Tigranes

Depends on what you value more, really. They were two very different people when it came to individual talent. My belief is that Caesar was brilliant at almost everything except being a ruler, at least being a ruler in a Roman state. He knew how to fight, how to be a general, even how to administer a state and make it prosperous, but not how to occupy the position of a state ruler. That was the key difference between the two.

Bought the two Monkey Island remakes pack for $9. I won't play it now but it seems a good investment.

Augustus proved that he was one of the most gifted individuals in his time in the way he conducted himself just before and after Caesar's death. He could act quickly, decisively and boldly, and in the next moment demurely wait things out when necessary, all with more composure and naturalness than old Julius. Alexander was similarly quite clearly special - not to mention that he had pretty much the best conditions for military conquest handed to him out of any ruler in the history of the ancient Greek world. Kim's problem is he neither has age nor ability, and I wonder how fiercely he wanted to be ruler to begin with. Alexander would have made a kingdom of beggars if born a beggar.

There are more than that, but in nearly all cases that includes years of preproduction where it's just <10 people working on it or something. 2 years is pretty standard for an Obsidian title, and I think with DS3 and this on Onyx they can prove they are overcoming the whole problem with unfinished content.

Final Fantasy Tactics. Same tactical battles, harder and more complex and orthodox turn-based, no world map.

Died in Level 9 out of 10 on Dungeons of Dredmor on what must have been my 20th character or so. Gragh. Have had some memorable deaths so far - one where I killed an entire monster room (100+), then opened upt he inventory and started munching on some food, but while doing that some monster blinked in out of nowhere and started attacking, only I couldn't see because of the inventory screen. There was another one where I stood on my own trap, and of course, one where I was poisoned and frantically tried everything possible, before later reading that a zodiac wand removes debuffs instantly. Currently on level 6 with one and have a good feeling.

Obviously. (If anything, gog.com line) I assume they'll be back in a day or so.

As time passes, I am more and more convinced that NK is very vulnerable now, and that's worrisome. Here's a good summary of the general factors we have to take into account, though I wouldn't go quite as far as the author.

Dungeons of Dredmor, moderate, permadeath. I think I've got a pretty good build now (Axe, Dual, Smith, Assassination, Pyro, Burglary, the...Indian Jones thing), but I keep dying rather stupidly - just got to Level 7 over 4 hours then died backed into a corner by some nothing critters. The extreme rarity of instant healing potions makes it much more exciting.

I was going to get From Dust for 7.49 today, but realized it was Ubisoft.

Calax, I now have no idea what you are trying to say. Which 'unification' between what and what country are you saying is improbable? SK and NK? NK and China? (NK has never really been a formal part of China, either.) Why is Japan even in the discussion? Yes, there's a lot of history of invasions of the Korean peninsula from various powers, but I'm also unsure what you're trying to say from that. Re. Masterfade - it's been useful so far as a buffer zone, but becomes problematic if SK goes ahead and annexes NK, or if NK itself implodes - an annexed region is not as good as a buffer state in this context, but still better than SK gobbling it up. That said, the diplomatic and political maneuvres required to actually pull this off would be so convoluted, we would need to see some serious changes in the NK situation and the China-US power play dynamic, etc. I don't think China annexation will happen - but I don't think it should be dismissed outright. As for the last point, I know that's a joke, but obviously most NKs know that's crapola. They're malnourished, not mentally ill, and increasingly they have some form of contact with the outside world. The underlying point, though, is that for SK, reunification could prove to be a great boon in the long run, if managed right. In the long run it would more than double their population and landmass - they're one of the biggest economies in the world now, so if SK does things right they can really do well with that extra manpower. Edit: I should mention - by far the most frightening prospect is that a rapid disintegration of the Kim Jong Un regime within the next 5 years, followed by Chinese troop deployment into NK to maintain peace and order, followed by much complicated diplomatic haranguing where SK, completely consistent with their previous approaches to multi-party discussions over NK, fail to assert themselves as the most relevant party, and a two-state solution is adopted whereby the Korean War is formally ended, NK & SK are separated, and NK adopts a new, open, pseudo-democratic regime within the Chinese sphere of influence. Perfect for the Chinese; rather crappy for NK; worst possible outcome for SK.

