My Little Pony LVI:S Has Left the Playground!

[DigoDragon]

Empress Trixie’s “Missilegasm vs. Beamspam” debate on GalCiv2:

Spoiler

Dear Princes Luna,

The Unicorn Empire enters its… 15th year? Trixie is going to be honest with you, the date is a blur due to the quick pace and management demands these wars have been moving at. The various nations have begun to vary their weapon and defense choices, forcing the Unicorns to do the same. It used to be that everyone simply used Gauss/Railgun weapons, but now they have been all but abandoned in favor of Missile and Beam weapons.
I did notice a trend in which empires pick what to load their battleships with:

“Good” aligned empires will favor Missile technology, employing large and slow battleships that tank on the front lines.
“Evil” aligned epires will favor Beam weapons, employing smaller, but faster ships that strike and run between the front lines.

There are no Neutral aligned empires remaining.


The Unicorns have found favor with the former choice, although we sacrifice some power for mobility because speed is crucial when you need to intercept an enemy fleet. The only exceptions are the two oldest Battleships in the fleet—The Discord & Nightmare Moon, both still using older Gauss/Railgun weapons, but who are so experience in combat that they receive huge bonuses to offset their lack of modern weapons.

Also, planet Twilight completed construction of a bet I accepted by one of my advisors. They didn’t think I could design anything to go faster than our current constructor ships, which max out at 8 parsecs a week, while being cheaper than a frigate. By comparison, our fastest military frigate is the Mark II Zecora at 6 parsecs/week. So, I now present the Scootaloo—with an unbelievable 21 parsec/week speed.
I believe somepony now owes me 5 bits.


In the most recent weeks, the Unicorns saw three empires fall—
The Space Elves: Their citizens were so enamored by the Unicorn culture that their entire empire assimilated itself into our own. Conquest without bloodshed!
Eddie Izzard: Destroyed utterly by the mercantile empire of the Daehmons. That’s right, there’s an evil military force that’s basically Wal-Mart with battleships. Be afraid.
GlaDOS: surrendered to the “lawful-good” Ryuujin empire after having their homeworld and the nearest 3 colonies to that destroyed by bombardment. Insert your own cake joke here.

This leaves the Unicorn Empire with only 5 opponents: Ryuujin, Magic Girls, Daehmons, the Jagged Knife and Tenners. The former two are good-aligned, the latter three evil. The Unicorns lean good, but do not affiliate themselves with any alliances. It wouldn’t matter to try anyway. The other races know better than to play leapfrog with a Unicorn.

Your Great & Powerful Student,
Trixie Lulamoon

[Balmas]

Other Star Trek ponies by the same artist.

On the usefulness of Red Shirts

Spoiler

My personal favorite

Spoiler

I have to admit that my mind broke just a little bit when I saw a stamp on the sidebar that marked him as a FlutterCord fan. I just looked at it and said, "Wat."

Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander

While browsing youtube for something to listen to while do a bit of painting, and starting from the CMC orchestral theme used in that Civ V mod, I happened across this amazing version of the main theme. Unlike a lot of orchestral versions, this guy's stuff is fast as well as sweeping, and feels like it really could be the intro music to The Movie (this on in particular feels just like it sound be playing over the establishing credit montage, as the Mane cast (and supporting characters) go about their daily business (there's bits that sound they are for Pinkie, Fluttershy etc.)

This guy is incredible. He's done loads of these including Doctor Who, Ghostbusters, Final Fantasy... Pokemon (oh Lichemaster, Pokemon) Power Rangers... I'm still looking actually. It's just... unbelievable stuff.

Captain Planet does not deserve to be this awesome!

He's also done Discord by Eurobeat Brony, "Living on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi, among others.

Originally Posted by DigoDragon

Empress Trixie’s “Missilegasm vs. Beamspam” debate on GalCiv2:

Spoiler

Dear Princes Luna,

The Unicorn Empire enters its… 15th year? Trixie is going to be honest with you, the date is a blur due to the quick pace and management demands these wars have been moving at. The various nations have begun to vary their weapon and defense choices, forcing the Unicorns to do the same. It used to be that everyone simply used Gauss/Railgun weapons, but now they have been all but abandoned in favor of Missile and Beam weapons.
I did notice a trend in which empires pick what to load their battleships with:

“Good” aligned empires will favor Missile technology, employing large and slow battleships that tank on the front lines.
“Evil” aligned epires will favor Beam weapons, employing smaller, but faster ships that strike and run between the front lines.

