Random Game Thoughts Thread - March 05 - March 11

[Brian Boru]

Royal Envoy Series

I've been dipping into this whenever I'm not in the humor for Far Cry 6 or my routine solitaire game. It's a strategy builder game made up of single-screen levels—~100 in CE version, ~60 in standard edition.

It's a 4-game series which I replay every year since they launched in 2011-14. First one didn't work in Windows 7, but does in Win10. You can relax your way thru it, or try for a gold star on every level in Expert mode—I did that once, but it's tough… since then I just go for the star in Normal mode.

World

~10 islands, each with a number of towns to build.

Town Example

♣ 8 building plots, 4 occupied, 4 free—Palace in the middle
♦ Tasks for this level top-right
♥ Starting resources top-left—Cash, Timber, Workers, Taxmen, Happiness
♠ Pirate bottom-right blocking access to a plot—pay to play
♣ Broken bridge top-middle blocking access to 2 plots—those banks won't collect any cash until they're accessible
♦ 4 small round plots on right side, 2 with fountains—they make Happiness if beside residence and accessible.
♥ Other 2 buildings bottom-left are Timber gatherers—one makes it, other buys it
♠ Left-side top under 'Menu' is time bar—if it runs out, no gold star

It's all about resource management and job sequencing—which resource do I want to prioritize, which way to acquire it, in which order to tackle the jobs.

Link to RE1—free 1-hour demo.

 

[ZedClampet]

Played a lot of cash poker yesterday for the first time in over 20 years. I'm a little rusty. Came in third at my first table, which was a wash, but then I completely bombed out of table 2, and I realized I needed some practice before wasting more money. Not that third and then not placing is out of the ordinary, but I just didn't feel comfortable playing, so I went to Steam and downloaded one of the Telltale poker games and played it for a couple of hours, and started to feel better about it and went back to the cash poker and played for a few hours there. I ended up making $20 on the night hahahaha. But, hey, it was my first time back, and any win in gambling is good, so I'll take it.

To be honest, playing poker again stressed me out, and I'm not sure why, but I don't know if I'll play again or just cash out. I think it just brought up bad memories of when the federal government froze my account and I had to fight for 6 months to get my money out, which included all the winnings I'd had for over a year. I was apoplectic. It's really cool that the federal government wants to protect me so much that they tried to steal my money.

Anyway, to relax afterward last night, I played some Microsoft Solitaire and then tootled around Astroneer for awhile.

Oh yeah, I also played some X4.

 

[ZedClampet]

With Docking 2, you don't bother with any of that stuff. Just request docking and dive right at the indicated pad. The automatics will take over and set you down (or lift you back up if you came in fast and clipped into the geometry). I'm not sure what Docking 1 does, if I used it at all, it was only briefly. If you've got a captain for your ship, you can tell the captain to dock & wait, and the captain will do it him/her/itself. (Not taking the smartest path sometimes, but they get there eventually.)

Oh, there's a subtle aspect to "dock & wait" and the similar "fly & wait" command to send ships to a certain point. The "and wait" part is supposed to mean that they are going to keep that command going. If you tell a ship to dock & wait at a station, then you get in that ship and fly it somewhere else yourself, the captain will fly it back to the original station after you leave because they've still got the same 'dock & wait' command. You've got to right click on the ship and remove the order to get the ship to stay still. (I'm half tempted to make a mod for a "dock & stop" command.)

Yeah, I got Docking 2. I figured 1 would just be a waste of money as I'd immediately want 2.

Thanks for the info on "dock and wait". That would have irritated me for sure.

 

[Zloth]

How many are at a table?

I can't do the gambling thing. "Put 50 on red" immediately translates in my head to "put two really good, large pizzas on a just-under-50% chance of having any pizza later" and I go into a panic.

 

[ZedClampet]

How many are at a table?

I can't do the gambling thing. "Put 50 on red" immediately translates in my head to "put two really good, large pizzas on a just-under-50% chance of having any pizza later" and I go into a panic.

9 are at the table. While you are betting in poker, it's actually a game of skill. I put thousands of hours into cash poker over 20 years ago and came out with a sizable sum of winnings. That would be impossible in any other casino game without cheating. It was making me nervous last night, though, and I couldn't concentrate very well.

 

[mainer]

Played a lot of cash poker yesterday for the first time in over 20 years.

You should get together with @Frindis , If I remember correctly, he plays (or has played) one of the strip poker games, at least you wouldn't loose any cash that way. Just don't stream it.

