riadsala

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About riadsala

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  1. A bit of a disappointing episode I thought... you guys took over an hour to say "It's a Paradox game, so it shares many of its mechanics with other Paradox games, and like every other Paradox game, is a little lacking on release, but will no doubt offer a deeper, richer and broader experience as it expands over the years". Isn't this exactly what we'd expect? And you somehow missed given (m)any actual details that would be specific to the game. For example: - what time period does it cover (from the discussion, I'm guessing it doesn't yet cover the kingdom, or have the mechanics to support the late Empires? Would make sense that they'd add this as DLC. - are you playing as a character, like CK2? Sounded like it's more like EU (which I haven't played). - do you recommend picking it up now? Or should am I better sticking with CK2, buying a Stellaris bundle, and waiting a year or so? It would be great to get an interview with the dev team, to find out more about their plans for the future. Or get Troy on to chat about it in his professional capacity (assuming he still works for the man)
  2. I agree! i nearly always enjoy listening to what Bruce has to say, even though I'm very unlikely to ever play any of the games he talks about!
  3. Agree entirely. This was one of the best shows you guys have done in a while! Other episodes I really enjoyed were the Chess episode and the one in which Michael and Troy talked about Aurora (? am I getting the name correct, that crazy complicated space game). Which is actually pretty interesting, when you consider that I don't play chess (my heart has already been given to Go), will likely never try Aurora, and haven't played a city building since Sim City 2000. But the discussions where top notch. In the same way, I find that Bruce always has something interesting to say, even if it's on a game i will likely never play. On the other hand, I don't find the regular panelists have much of interest (to me, personally) on the games I actually enjoy playing. (with the notable exception of Fraser, but that might just be because he's Scottish). The problem is most likely with me: playing a lot of Go gives one different perspective on computer games, complexity, losing, etc. I suppose if I was to sum it up, the usual panelists seem to really enjoy the 'strategy game as power fantasy' side of things. Which is fine! But just not something I'm really that interested in. And to echo Sorbicol's point of view, I have no interest whatsoever in listening to 3MA talk about culture wars/identity politics stuff. Again, this isn't to say that they're no important topics (they are!) but, I work in a university, and have to deal with, and think about, these things all the time (in some ways, university campuses are the frontline for a lot of these issues). Sure, perhaps I am a privileged, entitled person, but if I'm listening to a podcast about strategy games, it's because I want to mentally unwind and take my mind off things like that. These topics are covered in lots of detail elsewhere, by very knowledgeable, well read academics and other thinkers: there are plenty of places to find out more [I quite like https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qy05]. I've gone from listening to every show, for years, to skipping most of them But this one was really good! I nearly ended up working in planning (and have an MSc in a related topic), and could really identify when Justin was talking about generations of town planners growing up having played Sim City! I've always found city builders really odd, as living in the UK (i.e., the old country), they really don't correspond well with our idea of what a city is!
  4. Looking for pacifist games

    How about Fate of the World?
  5. Episode 437: Slay the Spire

    Great episode. Nice to hear some of the original team back again!
  6. Episode 421: Nantucket

    I really enjoyed the second half of this show with Troy giving his take on it all. Some of the best 3MA in a long time.
  7. Kind of a weird podcast this one. There wasn't much enthusiasm on display, or at least, not enough to make me think I should give this game a go. Any sense of WHY you are still playing this game after all those hours was lost between the gripes. I got the impression that you all played the game as that's the game you played.
  8. Great podcast. I've bounced off the series myself a few times (participated in a couple of Dom3 mulitplayer games, bought Dom4 but never spent much time with it). But it is still a lot of fun to hear you guys chat about this. i'd love to see the Dominions lore used in some other games. They've got a really interesting twist on a lot of factions, for example the Romans turning into a death cult (if i remember that correctly?)
  9. Episode 417: 2017 in Review

    Listening to this review, 2017 comes across as incredibly underwhelming for new strategy games. The top picks being more Total War Warhammer, and more XCOM2. And there didn't seem to be any genuine passion around any of the games. This show came across as very stale to me. I'm not sure if it's the fault of the games on offer, or I've now heard this week's panel articulate all their thoughts on these games several times already. [In contrast, the enthusiasm and joy on show when Michael, Bruce and Troy were talking about Dominions 5 the other week was much more enjoyable to listen to!]. I felt no desire to go buy any 2017 games after listening to this, and the panel failed to make me feel like I'm missing out on anything. I guess that means 2017 was a mediocre-to-poor year for strategy games? Request for 2018: Please don't do a show on a space 4x unless it's one you guys are actually excited to play and talk about :-) oh, and happy new year.
  10. Yes, the whole episode I was thinking to myself "Doesn't Endless Legend have most these issues?" Don't get me wrong, I enjoying playing around with EL, it's a fun toy with a pretty map. But it's a pretty terrible strategy game, and I've never figured out what the appeal is beyond some pretty graphics and cutesy lore. Thanks for saying doing a better job of saying what I was going to try and say myself!
  11. another note: if anybody else has been on the fence about this game, you might be interested to know that a new patch just game out that adds 'tactical pause' to single player game. That should make playing on classic difficulty a lot less stressful for those of us who are more interested in the tactics and less interested in apm, etc.
  12. I think another thing I really enjoyed about it was the simplicity of the campaign. It's been a while since I played a campaign that's simply a string of scenarios [as opposed to XCOM, Total War etc]. The game is also pretty relaxing. Great art style and soundtrack. We should try some multi-player at the weekend :-)
  13. I finally got around to buying, and playing this. Lovely campaign, really enjoyed it (although, yes, why aren't the cutscenes skip-able?). A little on the easy side, but hey, I'm replaying on Classic now. I've also picked up Grey Goo, so, I'm slowly slowly catching up on modern RTSs!
  14. Episode 409: Field of Glory II

    Nice episode. Always a pleasure to here Troy talking about games and subjects he loves. How robust and easy to use is the multiplayer?
  15. Looking for TBS recommendations

    you can learn to overcome that though. I used to be the same with Go, but now I find loses more interesting than win