if you've played those.  But will let you know if anything different stands out.

I'd never played a Warriors game before, so the demo was my first impression of the whole genre. I found it fun but it also felt a little too mindless at times as I took out crowds of enemies by just mashing random buttons. I'm not sure if that's just because the early levels are easy or if the whole game plays like that, which I would probably get tired of.

[Werthead]

Reading the Cyberpunk 2077 previews after a two-day demo marathon is heartening. They all seem to agree that the kinetic, action-heavy trailers are not exactly representative of the game as it really operates. The RPG mechanics are present and have a really big impact on the game (much moreso than The Witcher 3), and there's much more of an "immersive sim" approach to the game a la Deus Ex, Dishonored and Prey. If you want to go nuts with a shotgun and blast your way though every mission, you can do that, but you can also achieve every objective by stealth, by using nonlethal approaches, or by using hacking, and you can do a lot just through dialogue choices.

It also sounds like your starting lifepath will have a big impact on the game. The previewer playing a Corpo was able to use his contacts in Arasaka to intimidate an opponent into backing off, an option that wasn't available to the players playing Street Kid (for some reason, no-one seemed to play a Nomad), although they had options instead to try to befriend the opponent with street slang and their knowledge of the local drug market, things the Corpo couldn't do.

It also seems like the game is huge. Even the person mainlining the story ASAP took six hours to see even the title card, and they were the only ones to get as far as meeting Keanu, I believe. The others seemed to spend way more time on side-quests and just dicking around in the city and didn't get that far. Some of the side quests sound quite funny, with a bunch of robo-taxis getting hijacked by a rogue virus and you have to go and shut them down by whatever means necessary, and helping out an AI-driven drinks vending machine by removing some obstructing boxes turns it into a friend for life, which is great up until you realise it's also become a homicidal maniac. It also sounds like the game has a very large number of "contact" characters who each have a significant quest chain: by being nice to them, maybe calling them up once in a while, answering their calls etc, you can open up a lot more content associated with each character.

The only consistent complaint so far is that driving isn't quite as smooth as it is in GTA5 (but still better than just about every other open-world game) and that claims you can enter every building and explore every floor are somewhat exaggerated (which I think everyone thought was going to be the case). They also advise that if you want to play this as an action-heavy FPS, you need to spec your character for it or you are really going to have a hard time. Oh, and just about everyone has a titanium-armoured skull, so those who like to headshot their way through the game may want to consider other tactics (like specialising in melee builds which increase your armour value the closer you are to the target before striking, allowing you to shrug off heavy weapons fire in the process).

[Corvinus85]

Well in my Repanse campaign, Khemri has turned out to be a bit of a paper tiger. It helped that even before I could turn my full attention on them, they were getting hammered from the south by the Knights of Caledor. I've taken the Black Pyramid and Khemri itself, but I'm in danger of losing at least one army because I rushed forward a bit to try to end the war. Typical "French" knight behavior.

The Knights of Caledor are my ally, but they are in trouble now, as a great power has risen in the south. Two of the Lizardmen factions confederated to become the strongest faction on the continent. I will likely have to fight them, but first I need to mop up Khemri.

Oh, and I should mention that I am playing with a few mods, mostly quality of life mods like better camera, lighting and weather, and a big mod that aims to customize all settlements to be more lore friendly, but it's a work in progress. Additionally I have a mod which isn't helping me at all in this Repanse campaign; it's one where you are given the option to recruit the lords of defeated factions from the same race as yours. This also applies to the AI, so in my war against Khemri, I'm not just facing Settra, but also Arkhan and Khalida.

[Toth]

Settra is dead. And I didn't even get to finish him! And YES, it was the Knights of Caledor who did him in. They got quite a few provinces east of Khemri while wasn't looking. I managed to take all the other provinces though, and in the end I was able to witness Settra's pitiful final moments myself: He came north to my territory with Imri on his heels, unfortunately I didn't have an army nearby to take him out and when Imri caught him raiding, only a city garrison of mine joined the fight. Poor Settra only had six chariots and a catapult left and the elven chariots and skirmishers did him in shortly before my peasants reached him.

