LadyCrimson

Caesar 3 - Didn't like the Augustus mod changes. Mostly seemed to add buildings which didn't seem to impact the actual mission stuff at all (new goods weren't included in Market inventories?), so it's just ... bonus ways to suck up unemployment/decorate? It's not bad, just pointless/don't care and the saves not being backward compatible is a minus if I don't care. Thus, using Julius/more vanilla mod. Started my usual "I've played this game many times already" cheese where at the first early Trade-opens mission, I'd prevent population-win condition from triggering and let the game run unattended for hours to build up trade route money to carry over into the next mission (and therefore every mission after). Then I remembered I had an ancient save of that level with 65k. Saved me hours. See, hoarding save games for decades sometimes has benefits! Part of the fun for me is some old games relative simplicity. I should reinstall Lords of the Realms 2 again later, too. Talk about a relatively simple game. But it was so fun back then.

That only works if you're the sort who remembers you've subbed to something so you can unsub (in time), which I often am not. Plus I'm still old school enough I like my TV to always be there at a drop of a whim vs. feeling time-pressured to watch something in a short time-window. Hence Netflix as the main stay, Prime because it comes with Prime, HBO (which I may cancel soon if I can remember to), and my Viki/kdrama site. Nothing else has even a month's worth of stuff to make it worth even trying, so far. Also: ---Services should make it as easy to unsub in the same fashion/main viewing menus as it is to sub. None of that "go to this totally separate page/site, login, sift through menus, are you sure". ---I will bet you $10 that within 5-10 years most of them will introduce some kind of mandatory 3 month sub policy (1st month free, but 2 month mandatory) with an early cancellation fee to try and stop the sub/unsub habit. Or some kind of re-sub fee. Or.... ... if "most of them" haven't given up and disappeared, anyway. Edit: or merged/bought out, leaving 4-5 main "streaming networks" w/very few separate "small" ones.

Is it just me, or does this make it look like a comedy? I mean there's funny stuff in FO's, sure, but ... That said, Walton Goggins is the main reason I might try the show. That and it's on Prime, which I have.

53-1:25 - the need tuna cakes dilemma

Hey! You weren't invited! ...some just show up occasionally. They take a dip, wander the yard and eat grass. They're obviously used to/unafraid of people, if/when we notice, we have to walk up pretty close to "shoo" them so they'll exit pool/fly out of the yard.

The main reason I haven't given up on my two remaining webdomain/servers is because I know I'd never get the names again. So I keep paying for them forever even tho at this point they are only glorified image hosts and email servers. Twice now I've had someone wanting me to give up crimsonkeep-com before. But since it didn't come with an offer of $250k+, I declined.

^ I'm still waiting for more quirky and generally isometric (in feeling if not true reality) RTS games ala Dungeon Keeper, Majesty, Stronghold/Crusader. I've been waiting forever. Note that I am not looking for Starcraft or AoE or even Anno #36120. Which is one reason I'm eager to see how Manor Lords turns out. Although I'm also bracing for disappointment, again.

Caesar 3 Augustus/Julius mods work great. With Augustus version's zoom-out, I can now finally get a shot of an entire messy city. Yay! Unsure re: all the added gameplay options (you can not check/have most not active I think, at least) but maybe I'll try a campaign with it to see how it works and if I can make it feel closer to vanilla but retain some QoL stuff. Will the workers still cut across gardens? I mean, I want them to. Some quirks were fun! (from a very old save file of the final Peace map)

"Nothing on Steam appeals right now. Maybe I'll play Caesar3, haven't in ages, might feel fresh again." I had these altered .exes that forced 1080 resolution. They used to work fine on the old Win7 PC. Tried it on current PC. Would load/play ok but would bork my dual-tv/monitor displays to the point of having to reboot, either upon game exit or alt-tab etc. There appear to be two major mods for the game now. One that does all kinds of setting options including resolution plus alters some game stuff (new buildings, market lady roadblocking, other) more extensively (saves are not compatible with original-non-modded game) and one that mostly adds resolution/windowed mode/hotkeys so is more vanilla/saves are compatible. Thus I am going to install the game on two different drives and try both (should work, game is old, saves are saved in install directory). I have a feeling I'd prefer vanilla. We'll see. Hope they work. But the download speed from github is molasses for these two files. *taps foot* Augustus - non-vanilla Julius - vanilla (you need copy of original game, ofc, either GoG or Steam)

I've heard good reviews - and even without those I'd still be at least curious. I mean, I love that old mini-series, but if they pulled it off and made a great modern-era version of novel, that'd be great, too. Sadly I don't have Hulu or FX.