 

[Brian Boru]

poker, it's actually a game of skill

Tru dat, poker and bridge are usually the top 2 mentioned when most skillful card games are debated. Which of course means poker isn't gambling, just like bridge or chess aren't.

I go into a panic

The #1 attribute necessary for profitable gambling is temperament—if you swing high after wins and low after losses, and can't set fire to a $50 note without feeling it's a waste, then it's not for you.

 

[Pifanjr]

You should get together with @Frindis , If I remember correctly, he plays (or has played) one of the strip poker games, at least you wouldn't loose any cash that way. Just don't stream it.

Who knows, maybe streaming it can get them more money than playing poker for money. There's some strange stuff out there that people are willing to pay money to watch, you never know for sure if there isn't a niche for this if you don't try it. Just tell me where it is so I know where not to look.

 

[ZedClampet]

Who knows, maybe streaming it can get them more money than playing poker for money. There's some strange stuff out there that people are willing to pay money to watch, you never know for sure if there isn't a niche for this if you don't try it. Just tell me where it is so I know where not to look.

You can relax. There's no chance in hell I would ever play one of those games, much less try to stream it. I'm roughly as interested in looking at nude anime girls as I am at looking at a raccoon that's been run over by a heavy truck.

 

[Frindis]

I'm already on Onlyfans with daily streams of my flappy ears to around 10K subscribers, so money is raining these days.

You can relax. There's no chance in hell I would ever play one of those games, much less try to stream it. I'm roughly as interested in looking at nude anime girls as I am at looking at a raccoon that's been run over by a heavy truck.

Offf, that reminds me of a Vice story (think it was) I watched a couple of years back about a guy who would collect roadkill and cook it as dinner. In his eyes as long as it was fresh, it was no problem. I'm sure there is truth in that, but I'd rather just buy a 2-dollar steak than play Russian roulette with my insides.

 

[Johnway]

Still playing Phantom doctrine. No real progression on the story tbh. The good news is that the story doesn't progress unless you want to and since there is no (immediate) doomsday urgency in the story i can take all the time in the world. So upgrading my characters, the safehouse and getting cash.

The good news is that the game still keeps offering surprises/features that make me go "hey cool" and on the other hand stuff that goes against the game.

My recent joy? MK Ultra. ATM nothing special, but so far all i have been interrogating enemy agents and executing them afterwards. The longer you hold them hostage, the higher the danger levels increase, so it pays to only keep the number of prisoners that you can process immediately. I recently hired an agent with decent stats and skills. (Un)fortunately before i could put him into action, i got a tip off from the informers that he was a traitor and will turn on my team in a mission. No problem, he got the dubious honor of being the first patient for brainwashing in the MK Ultra facility.

Brain washing agents will remove affiliations/prior loyalties etc. But since he's friendly all it was going to do was remove perks; both positive and negative ones. That would suffice and sure enough he's now a risk free member of the team. I've come across another potential candidate, and now I'm paranoid that she's also a double agent. She has hidden perks that i want to know about and i can't trust her enough to deploy her. Then again, i could save scum and as soon as she flips, i'm loading a save and shoving her into the brainwashing program...


Outside of gaming? I'm still working on my artwork. Started it in january and only really working on it during weekends and the odd spare hour or 2 before bed time. Not going to lie, its been slow going and a really bumpy ride, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. I'm probably 60-70% of the way. That said, i just can't stop messing around with ideas and this weekend, i'm thinking of undoing nearly 2 hours of work because of it...painful, but like they say, you've got to be prepared to kill your darlings if it makes things better.

 

[Zloth]

NINE at one table!? Is everyone playing against the dealer or each other? With 5 card draw, you could easily run out of cards!

I got a craving yesterday to, well, race things not meant for racing. I went into X4:Foundations, started a custom game, set up a hexagon station called 'start' and one called 'finish' that was set up a few sectors away, then gave myself a big freighter. I added another freighter with the same stats and a medium sized freighter, too. I started the game, told the other two freighters to dock at the 'finish' station, then flew there myself.

Freighters accelerate horribly and turn even worse. Fun stuff to race! Well, for me anyway. I beat the large freighter, which I expected (big ship AI's are a lot more worried about slamming into each other than making good time), but the medium freighter with the weak engine came in last, which I didn't expect. Weak engines are REALLY weak! Now I'll need to try again, giving it a good engine. It should be faster than me.

