Well if you don't have one of the many paradox titles this might be the weekend to make up for it. Steam is running a paradox sale all weekend.
Today King Arthur titles are 75% off. For $5 I'm giving KA2 a go even though I've not heard the best about it compared to KA.
Will be looking for Vicky 2 if it reaches 75% off too.
Warlock and Naval War Arctic Circle are both half off - $10.
The new Warlock DLC Serpents is a buck fifty so that is a go too.
Hmm Victoria II eh? How were reviews and player opinion on that? I need a British Empire game bad.
I'm reconsidering the KA2 purchase. Just browse the PI forums. It seems there maybe some serious issue with this one. What's the opinion on this game? Sure its only $5, but I don't want to waste time on a broken game.
^IIRC Toonces enjoyed it. But he LOVES the first one. As do I. The poor reviews in general scared me away from the second one.
My biggest concern is the 2GB ram cap. It seems to cause some serious frame rate issues.
I read of other serious issues like CTDs also. Which sucks because KA1 ran very well for me. Never crashed once.
I'm tempted to get Naval War Arctic Circle if they've patched in mid-mission saves. Have they? Also, how does Supreme Ruler Cold War stack up against the others?
Nope, still no in-mission save function and freezing/lock-ups are still an issue for some owners (like me).
NWAC is really a value at $10. Almost embarrassing actually. Then Warlock at $10. Ridiculously underpriced. So with KAII, you spend $5 less than the $30 for garbage like World Supremacy. I need to become a bit more disciplined in my purchases or wait for sales :>
Quote from: tgb on June 07, 2012, 02:43:13 PM
I'm tempted to get Naval War Arctic Circle if they've patched in mid-mission saves. Have they?
Just tried the new patch. I find it still unplayable. It's just a matter of time before it locks-up on my machine. I can't recommend it at any price with behaviour like this.
I'd like to point out that
Crusader Kings 2 is $19.99 on this sale, too. The Sword of Islam expansion is due out soon.
Other notables I can recommend:
Mount & Blade Warband $10
Dungeons of Dredmor $1.50 (expansion Rise of the Diggle Gods $1)
Pride of Nations $5
Knights of Honor $5
Rise Of Prussia $5
Probably missed another one or two because, unlike the usual Paradox sales, some of the ones you don't see marked down very often are on this one. I didn't spot EU3 Chronicles or HOI3 Complete in the sale list but they might be there..
Anyone recommend Victoria II?
Unfortunately I didn't spend much time with KA2 yet. The campaign seems fairly linear, as stated elsewhere. It is very beautiful, I can tell you that much. I bought it for $20 which was my breakpoint on it. For $5 I don't see how you can go wrong, but if you have to think that hard about it it is probably best to just pass and put the money towards CK2 or something.
Quote from: Gusington on June 07, 2012, 06:07:43 PM
Anyone recommend Victoria II?
I just can't recommend it, even though I keep trying to get into it.
The hands-off gameplay is a real snoozer. The economy side of things is mostly automated and all you'll do is push a few gov't spending sliders upwards until max'd out in a varied but short time after game start, because the economy is so broken that money will flow like water after everything levels off. What you actively
do a lot, however, is play whack-a-mole with your Influence settings on minor states (if you're one of the 8 great powers). This wouldn't be so bad if it were adjusted once a month, or even a year, but you'll have to
constantly jack with it when various AI countries keep allotting influence pts in places you're doing so, and then moving them back to a different one when you match them, causing a point chase of sorts. The bastids will pop them in & out all the time so I'm always doing the same to keep them from hitting the next "level" or eliminating my built up points there. Back & forth & round & round. >:( Real annoying.
The warfare part is pretty much the same as most of the other Clausewitz engine games, although one good point is the
very limited war goals which restricts the outcomes of any war to some predefined goals considering your situation. So that helps keep the runaway conquering blobs to somewhat slower, more reasonable, limits ideally. May not always keep the blobs at bay, but better than other games.
