Calax

They'd have to be midgets for that.

Calax I don't mean to make you feel worse but that's what happens when you drive a Porsche...you become a target for those who are resentful of your success ... I drive a 1998 POS acura that's missing half it's paint. Success is not a picture painted by that car. And Nep, it wouldn't be frivolous, I'd just be getting restitution from the criminal for the damage he's done to me and my life. I'd not be suing for mental anguish or anything, just for the full price of a modest car. And Gfted, they tried to get something from my car (everything was out of my center console and my bookbag was opened) but I don't keep anything in there to take.

Nah, I left it unlocked (because I was tired and don't keep anything in the car). So it's partly my fault, but now my entire car smells of cigarettes. If I find it's been legit broken into I'm gonna call the cops and when/if they find the **** who did it, sue them for the price of a new car.

Somebody broke into my car last night. Nothing was taken (because I keep nothing in there) but it now reeks of cigarette smoke. If somebody is caught doing it, somebody is going to end up in a ditch six miles outside of town.

Latest patch (#2) updated it so that you see a lot more empires showing up rather than individual kingdoms. The next patch seems like it's going to be doing even more smoothing.

So, yesterday kitteh was unsure of his new digs... now he just spent 3 hours randomly playing (including oddly thinking that the roof had something going on), and is currently passed out on my couch.

A friend of the female persuasion, no romantics going on.

From what I've been playing it's gotten very very good. Although the germanic/barbarian factions seem to have not that much in the way of unit variety.

First day home for kitteh (she doesn't live with me)

Sooooooooooooooooooooo Won my Rome game via culture. Owned all of Germany, Spain, France, Britain (via client states) and was starting an Alexander style march east when it finally kicked in.

Not often at this point, no. It's been a long time since I had a full-time job/hours and even when I had one, the schedules were very flexible because I never did 9-5 work and have done freelance stuff since I was 24-25 or so (my schedule was what I wanted it to be). I don't think that has anything to do with it tho. I think it's more likely from moving back to live in a place I don't really like that much. It was necessary (moving) and it's working well in some ways, but ... blah. Sometimes one just gets tired of feeling like everything you do is a repeat, after a few decades or more I guess. Maybe I should get a pilot's license and a small plane. A mixed mongrel type of kitty or a particular breed? There's a few breeds where I've always wanted to get one, but I never want to pay the giant breeder fee so... He's kinda a mongrel calico kitteh. Waiting for the Humane society to clear him before I can take him home.

Submitted the paper work to adopt a kitty. He's less than 6 months. Then I worked and picked up GTA V at the end of the day. And I'm realizing I can't do the second to last run any more because I can't get to sleep until 3 am and that's just... nasty.

Yes and no... The only thing I've been noticing from playing further is that the AI... needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. There are a few bits of brilliance in it, when the battle is more akin to one from the olden days, but for the most part it's just becoming obviously unable to keep up with new tactics and mechanics. The only reason it felt smarter in Shogun 2 is because there was a MUCH smaller unit tree, and because units could just climb over walls. With the reversion to not having that, the AI will automatically attack your walls.... but not be sure how to break it (sometimes never setting your gates on fire, other times getting it half way there...). I'd guess if they went and forced the AI to take a turn and build a few siege engines it'd act smarter during those... but honestly, it's just to far behind.

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/599266384649329024/547845C50AC6943038881C7F16E19129DB83A015/ ... Right at the furthest point from my legions! Friggin Senate.

It's angry joe, the entire reason he exists is to scream stupidly at stuff. The game has flaws, we get it, partly because the crew behind it is focusing on the wrong things in an attempt to get money. They went mostly for atmosphere, and succeeded for the most part, but it's starting to remind me a bit of EvE online where the suits were focused on stupid stuff (cosmetic items, in game store) instead of game mechanics thinking that that'd make them more money. TW2 feels similar in that they keep improving the look and the feel of the era... while forgetting that the gameplay and underlying mechanics and systems for everything needs to be updated too because that's what got your fans in the first place. I'm convinced that if they had focused mostly on ensuring that the games systems were well utilized and meaningful, rather than on ****ing clouds and "politics" they'd end up with a much better game.

Didn't get my promotion... it went to the guy who wears teeshirts because he can get away with it. I think that was only because if he didn't get the promotion he's said he'd have to start looking for something else because he needs more money, while I said I'd wait a while to see if anything else came down the line. Now it's 3 pm and I'm mildly drunk, aiming for "heavily intoxicated" to "What is the color of that wall?"

Ya'll make me feel like I'm going to be hell on wheels... When I'm 40 and finally slightly settled.

As I sit here about to clock in, I'm debating using some of my limited (feeling anyway) free time this week to at least try to write a chapter of a "Wuxia in Rome" story if I can. Just to see if it'd fit.

I own Gaul, Greece, Hispania, Italy and am starting to attack into Germania. Had Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla pop up in my game. Made me happy and sad at the same time because I realized that the game is paced really badly in terms of tech so the "Marian Reforms" came almost 100 years before the guy could even think of being a General. Also with the systems in place and a few things I read about Legions in Rome during the later part of the Empire (when it was cracking under pressure) I couldn't help but think that a Wuxia novel set in the Roman Empire with all of the common characters and tropes being transplanted from Chinese guys onto their European Equivalents.

