Tigranes

As I indicated in my past post my thinking, or rather that survey, is not naïve. Its based on fact that Western countries have the happiest citizens due to how there governments provide services and how stable the governments are Also you guys obviously didn't read the report that on the original link, its called World Happiness Report 2013 (PDF) The report is based not only on the GDP of countries but many socio-economic factors contribute towards this data So maybe read that report and tell me what parts you disagree with? In this case ideology just means the Western style system of governments and how they manage there countries. I should have been more clear on this, I apologize You did not respond to any of the points I raised. (Exception: You did define what you mean by ideology, which is helpful.) Explanation: I did not seize on GDP as a particularly problematic or representative metric, so I am not sure what you are responding to. The fact that it measured 'many socio-economic factors' does not actually answer anything here. My questions apply to all of their independent variables, because it is a question about the methodology itself. To clarify myself again, then: you have raised the argument that (1) Western nations are objectively happiest, and (2) this proves the objective superiority of Western ideology. In that case, the burden of proof is on you, not us, to show: (A) Objective evidence that they are happiest; (B) Rationale as to why A is a valid measure of happiness; © Rationale as to how logically A can prove 2. You have done A, but instead of moving on to B and C, you are repeating A again and again and again. Hence, I ask: where is B and C? I can go into detail and dig into the actual measures they used (including problems of self-reporting and variable aggregation in this kind of research), but it is better to deal with the basics first. Do you think the survey is a good index of happiness? If so, how so? And then, how do you go on to make your own inference that this proves the superiority of Western ideology?

Bruce: if you actually want to know why some believe your reasoning naive and your evidence flawed,start with the two posts above this one. The rest either don't try to explain, or dontbdo so very well. I'm on tablet but ill add another. Even if we accept happiness is represented by gdp and other metrics on your poll, are those results a consequence of western 'ideology'? How would you prove that? Swedes saying they are happy doesn't prove that swedish ideology makes them happier. Would Zambia be just as happy after 50 years on swedish ideology? Would it work just as well there? While you are at it, what do you mean exactly by ideology?

I don't see the appeal of 7, it makes character development pointless as you can max almost every skill and you waste a lot of time positioning, inventory managing, etc. everybody - then the combat I assume becomes super easy.

You're fine. There's a patch expected in a day or two which is relevant for people later on in the game. I'm hearing if you haven't reached Hollywood you might want to wait, as it will fix a lot of the quest scripting issues there.

A fair way into LA now. So for anyone still in early game: LA area is far more fun than early game. More open, much better designed hubs with interesting things to do. Early game in comparison is much more of a railroaded combat slog.

Amsterdam Oct.13-Dec.15, with London, Lisbon, Brussels, Weimar, Budapest, and possibly couple other places inbetween. Don't look at me, it's for research.

Finally in LA. I enjoyed the first half but it was becoming a bit of a slog in places like Damonta, and I'm looking forward to this allegedly better half. Rangers are level 19 and have Night Terror tagging along.

Divinity: Original Sin was very good. Wasteland 2 looks pretty good. Might & Magic X was pretty good. That makes it a better year so far than most.

Ah, it's you. I guess it's a good time to confess that literally every single time I read your name, I just thought of

In Philadelphia I pay 1275USD/month for a pretty good apartment in a central location, easy to hit 800-1000 but with various drawbacks. I know one bedrooms here would hit those Berlin prices (1200-1500 euros) easily.

This is because you are a walking noob, real pedestrians parkour off the fire hydrant and the wall to overtake the silly animals.

I believe the original statement said "currently peerless", funnily enough... Not that there's anybody out there who's made more than 1 or 2 isometric CRPGs in the last 5 years (Obsidian included), so it's really hard to say.

My box has not yet arrived. I expect that is also the case for quite a few other people given the delays with physical rewards.

