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Destrin

the 3MA Developer revenue generation thread

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As a way of saying hi to the other 3MA users out there, I thought I would start this thread where I catalogue the amount of money that 3MA has 'cost' me over the years by FORCING me to buy awesome sounding games because they've talked about them on the podcast with such enthusiasm. Most of these games I would likely never have heard of, let alone played!

So, without further ado:

Dominions 3 - $54.95

Hearts of Iron 3 - $29.99 (when I bought it!)

Majesty 2 - $19.99

Gary Grigsby's War in the East - $79.99

Unity of Command - $29.99

Bomber Command - $67.00

Restarted my Battletech habit (had to buy the new Total Warfare to update my 3rd edition rulebook) - $39.99

Crusader Kings 2 - ...not yet bought but damn I'm close to pulling the trigger

Current total: $321.90

Anyone else want to add to the running total?

Update: Crusader Kings 2 and Warlock: £18.76 - bargain!

Running total: $350ish

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3MA caused me to literally buy every single Paradox game, but luckily during the Steam Christmas sale the Paradox complete pack was only around $70

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I am very tempted to buy myself some Crusader Kings 2 because of the recent cast on the subject, and indeed I would if I weren't having such a hard time managing my time right now as is.

I've listened to Three Moves Ahead before, but only episodes about games that I already owned. When the Thumbs partnership was announced I started listening through the rest of the archives; I have a feeling this will prove an expensive decision.

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Oh, I should also mention that 3MA got me into board games which I didn't play at all before and those have probably cost me more than the video games I've been FORCED to buy since I started listening to the pod, though both are probably significant sums.

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Somebody on the Idle Forums probably made me buy Crusader Kings 2 before I even started listening to 3MA. I still haven't played much, but I do have a vacation coming up soon.

But 3MA made me start playing Civ IV (finally, but also haven't had much time to play) and got me really excited about A Few Acres of Snow. I managed to play one game so far, but that was kind of ruined because I misunderstood the winning conditions and the game was over when I thought it was just starting. I still want to play a few games of that before I buy it, though.

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3MA caused me to literally buy every single Paradox game, but luckily during the Steam Christmas sale the Paradox complete pack was only around $70

I feel like mentioning: I got Europa Universalis 3 during this sale, and I haven't been able to run it at all since! I just tried again last weekend, and nope, still couldn't figure out how to stop it from freezing up after hitting new game.

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I am late to the party for a lot of the great games 3MA talks about so I have picked up most of the games on steam sales for <$10.

As a time=money thing though, they have cost me a ton. I had a week of vacation around Christmas where I wanted to beat a bunch of games I hadn't had the time for... but I ended up playing EU3 for about 40 hours instead after twice rage uninstalling because of the learning curve...

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I feel like mentioning: I got Europa Universalis 3 during this sale, and I haven't been able to run it at all since! I just tried again last weekend, and nope, still couldn't figure out how to stop it from freezing up after hitting new game.

Have you registered over at the Paradox forums? Once you enter your game key (so they know you bought the game), you have access to the tech support forum. I've gotten some great help from Paradox employees there in the past.

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Have you registered over at the Paradox forums? Once you enter your game key (so they know you bought the game), you have access to the tech support forum. I've gotten some great help from Paradox employees there in the past.

No I have not, and I will definitely do this.

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I definitely wouldn't have tried out the Paradox Games without Three Moves Ahead, and EUIII is pretty cool I must say. On the other hand, Tom Chick ruined Rome: Total War for me, so boo to that.

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I bought both Unity of Command and Wargame: European Escalation on the strength of their 3MA recommendations. Both games delivered!

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Every time I listen to Rob praise a game, I lose money. I think Julian has cost me more in the long run, but Rob's enthusiasm is subtle and dangerous. Troy just makes me go back and play more Civ. I'm thankful for that.

Crusader Kings 2 was the most recent example. I still have no idea what's happening in that game. I don't know how much of the game I'm supposed to play and how much I'm supposed to let it play itself. I played one game where I put it on full fast forward and took no actions apart from clicking Yes or No when a prompt would pop up. (The game went on surprisingly long.) And I played another where I've fiddled with it so much that I'm not sure I've progressed more than two years.

I've also had a tab open on the purchase page for Unity of Command for about a month. This last podcast only served to weaken my resolve. I've got a question about it, but I'll go post it on the other UoC thread.

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Yeah I still feel pretty out of my depth with Crusader Kings II. I'm not sure if the things I'm doing are the things I'm meant to be doing at all. My first "real" game I'm playing as the King of Scotland, and I've basically just been gradually trying to conquer the provinces that are in modern Scotland. Am I totally missing something by just manufacturing claims, then going to war for a bit, then manufacturing more claims? Feels like a weird way to play.