There are no Neutral aligned empires remaining.


The Unicorns have found favor with the former choice, although we sacrifice some power for mobility because speed is crucial when you need to intercept an enemy fleet. The only exceptions are the two oldest Battleships in the fleet—The Discord & Nightmare Moon, both still using older Gauss/Railgun weapons, but who are so experience in combat that they receive huge bonuses to offset their lack of modern weapons.

Also, planet Twilight completed construction of a bet I accepted by one of my advisors. They didn’t think I could design anything to go faster than our current constructor ships, which max out at 8 parsecs a week, while being cheaper than a frigate. By comparison, our fastest military frigate is the Mark II Zecora at 6 parsecs/week. So, I now present the Scootaloo—with an unbelievable 21 parsec/week speed.
I believe somepony now owes me 5 bits.


In the most recent weeks, the Unicorns saw three empires fall—
The Space Elves: Their citizens were so enamored by the Unicorn culture that their entire empire assimilated itself into our own. Conquest without bloodshed!
Eddie Izzard: Destroyed utterly by the mercantile empire of the Daehmons. That’s right, there’s an evil military force that’s basically Wal-Mart with battleships. Be afraid.
GlaDOS: surrendered to the “lawful-good” Ryuujin empire after having their homeworld and the nearest 3 colonies to that destroyed by bombardment. Insert your own cake joke here.

This leaves the Unicorn Empire with only 5 opponents: Ryuujin, Magic Girls, Daehmons, the Jagged Knife and Tenners. The former two are good-aligned, the latter three evil. The Unicorns lean good, but do not affiliate themselves with any alliances. It wouldn’t matter to try anyway. The other races know better than to play leapfrog with a Unicorn.

Your Great & Powerful Student,
Trixie Lulamoon

"The other races know better than to play Leapfrog with a unicorn."

That's going in my mental folder of awesome/funny quotes.

[Forum Explorer]

Originally Posted by DigoDragon

Empress Trixie’s “Missilegasm vs. Beamspam” debate on GalCiv2:

Spoiler

Dear Princes Luna,

The Unicorn Empire enters its… 15th year? Trixie is going to be honest with you, the date is a blur due to the quick pace and management demands these wars have been moving at. The various nations have begun to vary their weapon and defense choices, forcing the Unicorns to do the same. It used to be that everyone simply used Gauss/Railgun weapons, but now they have been all but abandoned in favor of Missile and Beam weapons.
I did notice a trend in which empires pick what to load their battleships with:

“Good” aligned empires will favor Missile technology, employing large and slow battleships that tank on the front lines.
“Evil” aligned epires will favor Beam weapons, employing smaller, but faster ships that strike and run between the front lines.

There are no Neutral aligned empires remaining.


The Unicorns have found favor with the former choice, although we sacrifice some power for mobility because speed is crucial when you need to intercept an enemy fleet. The only exceptions are the two oldest Battleships in the fleet—The Discord & Nightmare Moon, both still using older Gauss/Railgun weapons, but who are so experience in combat that they receive huge bonuses to offset their lack of modern weapons.

Also, planet Twilight completed construction of a bet I accepted by one of my advisors. They didn’t think I could design anything to go faster than our current constructor ships, which max out at 8 parsecs a week, while being cheaper than a frigate. By comparison, our fastest military frigate is the Mark II Zecora at 6 parsecs/week. So, I now present the Scootaloo—with an unbelievable 21 parsec/week speed.
I believe somepony now owes me 5 bits.


In the most recent weeks, the Unicorns saw three empires fall—
The Space Elves: Their citizens were so enamored by the Unicorn culture that their entire empire assimilated itself into our own. Conquest without bloodshed!
Eddie Izzard: Destroyed utterly by the mercantile empire of the Daehmons. That’s right, there’s an evil military force that’s basically Wal-Mart with battleships. Be afraid.
GlaDOS: surrendered to the “lawful-good” Ryuujin empire after having their homeworld and the nearest 3 colonies to that destroyed by bombardment. Insert your own cake joke here.

