LadyCrimson

Nothing important, but since HBO is now MAX, I noticed they had some of those true-crime shows I liked from whatever channels they were ages ago. So I'm working my way through some seasons of Homicide Hunter/Lt. Joe Kenda. I remember liking a couple seasons of that, and there's a lot more seasons. They use a persistent actor to play young Joe Kenda during re-enactments. Sometimes it's rather cheesey, sometimes less so, the music is always way over-dramatic, but they're shortish and Mr. Kenda himself has this dry delivery and occasional sense of humor I find watchable. Just one of those good for casual viewing while eating/exercising shows (which seems to be almost the only time I watch video media anymore). There was also apparently a semi-recent Forensic Files 2, which I didn't know existed. I loved the old original one from the late 90's, back before such shows were quite so cheesy/over-dramatic. It was probably mostly what got me on that whole kick in the first place (well that and CSI...). FF 2 isn't as good but it's still better than most modern shows. The first few episodes the new narrator (Bill Camp) was totally overboard and I thought "oh no" but they must have told him to take it down several notches and became at least tolerable. The original Forensic Files narrator (Peter Thomas) had the most awesome voice for such, but he passed.

Patron - got to around 3300 population. The save file takes much longer both to load-in, and when processing exiting game, now. Although save file doesn't seem super huge or anything. But I'm starting to get a little bored with expanding mostly for sake of keeping citizens from complaining about no housing, there's no other motivation at this point. I mean, I'd still love to fill the map but the performance keeps dropping, too, ofc. So it might be time to try another map/try with different land challenges. I think I did figure out why citizens still get grumpy re: no housing even with Shelters - I think they will stay in Shelters for a while but eventually get annoyed and want a proper house, perhaps as part of an "angry citizens may leave or riot" mechanic. Thus kind of negating Shelters supposed no-births growth-damper effect. Only need 3-4 Shelters, because they start to get annoyed before any more will fill up.

I would guess average modern town/colony builders end things/want to start over somewhere around here. Maybe more tightly packed houses. I've been kinda all over the place building those. And then there's the people like me. Sadly I don't think PC will allow filling map entire. That's still only maybe 2/3. At around 3300population now.

Patron - "My CPU might tank at 2000 total population." I was wrong. It's getting close to 3k now with close to half of the map covered and if fully zoomed out it's at 28-30fps (still very playable, a little sluggish if scrolling quickly), at middleish zoom it's 45-50fps. So maybe at ... 4.5-5K then? I can't get any good pictures of whole thing tho because even with photomode, the draw distance is so limited that if you fly upward to try to include more than 1/4 of current spread, everything undraws/disappears. Should be noted that I use a small Steam workshop mod that massively increases warehouse storage. Otherwise you'd end up covering half the map just with stupid warehouses. Pfft. The gold mines/mints are broken if you make tons of them - at this point I could delete all the farms for more houses and just buy all food and stuff.

He liked it. It just looks so good - city builder if you want, a little more rts/AoE if you want, take your pick. Will it be another lone-person dev success story? I may break the 'avoid early access" rule for this one. I also may try buying it on GoG, since it's there, so I can have separate .exe versions for each alpha/beta or whatever. Probably doesn't matter tons to me anymore but that's my biggest annoyance with ea and/or current times of constant game tweaking patches (not just bugz) for 5 years even after full-release. >.>

That SW game is trying to appeal to gamers like me with a cute animal sidekick. But Ubisoft, so no. I think KOTOR2 is the only SW themed game I ever played. I don't' even remember why I picked it up originally, tbh. Probably random "might be fun" grab in the physical store. For some reason liking/loving a movie (or novel) generally has not translated for me into wanting to play a game based in a film universe. Not sure why. Just rarely appeals/I usually don't even look at them.

Yeah that was one of the main things that made me go "ugh" when I learned of it near their ea release. I was hoping eventually a mod would get rid of that. The other thing was their (seeming) focus on combat. I know you can turn it off but point is that could change development focus. I do like RTS/strategy with a bit of city management (Stronghold, mainly) but to me a mainline "city builder" is still a separate thing vs. RTS and vice versa. More and more game genres become so mashed together (City Builder, Tower defense, rouge-lite, political strategy, RTS, post-apoc!) it just feels like a mess/don't like it. Still hoping Manor Lords RTS factor will be something I like - but at least there will be a non-combat mode if I don't. We'll see. Lately tho, while I appreciate the current efforts/genre revivals, more and more I feel like "may as well just play the old games instead."

Hubby bought a car. A 14/15 year old Lexus-something (SUV, taller/boxier type, LX maybe,* I dunno/don't care) with 150K miles on it, which re: his back he says is "as good it as it seem like it's going to get." And it was still 18k+. Apparently this is fair/normal market value, maybe even a little lower than average. I don't care how long the engine lasts these days, that's still ridiculous imo it should've been more like $13k at most, but whatever, we can afford it and I know I'm not with the times anymore. That said, he had it checked out by a Lexus dealer and a separate mechanic he's known for years, plus carfax, yadda yadda. Hubby's more like me now - outside of occasional work his miles per year is extremely low so it should be fine. At least I could drive it in emergency. It was long past time to get rid of that old Dodge van anyway, back or not. *Edit: it's GX, not LX. I guess GX's are 60kish new while LX's are 80k-130k, which is just outrageous. GPU's, rent, houses...wtf greed. Yes yes there are cheaper cars. It's still all silly.

Is it fixed now? I had bizarre login issues last night, tried to post a few times, issues prevented me, figured it would be fixed later, whatever it was. Glad it was. Good work. That said, I was amused when the entire thread was inserted into the "reply/make a post" box.

