What are you playing right now?

[deuterio12]

All nuns, everywhere, should wear power armor. This is one thing the Imperium definitely has right.

Since I don't recall any other setting with power armor nuns, I guess that's one of secrets of 40K success.

Note to self: add power armor nuns to my homebrew setting.

Yup, no diplomacy at all beyond being able to set locked teams during game set-up. I think this benefits the game not only thematically, but also mechanically, since it spares one the stupidity of most x4 diplomatic AIs, and keeps one from using a bog standard divide and conquer sort of strategy. Here, you've gotta be able to fight on all fronts. It also helps that the AI is pretty good at the combat, to the point where I'm pretty sure it uses the LOS and overwatch rules to bait attacks and counter-advances right into prepared positions.

The game's got another couple of interesting features as well. It runs cities a lot more like an RTS base than a Civ city; so you can build multiple copies of buildings. More resource buildings = more resources, multiple unit production buildings shortens production time. Unit recruitment buildings are also fairly specific; there's one that builds, say, infantry and another that makes heroes and a third handles tanks, all of which maintain separate queues. Even the 'build new stuff' building works this way, so you can have multiples of them building new buildings faster. And all of these can be run in parallel, so a city with an infantry barracks and a tank factory can build infantry and tanks at the same time. Since buildings also occupy slots on map tiles - most hexes have two or three slots - this also effectively unpacks a city in a pretty elegant way.

(There's also some pretty substantial asymmetries between the factions in terms of resources, as in different factions flat out use different resources, but I don't have enough playtime to really get the nuances of that yet.)

Heh, that really reminds me of my favorite x4 game, Dominions:
-No diplomacy system for the AI and at best it may decide to ignore you for some time but if you take a province from them or they just feel like it they'll attack you until the bitter end (sometimes they'll even declare war on you before you even meet!)
-Separate queues for troops and commander units (including mages) so you can recruit fancy mages and troops at the same time while you can upgrade forts/cities to increase the amount of the "resource" and recruitment points resource that allows you to locally recruit even more troops and commanders each turn at each location.
-Pretty much the biggest faction asymmetry I've ever seen. Some nations need lots of "resources" because their troops use lots of equipment where others can work with little resources because they're monsters with furs and wooden spears then there's the "popkill" nations that kill the local population (meaning less gold/resource income) but they don't really care because they spontaneously spawn or use magic gems to summon most of their units so have less use for raw resources. There's flying nations and giant nations where you can actually can have a full flying/giant army rolling out from turn 2. There's aquatic nations that start underwater and are thus pretty hard to invade by land nations. Oh, and "you" are a mighty being that wants to become the top god after the last one went missing (with the other factions being your "rivals" for supreme godhood) and you get a MASSIVE amount of customization to what exactly you are, from a giant monster that can conquer provinces on his own from turn 1 to a rainbow mage potentially able to cast everything but dies to a stiff breeze to a giant statue/rock/tree that can't move but is insanely tough and cheap so you get more points for nation bonus (plus some may be able to move with magic, nothing like teleporting a virtually indestructible monolith on top of that enemy army). Like making your sacred units get flaming weapons and grow in size when blessed.

My big Problem with any X game is that i feels pointless.

Sure, you can do a lot, build factories, a whole fleet, make millions of credits... but for what?

You cant really conquer the universe, and you don't need it for the story missions.


I understand that for many Player just doing and achieving it is worthwhile and fullfilling. But I need purpose.

Personally speaking, when playing against the AI in such a game half the fun is making your own story. In particular in a game like dominions that has a zillion different random events based on all kind of choices/triggers (like one event needs to have both a basic militia and a Juggernaught that's a top-conjuration summon in the same army) so each game ends up being its own epic as you get different unique heroes join you and different super-monsters show up at your doorstep.

[Zombimode]

Personally speaking, when playing against the AI in such a game half the fun is making your own story. In particular in a game like dominions that has a zillion different random events based on all kind of choices/triggers (like one event needs to have both a basic militia and a Juggernaught that's a top-conjuration summon in the same army) so each game ends up being its own epic as you get different unique heroes join you and different super-monsters show up at your doorstep.