This leaves the Unicorn Empire with only 5 opponents: Ryuujin, Magic Girls, Daehmons, the Jagged Knife and Tenners. The former two are good-aligned, the latter three evil. The Unicorns lean good, but do not affiliate themselves with any alliances. It wouldn’t matter to try anyway. The other races know better than to play leapfrog with a Unicorn.

Your Great & Powerful Student,
Trixie Lulamoon

"The other races know better than to play leapfrog with a Unicorn" is the best thing ever. This is why Trixie should be in charge of everything.

Is the Scootaloo a warship?

[Dirtytabs]

Originally Posted by SiuiS

Seriously, over two kilometers. Three shots, two kills and one put of commission gun emplacement. That shot was from far enough away that it had to take into account the curvature of the earth. That's awesome.

Wow, that is... wow. And I thought two kilometers was a safe distance.

A'ight, let's try it.

You're on.

After Wednesday.

Originally Posted by DigoDragon

Empress Trixie’s “Missilegasm vs. Beamspam” debate on GalCiv2:

Spoiler

Dear Princes Luna,

The Unicorn Empire enters its… 15th year? Trixie is going to be honest with you, the date is a blur due to the quick pace and management demands these wars have been moving at. The various nations have begun to vary their weapon and defense choices, forcing the Unicorns to do the same. It used to be that everyone simply used Gauss/Railgun weapons, but now they have been all but abandoned in favor of Missile and Beam weapons.
I did notice a trend in which empires pick what to load their battleships with:

“Good” aligned empires will favor Missile technology, employing large and slow battleships that tank on the front lines.
“Evil” aligned epires will favor Beam weapons, employing smaller, but faster ships that strike and run between the front lines.

There are no Neutral aligned empires remaining.


The Unicorns have found favor with the former choice, although we sacrifice some power for mobility because speed is crucial when you need to intercept an enemy fleet. The only exceptions are the two oldest Battleships in the fleet—The Discord & Nightmare Moon, both still using older Gauss/Railgun weapons, but who are so experience in combat that they receive huge bonuses to offset their lack of modern weapons.

Also, planet Twilight completed construction of a bet I accepted by one of my advisors. They didn’t think I could design anything to go faster than our current constructor ships, which max out at 8 parsecs a week, while being cheaper than a frigate. By comparison, our fastest military frigate is the Mark II Zecora at 6 parsecs/week. So, I now present the Scootaloo—with an unbelievable 21 parsec/week speed.
I believe somepony now owes me 5 bits.


In the most recent weeks, the Unicorns saw three empires fall—
The Space Elves: Their citizens were so enamored by the Unicorn culture that their entire empire assimilated itself into our own. Conquest without bloodshed!
Eddie Izzard: Destroyed utterly by the mercantile empire of the Daehmons. That’s right, there’s an evil military force that’s basically Wal-Mart with battleships. Be afraid.
GlaDOS: surrendered to the “lawful-good” Ryuujin empire after having their homeworld and the nearest 3 colonies to that destroyed by bombardment. Insert your own cake joke here.

This leaves the Unicorn Empire with only 5 opponents: Ryuujin, Magic Girls, Daehmons, the Jagged Knife and Tenners. The former two are good-aligned, the latter three evil. The Unicorns lean good, but do not affiliate themselves with any alliances. It wouldn’t matter to try anyway. The other races know better than to play leapfrog with a Unicorn.

Your Great & Powerful Student,
Trixie Lulamoon

You bet a little more than the cost of a bucket of apples? Were you not confident you could design a faster ship?

[DigoDragon]

Originally Posted by Balmas

I have to admit that my mind broke just a little bit when I saw a stamp on the sidebar that marked him as a FlutterCord fan. I just looked at it and said, "Wat."

FlutterWHAT now? o_o

Spoiler

Huh, they have a DA account and everything. I didn't know this was a thing, but... here we are.

Originally Posted by Forum Explorer

Is the Scootaloo a warship?

