The Gaming Den

Stahlseele wrote:You won't be able to build all wonders in one city anyway, because they now require specific tiles to be built on.
Pyramids for example, of course, only on desert . .
because nobody ever heard of the south american pyramids of course . .

Those are different wonders.

So, there goes my go-to strategy of turtling in a single city, capitulating to all demands, techning up and building wonders until my single city has all of the world's culture and wins the space race.

I imagine that was their intent with these changes.
But i have to ask how for example venice will deal with this, if it is not changed into being allowed more than one city.

Grey Goo definitive Version is in the humble bundle for 4$.
That alone makes it worth it, considering that the included DLC for the game costs 8$ on steam right now.

There's been a little more DoW3 gameplay footage, and it does look pretty rad - massive armies, and you can set up gunlines for firefights, or you can just throw your assault squad right on top of the enemy, scatter them from the impact, and start some close combat up. And obviously prepare for the same to happen to you.

One disappointing thing is that missiles still fire in what looks like a really stupid way to me, though I have no experience with missile launchers in real life so I may be wrong here. In DoW1, Hunter-Killer Missiles (and Exorcists and Whirlwinds) fired straight up into space, then the missiles just rained down from space. Presumably they turn and adjust their trajectory only when you can't see them any more. Well in this, when the Knight fires it's forward-pointing launcher, the rockets emerge, fly a few metres, then... hover as they realign to point upwards, and shoot off into space so they can rain down later.

Are missiles just physically incapable of moving horizontally towards enemies?

(Yes, of course I will find relatively minor things to bitch about.)

If they are intended as long range missle artillery and you are not supposed to be able to fire them at point blank targets, that is the way to handle them.
otherwise you are, oviously, correct and that is stupid missle behaviour.

The DoW1 missiles are pretty long range, though I'd still expect more in the way of a firing arc and less in the way of up-teleport-down, and the actual launchers of the models are set up in the diagonal-forward firing arc sort of way.

DoW3, the Knight is firing at pretty close range, and the fact is the models have the launchers fixed at a horizontal angle, which would imply the missiles go forwards and not up.

Koumei wrote:There's been a little more DoW3 gameplay footage, and it does look pretty rad - massive armies, and you can set up gunlines for firefights, or you can just throw your assault squad right on top of the enemy, scatter them from the impact, and start some close combat up. And obviously prepare for the same to happen to you.

One disappointing thing is that missiles still fire in what looks like a really stupid way to me, though I have no experience with missile launchers in real life so I may be wrong here. In DoW1, Hunter-Killer Missiles (and Exorcists and Whirlwinds) fired straight up into space, then the missiles just rained down from space. Presumably they turn and adjust their trajectory only when you can't see them any more. Well in this, when the Knight fires it's forward-pointing launcher, the rockets emerge, fly a few metres, then... hover as they realign to point upwards, and shoot off into space so they can rain down later.

Are missiles just physically incapable of moving horizontally towards enemies?

(Yes, of course I will find relatively minor things to bitch about.)

Top attack missiles. In real life, the reason for this behavior is that things that you'd want to shoot with missiles tend to have thiner armor on top than they do on the sides, so programming a missile to fly up and then slam down on top of its target, say a battleship or a tank, makes some sense.

I have no clue what the justification for them is in this game.

It's also a matter of obstacles. Firing horizontally is a lot more limited than firing in an arc, which allows you to ignore walls/buildings/mountains and whatnot. Needing to draw a line of sight to your victim is for suckers.

Mind you, there are also real-world missiles that are programmed to fly just over their targets, and then release a lateral blast to pierce the softer top armor.

Also it saddens me when modern RTS "massive armies" are just some forty dudes and a big robot. Well, I guess at least that's a bit better than 40K's TT starter box, unlike DoW II where they didn't even allow that.

I don't know what peoples problem was with DOW2, you could, if you chose regular dudes instead of elites, get that kind of army there too if i remember correctly.

I can't speak for the multiplayer thing, but Retribution gave you four characters, each of which could be replaced by one small squad of doodz, and then maybe you could call in or spawn a few extra things.

