riadsala

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Everything posted by riadsala

  1. Things to look forward to?

    So the new Elemental game is out. Interestingly, it's very close to a game design idea I had 5 years ago (combine Elemental with AI War). RPS gave it a positive right up, but I think I'm through with the series. What with Civ and CK2, I have enough 4x for my free time, and that's before considering buying Distant Worlds and Endless Legend. Is anybody else playing it?
  2. Episode 311: Total War: Attila

    "historically important factions are locked behind DLC from launch" I have no problem with this. Paradox and CK2 have shown (to me at least) that it's a perfectly fine business model. I've found the base game great value, and love that I can help support the game and continue to expand the number of interesting factions. It's a sensible business strategy and a good way for a company to spread the risk of big budget game design around a little more. Which isn't to say that it can't be done badly. but just complaining about the concept rather than the implementation is wrong. The rest of your points sound more worrying though.
  3. Episode 311: Total War: Attila

    So things are looking good for Total Warhammer then! More seriously, great to hear that CA are back on track.
  4. Episode 310: EU4Ever: Common Sense

    Yes, this was one of the less accessible shows to people who haven't played the game. No offence to the panel, but I find that this problem doesn't arise when Troy, Bruce or Tom are present.
  5. Likewise. Haven't we already essentially had upteen sequels and remakes of MoO over the years?
  6. I'm sure most of us will agree that a lot of strategy games suffer from poor endgames. Another common feature of strategy games is a long playtime, and the possibility of losing after investing many many hours. I thought it might be fun to share some experiences/bitch about design. I'll kick us off with what I think is a Ck2 bug. I just finished the Legacy of Rome based game I started last Xmas holdiay (when I bought the DLC in the sale). For a while the game was going well... I started as a Duke in the empire and ended up with a big enough territory to become independent. Then somehow gained control of most of Christian Spain. Towards the end of the game I was slowly losing all my territory to the large Muslim territories, but I had 30-40k points and had a fun game. The game has been going on for months as with Ironman, the really terribly slow autosave is a real killjoy, but I was determined to stick it out. I lose my last territory a few years before the end of time, and am greeted with this screen: is this a bug? What happened to all my points? And what happened to all the characters I played? Why is it saying that Mayor Jacobo ruled for 385 years? What a let down.
  7. Hello, not that I want to tell Rob how to do his job, but I'm sure quite a few of us have some (good?) suggestions for things we'd like to hear discussed on the show. I know Rob and Troy have mentioned people suggestion show topics via Twitter etc. As this is now the official forum, it seems like it would be a good place for such conversations Some ideas that I've had: expert gamers I've noticed that several of the regular panel confess/claim to not actually being any good at the games they're talking about. While there is certainly an element of modesty here, and I guess it stems from not having enough time to actually get into the nitty gritty of the big strategy games they enjoy talking about. (For example, nobody had had a chance to try the xcom multiplayer. How many of the panel had completed it before discussing it? What about on a hard difficulty with permadeath on?) Please note: this isn't a criticism The idea that you have to have completed a game before being allowed to review it is silly. But it would be quite interesting to hear how people who are really into certain games approach them. What attracts them to certain games over others? Pro Starcraft 2 players, the folk on the Civ forums who write the guides on how to beat the AI on the hardest difficulty, and the people who play multi-player Sins of a Solar Empire competitively. We've already had at least one episode on how to get new players into strategy games. So how about an episode focusing on the other end of the spectrum. Disclaimer: I never did beat CivIV on Monarch difficulty, and the thought of playing ranked rts matches scares me strategy genres 3MA love good of definitional discussions. I've recently started playing Master of Orion 1 - it was on sale at gog.com and I figured that as I've never played it, it would be interesting to go back and have a look. One thing I've noticed is that it's essentially the same game as GalCiv2 as Sword of the Stars. [similarly, most RTSs are essentially the same game] Sure, there are some differences, but I wonder if an analogy could be made with chess. Chess is a very old game, and the rules evolved over the centuries. Even now, there are many variants of chess. http://chessvariants.org/ With that in mind, how many different strategy games can we think of? And, what would we select as the definitive/vanilla ruleset? Off the top of my head we have:
  8. That's probably good advise I look forward to picking up my next DLC (Old Gods) and starting a new playthrough
  9. Ideas for 3MA shows

