What Game Are You Currently Playing?

[Venusian Broon]

ooooh, about to start a new game. Crusader Kings 3 available in mere hours.

I'll say goodbye right now. (Doesn't help that I also just bought Factorio 1.0 last week). I may just survive on Doritos and Pepsi Max, and sit in my underpants in front of the PC for the next two weeks.

 

[.matthew.]

ooooh, about to start a new game. Crusader Kings 3 available in mere hours.

It's good. A lot more intuitive than CK2, and you don't need to spend a whole generation saving for stuff anymore. Be warned though, it's still not bug free

 

[Venusian Broon]

It's good. A lot more intuitive than CK2, and you don't need to spend a whole generation saving for stuff anymore. Be warned though, it's still not bug free

I quite liked the slow burn in CK2....but I can always go back to that if CK3 misfires!

 

[.matthew.]

There is slow burn and there is CK2 lol. Don't get me wrong, I still have a few hundred hours in it but sometimes there were some truly painful waits.

It's mostly just easier to get gold now, though if you found it too easy I'm sure there'll be mods within a week.

 

[Venusian Broon]

There is slow burn and there is CK2 lol. Don't get me wrong, I still have a few hundred hours in it but sometimes there were some truly painful waits.

It's mostly just easier to get gold now, though if you found it too easy I'm sure there'll be mods within a week.

Only 720 hours in CK2 in total myself, which was about four or five proper games in total (a lot of playing about with mechanics as well, but mostly the long slow burn of pedesterian empire building)

 

[.matthew.]

Only 720 hours in CK2 in total myself

That'll be like double my time then. I mostly went for EU4 and Stellaris as I reckon they have a better pace for me (until the end-game of both).

 

[Venusian Broon]

I've tried over many years to get into any space 4X but they just have never gelled for me. I need a universe that has deep 'roots' for these games to come alive - and most space empire stuff seems so arbitrary.

I don't know why EU4 or HOI4 never called to me either. More of a 'Panzer General' person for WW2 strategy games. Possibly now, if they did a EU5, I might be tempted.

Completely fallen out of love for the Civ series. Stopped at 5

 

[Overread]

Venusian have you tried the Endless Space games - ES2 would be a good starting point (ES 1 has no connecting story and whilst its good the sequel improves on mechanics). It's got one of the more creative universes behind it and it feels alive and detailed without overburdening itself with story and turning into an RPG instead of a space empire game.





Also Horizon Zero Dawn is going to settle into a high spot for me of games with really great stories to it! Also really really don't miss the sidequests in this game. There are several which are basically core parts of the story, but totally optional. So you get all the epic fun of a main story style quest. They even slip references into them every so often in the main story.
Overall fantastic game and I'm not even finished!

 

[Venusian Broon]

Venusian have you tried the Endless Space games - ES2 would be a good starting point (ES 1 has no connecting story and whilst its good the sequel improves on mechanics). It's got one of the more creative universes behind it and it feels alive and detailed without overburdening itself with story and turning into an RPG instead of a space empire game.





Also Horizon Zero Dawn is going to settle into a high spot for me of games with really great stories to it! Also really really don't miss the sidequests in this game. There are several which are basically core parts of the story, but totally optional. So you get all the epic fun of a main story style quest. They even slip references into them every so often in the main story.
Overall fantastic game and I'm not even finished!

Maybe in 2021 I'll have a look at Endless space! I have Factorio, CK3, and really need to finish Octopath Traveller (okay probably restart) and I always keep a few games of RTW and Rimworld on the go just for a bit of relaxing fun

With regards to Horizon Zero Dawn, I'm still finishing off the last bits of Assassins Creed Odyssey, which I really enjoyed, and might still have 30-40 hours left to get to level 95 or so (Lockdown has me at ~350 hours on that game. I think my Dad has done about the same.) Which reminds me I still have the major DLC of Fallout 4 to go through in survival mode.

F*** me, too many games.

 

[Overread]

Factorio will certainly eat up time. Nice thing about it is it very open on how you can build your factory. You can go totally nuts with logic gates and hover delivery units and build a supremely efficient factory.

