Never feel Friday again

[Anguille]

A brilliant swiss artist from my city (which you see in the background): Jaël.

Going to play:

Napoleon Total War: battle of Austerliz and the Peninsula campaign.

Polaris Sector...had to start a game on easy to better understand the game.  ::)

Agatha Christie's ABC (adventure game)

Happy weekend

[Rayfer]

Nice song choice Ang, something different for a change.  Found myself drifting back to HoI4, which I do often.

[Gusington]

Getting deeper into Civ VI, playing and modding. I was wary of the cartoony graphics but as Bart told me they kind of fade into the background after a few sessions. So many new gaming dynamics! I like it.

Also will start some Age of Empires Definitive Edition (never played the original) and AssCreed: Odyssey as it's been a while.

[Barthheart]

Anytime you wanna try Civ VI MP let me know. There's a built in off-line MP ability now. Maybe we could get Windy in on the game as well.

[Sir Slash]

CMBN: Market-Garden Campaign battle 3. I've got to grab the last couple of objectives for a win as time expires. Lovin' it.     Have a great quarantine weekend Grogs.   :pullhair:

[Gusington]

Thanks Bart - right now I royally suck. Trying to learn. Fun game to learn though.

[Wolfe1759]

Playing some SINS and then probably some more MOO:CtS (with 5X and UCP mods) or Stars in Shadow.

Anguille - nice song though not really my cup of tea - then again IIRC I've been introduced to The Hu and Die Antwoord by the Grog Friday post so keep it coming  :)

[JasonPratt]

Song was great, but the video-production side of my brain (which has lain spontaneously dormant since I got my broadcast communications degree decades ago) kept going, "IF YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE A VIDEO OF THE BAND PLAYING ALONG WITH THE SONG, MAKE SURE THEIR INSTRUMENTS ARE EITHER IN THE ACTUAL MUSIC TRACK OR ELSE DON'T FOCUS ON THEM SO MUCH IN THE EDIT!" 

{plays shaker many times while no shaker exists in the music track}
{picks carefully and skillfully on guitar while the music track guitar gently strums chords}
{etc.}

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile this weekend:

1.) Death (from many multiplayer games and an ongoing restart of the Ultimate General: Civil War Confederacy campaign which I'm trying a new logistic strategy on) ;

and

2.) Taxes (from doing my taxes finally).


Also 3.) I've got a rush job at work that needs a construction drawing ready by Monday, so I get to do that instead of rest and play for a while. Still, glad to have income during the CoronaCrisis!

Also 4.) Just reached the most important day yet in Stalin's geopolitical grand strategy, for my chronological Icebreaker Thesis posting project. That day? -- June 26th, 1940, the day that sets up the mousetraps of Barbarossa.

[Toonces]

Well, with the austerity measures in place for casa Toonces (it was either pick up some planes from the DCS sale, get Bannerlord, or buy more bourbon), I've decided to revisit some old classics that just haven't gotten any play time.

From Matrixgames, I re-downloaded Harpoon Ultimate Edition and have started learning the Commander's Edition, which unbelievably I've never played.  So many scenarios...it will take a long time to get through this game.

Also from MG, I re-downloaded the Tiller Civil War compilation, a hex-and-counter Civil War wargame I've never played.

Finally, I re-downloaded Fleet Command from Steam and decided to try it out and see if it can tie me over until The_Admiral's carrier game comes out, or that new Seapower game releases.

And...there's always a little Cold Waters if I just want to shut up and play.  I'm pretty good at this one.

Stay safe, and keep the bourbon on ice.

[Toonces]

Dammit, I just saw that DCS video.  Sigh. 

I suppose the kids can just go to community college.   ::)

[airboy]

Playing a game for a review.

Playing Erik2's US Pacific campaign - the Coral Sea scenario.

Playing a second round of Secrets of the Lost Tomb with the wife.

Got to reread Pacific Tide and set it up for some hopeful PBemail games. 

[JasonPratt]

I got up to the Battle of Shiloh again in Ultimate General: Gettysburg, and... I've kind of bounced off the wall again. The mission design is just clunky to the point of frustration. And not in a way of "Hey, you're fighting the ACW, you have poor information sometimes, you just have to try what you're told to do." More like "Failure in part of the mission is the only option despite what we told you, NO MATTER HOW GOOD YOU DID AT IT!"

The first time this shows up a little blatantly is in the first major fight, which naturally is 1st Bull Run. (There are two or three minor fights in between the big ones where you can level up your force in various ways and slightly downgrade the enemy for the big fight upcoming, including before Bull Run.)

I'm playing the Confeds, and my orders are to hold the left flank, where the main attack is expected, and especially a particular stone bridge. My forces are too thin to keep Yanks from crossing all the bridges, but only that bridge has to be held; and also a ridgeline somewhere mostly across the map to the west.

Now, what the dev doesn't tell you is that he fully expects you to fail to hold at least one of those places. But otherwise you have basically three options:

1.) Promptly march off to go try to hold the ridgeline, and immediately get your bridge overrun, failing this part of the mission before almost any fighting, and possibly before you even get to the ridge.

2.) Concentrate your forces on the hill above the bridge, and hold that hill. (It's the hill that counts in this case, not the bridge per se, btw.) This is a better choice because depending on your force composition and how good you are at playing them, you can cause a lot more damage to the enemy (proportionate to your own casualties) before you fail anyway -- because the enemy will eventually advance on that unprotected ridge, failing this part of the mission.

3.) Split your forces and try to hold both areas, the way the mission says it expects from you. This has two results...