 

[ZedClampet]

NINE at one table!? Is everyone playing against the dealer or each other? With 5 card draw, you could easily run out of cards!

It's a one table tournament, Hold-em, so everyone only gets 2 cards. The game was created when a dealer's union filed complaints that they were having wrist problems from dealing games like 5 card. With a 9 person table in Hold-em, the max number of cards dealt per game would be 23.

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If the announcement video is any indication (I kind of doubt it), Cities Skylines 2 will have graphics far superior to the first game.

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I'm finding Sons of the Forest is more difficult than the first game. I haven't actually died yet, but only because Guido has revived me twice. Just got to get the hang of the new enemy AI.

 

[Brian Boru]

Far Cry 6

World
It really is a great world to explore. It's as beautiful as Primal and as majestic as Kyrat, while still being as immersive as FC3 and 5. Add on that it's so much bigger, so you can do much new exploration with each playthru—and there's a lot on the ground which doesn't show on the map until you discover it.

Health
Strange that Health isn't a thing in the game. I certainly don't want to go back to the days of health kits with the "Do I consume it now while I still have 2/3 health, or leave it there in case I get shredded around the corner?" in FC3—I think the FC4/5 mechanic of building up health slots which slowly regenerate after injury is the best for gameplay, plus the Syringe for serious cases.

In FC6 I only meet Health when I get clobbered and need to press 'H', and then promptly forget about it again. I started with 6-7 health slots if I recall correctly, altho it might have been fewer and I picked up some for leveling up. Whatever, it's a non-issue, but I'd prefer it to be an issue and have a strategic choice re whether or not to buff my health before climbing the game ladder.

Amigos Underfoot
Boomer is particularly annoying, insists on running 1 meter away and getting in the way very often. 2 ways to deal with it:
♣ Tell him to stay put in one spot until you call him—which negates his Spotter ability to tag nearby fauna and enemies.
♦ New discovery! Give him an a$$-full of buckshot—poor guy yelps and hightails it [um, bad phrasing?] 50meters away where he sits and whines for a few minutes… aah, bliss

Does that make me a monster? Of course it does, but serves 'im right for nudging me off my precarious cliffside perch while lining up an important snipe! Kudos to devs for predicting this would happen—maybe his annoyance is a feature? Probably not, Amigos are much worse than FC5's or New Dawn's GFHs.

Game Launch & Alt-Tab
With the new mod I'm using, it's now feasible to launch the game and wait for it—I might time it sometime, but it's maybe 10 times faster than the untreated launch. Mind you, you could always Alt-Tab out of the vanilla launch and do something else in the interim.

Speaking of Alt-Tab, it's been flawless every time I've switched out of the game to another app. Whether that's credit to the game or Windows 10 I don't know—prob Win10, it should be more of an OS function I expect.

Chute Glitch?
Sometimes the chute doesn't open for lowish jumps, eg off a high building—too high = RIP. Annoying if there isn't a FT point close by and I spawn far away. Infrequent tho.

Is there a chute class I can sign up for? Sometimes I can pick my spot and nail it—eg land on top of that tower. Other times I end up 100 meters away, seemingly unable to control the danged thing. Dunno

Special Weapons
You unlock these via missions, quests, locations. I have yet to find one which is better than my loadout of standard weapons. Thought for sure the Vengeance Bow I got for completing the stupid Rambo quest would be something—but no, slightly worse than the earliest Recurve Bow you get.

My guess is Uniques are for people who don't bother modding their weapons—they come with unchangeable mods applied, which would be a plus for such people. I have more respect for my weapons, I don't want them to feel they're less of a super killing machine than I am…

Royal Envoy

Up to level 55 now, starting the final island—63 levels in the campaign, and another 30 in the Extras menu… they're all at the difficult end of the spectrum, so still plenty of play left. The green icons below are the levels where I didn't get the gold star first time around—I always play the whole game thru first, and then go back to get the golds I missed.

It's as fun as it always is, and I again discovered a new way to beat one level.

 

[Brian Boru]

Some pretty cool stuff in this 13m video:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcUJUyVLifE

 

[ZedClampet]

Normally when Guido and I play a survival game, I'll play by myself when he isn't around and just do random helpful things around the base, but I don't feel comfortable playing Sons of the Forest by myself because of the higher stakes. We have two NPC companions who can experience permadeath and go down with one shot, and we've had as many as a dozen mutants attack at the same time. We don't really have decent weapons yet, either. The woman, Virginia, is kind of useless, but if we lost Kelvin, we'd start over, and I don't want to be responsible for that.