I also gave Repanse now a pure cavalry army to finish the Sword of Lyonesse mission. After I got defeated the first time I did it due to the third dwarven army getting pounded by enemy reinforcements despite winning decisively, it was now interesting to see how easily I managed to sweep through the enemy ranks with Grail Knights, Henri on a Griffon and the Green Knight helping out.

No seriously, Grail Knights and Grail Guardians for the win! My freshly recruited southern army marched against the capital of the lizardmen and got attacked by a large stack with the autoresolve screen telling me I'm screwed. Ha! Turns out as long as I am not fighting Tomb Kings, I actually get shit done! Even with a defensive posture! I seated myself on a hill with my archers and blessed trebuchets, my right flank protected by a mountain behind which I hid the majority of my Knights of the Realm. My left flank was secured by my Grail Guardians, knowing they are better in a pitched battle. The lizardmen started the battle by suiciding Tictaqto against my Knights of the Realm and then neatly climbed the hill with their entire army while my knights of the realm went around the hill and smashed into their back horrifically. I lost 90 dudes, they lost 700. Textbook maneuver! And even their big dinosaurs were mobbed to death or pelted with projectiles, without ever reaching my small peasant lines. But then the damned game said this was a Close Victory. What?!? How?!?

Anyway, remind me to send the elves a gift basket with Bretonnian wine and cheese or something!

[Gorn]

I'm about 30h into Divinity: Original Sin 2, and it's a significant improvement over the first part. Not quite "the best RPG EVER" as some overexcited reviewers said, but definitely an excellent one.

Since I often play as a sneaky rogue/assassin type of character, I picked Sebille, and decided to roleplay her as, basically, adult Arya whose "list" consists of upper-class lizardmen slavers, and the entire Magister order. So far, the game allowed me to:

- kill the sleeping Magister guard on the prologue ship;

- kill the dying Magister leader on the prologue ship that I was probably supposed to try to save;

- murder a potential NPC companion, the Red Prince, during our meeting on Fort Joy beach (when I was supposed to recruit him), basically for being a snobby lizardman aristocrat and for calling Sebille a slave;

- murder a random lizardman trader and a potential questgiver in Fort Joy for the same crime;

- torture and then murder an important lizardman NPC in Fort Joy (who otherwise seemed a decent sort) for the information about Sebille's former master;

- kill an undead trader in Fort Joy, and then eat his corpse for the information I needed (elven cannibalism is fun in this setting!)

- kill every last Magister in Fort Joy except for a blind recruit I took pity on. Although, considering he's now the only remaining Magister on an island full of pissed-off prisoners, it might be a fate worse than death.

The only part I felt railroaded into behaving out of "what would Arya Stark do" character was when the game kept me from killing

Spoiler

comatose Bishop Alexander on board of Lady Vengeance.

I'm now on the second major open world section, and my inventory is full of disembodied body parts that I keep as in-combat snacks instead of health potions (did I mention that elven cannibalism is fun in this setting?).

[Corvinus85]

I gave up on my Repanse campaign, as it was getting a bit boring. I never liked the Bretonnian end game - get the chivalry points and do a battle. They need to make the Errantry War into some kind of period crusades, maybe like the Greenskin Waagh!

I also prefer Mortal Empires over Eye of the Vortex. And so I started a ME campaign with... Khemri, because of course. The Tomb Kings have such a different gameplay than most other races. Challenging in different ways, easier in others.

 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Been playing Hades non stop. Probably my favourite Supergiant game till date and one of the best games I've played in the last couple of years... For fans of rogue like dungeon crawlers, RPGs, Greek mythology it's a must... 

 

 

It's amazing how this studio consistently outdoes its previously acclaimed titles with every new release... The characters, music, art work is fantastic in true Supergiant fashion. Highly recommended guys.