What are you playing now?

[SadExchange]

After finishing Bioshock Infinite, I've been looking back at my back catalog and realizing that I need to push through some of these games because that started off strong but at different points, life got busy and I moved on.  So now, I'm trying to get through the rest of Far Cry 3, which I really like and believe I'm almost done, Borderlands 2 I think will still wait because playing that game SP is not the most fun in my opinion, Dishonored I've only put a handful of hours into and enjoyed, Hitman: Absolution, gosh I was really enjoying that game, Steam says I have 23 hours into Kingdoms of Amalur (I agree, not a lot of connection with what's going on, but fun gameplay (Combat)), and Sleeping Dogs really deserves to be finished.

 

But then Torchlight 2 is sitting there, with Workshop now and the possibility of mods, and right now, I'm playing some Dragon's Dogma getting ready for the upcoming expansion.  Just need more time honestly. 

 

In the end, think I'm gonna try and get through the rest of Far Cry 3, because I believe I'm the closest with that one.

[alanschu]

Just finished Nar Shadda, and have unlocked HK 47 too.

[Hurlshort]

Hit level 68 in Lord of the Rings Online, and I'm really enjoying the whole Isengard story area.  Looking forward to putting some hurt on Saruman's forces.  I've been helping this Stag tribe out and they've got some great looking gear.

[marelooke]

 

 

I'm not playing anything, because all I want to play is Project Eternity, and I can't.

 

Yeah, I'm getting the itch to play an old-school-ish RPG, but I'm not feeling particularly inspired by any of the options in front of me.  (Or, at least, I am sufficiently deterred by the prospect of getting them running, patched, and sufficiently modded.)  

 

 

When is Wasteland 2 supposed to be hitting the streets?  (I didn't back it, so I'm not getting the updates, but the cash I threw at Eternity was apparently enough to merit a free copy.) 

 

I think the estimate from InXile was October this year.

 

Oh dear, the estimate for Divinity: Original Sin is also October... I better save up my holidays, buy a bigger fridge, set up a food delivery line etc

Edited April 11, 2013 by marelooke

[Rosbjerg]

Tried some Crusader Kings.. It's impressive just how quickly the **** can hit the fan. Things were going pretty good, I was the Caliph of Bagdag a major lord for my liege Sultan Seljuk. I became steward of the realm, had my 5th child with my 3rd wife and the realm was doing pretty good too. Then the king dies.. all right, no need to worry I'll be regent and keep the realm together.. Hmm a few lord seems to want independence .. 2 years later civil war has ripped the sultanate apart and every Caliph is also at war with his vassels.. and then we are invaded by the Egyptians..

[Undecaf]

Civ V time again. Just don't seem to be getting enough of it.

 

And it seems everyone to hates the Celts; if I'm not at the moment expandings too rapidly, I'm a warmongering menace, or just a dislikable neighbor in general. England, Persia and the Mongols all attacked me at once, and that game lasted for about 45 minutes. Off to a new glorious beginning.

[Enoch]

Civ V time again. Just don't seem to be getting enough of it.

 

And it seems everyone to hates the Celts; if I'm not at the moment expandings too rapidly, I'm a warmongering menace, or just a dislikable neighbor in general. England, Persia and the Mongols all attacked me at once, and that game lasted for about 45 minutes. Off to a new glorious beginning.

 

Civ V's AI is opportunistic.  An aggressive opponent (which both the Mongols and English are) will invade you if it thinks it can win.  (There's a behind-the-scenes military-strength calculation that it uses to make this decision.)  If you're getting dogpiled early by surrounding civilizations, it's probably because they think you're easy pickings.  Build more military. 

 

The "warmongering menace" penalty seems to depend heavily on whether you lauched a surprise attack, or whether you eliminated another Civ.  If you want to attack somebody and don't want to get too bad a reputation for it, Denounce them first and be generally hostile to them in diplomacy.  And the Civ-elimination penalty is rather severe-- it's often better to leave a rival in possession of its crappiest city than it is to eliminate them entirely. 

[Labadal]

Did a dungeon or two in Darksiders 2. 

 

Went back to Storm of Zehir again. Having trouble with the Firemewts or whatever they're called so I'm going to try and gain another level to see if it helps.

[Undecaf]

 

Civ V time again. Just don't seem to be getting enough of it.

 

And it seems everyone to hates the Celts; if I'm not at the moment expandings too rapidly, I'm a warmongering menace, or just a dislikable neighbor in general. England, Persia and the Mongols all attacked me at once, and that game lasted for about 45 minutes. Off to a new glorious beginning.

