What are you playing now?

[Majek]

So it's not Samsung with all it's fancy DLC " easy to move data around" ? :D

[alanschu]

If it is, no one told me about it!

[AGX-17]

 

 

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.

 

 

For at least half the game (I haven't bothered to quantify the time ratio between the pre-industrial and industrial/post game,) you're going to be dealing primarily with barbarians and occasionally hostile/militaristic civs who are geared toward just churning out military units as quickly and at as high a rate as possible, so it's at the very least worthwhile to take the basic one for the anti-barbarian bonus. I never go for the full Honor tree, but I still feel the barbarian combat bonus is a necessity.

 

A barbarian brute hitting an archer or a composite bowman is going to come out on top in that fight unless the archer was a scout that got "promoted" by ancient ruins allowing them to ignore terrain movement penalties (which is terrible because it makes your former scout dramatically more vulnerable,) so it's necessary to have some melee units, and it works both ways. You have no choice but to defend yourself, because barbarians are guaranteed to throw themselves at your cities with no concern for their own lives. If you get spearman-rushed by some douche like Napoleon or Alexander circa 2000 BC,(which did happen to me the other day,) you're in deep if you've just got a half dozen archers to defend yourself. Simple attrition is how they win. An archer can only hit one enemy at a time, and if they've got 3-4 spearmen coming for each archer, they're el ****ed.

 

Even if you have strong defenses in your cities, the sieges can last for a thousand or more years of game time (still an absolute absurdity about Civ combat,) and that's a lot of lost productivity and growth because you can't work tiles while under siege. Not to mention that those sorts of civs focus on the Honor tree so they get all manner of combat buffs and great generals while you might have, say, a couple of pyramids that helped you make tile improvements faster. Improvements which just got pillaged by those besieging troops for a quick heal in the middle of the siege. And they can and will use that +50% experience bonus to get instant heals to outpace the rate of damage dealt by the city. Even if they lose 4 out of 5 troops in the siege, a conquered city is still a conquered city. Plus that whole archer thing works both ways, they can surround that front line of melee attackers with a line of ranged attack units.

 

CONCLUSION: Don't let yourself be caught off guard by a sudden declaration of war or barbarian horde.

 

 

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.

 

 

It's not actually genocide unless you raze all their cities.

 

 

ANYWAY

 

Had a hilarious time in Dark Souls today, started a new character because I goofed up on Ornstein and Smough (killed Ornstein first, don't want manboobs' soul or armor,) and on the use of Quelaag's soul (made chaos blade instead of furysword,) got summoned by some newbie player for the Taurus demon, he got invaded, I backstabbed the douche with a +2 Drake Sword for what must have been 99% of his health and then he took a little fall off that trap stairway with the flaming barrel, landed on the ledge below and took 8 damage from the fall, which killed him.

[Zoraptor]

Bioshock is now finished.

 

Its................ not worth the crazy hype methinks. It starts out well with some good ideas (moving buildings) but eventually just falls into a pit of generic action game in a giant steampunk city. If you did a megacity steampunk thing it'd fit just as well. And then the plot just looses it's pants at the end.

That's the problem with all the Bioshock games, and to an extent System Shock 2 as well. I don't have much of a problem with Ken Levine as a writer as he's far better than most writing for video games but he does have rather a tendency to end up ultimately disappointing, even if it's mainly disappointment that it 'should have ended up better than it did' rather than it being bad as an absolute. But gameplay wise they're the equivalent of Bethesda for story- heaps of options heaps of breadth, but zero depth.

[Enoch]

I find that, on the standard map size, game speed, rival-count, and barbarian activity level, barbarians are little more than an annoyance once you get to through the Classical age.  If your cities have garrisons and are reasonably close together, any invading Barbs die quickly.  Also, even if you don't, local AI rivals are often pretty aggressive in hunting down the Camps.  Barbarian ships are probably the biggest pain, if you have sea resources to defend. 

 

And even before then, the Barbarians don't come in "hordes," unless you're unlucky enough to have camps on all sides.  (Rare on standard-ish map settings-- usually there's a coastline, a mountain range, a rival civ, or a city state that can reasonably ensure no Barb attacks from 1-3 cardinal directions.)  In most cases, they come one unit at a time.  A garrisoned Archer or Warrior plus your inherent city defenses can eliminate an attacking Brute easily enough, with minimal disruption of your city/Worker/improvements.  And if you've got an archer and a warrior, you can go eliminate the camp spawning them. 

