The sun always shines on T.V. on FRIDAY

[PanzersEast]

Use armor supported by infantry.  When assaulting, use smoke and screening suppressing with armor if possible.  Use your artillery and mortar support wisely and if attacking try to feint positions before committing all of your forces.  If attacking watch out for those enemy gun emplacements.... they always seem to find me first!


PE

[Kushan]

Good to know. 

I've seen mixed impressions about it.   Didn't bother picking it up because 1) I still have much play-time left in the previous one, and 2) It was fookeen expensive for a sequel so similar to the one I already own.

Finally realizing that waiting quite awhile to purchase new titles is the way to go.  As long as my willpower holds!  They usually need so much patching after release that I just end up waiting months until that has settled down anyway.

XCOM 2 is the only game I've ever returned on Steam. I like the overall theme but I found the gameplay lacking. Although a large portion of my dislike could my hatred for timed missions, which every single mission in XCOM 2 is.

Streamed EUIV - Mare Nostrum for 3.5 hours on my twitch channel yesterday.  Been a long time since I've played EUIV, feels almost like a new game with all of the changes since the last time I played.

Playing as England, War of the Roses triggered within the first few years. Chose the House of York. Put that down the rebellion relatively easy. No major battles to speak of. While fighting the war I had been forging claims on Scotland. Was planning on going after Scotland after War of the Roses ended but Brittany declared me a rival. They had no allies or vassals and I couldn't resist taking a few provinces from them. After that I turned my eyes toward Scotland, who was allied with France.

Fought what felt like a 10+ year war with the two of them. I managed to take all of Scotland, but had my territory in France taken. From that point on it turned into primarily a naval war. Was trying to spread my ships out to blockade as much of the coast as I could and hunt down the French and Scottish fleets that I never could quite eliminate. Had a few instances of my light ships on picket duty get ambushed by a larger fleet, then would have to break blockade to get my heavy ships into the battle.

War score was about even the whole time, they never got me below -8% and the highest I had was 10%. I had thought about asking for a white peace, and got several offers from the AI. But decided there was no way I was going to not get anything out of the war. given how long and hard it was fought. Drained all of my army man power, didnt really effect my naval manpower pool that much. (Army and naval manpower where split in Mare Nostrum) I Had to buy down my war exhaustion several times but eventually I won. I think the AI collapsed, I went from 10% war score to 100% in an instant (might also have been a bug, didn't see the message log). I took 3-4 provinces from them, broke that damn alliance with France for the time being, and had them give me money. And that where  I left it.

Was originally planning on yesterdays stream being just a one off, but after having so much fun with it and not having any other series going at the moment I think I'm going to carry on and make it a full lets play.

Much less fun stuff on my agenda today. New car hunting will probably take up most of my day. If I have some time tonight I I might try and play some more EUIV or jump back into Elite.

[vyshka]

I've ended up playing an odd collection of games so far this weekend. I was watching someone stream Dark Souls 3 on Friday, so I decided I would give the original a shot again since it didn't click the first time I tried it, and ended up playing about 5 hours that night. I also did part of the tutorial for Homeworld Remastered. Saturday morning I spent about an hour looking at Victor Vran, then last night I played a couple games of Age of Empires 3 because some people from Quarter to Three were streaming the game. I also dove into Civilization IV Colonization (vanilla and Religion & Revolution mod) which I've been in the mood to spend time with for a while. I think I also skirmished against the AI in SC2, and played a couple rounds of Heroes of the Storm. Plan for today is Polaris Sector, but we'll see what I ended up playing when the day is over.

[MetalDog]

Nice movement between games, vyshka!  Can't say you didn't get the most out of your weekend.

Sounds epic, Kushan!  One of the great things about Paradox games.  Anything you write up sounds a little like history.  :)

[Nefaro]

War score was about even the whole time, they never got me below -8% and the highest I had was 10%. I had thought about asking for a white peace, and got several offers from the AI. But decided there was no way I was going to not get anything out of the war. given how long and hard it was fought.

