The Miscellaneous PC & vidya Games Thread

[Tamas]

There's also Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg, which has been sitting in my wishlist for a long time.

Buy it and tell me what you think. 

Ugh, those games do not look good at all.

[celedhring]

So, since Tamas recommended it, I pulled the plug on Panzer Corps 2, mostly because of the Spanish Civil War DLC - not many "beer and pretzels" videogames model that war.

And here I am, commanding the Condor Legion. My grandfather would have a few choice words if he was still around 

[Syt]

Sometimes a game pops up in the Steam discovery queue where a single screenshot makes me deeply uncomfortable.





https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Lockpicking_(Oblivion)

[Syt]

And sometimes a retro inspired game brings back a buried memory:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1507530/Stellar_Mess_The_Princess_Conundrum_Chapter_1/

A point & click clearly inspired by early Lucasfilm, Ltd. games (Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken), set in 1991 Patagonia.

But this screenshot:



Specifically this:



In the 80s, there were two small shops in the town I grew up in that had C64s on display - most often with ye olde International Soccer on as a demo (one shop actually let us play for a bit but usually asked us to leave when they realized we didn't want to buy anything ... ). Of course in the screenshot above it could just be a soccer match on TV - it's Argentina after all. Still sent me back in time for a moment.

[Josquius]

Anyone played Ixion?
Looks like an interesting narrative city builder in spaaaace.

[Tamas]

Yeah, heavy emphasis on narrative. There is quite clearly a specific optimal way to play (what to build when) and despite the free roam pretentions, finding that ideal sequence by trial and error is what the game is about. What first appears as freedom is just added difficulty in trial-erroring the expected sequence.

Then again, this might have changed since I played at release.

[celedhring]

So Panzer Corps 2. It's a very nice update of the Panzer General formula.

The Spanish Civil War campaign has this slightly odd gimmick where the infantry is controlled by the AI, to represent that the Condor Legion didn't have an infantry component. But the Condor Legion was also just a small component of the Nationalist air and mech units, so I feel the game is trying too hard. Anyway, the missions (so far) are designed with this in mind. I.e. in the second one the Nationalists are supposed to carry out a frontal attack with their infantry while you are expected to use your armored units to execute a pincer move and trap the Republicans. Still, I expect the gimmick will get old quick, but this - I expect - is exclusive to the SCW campaign.

All missions (so far) are drawn from real episodes from the war, even if they aren't very faithfully rendered. For example, the first one has you airlift Franco's troops over the strait, one of the key German contributions in the war and - I believe - the first operational airlift in military history. But then it also has you take Sevilla afterward (historically, it had already fallen when its garrison joined the coup) with German mech units that didn't exist at the time.  But this is a beer and pretzels game, so I'm not too bothered by that. There are also some cartoony vignettes between missions that are pretty jarring 

The game looks great with all the minis and such. I'm still getting used to some of the mechanics they added to the basic PZG formula (like encirclement, I still don't understand when a unit is considered encircled or not).

[Syt]

Playing some more AoW4. Currently as feudal halflings with focus on zeal/nature, and a pinch of chaos for the swarm modifiers. Going spawnkin (smaller dudes, but more dudes per unit), overwhelming swarm, standing together (both giving bonuses to units close to one another), plus the spell that gives buffs to tier I units. It's silly but fun.

[Solmyr]

You can get an achievement if you have a human wizard leading a halfling civ.

[Zanza]

Jagged Alliance 3 will be launched on July 14th. A gameplay trailer has me cautiously optimistic.

https://youtu.be/5t09aNdl18c

[Syt]

A game I always wanted when I first learned of it around 2000 or so. Bought it of ebay and found it a bit too cumbersome, dated, and opaque for me to get into.

Still, Star Fleet II - Krellan Commander is coming to Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1470940/STAR_FLEET_II__Krellan_Commander_Version_20/

[grumbler]

Jagged Alliance 3 will be launched on July 14th. A gameplay trailer has me cautiously optimistic.

https://youtu.be/5t09aNdl18c

I'm going to wait until...

