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You welcome to find another link quoting different words that the head of the AU said but he said ( which I directly quoted in a previous post} "But Assoumani pushed back against the Russian leader’s claim that Russia would provide enough grain to Africa without the need for Ukrainian supplies. Although Russia was “cooperating” to resolve the crisis, “our continent is currently being severely impacted by food prices. So we are appealing to all participants in the process with a big request to facilitate access to both Ukrainian and Russian food,” he said in comments translated from French into Russian" Its very clear to everyone but you that this means Africa needs both grain from Russia AND Ukraine. Then the head of the UN SG said "UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres responded to Putin's grain pledge, stressing that grain donations cannot compensate for the deal" All you doing is ignoring the obvious impact cancelling the deal will have on Africa ,which is a global impact ,but as its been explained it will hit Africa by far the hardest. Its simple, Russia is doing this to push grain prices up so they make more money and they put pressure to end Western sanctions. But these sanctions were only implemented because of the invasion of Ukraine so its food blackmail due to the consequence of there ill-conceived invasion It reminds me of what SA could have done during Apartheid, we faced severe sanctions and we had created what were called Bantustans which were black states within the borders of SA that were dependant on SA on most things for survival. The Apartheid government could easily have said " we cant afford to support these Bantustans because of the " evil, Western sanctions "...unless the West drops the sanctions we cannot economically ensure the survival of these regions" Bu even the racist, immoral Apartheid state didnt do that and do you know why? Because the system of Apartheid was self-created and the sanctions were self-inflicted so they had a responsibility to continue to support the Bantustans which were part of the Apartheid architecture The obvious solution is not for " Europeans to eat less hamburgers" but for Russia to restore the grain deal in the interests of global and African food security.

I think I need to expand on my final review of the game with some backstory. I bought Jagged Alliance when I was in high school somewhat randomly. My mom had dragged me to the Great Mall for something, which was a bit of a drive. I convinced her that my patience for shopping deserved something, so we went into a Walden Bookstore. This was back when bookstores sold video games, and I came across this title from Sir-Tech that looked interesting. I bugged my mom to let me get the game instead of a book and she relented. It was a diamond in the rough, for sure. A couple years go by and I'm almost out of High School, and I find Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games at Fry's Electronics. I buy it. It isn't a traditional campaign like the other one, and it is supposed to let you play against other people online. Unfortunately I had limited internet and never got to play against others, but I was able to download maps. There was some really good ones. I played the Alamo dozens of times. Next we find me in college, working a boring office job making copies and moving furniture. A demo comes across the somewhat new internet for JA2. I download it and take it home, since I had no internet in my college frat house. I played the heck out of it, but the game itself was delayed...and delayed...and delayed some more. Finally it released, and it almost seemed like Sir-Tech closed their doors the next day. But the game, despite a ton of bugs, was perfect. It was strategic and humorous and unlike anything else. It had some of the magic of Xcom, but it was also its own thing entirely. I played it for years, and then fans overhauled it, and I played 1.13 for more years. I also played Wildfire, which was not so charming but at least had some of the strategy to it. I avoided most of the bad attempts at rebooting it. I kickstarted one that turned out pretty bad. Then I heard JA3 was being worked on, but they had the original developer, Ian Currie. That sparked my interest. Unsurprisingly, Ian Currie found a new home quickly after Sir-Tech went under. He joined an MMO company called Turbine and ended up being a lead on my other favorite game ever, Lord of the Rings Online. There is definitely some magic in his work. He was at Turbine for close to 2 decades, but had retired. So I was excited he had a hand in it, but worried that he was just a retired advisor with a limited role. My worries were unfounded. Jagged Alliance 3 is definitely the sequel I was waiting for for 23 years. I'd go so far as to say it was worth the wait. I'm very content with the idea I got to return to the world of AIM, and I believe this iteration will tide me over for a good while.

High Shoals Falls

I captured the Diamond Mine in A2. I got through the battle without taking a single point of damage by employing the defend a fortified position, use overwatch, and let my snipers (one with a Dragunov the other with a FAL) explode heads from a distance strategy. A wildly effective strategy. After that it only left

I'm in some major messes lately and I haven't posted about it because I don't want to spoil anything for anyone

I just finished Return of Obra Dinn, and while a great game, it has some annoying achievements that require you to re-play the game in a stupid way. So yeah, great achievement design is fun.

