What are you Playing Now: Living the Game Life

[Malcador]

The mouse sensitivity is way too high in the demo.

[BruceVC]

Im still busy with Kingdoms of Amalur, its still fun so I havent stopped it yet. I have just killed the Balor which was another incredibly easy final battle....same as all  the battles but that is part of the enjoyment. Its more like an interactive RPG  narrative because the battles and quests are so easy

And its enjoyable but no challenge in combat skill and strategy  

And also I have never played an RPG with so many side quests...I have stopped doing any of them and I am now focusing on the main quests only so I can finish this game 

[LadyCrimson]

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

The mouse sensitivity is way too high in the demo.

I always get mixed up re: high vs. low sensitivity definition, but I and many others had to use/set hardware mouse setting in the Launcher, cause while mouse movement was "ok" it still felt sluggish.  Meaning the game's graphic cursor goes away to be replaced by Windows white desktop pointer ... which means in winter it's almost invisible.  I changed Windows default pointer to "larrow.cur" in Windows mouse settings - so it's still white but has a thick black line around it. 

I think the 1st patch made hardware mouse the default instead. I didn't install it yet tho - waiting for the 2nd one that supposedly has some AI changes.

[Malcador]

Will probably get that game on sale. Am cheap   Still struggling to finish the last peaceful mission in Caesar 3.  City is ugly with the forced walker plan I am ripping off, but it's nice to have massive unemployment for a change

[LadyCrimson]

12 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Will probably get that game on sale. Am cheap

But, but, it's 10% off at release (17.99), meaning you save a whole two dollars!   
Yeah there's no huge rush to get it, waiting will get you a few patch improvements (not that I have any big issues personally). Usually better to wait till you're finished with other currently playing games anyway, in case this one sucks all your time away. And don't bother with that little 'supporter pack' - it's just a few cosmetic things if you love them to death and want to give them a tad extra money.

The dev's are very active/responsive on the Steam forum, it's nice.

Edited August 12, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[Malcador]

4 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

But, but, it's 10% off at release (17.99), meaning you save a whole two dollars!   
Yeah there's no huge rush to get it, waiting will get you a few patch improvements (not that I have any big issues personally). Usually better to wait till you're finished with other currently playing games anyway, in case this one sucks all your time away. And don't bother with that little 'supporter pack' - it's just a few cosmetic things if you love them to death and want to give them a tad extra money.

The dev's are very active/responsive on the Steam forum, it's nice.

Why save $2 when I can save $7!   Good that they are active, I still can't get over how the UI's ripped from Banished, hah.  But game's built up on that idea a lot more it seems, which was a criticism of sorts I had on Banished - tempered a lot by it just being one guy's project.

Still trying to master Caesar 3.  Maybe will rip off this guy's approach (and claim I knew this all along)

 

What accent is this guy's anyway, I wonder.

[LadyCrimson]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

Maybe will rip off this guy's approach (and claim I knew this all along)

Mmmm I don't like his methods very much. Also, all you need is a few legions and ranged spear throwers, that wall o' towers is excessive, lol.  Well, if it works, everyone is different.    I was never good at making "pretty" C3 cities tho, only efficient ones. Not that C3 would be easy to prettify, lol. Used to know the exact number of tiles for reservoirs and fountains re: Palace/bathhouse layouts .... other stuff like that.

The key is a good general housing block loop design that you can use/repeat in almost any map, both for Palace and non-Palace blocks.  That way workers just walk in a square/rectangle and you put a gatehouse at the entrance end of the block to keep them in. IIRC granaries/warehouses don't need to be inside the gatehouse loop because the market ladies that pick up the food can go through them - the gatehouse simply stops the distributor lady or priests or firemen or whatever from wandering off. I think sometimes I would entirely close off the "palace" block (no connected road to the main city) to make it easier but I typically tried to keep it all connected. Something like that anyway. It's been ages.

As I recall you only need about eight Palaces for the Prosperity of any scenario (edit - looking at an old save file, it would appear to be only six Luxury Palaces), and almost every single other house can stay at the large casa level, something like that).

From one play of that map:

Example of a casa-housing block: I'd make a few or more of these + a palace block.

Example palace block layouts - I had a basic maxed out concept (the lower image) but I'd constantly adjust it.

Edited August 13, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[Malcador]

I never planned anything, rather amazed I finished this game via my brute force approach

[LadyCrimson]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

I never planned anything, rather amazed I finished this game via my brute force approach

I remember the first desert map I think it was, first time I played it I didn't understand Prefects/fire danger and everything was catching on fire. Probably restarted that one several times. 

Patron updated again, supposedly fixed a storage/production problem or two ... so this time I patched it. Which means, of course ... I have to start over!  Not because the patch means you have to. But because ... well, I just must, is all.

[Malcador]

I didn't know of that at all either, when I played back in '99, I kept putting prefectures in the northern maps.   I also finished the game and never needed villas at all, but I did do a lot of military levels back then.

