Checkpoint

Wow, those were some wacky goals the Oilers got last night. Well, whatever it takes to win a freaking game, I suppose. Regarding Nedved I think that if there's anywhere he'll find some of his old touch it's with the Oilers. Considering the price I'm not against the acquisition at all, now just don't get tempted to put him with Sykora and Hemmer.

The Germans couldn't have succeeded with the Schlieffen Plan (or, at least, the Moltke-modified incarnation they implemented) and the trenches were inevitable in a time where infantry was the chief ingredient of an army. The only thing interesting about the pre-stalemate war was troops walking along roads. Marching and time tables for trains somehow doesn't equate interesting strategy to me.

Although those things are bugs and not game design issues, I've come to understand that this game is virtually useless without some proper mods to deal with it. I've just installed a new HDD and another GB of RAM, so I'll be getting this game shortly. I suppose it's the ever-present case of "we must dumb the game down and make it arcadish or the kids won't buy it," when in fact it's a strategy game and the last thing you want to do with those is dumb them down too much. I'm looking at mods like Anno Domini, but I'm not entirely sold on their idea of dynasties replacing "countries," since I don't think that representation is perfectly accurate either. I'd rather have countries that I'm familiar with than a bunch of faction-specific dynasties that only comes to interfere with the houses of other "countries."

I hear you, but I think marketing it to westerners might be the obstacle that dissuades them. China isn't as easy to sell as Japanese Samurai after all. Regarding 1914 it could be interesting - for a while. Battles were very repetitive and very rarely decisive, and as we know the whole war was a grind for the most part. I say nay. I would like to see something set in the early modern period, wouldn't mind Napoleon at all but preferably something starting in the 1400s or 1500s. I guess I'll have EU3 for that, but I want to play as SWEDEN! I'm such a patriotic dork...

Are they scripted like events coming at certain dates? I would have thought they'd come up whenever you reached that "level of technology" through city growth and so forth. I do remember now, however, that there were events regarding the Europeans and Christianity etc in Shogun. Hm, personally I don't mind the wait. I'm more concerned with the prospect of having too easy a time preparing for the Mongol invasion and such if the years "move slower," as it were.

Are you by any chance trying to sell us something?

OK, I think me and my friend may have run into some of that AI suspicion by impatiently exterminating difficult-to-appease heathens. We played as the Turks and even though we kept beating the Byzantines and chased them out of Asia Minor and captured Constantinople (which we renamed Istanbul! ) ), they just thought our peace offers were too demanding. It's fun boosting the dread-o-meter, though. We did have a successful softie, though, in Selim the Chivalrous who sorted some dire situations for us. I think that with the emphasis put on seasons and aging every second turn, the most logical course of time should be two turns a year, and that also seems like the original idea. I guess they found that too unbalanced, however, and solved it by simply making turns span a longer frame of time which seems like a bit of a panicky way to address it. The Anno Domino mod appears to be promising, but will it solve this problem?

But the game is about strategy, not tactics. The point is that you aren't the general, so what more do you expect of combat? The thing I can find a bit stupid is that there are no "battles" per se, where the two sides round up on a sunny day and you have an outcome, but generally I don't expect to have anything to do with the actual combat when my task is to run the empire and not single battles. On that note, I'd love a TW game where you'd get to play battles in the EU era, but they might get a tad too large given the bigger number of troops involved. I suppose its my urge to get to kick some butt with Sweden in a TW game.

OK, so I've played this game a bit at a friend's place and kinda got the hang of it (I've played STW and MTW1 in the past). I played a modded version, though, since I understand that the vanilla one has some issues. One of the things that tries its best to kill immersion is the people-get-200-years-old syndrome generated from having 2 turns per year and people aging only one year every other turn. The mod(s) that I used offset this slightly by having turns only covering one year, but that still meant that people only aged one year in two. Are there any mods out there that splits up years into at least two turns to make aging proper without totally whacking game balance (is it even possible having turns covering less than one year)? I imagine making things more expensive would solve the problem of technology advancing too fast and defending against the Mongols too easy etc. I've seen you posting at TW Center, Allan, so what gives? I haven't had the patience to look through mod threads of a game I haven't been able to play until this holiday. Any pointers would be appreciated since I'm getting this game as soon as my 1024MB RAM and new hard drive arrive.

Har har. I never played EU1, but from what I gather it's a light version of EU2. EU2, in turn, was a good game with a bunch of flaws and it was also very poorly balanced until the umpteenth patch came about. EU3 sounds promising in many ways, although there are some features I don't like the look of, that might turn out unplayable or great, probably going from the former to the latter over a patch-ridden few months/years.

You just have to love Hemsky's wrist shot! Now we need Smyth back and an impact guy on the blueline and things should start looking better.

I was gonna watch Edmonton-Colorado on delay, but Canal+ thought it seemed intelligent to show the highlights right before the game, so I kinda knew the score and didn't bother watching. Canal+ really excel at screwing up their delayed games in all sorts of ways, so I finally sent them an angry email. I'll be watching the Dallas game live, though, so I shouldn't run any risk of learning the result beforehand (though you never know with those tossers).

And who needs Ales Hemsky when we've got Matt Greene?

You are crazy. Christmas is about rampant commercialization and capitalism gone crazy backed by a mix bag of Pagan and Christian religious nonsense. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> ...and thus, sitting on his high horse, Sand acclaimed: "I can see my house from here!"

What about force power vs horse power?

No, but I ruled the Mughal Empire for five years.

Force Shave. (Armpits)

Sounds like the Bulin Wall is having a big game, albeit with some help from his goalposts. <_<

Yes. I've been studying for an exam the whole day, so I'll catch a bit of the Columbus game on the telly and then I'll listen to the Oiler game.

Yes, I find that peculiar too. He's still a quality player who I seem to remember having a pretty decent showing in the Olympics as well. Good for the Hawks.

Force Eat-Beans-And-Fart

The bigger issue is, how old are Raven, Reven and Maloch?

You're fatter. Did I mention I like fat boys?

Similar to the guy in your avatar! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No. Dave Angel is an eco warrior and has a human jaw.

Carefully so in the proper order to spell the name Nartwak, no doubt.