Tigranes

It is entirely too hot in Philadelphia. 25 degrees in March, what is that about? And why is everyone happyabout this travesty? I want my wind, rain and snow! Been in the office 11-10, will be glad to go home and try the AOD demo soon.

Another link: https://rapidshare.com/files/2722160238/AoD_Public_Beta.exe

Best way to go is torrent, go to http://www.file-uplo...xe.torrent.html and click the little download link at center of screen. Or watch the http://www.irontower...9.60.html for new download links edit: God I hate the new forum automatic detect link things

Most exciting game news this year, GOGOGO

Thought SC2 wasn't worth it, ambivalent about this one but I won't have my desktop around much May-August, so I guess I'll have time to see how the feedback pans out.

FO1 was 3 million, and that's 1997 rates.

Already pledged in hopes the combat will be fun, the rest is probably going to be OKish. I love their environments but the characters are booboo.

The Komnenoi rumble on as rulers of Constantinople. Empress Antonina, the daughter of Alexios, ended up ruling an astounding 42 years from 1102 to 1146. With 29 diplomacy she defused many would-be civil wars with bribes, titles, soothing words and the occasional imprisonment. I decided that having taken back Anatolia and Armenia Minor, going further East in the Heraklean tradition would be pointless; the Muslims were fractured into many squabbling nations and posed no real threat, while the Crusades had not really begun proper. I focused my attention on conquering Southern Italy and Sicily as a jump-off point back into Europe, even as my over-eager vassals decided to venture far north of the Danube. She was succeeded by Ioannes III 'the Great', who ironically earned the moniker by pretty much fighting twenty years of civil war. The Danubian Dukes rallied behind a certain Leon who declared himself King of Bulgaria, while many others took up the flag of rebellion. Actually, I wanted to white peace against the Bulgars and let them have an independent kingdom, as my vassals were expanding far too readily northward - but due to the crazy inter-duke warring in decades beforehand, Bulgaria also ended up with several random provinces all over my empire. The map-painter in me urged me to go to war to take those back, but the limited CK2 goals system meant a victory simply absorbed all of Bulgaria back. Unfortunately, the Bogomilist heresy spread to Byzantion around this time, and Ioannes decided to convert to a heresy that probably is followed by less than 10% of the population and nobility. That made the Empire a pretty unstable place, but thankfully, Ioannes kicked the bucket soon after. So in the 1160s Manuel Komnenos (I'm naming them as close to history as possible) took over. He was a promising lad, if not a genius, but decided to get maimed in his first ever hunting trip at the age of 18. Miraculously, he survived, and healed back to perfect health, and governed for another twenty years, mostly upgrading a lot of provinces, sorting out some pesky dukes and watching Hungary blob into a fiersome neighbour. Now age of 39, he's again incapacitated and his son is only 5 years old. He will probably die soon, and when he does, the empire could well break apart - there's no holding back the dukes with bribes this time.

Just pledged for Wasteland 2 and the Banner Saga too, so with Double Fine that's three preordered games for $40. I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy at least one of them enough to be worth that. I'll dump $100+ for an Obsidian one if it eventuates. Not sure about Dead State, I never thought it looked very fun a concept, and I detest zombies and sci-fi in most forms. Still, you never know.

Uhhh, this has nothing to do with the Codex, unless you mean that Dead State is made by DoubleBear, which is affiliated with Iron Tower, which is run by Vince, who used to be a Codex dude about eight years ago... yeah. With Banner Saga and Dead State these are existing games, so will be interesting to see how that works. Personally not that excited about Dead State but we'll see where my money goes. (Ironically, Double Fine is the only one to get my money so far but I'm least interested in that game.)

They're clearly not at a stage where they can announce something I think. You want to come out and say "we are going to propose X game", and build up momentum to a kickstarter date. Right now I expect they're still working out whether they want to do this, what they want to make, etc., so they aren't able to give a Yes/No.

Kotaku is being stupid, as usual.

So I've read its based off tob engine, makes me a bit more hopeful. Wonder if they can kill indoor loads, or something radical. But maybe that's crazy talk.

Mod compatibility is likely low. So will they make enough improvements to make up for the loss of litrrally hundreds of mods? Meh. Wait and see the specifics, but not excited. G make something original.

They died when bio moved away, interplay bearhugged black isle to jump off a cliff together, and the industry itself became even more big budget, etc. RTS had pretty rough few years, too.

24 Stewardship* is excellent even for a player tutored mid game ruler. That's 9 holdings with no penalty- I was beating the Seljuks without even raising realm levies and still in the black cash wise. It isn't even just the high stewardship as his traits are perfect for stopping civil wars and rebellions, I had ambitious heretic Armenians who still loved him. *That's Basileus Alex, I guess Doux Alex could have lower stats or BGA could differ stats wise from CK2+. I don't think my alex had over 15 anything at doux, though he lost bravery and had a couple other trait mutations. Also, being maimed at age 31 really crimps your style. But it may be a mod diffrtence. In Toronto = no ck2. planning to just take back asia minor, leave the armenian region as buffer then go for italy. Apulia is locked in a stalemate with the muslims.

