Mamoulian War

Another episode from Europa Universalis incoming, despite knowing, almost no one will read it But I really love this game so much! Part 2: Day 3: I continued to play on Sunday for a little while again I decided to go as much peacefully as possible and put some effort into improving relations with other European nations. In the end I was able to put peace to rebels in my Hungarian provinces and annex diplomatically two Savoy provinces and two Tuscany provinces. This meant that I had to watch out for rebels again, but this time on much lower scale as in Hungary My ally, France continued to attack Netherlands and other smaller states in Germany, which made big impact on my stability. That's why I decided to change the Alliance to Venice and Mameluks :D I boosted the Venice relations as much as possible, but after few years when I got +200, I found, that I was unable to vasallize them for some reason, which made me sad, because I wasted lot of ducats I had to find another way how to make my country more powerful. The only way which seemed, that could be painless and without impact on relations, was to go to North Africa. I decided to go against Morocco, because it was only North African country without any military alliance. Before attacking, I have decided to get more friendly with Netherlands. I made some ships, moved to their coast, declared war on them and asked my allies to help me out. To my surprise they have dishonored our alliance and I ended up fighting against them alone. As soon as I started to unload my troops to Morocco, Spain and Portugal declared war against me, and a ton of ****e hit the fan! Few days after that, the Spanish allies (Kleves, Cologne and The Palpatinate) attackedme as well. This was the time, when I realized that boosting relations with Netherlands was wise idea. Because I was now without alliance, I joined them right away. I moved all my troops to Milan and started to wait how this will play out. Spain had two provinces near me. So I decided to attack one and let the second one to be attacked by Netherlands. I moved three other regiments to attack The Palpatinate and Cologne, which in the end meant that I won war against them by annexion. Meanwhile Kleves was annexed by my Hessen allies. As soon as this happened, France declared war against me. I was lucky, that their army was decimated in the previous war against Netherlands. After conquering the Spanish province in Italy, Spain offered me this province as a peace resolution, so I gladly accepted, and put all my focus against France. I was able to conquer three their provinces in few months, and just to be safe, I offered them peace in exchange for Provence and Dauphiné. They accepted this offer, and right after that, my diplomats started to work again on raising relations with them. It played out well, because as soon as I got attacked by The Papal State, France declared war against them as well. Then out of nowhere I was attacked by Poland-Lithuania and Venice, even though I had very high relation with them, and right after that, Turkey declared war on me, and I was crushed in few months completely I had to do another reload I loaded right after The Papal State turned against me and put lot of money into Poland and Venice. The previous attacks haven't happened, so I had time to make some progress against The Pope. My allies helped me to get one of his provinces and the Turkey came again. The troops I had in Balkan were enough to hold their attacks until Netherlands and Brandenburg came to help me out, but then Turkey brought out of fog of war crazy big army and started to attack my Kosovo province. But thankfully at that time my allies have crushed two of their provinces, so I rather agreed with peace, while giving them both of these provinces back. I could probably win, but I would lose most of my Balkan troops and I was also still in war against Persia and Portugal, so many of my provinces across my empire started to revolt because of war exhaustion, and I just needed all of my troops to solve these revolts. In the end it was good move, because despite having +200 relations with Venice, they declared war on me. I think there must be some hidden mechanics in the game, where some countries are very trigger-happy, when someone wages war with The Papal State. Anyway, I was lucky that this happened right after war with Turkey, so lot of allied forces, were still on Balkan, and they helped me to besiege Bosnia. A few days afterwards, I besieged Rome, and The Papal State decided to give up their Romagna province for peace. As soon as this happened, my Italian regiment started moving towards Mantua. Venice had really big army on Balkan, but with my allies I liberated both of these provinces, so Venice short time after this offered me Bosnia as a peace resolution. While waging this war, I was putting all of my diplomats to Poland-Lithuania, so I could keep our relations high, because it was dropping during this war very fast. Out of nowhere Naples declared war against me, despite having only one province. It was quick war, which ended with their annexion. After this annexion, all of the fights in Europe stopped and month or two afterwards, the game mechanics decided to force peace with Portugal and Persia on us, and with this all of the revolts ended. The war lasted for almost 8 years. I had more than 160k soldiers at the start, and ended up with less than 50k. My plan of taking three of Morocco's provinces completely failed, but instead, I ended up with nine new European provinces. Well played :D One year after the war, the Spanish king died, and I was elected as the Emperor of The Holy Empire. This will allow me more freedom of movement for my soldiers in Europe. This whole big war put me only 80 Victory points behind Spain, but to the south, a new force is emerging fast! During the war, Persia annexed their Mameluks vassal, and now control almost whole North of Africa and Middle East. I see some big wars incoming. The year now is 1620 and I have 172 years to close the gap between me and Spain, to win the game