Well, yes, they continue to reuse a particular formula, but it's a formula that is rather awesome and worth repeating. I know their games are less than perfect, particularly at release. But how long has Rome II been out, and it is still regularly being patched and improved. The other day I just got something called Rome 2 emperor edition downloaded for free. I've had my frustrations with CA as well, but unless or until someone can do it as well or better than them, they are going to continue to get my money. I've played every Total War title since the original Rome, and I cherish each and every one of them. Exactly, it's an awesome formula that no other game is able to compete with. So all they have to do is keep making the same game with minor improvements. Instead, you had entirely braindead AI which is willing to sit outside your gates and get bombarded, randomly break their own line, walk into concentrated fire, etc. (MTW2, Empire, Rome 2); a diplomacy screen which might as well not exist since MTW2 and arguably before; increasingly mod-unfriendly game code sucking the life out of a vibrant mod sector which was willing to go to unimaginable lengths to fix their mistakes; and more. I complained but still bought each time, too, until I realised that I had magnitudes more fun with older iterations, which I could still play at any time, and half the time spent playing the new ones was time spent pretending it is a better and not worse game. I don't disagree. But I know that the situation is more complicated than it appears on the surface. A lot of it boils down to the environments becoming a lot more complex. If you look at settlements in Medieval 2, they are all flat. In Rome 2 they are anything but. So the path finding that required for the AI to get siege towers and ladders to the wall properly is miles more complicated than it was in M2. And this problem caused other game mechanics, like AI to break. This was buggy as he'll at release, but on the one hand I'm happy to see them continuing to push the bar. And happy to see that CA continues to support and improve their games over time. Maybe waiting 6 months to a year after release is the smartest move. And yes, these far more complicated maps make modding a lot more complicated. It's unfortunate, but understandable in certain respects. Sure, the game they are making is an immensely complicated one, and I'm always one for forgiving lack of polish, bugs, etc. when you attempt something ambitious. (Hard to be an Obsidian fanboy otherwise.) The problem is that (1) the same problems recur in not just one or two, but three, four, five iterations of the series; (2) those same problems are exacerbated by the improvements they choose to focus on; (3) a lot of what they choose as 'improvements' does not actually fix/improve the core gameplay but adds even more sprawling fluff - e.g. Hollywood 'finishing moves' from individual soldiers in Rome 2. One might even conclude that their problem is precisely that they are not even being ambitious. They do not seek to improve, fix or overhaul the core mechanics, but keep everything broken that is 5+ years old then tack on even more stuff. Kudos to them for patching Rome 2 for months and months, but you can't patch those kinds of problems that are at the core of how CA approach the series' development. Anyway, I too would like nothing better than a good Total War game, so we will see how it goes with the Attila business. Shogun 2 was pretty good, and CA tend to do better when they aren't trying to simulate half of the known world (Barbarian Invasions, etc).

Well, yes, they continue to reuse a particular formula, but it's a formula that is rather awesome and worth repeating. I know their games are less than perfect, particularly at release. But how long has Rome II been out, and it is still regularly being patched and improved. The other day I just got something called Rome 2 emperor edition downloaded for free. I've had my frustrations with CA as well, but unless or until someone can do it as well or better than them, they are going to continue to get my money. I've played every Total War title since the original Rome, and I cherish each and every one of them. Exactly, it's an awesome formula that no other game is able to compete with. So all they have to do is keep making the same game with minor improvements. Instead, you had entirely braindead AI which is willing to sit outside your gates and get bombarded, randomly break their own line, walk into concentrated fire, etc. (MTW2, Empire, Rome 2); a diplomacy screen which might as well not exist since MTW2 and arguably before; increasingly mod-unfriendly game code sucking the life out of a vibrant mod sector which was willing to go to unimaginable lengths to fix their mistakes; and more. I complained but still bought each time, too, until I realised that I had magnitudes more fun with older iterations, which I could still play at any time, and half the time spent playing the new ones was time spent pretending it is a better and not worse game.

Screw Creative Assembly. They make the same game again and again but break different combinations of things each time, and these days, progressively break more. Remarkable ineptness, given that if they just made exactly the same game and made slight improvements each time they would be in charge of one of the best franchises out there.

Have yet to get to Prison or canyon yet, but Rail Nomads drive me nuts because of the map. I can't tell where I am and it's also a big map with a lot of dead ends.

You're not doing anything 'wrong', and when I play Byzantium that's what I tend to do as well, anything else feels rather 'wrong' given the empire's centuries-long historical struggles. My suggestions in terms of how I discovered EU as an infinite fountain of fun rather than 'what do I do now': (1) Despite appearances, if you know what to do then Byzantium is pretty easy/OP. Try a German OPM with the Holy Roman Empire restrictions on expansion; the Dutch; or a bit more hardcore but fun, the Knights; a Kazakh / Russian / Indian minor; an African / American minor... (2) In such a complex game it is inevitable that the AI can't do everything very well. Set yourself house goals. E.g. roleplay your leaders. I tended to have each Byzantine king fixate either on a conquest of the Balkans or the East, or some forlorn dream of Southern Italy, meaning they would pursue that against 'good sense', but the next sovereign might abandon the effort - as happened historically. Play ironman, which is actually great fun. Do not ally yourself to huge powers, because it becomes weird when the French are sending their entire army to help you fight Venice. Etc. (3) Get into mods. Lots out there which introduce different mechanics, some very good. As for integration, yes, it's silly to get gigantic rebel armies. But even with those armies, integration is far easier in EU than it was in most cases in history. The entire concept of rebels springing from the ground is silly (try CK2 if you actually want nobles that conspire against you then raise their levies). It's meant to more or less simulate the difficulties you'd have, and the boots on the ground you'd need, for pacification. Again, (1) I agree rebel mechanics suck, everyone does, but (2) integration mechanics are not extreme when compared to historical difficulties, and (3) if they were less 'extreme' you would be done with your superfast map-painting even faster.

