Zoraptor

Is their tourist slogan The Awesome Bhutan? (Be nice if more places had a National Happiness Index.)

The distributor for RoT- THQ's budget distributor, can't remember their name offhand- only has digital rights for US/ NA. It's weird though, as the expansion/ dlc for RoT (Phileasson's Secret) is not region locked.

I'd put "Ceterum censeo Valvo delandam esse" in my sig but everyone would presume I just hate swedish cars.

Er, really? Seems to me that some variation is a good idea, sit back and wait for your enemies to come and fight you on ground of your choosing means your enemy is dumb, especially if you have to go to them based on the scenario set up. I'm not sure that ME combat can really be described as 'tactical' in any real sense given you're clearly not meant to micromanage your team mates- and not in a world where something with real tactics like JA2 exists. But I cannot see any argument where defending is more tactical than attacking, the tactics are just different.

PC elitisits flock to steam console? Bunch of muppets. Why so many people are so keen to set Valve up as the Lords of PC Gaming given how poorly regarded every other Lord of [Gaming] is regarded is one of the best pieces of evidence that the vast majority of PC elitism is Prius Driver class hipsterism from those with no idea why a gaming system with no central authority is a very very good idea.

Pretty sure there were infinite Krogan at one point in Grunt's recruitment mission (? might have been Mordin's loyalty mission) too, though I guess there would be some justification there given the backstory. That's the only other case I'm reasonably sure of though.

Anonymous hacked them for the lulz, basically. Publishing credit card details is dickish for sure, but it's far less than some would do with the info (like selling them off). Credit card information should never be stored in an easily decryptable form- that's the most basic rule there is and from what I remember Stratfor didn't encrypt at all. That's monumentally stupid.

'Losing' titles would probably be because those provinces were outside your kingdom's rules- if you have holdings in France as King of England they are subject to the succession rules (and other laws) of France not England. If France were using gavelkind then those holdings will be split amongst any surviving sons, whatever the law of England says.

If you haven't played the original Crusader Kings then EU: Rome is probably closest. Sengoku is supposedly even closer but I haven't played that. Yep, I think most of the problems can and will be fixed pretty easily which is largely why I'm still positive overall. I'd tend to make buildings have maintenance costs to force a balancing of high value/ discipline troops vs cash and stop the current situation where if you have the money you build without any thought, and have a province manpower which depletes, effects income, and recovers slowly (effectively, this would be war exhaustion). Then you could have a fairly quick recharge on the levy itself, but not without longer term consequences. The combat itself I think can be fixed easily- making it so that you have to use commanders by ranks (princes> dukes> counts> barons> commoners) is pretty much entirely realistic and would go a long way to making sure that you don't end up with every army commanded by Hannibal, Napoleon and Subotai.

Gave up on my game of CK2 around 1400, united the Gaels so mission pretty much accomplished. The game is... ever so lightly broken, as it stands and from a small sample size (well, there are a lot of people have the same issues going by the Paradox forums, but it is usually people with problems who complain so it's a not unbiased sample), though I still think it has heaps of potential. Problems are: Blobbing. Once critical mass is reached a large empire/ kingdom can roflstomp breakaways. Even something like Scotland breaking away from England post Ed I is practically impossible due to... Battles. There's zero chance of an Agincourt or Crecy or Bannockburn where a significantly smaller force wins. Simple numbers determines the result of just about every battle, though for evenly balanced enemies this is not decisive due to... Levy recharge. Ludicrously fast. Kill that doomstack and it will be back before you're sieged a single province fully. Sieges. Too long. Harlech was the exception, not the rule. I've tended to assault even well defended places lately as, well, fast levy recharge means you can make up the losses quick smart. Never seen the AI assault though. Plots and civil wars cripple small to mid sized kingdoms but don't cripple larger ones to anywhere near the same degree. If blobbing weren't such a problem this might be a minor concern, as it is it just exacerbates blobbing further as blobs jump in to piranha-ise a weaker neighbour while it's split. Enemies pledging. If you're fighting a muslim and he pledges to, say, the Golden Horde your troops march out of every place of theirs you've taken because, well, the sheikdom of Trondheim is now the chiefdom of Trondheim. Want to continue the war? Disband your troops, redeclare war and retake all those holdings Assassinations. Enemy has powerful allies? Assassinate them, their armies will turn around and go home. Enemy pressing a claim for someone else? Assassinate claimant, war ends. Enemy looking to roflstomp you? Spamsassinate, until their xn heir has to break off and fight rebels. Wars are simply too... soft. They don't cost enough in any respect- during the medieval period fighting wars was ruinously expensive, and fighting over the same places for extended periods and denuding them of manpower and wealth would absolutely cripple you long term, as historically happened with the Byzants. It says something that despite all that I still really like it and it is already my favourite baseline Paradox release. It reminds me of the classic Obsidian game generalisation really, vast potential and vastly more ambition than just about every other game, implementation... could use some work.