 

As for early AI invasions, know your rivals.  If you start 12 tiles away from Alexander or Atilla, yeah, you're getting rushed.  Watch your "Soldiers" ranking in the Demographics panel, and don't let that lag too much.  Prioritize researching Archery; build units.   (Also, wherever possible, settle on a Hill.)  Keep a scouting unit to spot the invasion force, make an exploitative trade with him when you see it ("Hey Alex, I'll provide you with 30 turns of Gems in exchange for All Your Gold Right Now.  Good thing you're not planning any Sneak Attacks that would stop me from exporting those Gems in 2 turns!") 

 

But it is absolutely possible to defeat an early invasion with a force entirely composed of Archers/CBs plus a Warrior or two.  The ranged units go in and behind the city.  If it looks dire, make some trades with other AIs so that you can rush-buy City Walls.  Keep what melee you have on the flanks, and understand the Zone-of-Control rules-- if an enemy Warrior or Spearman manages to attack your Archer in melee, you've screwed something up.  Concentrate fire.  Prioritize elimation of any of ranged invaders.  When they take too many losses, they'll turn and run.

 

And, if you did this primarily with ranged units, you've just eliminated a nearby opponent's field army, while keeping yours mostly intact (as well as earning some promotions and possibly a Great General).  Never a better time to take a bite out of an aggressive neighbor-- a 2nd capital city site is a nice payout for those years of infrastructure disruption. 

 

The early Honor policies do help with all that.  But that's all they help with.  And the Tradition (more population = more science = earlier CBs) and Liberty (free Worker/Settler = more hammers for Units) policies help with that and much more. 

 

 

I do agree on the avoidance of Wonder-whoring.  I often don't start construction on my first World wonder until the Renaissance.  Units, settlers, and science- and production-enabling buildings are the priorities. 

[Morgoth]

Age 2 HD. Brilliant, timeless RTS design.

 

Also replaying Dishonored and then some Knife of Dunwall. Vastly superior to this overrated POS Railshooter called Bioshock something everybody keeps raving about.

[Bartimaeus]

Age 2 HD. Brilliant, timeless RTS design.

 

Is there as many problems with the update as people have been saying? Been thinking about grabbing it on Steam...but not if the team who was "HD"ifying it screwed it up as bad they say. I still have my original disks. 

Edited April 17, 2013 by Bartimaeus

[Majek]

Yeah, unless you really need to play MP just run the original and hack the WS support in.

 

HD

http://shrani.si/f/1R/eC/4ItLxyex/hd.jpg ( notice the "improved" rock graphics )

 

Original + WS

http://shrani.si/f/g/2q/tGM75Zi/age2x2-2013-04-07-14-34-.jpg

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, unless you really need to play MP just run the original and hack the WS support in.

 

HD

http://shrani.si/f/1R/eC/4ItLxyex/hd.jpg ( notice the "improved" rock graphics )

 

Original + WS

http://shrani.si/f/g/2q/tGM75Zi/age2x2-2013-04-07-14-34-.jpg

 

The main problem I have with the original is that the music doesn't work at all. AoEII and its expansion uses split mode discs, where half of the disc is the game data, and the other half is an audio disc, (which is the soundtrack...and I think maybe cutscene audio - the audio for those little movies that play when you're about to do a campaign mission). DVD drives don't have the same audio streaming capabilities that CD drives do...ergo, no music. 

Edited April 17, 2013 by Bartimaeus

[Humanoid]

More specifically, grab the HD version if you want to play MP against other people on Steam, or, I suppose, if you want the Steam Workshop integration. Otherwise pick up the UserPatch which is, if anything, more polished than the official HD version.

 

And even if you decide HD is for you, be aware that the multiplayer portion of it is the most problematic at the moment, particularly with regards to lag.

 

 

EDIT: Not sure about the audio problem, modern drives should be able to send redbook audio fine through digitally - that's why the additional cable was removed, after all. (You can play regular music CDs right?) You might want to double check that the "enable digital CD audio" setting is on, depending on OS.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Humanoid

[Calax]

 

Bioshock is now finished.

 

Its................ not worth the crazy hype methinks. It starts out well with some good ideas (moving buildings) but eventually just falls into a pit of generic action game in a giant steampunk city. If you did a megacity steampunk thing it'd fit just as well. And then the plot just looses it's pants at the end.

That's the problem with all the Bioshock games, and to an extent System Shock 2 as well. I don't have much of a problem with Ken Levine as a writer as he's far better than most writing for video games but he does have rather a tendency to end up ultimately disappointing, even if it's mainly disappointment that it 'should have ended up better than it did' rather than it being bad as an absolute. But gameplay wise they're the equivalent of Bethesda for story- heaps of options heaps of breadth, but zero depth.