While the social aspects are modelled, and most Vic2 players enjoy manipulating such things, I've not really had much notice of them other than a few pop-up events that you must decide between a couple small social modifiers to a specific province. These events fire often and you'll see the same few over & over. I can see the draw of manipulating all the POPs' sentiments so you trigger various revolutions and drastic gov't changes, but some of these extremely repetitive events that can potentially help your machinations just haven't given me a fun enough time to continue such a journey.
From what I've gathered, later in a campaign the game starts to increasingly lag out (runaway memory leaks or save data junkpiling??) and even the smaller AI nations build massive dreadnought fleets because those give Prestige bonuses and can possibly push them up into Great Power status. This dreadnought-out-the-rear issue was supposed to be fixed in the expansion (also currently on sale - probably still more than it's worth) but I've not bothered to see how well it was, or whether that fix broke other things as so often happens.
So I've failed to "get into" Victoria 2.. approximately six times now. :-[ It makes me look forward to PON's bugs getting fixed up because I'd have more fun playing a smooth version of that, and it's 3 minute turn processing times, than doing so little in Vic2 (ZzzZ) & becoming frustrated with it's gameplay/lack of.
^Damn that stinks. And was what I was afraid of hearing. I love the era so much...but there is precious little in quality gaming in it. Or is there? I feel a new thread coming on.
I actually very much liked Vicky 2, so I'll disagree with Nefario here.
For $10, you can't goo too wrong.
Torn...Crusader Kings II looks like the better purchase even though I won't play it right away.
just remember that everything is 50% and it might go to 75% so i would wait til last day to purchase something. might save ya an extra 25%!
Victorian Englerlund is pretty much my favourite era but there just isn't a whole lot out there.
You could give Pride of Nations another crack.
If you want something a little more personal, I recommend Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper. Very well researched and they present a very interesting yet plausible theory on the ripper murders.
Quote from: Gusington on June 07, 2012, 09:03:06 PM
Torn...Crusader Kings II looks like the better purchase even though I won't play it right away.
Much much more engaging IMO. I can heartily support a purchase of
Crusader Kings 2 over
Victoria 2 any day. ;)
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on June 07, 2012, 11:27:19 PM
You could give Pride of Nations another crack.
Since the Phils have started working on updates for PON, I'd suggest waiting until those are done. Although they will likely be save game compatible, you could run into a runaway issue (population happiness & loyalty sounds like it can be a problem atm) and still have that present after an update.
I know that the guys running the massive multiplayer game of PON have had to manually fix a few things in their game over the long period of time they've played it.
Thanks guys...going with CKII appears to be the way to go. SDR who created the Sherlock Holmes game you mentioned?
The shortage of Victorian British Empire games is pushing me more towards steampunk and thus the upcoming scenario for Civ V...and ETW and NTW mods.
Gus, Sherlock vs the Ripper was made by Frogware. It's their fifth Sherlock Holmes title. Here's the Gamersgate link although I recommend getting it from Steam so as to avoid the evil Tages DRM scheme.
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-SH5/sherlock-holmes-vs-jack-the-ripper (http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-SH5/sherlock-holmes-vs-jack-the-ripper)
^Thanks SDR.
Was perusing the sale just now and noticed that Rise of Prussia and Vainglory of Nations (PRoN) are on sale.
I'm thinking however of picking up Vainglory for MAC. Does anyone here have the MAC version and if so how does it perform? Any lag or sluggishness issues that are on the Windows version?
I'd be leary of a Mac version for the simple fact that Ageod does not support Mac versions. The updating of the Mac version is controlled by the company who ported the game to iOS, so you are not likely to get good or timely support if any when Ageod patches the PC version.
GG also has Mount & Blade Napoleonic Wars on sale for $5 (not in Steam sale it seems) in case someone wants a multiplayer musket & bayoneting to the face.
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-MBWNW/mount-and-blade-warband-napoleonic-wars
..and Montjoie! is on sale for a light tabletop strategy port ($10), which happens rarely.