 

Civ V's AI is opportunistic.  An aggressive opponent (which both the Mongols and English are) will invade you if it thinks it can win.  (There's a behind-the-scenes military-strength calculation that it uses to make this decision.)  If you're getting dogpiled early by surrounding civilizations, it's probably because they think you're easy pickings.  Build more military. 

 

The "warmongering menace" penalty seems to depend heavily on whether you lauched a surprise attack, or whether you eliminated another Civ.  If you want to attack somebody and don't want to get too bad a reputation for it, Denounce them first and be generally hostile to them in diplomacy.  And the Civ-elimination penalty is rather severe-- it's often better to leave a rival in possession of its crappiest city than it is to eliminate them entirely. 

 

I had a rather large army. I could've taken anything any one of them alone had to throw at me; relatively easily even. But all three of them together was a bit too much. I had some disputes with England, and sided with Mongols to war them (after my first war with them earlier in the game which they started), so that's probably where the warmongering came from.

 

The AI is sweet, I had been all friendly with Mongols throughout the game (there was no red messages in the diplomacy screen when checking Khan's disposition), then they suddenly made a 180 for no apparent reason (their army was only slightly larger) and everyone came at me. Fun times.

 

Didn't know that about denouncing and surprise attacks. Thanks for the advice.

 

It's rather weird. I've played this series quite much ever since the first game, but I've always played just intuitively and never gotten into the rules of how things actually work. Maybe that's why I suck so much at harder difficulties.

Edited April 12, 2013 by Undecaf

[AGX-17]

Dark Souls. Not looking forward to the hike I'm going to have to go on in Darkroot Garden to retrieve all the humanity and souls that bitch (come on, it's technically accurate, right?) Sif cost me. That is definitely a co-op boss fight. Made the Chaos Blade in Anor Londo. Unfortunately it was not the intended action, but at least it ought to tip the balance when getting invaded.

 

 

Civ V time again. Just don't seem to be getting enough of it.

 

And it seems everyone to hates the Celts; if I'm not at the moment expandings too rapidly, I'm a warmongering menace, or just a dislikable neighbor in general. England, Persia and the Mongols all attacked me at once, and that game lasted for about 45 minutes. Off to a new glorious beginning.

 

Civ V's AI is opportunistic.  An aggressive opponent (which both the Mongols and English are) will invade you if it thinks it can win.  (There's a behind-the-scenes military-strength calculation that it uses to make this decision.)  If you're getting dogpiled early by surrounding civilizations, it's probably because they think you're easy pickings.  Build more military. 

 

The "warmongering menace" penalty seems to depend heavily on whether you lauched a surprise attack, or whether you eliminated another Civ.  If you want to attack somebody and don't want to get too bad a reputation for it, Denounce them first and be generally hostile to them in diplomacy.  And the Civ-elimination penalty is rather severe-- it's often better to leave a rival in possession of its crappiest city than it is to eliminate them entirely.

 

 

I've been labeled a "warmongering menace" for fulfilling my end of a defensive pact, even after the player the pact was made with was already at war.

 

But yeah, don't focus on things like wonder-whoring unless you've got a wide berth or an entire landmass all to yourself. Taking the early Honor policies is, (depending on your gameplay preferences,) unfortunately, a must for self-defense.

Some civs will play dirty and ask for friendship declarations so they can leech resources from you before attacking, too (the Ottomans are really big on this in my experience.) There should be some kind of "backstabber" reputation (that never expires,) for civs that do that, but there isn't.

 

Tangential, but I don't know what they were thinking when they decided that the Celts would be the "maximize faith income" Civ for G&K.

Edited April 12, 2013 by AGX-17

[Undecaf]

Does the AI ever learn from its mistakes, or does it always just repeat them? In my last runthrough I caught Chartage from spying about 10 times in a row within a relatively small timeframe?

Edited April 12, 2013 by Undecaf

[Malcador]

There's a penalty for you wiping a Civ out ?

[Hurlshort]

There's a penalty for you wiping a Civ out ?

 

Yep.  Even in real life, cultural genocide usually doesn't give you a great rep.

[Undecaf]

There always seems to be something to learn from this game, even thoug it plays out so (relatively) simple.

Edited April 12, 2013 by Undecaf

[Malcador]

 

There's a penalty for you wiping a Civ out ?

 

Yep.  Even in real life, cultural genocide usually doesn't give you a great rep.

 

Oh reputation, meh. Thought there was some happiness change or some serious penalty to it.  And not  genocide if you just take their cities.

[Hurlshort]

 

 

There's a penalty for you wiping a Civ out ?

 

Yep.  Even in real life, cultural genocide usually doesn't give you a great rep.