    This is a great idea. And, I'm guessing you might be interested in this thread on RPS forums discussing the history of elemental magic game mechanics.
  10. Crusader K+ngs II

    I became independent after a few generations. But as an independent Serbia, I was surrounded by big empires on all sides and there didn't seem to be many options apart from watching the Seljuk conquer the remains of the Byzantium Empire. I'll take a look at the forum. It would be nice to find out some useful tips/shortcuts.
  11. Crusader K+ngs II

    looks cool. Although I'm still way behind in terms of keeping up with the DLC. Nearly finished my Legacy of Rome-centric playthrough (started as a duke in the Bzaytine Empire, managed to become Despot of Serbia and Leon, now slowly losing everything to muslims with only a few years left on the clock. Two questions: - any tips for how to do anything against the Muslims? Their empire is huge and my armies are hugely outnumbered. Although, when I've tried playing as a Muslim in southern spain, I find it really hard to make headway as the Catholics all team up against my efforts to expand. - any general interface/mechanic "tip-of-the-day" tips? I'm sure there are better ways to play the game, more useful map modes, etc. Thanks
  12. Hi, does anybody fancy starting a CK2 succession "chain" game? The idea is that one person starts the game, plays until they die, then pass the save onto somebody else to play. I'm sure this has been done before, but not on this forum right. During your reign, you should share what's happening on this thread (it doesn't have to be super detailed, but it should allow for your heir to have a basic understanding of what's going on). It will also mean that we can share some tips and play styles. I imagine there's a lot I could learn from some of you. No DLC should be required. You can catch up with the story so far here: https://riadgameblog.wordpress.com/category/3maidle-thumbs-forum-crusader-kings-ii-succession-game/ (or just scroll down and read it in between all the comments). Player queue: Gormongous - Duke Bertrand II of Provence 1066? - SuperBiasedMan - Riadsala - Cordeos - Anym - Codicier - tberton -
  13. CK2 Succession Game

    No need to apologise... as long as things don't stagnate for months, any speed is fine. Do we have a player lined up to carry on the legacy?
  14. Episode 303: Heroes of the Storm

    What about Magic?
  15. Things to look forward to?

    on that note, I need to get round to playing TW:Nap. (and then Shogun 2, Rome2 etc). I wish they'd slow down their release schedule and concentrate on quality. I guess the economics don't support that?
  16. Things to look forward to?

    So looks like i'm correct in thinking there's nothing big on it's way any time soon? interesting that there's been next to no buzz (at least on 3ma and rps) on Attila:TW. Is it even a standalone game? Have people just had enough of CAs rough releases? I'm glad to hear there are more CK2 expansions on the way though. Which reminds me, I need to continue with my current game, slowly sorting out a new in Spain as my original land in the east is conquered by muslims.
  17. Episode 302: The 4X Genre

    There's a CivIV mod/unoffical expansion that does a little of that: Legends of the Revolution. the main thing it introduces is civil wars, allowing for big empires to break apart. It makes the game a lot more dynamic.
  18. Episode 303: Heroes of the Storm

    I wonder how much of that is that not many people will be playing a pirated cracked version of LoL (it's free to play after all) while we know that piracy is endemic in PC gaming and numbers from Steam will miss all the people who have torrented the game. Which isn't to say that LoL etc aren't hugely popular. But, I imagine it's similar to the way WoW was really popular. Slightly different audience and people who don't play those games aren't going to be able to follow the conversation. I would have a shot myself, but I'm still trying to get to a good standard at playing go/baduk, so trying to master another high-skill level game just now would be a bad idea
  19. Episode 303: Heroes of the Storm