While there are and always will be occasional exceptions, I tend to find, for myself, that the vast majority of movies - where unexpected success or long-term IP evaluation ="hey, money" - should have remained singular (Speed, The Matrix, countless others). Or at the most, two (Terminator, Alien, countless others). Can't blame anyone for trying, tho. Never know when it might work.

I was watching Oversimplified's recent 1st and 2nd parts on Hannibal - which are great fun, like all his history w/comedy-flair animations. But since he's always done at most 2-parters, I wasn't expecting the sort of cliffhanger ending. I want the 3rd part! Heh. He promises part3 won't take a year to do/finish but we shall see. Anyway, that led me back down the ancient war history path once more. Lots of good ones on YT these days, with nice little animations/animated maps for troop movementstrategy and the like. So far I've liked HistoryMarche's a fair bit. If Oversimplified's comedic style isn't your thing, HistoryMarche's Battle of Cannae video (and their whole Hannibal series) is pretty good. Working my way through their Alexander conquest series.

I tried watching the Netflix Avatar series. I think I got about 4 episodes in. As always, I have not watched the original anime that is so beloved (I know of it, memes, maybe watched one or two episodes of the anime and that's it). I did watch that deservedly panned movie although perhaps I didn't "hate" it as much as some. It was still bad tho. The first episode of the series is tolerable/ok. But for me after that there were a couple main things that made it not for me: ---most of the acting was bad. Not as in horrible, I just mean pretty amateurish in cadence, delivery, other. I don't know if it's the actors or the direction but either way made it hard for me to get into characters/take anything at all "seriously." ---most of the writing was goofy. Lots of one-sentence dialogue passing for conversation. Such may work in anime (lots o' anime is not about long-winded dialogue after all), but in live-action with poor delivery, it just sounds - well, stupid. ---apparently I am too old/cranky to appreciate eager, youthful heroes, to relate such shows, now. It's the main reason I haven't tried that other anime live Netflix adaption, One Piece, either. So, I have no clue whether it's a good or bad adaptation, but it's definitely not something in my wheelhouse.

Over inflated budgets plus perhaps live-streaming revenue not living up to (long term) expectations plays a role too. They really need to scale back budgets/expectations on most projects, which could also decrease the risk-averse nature of AAA game development a bit. Not that they're likely going to, just like most risk-averse "blockbuster" movies won't. Thus we will all continue to look more frequently at smaller dev projects for that.

I got a bug up my rear re: some furniture and room organizing, which among other things entailed moving a bookshelf from garage to my PC room. Which means, ofc, that I suddenly gained the solo push/pull, scoot, drag-object strength of 5 men, because this has to go there, RIGHT NOW. Anyway I was showing off/yapping about the results of my efforts w/the hubby later and somewhere he said "...with a husband who can't help you." ...he's been getting progressively more mentally bummed/negative the past few months re: his back situation and inability to do anything remotely strenuous or sustained. Hoping upcoming summer weather and ability to do lots of short swims in the pool again will cheer him up some. We've also been trying to do a lot more short 30-60 minute excursions, whether a walk, errands, window shopping, let's try a new eatery, etc just to get him out of the house more often. Even those wear him out tho.

^ To be fair, especially as I grew older, I try to be pretty open minded or at least neutral. I mean I'm probably one of the "few" older trekkies/trekkers/whatever who actually somewhat likes the first two Star Trek reboot films (the rest were meh) because I looked past the ST and just saw them as silly action movies, unconcerned with what they were doing to any lore. Games into movies tho ... at least ones that aren't full blown story games (eg, Last of Us) ... it's not about lore, it's turning game graphics into live action. Never feels like it turns out right/I usually dislike it. Maybe akin to some anime vs live-action gripes a bit. Eh...maybe BL the movie will be lightly entertaining.