More like an underpowered frigate. Having four warp engines didn't leave much room for anything else. It can fight, but only against small fighters and troop transports.

Originally Posted by Dirtytabs

You bet a little more than the cost of a bucket of apples? Were you not confident you could design a faster ship?

No, I was just really jonsing for a bucket of apples.

[Eakin]

Originally Posted by DigoDragon

While the gif is indeed awesome, I took a gander at the Tumblr link. Did... did they just off big Mac? O_o

I'm sure it's merely a flesh wound. That stallion's built like a tank.

Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander

While browsing youtube for something to listen to while do a bit of painting, and starting from the CMC orchestral theme used in that Civ V mod, I happened across this amazing version of the main theme. Unlike a lot of orchestral versions, this guy's stuff is fast as well as sweeping, and feels like it really could be the intro music to The Movie (this on in particular feels just like it sound be playing over the establishing credit montage, as the Mane cast (and supporting characters) go about their daily business (there's bits that sound they are for Pinkie, Fluttershy etc.)

This guy is incredible. He's done loads of these including Doctor Who, Ghostbusters, Final Fantasy... Pokemon (oh Lichemaster, Pokemon) Power Rangers... I'm still looking actually. It's just... unbelievable stuff.

Captain Planet does not deserve to be this awesome!

Yeah, that guy's awesome. I'd also check out Music by Octavia which is all pony music but every video is in a completely different style. From This Day Aria for the organ to The Perfect Stallion on kazoos

Originally Posted by Forum Explorer

"The other races know better than to play leapfrog with a Unicorn" is the best thing ever. This is why Trixie should be in charge of everything.

Seconded/Thirded/Fourthed/Whatevered

[Aotrs Commander]

Sympathic Sombra count = 3

Okay, it's stretching a bit, but I'm actually surprised how little I've seen, with only six days to go...!

[Grif]

My story was rejected from EQD.

Good news is, it's mainly for proofreading errors, so fixing them would be enough to get it posted. Crossed fingers this time.

[Gadora]

Originally Posted by Grif

My story was rejected from EQD.

Good news is, it's mainly for proofreading errors, so fixing them would be enough to get it posted. Crossed fingers this time.

Good luck! It deserves it.


And for thread title, I'd like to offer My Little Pony LVII: Next Level of Studies, or is that too long?

[Deadly]

Been too long since I drew Twixie, hasn't it? Well, can't have that

Spoiler

[HalfTangible]

So apparently this thread's number ends in 4 zeroes.

... Why is that interesting?

Edit: okay, it's actually this post http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post14250000

[Trixie]

Originally Posted by DigoDragon

Huh, they have a DA account and everything. I didn't know this was a thing, but... here we are.

I was initially O_o at first, but then, I thought they were so far not annoying with pushing their ship on anybody. So, I am totally fine with the idea, for now.

Even though I don't like Discord much.

***

And now for something different, apparently, Twilight cares.

Spoiler

Maybe.

[the_druid_droid]

Originally Posted by HamHam

Unless Apple Acres just has like a dozen different groves all with varieties that bear fruit at different times of year, the number of episodes we have seen with the trees having apples on them and then being harvested would imply the show spans decades.

At the same time, most of the episodes seem to indicate a spring or summer climate, so maybe the episodes just aren't distributed uniformly throughout the seasons.

Originally Posted by DigoDragon

While the gif is indeed awesome, I took a gander at the Tumblr link. Did... did they just off big Mac? O_o

In context, I think that's part of a pseudo dream sequence. Ponies have been taking pretty serious wounds left and right, but unless the blog ends in a post or two, I expect we'll see them pull through.

Maybe you should locate a good Anime-style artist and commision them to do it? Personally anything doing with the CMC already makes me think "hilariously over-the-top" now.

Nah, my goal is to become better at art and eventually realize it.

If only I could draw a summoning circle that didn't look like crud...

Originally Posted by Dirtytabs

Wow, that is... wow. And I thought two kilometers was a safe distance.

99.999% of the time, yes.

Originally Posted by Gadora

Good luck! It deserves it.


And for thread title, I'd like to offer My Little Pony LVII: Next Level of Studies, or is that too long?