I was talking about the "X" games specifically, like "X3 - Terran Conflict".

[NRSASD]

I would be playing Witcher 3, but between shoveling snow and preparing for Curse of Strahd I literally don't have the time haha. Things are really heating up in my D&D game, as my 6 player group has split into 4 factions, all of which are emailing me between the games and plotting.

@warty goblin- Color me intrigued by Gladius! As someone who is, at best, tolerant of 40k but looking for a good war game, that sounds more interesting than I initially gave it credit for.

@deuterio12- I've been intrigued by Dominions for a while now. How complex is it, on the scale of Pong to Dwarf Fortress?

[Eldan]

I would be playing Witcher 3, but between shoveling snow and preparing for Curse of Strahd I literally don't have the time haha. Things are really heating up in my D&D game, as my 6 player group has split into 4 factions, all of which are emailing me between the games and plotting.

@warty goblin- Color me intrigued by Gladius! As someone who is, at best, tolerant of 40k but looking for a good war game, that sounds more interesting than I initially gave it credit for.

@deuterio12- I've been intrigued by Dominions for a while now. How complex is it, on the scale of Pong to Dwarf Fortress?

Depends on how far into it you get. To understand everything, I'd rate it at over DF. To just move some troops around and play against the computer, fiddly, but not so bad.

[LibraryOgre]

So, I was GONNA start playing Jade Empire, then I noticed that when I moved, all the ribbons and fluttery bits of my character moved before I did... so if I was moving left, these ribbons would be hovering to the left, about 5 feet from my character. It was too distracting. I turned it off.

I don't know what to play.

TBH, I am the prime audience for a lot of enhanced edition stuff, because I want to play old games, but I want quicksaves and autosaves and other things that make modern games more convenient to play. "Oh, you got so engrossed in the game that you forgot to save? Here's one we made at the entrance to the area, just to keep you from getting TOO frustrated."

[Resileaf]

So, I was GONNA start playing Jade Empire, then I noticed that when I moved, all the ribbons and fluttery bits of my character moved before I did... so if I was moving left, these ribbons would be hovering to the left, about 5 feet from my character. It was too distracting. I turned it off.

I don't know what to play.

TBH, I am the prime audience for a lot of enhanced edition stuff, because I want to play old games, but I want quicksaves and autosaves and other things that make modern games more convenient to play. "Oh, you got so engrossed in the game that you forgot to save? Here's one we made at the entrance to the area, just to keep you from getting TOO frustrated."

I know the feel of wanting enhanced edition stuff. Some games are simply too old, and the controls too arcane, for me to get into. Games that were made back when mouses had a single button so everything is single click are weird to me.

Also if you are like me and don't know what to play because you have too many games, my way of going through my backlog is to make a numbered list of all the games I have, and roll randomly for each one I play after the previous one.

I don't know if that would help you, but it was useful to me.

[DeadMech]

Yes well making your own goals is sorta the point of sandboxes.

Fired up my old save of the game. And... immediately I confirm the reasons I'd been hesitating to do so. I have forgotten everything. Not just the controls but also just... the plot... I have no idea what I was doing before. But the early game is too grindy for me just start a new file from scratch. It's gonna take me awhile just to figure out what I should do right now.

I've got a self sufficient spaceweed complex set up in Ministry of Finance over in the southwest of the universe. I seems to be my first and only station complex... I think it started as an energycell production chain and I tacked on the rest afterwards.

I have vague memories of flying around allot in the nearby Yaki pirate sectors a bit north west of here. Either trying to butter up the Yaki pirate's or force one to bail out of one of their advanced chokaro TM's. Which a look at my property tab says I haven't yet succeeded at... That might requite explaining... A TM class ship is a military transport. You can dock fighters in them. In this one's case it's special because it's both the fastest of it's class and holds the most fighters. 6 compared to the standard 4. By the time you get one of these though you're probably flying bigger and better things so it's more a novelty piece. But more standard TM's make good utility ships. Enough storage that you can haul things along with bringing along a selection of different fighters for various combat and scouting purposes.

