What are you playing? (Redux)

[The Brain]

Playing Killing Floor while waiting for BFBC2. Pretty fun game (in MP).

[The Brain]

I'm having a blast with Killing Floor. It does what it does very well. The Brit accents are a bonus. And it's cheap.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Been playing a lot of Strategic Command: WWII Pacific Theater. I have a game going as the Allies with Japan boosted up to create a challenge. It's now the beginning of 1943 - China is holding on better than expected (i.e., their defensive line is holding; anything better than a total collapse is "better than expected"). They've lost Changde, but I'm holding pretty well in the mountains southeast of the capital, and Ichang as well. I'm building forts right around the capital in case I have to fall back again.

The Burma theater has gone to hell now that the monsoons have lifted. I have 2 fighter units and the Indomitable, but the Japanese air assault has been relentless, and I lost Hutton's HQ in the fall of Burma, meaning the Brits have been leaderless for about a year, making their troops weak and cowardly. I lost Stillwell and a Chinese corps in the fall of Burma as well, so I can't put any pressure from the Chinese side, not like I'd really want to spare any units from the fighting in China proper.

Finally, in mid 1942 I got an intelligence report of a Japanese carrier heading towards Midway. My carriers (Hornet and Yorktown) and a Battleship had just left Pearl escorting some troops bound for Polynesia, to be used in a counteroffensive at Guadalcanal. A rainstorm on my turn prevented my carriers from spotting his (his may have been out of range too), and on the AI's turn, his fleet came over a spanked me hard, sinking the Yorktown and a destroyer, and wounding the Hornet. The Battleship was relatively unharmed, but while I was able to inflict significant damage to an enemy battleship and several escorts, I was unable to sink anything, and the Japanese landed on Midway. Months later, after the Japanese fleet had gone back to reinforce, my new battlefleet, consisting of all but one of my battleships and the Enterprise, showed up in force at Midway and supported the army in retaking it, while also scaring away a destroyer.

I've recently retaken Guadalcanal, and from the intelligence reports I believe the Japanese fleet is en route - it consists of at least a destroyer and a battleship, but I'd expect the carriers to be present, because they haven't shown up anywhere else (and the Indomitable has made it's presence known in the Indian). They know the Hornet is present near Guadalcanal, but the Enterprise and her escorts are almost there as well. My plan is for the two carriers to meet up a bit to the east/southeast of the island, and the Japanese should arrive at Guadalcanal at the same time. Then I strike, hopefully after the enemy fleet has wasted effort bombarding the island. The two catches are: 1. The Japanese may reroute their fleet now that I've wiped out the Japanese resistance on the island, and 2. If he sends all of his carriers and most of his battleships, I could be in real trouble. The last I saw of his carriers were at Midway and Java, nearly 6 months ago.

Is strategic command any good?  Really?

Depends on just how much detail and realism you want. The rules are fairly simple, kinda like civilization, but they work well and they're intuitive. The only difficult part is the supply rules, and if you follow the "always have a HQ on hand for offensives or defensive operations" rule-of-thumb, you probably won't have your units out of supply too often.

One of my gripes with the game is that the smallest infantry unit you can build in the mainline campaign is a corps, so most of your conquests will go ungarrisoned. The flip side is that a unit entrenched in a city (which generates supply unless bombed/shelled to rubble) is extremely difficult to dislodge, so the lack of garrison units makes a sort of sense. Of course, it could just be all my fault with not planning ahead and building enough infantry.

I recommend that you check out the demo, which lets you play the first 15 turns of the main campaign. The demo is based on the older version, so there's been a few changes, but it'll give you a good idea of whether you'd like it or not. I've had fun with it and I've gotten my $35 out of it.

[Syt]

Started a replay 1960 season in OOTP. Two weeks before spring training the Yankees trade Yogi Berra to the A's. Should have disabled trades.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

Playing D&D 3.5 on Friday coming up, my usual group, new module of some kind. The DM has some ready made chars on hand. I'm gonna go Tank, likely. It's my strength as a player.

grabbed a sweet deal on a 3,5 book "the Complete Divine" for 5 bucks at a local thrift store  yesterday. Going to utilize that in the campaign idea I've been brewing for awhile, The Pirate thing, that I had a thread about.

Also playing Mutants and Masterminds on Sunday. It's a tastic weekend. I'm getting kinda bored with my TK based hereo in that game too, thinking of going for some kind of Ben Grimm analog when we finish our current arc.

