Michael

I haven't seen any other issues and I don't believe we've gotten any emails to that effect, so it might be something with your podcast client.

"Unplayable" is an exaggeration. The base game gets updated and patched with every expansion, so many of the new mechanics that came online with each expansion are in the vanilla game. The biggest tip is to buy the game and DLC on sale. It goes on sale pretty often and can be picked up for less than $20 easily. The DLC is also marked down. There is a lot of DLC but you can skip all of the cosmetic stuff. I would say the Art of War is the best first purchase and contains some of the most useful new content. The base game + that will keep you busy for a whle, after that you can look into the other DLC and see if they add aspects of the game you are interested in. Common Sense and Wealth of Nations are also solid adds.

Any issues with the RSS feed (and consequently iTunes) are due to some maintenance that was done on Soundcloud's part. I would try again this evening or tomorrow. http://status.soundcloud.com/post/143647524960/rss-feed-maintenance

It's pretty safe to say that we'll have a Stallaris show. It may not be immediately after launch as whatever panel is on will need some time with such a beefy game.

To the point where other games like Warlock lifted it pretty blatantly. That always bugged me, though nobody else seemed to care.

No, I quite liked it and found most of the complaints to be somewhat overblown.

I've been on a few shows, mostly when I can convince Rob that we need to talk about a topic I really enjoy. Final Fantasy Tactics, AI War, Victoria... the sad thing is that a DF show was my white whale and now we've covered it. What's left for me? Chess? Troy has said we'll never do a chess show.

Et tu, Bruce? If anything, I recall us spending most of our time acting as apologists for the interface, pretty much agreeing it is a core part of the DF experience.

Some useful links: Dwarf Fortress The Lazy Newb Pack - This is an easy way to get started with tilesets and terrific tools like Dwarf Therapist. If you are intimidated by ASCII and don't know what to do, use this launcher, turn off Aquifers, pick a random tileset. - updated for the 2015 version and the gold standard for DF tutorials. Gita's latest article on Giant Bomb about Dwarf Fortress. I also like and his channel is great overall. (Formerly Das24680)

Okay, everything should be fixed. If you have a borked version of the show, delete and re-download. All future downloads will have the correct version. It may take a few minutes for iTunes to get the new, correct link in their feed, but on the Idle Thumbs site and my podcast feed I see it as fixed. Sorry for the confusion!

No, give it a little bit while I sort out re-uploading. I'll post again when I think I have it in order. What happened is that the Skype track we use to align the audio was left unmuted when I rendered the track.

Yup, I'm working on it now.

There will be soon!

Sports sims are my go-to for this, most notably Out of the Park Baseball or Franchise Hockey Manager.

That's very true! One of the neat things about our new polling service is that we get a nifty map of where our voting patrons are from. Very interesting information. Regarding international payments, I found the following two pages: Do you support international payments? How do you calculate fees? The short answer is that we appear to be stuck with USD and the conversion charges that apply. That's a Patreon thing, and unfortunately out of our hands. Regarding our backers, though, the latest poll concluded earlier this week and you a voted for Thea: The Awakening by a hefty margin.

The new poll is up, using a new service that should not require a login. Let me know if there are any issues!

Hmm, interesting. There's only one thing that's changed in the last few months, and that was our switch from hosting the podcasts on Libsyn to Soundcloud back in August or September. As far as the actual files go, nothing has changed. If it does have something to do with the files being hosted somewhere else, I would try unsubscribing and then re-subscribing to the podcast feed.

Well, one week and three days. But anyway - the new show is up! Many apologies for the tardiness. Rob had to deal with a minor surgery and we had a few cancellations for various topics. We are back on schedule, though, and will still have the next episode up on Thursday as normal.

Yeah, they do okay. I guess. Thanks for the kind words! Also, check your PMs on these forums.

Hi Jarmo, I'll see what I can do. The login is required in order to keep people from voting more than once. You can use Google Forms and remove the login requirement, but then people could spam the votes for whatever they really want to see and we would end up with 1,000 votes from a 100 people. Just like a Chicago election! I will look around for a viable alternative. Patreon does not have a built-in polling capability as far as I know, so we need to use another service. I have a feeling (but I'm not positive) that any service used for polls will need some kind of verification to prevent people from voting more than once. I'll do some searching. In the meantime, feel free to send me a PM through the boards with your vote and and I'll add it to the tally. Were you able to see the poll options, at least? Or does it lock out you of the poll entirely without an account?

The first poll should be visible as a post on our Patreon page. If you've backed at the $5 tier or higher, you should be able to see it. Post here if you run into any issues!

We're working on that now and should have a poll available within the next week or so. We'll create a new post on the Patreon page for the backers, and that will have a link.

It's on the schedule for the very near future!

Hey, I know that podcast! We're crossing the streams.

General practice is to sign up for a donation plan at the level you wish to make a one-time donation, then cancel it once the first month has gone through. Just really, really make sure to cancel it.