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-MONTJOIE/montjoie
Quote from: Nefaro on June 08, 2012, 05:48:07 PM
GG also has Mount & Blade Napoleonic Wars on sale for $5 (not in Steam sale it seems) in case someone wants a multiplayer musket & bayoneting to the face.
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-MBWNW/mount-and-blade-warband-napoleonic-wars
Its on sale at Steam too. I think the GG and Steam sale pretty much match so its a pick your dd of choice weekend.
Quote from: Bison on June 08, 2012, 05:50:14 PM
Its on sale at Steam too. I think the GG and Steam sale pretty much match so its a pick your dd of choice weekend.
I didn't see it there yesterday. :-\ I'm seeing a few more than on Steam over there - I guess a couple were never published on it either. Like
Montjoie.
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/14259/
Quote from: Bison on June 08, 2012, 05:52:55 PM
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/14259/
Now I see why I overlooked it. The pic has that hated "DLC" band across it. I generally skip looking at those. :P
Quote from: Bison on June 08, 2012, 04:54:33 PM
I'd be leary of a Mac version for the simple fact that Ageod does not support Mac versions. The updating of the Mac version is controlled by the company who ported the game to iOS, so you are not likely to get good or timely support if any when Ageod patches the PC version.
Good point. Ok no MAC version. So the price on both Steam or GG is pretty attractive. Might have to update my "what are you playing this weekend?" post.
I went kind of crazy. The DLC I was missing for HOI3, CK2 and Vicky2 and ADH. I've been meaning to play Vicky2 for sometime now.
Let me know what you think. I am desperate for some British Empiring.
I would but the f'n game is crashing during load up. So I've put in a question over at PI tech forums asking for help. Unbelievable. Some day I'm just going to walk way from PI and not look back. They really are becoming the poster child of releasing buggy crap and a piss poor attitude when dealing with people lodging complaints.
OK. I did some searching and figure out how to get the game to start up. Had to delete some map folder caching and document caches. This is complete crap however. It should just freaking download and install. I'm not sure why PI seems to think its a cool part of their game experience for the customer to fix the damn games.
Quote from: Bison on June 10, 2012, 08:11:34 PM
OK. I did some searching and figure out how to get the game to start up. Had to delete some map folder caching and document caches. This is complete crap however. It should just freaking download and install. I'm not sure why PI seems to think its a cool part of their game experience for the customer to fix the damn games.
Why is there a caching issue on your first start-up? That's.. odd. Unless Vic2's map cache building is a bit screwy at times. I only ever had to delete that stuff when updating the program, or adding a mod. Thankfully they got smart on their newer games and you don't have to go do that anymore.
^Your posts are all I needed to read. Staying away from Victoria II as I have been warned repeatedly.
Quote from: Gusington on June 11, 2012, 11:25:47 AM
^Your posts are all I needed to read. Staying away from Victoria II as I have been warned repeatedly.
LOL. I wasn't sure if people actually paid attention to my impressions. *shrug*
Who knows? Perhaps once you get it running for a bit, you may find some avenue of enjoyment. My longest play time with it was my first - when I chose the ailing Ottoman Turks and proceeded to immediately put the smack down on Egypt. Luckily I didn't have to mess with the Influence jockeying or sit and stare off while waiting for the days to tick by while my automated economy chugged along. Of course, I'm not normally the type to jump straight into steamrolling the world when I play these Paradox games - that kinda takes me out of the immersion too. Fortunately the Casus Belli system in Vic2 is fairly restrictive but people can always find a way to work the system more than intended. For the same reason (the CB system), it's also an even slower developing war-related campaign than most Pdox games.
I'm still going to attempt to get it to click sometime. Perhaps using a popular mod for it will add that extra something for me.
Anyway, Crusader Kings 2 is SO much better and will consume a lot of time. If you have to make a cost-benefit analysis, that is a factor.
^That's exactly what I did.
I wish they'd make an EU:Rome 2 with the whole CK2 character system setup in it. Playing as ancient nobility could be done fairly similarly, I think.
Then Gus could beat his digital household slaves every time something went wrong.