^ Yeah I remember when it started EA. I was interested until 3rd party registration (nothing "wrong" with that, just a personal quirk of mine) and have ignored it since (literally, so Steam would stop telling me about it). I think back then it didn't have Offline mode either. Leaning towards getting it. If nothing else, sorta want to support the offline-sp mode (they're separate from online chrs) being included.

Anyone trying Last Epoch? It's out of early access finally. It needs a company/not steam 3rd party registrations so I was kinda ignoring it, but now I see it has a full Offline ability and my interest has suddenly skyrocketed. Plus getting good gameplay reviews. Negative user reviews at the moment seem to mostly regard the typical laggy/long load/access server at launch issues (they're working on it). But since I don't care about Online playing, no skin off my nose. It does have a cash shop but so far no indications from anyone that it's p2w, just cosmetics and things like portal skins, maybe ala Path of Exile etc. Only $35 too. Hm.

*watches that Borderlands trailer* As a huge fan of the Borderlands 1 and 2 and a ... uh ... player of BL3 stuff, my reaction to chr. casting (all of it, not just Hart) and the oddly cheap looking cos-play look is still Edit: feels like they're going for a Guardians vibe, and a younger audience.

Ah! Well, if I end up buying it at some point and it has a soundtrack version, I'm getting that one.

^ LOL - looks like a cross between Age of Empires and the Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator. Just crazy enough I might like it. ==== Manor Lords - I'm starting to worry the city management-builder-RTS "hype" is starting to get overextended for this one (2 million wishlisted I think I saw last). That said...even tho it'll be Early Access first, I'm still also totally going "Please be good, please be good, please be good...". EDIT: also, I don't know what song plays in that battle trailer, but I love it.

@Sarex I do think the big "outcry" re: no save on exit etc. does come from many feeling taken by surprise. It shows as a driving with at least some level of sorta free exploration survival game, not necessarily a hardcore-kinda-rogue-like rush-y style game (or whatever). I watched three reviews of the game and none of them mentioned the save system process. Supposedly later many missions do get shorter, but yeah those initial ones where many players may take an hour or two or more is the first impression. And in the demo at least, altering most settings options would also disable Achievements. Not that I would care, but anyone who does care can't change the settings then. Anyway, the dev's already responded, which is why I noted I don't think they'll change anything. Which again, is fine. Just means I won't likely get it, myself. Note: the "technical sacrifices" they refer to is probably that they didn't code the game to keep (constant) track of stuff that would be needed for a save/exit state.

omg

The demo for Pacific Drive, if you already installed it, was made unplayable with the full release of the game. If you try to run it (even by the .exe) it just says "no license." Some folks are kinda peeved. It doesn't include me, but I can understand if they didn't get around to playing demo before release day. Seems an odd choice. I'm still kind of interested in the game but not having even a save-on-exit still isn't my thing for a SP game, so I'll wait and see if they ever change their minds. They could leave the no-save-on-exit etc. as a hardcore playstyle option or vice versa. Again, I don't need manual saving, but "leave game on all night" or "replay a section again cause maybe life happens, once too often" isn't my thing. Edit: not holding my breath for it to be changed, mind. I kind of think they won't.

Tried a city-builder demo named Synergy. Mostly because I liked the artwork style a lot. Demo appears to be the tutorial round. So little mini-quests to set up water, gathering, homes etc. So far, the artstyle is the only thing I seriously like about it. Keybinds are all over the place + mouse use and I feel like I need three hands maybe. Probably can remap them ofc, but it all feels like weird choices/annoying, at least to me. Building rotation seems limited (use Shift). I don't think the map itself rotates, not even the 4 point rotation ala Caesar 3, which is disappointing. Maybe I just can't find it in the keybind. Also, the UI element/text default setting of 1 is very microscopic, turn it way up if you want. Other than that it feels like your general city builder, keep citizens fed, busy, research/tech lines, some map exploration factors/motivations which might be a little different than usual. Something about the gameplay design feels strangely limited/awkward tho. But the artstyle is fantastic, which makes me want to like the game. Maybe with full release/outside of the tutorial.