Will we be able to still buy the expansion as an addon for our pledge for full price? I messed up and somehow completely forgot to pledge on expansion when it was time I really would love to have the expansion on my Obsidian account as well...

I decided to look a little bit at the old Paradox games which I bought during last GOG sale. I started with Europa Universalis. I started the Tutorial campiagn but it bugged on me twice, so I went for the Grand Campaign Scenario. I picked Austria and first game, I decided to go right after Bohemia and annexed it in first few years, it went good, but then after few years I somehow messed up so I decided to restart the campaign. This time, I decided to go against smaller German Dukedoms. I got few of them and my Kingdom was growing, then I allied with Hungary and Poland-Lithuania and decided to go against Saxony. And because I completely skipped diplomacy, because I was always broke and on Loans, right after I attacked every neighbour decided to go against me. Well, the first wave (other German Dukedoms) was easy, I crushed them with my allies within minutes, then the second wave came (Venice, Italian Dukedoms and Spain) I was able to emerge victorious again, but two months after I made last peace, the third wave came (French, and Savoy) with the last few units I was able to put them down with little bit of bribery and giving away one sucky province, but then the first wave came again and I was like WTF and got completely destroyed. The whole war went for more than 20 or 30 years!!! I checked few of the savegames and I found that after annexing Bavaria, Wurtemberg and Thuringen, the relation to every neighbour was at -200 O.o Oooukey! This was the time, when I realized, that without spending ****loads of Ducats on diplomacy you get crushed into oblivion after you get to big player in warfare. I loaded the game right before the hell broke up and made sure that I had +50 relations with France and Savoy. Put some money into Spain, Hessen and Hungary as well, and right after that I successfully made Hungary into my Vassal. I amassed big armies near Bohemia borders and decided to start the war again, but this time against Bohemia. It was easy as pie this time, the war was successful after 10 years or so and I decided to give peace offer to Bohemia and annex them. But the moment I did this, Poland-Lithuania and Hungary turned against me, because I missed that our alliance expired during war. I was crushed again :'( Time for another reload. Right before the war against Bohemia. I have done the same, just this time I have decided to go against Saxony. I made sure to check the diplomacy during the war as well and put some money into maintaining allies at the right reputation. The only way, how I was able to made this is stop all research and take all the money for the republic. The war ended victorious (I annexed Saxony without my allies turning on me), but I ended up with 15% inflation, Everything started to be expensive I looked on Diplomacy screen and my neighbours and that France has stable relation to me and crazy big army (Bigger than mine after this war). So I decide to change little bit the diplomacy game and decided to ally with France and Savoy and keep very good relations with my former allies, so they do not attack me again. But I was loosing money to fast. I found out, that was caused by Auto-send Merchants feature. So I decided to turn it of and started to manage it manually, which helped me in the end to go into better results. Budget was stable, army renewed, time for third war! This time finally against Bohemia. It was another long term mess, but I was able to annex them, during the war I won few other provinces and before it ended up, I decided to get me finally a province with a shipyard. I was at war at Parma and Genoa. So I Decided first to go against Genoa. And that was a mistake. They had stored very big army on Sardinia, about which I did not know. They decimated big chunks of my army and after 2 years I was completely defeated Thankfully we have save/load feature, so I reloaded and decided to go against Parma. The war ended in pretty much same mess, but I was able to keep up with the loses. I got Parma and my first harbour! The price for it was, that I had to give Hessen as a peace resolution one of the provinces which I acquired in the first phase of this war. This was the time, when I decided to go completely peaceful. I had lot of new provinces, which now an then revolting, so I just maintained big armies to counter them. After few years the dust settled and Tuscany joined our Alliance as well. Then I found out Annex by diplomacy feature of the game. I found out that Hungary is 35 years my vassal and they got in wars with me to pretty big territories. I let my current alliance expire and boost Poland-Lithuania, Spain and Hungary reputation to big numbers, so I do not end up with new dukedoms and got attacked right away. In the end I was successful and I have in my possession most of the Central and East Europe I am back in France/Savoy/Tuscany alliance and I have not had a war for 10 years. My allies are attacking now and then, because of that, I am losing stability, but I have to first pacify the rebels in Hungary, which will take another few years. But without war, lot of money goes into my pockets, so I decided to annex diplomatically Tuscany as well. We'll see how it goes Conclusion: This game is like crack, just worse. It is the prime example of one more turn and I go to sleep. I played this game through GOG Galaxy, because I wanted to see my time spent on this game. After I quit the game, I was completely shocked!!! I spent playing from Friday afternoon to Saturday 15 hours playing it... it was middle of the night and I was shocked because I have not managed to notice that... Well I decided to go little bit slower on it, and spent 2 hours on it on Saturday evening, and haven't played it today yet. It is very old game, missing lot of rules from newer Paradox games, but I am having so much fun with it. I just have to control myself to not go into one more turn mode I have no problem to say that it is the best game, which I played this year! I just wish, I would have someone else to play Multiplayer with But first Austria has to conquer the world!!! Which is very hard, because Spain controls almost whole America, and is 300+ Victory points ahead of me. I have 240 years to catch up. 8/10 on Mamoo's chart of awesomeness. -1 point for the crazy addictiveness which does not goes good with real social life and job. If you do not care about it, it's 9/10

