Playing other games

[Mightysword]

If I recall, a few people here play Banished yes? For some reason that simplistic game is one of the city builder I enjoy the most in the post Simcity 4 era.

Anyway, saw a few screenshots on steam:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 2113640691

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 2113640163

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =626585888

Had to go looking for my jaws on the ground. Forget Banished 2, I wouldn't imagine even Banished 3 would look this good. The author of these shots provided a list of mods used to produce this:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

Ninety - six freaking mods

I'm debating whenever I want to tackle this challenge (getting these mods and launch the game properly) over the weekend. Very tempting though.

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

I honestly loved Banished and every now and then I play a little of it.

[Mightysword]

Well I took the challenge and got all the mods. Still reluctant to install and test them. Nothing more deflating spending hours getting and installing mode just to be great with an error message on launch, usually happen with this kind of quantities.

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

I usually only look for mods adding wares, as I'm a bit reluctant on "new mechanics", as I find them possibly dangerous / game breaking / buggy.

[felter]

Talking about mods. I've been playing a couple of games of late, one of them I have been replaying Skyrim but without any mods at all, as I thought I would do some of the game achievements and they get turned off when you instal any mods, and I had nearly not played any of the game without mods. This has led to an interesting conclusion that Bethesda has to be one of the worst game/software developers out there. I came to this conclusion as the game is a bug ridden mess and some of them are pretty serious bugs. It was only a matter of a few hours into the game that I stumbled onto a game killer, where the monks quests where you are sent to retrieve shouts bugged out and could not be completed. When I checked online for a solution I discovered that Bethesda has known about this bug at least since release day, and they have never done anything about it. What I did find out was that to solve it and the numerous other bugs you need to install the unofficial patch, which of course is counted as a game mod, turning off the achievements. The game was released 9 years ago there has been several different releases on several different platforms, but yet Bethesda cannot be bothered to even patch the bugs that breaks the game. And yet Todd Howard takes this as a joke and is something to be proud of, personally I think Bethesda is a joke and I doubt I will be buying the next elder scrolls game when it is released.

On a brighter note, I have also been playing Stardew Valley Extended which is a modded game of Stardew Valley and if you have the original game and enjoyed playing it, I highly recommend it. At the heart the game it is still the original game, with the original quests but with the mod it now has a bigger map, new quests, a new larger starting farm and other farms, with new NPC's and so forth. One other good thing, it is not a bug ridden mess like a Bethesda game.

[brucewarren]

I generally avoid mods. I prefer to play a game as originally designed.

That said there's one Skyrim mod I'm interested in. It's *huge* download. It's being released in stages because the amount of work is immense.

I believe it's called "Beyond Skyrim." The idea, as I understand it, is to add the entire region of Cyrodiil to Skyrim, along with all sorts
of new stuffs to go with it.

[felter]

Just stumbled onto this little gem, an ARPG from China called Black Myth: Wu Kong. It's been a while since I went, damn now that looks good and it most certainly does. No release date but it's being released on both PC and console and looking at it, I guess that will be next gen consoles.

[Mightysword]

@felter: if you just start getting into this kind of games, you'll be in for a treat. Over the last 5 years or so there have been many of these titles from Chinese developers. And there are still a few more coming including the one you just stumbled to.

If you haven't, check out Gujian 3. I think it's the most acclaimed game in the last few years. The story, gameplay, and production value are pretty up there, comparable with classic squaresoft/sega tittles in term of quality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDjVfKM48q0

Gate of Firmanent also deserves a good shout.

[Rug]

Any recommendations for DLC for EU4 ? I bought the base game for a princely 78p a few weeks back, so feel I might splash out on a half-price DLC or two now if it is going to improve the experience enough. I have fewer than 50 hours in game so far, so I won't need to rebuild any strategies for play , as I haven't really developed any yet... just the odd I-really-must-remember-not-to-do-that-again lesson !

I've been reading online reviews, but some may be a bit out of date. I don't know how much of the "You need this DLC because this feature" is not relevant now, as I know some such stuff has now been added to the base game in its 1.3 incarnation. (Province development no longer just in Common Sense DLC seems to be an example here).

I'm sure there must be a good few players out there, and would really appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks.

Rug

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

Any recommendations for DLC for EU4 ? I bought the base game for a princely 78p a few weeks back, so feel I might splash out on a half-price DLC or two now if it is going to improve the experience enough. I have fewer than 50 hours in game so far, so I won't need to rebuild any strategies for play , as I haven't really developed any yet... just the odd I-really-must-remember-not-to-do-that-again lesson !

I've been reading online reviews, but some may be a bit out of date. I don't know how much of the "You need this DLC because this feature" is not relevant now, as I know some such stuff has now been added to the base game in its 1.3 incarnation. (Province development no longer just in Common Sense DLC seems to be an example here).

I'm sure there must be a good few players out there, and would really appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks.

