Calax

Ok, the purpose of this post is two fold. I've been watching a series on youtube called Time Commanders which pits random brits against an ai in rome total war in historical battles. Telamon is probably the funniest out of the episodes made. This made me go on a history kick and re-install Rome Total War (doing vanilla for now, may pull out total realism later). Now, the double points of this 1) Anyone know any good books that aren't to dry about roman historical battles (or battles of that period) that I could look at? I mean these guys give a tiny backstory in the last five minutes but that's just really a "this is how they set up and attacked and bam win!" sort of thing rather than a discussion on the battle and troops etc. 2) Watching this made me realize something that's on a larger scale than just this. During school I often found myself a bit lost in certain aspects, mainly relating to pop history (if you will). People would make references to the bible and I'd have no clue. Similarly it feels often like in school we're doing all these lessons on things like Cesar and Alexandr and Hannibal, but are told almost nothing beyond "they made big empires and that last guy almost brought the first guys to its' knees!". Hell, it wasn't until this week when I actually looked up Julius Cesar that I realized that "crossing the rubicon" was when he publicly decided to take over via military coup. Before that it'd always been hints or suggestions about the fact that "once you do this you can't go back" but it was never actually explicitly stated at any time during my education wtf it was. Similarly, I never knew when I studied him exactly WHY he was such a powerful man beyond just "He was killed and is the subject of this Shakespearian tradgedy". Sure they'd say something along the lines of him being the first emperor, but they never really seemed to say much more than "He was a great man because he was a great man!" Anyone else recognized the feeling that these massive people who changed the paradigm of our world in times past, are simply glossed over because they aren't the main factor in what you're studying? Cesar is the most egregious example, but Napoleon was a victim too (I literally knew nothing about him other than he was short, and scary militarily and lost at waterloo... oh and he sold the US the luisiana purchase).

Which is why the various leaderships are attempting to pull of a delicate balancing act between keeping the people frightened and unified by the outside threat, while placating foreign powers about their nuclear stockpiles, and not forcing the issue between themselves and India. That's one of the scary parts for people, is the fact they are so fractious that they can probably loose control of their nukes and we could wind up with a glowing planet instead of the current choking one we've got.

Yes teh, because somehow having a phd means that you have a lot of carry over with basic trade skills. Biggest thing about the time before what we currently know about the beginnings (1x10^-14 seconds) is that the standard laws of physics and realities go out the flippin window because everything is just so different. There is enough energy concentration that basic atomic structures can't even form properly. Also, this sucker will probably tell us more about the origins than the LHC.

http://kotaku.com/5655377/gamestop-gives-b...game-purchasers Gamestop has changed it's subscription series.

I'm fairly certain that to a degree the stalemate is desired because if they won, as soon as they did, they'd no longer have national cohesion as the only thing that held them together (a constant threat from India) was gone. It's like what'd happen to the tea party if all of a sudden spending dropped like a rock but 50% lost their jobs because of the other 50%.

I say it's because of the RIAA

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/1985-C...n-Mobile-Armory That'll give you a basic rundown.

Playing Rome:Total War. Gotta say, the general speeches can be quite funny, one of my generals just yelled "And any man who comes through this mostly intact will be my sister! It'll be frocks and coats for everyone you'll see!" *army cheers loudly*

It's a confirmed date Pearl harbor day.

No, it's not. Maybe not instantly, but with an hour or so of toying around, sure. You think your average gamer is going to plink around for an hour with practically no clue to figure out this thing he heard rumors of?

It does increase the city's defense stat a little, but usually the unit can be much more useful when it's out of the city fighting. The real reason to put units in cities is to take advantage of the 3 HP/turn healing. When defending, you can also put your artillery there if you are afraid that it might get flanked. It packs more punch than the city's ranged attack. Actually it has a tendancy to snap any incoming offensive over it's knee as they trickle into your territory.

You realize that pakistan has a lot of internal strife about how the government should be run, and a battle between the military and other branches of the government? Haven't they always? And thus they have a common enemy in India. If they loose that common enemy they fragment and possibly enter a civil war.

The point Oro, is that you seem to assume that the layman is easily able to pick up a computer, and then instantly pirate, mount, install and crack a game without anyone showing them how. That good sir, is utter tripe.

You realize that pakistan has a lot of internal strife about how the government should be run, and a battle between the military and other branches of the government?

The internet going crew (like board users etc) represent a vast minority of those who have play games. And having the internet doesn't mean you're totally proficient in using it.

My friends on prince have had rifle men about that early.

I wasn't referring specifically to the file extension but rather to whole concept behind it - it seems a lot of people (luckily?) have absolutely no idea how torrents work, even though they are easy to use. You don't have to know how the download protocol itself works to know how to use the client. The argument that people don't pirate games because they can't figure out how to work bittorrent is laughable. Ok, you can possibly just have torrents work if somebody gave you the torrent client and pointed to you where to find the torrents....... but what about everything else? The no cd crack, the mounting tools, the futzing with gamefiles to make it so they don't fight you with drm...

Now you're just being obtuse Oblarg. There is no "knowing how to" it's all just movement of your muscles so EVERYONE should do EVERYTHING!

The average video game consumer is not a clueless grandparent. The average video game consumer doesn't play on the pc to much

You don't put melee units in there, you toss in archers and other ranged units that can shoot the attackers two squares away with your city basically stopping any offensive cold by wiping out most of the units incoming.

Like I said, people can't figure out word or how to download attachments from their computer, and you expect them not only to download and run torrents and programs, but also to be able to get a program to mount the files, and tweak it so it runs wiht the crack they need... Ever seen your grandparents play a ps2? it's like that.

Yeah, but reversing the progress made during their lifetimes (like young earth creationists) just seems.... idiotic to say the least.

Napoleon total war.

I think the problem for the ai is that it's one unit per hex. Plus the arty stuff and ranged kicks them in the groin as they come at you piecemeal and you just have three archers wiping out entire armies. ... Now that I think about it, this reminds me of Empire Total War where you could be moving three units and a general around on the field and watch the enemies entire line constantly reorganize itself while the other 80% of your army cuts them to shreds. And the culture thing I think is to prevent the expansion that we saw in civ3 and 4. Also to make smaller empires viable (I much prefer three or four cities rather than having to rush out to get 12-18 before all the land is taken). and make them more specialized rather than specializing cities.

There are a lot of problems with what you just wrote. 1. If you bought AC2, then you aren't a pirate. 2. Waiting for a fix or returning it are the proper ways of handling the situation. I don't buy Ubisoft products because of their online always policy. 3. Non-technical consumers are not technical enough to turn to piracy. Applying cracks and using torrents requires a decent amount of know-how. Piracy isn't all that convenient. You are opening yourself up to all sorts of problems. Cracked software typically comes with plenty of problems on its own. People pirate because they are cheap or they are impatient. Using torrents requires know-how? Whaaaaaaaaat? Hahahahahahaha. It requires know how that isn't easily available or covered. I mean how many people know how to use WORD much less download and figure out a torrent site, and then figuring out the actual torrent program and THEN getting half the stuff required to get the thing you just snagged to work.