Or you can have one that burns coal nice and day and produces things in perhaps not the most efficient manner, but it works.

Gives the player a lot of room to be themselves in terms of how far you want to and like to take things.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Tried Stellaris, Venusian?

I hope Crusader Kings III comes to consoles. Given Civ VI and Stellaris have, I'm slightly hopeful.

Speaking of which, I won my first game of Civ VI on Emperor difficulty, which I was pleased with as it was science up against Korea (Scotland also not bad in that regard). Despite playing as Cyrus/Persia I went for a peaceful route and never had a single war.

Also playing Pathfinder Kingmaker. There are some technical bugs to be ironed out but I'm really liking it a lot, even though I'm not au fait with all the rules. Turns out kineticists can do a bucketload of damage.

 

[Overread]

Just avoid the tiny spiders! Seriously they are dangerously overpowered in early Kingmaker!

 

[thaddeus6th]

I was lucky that my main character is a wizard so the acid splash cantrip proved very handy.

 

[Dozmonic]

Speaking of which, I won my first game of Civ VI on Emperor difficulty, which I was pleased with as it was science up against Korea (Scotland also not bad in that regard). Despite playing as Cyrus/Persia I went for a peaceful route and never had a single war.

From memory it's when you get to immortal and deity that being peaceful's tricky. It has been far too long since I played Civ6. Just seeing it mentioned has made me install again to give it a whirl :-D

 

[Venusian Broon]

CK3. So far, brilliant. Not only streamlining a lot of the old things that were a bit irritating in CK2 but the highlight is that some of the new mechanics are fantastic. So many ways to play.

Currently, nervously eyeing the b*****d Lord of the Isle who has a very, very powerful ally just to the South. Hurriedly trying to get allies/armies big enough to threaten the git.

 

[.matthew.]

Currently, nervously eyeing the b*****d Lord of the Isle who has a very, very powerful ally just to the South. Hurriedly trying to get allies/armies big enough to threaten the git.

My advice there is to pick on weaker game. Alliances end and gravelkind can cripple a large power. Bide your time and strike when they're vulnerable

Plus, even when you win them, large wars arerarely worth the cost (unless you have a cassus belli on the whole kingdom.

 

[Bugg]

I finished Trails in the Sky the 3rd last night - well, early this morning, actually. Loved it. It was a separate story to the first two games, and essentially a long farewell to the characters, but it had some of the best boss battles in the trilogy. The final boss was a total *******. Even when I'd figured out what I needed to do, it turned out only one of my party had regular access to the art that would prevent a party wipe at regular intervals.

I haven't quite decided which sequence to follow now - it's either the next game that was actually released (Trails from Zero), or Cold Steel 1. I'll probably go with the latter as Geofront are currently working on the translation for Trails to Azure, the immediate sequel to Zero, so I've no idea when they'll actually finish it.

 

[Venusian Broon]

My advice there is to pick on weaker game. Alliances end and gravelkind can cripple a large power. Bide your time and strike when they're vulnerable

Plus, even when you win them, large wars arerarely worth the cost (unless you have a cassus belli on the whole kingdom.

It's okay, I know what I'm doing .

King of Alba follows Tanistry; always try to avoid Gavelkind! At least at first. For a challange at somepoint in the future will go Gavelkind with no parachute. ("You went full Gavelkind. Never go full Gavelkind.")

I think some of my lesser counties may be handed out to my sons via Gavelkind, but at least I have a chance of picking the next king to have a good demense.

The problem above was that he was going to attack no matter what at some point in time and he was far too powerful to launch a <cough> preemtive 'defensive' attack before he was ready (Although my stupid brother really wanted to. Idiot.). Wasn't even really enough time to set up any intrigue against him - he was just keen on taking over the whole of the British Isles at a fast canter.