I've said it before elsewhere, but the old standard of 1500 points is the minimum for what I expect from the games, and 1500 points looks like:

Spaz Morans: Captain, 2 Tactical Squads (10 men each), 1 Scout Sniper Squad (5 men), a Command Squad (5), Sternguard (5), Terminator Squad (5), 1 Assault Squad with jump packs (5), 4 Metal Boxes (2 of these are actually Razorbacks), 3 Predators.
That actually comes to under 1500 but not by a lot, and if you add some wargear options you'll hit the number. 46 infantry, 7 vehicles. (At the new standard of 2250 or whatever it is, you'd probably adding a Land Raider, another Tactical Squad in a box, 5 more Assaulters and then some land speeders. Or you're doing aircraft and anti-aircraft.)

Orks: I know it's cheap to use Orks as an example when they specifically put loads of models on the table, but that's a thing that happens. You have a Warboss of some kind, 2x10 Boyz, 2x30 Boyz, 3 Meganobz, 2x5 Tankbustas, 4 Trukkz, 3 Deffkoptas, 10 Lootas. So 101 infantry, 3 big bad infantry (4 if the boss goes that way), 3 jetbikes and 4 flimsy vehicles. If you skimp on the upgrades, you can fit an aircraft or Battlewagon in.

Eldar: Jetseer, 2x10 Guardians with Warlocks and Heavy Weapons, 2x3 Windriders with Scatterlasers, 5 Rangers, 2x5 Fire Dragons, 4 Wave Serpents, 2 Vypers, 1 Night Spinner. So 37 Infantry, 7 Jetbikes and 7 Skimmer vehicles with varying degrees of weaponry. And points left over to upgrade them.

Obviously I haven't chosen specific wargear options and those probably aren't great lists, but those are the kinds of things you could field in 40K tabletop. And in DoW 1 (although for everything except Orks, you might actually need that massive mod to let you bring enough vehicles along).

DoW3 currently looks like it can handle that much plus one mega unit (the Imperial Knight or Wraithknight, presumably Orks get a Gorkanaught, Morkanaught or Stompa). Which is acceptable I suppose. I'm still waiting to see how the gameplay turns out, because there's a lot of talk of "focus on fast-paced action" which is often code for "shitty untactical game where you just spam lots of weak crap and keep running at the enemy base".

The Yogscast is playing Civ5 again.
This time, they showed me the mod No Quitters.
I have been sucked back into the black hole of time destruction that is Civ5.
Send Help.

I picked up Invisible Inc and NEO Scavenger during the steam sale. The former is quite good, as people on this forum have mentioned.

Described in the standard "x meets y" style, the latter is a sort of "Black Isle Fallout meets survival roguelike" deal. Often quite frustrating, but still fun. It's the sort of game where you might die ten minutes into a life because the RNG did not put any sleeping bags or heavy clothing items near your starting point. Or where you might find someone with a gun, kill them and take it, and then have one of your wounds get infected because you you ran out of clean rags earlier. And so you end up shitting yourself to death.

so far, the steam sale is pretty damn disappointing for me . .
the only things i would be kinda interested in are still above 30€ and the things that are getting bigger discounts i already bought for full price some time ago <.<

Stahlseele wrote:i already bought for full price some time ago <.<

Stahlseele wrote:steam

We have found your first mistake right there.

But yeah, the AAA sales do seem a bit weaker this time around. A decent number of things I am interested in are under that critical $10 threshold though.

Mordheim is currently on sale for the summer sale. If you haven't checked it out. It can be pretty frustrating, but it's very fun.

Blicero wrote:Described in the standard "x meets y" style, the latter is a sort of "Black Isle Fallout meets survival roguelike" deal. Often quite frustrating, but still fun. It's the sort of game where you might die ten minutes into a life because the RNG did not put any sleeping bags or heavy clothing items near your starting point. Or where you might find someone with a gun, kill them and take it, and then have one of your wounds get infected because you you ran out of clean rags earlier. And so you end up shitting yourself to death.

Well, this is my new addiction. Thanks for the recommendation.

I need to stop making characters with fucking myopia. On one hand it seems like such a "gimme" right off the bat, because I can get rid of it with cyber eyes, but I keep getting murdered by amazingly good archers I can't even see. I'm not even sure they're archers; at least one of them was. Someone is tearing my head open before I can find them during combat, that's all I know.

I'm a sucker for slow burn narratives and I like how the supernatural elements have only been hinted at so far.