3a.) Your forces get mangled by the vastly superior Yankee numbers and you fail this part of the mission with crippling casualties that will affect your ability to go forward even if you manage to win the overall battle later.

3b.) You brought an incredibly efficient set of divisions which, through your brilliant skill and a lot of luck, allows you to keep the Yanks off both the hills until the timer runs out -- whereupon you fail this part of the mission anyway!!

Sooner or later, no matter how well you fight, you're ordered back to the Henry House. And holding this by the end of the fight is the ONLY win condition. The fact you lost those other places doesn't matter.

Consequently, this playthrough, I decided to straight abandon the bridge, bunkering down in a forest cove surrounded on three sides by water, downhill north of the Henry House hill-line. I almost immediately fail the mandated failure, and the map opens up to Henry House, and a new corps arrives to help under my command, and I barely even have to bother marching my troops up to Henry House until near the end of the fight: I just sit there and murder anyone who tries to approach from that side.

In between that and the next big fight, Shiloh, I discover that running out of time doesn't fail the mission; as long as you complete the objectives with the "Finish" button still showing, you can win the mission long after time runs out. I do this by capturing three enemy supply wagons. (Note that once units come onto the map, they have no scripted way to leave, and only rout off the map sometimes, or surrender, so the wagons which are supposed to be escorted off somewhere will wander around the map trying to stay in Union protection or at least get away from Rebels, until you either catch them or get tired of winning/losing. ;) )

So comes Shiloh. I'm encouraged to get a second corps by now, and so I do -- which since the user interface does not allow transfer of divisions (much less brigades) between corps, has to be all newbies. But okay, the training corps, got it. They also have the worst 'good' weapons I can afford, because all the 'good' good weapons are sitting in the First Corps and the only way for me to transfer them would be to disband the brigades and their experienced troops, which the engine can never bring back when forming new brigades. But whatever.

I know from prior playthroughs that whichever corps I send on the first (left) half of the battle, I should get my other corps on the other side. So on the theory that the right side will be a tougher fight (correct), I send my training corps left. They do fine, secure Shiloh church, triggering the right side of the map. (The left and right sides of the fight continue in semi-parallel until the end of Day 1 when the maps combine for the grand finale.)

Whereupon my main Corps does NOT arrive, but a bunch of other divisions, in a whole other corps! Okay... they aren't total trash, though I have no idea how they're armed so I can't make good plans that way. I just figure they're armed with the least 'good' weapon, 42 Springfields, which our army has a ton of. And they brought a nice amount of cannons, which come in handy.

I keep wondering when the game will release my main Corps to come in for the victorious final push, but that never happens.

Even so, with many sacrifices, I manage to break most of the Union forces on the left side of the map, and I take and hold Pittsburgh landing on the right side -- just as I was told to do. If I don't take and hold this place, we'll fail the assault, so I do that...

...and there's no "finish" button after I secure it. The timer runs out more than another 30 minutes (of game-speed time), with my units verging on total ammo loss, caught in an absolute meatgrinder at the Pittsburg landing victory point. But time runs out, and we do keep it! (There's an amusing sidenote where the game announces that General Grant has arrived on the field -- to watch the destruction of his army!)

Whereupon the game insists that we failed anyway -- despite telling me clearly that if I didn't succeed the whole attack fails, suggesting a game over to the mission -- and on to Day 2.

My training Corps has been mutilated; and the game won't let me switch out now with my main Corps of experienced troops with substantially more firepower.  Also I have no more cash remaining to buy replacements, including for one of my dead brigade commanders. Also that Corps has no more supplies available, and I have no cash to buy more supplies. I end up having to sell some of my supplies from my main Corps to buy what I suppose to be a day's fighting worth of supplies for my butchered training corps.

I am not happy with this state of affairs. At all. I have NO IDEA if the game will be letting me use my main Corps for Shiloh at all; so I can't plan for anything along that line. And I'm starting to suspect from past experience with the missions, that I could have easily just held off in safer areas, or at least not tried to actually fulfill my orders to take Pittsburg Landing, and come out with fewer losses in the end and more supplies, and a better start for Day 2.


......all this just makes me want to go try the new build of Crossroad Inn and ignore this game again for a while. 

[Gusington]

^Similarly but with a much shorter summary: I suck at Civ VI so far.

I lost my campaign as Gilgamesh (Sumeria) and last night I played as Dido (Phoenicia) and lost again...the second one in 100 turns to Scythia through a religious victory!

Both campaigns rated me similarly to 'Dan Quayle' :/

On the flip side I had a great time in what turned into losses...I don't recall a game so fun to lost as Civ VI. There is so much to explore.

With that said...any advice on how to get better and have a prayer at actually winning a game?

Oh and I played both games at Chieftain level...only the 2nd lowest difficulty :/

[Anguille]

Song was great, but the video-production side of my brain (which has lain spontaneously dormant since I got my broadcast communications degree decades ago) kept going, "IF YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE A VIDEO OF THE BAND PLAYING ALONG WITH THE SONG, MAKE SURE THEIR INSTRUMENTS ARE EITHER IN THE ACTUAL MUSIC TRACK OR ELSE DON'T FOCUS ON THEM SO MUCH IN THE EDIT!" 

{plays shaker many times while no shaker exists in the music track}
{picks carefully and skillfully on guitar while the music track guitar gently strums chords}
{etc.}

Didn't see it before but now i can't help seeing it!

About CIV VI...it's not an easy game with all the new mechanics! Don't give up!