paradi6m

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Everything posted by paradi6m

  1. Idle Thumbs 278: Beef Chief

    The game actually comes incredibly close to making a commentary on that subject, but then strangely pulls back from it. There's a couple of points where the story requires you to enlist the help of a rich asshole, not because he's sympathetic, but just because you need his money and influence to achieve your aims. It wouldn't have taken much to make this a central theme in the story but it gets overshadowed by the awkward 'racism' stuff.
  2. Episode 364: Pet Peeves

    I like unit design when its done well, but I suppose you could say that about anything.
  3. Episode 360: Hearts of Iron IV

    Nope, just Germany. Here's a link to the thread so you can see for yourself. Also I don't like online wikis integrated into strategy games. I especially hate the total war style web browser that has to load up every time you want to read about a unit. I think Empire was the last game in the franchise to use an in-game encyclopedia.
  4. Episode 360: Hearts of Iron IV

    There's some of that kind of stuff in hoi4 already. A guy on reddit dug into the ai scripts and discovered that most nations (except Germany) refuse to build armor in decent numbers and wont research aircraft beyond the 1936 models for any reason whatsoever. Combine this with the way armor vs piercing works (high armor cuts the number of attacks a division takes in half) and its pretty easy to design divisions which are nearly invulnerable to enemy attacks just by adding a single battalion of heavy tanks. By the way, I enjoyed the episode and found it amusing that there seemed to be a consensus that the air game is 'vital' to winning battles. I've found the exact opposite. I recently finished a PRC campaign where I never built a single aircraft and still managed to dominate Asia easily destroying Japan with divisions made up of mostly just artillery and infantry. I also ran into the late game slog where all the axis had capitulated except for Japan (no one had invaded the home islands). Since I was playing a largely inland nation I didn't have a navy or any naval technology. I ended up building a single 1936 destroyer, parking it in the sea of japan just long enough to gain naval superiority before their fleet came to destroy it and in the brief 5 min period where I had naval dominance I launched a massive invasion of the home islands and ended the war about a week later. That was probably the dumbest thing I encountered in the game so far, but otherwise I've been enjoying it.
  5. Hearts of Iron 4

    Yeah you can change export laws which control how much of your resources leave the country vs how much you can use. Higher exports give a bonus to factory construction and research speed, but there is no discrete trade 3 oil for 4 steel like there was in previous games. I think they may be able to fix the national focus problems just by slowing down how long it takes to get them. It takes so little time to blitz through the focus trees that you end up with most of the good stuff by the time the war has barely started. I would think that a country would have to invest significant resources in its nuclear program to the exclusion of other parts of the state if they wanted to develop nuclear weapons early. However, with the way it currently works every country will eventually get the nuclear weapons focus if only for lack of other things to do. So even poor Honduras or Bhutan will end up with the ability to produce nukes by the end of the game. I think it should be a bit harder than that.
  6. Hearts of Iron 4

    I've been playing it. I like it, a lot. I like that it's easier to go down alternate history paths than in hoi3 (such as communist germany, facist france, etc.) I think the trade screen is genius. I don't have to automate trade anymore, because they made it actually easy to set up trades on your own. I appreciate that they got rid of the old process of producing civilian goods to make money then trading money for resources, instead you can just rent out your civilian goods industry in exchange for resources. I like the national focus trees, but I wish they were longer and more varied (something mods will address no doubt). Most of my complaints right now are related to the AI. It's mostly competent when it comes to combat and can even pull of naval invasions (sort of). However, I find that when it comes to diplomacy it seems like I'm playing by myself. I've boosted ideological support in several countries and even staged coups causing the countries to flip to a different political ideology, but have never seen the AI engage in the same tactics. In fact you can flip basically any country in the game to your faction ideology if you just start supporting it from the beginning of the game. By 1939 you're virtually guaranteed to have flipped even major powers like the US or UK. There needs to be more push back from AI nations. I also think peace conferences are pretty messed up at the moment, but I understand they are already working on it. Overall if you're on the fence, I'd maybe hold off for a month or two and then dive in. It's much more approachable than Hoi3, like exponentially so and most of the changes seem to have been for the better.
  7. Total Warhammer

    I pretty much agree with Fraser; the battles are excellent, the campaign not so much. One thing I would take exception to is the idea that the AI's use of agents is fair and its just a matter of the player not properly countering them. I disagree with that sentiment emphatically. I just abandoned my Chaos campaign as every turn I had 3 or 4 enemy agents using the 'assault troops' mission on my single horde and succeeding almost every time. I tried assassinating the agents with my own, but with a 30% success rate (on a good day) combined with the sheer number of agents, I couldn't stop them. It's especially punishing as chaos because you only have one horde for most of the campaign and since you don't have a source of income outside killing things, every turn you waste encamped, letting your troops reinforce is a turn you are actively losing money. It's made even more ridiculous when you consider that I can wipe a 20 stack of Imperial troops while taking only about 100 losses, or less, while a single goblin can inflict 300-400 losses per turn to this same army. There is already a couple mods that disable enemy agent actions, but I'm hoping we'll get a more permanent solution from CA. Edit: I meant to post this in the podcast thread, oh well.
  8. Episode 355: Stellaris

