The General Gaming Thread!

[Morty]

After finally getting Baldur's Gate Trilogy to work properly... I still can't decide between a normal Fighter and a Kensai. Kensai is cool, but the lack of armor bothers me both because it makes him fragile and because it's weird to have a warrior without armor(petty, I know).

[Cespenar]

After finally getting Baldur's Gate Trilogy to work properly... I still can't decide between a normal Fighter and a Kensai. Kensai is cool, but the lack of armor bothers me both because it makes him fragile and because it's weird to have a warrior without armor(petty, I know).

Pure Kensai, who is incapable of buffing self with Stoneskin and Co. is extremely fragile. I would advise against it.

[Drascin]

Well, I bought Fortune Summoners.

The game is wonderful, but probably harder than pretty much anything I've played lately. The fighting is very based on zoning and knowing how to string individual sword attacks properly, and the main character has nothing in the way of projectiles... which means that enemies with polearms and projectlies are a right pain in the ass . And I'm completely lostin the current dungeon.

This is going to take a while...

[Morty]

Pure Kensai, who is incapable of buffing self with Stoneskin and Co. is extremely fragile. I would advise against it.

Until ToB yeah, he is. In Throne of Bhaal, enemies will hit you no matter how high your AC is, so what counts is reducing them to dog meat quickly, which Kensai does splendidly. Oh, well. I guess that I'll go with vanilla Fighter. It's straightforward.

[Zevox]

You honestly would have had to go out of your way to not collect medals to be already having trouble paying the medal amounts in world E-3, I think. And yeah, the last world has pretty much every stage require 10 more star coins than the previous, ending at around 280 required. But by the time I arrived to each stage I had them anyway, so no problem.

20 more per world it seems: world S-2 required 120, world S-3 required 140, and now I see that world S-4 requires 160. To get to 280 for S-8 it would actually have to pick up the pace even faster in the subsequent worlds too...

And yeah, I didn't put much priority on collecting those before, because they rarely came up, and in the main portion of the game I was never short of them when they did. Plus they weren't the goal of each level like Stars or the like usually are in 3D Mario games, they were just collectables along the way, and I'm not that big of a completionist. Which is in part why I don't particularly want to go and replay old levels to pick up more of those things and continue onward.

Zevox

[Cespenar]

Until ToB yeah, he is. In Throne of Bhaal, enemies will hit you no matter how high your AC is, so what counts is reducing them to dog meat quickly, which Kensai does splendidly. Oh, well. I guess that I'll go with vanilla Fighter. It's straightforward.

"Until ToB" is still an enormous length of game.

[Triscuitable]

I'm very happy to have picked up the Dragon Age Collection (DAO: Ultimate, DA2) for $12. I'd have gladly paid $12 for DAO alone, but to get Awakening, all the Addon content, and the sequel to boot... Damn.

I like the origins of the Grey Warden too. Played one of them, the City Elf. I never thought a mage to be a fitting male character, so I went female, and played the single most pessimistic living thing in the game.

[Malek]

"Until ToB" is still an enormous length of game.

Actually, having played through 2/3rds of BGT (stopped somewhere in ToB since I suffered from BG overload :P) with a Kensei I'd say it's more of "until BG2" than "Until ToB" - once you start BG2 there are various ways to get more stacking AC without armor (Ring of Protection +2, Ring of Gaxx once you're able to take him down, Sewer Cloak, I believe there's some Ioun Stone, Dak'kon's Zereth blade in off-hand, perhaps something else too) to get you moderately protected and the character itself starts to remind a walking blender so you don't need to be protected for long.

[Morty]

"Until ToB" is still an enormous length of game.

Actually, having played through 2/3rds of BGT (stopped somewhere in ToB since I suffered from BG overload :P) with a Kensei I'd say it's more of "until BG2" than "Until ToB" - once you start BG2 there are various ways to get more stacking AC without armor (Ring of Protection +2, Ring of Gaxx once you're able to take him down, Sewer Cloak, I believe there's some Ioun Stone, Dak'kon's Zereth blade in off-hand, perhaps something else too) to get you moderately protected and the character itself starts to remind a walking blender so you don't need to be protected for long.

Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I'll play vanilla Fighter. I just prefer to have armor. It'll be a few days, though. Every time I think the mods are working fine, something else comes up. This time, at least some of the tweaks to BG1 aren't working. Since I'm getting a new laptop in two days, I'll wait with reinstalling the whole thing until then.
All this messing around with kits made me wonder how hard it is to make one, BTW. I was thinking about a Fighter who is restricted either to chainmail or studded leather but gets Blade's offensive and defensive spins.

On an entirely unrelated note, goddamn but the goblins in Age of Wonders are underpowered. Their 1st and 2nd level units might as well be made out of wet tissue paper.

[Cogwheel]

On an entirely unrelated news, goddamn but the goblins in Age of Wonders are underpowered. Their 1st and 2nd level units might as well be made out of wet tissue paper.

Have... have you played halflings?

They are both terrible. So terrible.


Anyway I need to go spam more warlords and Hutts gluttons.

[Morty]

Actually, halfings in AoW1 are pretty good. The pony riders are deadly, as absurd as it may sound. Now, in AoW2 it's a different story, but on the other hand in that game goblins aren't quite as bad.

[TamerBill]

All this messing around with kits made me wonder how hard it is to make one, BTW.

It's actually relatively simple. This guide will take you through all the steps.

[Cogwheel]

Actually, halfings in AoW1 are pretty good. The pony riders are deadly, as absurd as it may sound. Now, in AoW2 it's a different story, but on the other hand in that game goblins aren't quite as bad.

Oh. Yeah, sorry, I was referring to Wizard's Throne.


And goblins are awful, but at least in AoW2 they get Butchers, Big Beetles and Kharaghs. Still kinda sad that the best goblin unit isn't a goblin, though. Says a lot for the species, I think, and not much of it is good

[Morty]

It's actually relatively simple. This guide will take you through all the steps.

Hey, thanks. Now to think about how it should look like, exactly...

And goblins are awful, but at least in AoW2 they get Butchers, Big Beetles and Kharaghs. Still kinda sad that the best goblin unit isn't a goblin, though. Says a lot for the species, I think, and not much of it is good

Plenty of races in both AoW games have best units that are something entirely different. The Glutton doesn't look very orky to me.
Anyway, I don't recall goblins being as bad in AoW2 as in AoW1. In the first game, it's painfully apparent as they die extremely quickly. Their 3 and 4 level units are okay, but nothing mind-blowing.

[Cogwheel]

The Glutton doesn't look very orky to me.

The Glutton actually is an orc. That's easily the most horrifying thing about it.

[Morty]

*blinks*
Yes... I did not need to know that. Still, the Kharagh is just sorta... out there, that's true. Other 4th level units are easily explainable, but Kharagh isn't. I suppose it's some sort of beast goblins tame and send at the enemy, but who knows? I don't think there's a fluff description for particular units anywhere.
Either way, the goblins' weakness irritates me, because they're my favourite fantasy race. They're better in AoW2, which is generally better designed, but it's got this whole nonsense with wizards going on...

[Cogwheel]

*blinks*
Yes... I did not need to know that. Still, the Kharagh is just sorta... out there, that's true. Other 4th level units are easily explainable, but Kharagh isn't. I suppose it's some sort of beast goblins tame and send at the enemy, but who knows? I don't think there's a fluff description for particular units anywhere.
Either way, the goblins' weakness irritates me, because they're my favourite fantasy race. They're better in AoW2, which is generally better designed, but it's got this whole nonsense with wizards going on...

I like to imagine that when a city reaches the appropriate level of tech, a random goblin wanders off into some cave/basement for half an hour, then returns with a crate full of Kharaghs and a "HEY GUYS I FOUND A THING".

And yes, they're sort of annoyingly terrible, though as I said, Butchers and Big Beetles help a lot if you're careful. Still AoW2 stuff, though, and even there, they're often considered the worst race.

Incidentally, I wish Frostlings were better. Mostly in the sense that their snow-making abilities should not shoot them in the foot movement-wise. Oh well.


Also, Draconian heroes are the best, Y/Y?

[Morty]

Well, a strategy guide I've once read - on the Heaven Games site - says that Goblins in AoW2 can be pretty strong if you play them right, utilizing their cheapness, cave crawling and poison special. Halflings, on the other hand, are just weaksauce according to the same guide. I've never played Draconians all that much, sadly. I loathe most dragon-like things in games. As for Frostlings... well, at least they don't get Dire Penguins in AoW2.