Well, the writing is ok, but it's the fact that they don't use the environment that well. It's supposed to be a city in the clouds, but the physical spaces that you go into are wayyyy to big to be in what they show you of the city. And it doesn't help that they keep throwing in plot cul-de-sac's to pad out gameplay.

[entrerix]

Bioshock infinite was a mediocre shooter wrapped up in better than average (but still not OMG WOWZERS) packaging.  a big let down imo.  dishonored is a vastly superior game in every way

[Zoraptor]

Well, the writing is ok, but it's the fact that they don't use the environment that well. It's supposed to be a city in the clouds, but the physical spaces that you go into are wayyyy to big to be in what they show you of the city. And it doesn't help that they keep throwing in plot cul-de-sac's to pad out gameplay.

Yep, same as Bioshock Original; set in a decaying underwater city and there's zero swimming or pretty much anything else involving water, they show big, uh, surfacescrapers in the cutscenes/ waterboxes but the levels are pretty much all standard flat sprawling x/y levels. It's very pretty and has very good art direction, but after a while plausibility/ belief suspension starts fraying badly and the whole thing ends up feeling, well, shallow and, um, lacking in depth. In some ways that (and the plotting) is actually worse than the alternative as it reminds you that it could have been genuinely excellent, but isn't.

 

It's rather like going to a Michelin starred restaurant and being served poisson et frites. It may be dressed up nicely and cost a lot to make, and even tastes nice enough really, but it is, at heart, just more fish and chips.

[Bartimaeus]

More specifically, grab the HD version if you want to play MP against other people on Steam, or, I suppose, if you want the Steam Workshop integration. Otherwise pick up the UserPatch which is, if anything, more polished than the official HD version.

 

And even if you decide HD is for you, be aware that the multiplayer portion of it is the most problematic at the moment, particularly with regards to lag.

 

 

EDIT: Not sure about the audio problem, modern drives should be able to send redbook audio fine through digitally - that's why the additional cable was removed, after all. (You can play regular music CDs right?) You might want to double check that the "enable digital CD audio" setting is on, depending on OS.

 

I don't completely understand the problem, but I was under the impression that the reason it didn't work is because it was missing that additional cable. The game doesn't seem to know how to use the audio from the CD like it did for CD drives. Nor have I ever met someone who got around the problem, short of simply ripping the audio data and manually playing it...which is what I ended up doing.  

Edited April 18, 2013 by Bartimaeus

[AwesomeOcelot]

I didn't want to go swimming in a FPS or a pressure suit, Rapture is designed so you don't have to go outside lumbering in a massive suit. I didn't like the segments where you go outside Rapture in Bioshock 2. I like flat sprawling maps, it's better than the endless corridors you get in most other FPS games these days.

[Keyrock]

I was finally able to race the 24 Hours of LeMans race with my own car, a Spyker C8 in GRID.  What's more, I won the GT2 class and earned some serious cash.  It was definitely a hard earned victory, that race was ****ing intense.  I did most of my good work in the chicanes.  Chicanes are my bread and butter.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Keyrock

[Calax]

One thing Bioshock 1 had was that the water was always there. The environments you traversed could still be fit into the idea of "Yeah, this could be in Rapture" and suspend your disbelief about how the city was

 

In Infinite? Beyond the first hour or so (which is FANTASTICLY done btw) they might as well have just had you in a standard city. You're going up and down MILES in a city that's flying, which makes no sense because for the outdoor stuff you can be "Well it looks nice" but everything appears to be on rock solid foundation. Indoors you just start going "Ok, I know the island thing that I flew to was NOT this big.

 

It seems less like they really wanted to have the city floating, and instead that was just a convenient way for them to tie the world into ours, while being different from Rapture, and getting the visuals they wanted. With the amount of ground covered in that game, you probably RAN from Montauk Point on Long Island to Jersey. And we're supposed to believe that all of this is flying around the world.

 

Right.

[GhostofAnakin]

Playing Bioshock 1 right now.  I prefer Infinite so far.

[Oner]

Firing up The Knife of Dunwall tonight.

[Majek]

Had a hilarious time in Dark Souls today, started a new character because I goofed up on Ornstein and Smough (killed Ornstein first, don't want manboobs' soul or armor,) and on the use of Quelaag's soul (made chaos blade instead of furysword,) got summoned by some newbie player for the Taurus demon, he got invaded, I backstabbed the douche with a +2 Drake Sword for what must have been 99% of his health and then he took a little fall off that trap stairway with the flaming barrel, landed on the ledge below and took 8 damage from the fall, which killed him.