A wild Gadora! *Wave-glomps*

Originally Posted by Deadly

Been too long since I drew Twixie, hasn't it? Well, can't have that

Spoiler

Ooh! And a Deadly Twixie pic. This is feeling like old times again.

[DigoDragon]

Amusing D&D moment--
The PCs are trying to gather allies to lay siege against an elven army. One of the possible leads they got was to investigate the rumors of some dragons living up north in the mountains. The PCs start in about how cool it would be to have huge elder dragons working for them.

I mentioned that the rumors of dragons didn't include type, age, or gender. So for all they know, it could just turn out to be three young chromatic dragons looking for some adventure to take the bordom off their minds until they're old enough to develop their own lairs and hoards of treasure.

Everyone paused at the table, thinking...

Suddenly it hit me: "CUTIE MARK CRUSADER DRAGON ADVENTURING PARTY GO!!"
-and then my players vowed to kill me if I dare introduce a dragon version of the CMC into the campaign because they do not want that kind of 'help' fighting the army. Maybe it's for the best, I think the little dragons would end up stealing the show with that.

Originally Posted by Eakin

I'm sure it's merely a flesh wound. That stallion's built like a tank.

Oh great. Now I have to keep reading the comic to find out if he does!

Originally Posted by Deadly

Been too long since I drew Twixie, hasn't it? Well, can't have that

Spoiler

Perpetual hot tub.

Originally Posted by Trixie

And now for something different, apparently, Twilight cares.

Spoiler

Maybe.

Orange you glad she didn't turn them to apples?

[Balmas]

Originally Posted by DigoDragon

Amusing D&D moment--
The PCs are trying to gather allies to lay siege against an elven army. One of the possible leads they got was to investigate the rumors of some dragons living up north in the mountains. The PCs start in about how cool it would be to have huge elder dragons working for them.

I mentioned that the rumors of dragons didn't include type, age, or gender. So for all they know, it could just turn out to be three young chromatic dragons looking for some adventure to take the bordom off their minds until they're old enough to develop their own lairs and hoards of treasure.

Everyone paused at the table, thinking...

Suddenly it hit me: "CUTIE MARK CRUSADER DRAGON ADVENTURING PARTY GO!!"
-and then my players vowed to kill me if I dare introduce a dragon version of the CMC into the campaign because they do not want that kind of 'help' fighting the army. Maybe it's for the best, I think the little dragons would end up stealing the show with that.

This speaks a lot about both your campaign and your players that they both know and dread the CMCs. Tell me, have you introduced any other pony-ish NPCs?

[Diego Havoc]

Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander

If they're not gonna give you a proper manual anymore, they need to do a far better job with their in-game documentation.

There's actually a full manual for the game in PDF format. Go into your Steam library, right click on Civ5 and choose "view player manual".

It kinda is. (And why I didn't buy it at release.) Vanilla Beyond the Sword (2nd expansion) Civ IV had 92 techs, expansions Civ V as 80. IV is sort of like the 3.x to V's 4E (but not quite that drastic).

Incidently, I recommend instead of a pony mod (as the only one out there isn't as completed even as the Civ V one, so you're not missing much, and the leaders wrok differently, so they don't have completely unique traits as standard), you play the NextWar BTS mod as a normal game (as that basically adds the sci-fi units to the end of the regular tech tree) - if you can find a pony mod FOR NextWar (and you probably can!) even better. (Though non-official mods for Civ IV have to be installed manually, rather than in-game, which is something Civ V is done better.

Ahh. Noted. I'll see if i can't find any decent NextWar pony mods then.

And he was British Army. Make yer proud to be British, don't it, British ponies? Don't mess with us, or you literally won't see it coming...!

Hear hear!

Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander

Captain Planet does not deserve to be this awesome!

Magnificent. I'm particularily fond of the Guile's Theme vs. Beethoven one.


And this post needs pony, so here's an episode 3 spoiler:

Spoiler

[Trixie]

Is just wanted to mention ED has it right, today IS important day

[Kd7sov]

Uhrrv. You guys, I'm sure this is all somehow your fault.

I'm supposed to write a paper on Macbeth. During my brainstorming stuff, I managed to construct an utterly implausible metaphor thing casting the title character as Discord and Macduff as the Elements of Harmony.