 

Oh reputation, meh. Thought there was some happiness change or some serious penalty to it.  And not  genocide if you just take their cities.

 

Cultural genocide is different from regular genocide.  In Civilization, it's definitely cultural genocide to take out another group completely.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, it's just a video game.  But yeah, it tends to upset the other cultures.

[Malcador]

Ah ok, you meant that.  Yeah, I think it's been that way since 2 at least.  Then again Civ V's AI is so bizarre in attitudes, I'm surprised some aren't impressed by that, heh

[Enoch]

I've been labeled a "warmongering menace" for fulfilling my end of a defensive pact, even after the player the pact was made with was already at war.

 

But yeah, don't focus on things like wonder-whoring unless you've got a wide berth or an entire landmass all to yourself. Taking the early Honor policies is, (depending on your gameplay preferences,) unfortunately, a must for self-defense.

Some civs will play dirty and ask for friendship declarations so they can leech resources from you before attacking, too (the Ottomans are really big on this in my experience.) There should be some kind of "backstabber" reputation (that never expires,) for civs that do that, but there isn't.

 

Tangential, but I don't know what they were thinking when they decided that the Celts would be the "maximize faith income" Civ for G&K.

 

I don't find Honor to be all that useful, unless you're playing with the "Raging Barbarians" option on.  The problem is that most of its benefits accrue towards the production/effectiveness of melee units.  And a melee-heavy army is a decidedly sub-optimal choice.  Ranged combat rules in this game-- it's the only way to damage an opponent while not taking any damage yourself.  4-5 Archers + your inherent city defenses can repel just about any early invasion force from a single AI.  And if I'm planning on doing some offensive warring early in the game (absent an appropriate Unique Unit) I'm doing it with an army of 5+ Archers or Composite Bowmen (which are a G&K addition: an archer upgrade that unlocks at Construction) and as few as 2 Warriors to take cities and to keep enemy melee off of the archers.  I find that I'm much better off taking the growth benefits of Tradition and leveraging that into a larger/earlier/more advanced army than I am spending culture on early Honor policies. 

 

In my experience, the 2 best windows for conquest in Civ V (with G&K) are Composite Bowmen, and Great War Bombers.  (Again, assuming that you're playing a civ without a useful Unique Unit-- if you're China or England, for example, you're nuts if you're not facerolling some rivals with your Crossbow replacements.)  5 CBs and 1 Warrior can take out the capital of your nearest enemy most of the time.  And it's not too difficult to get some GW Bombers into the air before your opponents have any actual air defenses, beyond maybe an easily-neutered Triplane or two. 

[Hurlshort]

One cool thing about Civ 5 was that no matter how much damage you did from afar with ships and archers, eventually you needed some decent soldiers to go into the town and sieze it.  I liked that system.

[Majek]

Borderlands 2 Single player. I'm starting a third character. I get bored each time i reach level 10 or so. :/ So after a siren and assassin i guess it's time to try out mechromancer. If i can't play this after reaching level 10 i might as well stop for a while. :/(

Edited April 12, 2013 by Majek

[entrerix]

borderlands 2 is painful to play the first 30 levels or so

 

once you have enough skill points to actually customize your character a bit it gets more fun (though overall, i rate it lower than the first game -the pacing is worse and the loot is less satisfying imo)

[Humanoid]

Fired up MoTB again and within minutes remembered why I didn't even get out of the starting dungeon on my last attempt, years ago. *Every* bloody thing in that dungeon is immune to sneak attacks. Screw D&D rules, I'd be just as effective waving around soft fluffy cushions as a rogue. Not really having any fun playing as a spectator, so I am once again snookered.

 

Downloading Divinity 2 from GOG now.

[Keyrock]

Scooped up GRID today because it was mad cheap on Green Man Gaming and because I heard it was really rad.  Once I downloaded it, I intended to play it for about half an hour, just to check it out.  Fast forward about 3 hours and I had to just about force myself to put the controller down and turn the game off.  Preliminary verdict:  Indeed really rad.

[melkathi]

Scooped up GRID today because it was mad cheap on Green Man Gaming and because I heard it was really rad.  Once I downloaded it, I intended to play it for about half an hour, just to check it out.  Fast forward about 3 hours and I had to just about force myself to put the controller down and turn the game off.  Preliminary verdict:  Indeed really rad.

 

So we don't get to have an online Obsidian forum Numenera campaign because you couldn't control your gaming urges...

[alanschu]

Just finished up Dantooine.  Killed my 3rd group of HKs and saw 47 torturing one.  Mira is now a Jedi Sentinel as well.  Off to Onderon now.