Chaos blade is better if you have a DEX build.  And  if you quit during the boss fight you restart it ...

[mkreku]

Borderlands 2 is a strange beast. I was playing it, dying a lot and not having much fun. All my weapons felt like peashooters.

 

Then I found this:

 

 

The second orange item I have found in over 80 levels.

 

Not only does it do a ridiculous amount of damage, the damage splashes also. Oh, and it fires 5-7 shots in a horizontal arc every time you press the trigger, each one of those shots doing a lot of damage plus splash damage..

 

Suddenly the game is fun again.

[Malcador]

Yeah I got that from the slot machine, the rockets converge at a certain range it seems.  Finally got my Axton into TVHM, Warrior went down pretty easy with a Hammer Buster.

[Keyrock]

X3: Terran Conflict - Hopped out of my transport and into my Terran Rapier scout and took the somewhat long journey through some inhospitable sectors (though I could have gone a different, slightly longer, more hospitable route) to get to Duke's Citadel on the edge of Paranid space.  The good thing about a scout is that even flying through dangerous sectors, like Xenon sectors, is relatively safe as long as you keep them engines burning bright, since you can just outrun anyone that's a threat.  Anyway, the trip was all types of worth it because at the edge of that sector was a Paranid Advanced Perseus M3 heavy fighter sitting there, just waiting for a new owner.  Now the Advanced Perseus is ugly as sin, simply one of the ugliest ships in the game, but it's also one of the better heavy fighters in the game.  It's very fast, maneuverable, well shielded, and well armed.  Heck, the one I found wasn't even completely wrecked, like so many abandoned ships.  The hull was completely intact and it even came with a pair of PBEs (Pulse Beam Emitters).  PBEs definitely have their uses.  While they have a very short range, and they do very little hull damage, they have a super fast rate of fire, fast moving blasts, and do MASSIVE shield damage.  This makes them perfect for taking out pesky M5 scouts, and for capturing ships.  So far I added 1 PAC (Particle Accelerator Cannon), a decent damage, high rate of fire, somewhat limited range weapon, and 2 HEPTs (High Energy Plasma Throwers) which have long range, and do massive damage, but have a slow rate of fire and not particularly fast moving blasts.  This gives me enough armament to take on basically any fighter with confidence, but if I want to have any chance against a corvette, I'll need to scoop up a couple more HEPTs, not to mention some missiles.  

 

Anyway, I can go ahead and do my escort mission now as the Advanced Perseus is more than capable enough to thwart off anything I'm liable to run into during the mission.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Keyrock

[Bos_hybrid]

X3: Terran Conflict - Hopped out of my transport and into my Terran Rapier scout and took the somewhat long journey through some inhospitable sectors (though I could have gone a different, slightly longer, more hospitable route) to get to Duke's Citadel on the edge of Paranid space.  The good thing about a scout is that even flying through dangerous sectors, like Xenon sectors, is relatively safe as long as you keep them engines burning bright, since you can just outrun anyone that's a threat.  Anyway, the trip was all types of worth it because at the edge of that sector was a Paranid Advanced Perseus M3 heavy fighter sitting there, just waiting for a new owner.  Now the Advanced Perseus is ugly as sin, simply one of the ugliest ships in the game, but it's also one of the better heavy fighters in the game.  It's very fast, maneuverable, well shielded, and well armed.  Heck, the one I found wasn't even completely wrecked, like so many abandoned ships.  The hull was completely intact and it even came with a pair of PBEs (Pulse Beam Emitters).  PBEs definitely have their uses.  While they have a very short range, and they do very little hull damage, they have a super fast rate of fire, fast moving blasts, and do MASSIVE shield damage.  This makes them perfect for taking out pesky M5 scouts, and for capturing ships.  So far I added 1 PAC (Particle Accelerator Cannon), a decent damage, high rate of fire, somewhat limited range weapon, and 2 HEPTs (High Energy Plasma Throwers) which have long range, and do massive damage, but have a slow rate of fire and not particularly fast moving blasts.  This gives me enough armament to take on basically any fighter with confidence, but if I want to have any chance against a corvette, I'll need to scoop up a couple more HEPTs, not to mention some missiles.  

 

Anyway, I can go ahead and do my escort mission now as the Advanced Perseus is more than capable enough to thwart off anything I'm liable to run into during the mission.

 

Are you playing standard or with mods?

[Malcador]

Still on BL2, trying out the Gunpowder tree for Axton.  The nuke when I deploy the Sabre is pretty useful, and the boosts to the AR is helpful with the legendary I have (although it's a Jakobs).