    It's not uncommon for certain tech advances to have a profound, or at least significant impact on how a game plays out, but I struggle to think of examples of games where random events have the same effect. It's not random, but I remember Emperor of the Fading Suns having some really unique planets with special tactical considerations. There was a mod for that game (I think the Hyperion mod?) that among other things added an uncontrolled planet Earth overrun by rebels and space aliens and filled with advanced technological artifacts. The fact that every planet was basically a self contained civ-like map made the game a pain to play, but really made it feel like you were actually visiting worlds with their own identities.
  9. Episode 355: Stellaris

    Tom gave the review one star out of five, Explorminate also have a five point scale with 'Avoid' at the bottom. Would you have less of a problem with Chick's review if it said 'Avoid' at the end instead of having a star? If so, I should inform you that that is a really stupid position to take.
  10. Episode 355: Stellaris

    Even if he was, who cares? I can honestly say that Rome 2 is one of the worst strategy games I have ever played and I've played a lot of bad strategy games. It's not misleading people to give an honest opinion about a game. Unless you are accusing Tom of lying about how he felt about the game (which is insane), then there is really nothing to argue about.
  11. Episode 355: Stellaris

    I read your comment and understand your point and I disagree. I think a 6.3 on that scale is, if anything, generous to Stellaris. Having played most of the strategy games on that list (what the heck is Dead Star?) I would put Stellaris at or near the bottom of it. Rowan's experience is not unique, if you read the paradox forums, you'll see many similar complaints. Scores aren't stupid, people are stupid.
  12. Episode 355: Stellaris

    That's interesting, I hadn't heard about that, but it certainly makes sense given how many standard features of their other games are missing here. I certainly appreciate the sentiment in trying to get away from the spreadsheet qualities of the previous games and obscuring information is certainly a valid design choice in the strategy game sphere. The problem I have is that the information is all still there, it's just requires more tedium to access it. Or they could have designed the game map in such a way that it isn't necessary to have discreet galaxy vs system views. It's very rare that I actually need to go into system view for this game. Once I'm out of the early game, ship combat is about the only thing I use system view for and even then its not terribly important since fleets just sort of gravitate towards each other during combat. That and checking planets in my sectors, because for some reason they don't show up on the quick bar.
  13. Episode 355: Stellaris

    I think my feelings after playing this game the last few days fall closer to Rowan's take. I had hoped that Stellaris would pry me away from EU4 at long last, yet I quit my communist space mollusk campaign last night out of boredom and found myself booting up EU to try a Nepal campaign I had been putting off. I think the increased demands on the players attention have a lot to do with it. There are so many things I wish were automated; constructing mining bases, starbases, auto-explore, colonizing. Every action seems to take two or three more mouse clicks than it needs to. Even just switching from system view to galaxy view is a chore. Why is there not a seamless zoom transition to galaxy mode in 2016? Where are my map modes and ledgers? I haven't heard anyone mention this, but I was surprised there was no distinction between the public and private sector in this game. I realize that this is a feature specific to certain games like Distant Worlds, but it seems like an elegant solution for micromanagement to be handled by an uncontrollable private sector that determines things like trade routes and mining bases, whilst still preserving the kind of autonomy that is supposed to be implicit with the sector governments in Stellaris. Anyway, I hope the game will get more fleshed out as time goes on, but right now I feel like it is the least 'paradox-y' game they have released. I was expecting a Europa Universalis in space and what I got was another MOO clone. The problem is, I already have plenty of those.
  14. I disagree that the game doesn't tell the player whats going on. If anything it over explains things, especially in regards to following along with combat as it can be difficult to even know who's winning between tendons severing and toes being cut off. I recall that Gita made the claim that you need to have a wiki open to see what stone/ore smelts into what metal. This information is listed in the status screen under economic stone (acessed with the 'z' key), though I could of sworn it was accessible elsewhere as well. The wiki is useful for understanding underlying game mechanics, but it doesn't have any useful information that isn't already accessible in the game. As far as your impression goes about the learning curve, you're half right. Getting a self sufficient fort going is not difficult, like surviving in minecraft it basically involves digging a hole and staying in there. Since there is no explicit goal and embark locations can give wildly different experiences, the difficulty is ultimately self directed. It's a bit like Paradox's grand strategy games in that regard. I think this is actually what miffed me about this episode. It seems like anytime DF is discussed it is in relation to its difficulty/complexity and its interface, which are to me the least interesting aspects of the game. I get the same feeling when people talk about difficulty in relation to the Souls franchise, which ironically was also brought up on the podcast.
  15. I will say I find it ironic that a podcast that frequently covers wargames spent half of an episode on DF complaining about the interface. I personally find games like War in the East far more impenetrable than Dwarf Fortress.
  16. Having listened to most of the recordings in the game, I would say it would indeed be better if they were about ancient alien civilizations.
  17. Actually, I was struck by Danielle's remark that the enjoyable part of The Witness was learning how to solve the puzzle (i.e. the rules of the puzzle) whereas actually sitting down to do them feels like drudgery. That felt spot on to me and there is no greater example in the game than the desert ruin area. I won't spoil the solution, but figuring out how to solve the first puzzle in that area was really gratifying. Solving the next 30 puzzles that use the exact same gimmick was not. I understood the criticism as saying that those other games have more stuff going on in them (story, non-deterministic solutions, etc.) whereas The Witness is really just puzzles about puzzles. I would compare it to The Talos Principle which was also exclusively a puzzle game, gameplay wise, but included a narrative with light philosophical musings and character dialogue.
  18. Episode 343: XCOM 2