There are a pair of TL's I own floating nearby. These are your super size haulers. They tend to be too slow to use for money making, no they exist because they are the only things large enough to haul the kits you need to set up space stations. One is the Argon Mammoth and the other the Split Elephant. The Elephant is the cheapest of it's class, smallest cargo hold, fastest, biggest hanger, fairly respectable armament. Which makes it a nice step up for mobile player homebase for the section of the game when you can get ahold of it.

A pair of TP's. They are personnel transports. You can run passenger missions in them but they tend to be a bit too specialized lacking cargo capacity to do other things well. You could use them to carry marines for boarding but early in you probably don't have the reputation to spare trying. Haven't tried it yet. I think getting marines trained up so that they are effective was a bit of a pain in this game as well but I can't confirm.

I've got 9 various TS's most of them mining rock in Ore Belt with one of them collecting it from the miners to shuttle off to the mammoth from earlier. I guess I've got it currectly sitting and waiting to fill up before selling in bulk. I've long since forgotten how this particular set up works so I'll have to look up a tutorial on it. TS's are your more standard transport ships. They come in a variety of sizes and cargo capacities and mostly are used for moving things. The backbone of your economy, especially when you can automate them though that's a bit of a task especially in the early game when you might not have the half million for the trading software to run them.

Actually there is a 10th variety of TS I have. 2 of them for some reason when I only have 1 each of all the others. Not sure why. This variety isn't that special. They are unequipped and slightly damaged and according to the logs relatively recently acquired. Did I find them floating somewhere? Were they bails? Those buy ship offers where you can buy used ships and repair them up manually to make a profit reselling them? I have no idea... But here they are parked at a station beside my Xperimental Shuttle... On the exact opposite side of the universe from the rest of my assets. Why am I over here again? Maybe I was mapping sectors or something... The shuttle is neat. A M3 class... a heavy fighter and this one is specifically a unique ship you get from plot mission. It's not quite the fastest in class and it's not quite the tankiest either but all around it pretty good.

I don't have a M1 carrier or M2 destroyer yet. Probably rep locked. Nor do I have a M6 corvette yet or a M8 Bomber. I'm told at one point in the series the M classification system made sense. But X3 broke it by adding everything in between the heavy fighter and the destroyers. I've got a M7 class Panther. It's a oddball ship. M7's are supposed to be frigates. This one lacks the direct forward firepower though is well covered in turrets. What really makes it special though is the 32 fighters it can carry in it's hanger when the next most spacious hanger in this class only holds 9. Some full sized carriers in the game have less hanger space. Right now it's my garage for all my extra fighters but I had some fun flying it around as my player ship previously for more dangerous combat missions. Mostly you just fly it through swarms of fighters and let the automated turrets rip things apart at their leisure. Though for direct combat unless you are willing to throw away money on blown up fighters there are probably better things to fly. I probably just wanted it for parking my collection.

6 Varieties of M5 scout fighters. If you're really good supposedly you can dogfight in these. But I'm not that good. Paper thin shields and hulls. Limited armament. But fast enough to usually run away from anything hostile. Great for mapping sectors. 9 varieties of M4 fighters. Midsized, these aren't fast enough to run from everything and not sturdy enough to stand up to allot of punishment either. 10 Varieties of M3 heavy fighters. Sturdy and well armed but annoyingly slow if you are chasing down enemy fighters. Sounds like allot of fighters all in all but really I'm just scratching the surface at this point when it comes to my goal of own one of everything. Haven't even gotten started on some of the plotlines either. Like the Hub or personal headquarters. Seem to have a heavy bankroll at least. Almost 100mil to spend once I figure out... you know... how to play again.

[factotum]

I'm told at one point in the series the M classification system made sense. But X3 broke it by adding everything in between the heavy fighter and the destroyers.

Actually, X2 broke it first by adding the M6 class as being something more powerful than an M3 without being a full-on M2 or M1. X3 then added M7s and M8s to really confuse things, especially since an M7M is something entirely different to a regular M7, and you get M3+ and M6+ ships as well...

TBH, though, I would be tempted to start again, mainly because I think the beginning couple of hundred hours as you build your empire is the best part of any X game. Once you have lots of money, ships and factories it gets a bit dull.

[halfeye]

Games that were made back when mouses had a single button so everything is single click are weird to me.