So now the question is, how do I get rid of that idea? I don't want to write a fic of it, I don't want it cluttering up my brainspace, and I don't want it getting into my paper.

[BlasTech]

Commit the idea to paper in a picture or comic of such horrible quality that you will never again wish to associate that play with MLP.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander

This guy is incredible. He's done loads of these including Doctor Who, Ghostbusters, Final Fantasy... Pokemon (oh Lichemaster, Pokemon) Power Rangers... I'm still looking actually. It's just... unbelievable stuff.

Captain Planet does not deserve to be this awesome!

Fantastic! I cannot believe what he's done with Daft Punk.

Originally Posted by Kd7sov

Uhrrv. You guys, I'm sure this is all somehow your fault.

I'm supposed to write a paper on Macbeth. During my brainstorming stuff, I managed to construct an utterly implausible metaphor thing casting the title character as Discord and Macduff as the Elements of Harmony.

So now the question is, how do I get rid of that idea? I don't want to write a fic of it, I don't want it cluttering up my brainspace, and I don't want it getting into my paper.

Post it here. Misery shared is misery halved, right? Also since this is our fault we should totally be the ones shouldering the weight of this awes- err, terrible knowledge. Yes.

[Dirtytabs]

Originally Posted by Deadly

Been too long since I drew Twixie, hasn't it? Well, can't have that

Spoiler

I can't help but think somepony passed gas and is now looking embarrassed about it.

Originally Posted by Kd7sov

Uhrrv. You guys, I'm sure this is all somehow your fault.

I'm supposed to write a paper on Macbeth. During my brainstorming stuff, I managed to construct an utterly implausible metaphor thing casting the title character as Discord and Macduff as the Elements of Harmony.

So now the question is, how do I get rid of that idea? I don't want to write a fic of it, I don't want it cluttering up my brainspace, and I don't want it getting into my paper.

Tell us about it, maybe even draw a picture, to get it out of your head. 'Cause successfully sharing an earworm with someone usually "gives" the song to them, so the metaphor thing might work the same way.

[Anarion]

Originally Posted by Kd7sov

Uhrrv. You guys, I'm sure this is all somehow your fault.

I'm supposed to write a paper on Macbeth. During my brainstorming stuff, I managed to construct an utterly implausible metaphor thing casting the title character as Discord and Macduff as the Elements of Harmony.

So now the question is, how do I get rid of that idea? I don't want to write a fic of it, I don't want it cluttering up my brainspace, and I don't want it getting into my paper.

As has been said, writing it out will get it out of your brain, and will probably make a good study break anyway.

Besides, I totally don't see it at all, so you're going to need to explain it. I mean, Macduff barely features in the play at all, he's just the guy that ends up as MacBeth's bane at the end. Macduff is also essentially alone. He leads an army but he's not equated with any other named characters. He's acting out of revenge against MacBeth as well, which is far from any emotion that I would call harmony. And finally, MacBeth himself is a tragic figure, ambitious but hesitant, who commits and falls further and further into madness and despair. He takes no pleasure from his actions and ultimately seeks ordered rule for himself. He doesn't seem like Discord at all.

The only connection I can see anywhere is Discord's use of the apple piles as an obvious analogue of the three fates/three witches that appear in MacBeth, but that would make Applejack the MacBeth character, which actually fits much better.

[Diego Havoc]

WARNING: HAZARDOUS LEVELS OF CUTENESS DETECTED!

Spoiler

[DigoDragon]

Trixie's Secret Revealed?

Spoiler

Originally Posted by Balmas

This speaks a lot about both your campaign and your players that they both know and dread the CMCs. Tell me, have you introduced any other pony-ish NPCs?

Oh yeah, several! They've had several encounters with "intelligent ponies"--
A Unicorn named Unique with a dragon assistant named Thorn was stealing gems from local cities. There was a battle where the Drow unleashed a barbarian pegasus with blue feathers and a really insane speed score. Then there was the summoner purple unicorn that fought the PCs as a chance encounter at Castle Ravenloft.
Currently there's a reoccuring green pegasus artificer that keeps annoying the PCs on occasion with her oddball inventions.