Yeah. The as soon as I hear open world when someone promotes their game, It makes me go "Watch Out! Fetch quest snore alert!" That is the reason that I am kindly woried about the "open world" approach in FFXV and looking towards to it with biiig uncertainty ( never happened to me before. Even though I got pretty disapointed with Lightning Returns FFXIII. Because it was kind of "open world" as well.

I can't play CK because there's too many rulers with different traits and just too many variables in general: trying to play that game makes me actually a little physically ill because of my OCD-like behavior. I enjoy EU4, though, particularly considering it's an immeasurable step up in complexity over like, the Total War games, which I thought were decent for a long while until actually trying EU4...at which point the TW games come across more as bad jokes to me. Well, I was watching let's play of CK, and I found after 70 episodes, I was really astonished from the gameplay, that I had to buy the game After I started to play it, I was surprised how addictive is the game, and I spent few days with almost no sleep O.o That's why I rather took a break from the game, because I was afraid that I will start to come late to work :D

Drools... After I played Crusader Kings for the first time, I went crazy for Paradox games, and bought all of them on GoG, including the latest Hearts of Iron III sale... They are really good games, but unfortunately I suck at them haha, but still they are so much fun! Need to go back to CK again, because getting from Count of Orava, to Duke of Nitra and then to King of Hungary was pretty entertaining and satisfying But I have to much clashes with Bohemia and Pagans. It was to much for me, so I had to get a break O.o

Unfortunately in most "open-world" games, there is absolutely no incentive to explore the world at all. I do not consider "fetch" quests as incentive...