You can match make in two seconds. Its biggest problem at the moment seems to be a tendency towards steamrolling- either the christians or muslims get on a roll and before you know it north africans have taken over Paris or Mecca has a cathedral in it. Since that's a balance issue it should be relatively fixable though. Personally I don't like how wars work that much either as you can be on the verge of victory and if your claimant dies the war ends whether you were on the verge of victory or defeat. Coupled with assassinations being cheap and relatively consequence free you can bail on many wars before losing by (in)judicious use of assassins. Overall it's a good game. Don't know if it's better than CKDV, which is probably my favourite vanilla Paradox game, but it certainly is potentially better.

And GSC games added too. I always meant to check out Cossacks as it sold an amazing number of copies for a game most would never have heard of. Probably means Stalker(s) are coming as well.

My french is reasonable. I never got the hang of thinking in it though so I was always better at understanding it than speaking it. As a consequence (and from the latin) I can generally get the idea of what is being said in any romance language with a bit of concentration and if it isn't said too quickly. My german is enough to tourist, no more. My latin is rusty. It was probably my favourite language, even if it is of limited practical use. Everything else consists of being able to say 'hello' 'goodbye' 'thanks' random things that amuse me and stuck in my mind (japanese for hot dog, ice cream) and fairly random maori phrases- though I do have good pronunciation at least.

It's certainly an explanation for deciding to stand in front of an SS banner and photograph yourself, though it would probably be a better explanation for peeing on corpses (since objectification of others is one of the main factors of numerous mental disorders like psychopathy). Moronism is probably a better explanation for both, at least the photographing part, in the absence of other evidence of mental instability though.

It's all a domestic smokescreen. The Argentine claim effectively is that "the bishop of rome said so 5 centuries ago! The 'real' colonial master (Spain) claimed them! The americans beat us up then the brits stole them! Any of the above at various times!". Beating the Argies in a war fought for them is easily enough for a it to be de jure ownership rather than a de facto claim, and always has been. Mikael Sakashvili will invade in a bout of poor geographical knowledge, due to 'strong historical links' dating back to Stalin doodling on a map in a drunken stupor sometime in 1932. All will go well until his army notices penguin in the sea, thinks they are reinforcements and promptly runs away. Claims will be made that the penguins had suckered him into attacking in the first place and were on the way to the island before the attack began.

There are a couple of odd things. Crown Authority definitely, I've had zero problem increasing it and it really ought to be hard work to get people to agree to it given they're effectively voting themselves out of power. France always seems to invade Spain. Disappearing dlc because Paradox don't want their game getting pulled for having dlc available in places other than steam. Also, my King married the daughter of the- obviously highly progressive, heretic and black african tolerant- HRE's Kaiser and their son inherited some land in Germany. I guess it's not so extraordinarily odd that the emperor packs off his extremely eligible daughter to Deila Gabran since at least I was a king, but I only tried for her (with a 'haha, you're dreaming mate') because there wasn't a single Orthodox woman of any stripe or age available to marry, for some reason. Still, my father in law being King of Germany is great for scaring the locals.

I think* it's a guild/ union requirement that accurate cast listings are given to IMDB as it is considered a formal resource, and they're done at time of recording. That's why Grey DeLisle was credited for Alpha Protocol despite her character getting the chop. *Not 100% sure.

I've been playing one of the Ethiopoan kingdoms, haven't yet been stomped by Egypt but I have little doubt it will happen. I'm still very much in "why did they change this, how do you do this" mode at the moment though. Harold Godwinson is still king of England after William the Asterisks copped an arrow in the eye in a nice reversal of history, so I've not played long in game time. I'll probably try an Irish minor next, as they were always good fun in the original CK if you didn't get smacked early.

Heh, I bought Crusader Kings 2 off Gamersgate, then used the bonus blue coins to buy DLC like some hapless 12 year old consoler with poor impulse control. But at least I've had the game for 12+ hours even if I were asleep for a lot of them. Wrong way around. Again. Steam pulled the EA titles, not EA, FACT r00fles. I'm still somewhat amused at the front of a company offering steamworks doing it because someone had the temerity to want to bundle a dlc handling platform on their service given that the whole point of steamworks is to get their dlc handling platform installed on and with as much software as possible.

