Sorbicol

Consider yourself patreoned. If such a word exists! In the event that you get more cash than you were expecting (for example way more than just covering production costs & the stretch goals etc) are you intending to tell us what you will do with it?

I would recommend that you go back to first principles and read Dawkins's The Blind Watchmaker first. He wrote though long before he became who he is today. There's none of the preach rage in it.

I doubt it I certainly don't, and every attempt I've had at playing multiplayer strategy has failed somewhere along the line either through technical failure or because everyone just lost interest. I think most turn based strategy games just don't lend themselves to multiplayer particularly well. The open turns of a Civ game go on forever if they are more than a handful of you are playing. RTS's basically suffer from what I would call 'the Starcraft 2 effect', which Rob touched on towards the end of the podcast. I don't think anyone makes more 'traditional' RTSs anymore because they don't feel that they can challenge SC2s dominance of because they just don't have the resources to put behind the game that Blizzard have. It's a similar situation with aRPGs and Diablo. I also think that level of dominance overly colours what the perception of what a RTS should be for the more casual gamer - all optimised production lists and clicks per minute ratios - and puts most of them off. And of course the rise of consoles which just don't lend themselves to RTS controls so nobody bothers making them for consoles. I once bought Command & Conquer for my PS1, man that was £55 wasted. Anyway I digress. The best RTSs are the once that bypass that production tree / clicks per minute for the more casual single player - Company of Heroes and Sins of a Solar Empire spring to mind - or just limit the amount of stuff you have to look after - The Dawn of War series springs to mind. They are all RTSs but I'm willing to bet that the more casual gamer would dismiss them out of hand at the start just because they are an RTS with multiplayer aspects. I'm not really sure what point it is I'm trying to make there. Maybe that RTSs have an image problem which SC2 exacerbates, maybe that some of them would be better off not marketing themselves as an RTS (although God knows how they would do that) definitely that the rise in consoles was probably the biggest death knoll to RTSs pure based on controllers and how they work best, and nobody could be bothered to work out a decent control system for a console based RTS?

It's a game that requires a patience quite unexpected of people these days I think. I've dipped in and out of it since release and every restart has me floundering around checking Google and the control options to remind me exactly how I should be doing. It does some things that are definitely 'old school' too (like flying into a station and getting blown to smithereens just because I forgot to ask permission) with a punishment to mistake scale that is brutally harsh for something so inconsequential in game, but then I also think that it has a logical narrative that makes a lot of sense. In the end I think it's a game that both demands your respect but also respects you as an individual with not holding your hand while making the information you need not that hard to find out. I guess you either go for that or you don't, but give it a little patience and it only takes one evening of game time to be happily flying around the galaxy and starting to earn your crust. I've not played it now for quite some time but I'm ready to get back into it again now. Looking forward to all the changes!

You should listen to the alpha centauri episode with Bryan Reynolds. Still one of the best interviews on this podcast.

Yeah I got that last night. Couldn't do the Chinese DLC. Mission for love nor money (is the thin man acid spit supposed to trigger on both action at the end of the turn? That's a lot of panic checks and make that mission nigh on impossible I reckon) and then made 52 meld in one mission. Not a good sign. I'm going to abort in any case. It's a total time sink and my current job means I'm out of the house for 13 hours each day so I'm not getting enough sleep! My fault, I have no self control for games like XCOM so I'll have to take the rather more drastic step of uninstalling. What that means for XCOM 2 I'll have to assess nearer the time....

Ah cheers. I was looking at those and wondering. I did get a few missions in last night. The equipment, squad size & no of aliens does appear nicely balanced. So far fairly standard XCOM tactics have worked but I've been careful not to pop too any aliens pods at once. That could get very messy very quickly.

Thanks for those

Yeah I'm a little worried about that. I've not really got time to invest in a game that's going to take a long time to complete. But we'll give it a go

Of recent games I loved the Nova Scotia mission from XCOM: Enemy Within. Of course it only Really works when you play it for the first time, and it helps if you aren't too tech'ed up. But that map only just felt like it was truly forefilling the potential of that game. Other levels that stick in the mind are 'death from above' in CoD: MW (mainly because it was an exercise in God like destructive capability), the level in the tunnel from half life 2: episode 1 where you shine the light and Alex does the shooting and the level with the poltergeists in S.T.A.L.K.E.R, probably because I though it was an in game glitch before I realised that, no those things were meant to be where they were. Finally de_inferno from Counter Strike which remains my favourite CS map. Does that count as a level?

I've just downloaded and installed the long war mod. It's clearly going to be a very long and very hard war. Has anyone else given it a go?

The Masters of Orion reboot is way behind Endless Space 2 for me now.

Ha. I did for a bit then just got the cat potion to see in the dark. I never quite understood why the improved version of that potion just makes it last longer. I can only think of one instance where you spend more than 5 minutes in a cave, and that's right at the start of the game.

That demo (or whatever you want to call it) finally makes me think I might get round to playing a total war game......

You still quite a way to go I'm afraid. I fell for that too

Thoughts on this? I've been playing the game with the guardians expansion and enjoying it a lot. It still feels a little over complex at times - too many ideas and systems that occasionally fight against each other - but the faction design is exceptional and it always feels like a different game for each faction. Not entirely sure this new race is going to add to the game but it does look like there are plenty of new ideas coming into the game.

According to steam I've mostly played XCOM, Skyrim and Civ V the last couple of years. However back before steam counting your hours was standard procedure, I couldn't tell you the unaccountable hours I have spent playing Counter Strike 1.6 & source (it will easily be in the 1000s) or a game called Silent Storm, and its sequel sentinels. Again, that'll be in the high hundreds I expect. I don't really play CS:Go these days. Mostly because I'm old and my reflexes are now abysmal, but all thanks to the distinctly hostile community. I have rather enjoyed planet ide 2 though

One of things I found mildly frustrating in the game was the availability of some of the ingredients and the reliance on them dropping from the monsters you kill. I can't tell you how many nekkers I killed but I still never got enough nekker hearts to complete superior white raffard potion (or whatever it was called) or cave troll hearts from very hard to come across rabid cave trolls (I was too soft hearted to kill any of the ones who could hold a conversation) to make the superior ogroid oils. It did feel a bit random.

My god that Lords Management thing is really annoying!

Well the games you have bought there will certainly keep you occupied for a very long time

I'm nearly at the end now and I have several remaining contracts and other quests still u my lists - mainly because I'm now very over levelled for them. Given the size of the game it's really not necessary to do all the quests anyway. The levelling process in the game does feel a little off I have to say - for example it tells you you need to be level 16 before you go to Skelliege but the first quests you do there are level 12-13.

I wouldn't worry. Every single one of them is terrible

Still gonna wait for some feedback after the first expansion is released

So far somewhat underwhelmed but considering the lack of details on offer that's probably par for the course at the moment. Problem at the moment is that there are so many space 4x games out there it's going to have to make a hell of a bigger splash than just being called "Master of Orion".

Ha! I only ever got about 30 minutes that game the. Gave up before I widdled myself. I wouldn't worry about what forum you've posted in either, we don't bite in here.