Undergrad and grad applications are different beasts. Which makes sense, because most people are idiots when they're applying for undergrad. (Including me.) Yeah, so that really is a question where they want you to talk about what your philosophy/principles/vision is in terms of computer science as a field, the specific contributions you want to make, where you see yourself in relation to such things, how you strategize and plan your life and study. Because the worst thing in the world is a grad school student who doesn't love the actual act of studying that field and knows why he/she is there

Hey? Alex doesn't really have very good stats. I've had better in children I've grown, and I've seen a lot better in random courtiers. (I've been picking Geniuses with Humble or Trusting as my dukes.) I suppose he fares well compared to other 'pre-generated' characters at game start, though.

Yes, that's another reason for me to plop down the $15 here. Even if the game sucks, I want it to succeed. I'll probably splurge irrationally for an Obsidian fund, but I am trying to live like the poor student I am in reality.

Drowsy Emperor: Theodor Adorno, just with less German. I still don't regret not buying any of the ME games, but I've enjoyed seeing all the "Narrative Evolution" claims that are increasingly being made about the series. I mean, I skimmed some LPs and read some spoilers now about the ME3 ending, and it just seems standard sci-fi, and it's not like the game has a special amount of reactivity. So it is curious how such powerful emotional engagements are apparently happening across the board.

I put down $15 for Double Fine, I'll probably put in that again for Wasteland 2. I don't really have enough money for more, and none of their rewards excite me at all. Now, if Obsidian did something, that would be a very very different story. But I wouldn't really cry if the DB / W2 games never eventuated. Although, I should really play Wasteland properly. I remember dying a dozen times and that was about it.

I wrote 11 separate personal statements for my PhD program applications. Personal statements are the stupidest thing since Daikatana, and they should all go to hell, because everybody, including administrators and faculty who read them, know they're formulaic, contrived, performative, and a lot of it doesn't necessarily translate to actual competence. In my experience, at least for US grad programs (and much more for UK grad programs), they care about how well you can formulate your research questions, what kinds of clear principles you have about research and what you are doing, etc., than sappy personal stories or whatever. That's at least a relief to know that you don't have to make up some life-changing experience to get in. Mainly, my statements were rather transparently about telling them how smart I want them to think I am.

Return to Crusader Kings 2, with 1.04 patch and CK2Plus mod. One flaw of the mod is that if anybody in your realm rebels you get Civil War -20 to everyone's opinion, which more often means one count rebelling => half your empire. But in general a lot of things seem improved. Started in 1076 December by giving Alexios Komnenos the Duchy of Adrianopolis then playing as him. Historically, of course, the last of the Doukas emperors is deposed the next month, then Alexios takes the crown after some infighting couple of years later - with the Turks occupying most of Asia Minor. So I let loose the dogs of war and took the crown in 1077. After that was about ten years of killing rebellions and stabilising the empire, though. Then Alexios decided it's really time to make his mark and take back Turkish Anatolia, but in his first battle got himself maimed. Somehow, he walked around a cripple for another ten years conquering Paphlagonia and Thracesia, before he finally succumbed to bodily pains at the age of 43 - just before I had accrued enough prestige for him to become the Great. Next up was Ioannes Komnenos at age of 16, who had grown into a fine, attractive, diligent, smart young man... just homosexual, to boot. I married him off anyway, but maybe that was too strenuous for him; within 3 years he had fallen ill, then pneumatic, then dead. That meant the only heir was Anna Komnenos, his younger sister, at the age of 12. Now she has to keep all the vassals in check, wait and get a nice matrilineal marriage before we go and do anything crazy. Of course, two problems: before Alexios managed to pass Medium Crown Authority a few of my dukes waged some wars to become pretty powerful, one of them the heir of Doukas Emperors, and the Turks have decided to invade us right at this moment. Should be interesting.

Now, now, Gorth. That's pretty partial. 1. All things considered it's not a game where you're likely to come across game-breaking bugs. It's an extremely polished game and suffers from very few major hiccups compared to most other RPGs. 2. You do make choices and they do have consequences. Let's see... in one sense, there's a lot of C&C: the entire game branches into two after Chapter 1, then you have two very different Chapter 2's. Within those different Chapter 2's you also make some major decisions, etc. However, it is also quite a 'cinematic' experience and that does palce limits on the kinds of things you can affect. Nevertheless, I'd say what you do matters. 3. Here it's really a matter of opinion. It is 'actiony' and is primarily aimed to recreate the actual experience of swordfighting. Other than that, see for yourself... That said, you really should play it for the PC, if you've got a good machine. It's pretty much one of the best-looking PC games around, period, and is likely to undergo some heavy nerfing to make it work on the aging console.

I keep thinking about going back to Skyrim, but I think the idea itself is more attractive than the experience. Have there been any substantial mods released yet, in terms of character development, gameplay balance or new content? Skyrim NPCs do travel around, more like Ultima's day/night schedule routines than Oblivion's let's gather to talk about mudcrabs deal (though that is still there sometimes).