The Miscellaneous PC & vidya Games Thread

[FunkMonk]

Reading through the 150-page manual to Old World and realized the guy who wrote it is the same guy who wrote that famous strategy guide to SMAC

This seems good.

[Syt]

Ok, playing a "normal" game of Old World feels a lot better than the tutorials. Balancing the generation of the various resources is a constant chase, trying not to fall behind much in any area. Civics is what I'm struggling most with, but that might be due to the techs I researched (or rather: didn't research ). Only playing on "Just" (second lowest difficulty), trying to get my bearings. The map becomes VERY busy once a lot of the territory around your cities is developed. Thankfully there's hotkey overlays to see what needs connecting to the trade network, or what improvements you've built where. Currently, I'm mostly struggling to save up Civics points to enact laws, do diplomacy and pretty much any other administrative decision.

The character events add a lot of flavor, but I still feel less engaged than with CK. The static portraits instead of a portrait generator like CK2 and 3 make the characters look prettier, but some faces are repeating after a while.

I'm not sure locking the game's music behind researching drama is a great idea. It sounds fun on paper, but in my game it took me quite some time to get there due to other priorities. You can manually start songs, but playback ends after one song.

I like the City location system. Reminds me a bit of Endless Legend, and a decent way to avoid city spam. That you have to conquer a lot of them from tribes or barbarians is a nice twist.



Incidentally, I fired up Imperiums: Greek Wars yesterday. Starting with just one unit, it takes a lot longer to get going (and some getting used to some of its quirks - like using settlers to build some tile improvements, whereas you can plop others straight on the map, or that some military units can also create settlements). One thing I like is its (very basic) supply system. Most units can't just run across the entire map exploring. The further away from your lands you get, the higher attrition becomes, and eventually your unit dies. (Hero units like generals are exempt, it seems.) It feels more old school, but also more detailed, and I will likely come back to it.

[FunkMonk]

Installed and started a game of Old World just to peak around for a few minutes.

Ended up playing past midnight

[crazy canuck]

I tried it too.  Definitely one of this just one more term games.  I like how they deal with religion.  I didn't think I would like the action point system but I have to love it - you can't just spam units if you don't have the action points they are just going to sit there.  And so you need to be very strategic in what you build, where and why.

Impressed with the mechanics of this game.

[Syt]

The orders system is actually quite good and has me constantly prioritize during a turn. Am I at war? Guess I will not do many tile improvements for now. At peace? prioritize my workers. Unless there's a governor who needs assigning.

I had to switch off the music, though. There's a huge variety of tracks (good), but they vary so wildly in style and quality (several tracks start and/or stop abruptly) that it's a bit much. (and I'm too lazy to switch on/off the tracks I want)

[garbon]

Most difficult for me is running a multifront war. I expected my economy to suffer but you also have the limitation that only so many units can move in a turn. Getting an AI ally to join the fray has been vital.

[Josquius]

Thats always been a problem in most strategy games I find. Total War is particularly awful for it. It takes centuries for an army to march from one side of the map to the other.

[Syt]

Mobility is actually not so bad ... if you have enough orders to issue to troops.

[crazy canuck]

Mobility is actually not so bad ... if you have enough orders to issue to troops.

Using roads and getting the river tech to move swiftly along them is important.

[FunkMonk]

Still in my very first game on the 2nd difficulty level as Rome. The Roman's starting Leader, Romulus (yes that Romulus), is still alive into his mid-70s and I've attained "Teh Gr8" cognomen.

I may start a new game after I get bored of this one. It was just a first test game anyway, on a pretty easy difficulty. Any suggestions for my next choice of civ?

[Syt]

Still on my first game (Persia) too. Around turn 100 with 7 Civs the turns become a bit  slow. I made the mistake of not expanding more in the early game. I'm at 8 cities (after sticking with 5 for the first 65 or so turns). Egypt started on the periphery and has 21. I'm gearing up to take out Rome who have only 5 cities after getting wedged between Babylon and Carthage and are behind on the tech ladder. My scouts have been around Carthage's territory and they have scary hordes of cavalry. 

I'm playing on semester turns - game speed is as usual, but your character lifespans get technically doubled, so you have more time to reach their ambitions.

[celedhring]

Now finished replaying Mass Effect 2. I remember feeling midly disappointed when this game came out - the main storyline I thought was really weak and the RPG elements too streamlined (you don't even get stats for the different weapons you can use). And while I think the main arc regarding the Collectors is pretty weak and ultimately rather unconsequential in the whole Mass Effect story, everything else is great. The world feels much more like a living, breathing galaxy, the companions all feel unique and have great dialogue, and the sidequests are much better fleshed out - a significant improvement over ME1's roving around planets to visit the same facilities with the same rooms.

Now onto 3. I didn't think I would actually stick around and play the whole trilogy, but they are just too absorbing even after all these years.

[Syt]

Warning, rambling post about fantasy 4X coming up.

DasTactic has started a new series about a game in early access that looks intriguing:

In a nutshell, you pick an Elder God and try to take over/destroy a randomly generated fantasy world.

This is the Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1741640/Shadows_of_Forbidden_Gods/

It looks rather interesting, and I almost picked it up ... but then I saw that this is the developer's 3rd version of the concept. The previous version (Shadows Behind the Throne 2) was pushed out of early access in July last year, and this went into early access in November, and some buyers of the previous title seem disappointed that the old game was "abandoned" in favor of doing a sequel. That said, this version looks more polished and intricate, but I'll hold off till it leaves early access, to be honest.