[LadyCrimson]

8 hours ago, Malcador said:

I didn't know of that at all either, when I played back in '99, I kept putting prefectures in the northern maps.   I also finished the game and never needed villas at all, but I did do a lot of military levels back then.

Yeah, the "War" side of the campaign had such low Prosperity values you didn't need rich houses.  I would still use them so I didn't need a whole town that wanted oil/higher entertainment etc. for evolution. I guess I had too many early experiences where blocks would become unstable and evolve, devolve over and over, drove me crazy. It was overall easier/more stable for me to keep 98% of population in small/large casa's.

Edit: Patron -- I'm starting to feel like the super long research tree becomes almost irritating after a while. You only need such if you really want the "rich" citizens but so far I don't really see a *need* for them.  You can over time make enough cash thru trade or other means, for example.  So there's a zillion things you can grow and make and it's kind of overwhelming and makes me go "why bother."  eg, I think it should've been about half as "big."

Edited August 13, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[Keyrock]

I finished the Assassin's Creed Rogue story and now I'm doing the best part of the game, the Legendary Battles. Naval battles are the most fun thing in the game in general, and the Legendary Battles are the most fun naval battles. I remember that when I played Black Flag I was never able to beat the final and hardest Legendary Battle, I wonder if I'll manage to do it in this game. Those battles get gloriously chaotic. Smoke everywhere, waves bouncing you around, mortar fire raining down around you, all while you desperately try to line up a broadside volley. Good times!

[Mamoulian War]

After a very long break fro playing games, I have started few days ago Rebel Galaxy, which I got in one of the GOG giveaways in the past. I have tried it few times three years ago, and I got completely obliterated. Now I am just wondering, why was that even possible, because in 10 hours I have already a big ass ship worth of few hundred thousand of credits. I have found out, that the best way how to make fast money is dealing with alien artifacts, and trading once in a while trader ships in the space. They usually buy only 1 article off of you, but the few times, I was able to trade with them, I raked almost 300% profit on the stuff, which I sold to them The game is really much much more fun for me, than I have anticipated

Edited August 14, 2021 by Mamoulian War

[Malcador]

7 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Yeah, the "War" side of the campaign had such low Prosperity values you didn't need rich houses.  I would still use them so I didn't need a whole town that wanted oil/higher entertainment etc. for evolution. I guess I had too many early experiences where blocks would become unstable and evolve, devolve over and over, drove me crazy. It was overall easier/more stable for me to keep 98% of population in small/large casa's.

And people say war is good for nothing..

I am not sure if this is a bug or just a quirk but market ladies have some preferences in food, walking far distances to get wheat when a granary laden with meat is nearby. Argh.

[melkathi]

I can't play Rebel Galaxy. Since you can't rescue slaves, only sell them as contraband, the game hits my moral block that prevents me from enjoying it.

There is a fan patch by a person like me for people like me. But I can't be bothered to jump through hoops.

[LadyCrimson]

16 hours ago, Malcador said:

I am not sure if this is a bug or just a quirk but market ladies have some preferences in food, walking far distances to get wheat when a granary laden with meat is nearby. Argh.

It's intended, or the best they could make the AI do at the time.  Their preference went (I think) Wheat > Vegetables > Fruit > Meat/Fish. So if they think 'their' market is currently low on Wheat, they will continually try to get Wheat first (if some is suddenly available somewhere) before going for meat. If they reach the Wheat granary and it is empty when they actually get there, then they may turn around and go to the closest non-wheat food granary.

As someone once advised on a forum:
Mixing foods unnecessarily has caused many players problems. Let's say that enough fish and non-food goods are available in part of a city which is running fine. But if a small amount of vegetables becomes available, market buyers will try to get it, spending much of their time in a (perhaps futile) attempt to get vegetables, letting their markets run out of other goods (causing house devolution). In this case, the obvious solution is to not introduce vegetables (unless there are enough vegetables available to satisfy the demand).

Hence sometimes wanting to build road separated housing blocks (this block gets only Fish, this one wheat and fruit, etc), to prevent market buyers from marching all over town trying to buy something when their block area doesn't even "need" it.
Later Impressions city build games inserted a feature where you could define what goods market ladies were allowed to buy, to prevent them from trying to get "everything" as soon as they detect some is available halfway across the map...

Edited August 14, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[bringingyouthefuture]

Got some free time and played The Ascent all the way through.  Rare for me to play top-down arcade style games, but I read a few good reviews and decided to push buttons constantly for a futuristic romp.  Story is fun (super linear), setting is great, world building is a mix between The Fifth Element and Blade Runner, graphics are good, and gameplay is challenging but not arcade game impossible.  Just did single player and bugs were minimal.  There is some running back and forth, and halfway through you have fought every type of battle scenario, they just keep getting tougher, but the story kept me grinding through.  I got the esteemed Steam achievement that only 1 percent of players achieve, died more than 100 times.   But obviously didn't play it for the action elements, I got it hand it to the developers they did a pretty good job, probably would have kept playing if they had more missions, story and lore to uncover.  But with the size of the gaming area, I am glad they ended it where they did ... anymore running back and forth shooting people would of dampened the experience.