When was that? I started using a mouse on the Atari ST in 1990, and the Atari mouse had two buttons; I'm fairly sure the Amiga mouse did too.

[Resileaf]

When was that? I started using a mouse on the Atari ST in 1990, and the Atari mouse had two buttons; I'm fairly sure the Amiga mouse did too.

Well if single mouse click isn't the reason that the early Total Wars only use the left mouse button to give orders, then I don't know what other reason there might be.

[halfeye]

Well if single mouse click isn't the reason that the early Total Wars only use the left mouse button to give orders, then I don't know what other reason there might be.

The only mouse I remember that only had one button was on the Mac, maybe it had a big enough share of the games market back then to make it worthwhile?

[Driderman]

When was that? I started using a mouse on the Atari ST in 1990, and the Atari mouse had two buttons; I'm fairly sure the Amiga mouse did too.

Amiga mouse definitely had two buttons

[Resileaf]

The only mouse I remember that only had one button was on the Mac, maybe it had a big enough share of the games market back then to make it worthwhile?

I couldn't even begin to hazard a guess.
In any case, old games with arcane controls are legion. The first X game is also guilty of this. I can't make heads or tails of the controls. I think it uses more keys than I have on my keyboard.
Would be so much easier if it used the mouse, but it looks like games in those days only used keyboard controls.

[deuterio12]

@deuterio12- I've been intrigued by Dominions for a while now. How complex is it, on the scale of Pong to Dwarf Fortress?

If pong is 1 and Dwarf Fortress is 10, I would say between 5 and 9 depending on which nation you play since there's a lot of them and it varies quite a bit. Administration in particular is quite simple (you can only build 3 building in each province, fort, lab and temple and only the fort can be upgraded for bigger numbers). The biggest complexity is easily on the magic system with hundreds of spells spread accross 9 schools, but in your average game you'll very rarely hit 9 in any school before winning (or losing) unless you have fast research match settings or just hold back, while if you're playing a low magic nation you can get away with only caring about a few spells since your mages won't be able to do much anyway.

[Eldan]

The problem with the magic system isn't just the spells. It's also things like linking mages together, blood sacrifices, gems, horror marks... the magic system is pretty damn complex.

[deuterio12]

The problem with the magic system isn't just the spells. It's also things like linking mages together, blood sacrifices, gems, horror marks... the magic system is pretty damn complex.

Linking mages together are spells. Blood spells are still spells. Horror marks come from spells.

But again, several nations lack the mages to do any of those and so can afford to just don't care and go around throwing fireballs or raising basic skeletons or raining lighting or something else relatively simple.

[Knaight]

Linking mages together are spells. Blood spells are still spells. Horror marks come from spells.

But again, several nations lack the mages to do any of those and so can afford to just don't care and go around throwing fireballs or raising basic skeletons or raining lighting or something else relatively simple.

Horror marks partially come from spells. Even if we count items as spells (and I wouldn't) there's also random events which drop horrors on which leave horror marks, along with a couple of sites.

[danzibr]

Just beat The Way. What a game.

Back to The Witcher.

[Cozzer]

Just beat The Way. What a game.

Wow, that's a name that sends me back. I played the first four episodes shortly after the fourth was released, then joined the community in the wait for the last two... Still my favorite non-professional game, probably.

[deuterio12]

Horror marks partially come from spells. Even if we count items as spells (and I wouldn't) there's also random events which drop horrors on which leave horror marks, along with a couple of sites.

That's basically nitpicking since random events and random sites are, well, not only random but horror mark ones are pretty rare in specific, so even if you run into one (not very likely in a full game unless you're spamming or being spammed by horror-mark spells), chances are that you can just shrugg off and keep going. Maybe you lose one unit twenty turns later, maybe that one horror mark just stays there and never does anything until the game ends. You can't really do much about an horror mark anyway so the right play is just worry about more pressing threats, aka basically everything else.

[Knaight]

That's basically nitpicking since random events and random sites are, well, not only random but horror mark ones are pretty rare in specific, so even if you run into one (not very likely in a full game unless you're spamming or being spammed by horror-mark spells), chances are that you can just shrugg off and keep going. Maybe you lose one unit twenty turns later, maybe that one horror mark just stays there and never does anything until the game ends. You can't really do much about an horror mark anyway so the right play is just worry about more pressing threats, aka basically everything else.