But there's a bunch of other fantasy 4x out there. There's of course games like the two Thea titles, steeped in Slavic mythology and folklore, or the Eador games that had some great ideas that never quite came together. Stardock had its Elemental: War of Magic and subsequent titles, there's the more simplistic Warlock games, and the classic Age of Wonders series (I never got into 3 as much as I did into 2). Dominions is on its 5th iteration by now. And Slitherine are working on Master of Magic II.

There's some other interesting indie fantasy 4X titles out there, some of them seem passion projects of one person teams (or at least not much bigger).

There's Deity Empires, which maybe hews closest to the old MoM games. Now, to be honest I never played MoM when it was new. I tried it when it came to GOG, but I didn't get into it much - I have to admit that I bounced off the interface and amount of stuff in the game, hard. Steam tells me that I have 12 minutes in Deity Empires ... and looking at the screenshots I feel it's because it was MoM all over again - according to the Steam page you can create your God from 30 deity skills! There's 200 units! 350 spells! 250 skills! 200 techs! 10 schools of magic! 160 buildings for your cities! Etc. ... Oof. It rates as Very Positive from users, though (and through the workshop you can make the graphics a little bit prettier). It has, of course, tactical battles. The last patch if from 2020. Price is €20.99

https://store.steampowered.com/app/889080/Deity_Empires/



Slightly cheaper, at 14.99 (or 18.98 if you want to give the devs some extra appreciation) there's Wizards and Warlords. At first glance it seems to do much the same as Deity Empires. It leans a bit heavier on characters and most notably procedural generation. Races, cultures, and their relations to each other (plus more) can be randomly generated each game. It seems a bit more polished than Deity Empires, and it's still receiving regular patches that fix bugs, rebalance things, add spells, units or buildings etc. It also has tactical combat.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/567080/Wizards_and_Warlords/



Conquest of Elysium 5. From the makers of the Dominions series, it uses many of the same concepts (different eras to play in from mythical with lots of magic to more low magic later ages, unit types etc.), it focuses on exploration and giving player avatars different playstyles. It leans into some procedural generation, and has a bit of a roguelike feel to it. Some runs may be super easy, others you might be doomed from the start. The battles are hands off - you can watch them, but where the Dominions games let you set basic strategies for units, here it's all AI driven. Maybe the biggest plus for the game is the length of a campaign. Depending on map size and parameters you might be able to play a game in an evening. At 24.99 it sits at the upper end of the scale for these types of indie games:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1606340/Conquest_of_Elysium_5/



The quirkiest, and only loosely a 4X game is the excellent Warsim: The Realm of Aslona. I don't see it as much as a strategy game as it's a ... toybox? Narrative sandbox? You inherit a fantasy kingdom and need to run it. The game is all in ASCII (and mostly text), so if you don't like that kind of stuff, stay away. Every turn you can make various choices, take actions, wage war, etc. For 6.49 and because of its looks it seems unassuming, esp. since it's still in early access (though it gets updates at a silly pace). Its strength lies in its unpredictability and that it doesn't take itself too seriously. It's less a game for trying to win but rather to see what weird stuff you encounter while playing.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/659540/Warsim_The_Realm_of_Aslona/



Not 4X, but rather a game about running a mercenary company in a fantasy world, Battle Brothers was a great game, if hard unless playing on lower difficulties: https://store.steampowered.com/app/365360/Battle_Brothers/

More games like that are springing up, though they're still in early access.

There's Wartales: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1527950/Wartales/

Iron Oath: https://store.steampowered.com/app/699330/The_Iron_Oath/

Songs of Conquest seems to lean more towards old Heroes of Might and Magic territory: https://store.steampowered.com/app/867210/Songs_of_Conquest/



Not in early access, but something ... maybe more old school? Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia looks like a title from somewhere between 16bit and PS2. It's set in a fictional fantasy kingdom, with kingdoms, map, and characters reminiscent of old KOEI games (their old Nobunaga or Genghis Khan games), while battles happen on hex based maps (but at 33.99 it seems a bit pricey): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1843940/Brigandine_The_Legend_of_Runersia/



Finally (and I've had it in my account for a while but haven't played it yet), there's Vagrus - the Riven Lands, where you embark on a perilous journey through a dark fantasy world ravaged by calamity. The devs felt it necessary to highlight this warning on their Steam page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660/Vagrus__The_Riven_Realms/

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I've seen some YouTubers playing around with that game a few weeks ago. Made me think about a failed kickstarter from a few years ago named 'that which sleeps' which had the same premise. Was intrigued then, am intrigued now.

Battle brothers is an absolute gem. Very nice and with a end game crisis that will have you fighting for your life. There is a modding scene but sadly no workshop integration.

[Solmyr]

Wizards and Warlords has been on my to-buy list for some time now. Should check it out.

I played Vagrus earlier this year. It is pretty fun, and yes it is hard especially in the beginning. You can see where the devs got their inspiration from, especially if you are an old-school D&D player: there's Roman Empire -style setting, there is a lot of Dark Sun (survival in a harsh desert environment), some Planescape, some Forgotten Realms (the current trio of major Imperial deities are obvious expies of Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul). Plan to return to it at some point.