There's discussion in Codex that (1) Total of STR+SPD+INT provide AP in multiples of 4. (2) Combat Initiative is super important, because that gives you more turns than your opponent as well as just starting with your turn (3) Coordination can be dumped because bonus to hit chance is minimal compared to what you get from skill points It follows that (1) INT and SPD are most important stats, because they give AP, combat initiative, skill points, etc. (2) You may want 4/5 STR for some people to wear heavy armour, but higher is not really optimal (3) Coordination, Luck and Charisma can often be ignored for powergaming purposes

You have only yourself to blame, really.

Non-Western penalties are a heavy abstraction, since the game necessarily was built around European mechanics and to an extent assumes the supremacy of European ways. It at least gives you a way to 'catch up', and if you play it right it's not at all difficult to catch up enough to start beating Western armies by 1700s. It's not really defensible on any point of historical accuracy, but I sympathise how gargantuan a task it would be to represent it in any other way. You can't entirely annex the country after one war because then you could just annex half of Europe in 50 years. Furthermore, realistically, by this time frame, you didn't have European countries in particular defeating another nation then gobbling the entire thing up. Of course, what should happen is that you can try then you have to deal with a lot of rebellions and other problems (or some kind of anti-Napoleonic alliance), but rebel simulation is much more difficult because EU's primary level of abstraction is sovereign states fighting 'honourable' war in a very Westphalian simulation. You can always ignore truces and attack them again, at the cost of -3 stab and a lot of brownie points. This, combined with war exhaustion, reflects how unwilling your own population would be, and how pissed other countries would be - but you can do it, and sometimes I've done it to great benefit. Again, this reflects how you didn't have Prussia declare war on Poland, beat them, take a few provinces, then declare war again after 6 months - even if the reasons can't be properly simulated. Coring, converting culture/religion are actually I think excellent mechanics, and one of the first things modders usually do is make it take longer. Right now it is actually far too easy and unrealistic. You fight France, take a big chunk of their land (even 3-4 provinces, including high income ones, makes a huge difference in your country's future), then after 5 years or so, that area is now fully loyal to you? Actually, it's much more reasonable, both historically and for gameplay, that those regions will continue for years and years to pay less tax, simmer with rebellious intent, possibly try to return to French arms, etc. What it sounds like you are doing is you have a very single minded goal of where you want to attack and what you want, and you know you have the military strength and money, and you're pissed it's taking so long. (1) There's a lot of things you can do besides, say, continue conquering the rest of Anatolia. Historically, any rapid-fire expansion in one direction has tended to meet with a lot of resistance, internally or externally, and you end up losing half of that overextension anyway. There's trade; colonisation; maybe other places you can attack; and so on. It's not realistic that the entire world - including your own people's war exhaustion or your recently conquered people's belligerence or your neighbours' perceptions - would bend to your will and say, go on, just keep beating the crap out of that other dude every 2 years and conquering like a maniac. (2) If you really have nothing to do at any given point, on highest speed 20 years takes, what, 10 minutes? Why does it 'kill you' to do that? You're not meant to have something exciting to do every single day between 1452 and 1815, that would be crazy. The game does have a lot of limitations (rebel mechanics, Westernisation mechanics, etc), but it is a very in depth game. If you try to play it as a 'blobber' where you are set on conquering X region and you really want to paint that map now, which is how most of us start playing EU games, there's a limit to how much fun you can get out of that. Beyond that you discover that it can be great fun to, say, play a Indian 2-prov and get on a race to unite India and defend against Western invaders, or to play a Dutch OPM and never expand, use your diplomatic alliances to avoid being killed by Burgundy, and build up a great colonial empire; or, instead of gradually expanding and winning every war, create challenges where you lose wars and give up provinces too.

GOG have generally always been slower at Steam with launches. Maybe by next year they'll be better at it, but anyone who wants to play right from minute 0 would want to go to Steam, I guess.

I found 5-6 spells for cm. Craft is for one use spell artifacts I think. Spells are either 'special' like firestorm or primary hand.

It's definitely designed with co-op in mind but after so many lean years one doesn't simply dismiss a party-based CRPG of such scale as "very bad". The key to a good party base game are the interactions between the characters which make them feel life like, you will not find a baldurs gate, planescape torment or dragon age in divinity original sin not even near. On tablet. Briefly: nope. Don't need it myself. Can't assume that is 'key'. Of course very few finish it, it's a gigantic game compared to most games today and even the shortest & most popular games have low finishing percentages. 10-20% is the norm. Dos does have a poor endgame like most rpgs, but holds up well until end of the hiberheim / luculla hub.

I was in Aalborg last year and it was a nice quiet city. Next Scandi stop will be Stockholm next year I think, so we'll see how that pans out.