Going for scraps of land can be counterproductive. In this case I found it generally weakens your position against such powerful neighbour and you really don't have time to integrate anything, especially if they are different culture or religion, to make a difference. (Possibly if you get some good rolls, but it's not something to rely on - it's going to tie up your council and may generate unrest etc.) Remember the big guy is eyeing your lands and is moving fast. There aren't that many juicy targets on the British Isle - and I assume that the Nordic/Viking cultures get pretty wide and deep casus belli to take over whole regions in Britain. I may be wrong, but looking at what they did in my game so far seems to suggest this!

[How many times when I was learning CK2 when I mis-clicked the 'disband armies' button when my troops were not on my territory, to find that half just dissappeared, to then have a powerful neighbour or vassel instantly declare war/independence because he now outnumbered me! Answer: Too many.]

Although I admit in the above game I couldn't resist a bit of a 'nibble' for some fame and glory.

Thankfully I had an alliance with West Franconia through marriage, and although their armies were pretty bad, they were plentiful so we could chew through his special troops* that somehow he had been awarded at the start. Made the war, he started, a long slog...and then the tough old ******* died halfway through.

Managed then to white peace out as his sons didn't have the alliances, nor the money for mercenaries, nor much of an army. Yet still tough to beat.

I have time now to build up, conspire and plot revenge. Hopefully he'll go off and waste his resources on another war as I'm doing this.

Loving the stress meter and how it interacts with the characteristics. So for example, my King is unfortuantely painfully shy, so practically every decision has the possibility of raising stress. Great mechanic for role-playing.


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* he and his ally had 10,000 specials in total, whereas my army was reaching only just over 2000 in total. If he'd turned on me day one I won't have survived. Thankfully he went for the much weaker kingdom of Northumbria.

 

[.matthew.]

It's okay, I know what I'm doing .

Ha, that's what I usually say before the Liberty faction goes all medieval on my ass.

Right now I'm doing a quick Tribal run for a guide I'm writing (check out GameWatcher CK3 guides for loads of them), but I will say from my previous Feudal game, Gravelkind is fine if you are willing to Disinherit your other sons using Renown. Gets expensive if you have a lot, but keeps it all under one ruler (I had Ireland, Alba, and Wales all under Gravelkind for multiple generations with that tactic). You can also embrace Celibacy pretty easily and that stops you popping out heirs once you have a few

I also wouldn't worry overmuch about integration or culture. Just slowly replace any foreign rulers with your own courtiers and they'll deal with it for you. Even if you don't do that, the penalties for those things are so small they're easy to ignore.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Ha, that's what I usually say before the Liberty faction goes all medieval on my ass.

For me it's the little things in the game that can crush you.

So if you're a small independent state and a muslim empire about 50 times bigger decides you're the wrong sort of muslim and decided to invite themselves in with swords....well, I can live with that.

...but once I had a great King, probably a good 4-500 years into a CK2 game. I had just formed the Britannic Empire with him, he was happy painting all sorts of Europe the home team colour. But it was the next generation I had worked hard at. The succession laws were at primogeniture and my eldest son was a genius, brave and diligent, double digit stats for everything. I married him off to another genius, beautiful heir of vast tracts of Southern Europe. It looked like a proper mega-Empire was within my grasp with the 'it' couple of fourtheenth century Europe.

However, my King lasted a bit too long. And the genius prince partied a bit too hard 'cause he wasn't doing too much. He got syphilis. Which he then gave to his wife.

Syphilis, as I am sure you know, does not end well and as it curtails fertility dramatically and life and they had failed to produce any offspring at this point. This was bad. I had no other offspring in the immediate family so the prince could be 'retired', and the Old King was, as you may guess, too old to start producing more.

The old King then died. I panicked. The new syphilitic King could have died/gone mad at any point and the game would have ended. So I hurriedly doubled my efforts to change the succession laws. Only seniority made any sense - a terrible succesion law, but it meant I could continue the game. It took a very nervous 5 or so years to put it all through.

But, with a sigh of relief I managed it. The King could die.

Mere months after I managed this, the King and Queen produced a son. A healthy non-syphilitic son.

Now it's probably all just RNG, but hell, that felt like a scripted mega-event to teach you about hubris.

Still, I don't mind saying, I rage quit the game at that point, (I can laugh about it now...just)