Done with Skyrim now, the second character finished the main quest and I've seen either all or most of the major questlines, as well as 200+ locations and whatnot. It's a much better game than Oblivion, but I won't miss it like I do Morrowind - it just doesn't have its own special feel. I really liked the challenge at Master level, which generally held up well until I started smithing the best stuff, which is fine. Dragons weren't quite so bad as I initially thought, though I wouldn't miss them if they were gone. The main quest was mainly meh, but nothing as terrible as Oblivion, either. If only you could skip the terrible dialogue. As usual the strongest point of TES is about randomly wandering around looking at the expansive scenery and killing things, and Skyrim did that really well. Minor thing, but I really wish Bethesda would stop putting in these 'dreamy' sequences - every time they do (1) it's tacky, (2) the actual stuff you get to do is terribly boring, (3) the writing is even worse, and (4) it usually comes packaged with unskippable 'cinematic' crap. Feeding a random collection of words into Sheogorath doesn't make him look megalomaniac or insane, it makes him boring.

Um... that never happened, at any point in history. The Mongols never occupied Japan, either.

Uh... yeah, that's officially put me at a loss.

That's a bug on the internets.

I'd love more D&D, Obsid have shown they can do plenty of creative things story-wise within that setting, and ruleset-wise, it's fantastic. We talk about unique rulesets but really I've yet to see many CRPG rulesets that are anywhere as fun and detailed as D&D, especially ones that would work with tactical squad-based combat. There's nothing wrong with D&D, especially with Obsidian doing the writing. 4th ed is a different story, I still don't know why everyone hates it (or do they still?).

No.

He nearly did, but the Codex unanimously say it was just terrible, so I passed. Let me know. (i.e. too terrible to even debate over why it is decline)

Kidproof?

China annexing NK is a realistic possibility; or rather, China *considering* it and that consideration affecting international relations, is. Actually going ahead with it and succeeding is less likely. As for your last post Calax, I may not be understanding correctly, but it makes no sense to me at present. Firstly, how exactly would Russia/China 'control' another country's GDP, short of a colony-like arrangement? That is actually even less likely than annexation. Secondly, North Korea isn't just South Korea plus dictator regime. SK's growth rate after the 50's was insane in every sense of the word; you had about 30-40 years of urbanization, democratization, massive road and infrastructure systems all over the country, a transition from cheap manufacturing to complex manufacturing to services and high tech industries, millions of overseas immigrants learning new languages and skills, and more besides. Hell, if you put SK back to the 50's condition now and asked them to do it again, it wouldn't happen. The only situation in which any region could be easily and quickly exploited for profit by another region is when there is (1) abundant natural resources, which the Korean peninsula has never had, (2) existing infrastructure, and obviously the NK infrastructure's not much use for anything these days, or (3) a huge population - NK has +20 million, but given the level of malnutrition, education levels, etc. their productivity will be haphazard until they acclimatize. SK is one of the biggest economies in the world - NK is a fatally mismanaged dump. I can see no way in which Russia would want to touch it at all, especially with China the better 'claimant'; China could try and annex NK, but any other arrangement is unlikely.

Where do you even get the more powerful spells, or is it just your spells all increase in power? I was disappointed by the lack of spells available so I never went down the magic route. Currently have a level 40 fighter with daedric armour and ~100 damage 1h sword with health absorb. Strong enough without feeling broken, but I'm now starting to get worn out of Skyrim.

They could, I suppose, but if you were a North Korean, why exactly would want you to move to Russia? East Russia, no less? China near the NK border is a bit different because that area (Manchuria, etc) was once very briefly held by Korea and has generally seen a lot of traffic, and a whole sub-ethnicity of integrated Koreans. Southeast Asia presents a good combination of lower living costs, working opportunities, and people that won't refuse to hire you just because you are North Korean. Russia... I don't know what appeal Russia would have, except for a few that may speak Russian, etc. What would be interesting is if Russia began to court North Koreans post-collapse with support schemes or whatnot, but I'm still not sure if that will lead to huge migrations - who knows.

Dungeons of Dredmor is hard. I haven't played much roguelikes before and I keep dying on Level 2, even on medium difficulty. Result = lots of new rolls.

TW2 is the most demanding RPG around, but you should be able to handle High, just put it up and see what you get. Really looks much better between low and high. Once you get the hang of how the fighting works it's easier, and also if you use Quen / rolling a lot. But hey, whatever difficulty works best for you, no reason to force anything else.

Thorin doesn't work for me as he looks way too big and non-dwarfy, but hey, looks good! I'm sure it'll deliver.