No, I'm not. 

[Tamas]

It's nice to see Rule the Waves 3 has received more than 110 Steam reviews and is standing at Very Positive.

[Syt]

Been playing way too much Age of Wonder 4.

Got bitten way too hard by the "one more turn" bug on this one. Mind you, I'm playing quite sub-optimally, I think, and "Easy" difficulty keeps me plenty entertained for now - I tend to expand too slowly early game, and generally don't level my heroes fast enough and end up not claiming many Ancient Wonders. Though I still often manage to pull ahead mid game till I snowball over my competition.

I've been mostly playing the story maps. They're decent fun with some wrinkles thrown in. Though the 3rd one (around the caldera) had me go through a couple of attempts till I finally beat it. It has two major modifiers:
1. everyone's at war with everyone
2. during combat, every third each unit has a 30% chance to have Berserk triggered - which means they will attack the nearest enemy or, if no enemy is in range, the nearest ally

With the way the factions are grouped around a lake there's also a good chance you get attacked from two sides.

You can eliminate opponents in two ways: either wipe them out as usual, or fulfill a little story quest that will remove them from the map (in which case their cities become independent cities - quite like the mechanic). Anyways, my first attempts were with civs designed around swarming the enemies with large numbers, but that just didn't work out. Eventually I went with a combo of Dark/Nature goblins who were great archers. Nature for the growth bonuses for my civ, and dark to give myself an edge with all the debuff magic they get (and also frost magic). (I wanted to go undead, but the undead playstyle is a bit weird at the moment.)

Really enjoyed the 4th story map. With it being set in a map with many undead (really liked the ambience) I went with ratkin who were high culture, with Order and Materia magic; basically rat paladins. I was struggling early on, but with my allies managed to get "over the hump" and win the day. Though my half dozen of heroes were about 2 or 3 levels behind AI heroes. However, I had 5 or 6 vassal cities (plus 5 of my own), plus a few Anicent Wonders, and with the order empire traits you can recruit armies quite fast through the "rally of lieges" mechanic if you spec into the traits that give buffs/price cuts to those units you can buy.

I think the scenarios are not as detailed or intricate as the campaigns in previous games, though. Essentially it's a "normal" map with some set paramaters (enemies, map modifiers) with a few story events thrown in. It works for me, though. Kinda makes me want to try my hand at creating a story map or two myself. That said, I looked at the modding tools. They give you plenty of flexibility (including importing your own models, animations etc.) - wouldn't call them intuitive, though.

I played one "normal" map with 7 players. I can see why some people recommend playing with 5 civs usually. The game stretched all the way to turn 149 (of 150), mostly because it took me a while to figure out the "expansion" victory conditions, and I had to eliminate an ex-ally who had started to oppose me. In the end my halflings had tomes from all schools unlocked, had a bunch of minor modifications to their racial traits, tons of enchants on units, and there was a noticeable 1 minute freeze at the end of every AI turn.

I wished some tomes would be more distinct. Some enchants and racial mutations are all fairly similar IMO, with slight thematic changes, e.g. doing cold instead of fire damage but otherwise working the same. And I wish there were more traits/cultures (something the DLC will address, but there's also mods - not feeling ready to play non-vanilla yet, though). The "skill trees" for each of the magic categories feel thematically a lot stronger. It's also a bit weird that each of the five schools is basically two branches. E.g. nature magic has one line of tomes for animals, one for plant based spells and units. Order has one for faith (mostly healing, buffs etc.) and one for zeal (more aggressive, well, zealous stuff). Dark has death and frost. Etc. I think I'd prefer to have 10 distinct schools and have these "sub sets" split into "proper" branches. I.e. frost being its own thing, death being its own thing etc.

[FunkMonk]

Mechabellum looks interesting. It's an auto battler that emphasizes implementing your strategy while also predicting your opponent's moves. Plus it has a cool mechwarrior/supreme commander aesthetic.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/669330/Mechabellum/

Published by Paradox too, I think.