So yeah, we fought ponies.

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

WARNING: HAZARDOUS LEVELS OF CUTENESS DETECTED!

Spoiler

Time to fill the swimming pool with insulin. Again.

[Aotrs Commander]

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

There's actually a full manual for the game in PDF format. Go into your Steam library, right click on Civ5 and choose "view player manual".

Oh, I know. (The PDF is also in your Steam Civ V folder on the computer, too.)

But that wasn't what I said...

Civ V

Spoiler

Every single other version of Civ came with a big printed manual. I'm not cutting ANYONE any slack if I'm buying a hard copy of a game if you have run (and/or could install) via steam in the first place. They wanna be too cheap to print the fracking manual, then they either make people read it for instructions or make your in-game civiopedia HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION. Not half-arse it; if there's enough in the civiopedia for me to be reading an hour anyway, there's NO excuse for not having ALL the information in there, instead of most if it.

And I also have a big fracking objection to having to exit/tab out the game to find the manual (especially given how crawlingly slow Civ V is) because they wanna be tight on paper. For frack's sake, they couldn't even be arsed to list all the keyboard commands in that strip of paper they provided in the book (which was mostly just license blurb).

I have a really big objection to the trend of PDF manuals (especially now that there's digital distribution and half of my games that I buy in hardcopy require me to install via steam anyway (Supreme Commander 2, lookin' at you, you risible pile of monkey-leavings).



Before I made this post, I thought I ought to go and check in both pdf and game, just to check I wasn't being grossly unfair. I pretty much wasn't.

Nowhere does it say how to change a unit name (so if you don't notice that "edit" button on the promotion bar...) Civ IV let you rename both cities and units by double-clicking on the name (in the city screen). Why make it harder?

I'm not sure when happened with the citizen editing, but it doesn't work unless the citizen tab is open (it was closed when I started, so either the very first time I went into a city screen I inadvertently closed it, or it started that way) - doesn't say anywhere that if that tab's closed you can't do anything. (In earlier games (i.e. Civ II - IV), that was an umremoveable default function of the map. That might be my own incompetance, but I'm only about 50% sure of that.

I think part of the problem is the massively over-sized interface. Seriously.

Spoiler

Compare the two. Civ IV's much less intrusive and needlessly graphic - and there's far more information on there. (Note especially the difference between the Civ IV specialists in the bottom corner there, and the huge list in Civ V...)


That's Civ V's big problem; the interface is actually pretty crappy (I think - and I'm not rebooting the computer to boot up Civ IV to check, so forgive me if I'm wrong, that the unit command buttons (of which there were a lot more of) all had the keyboard shortcut mentioned when you moused over them - of course, Civ IV also had a manual with a full list anyway...!), emphasising big, pointless graphics, as if it assumes everyone playing it is unable to read small words or something. Perhaps they thought they were designing for mobiles and not PC monitors...

Originally Posted by SlyGuyMcFly

Fantastic! I cannot believe what he's done with Daft Punk.

He even appears to have tacked the absolute nadir of music (something I barely qualify as same), Aha's Take on Me, which is more or less singularly responsible for putting me off music from the early eighties for YEARS, and has left my musical tastes confined to what they are (i.e. principallty game/show/movie soundtracks).

I am not going to try that, however, as no-one could make that "song" good (or even tolerable). I'd rather listen to Scootaloo singing the seapony song on continuous loop for a century...

[otakuryoga]

Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander

I'd rather listen to Scootaloo singing the seapony song on continuous loop for a century...

you do realize thats going to be taken as a challenge by various ponythreaders to find/make such a thing......

kinda like saying "it can't get any worse"

[Topaz]

This is a thing! Pony books next year! A show guide!

Oh, and...

Spoiler

Under the Sparkling Sea: “Celebrated artist Mary Jane Begin introduces fans to a brand-new land in the world of My Little Pony – the underwater city of Aquastria”

♫ Shoo be doo, shoop shoop be doo ♫

[Forum Explorer]

Originally Posted by DigoDragon

Amusing D&D moment--
The PCs are trying to gather allies to lay siege against an elven army. One of the possible leads they got was to investigate the rumors of some dragons living up north in the mountains. The PCs start in about how cool it would be to have huge elder dragons working for them.