    This episode felt a bit strange to listen to. I agree XCOM 2 doesn't adequately explain things (waypoints and los markers should have been in the tutorial specifically). However my main complaints have nothing to do with the strategic layer of the game, which is mostly enjoyable. I feel that the addition of concealment is kind of half baked. In the later stages of the campaign I would frequently kill entire groups of aliens before they got a chance to act. While that is satisfying once, it quickly becomes monotonous as every battle ends up playing out exactly the same. It doesn't help that certain class combinations seem ridiculously powerful and a lot of the level up perk choices are basically no brainers. I don't think I'm alone in this either as I've read multiple comments on other sites saying that people weren't aware of what attacks some of the later aliens used, simply because it becomes too easy to kill them before they are able to respond. Also as an aside I miss MECs and I really dislike that they reduced them to what amounts to an extra grenade.
  19. The anomalies in CoP are in discrete locations that are marked on the map. You'll never wander into an anomaly in CoP without first being aware that they are around. Whereas in SoC the anomalies are in basically random places and are often quite difficult to detect without using a bolt. Basically it makes the world of SoC feel more dangerous and unpredictable than CoP. I can't comment on the book as I never read it, but I always assumed the bolt throwing was taken directly from the movie.
  20. I prefer Shadow of Chernobyl to Call of Pripyat as I think it hews more closely to the source material (the way anomolies work in SoC is closer to how its portrayed in the Tarkovsky film). As far as mods go, I'm not a big fan of the "Complete" mods, for SoC I would recommend the recently released Autumn Aurora 2 and for CoP I would just play it unmodded. I actually have a soft spot for Clear Sky, it was the most ambitious game in the franchise in terms of what it tried to accomplish with dynamic factions waging war, gaining territory, etc. It was and still remains fairly buggy and the story is forgettable, but some of the most fun I had with the series was spent building up the bandit faction and trying to take over the zone.
  21. At the beginning of the podcast Jake mentions a South American "crazy communist future computer". What you're thinking of is Project Cybersyn, which was implemented by the Chilean President Salvador Allende. Now the history of Chile during this period is a somewhat contentious subject, but I couldn't help but bristle at the characterization of the Allende government as a "shitty dictatorship". Especially considering his government only lasted three years before a CIA backed coup brought Agusto Pinochet (correctly described as a shitty dictator) to power. Anyway I enjoyed the rest of the podcast, I just felt the need to make a correction on this point.
  22. Small correction, you don't have to play through any of the harder versions of earlier missions to unlock chapters 43, 45 and 46. I got them without completing any of the rehash missions. They are totally optional. You do, however, have to complete some side-ops I believe to unlock 45 and 46.
  23. Episode 283: A Sterile Future

    They added an event where a bunch of superpowered aliens invade the planet sometime during the last era. It doesn't change how you win, but it shakes things up because you dont know where the aliens will invade from or who will get screwed over by it.
  24. Anybody who's played FFT to death (like I have) should check out Tactics 1.3. Its a difficulty mod for the game (you have to use an emulated version) that tries to stay true to the original's feel. It doesn't add a whole bunch of new jobs or anything, but uses the base game's mechanics to make it much more challenging. WARNING: It's really damn hard, but if you've played enough tactics to know how the zodiac system works, then you can probably handle it. Also I never found the plot to be that hard to follow, but I was young enough when I played it not to have any preconcieved notions about the odd translations so that may have had something to do with it.
  25. Episode 283: A Sterile Future

    You guys should check out Pandora again, it's improved a lot since release and there's a new expansion and free dlc that help shake up the end game boredom that plagues most 4x games. The only thing that's better in Beyond Earth at this point is the espionage system, which is probably the game's strongest feature.