It's Friday! What will you be playing?

MetalDog · November 18, 2012, 09:22:31 AM

One of the features of BTS that I think is pretty cool, is the fact that you can Vassal other civs. For instance, Joao losing three cities should put him close to giving up, or at least talking peace. One of the options, if the criteria is met (and that depends on factors I am not aware of, but use the diplomacy screen to sound him out), is to capitulate and accept vassallage. You gain a points boost for becoming the Master of another civ and alliance with your vassal. However, depending on compatibility between your civs, your vassal may try to slip loose the fetters.

undercovergeek · November 19, 2012, 04:00:22 AM

no way - did not know that - ill go see the big man himself, see how he feels

JasonPratt · November 19, 2012, 09:30:26 AM

Amazingly, I managed to meet my weekend gaming goals! -- except that when I started trying to play Warlock, I discovered my video card wouldn't work with it, after which I discovered that it requires at least Win7 to run (not even Vista, much less XP which is what I actually have).

ARGH!! I inferred that if its game engine was so clearly built on the Fantasy War/Elven Legacy engine, of course it would work in XP, so I didn't bother to check.

Naturally, there aren't even any limited returns for buying an ultra-DRMd game off Steam. Despite the fact that the whole damned point to how Steam operates is to help prevent piracy. :P

So until I pony up for a new computer, I have a game on Steam I can't run. (Actually two, since while Dawn of War 2 technically can run on XP, realistically it can't. Almost three, since CK2 chugs hard on XP and/or my old computer.)

I swapped out that time with Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition instead. But instead of being happy that I have several great new games I played a lot of this weekend (including the new XCOM reboot), I'm vexed about Warlock. Oh well; I shall just have to work harder on not being irrational. ;D

MengJiao · November 19, 2012, 09:48:34 AM

Quote from: MengJiao on November 16, 2012, 09:45:01 AM
Quote from: MetalDog on November 16, 2012, 06:52:19 AM
Unfortunately, I will be spending at least part of Saturday playing, "work". The upcoming Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. has put my schedule out of whack. However, I will get some game time in and it will be Civ IV BTS MP and CKII. And in order to join a Groghead's Friday Rumble, I will be exploring Warlock Master of the Arcane.

Worky work here to, but offset to some degree by the journey of the Wife and Child to a distant location, leaving me to work and play more.

When playing, I will be playing (I think) CMBN:CWF and ATS Scottish Corridor -- two views of the same battles in some cases. The Germans seem to do better in ATS -- maybe because in solitaire I have to play them too, whereas against the German AI -- for me at least -- its the little sneaky things that pay off, though yesterday, I got bogged down trying to rescue a tank crew.

Things went well, though Iron Front displaced some of the above. I even got some worky work done.

Anguille · November 19, 2012, 11:09:56 AM

No gaming this weekend... :o

Kushan · November 19, 2012, 03:21:38 PM

I mostlky played what I said I was going to, although I didn't get to Crusader Kings 2.

Started my first game of SOTS2, playing as the Tarkas. Played 25 turns or so yesterday. I'm not a big fan of the UI. Too many buttons and it takes up too much of the screen IMO. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it though. I'm still not all too sure what I should be doing. After playing Distant Worlds for so long, and having an advisor make suggestions on what I should colonize, what I should be building, etc; Going back to do it all manually is taking some getting used to. I'm also still trying to figure out how the game systems work. Not sure if I should be constantly laying down ship hulls (scouts and colonizers) and constantly expanding or if I should take it slow. I also don't understand some of the numbers on the ship design screen. Its shows 3 numbers, one for how much is costs to maintain, one for how much it costs in reserve, and a third number above them that I have no clue what it means. For example, my first class of cruisers, maintenance cost was 3,000, reserve cost was 1,000 and the third number said 262,000. The third number didn't seem to match up with anything. Going to be a busy work week, but I plan to put some more time in during the long weekend.

MetalDog · November 19, 2012, 07:26:45 PM

Is the 262,000 a Buy Now price?

@Jason Pratt: I only have XP and I run Warlock and CKII just fine through Steam. I'm no computer wiz, so I can't say why it's ok for me but not you, but it does work for me on XP.

JasonPratt · November 20, 2012, 08:22:42 AM

Quote from: MetalDog on November 19, 2012, 07:26:45 PM
Is the 262,000 a Buy Now price?

@Jason Pratt: I only have XP and I run Warlock and CKII just fine through Steam. I'm no computer wiz, so I can't say why it's ok for me but not you, but it does work for me on XP.

Huh. Well, strictly speaking Warlock said my video card wasn't good enough to run it. That seems insane, as the level of graphics don't look much more advanced (if at all) from FW/EL, and while my computer is old it's a Falcon-Northwest that when I bought it was top of the line. It has never once simply chunked on a graphics card issue, and while I figure that would be true for many games today I can't imagine why that would be true for Warlock (of all things).

But then I read the minimum specs and it said Win7 or 8, so I figured that was the answer. (I didn't even go further to look at the minimum card specs.)

Anyway, if it really isn't the OS, it must be the graphics card. Still SOL. I could ask Falcon tech support what they recommended trying to upgrade to for that computer system, which would be naturally much cheaper than getting a new computer; but I don't know that I want to plonk significant money on the DRX and yet still be so behind the tech curve that I still need a new computer relatively soon: I might as well go on and get the new computer (or wait until I can afford it more safely).

Nefaro · November 20, 2012, 10:35:23 AM

Quote from: JasonPratt on November 20, 2012, 08:22:42 AM

Anyway, if it really isn't the OS, it must be the graphics card. Still SOL. I could ask Falcon tech support what they recommended trying to upgrade to for that computer system, which would be naturally much cheaper than getting a new computer; but I don't know that I want to plonk significant money on the DRX and yet still be so behind the tech curve that I still need a new computer relatively soon: I might as well go on and get the new computer (or wait until I can afford it more safely).

Definitely sounds like the video card is 'unsupported', which is a good way of saying that it doesn't work with the game(s) in question.

What video card model do you have? And if it's so old that it's using an AGP slot, then yes, you'd be better off waiting until a new one.

JasonPratt · November 20, 2012, 08:00:18 PM

Thanks, Nef. :)

It's an NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800, PCI Express x16 (not AGP) with 256MB onboard RAM.

Checking the specs on Steam, I can see they list minimum specs as 512MB and would prefer to have a full Gig of onboard video RAM.

That's.... that's insane. Is Warlock (of all things) really THAT graphics intensive??