The last couple nights I have woken up to find myself on the floor. Once from my low mattress, once while on the higher couch (hubby walked down the hall to find me sprawled on the floor, blankets strewn around lol). So far I have not injured myself, bruised a hip a little. It's probably more like half-rolling, half sliding off, I suppose. When I was a kid (up to 10ish) I used to roll out of the bed/onto the floor frequently - didn't usually wake me up, I was just on the floor in the morning. Once fell off a top bunk during a trip, that sort of stuff. Ha. At some point in my early teens I started sleeping like a stone, generally never moving, blankets totally undisturbed etc, Apparently I'm reverting to childhood again. Pfffft. Well if I'm lucky it won't continue much. If it does I'll have to put pillows/pads by the bed/couch etc. since I'm not 8 anymore, more likely to injure. Sigh.

Re: Hogwart's - I had a lot of fun with it (even tho for myself, I also had a lot of crash issues ) but it is rather simplistic. To me more of an causal adventure romp game vs. an rpg - no true choices/consequences, no real depth. I've seen the movies (they were ok, nothing that memorable for me), haven't read the books, am not a potter universe person. Game is light fun, but not something one is probably going to replay, as example. But I definitely had a lot of fun with it. =========== Patron journey continues (I have nothing better to do apparently) - to kind of repeat myself, since I'm a city builder "efficiency" person, my main long term goal is usually about just expanding the city/population until it fills a map or performance tanks. I have maybe .05% interest in making realistic/pretty towns. But it's easy to 'master' the loops, and the cycle (in Patron) is about once a year you get more workers trickling in etc. In other words ... it's 2024. Why do modern city builders still limit you to only 10X speed? I think we can handle 20x now. Why? Why? Also, why do ppl in houses complain about no schools when there are three schools other within radius (I build four, overlapping radius), and only the one is totally full? Just go to one of the other ones. Or ppl who complain there's no houses when there are like 10 empty Shelters. Idiots. Bad design/glitchy AI or something. Irritating.

Re: AI - I feel like half the short docs. on YT now are AI-voice generated. Sometimes it's fine, sometimes it's a little creepy, sometimes I can't tell/could be wrong. But point is, it's feeling weirder and weirder wondering if there's an actual human being behind the narrator. I suppose it shouldn't matter simply in terms of whether I like watching a short doc, but just saying. Feels weird.

Farthest Frontier is still on my list because I like Crate Ent. I trust them to make a good/decent game. That said, from the getgo I wasn't sure if they were making a city management game I'd personally be into. I think you can essentially get a sandbox mode out of it turning dangers and combat off, but still. Not sure at all, even when it comes out of early access. I can't remember if you've played the old Impressions city builders or not? There's at least less of the population happiness management - I mean it's there but it's more of a generalist thing and not difficult to pacify or almost largely ignore (at least in freeplay). Or at least, I didn't find it so. But then I do find some aspects of the "management" part of efficiency "fun" as long as it's not overboard. I liked Banished and I'm glad it rather revived the genre, but I'm tired of the whole "city building survival" concept. I don't care about earthquakes or floods or invading armies or skill trees or research paths. Just give me the buildings and a map and let me figure out what I think is best/most fun. To me that was the whole point of such games - sandbox, not to provide a gamey gameplay RTS challenge with the city building. I also like city builders to be smaller scale myself. Stuff like City Skylines I have no interest in. EDIT: the few building simulators I've seen that are much simulator vs. management are either too mechanics geek tech-y/complicated or too simple (almost to mobile game simple). So yeah...maybe for different reasons but I find if difficult to find modern ones that I like beyond an initial run too. Although some of that may be because I find them all largely too easy to "master" by now. They've spent more time trying to insert more gamey gameplay or difficulty/time roadblocks and zero time on how to make the process of designing a city/layout more fun/interesting. eg, more terrain or resource challenges perhaps. Everything that conceptually worked in the ones from 20+ years ago still basically work in the new ones.

Got to over 1000 total population in Patron. including all the farms and such, that might be about 1/6 of the map. Although one could do much better space management if not trying to cater to citizen needs with churches and multiple schools and universities everywhere as I was attempting. >.> But I'm reaching the point where game performance is dropping (at 4k, from 60+ fps to 40-50ish). Which is better than at release, where I think I noticed performance drop at only 400-ish population. Guessing my CPU would start to uber tank at maybe 2000 population. Typical cpu-bound performance limits aside, the way the game works isn't really conducive to playing the same map "forever" re: any challenges or designs etc. I don't get the same sensation of wanting to continue ala Caesar/Impressions series. You reach the may as well start a new city/map much more quickly. That said, it's still a pretty fun/decent city builder, fairly typical of the current genre workings. I mostly don't like the nonsensical/time sink research tree workings.

@Keyrock Maybe you're in the throes of video-game-diet syndrome? Jokes aside, if the weight loss is simply coming from eating a bit less then usual, I wouldn't be overly concerned yet. Something else that can come with aging - obviously varies person to person - can be phases of "eating is too much bother" or less interest in food as a kind of mental entertainment, so to speak. Although I don't think I've ever had a sense of feeling like eating food itself is offputting, myself. I usually just feel like it's not worth the bother to do the whole process of making food/sitting around eating. The act of eating isn't giving me any emotional enjoyment at times, so I'm totally not motivated to do it, even if the belly is grumbling. I end up kind of forcing myself to eat when it happens. That said, if eating is somehow physically discomforting and/or your weight loss feels disproportional to caloric intake and activity levels, a check-in with docs is always advisable. Or if it continues for too long etc.