Thank god his character hasn't changed during the trilogy. Best renegade Shephard quote ever: "We'll need more bodybags". Shame it was from a satire interview rather than the game. Renegade shep is always best served with a healthy side of ham and cheese, Starship Troopers movie (minus Casper Van Serious Business) style.

I suggested that as a possibility only about a dozen or so posts ago, as apparently did Enoch, at least, previous with no prior knowledge. I don't think it can classify as a retcon under those conditions, especially as there were hints at it from the start (those oh so subtle close ups on Miranda's ass TIM's eyes).

Nah, he's right. Disrespecting corpses is something people of all nationalities do, if they're sufficiently angry/ hyped/ scared/ conditioned/ stupid. They should be run out of the military on a rail, but that's mainly because they are clearly just too stupid (hey guys, let's pose as we pee on corpses/ build nude prisoner pyramids/ stand in front of SS flags, it'll be a sweet memento!) to be away from mummy and daddy, let alone put in charge of weaponry. That's not just a US problem, it just tends to be more newsworthy when it is their problem. If you want something to get grumpy about Hadaitha being worthy of a 3 month suspended sentence would be a better target, because that required extended malice rather than being potentially a one off nervous reaction or some hick ignorami posing in front of 'cool' symbols.

You're a bit hung up on the charity thing. I'd tend to look at it as being similar to tipping*. You liked their games, you want more of them. You can't (realistically) go into EB/ Gamestop and leave an extra $10 for them there. I know there are plenty of games that I'm positively embarrassed about paying so little for given the amount of enjoyment I've got out of them. Usually I try and reward by buying their next game at full price, but that option ain't always available. There's no guarantee when tipping that you'll be back, nor that the service you get next time will also be exemplary. But that doesn't make it charity, it's an acknowledgement of quality service rendered against the expectation that further quality will be rendered in the future. *Non US style tipping that is, where it isn't effectively mandatory and an expected cost.

I'm not really a great fan of ME2 by any means and it's quite an achievement to get me sounding like I am, but really, people need to learn what the difference is between legitimate criticism and personal opinion, and between legitimate criticism and carping about standard gaming conventions, and when they overlap. This is something I wish most gaming journalists would get the gist of as well, to be frank. For example, if you're going to complain about Shephard being a moron, then that standard needs to applied evenhandedly, and by that standard just about every protagonist in a game is a moron. JC Denton? Joined a front for a government/ industrial conspiracy responsible for most of the problems of the world. Moron. Dude from System Shock? Hmm, I'll turn an AI into a psychopath on the whim of a power hungry corrupt exec, nothing will go wrong! Cretin. BG2? Sure Yoshimo, join the party, we'll follow you to see your friends, what, you're betraying me? Clown. Fallout? Sure I'll fetch your waterchip, I'm sure you'll be super grateful Mr Overseer since you ain't by any means an insular domineering git. Doofus. 95% of cinematic fps? Sure, I'll walk into this telegraphed trap, what else am I to do, stand around forever twiddling my thumbs waiting for them to patch intelligence into the plot? If you give that sort of analysis you're completely missing the point of gaming- there's effectively an infinite supply of games, if you don't like a game that's fine, but you're almost certainly better off just forgetting about it and playing something you do like. I think Oblivion is the worst game I've ever played (oh yes, literally) with the possible exception of the NWN OC. I think I've spent time writing about why I dislike it once in total, as a response to someone who asked me directly why. I didn't like the game, I know Beth wouldn't listen to why I don't like the game and I know lots of people did like it. The only result possible is a pointless back-to-forth trying to convince people that they didn't really like something, they just thought they did.

The evidence in the game is pretty consistent. It makes TIM look like he's lying, sure. Quelle surprise, there. 1) TIM is the one pushing the Collectors as the big bad. No one else (even the Alliance) is very concerned. 2) The evidence presented in game (running from Horizon, losing to NormandyII) suggests they aren't actually a huge threat, militarily. If TIM were an impeccable source that might be a problem, story wise, but he ain't. 3) They may be a threat in other ways. Ironically evidence suggests they may be more of a threat to large, mixed, concentrations of aliens (per the Omega plague) than large concentrations of humans. It isn't even (that) contrived that Shephard gets lead around by the nose by TIM. He spent most of ME1 doing random quests on the word of random people, potentially including such heights of perspicacity as being manipulated by a blue chick mafiosa into bumping off two rival underworld kingpins.