Are you people playing in a higher difficulty setting? I've read of you guys money troubles and how hard it was to capture certain sectors. So the thing is ... Finally yesterday I had time to actually dig into the game and by the end of the middle of the night, I had both mines, the one in the top, and the one at the bottom of the coast. I have 6 mercs now - me, Ice, Hitman, MD, Igor, and lately I've hired Livewire, because I thought it useful to have an actual mechanic and hacker. I have something around 40k in money. I'm playing on the difficulty setting that is not the super hard one (forgot what it was called). I had been in the one or the other pickle, but all in all I've managed fairly well so far. The game has some really cool moment, and I love it when the music sets in every once in a while. That whole african flair is just great. As I had expected before the release, the maps are all pretty small and often feel like just a set combat arena. Still, the maps look great. Just wish there would be a few more opportunities. Oh, and man, I quickly found out how useful sniper rifles are. Since the very first time I found a fat rifle, I'm kicking ass. And since I have found an M14 with mods from a weapon smuggler, Hitman hits 90% of his shots.. to the head. He is cleaning up the field almost on his own. I gave Igor the golden rifle that was mentioned further above and jeez, that thing hits like an elephant. Oh² one more thing... In the starting area I got a Famas with mods... but I have never used it so far, since I actually don't have *any* 5.56mm ammunition. And I have absolutely no idea where I can find some. Is there a weapons shop again like in Ja2? The interface is kinda annoying to use, and I couldn't find anything via the web browser. What's the point of giving me a cool rifle if I don't have any ammo for it. It's crazy how good this game feels. After so many failed attempts to make a new JA game, it feels extremely weird to suddenly have one that ... doesn't suck. It's almost like you expect a new JA game to suck, because "that's just how it is." And when you play this game, it's like it was actually really easy to make a good sequel. Like.. what's the big deal? Here you see exactly how to do it ... why have all those other studios not been able to do this? Is it really actually Ian Currie who is the only one who understood the game and was now able to make another good one? I just don't understand. Granted, the game also has its fair share of issues, but it's nothing I can't look past for the moment.

Sometimes you just find a game, that somehow comes to personify an age or a genre for you. For me, there are a handful of games that despite being 30 years old are my "go to" games for different reasons. To this day, I still use a C64 as well as an Amiga emulator to play games that never made it to PC in a for me playable form (Lords of Midnight by MIke Singleton, Ultima IV by "Lord British", Elite by Bell/Braben, Carriers at War by SSI, Mech Warrior, Defender of the Crown etc.) as well as old PC games that runs on dos emulator like Gygax' War in Russia and Master of Orion 2 by Microprose and yes, also some "newer" games that runs on Windows like the original X-Com trilogy and Jagged Alliance 1+2. To be fair, if I wanted the original Elite experience, I should find an Acorn BBC-B emulator and the original BBC version But like the above history, sometimes, just sometimes you run into something that feels like a worthy successor. I had a similar feeling with Xenonauts after lamenting the inability of games developers to make proper X-Com type games (as in, I felt like celebrating and played it to death for a while, satisfying this deep seated need for something that felt like X-Com and I hope JA3 will be a similar experience) Edit: Forgot to mention a game like HoMM3, which to some degree got a similar game in Disciples II

Well, we don’t know when exactly 4 companions become companions. In the only bit from act2 that has been revealed two of the confirmed companions were still NPCs. Perhaps they will join our party in act2 - but they also might not until later.