Reminds me of the thought processes happening on all sides through much of WWI.    ;)

[undercovergeek]

i played lots of Polaris Sector - i have to look at the types of games i play - i can play CKII, EUIV and Polaris until it goes dark, and until it goes light again - if i play Call to Arms i stop after a skirmish is won (30 mins) for a break and that could be it for the day - its a question of which experience i enjoy the most

I also (re)stumbled upon Quills awesome intro to Aurora and i have to say after watching him simply set the parameters and start up options im sold - im off tomorrow and will be giving it a good 2 or 3 hours

[Kushan]

War score was about even the whole time, they never got me below -8% and the highest I had was 10%. I had thought about asking for a white peace, and got several offers from the AI. But decided there was no way I was going to not get anything out of the war. given how long and hard it was fought.

Reminds me of the thought processes happening on all sides through much of WWI.    ;)

Good point. In a way it was, only unblooded side was the French army. I had no way of landing enough troops to where they wouldn't be smashed before I could get reinforcements.

I also (re)stumbled upon Quills awesome intro to Aurora and i have to say after watching him simply set the parameters and start up options im sold - im off tomorrow and will be giving it a good 2 or 3 hours

Great game. Too bad Quill had to stop his. Wish I hadn't fallen off my game too. Tried playing it when my internet was down after my move and just couldn't get back into it. Auroras great but you have to be consistent with it or you forget what your plans were. With everything coming up not likely I'll get back to it until fall. Next time I'm going to use Space Master to setup a predefined empire. While I love the whole pre-warp era it can be a bit boring to watch.

I think I also skirmished against the AI in SC2, and played a couple rounds of Heroes of the Storm.

If you don't mind me asking, whats your Battle.net ID? If you don't mind teaming up with a noob I'd love to play some Heroes.

[Anguille]

I've ended up playing almost only Grand Ages: Medieval....there's something addictive to the open-end game....hard to stop playing.

[Gusington]

Are you approaching a victory?

[Anguille]

Are you approaching a victory?

That's the big question....in fact, as long as you have cities, the game can last forever. You can achieve the rank of Emperor, take control of all the regions and still keep on playing. My goal in my current game is first to extand as much as i can in North Africa. If my motivation continues, i might try to conquer one of my opponents. I am not sure if i wish to conquer the entire map (i've selected the mediterranean region only this time)

The campaign itself has the story objective and brings you to the title of Emperor...but even there you can continue afterwards.

[MengJiao]

Just purchased Combat Mission Battle for Normandy everything edition !!!  This thing is awesome !!  Have lots and lots to learn though. Any quick tips from the grogs ?

Bruce

What Sir Slash and PanzersEast have said.  I would also recommend finding a pretty flexible scenario that you like and then making over versions of it in the editor.  You can see how different weapons work etc. and the impacts of different difficulty settings.  I've always played in real time (since the old Shock Force stuff came out in 2007 or 8) so its hard to see what is happening in that mode most of the time.  Trying the same scenario with different inputs can help see what really has an impact.
For example, I was playing the demo with the Chaumont scenario.  I tried the US side (not recommended but quite instructive) and I hid the US armor from the German tank destroyers on the high ground so the US armor was sitting in town when the German infantry (and some German TDs) came charging in.
I stopped the game to see what had happened and about half the German force had been killed in about 5 minutes.  Even though Id' been watching, Id' been too busy to see most of what happened.  So a ceasefire and a look at the battlefield showed that the AI had sent everybody charging in and they had almost all been knocked out or mowed down around the bottom of the slope right by the town.  It was actually kind of creepy.

[Gusington]

I can dig that, Anguille, as long as I feel I conquered or reached some goals, etc.

[Anguille]

I can dig that, Anguille, as long as I feel I conquered or reached some goals, etc.

I think you should start with the campaign. I didn't like the story so much but it's well made with nice drawings.

[Gusington]

I think I am approaching a victorious end to my modded Age of Charlemagne campaign, after getting my arse handed to me during the first try. Really great campaign and I am already planning what faction to play next. But it before playing Grand Ages - Medieval and Anno 1404...not sure which I will play first. In between I will cleanse the palette with some Pillars of Eternity.