It's nitpicking, yes. Horror marks in general are something you can mostly ignore if you're not playing an astral nation. Don't do stupid things like sticking lightless lanterns on your pretender and you're basically good. At higher levels of play it's a counter strategy you'll want to be aware of, but learning the game when beating on AIs doesn't require that.

[danzibr]

Wow, that's a name that sends me back. I played the first four episodes shortly after the fourth was released, then joined the community in the wait for the last two... Still my favorite non-professional game, probably.

Yay, someone who played it! So you got to

Spoiler

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The temple but couldn’t go inside? Or got to the wall of the city?

Also which ending did you choose first?

It reminded me a lot of Out Of This World, one of my favorite games from when I was a kid.

[Cozzer]

@danzibr:

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I got the good-aligned normal ending (where Traziun sacrifices his life to destroy the Shadow Sword and Rhue goes on with his life, refusing to take up the other Shadow Sword). It took quite a while of playing around in the RPGMaker editor for me to realize just how many optional things and routes there were in the final episode, especially considering all the others were almost completely linear. It's really a memorable game, even if the last episode is a bit... Evangelion-ish in how it completely stops caring about the setting and real-world plotlines and just focuses on the inner struggles of the main character.

[danzibr]

@danzibr:

Spoiler

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I got the good-aligned normal ending (where Traziun sacrifices his life to destroy the Shadow Sword and Rhue goes on with his life, refusing to take up the other Shadow Sword). It took quite a while of playing around in the RPGMaker editor for me to realize just how many optional things and routes there were in the final episode, especially considering all the others were almost completely linear. It's really a memorable game, even if the last episode is a bit... Evangelion-ish in how it completely stops caring about the setting and real-world plotlines and just focuses on the inner struggles of the main character.

Ha, we’re talking about completely different games! The one I’m talking about, you play as a dude named Tom.

However, I have played the one you’re talking about. I didn’t get very far though, got a new laptop and didn’t transfer it over. I do want to play it though, probably start over today.

[Cozzer]

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Do play the game, if you like RPGMaker-style games! I think it's one of the best ones out there. I'm sorry for spoilering the ending, though...

[danzibr]

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Do play the game, if you like RPGMaker-style games! I think it's one of the best ones out there. I'm sorry for spoilering the ending, though...

Haha, no worries! I didn’t read the contents of the spoiler. And I did indeed restart, finished part 1 a few minutes ago.

[Jama7301]

I let a friend talk me into playing and streaming Dark Souls.

After 6 hours or so, I am unsure how I feel about the game so far. It's... alright? I've definitely played worse. Something just isn't clicking though, but I can't put my finger on it.

[Wookieetank]

I let a friend talk me into playing and streaming Dark Souls.

After 6 hours or so, I am unsure how I feel about the game so far. It's... alright? I've definitely played worse. Something just isn't clicking though, but I can't put my finger on it.

It can be a bit of a slog to get into. I didn't really feel like the game started taking off and getting interesting until after I was able to ring the first bell, and that was quite an ordeal to pull off the first time. Once you get past that the game starts opening up a fair bit and a lot more interesting.

[Resileaf]

It can be a bit of a slog to get into. I didn't really feel like the game started taking off and getting interesting until after I was able to ring the first bell, and that was quite an ordeal to pull off the first time. Once you get past that the game starts opening up a fair bit and a lot more interesting.

On my side, I didn't feel like the game was taking off and getting interesting until I started a new game with a different build now that I knew what I was doing.
After wiping for days against Quelaag because of fat-rolling, I abandonned the game for a few months before coming back with a fresh character.

[Wookieetank]

On my side, I didn't feel like the game was taking off and getting interesting until I started a new game with a different build now that I knew what I was doing.
After wiping for days against Quelaag because of fat-rolling, I abandonned the game for a few months before coming back with a fresh character.

I also picked up pyromancy not too long after bell ringing round one, and the game is much more entertaining when things are on fire. Never did get around to the other magics myself, but I'd seen a couple of friends put them to good use.