    I can add feeding and jungling to the list of terms I didn't follow. And looking things up on a wiki isn't really possible when listening on the train. Again, please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying every show should be accessible. I'm just asking nicely that if you're going to geek out down the e-sports rabbit hole, could you discuss other genres to a similar depth? (or, join forces with the idle thumbs e-sports spin off podcast?).
  20. Episode 303: Heroes of the Storm

    Sorry guys, this was one of the worst podcasts you've done recently. You're talking about a new release, and one I was thinking of having a play around with (I've been playing Hearthstone a bit, so have seen the PR around HotS bia Battle.net). But I had trouble following a lot of the jargon in this show. I don't know what last hitting is, or what nova/noba means etc etc. This only seems to happen with the e-sports shows. Usually the panel do a much much better job at explaining the mechanics and what's going on with a game or genre. For example, I'm not really a wargamer at all, but I still enjoy listening to the wargame shows, but Bruce and co do a great job of having an interesting insightful conversation that I can follow along with (I even bought Unity of Command!). Same with RTSs with Tom Chick (I'm a casual rts player, although everytime 3ma talk about one, I end up really wanting to play an rts), and Paradox Grand Startegy with Troy (only really played CK2 a bit, bounced off EU3, but I can follow the conversation on EUIV and I am really interested in playing it one day). etc. But with these e-sport games, I can't follow the jargon. Either I'm one of the few listeners who don't follow the scene and it's my fault, or the panel are all a little too far into the scene nd don't have a good handle on what your average gamers knows. I doubt any of the concepts you talk about in the show are all that complicated (or no more complincated than the finer points of medival succession law... ), and I expect there is a really interesting conversation to be about about this game that people like me would be interested in. Sorry guys. I've tried to make my point constructively. Also, I'm not against shows that require a higher level of background knowledge to follow. Not everything has to be "noob friendly"! But why only for esports? Couldn't we also have a show about Arcen games that is only going to make sense to people who's played AI War, The Last Federation etc? Or invite some high level chess and go players on to discuss what video games can learn from traditional board games?
  21. CK2 Succession Game

    Sounds good to me Do we have the latest save?
  22. Episode 302: The 4X Genre

    One of the biggest issues with 4x games is the victory conditions. This was hinted at in the podcast: paradox games weren't included in the cirtism of 4x games; and, lategame 4x play came in for a lot of flak; and several of the panel stated they really enjoyed the opening/midgame, and would start a new game long before they got to victory condition. So maybe it would be interesting to see a more "traditional" 4x game (ie, as opposed to Ck2 and EU4) that dropped victory conditions all together. That would fix a a few of the zero-sum ai diplomacy issues which would be an added bonus - people appear to dislike it when the AI doesn't try to win the game, but they also dislike it when all the AIs declare war on the player once they're within reach of a victory condition. So, lets just try a simulation/toybox/sandpit style 4x with no explicit victory conditions. there enough similar games in other genres (minecraft, the sims, elite, etc) that it shouldn't be too big a risk. It should also be an easier design problem - there's no need to make it that every faction/playstyle has to have a chance of "winning," you just need to make them interesting. You could also keep many of the victory tradition tropes, as interesting things to do/achievements/optional goals. I believe CK2 has some goo examples (reunify the Roman Empire as the Byzantine for example). But there's no need for these to trigger the game to end with one winner. etc
  23. CK2 Succession Game

    I guess he's not. Anybody else want a shot, or shall we start cycling around the list again?
  24. Ideas for 3MA shows

    I've probably suggested this before, but I'd love a show on mods. Maybe pick a few big mods for a few popular games, and talk about if they really manage to improve on the developers original design. The mod scene is an important part of PC gaming (and the podcast generally has a PC focus), and I also think they have a special place in the strategy genre.