Rug

I think Wealth of Nations is the most generic one, while the others focus a lot more on specific countries or regions of the world.
If you like playing around the Mediterranean sea, Mare Nostrum is also good and Emperor can spice things up if your in the Vatican area or in Germany / HRE (or you plan to fight against them).
If you love to struggle in the long term, Conquest of Paradise expands a lot native american nations and I think it's a good combo with Eldorado.

[Ketraar]

I'm sure there must be a good few players out there, and would really appreciate your thoughts.

I "dabbled a bit" in EU4 and to be honest its not easy to do recommendations for DLC. As mentioned it will depend on your nation preferences and play style.
Personally I usually wait for sale or bundle to get most DLC (not the unit packs I dont care about those) but the ones I find essential are (in no particular order):

• Art of War
• Common Sense
• Rights of Man
• Mandate of Heaven

For playstyle specific ones:

• El Dorado for colonisation (crucial to play Portugal or Spain, good for England too)
• Rule Britannia important to play British Isles as it has many specific missions
• Wealth of Nations is very important if you play trade centric nations (Portugal, Spain, Venice, The Hansa, ect)
• Third Rome for Russian area nations, Golden Horde, etc
• Emperor for HRE nations as it has many new mechanics and missions.

Hope that helped.

MFG

Ketraar

[Rug]

... it will depend on your nation preferences and play style.

I've not really had time to develop such preferences so far. Still twiddling around trying to find how to do things, what things to do, when to do them, how not to go bankrupt in the process, and wondering why I am so crap at wars ! And then there's all the stuff that I don't even know that I need to know about yet (to paraphrase Rumsfeld with his Unknown unknowns).

So far I've been playing as Portugal, trying to expand through colonialism rather than war. Was doing nicely in the Ivory/Gold coast region, but just got stomped by some grumpy neighbours, so time to re-think/learn. So much to do.

Thanks for the advice. More always welcome.

Rug

[Ketraar]

Portugal is a good start, if you manage to have Spain as Ally its rather easy, but otherwise it can get tricky fast.

As with Kerbal Space Program, EU4 you just need to have a go, fail, try again, repeat. There are some reasonable tutorials on youtube, the issue often is that they tend to be dated fast due to many changes to game mechanics so its not easy to find simple ones that are up-to-date.

In general the things you need to know are:

• Always ally strong nations for protection
• Check your Aggressive Expansion, dont be greedy and try take a lot in one go, there is time for more wars later.
• Wrt to fighting, MORALE is key, you wind battles 90% of the time by draining your enemies morale. Many things impact morale, stability, prestige, power projection, ideas, advisors, etc always try to max morale. Here I sugest to watch an in-depth tutorial it will change everything
• Second key point about fighting is terrain. Moving armies into provinces will have negative modifiers to rolls for the ARRIVING army, depending on terrain this can be -1 (river crossing) -2 Mountains, etc. Note that if the province has a fort, the OWNER of the fort will ALWAYS be the defender even if arriving later, thus transferring the penalties to the army that does not control the fort.
• Loans, dot be afraid to take loans, especially if it helps win a war. As Portugal you will be swimming in ducats once colonization gets going

Anyway these are just a few tips but there is much to learn in EU4 and most is rather well hidden away in modifiers and deep in menus. Watching tutorials as you go and the try them ingame is really the only way, which is not bad on its own since the learning can also be satisfying (it is for me).

Have fun.

MFG

Ketraar

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

Another relevant tip for war: if you plan to go to war against a nation, check their allies and wait for them to be in an expensive war. Worked like a charm when trying to conquer Ireland as an Irish province, waiting for England to be in a long war against France.

[notaterran]

[...] Bethesda has to be one of the worst game/software developers out there.

You are correct. Playing Bethesda games is a labor of love.

[Vertigo 7]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifm8tpcO4vw

Surprise announcement for Zelda BOTW fans. I'm stoked!

[pjknibbs]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifm8tpcO4vw

Surprise announcement for Zelda BOTW fans. I'm stoked!

Bear in mind that this sounds like a Hyrule Warriors (aka Dynasty Warriors in Hyrule) game rather than anything like Breath of the Wild was.

[Vertigo 7]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifm8tpcO4vw

Surprise announcement for Zelda BOTW fans. I'm stoked!

Bear in mind that this sounds like a Hyrule Warriors (aka Dynasty Warriors in Hyrule) game rather than anything like Breath of the Wild was.

well ya, it's in the title of the game =p but its sounding like the story told in this game is going to be canon for BOTW. I loved Hyrule Warriors. And with the BOTW team working with Koei Tecmo, I really expect this to be quite the gem. They're even using the same voice actors.

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

I'm recently amazed by Crusader Kings III.

[GCU Grey Area]

I'm recently amazed by Crusader Kings III.

Same here. Very much enjoying it. Although right now bit worried that the pope's decided to send a crusade my way - apparently doesn't approve much of Lollard Ireland...