[Cogwheel]

Well, a strategy guide I've once read - on the Heaven Games site - says that Goblins in AoW2 can be pretty strong if you play them right, utilizing their cheapness, cave crawling and poison special. Halflings, on the other hand, are just weaksauce according to the same guide. I've never played Draconians all that much, sadly. I loathe most dragon-like things in games. As for Frostlings... well, at least they don't get Dire Penguins in AoW2.

You say that as if having Dire Penguins is a bad thing.

Clearly I'm misreading something here, because that's simply not possible.

[Triscuitable]

So, in the midst of all the AoW2 speak, I've been playing me some DAO, some ME2, some L4D2, a bit of FNV, TES4, and BF3:B2K.

[Volatar]

So, in the midst of all the AoW2 speak, I've been playing me some DAO, some ME2, some L4D2, a bit of FNV, TES4, and BF3:B2K.

I started playing Star Sonata again.

[Morty]

You say that as if having Dire Penguins is a bad thing.

Clearly I'm misreading something here, because that's simply not possible.

They're penguins. Militarized friggin' penguins. It's not so much bad as it's Monty Python-level absurd.

[Cogwheel]

They're penguins. Militarized friggin' penguins. It's not so much bad as it's Monty Python-level absurd.

I think the problem here is that you were taking AoW remotely seriously to begin with. Whole thing's ridiculous, in ways which, unfortunately, are rarely intentional (as far as I can tell.)

[warty goblin]

They're penguins. Militarized friggin' penguins. It's not so much bad as it's Monty Python-level absurd.

Personally I've always preferred the goblin suicide bombers. Nothing like a eugenics program crossed with a warcrime to blow holes in fortifications.

[Triscuitable]

So I've found my old USB drive. It was a measly 128MB (remember when that was a revolution in mobile storage?), but I was curious what was on it. I found it had about thirty worms, a couple viruses, and some other viral infections on it. My anti-virus software took care of that, and I found it also housed my old savegames! Hooray!

I'm talking stuff I never play anymore. Mass Effect, Halo 2, BALDUR'S GATE! All that stuff. Super cool. I was so happy to find my ME saves, because one of them was capable of being imported. Deleted my old ME2 vanilla save, and imported the old one. Now I've got my Paragon-to-Renegade Femshep for Mass Effect 2. Now I just need to beat it in time for Mass Effect 3, the lovely game I can't afford.

[Morty]

I think the problem here is that you were taking AoW remotely seriously to begin with. Whole thing's ridiculous, in ways which, unfortunately, are rarely intentional (as far as I can tell.)

I suppose that's true. This whole Tolkienesque fantasy with black-and-white morality and piles of cliches is pretty hard to take seriously.

Personally I've always preferred the goblin suicide bombers. Nothing like a eugenics program crossed with a warcrime to blow holes in fortifications.

This is pretty evil, yes. But I wouldn't mind it if it didn't take two of these guys to break down a wooden gate. As it is, they're mostly useful when you get two or three enemy units next to each other, provided they don't die before reaching them.

[Cogwheel]

Bombers are all kinds of worthless, really. I much prefer, as I said, using heroes/Big Beetles to smash gates apart. That's just me, though.

Of course, in an ideal situation, I would break the gate down with any number of units that result from not playing goblins.

Speaking of which... I've looked around a bit, and find it hilarious that for the most part, guides for goblins (AoW2, at any rate) all seem to boil down to "migrate to something ASAP". They're right, but it's still absurd.


Also also: What sphere of magic do the two of you generally play? Barring special cases, I tend to go with water or air (Liquid Form, Healing Showers and Static Shield are the main reason for the former), or earth if I feel like mixing things up.

[Morty]

Like I said, bombers can be neat if you manage to catch two or three enemy units in the explosion. Killing or severely wounding two or three enemy units at the price of one isn't a bad deal. Still, it's situational. Mind you, I'm talking about AoW 1 - I don't really remember how effective they are in AoW2.
As for spheres of magic - back when I played AoW2, I used whichever sphere matched the race I played.
And BTW, this is the strategy guide I tend to go by.
Also, I wish they made Age of Wonders 3.

[Cespenar]

Also, I wish they made Age of Wonders 3.

Wow, you hated Shadow Magic that much? I think it was a pretty good game.

[Morty]

I haven't actually played Shadow Magic, but I was under the impression it was an expansion to Age of Wonders 2.