So does anyone actually play 4th edition?

I think cc has played it with his kids, and enjoyed it? or maybe I'm misremembering.... None of my friends got into it though. a few of them bought the core books, and have sold them. I still have mine, sitting unused like a lot of stuff I own.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

Oh yeah we played that game (a 3.5 upgrade of White Plume Mountain, actually) All the traps were really annoying, and the other dude playing kept insisting on having the wizard and rogue up front. Oy.

I was playing a Minotaur 6/ Barbarian 1
& the human Wizard 7

[Tamas]

Rise of Prussia looks to be excellent.

It has the depth of AACW, with a somewhat streamlined interface, detailed combat reports, better turn resolving (you better see AI moving around and stuff), about the same map size except the barren wasteland (in this case, Poland) is on the east not the west, has a lot of variety (my swedish army seemed to menage a stalemate with Frederick, but alas they could not, while a british-hannoverian force is entering west Bavaria, with my newly formed imperial army going after them from munich, all the while the first stacks of cossacks roam east prussia scouting for the army which is to besiege konigsberg, while there are vicious fighting around Prague for several weeks now, there is a new army to be found in Wien soon, a standoff south of Silesia which is bound to explode, the brits stacking up in the region north of the Il de France region, with the French army going to fight them, while one of their corps starts to gobble up Hannover. Etc)

And the most important: it seems to lack the PDH trademark oversized Union divisions. So, I am game for a PBEM once I return from Spain.

[PDH]

Rise of Prussia looks to be excellent.
And the most important: it seems to lack the PDH trademark oversized Union divisions. So, I am game for a PBEM once I return from Spain.

He still bitches about my grand divisions in the AOP.

[Alatriste]

Fallout 3. I'm level 15 at the moment, and getting increasingly frustrated with Dogmeat's suicide ways.

[Syt]

I've signed up for an OOTP online league, PEBA.

The only avilable team is the Yuma Bulldozers, 5 losing seasons in a row, with a .173 winning percentage this (just finished) regular season. At least I can't mess them up any worse.

[Octavian]

Assassins Creed II for the 360

I like it!

[sbr]

I've signed up for an OOTP online league, PEBA.

The only avilable team is the Yuma Bulldozers, 5 losing seasons in a row, with a .173 winning percentage this (just finished) regular season. At least I can't mess them up any worse.

How exactly does an OOTP on-line league work?

[HisMajestyBOB]

Just bought SWAT 4 after watching Spoony's Lets Play.

I already like using the Bean-bag shotgun because it lets me fire at will.

[Syt]

I've signed up for an OOTP online league, PEBA.

The only avilable team is the Yuma Bulldozers, 5 losing seasons in a row, with a .173 winning percentage this (just finished) regular season. At least I can't mess them up any worse.

How exactly does an OOTP on-line league work?

You'll have one person running the league who sims a pre-defined period (usually a week) and sends the file out to the managers (or rather: hosts it somewhere; the one for this league is 70+ MB). The managers make their adjustments (roster setup, strategy, scouting for players, contracts ....) and export their file back to the admin (the game has a built in FTP connection that our commissioner employs; i.e. I make my changes, then upload the file; I can make changes up till the simming takes place).

Some things can't be handled in-sim in online leagues, with trades being the most prominent feature. So you go and negotiate via email/PMs and then notify the admin who "sanctions" the trade in game.

[sbr]

I've signed up for an OOTP online league, PEBA.

The only avilable team is the Yuma Bulldozers, 5 losing seasons in a row, with a .173 winning percentage this (just finished) regular season. At least I can't mess them up any worse.

How exactly does an OOTP on-line league work?

You'll have one person running the league who sims a pre-defined period (usually a week) and sends the file out to the managers (or rather: hosts it somewhere; the one for this league is 70+ MB). The managers make their adjustments (roster setup, strategy, scouting for players, contracts ....) and export their file back to the admin (the game has a built in FTP connection that our commissioner employs; i.e. I make my changes, then upload the file; I can make changes up till the simming takes place).

Some things can't be handled in-sim in online leagues, with trades being the most prominent feature. So you go and negotiate via email/PMs and then notify the admin who "sanctions" the trade in game.

Huh.  I had seen that playing on-line was an option but I had never really thought about how it would work, it seems interesting.

Is it interesting?

How far into the season are you?

How is your team doing?