And they are offering it only to countries, which have Wagner or strong pro-Russian presence in them

https://www.dw.com/en/african-leaders-urge-putin-to-consider-ukraine-peace-plan/a-66379268 Here is a nice summary link of the Africa Russia summit and it includes things we have already discussed but new information as well, I found this particularly interesting "During the summit's opening on Thursday, Moscow pledged 25,000 to 50,000 tons of Russian grain to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Eritrea and Central African Republic each in the next three to four months. Under the now halted grain deal, the UN World Food Program shipped 725,000 tons of grain to several countries, including Somalia " So the free grain from Russia cant make up for what is lost through the black sea deal being cancelled

The Russia African summit is over and it was the predicted failure with only 17 African heads of state going and the AU dismissing the Russian offer of free grain as a way to address canceling the black sea grain deal. Russia cant supply enough " free grain " and the AU head urged Putin to restore the deal . To quote from the link below "But Assoumani pushed back against the Russian leader’s claim that Russia would provide enough grain to Africa without the need for Ukrainian supplies. Although Russia was “cooperating” to resolve the crisis, “our continent is currently being severely impacted by food prices. So we are appealing to all participants in the process with a big request to facilitate access to both Ukrainian and Russian food,” he said in comments translated from French into Russian " https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/27/africa-grain-russia/

Romania is willing to use their air force to help with Ukrainian grain transit over Danube river. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/07/28/7413257/

My interest for Barrel's Gate 3 went up when I learnt all the good companions arrive in act 2.

Came in and found that a DB job has been failing every day for 6 months, and no one has noticed. Head dev asked pertitent question of "What does this job actually do then ?" I am beginning to think that 90% of operations in my company don't actually DO anything

"but still" is an admission o' self undercutting, yes? you make the counter argument and then "but still," for your main point? not to mention we disagree. honest makes us wonder if we played the same game. gonna limit to weapons: kitchen stove led to multiple builds being developed 'round the weapon. https://forums.obsidian.net/search/?q=kitchen stove&quick=1 silly op. marux amanth were not only powerful but were useful for multiple different classes and builds. we got extreme use from the burn + the extra attack chance for priests. am thinking people didn't fully understand the deadfire maths if they failed to recognize just how many extra attacks is functional possible generated with a priest wielding marux amanth. magran's favor were kinda op for fire users, which is what our contemplative were. we had never used a battle axe the whole game but 'cause o' the way deadfire didn't force us into single weapon specialization, we were able to get serious benefit from the axe late gam. in fact, for our first deadfire run, we started dual wielding sceptres with our contemplative, cause the helwalker+ priest o' eothas were kinda squish and range made sense. then switched to marux amanth + whatever relative early. the ball and chain flail seemed world beater effective for our high crit build. 'course late game were a dagger + axe 'cause with our contemplative wielding magran's favor we could lay down over-the-top pillars of fire. were no mechanical punishment for using the axe or the dagger or the flail. lord darryn's voulge were the primary weapon for our shaman and it were extreme fun to use... and strongk. stacking daze on crit and with a barbarian we were critting frequent enough. late game we might be tempted to switch to the also ridiculous powerful chromoprismatic staff, but for a shaman, the lightning aoe were tough to ignore. speaking o' our shaman, modwyr not only had the speed stacking quality (again, am thinking people didn't understand the maths, so perhaps seeming small stacking bonuses were overlooked too often) but the weapon were easy to upgrade and it eventual provided immunity to the confused state, which until mid game were our one shortcoming as a shaman. for the shaman we also thought tekēhu's weapon were mighty keen and so we upgraded and used for much o' the game when needing a ranged alternative. worked a bit like kitchen stove with our berserker. do we need to mention the plethora o' sabres? were actual a problem 'cause so many backers who paid for a custom weapon wanted sabres, so there were more good sabres than anything else at release. is not difficult to find threads complaining about why there were so many great sabres and not many hatchets... or whatever. etc. edit: shouldn't need be stated, but am thinking a main point o' deadfire gear scheme is missed. gear is important in deadfire, but is almost never what defines a character or makes a build strong. xzar serious undersells the kitchen stove, but that weapon is almost unique in that is more than a few builds which is dependent on the weapon. a major goal o' deadfire were to exorcise that stoopid. in wotr, we near always have ember go the fire route or focus enchantment spells. why? 'cause gear makes enchantment and fire the obvious wins. most wotr builds is as much gear dependent as they is focused on player abilities.bg2 were even worse with gear almost wholly defining the efficacy o' a majority o' builds. obsidan were specific trying to avoid such in deadfire. somehow the deadfire gear goal, one we see as a positive, needs be explained and apologized... which kinda misses what obsidian successful did. and for @Sarex and others who once again mention that deadfire were not perfect balanced, we observe such were never promised or even a goal. the obsidian developers observed that particular with creative players, there were always gonna be exploits if people looked hard enough. the actual goal were not to eliminate every powerful build but rather to make sure every class and build were viable and fun. observe the existence o' "outliers" is strawman 'cause obsidian specific noted on multiple occasions how elimination o' outliers were not a goal o' their balancing efforts. sure, the developers nerfed stuff more than once, but the real focus were to make every class viable... and potential fun. so, what were the prohibitive weak class in deadfire? if you tried hard or had extreme bad luck am s'posing were possible to self gimp with multi class, which is something obsidian warned 'bout in-game as well as on the boards. a not viable single class in deadfire? not seeing it. somebody in this thread actual mentioned a monk subclass, which were kinda insane. every monk were arguable too powerful in deadfire, so even the arguable worst were strong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiIu1d_T9Uk streetfighter + shattered pillar were extreme strong, but even a vanilla shattered pillar, particular with an instruments of pain build, was a wrecker. you will find no shortage of shatter pillars builds in the deadfire forum. aside, am recalling how during the beta we kept seeing complaints that rogues were weak. *snort* rogues weren't noticeable buffed during the beta, but sure enough, when deadfire were released and people actual played 'em, the rogue complaints disappeared. the rogue complaints, coming almost entire from people who hadn't bothered to play a rogue, were illustrative o' a major problem. 'cause deadfire were once again implementing rules different even from the original pathfinder, players made assumptions after reading class and item descriptions w/o realizing the actual gameplay efficacy o' those classes and items. everybody knew rouges sucked, but nobody had bothered to test 'em? 'ccording to obsidian's deadfire telemetry, literal nobody had played a shaman for a month or two following release, and near nobody had played a contemplative, but there were plenty o' opinions on shaman and contemplative builds. is why we played a shaman berserker + priest o' wael shaman. our first run were the helwalker + priest o' eothas. to say we were satisfied with our powha is an understatement. regardless, while there were indeed outliers in deadfire, there were no classes which were not viable. every class was effective. however, we will note an oft mentioned obsidian example were misleading. to show the range o' possible builds possible in pillars and again in deadfire, obsidian developers would reflexive mention how you could build a sooper smart barbarian. ... the obsidian barbarian example is opposite o' what the developers suggest. we played pillars and deadfire priests with high resolve or high might or high dexterity and all were viable and even fun. however, am thinking there were self gimpage involved if a player attempted to build a not sooper smart barbarian unless they were particular deft with the system. the example obsidian used all the time to identify more options actual represented one o' the rare cases o' homogenization. HA! Good Fun!