[Malcador]

On 8/14/2021 at 5:30 PM, LadyCrimson said:

It's intended, or the best they could make the AI do at the time.  Their preference went (I think) Wheat > Vegetables > Fruit > Meat/Fish. So if they think 'their' market is currently low on Wheat, they will continually try to get Wheat first (if some is suddenly available somewhere) before going for meat. If they reach the Wheat granary and it is empty when they actually get there, then they may turn around and go to the closest non-wheat food granary.

As someone once advised on a forum:
Mixing foods unnecessarily has caused many players problems. Let's say that enough fish and non-food goods are available in part of a city which is running fine. But if a small amount of vegetables becomes available, market buyers will try to get it, spending much of their time in a (perhaps futile) attempt to get vegetables, letting their markets run out of other goods (causing house devolution). In this case, the obvious solution is to not introduce vegetables (unless there are enough vegetables available to satisfy the demand).

Hence sometimes wanting to build road separated housing blocks (this block gets only Fish, this one wheat and fruit, etc), to prevent market buyers from marching all over town trying to buy something when their block area doesn't even "need" it.
Later Impressions city build games inserted a feature where you could define what goods market ladies were allowed to buy, to prevent them from trying to get "everything" as soon as they detect some is available halfway across the map...

Might try that, I sort of hate making cities to the system rather than "proper" cities, but I guess I do need to win the map.

[Mamoulian War]

More Rebel Galaxy. I kinda like that game more than I have expected, I am currently at my third Star System, got few time kicked in the nuts really hard by the pirates and I am cursing most of the time, that whenever I land on some space station, the prices are to low The best way how to make money with trading in this game is to search for distress beacons, and hope, that there will be one or two merchants around. If you are lucky, after you save them, you can sell them some stuff from your cargo with up to 350% margin. Traveling around the space sector, and hoping for good prices ended up as a big waste of time in the last few hours... At least I have some better for my ship, but I still need around 200 000 credits for an ship upgrade, which will be less squishy, than my current vessel

[BruceVC]

I finished Kingdoms of Amalur after 58 hours, when I say I finished I mean  I completed the main quests 

The game scores a solid 55/100 on the globally respected  " BruceVC gaming score " system. I am not sure I would recommend this game unless you understand its shortfalls and what is fun about it 

What is good about the game are components like the  artistic design of the game world and the myriad of quests and things to do if you just want hours of exploration on side quests.The gaming mechanics work and combat strategy is entertaining

Now the bad, its easy as I mentioned earlier. Far too easy and when their is no combat or quest challenge in a RPG  you have to ask " is this really fun " ? Also I normally enjoy lore but I found the lore and overall narrative boring and not compelling

I cant even recall  most parts of the main quest .....I know I ran around a lot and killed people but it wasnt memorable

But its not a terrible game but not one I would say " you MUST play it "  

[melkathi]

That disenchanting mini game was terrible.

I remember the first area quite well and found everything else forgettable.

The game was good for combat execution screenshots though.

[LadyCrimson]

Patron - they keep putting out these small tweaking patches every single day.  Which on the one hand is nice re: active devs. But on the other hand it's annoying to me because every time I try to learn game stats/maths/systems etc and plan, they change a bit the next day.  Sure nothing extreme, but I still have to start over to "test" things again (because I'm like that)...I may take a break from it for a little while until they decide they're done with most balancing/small bugfixes.

Overall I still like the game but the longer I play the more I think Banished was the better game (for the moment) in terms of programming polish and certain kinds of ... efficiency self-challenges. To me it was hugely fun in Banished to see how high a population you could get before things started collapsing (or your PC started chugging) but I don't see myself getting that obsessive here. The early/middle game is fun (and can be really rough!)  but the late-stage "challenge/interest" isn't as strong, is all.

Still worth buying/playing tho - and as they balance things more it may get even better, of course. We'll see!

[Malcador]

D3 added ethereals, so doing that to sate my desire to kill people en masse. Got a pretty neat one

 

[BruceVC]

13 hours ago, melkathi said:

That disenchanting mini game was terrible.

I remember the first area quite well and found everything else forgettable.

The game was good for combat execution screenshots though.

You right, I know you mentioned how the game was easily forgettable and I wasnt sure what that meant but I now I know what you were referring to 

Just the fact I cant easily recall the main narrative with fondness tells you something 

 

 

[melkathi]

And you just finished the game

 

It is remarkable how they managed to make a game a lot of people enjoyed but can't tell you an enjoyable thing about it.