Thinking about it I think that our loving designers broke a few of their systems. I've only gotten two sets of the storyline decisions that they hyped in the game. And that was on my first day playing. Since then it's just been the game looking at me like "So... you wanna go to war yet?" RPS did a rundown on the game where they discussed the fact that there seems to be an overriding reason in most games to do something. In the early ones the AI was "smart" enough to be aggressive, but since then AI hasn't been updated that much to involve newer bits of the game. The guys at RPS said that they think that you need to have a Civil war driving the game. Which I personally don't think is true. Instead I think it's that you need to have somebody on your back saying "Dude! We need to beat these two other guys but they're bigger than us!" Going back to the Original Rome, you were always fighting and playing knowing that at some point the other two roman kingdoms were going to turn on you because you were gaining to much power. I always felt that Medieval just was the most annoyingly complicated game (with each faction seemingly having it's own tech tree and armies..) and it had the Pope sitting there glaring at you as a christian Kingdom to get a move on. Shogun II and it's expansions had the mission system and random events to egg you on. Rome 2 has a lackluster politics system and a, I think, broken Missions system. Politics is so buried in the UI it might as well be ignored, and the Senate hasn't issued that many missions to me. So I don't have them or the ultimate goal of being the Emperor as a driving force behind my play. And this wouldn't be a problem if the AI had been built to deal with the systems that they've got in place for things like squalor and food, but it isn't so every turn I see at least one "A new faction rises!" notification because a province revolted due to food. In the original Rome there would usually end up being a massive Empire waiting for you somewhere once you'd conquered the other Roman factions, so part of the fun there was dukeing it out against that other faction and slowly carving their old domain into little provinces. There is most definitely a good game in Rome 2. Lurking just beneath the surface... but I think it'd take a Napoleon-esque release to bring it to the fore. The new army system is fantastic and suits how real life armies work, the Province system is good, but I feel like there needs to be some adjustments made to get the armies out more. The AI just needs to be scrapped and rebuilt (I think somebody said that the AI in current use is just a modified version of the one from all the way back in the original Rome... and the programmer of that system left the company during Medieval II). The only other major thing I can say is that I feel like Generals should almost be vestigial at this point. The time frame of the game has each turn as one Year. Meaning that your Generals aren't around long enough for you to feel like it's worth investing in them. At this point if I were at CA I'd probably flipflop the General and Legion systems, making the Legion itself more important than the General or any of it's component parts.

I've been having fun with it. In terms of the vanilla game it's frustrating having to balance squalor and food. Some people even built their entire economy's on keeping cities revolting as much as possible and enslaving those that survive the Legion smashing the rebellions to pieces. However, they tuned those two pieces so tightly that the AI can't figure it out. On Steam Der has been doing a wee bit o' complainin that the AI was only sending basic basic units at him... And he's Rome running around with heavily armored preatorians. Well it turns out this entire thing is because the AI doesn't have the control necessary to keep a big empire running (which is why nobody ever starts getting a big enough empire to challenge the player). I picked up a Mod that's originally from Total War Center. Cuts down on squalor and everything for the AI and makes things faster because it eliminates the stupid clouds etc that MURDER your performance in game (who'd a thought). More info later, at work and have to go.

I played that when I was little.... I had The Emperor and Vader in Custody but couldn't take Coursecant (had it blocaded for half the game) because of double shielding. Any infiltration I tried to pull off was stopped.... By a Force Sensative Admrial Bloody Ozzel. I kid you not. Anywho. I'm still working around in Rome 2. I think the way they designed the Armies is FANTASTIC, and it actually could be used to much greater effect. But right now the game needs a bit more optomization and a few restructurings for it to fit well into it's role. The biggest thing being that they need to take a hint from Civ and make it so that I don't have to click to see all the information for ANYONE. At the same time the squalor/food system is a bit stupid (Basically squalor effects happiness, and food is finite in your empire and is manipulated by buildings... ALL high tier buildings eat up food and produce squalor. At least one person has taken to leaving a few garrison Legions in different parts of Europe just to run around and kill the resulting uprisings (once the uprising begins, there's an automatic reduction in unhappiness because the unhappy people join the Rebel army). It ends up netting him a pretty good workforce of slaves. I'm currently getting my money back up (at peace you earn a whole pile more money than at war), so I can continue my conquests. The AI is just frustrating because if there's a coastal city that's controlled by Rebels, the AI players will blockade that sucker but never fight it, and you can't mount an offensive to take it yourself either.

Interviewed yesterday to become asst branch manager here, then hung out with a small group from my floor that're probably 5ish years younger than me with the oldest. Today I was a tiny bit late getting out of the house, and apparently my passenger to come down to the airport was having a bit of an anureism about me not being there 10 minutes early. She tried to call our phone line and got run around so much that if I hadn't been talking to her for the trip down trying to smooth things over ("We in Iowa are saying the exact same things and are trying to fix it because it's bad for us too!") We'd have lost a customer for that. Yay for salvaging two customers in 4 weeks (one who's wife was totally missed previously and gave me a 20 dollar tip!)

The Black Company stuff is only for the first two games and the Books of the North. Past that it becomes a whole different creature (what with magical troll people and Croaker being the boss of fantasy-India).

Rome 2. Not exactly a fan of the new politics system. Doesn't feel very involved overall. Basically you're looking at "You control your faction for all intents and purposes, but certain characters should be more important to you!".