Started with Star Ocean 4 Battle Trophy Hunting. Last 6 out of 900 to go. Moving towards 700 hours played O.o For some reason once in a while I really get addicted to this game... It will take maybe 20 or more hours to finish it...

Hearts of Iron III has come to GOG with all DLCs and is 75% off!

HL 1 and it's episodes were pretty good. HL2 was just yawn-worthy and mediocre.

Well, Soon we'll have FFVII remake, and I bet my balls, that after this game gets out and the internet breaks from all the hate and deaththreats to Square, the HL 3 will be canned for good

I caved in and bought Lords of Xulima on GOG sale. I have to say, that the game and especialy boss fights are pretty challenging, especially, if you do not go the min/max route. The writing is pretty cheesy, but that does not damge the game. The two things I do not like with this game is that the fights are sometimes very very random and after playing 30 hours the combat starts get little to repetitive. It does not hinder my enjoyement of tbe game yet, but we'll see how it feels after 10 more hours ) In the end, I would still recommend this game, especially, if you are not affraid of having little bit more of challenge ) 7/10 from me.

Well ladies, some good news for you which might help you out countering the online abuse. A study which proves the obvious fact. If a man harasses you, he really sucks at the game and feels threatened by your skills http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0131613 If this study gets little bit well know, it might help them to rather shut up TLDR version in this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/07/20/men-who-harass-women-online-are-quite-literally-losers-new-study-finds/?tid=sm_fb

Thanks, so many different bundles these days, hard to keep track. Lord of Xulima is a nice game and I just learned its Deluxe Edition is on 68% off sale on GOG too. A lot of choice at the moment Well, if you read a post right before melkathi's one, you would have known that sooner :-P

So much wasted opportunities

And another Lords of Xulima sale on GoG. 70% off for Deluxe edition... For me it's 8,29EUR... http://www.gog.com/news/lords_of_xulima_70_off_promo_contest

Heres an article and ~9 minute video on the DM mode. My understanding is that the DM can construct the entire dungeon from scratch. The Deluxe version of the game includes an additional tile set and Beholder (?) monsters. Unfortunatly not. The already stated in the SCL-Community that you can't build a dungeon tile by tile. They're pregenerated and randomized. Only things customable are size and some interior stuff like chests, traps and props. Not near the Aurora toolset. LOL You don't believe? Look it up ... it's not made for world-building a la NWN but for quick sessions player vs. DM. It really is more of a MOBA. Well, I am not laughing at you. I am laughing at their, how to put it mildly, not so bright decision about the core of the multiplayer aspect of the game...

Heres an article and ~9 minute video on the DM mode. My understanding is that the DM can construct the entire dungeon from scratch. The Deluxe version of the game includes an additional tile set and Beholder (?) monsters. Unfortunatly not. The already stated in the SCL-Community that you can't build a dungeon tile by tile. They're pregenerated and randomized. Only things customable are size and some interior stuff like chests, traps and props. Not near the Aurora toolset. LOL

Well, TotSC an ToB were just Two CDs. In today's world, it's easy to make game with more than 1,5GB... So in the end, they might be telling a truth

Well yeah, and besides most of the time this unethical behaviour is already calculated into margins, which we all pay for anyway.

Yes, that was my point... Some people are not all people, and putting me into same league with these people offends me... I as a customer have my rights. And finaly these rights starts to be recognised in digital world as well...

And are you so certain, that all people in all other countries are so much prone to misuse their own rights as americans in your examples do?

esports are lucrative at the moment only for winners, the "lower peasants" of esports are unfortunately far far away from ways how "lower peasants" in normal sports can make money...

LOL, Steam is really ripping of Europeans... PoE Hero Edition - 41.99EUR PoE Champion Edition - 54.99EUR PoE Royal Edition - 82.99EUR GoG - 31.99; 40.99; 63.99EUR respectively... And Europeans are still giving them money... *feels puzzled*

Well eventually this will happen sooner than later. All AAA ports will be released as Early Access, so the customers cannot get refunds.