I mentioned that the rumors of dragons didn't include type, age, or gender. So for all they know, it could just turn out to be three young chromatic dragons looking for some adventure to take the bordom off their minds until they're old enough to develop their own lairs and hoards of treasure.

Everyone paused at the table, thinking...

Suddenly it hit me: "CUTIE MARK CRUSADER DRAGON ADVENTURING PARTY GO!!"
-and then my players vowed to kill me if I dare introduce a dragon version of the CMC into the campaign because they do not want that kind of 'help' fighting the army. Maybe it's for the best, I think the little dragons would end up stealing the show with that.

you should use the three dragons from dragon quest instead


Also awesome Trixie pic

Spoiler

[the_druid_droid]

Originally Posted by DigoDragon

Amusing D&D moment--
The PCs are trying to gather allies to lay siege against an elven army. One of the possible leads they got was to investigate the rumors of some dragons living up north in the mountains. The PCs start in about how cool it would be to have huge elder dragons working for them.

I mentioned that the rumors of dragons didn't include type, age, or gender. So for all they know, it could just turn out to be three young chromatic dragons looking for some adventure to take the bordom off their minds until they're old enough to develop their own lairs and hoards of treasure.

Everyone paused at the table, thinking...

Suddenly it hit me: "CUTIE MARK CRUSADER DRAGON ADVENTURING PARTY GO!!"
-and then my players vowed to kill me if I dare introduce a dragon version of the CMC into the campaign because they do not want that kind of 'help' fighting the army. Maybe it's for the best, I think the little dragons would end up stealing the show with that.

CMC dragons are clearly the best dragons. Except the potential for fire is somehow even higher now...

Originally Posted by Kd7sov

Uhrrv. You guys, I'm sure this is all somehow your fault.

I'm supposed to write a paper on Macbeth. During my brainstorming stuff, I managed to construct an utterly implausible metaphor thing casting the title character as Discord and Macduff as the Elements of Harmony.

So now the question is, how do I get rid of that idea? I don't want to write a fic of it, I don't want it cluttering up my brainspace, and I don't want it getting into my paper.

My advice: write the paper on it.

Originally Posted by DigoDragon

Oh yeah, several! They've had several encounters with "intelligent ponies"--
A Unicorn named Unique with a dragon assistant named Thorn was stealing gems from local cities. There was a battle where the Drow unleashed a barbarian pegasus with blue feathers and a really insane speed score. Then there was the summoner purple unicorn that fought the PCs as a chance encounter at Castle Ravenloft.
Currently there's a reoccuring green pegasus artificer that keeps annoying the PCs on occasion with her oddball inventions.

So yeah, we fought ponies.

...ok, clearly I'm going to need to kidnap you to replace my current DM.

Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander

I am not going to try that, however, as no-one could make that "song" good (or even tolerable). I'd rather listen to Scootaloo singing the seapony song on continuous loop for a century...

This is a terrible musical idea, but it's just so adorable...

[Anarion]

Originally Posted by otakuryoga

you do realize thats going to be taken as a challenge by various ponythreaders to find/make such a thing......

kinda like saying "it can't get any worse"

Originally Posted by Topaz

This is a thing! Pony books next year! A show guide!

Oh, and...

Spoiler

Under the Sparkling Sea: “Celebrated artist Mary Jane Begin introduces fans to a brand-new land in the world of My Little Pony – the underwater city of Aquastria”

♫ Shoo be doo, shoop shoop be doo ♫

My, what convenient timing. Somepony get Scootaloo a set of gills and let's get on this thing!


There's also an interesting article on the MLP game from Gameloft, courtesy of CNET. It's pretty negative, but I'm in agreement with them. You can't get Rainbow Dash without dropping 50 bucks, and you can't finish the game without getting Rainbow Dash. I bought the Final Fantasy War of the Lions App for less than $20 and that game is approximately 5,000,000 times better than the pony game.* It's seriously ridiculous.



*Ponified Final Fantasy Tactics would be one of the greatest things ever and there is a distinct lack of it.