One man's balance is another's idea of fun. I personally found PoE and especially Deadfire way, way more fun to play than that double-cheese deluxe aka Wrathfinder. It means I can get creative within given set of rules and experience this wondrous, liberating thing of playing with any possible class combination instead of "take loremaster for spellcasting gouda, take a level in monk for camembert style, (alignment? **** that, you can change it later anyway); rogue? Don't be stupid, play a vivisectionist, oh and did I mention fondue monk dip? () you totally should take that" etc. To each their own of course, but my fingers crossed for Sawyer not taking parmesan bites from Owlcat's charcuterie.

I think, PoE is closer to PF, considering its single-player and story-focused approach (though, with more combat*), D:OS was more on the multiplayer sandbox side with awful stylistic coherence (gore + humour; but the narrative was backed up by the MP/competitive aspect). So, the full VA, while it was high-quality, was a pointless resource sink. Owlcat seems to know that their target audience does not need the full VA, while Larian is currently going for more "cinematic" games. Neither is inherently bad, but they are different. *PF still was offering more roleplay than D:OS, despite the amount of combat and the additional systems. E.g. the Trickster route was different from the Angel one in both mechanics and specific story content. I guess, it is good that Ubisoft keeps reminding me to avoid their products. Also, I am curious how it aligns with the customer protection laws in the EU - removing time-unrestricted licences cannot be legal.

Not true, only accounts with no bought games.

OpenMW 0.48 released The most notable addition is shiny new post processing effects.

Blizzard is just itching for lawsuits, aren't they. Once again, Asmongold, sorry. TL;DR: purchase button that's easy to click by accident, but doesn't have any extra confirmation pop-up.