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Yeah I still feel pretty out of my depth with Crusader Kings II. I'm not sure if the things I'm doing are the things I'm meant to be doing at all. My first "real" game I'm playing as the King of Scotland, and I've basically just been gradually trying to conquer the provinces that are in modern Scotland. Am I totally missing something by just manufacturing claims, then going to war for a bit, then manufacturing more claims? Feels like a weird way to play.

That's a decent way to start, but you have to be careful doing that - if they are not your vassals (the Isles for example), you are probably OK unless you end up interfering with a larger power's claim. If you are just adding your own vassals to your own personal lands, then you are asking for long term trouble once a poor heir comes to power with angry nobles around.

This is a game where it is OK not to be doing something all the time. Like many of the Paradox games, trouble will find you soon enough. (Except Victoria 2 pre-expansion; what a snoozer) If it's too great an opportunity to let slide (for example, you find that you suddenly have a claim on the Duke of Northumberland and England is riven by civil war) then strike. Or acquire the lands you need to create new duchies and kingdoms.

Scotland is a good starting choice, though. You can expand into the isles, Ireland is ripe for the plucking. England and Wales will marry with you, so it's possible to worm your dynasty onto the throne that way.

But sit back and don't just play CK2 like Risk or Hearts of Iron. You can play it that way, but you end up missing what really sets it apart. The land is just the excuse for the story of how your descendants held the world in their hands and then dropped it.

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Fair enough. That advice does actually help, thank you. A couple interesting things have already happened - I started off with a claim on a part of "Scotland" that was held by the King of Norway, so I went to war with him pretty much immediately, and was raiding across the coast of Norway until he gave me the province. Feeling good about this, and presuming that I was master of all that I surveyed, when the opportunity came up to create a Ducal title that would give a vassal of mine a claim on an English province, I jumped at the chance. I had quite a successful invasion, before my army was thoroughly routed by the English and they began to shift the borders back again. I saw the writing on the wall and ended up signing a white peace before it came to the point that I wouldn't even get that.

Since then I've been doing as I noted and just occasionally manufacturing claims on provinces in "Scotland" held by the Isles. I've been taking all that territory steadily, but I've still been feeling strange about simply sitting back as you're advising and just seeing how things go. Trying to marry into the English or Welsh succession hasn't actually occurred to me, and my occasional attempts to get good marriages to bring in new nobles and such have not been working out too well for me... I apparently don't understand that aspect of the game fully. Any basic advice for attempting to get in a good position with England and/or Wales?

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You won't always have a good match available, especially at the daughter of a king level. Plus they will sometimes insist that any kids be a part of their dynasty and not yours.

So look for powerful dukes or counts in your area that have no or only a single son, with daughters to marry off. Use betrothals to grab the eldest daughters when you can (and the gap between the kids isn't too great - you want some good childbearing years in there).

Or look for underage duchesses or countesses. Create a network of allies and then you can use these to undermine the royal families of England or maybe in a few generations marry into high society.

One of the advantages of sometimes sitting back is that war is expensive. Fielding troops costs money and you need that money to improve your holdings. Constant war also drains support from your vassals - it takes time to recover.

But it sounds like you have a good grip on things. Scotland has lots of opportunities for expansion because England becomes a cockpit quite easily with competing claims, even if William of Normandy wins.

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Neat, I'll give all of that some thought. I have to say, though, there hasn't been a game in years that I've so desperately wanted for someone more experienced to just watch me play and tell me all the things I'm missing/doing wrong. For example you mentioned improving holdings - I've barely done any of that. I'm not totally convinced I even fully understand the system.

Beyond systems that I'm aware of but don't necessarily understand, though, I'm pretty certain there are a number of systems in this game that I don't even really know about. Perhaps it's time I started trying to root out further tutorial videos on YouTube or something.

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Current total: $321.90 Anyone else want to add to the running total?
- Well, 3MA (and the Flash of Steel blog as a whole) inspired me, motivated me and in a way - justified for me the creation of a strategy game, so, so far this project have costed me about 15k euro :blink:

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Well I have never watched 3MA, but since I buy a buttload of Paradox games, they would probably have cost me money. Of games people listed I own or have played the demo of:

Dom 3, I was obsessed with this game for ages

Majesty 2, Majesty 1 was vastly superior in every way though

CK2

Various Paradox games

I also recently blew money on a pack of 5 Stronghold games, which I consider to be on the same niche level as majesty, I heard of them from reading Majesty and Tilted Mill forums.

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I was going back and forth on Unity of Command but after seeing the temporary price drop and the enthusiastic endorsements by the 3MA hosts, I finally picked it up. I think you can get it for $17 for a little while longer from the developer. unityofcommand.net

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