SlyJohnny wrote:

Blicero wrote:Described in the standard "x meets y" style, the latter is a sort of "Black Isle Fallout meets survival roguelike" deal. Often quite frustrating, but still fun. It's the sort of game where you might die ten minutes into a life because the RNG did not put any sleeping bags or heavy clothing items near your starting point. Or where you might find someone with a gun, kill them and take it, and then have one of your wounds get infected because you you ran out of clean rags earlier. And so you end up shitting yourself to death.

Well, this is my new addiction. Thanks for the recommendation.

I need to stop making characters with fucking myopia. On one hand it seems like such a "gimme" right off the bat, because I can get rid of it with cyber eyes, but I keep getting murdered by amazingly good archers I can't even see. I'm not even sure they're archers; at least one of them was. Someone is tearing my head open before I can find them during combat, that's all I know.

I'm a sucker for slow burn narratives and I like how the supernatural elements have only been hinted at so far.

I love the game, but it eventually pissed me off. The story basically goes nowhere, answeres none of the questions and ends without a resolution.

After pouring over pictures of WW2 aircraft and being smitten by bombers with turrets and the push rotor Shinden I've gotten into War Thunder. Fun game, though I'm still getting the hang of using Japanese planes and not turning into a fireball.

What's a good single player strategy game that feels like Axis & Allies? Is the Hearts of Iron series good? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_of_Iron

How I feel about 99% of new games nowadays:

@OgreBattle: Hearts of Iron is far more detailed and advanced than Axis & Allies.

The interface is pretty well done and makes it easy to access the relevant information, the problem comes from the fact that there are so many things to take into account. When planning an attack, you have to check for the terrain, the weather, the opposing troops but also who's leading them and who's leading yours, the day/night cycle, not to forget the logistics, etc. Doing so when you have only a few fights is fine, but when you have to deal with an entire front, it's difficult to keep up. There's some AI automation but you need to check regularly that it has done nothing stupid.

That's what I've seen in the third game, from what I've read the new one is supposed to be more accessible but I guess it still is as complex.

My only experience with Hearts of Iron was when I bought it on steam, and then it didn't work, and then I tried to get help from steam and the company, and neither would help me at all.

At that point, I swore off Hearts of Iron forever.

Reassembly has consumed my soul. It's a newtonian-ish space shooter about building spaceships from scratch (and then using them to blow up other spaceships). You're given a palette of geometric shapes to use as your hull, thrusters, weapons, generators, shields, and so forth and left to slap them together however the hell you want. Thrusters are physics-based and apply both a translational and rotational force at the point of attachment, so placement matters. Each individual component (even your hull pieces) is destroyed separately, so you'll get to enjoy the visceral satisfaction of watching your spinal-mounted death lasers literally bisect the enemy where you hit them. Here are some of the ships people have entered into the game's official asynchronous tournaments. Yes, #4 is a giant laser attached to four-thruster covered levers. Apparently that is as effective as it is absurd. Don't ask me.

I really only have two complaints.

#1) The progression of the game itself is not that interesting. At the start of the game you choose a faction (you start with only one unlocked), and then you'll be dumped into a big ol' procedurally generated galaxy full of asteroids and populated with each of the game's factions. Your goal is to collect resources, and then trade those resources back to your faction's stations for credits. You use the credits to buy new components and increase your ship's point limit, and the station uses the resources to build new ships. And thus, you progress towards unlocking everything and your faction spreads across the galaxy. But honestly, it's kind of boring and shoddily done. You're never really going to feel like you're conquering the galaxy, even if you technically are. You'll unlock everything fairly quickly, and at that point the only real reason to fly around blowing stuff up is because it's fun. And while fun is good, I can't help but feel like the underdeveloped galactic conquest aspect is a missed opportunity worth... well, hundreds of hours. The core gameplay is just so goddamn fun, but it's dampened by a sense of aimlessness.

2) The only multiplayer is asynchronous. When you start the game and it generates a galaxy, it'll make a bunch of wormholes. Anytime you make it to a wormhole, your fleet will be uploaded to the game's servers - and at that point it can show up as an AI-controlled fleet in another player's game. (You can also choose to go through the wormhole yourself, at which point the game generates a new galaxy for you). And blowing up other player's fleets is fun as all hell and probably the most challenging part of the game, but man it would be awesome to have actual real multiplayer, co-op or otherwise. There are also the tournaments I mentioned (where you take a bunch of ship/fleet designs and let AI-controlled versions of them duke it out), but meh.