 

[Pifanjr]

The new Starfield release date was just announced to be September 6, 2023.

View: https://youtu.be/raWbElTCea8

 

[mainer]

The new Starfield release date was just announced to be September 6, 2023.

I just made a post about that PCG article over in the RPG Section, but briefly I'll say that I'm disappointed that Starfield will be released 6 days after Baldur's Gate 3. Both are massive RPGs, my two most anticipated games this year, and there's no way I can start BG3 knowing that Starfield will be released 6 days later. Gaming-wise, for me, Starfield takes priority over any game released this year.

 

[Ryzengang]

I just made a post about that PCG article over in the RPG Section, but briefly I'll say that I'm disappointed that Starfield will be released 6 days after Baldur's Gate 3. Both are massive RPGs, my two most anticipated games this year, and there's no way I can start BG3 knowing that Starfield will be released 6 days later. Gaming-wise, for me, Starfield takes priority over any game released this year.

Man, I didn't even realize this. I got BG3 as a gift so I already own it, and I really enjoyed the 10ish hours I've played in early access. For people who are really into both games that's a wild release cadence. Both games are going to be gigantic, especially if you're the type to explore and do a lot of side stuff. For me, I should probably be fine, just because I'm skeptical of Starfield and, even if it gets good reviews, it's extremely rare for me to buy games on release these days. I've made so little progress on my backlog in the last 6 months or so that it's hard to justify spending full price on games when they often just stay in my backlog for months or years.

 

[Brian Boru]

there's no way I can start BG3 knowing that Starfield will be released 6 days later

Sure there is. Start BG3 to see what state it's in. Then start Starfield and test that. Continue whichever one is least buggy. By the time you finish first play of that one, first fixes for other one should be in place—and may have fixed more than they broke. Plus maybe a 5% discount in holiday sales…

TLDR Move your birthday to Sept 3rd and Enjoy!

 

[ZedClampet]

Sure there is. Start BG3 to see what state it's in. Then start Starfield and test that. Continue whichever one is least buggy. By the time you finish first play of that one, first fixes for other one should be in place—and may have fixed more than they broke. Plus maybe a 5% discount in holiday sales…

TLDR Move your birthday to Sept 3rd and Enjoy!

BG3 won't be buggy at all. It's been in early access for awhile now. Plus those developers are quite good. Bethesda, on the other hand, will launch a mess.

But none of that matters because Starfield is what he wants to play first, regardless, I'm sure, if there are some bugs in it. It's the biggest launch this year, even given Hogwarts Legacy, and it's probably not close.

 

[Zloth]

... there's no way I can start BG3 knowing that Starfield will be released 6 days later.

Well, if you've got a strong PC and two monitors, who says you can't play them at the same time?

 

[mainer]

BG3 won't be buggy at all. It's been in early access for awhile now. Plus those developers are quite good. Bethesda, on the other hand, will launch a mess.

But none of that matters because Starfield is what he wants to play first, regardless, I'm sure, if there are some bugs in it. It's the biggest launch this year, even given Hogwarts Legacy, and it's probably not close.

That's the main benefit of Larian using early access, having a full release with minimal bugs or glitches. I'm sure there will be a few patches here and there over the first year after release for a few tweaks or balance issues they didn't originally catch, but it will be in a basically bug-free state. The people at Larian are tight, focused, and have the best creative director in the gaming industry.

And yes, Starfield is the one game being released this year that I want to play more than any other game. There's no way I could concentrate, or enjoy, BG3 playing it for a few days, knowing that Starfield will be released 6 days later, and I don't want to ruin my first experience with BG3 by doing that.

Will Starfield be buggy? Yes. Will it be better and/or more stable after a year of patches? Yes. Will it be even better with mods that will eventually be created? Yes. I. Don't. Care. This is my most anticipated game of the past decade. I don't buy many new games in a given year, but those I do buy, play, and enjoy, I play and replay over the course of many years, especially Bethesda's open world, single player RPGs.

Well, if you've got a strong PC and two monitors, who says you can't play them at the same time?

Even if I technically could, my brain just couldn't handle it:

View: https://youtu.be/tqvPviqbb4c?t=3

 

[ZedClampet]

Random thought. I hope that House Flipper 2 has options for American style heat and air systems. I'm so over putting radiators in every room, and the individual room air conditioners are a huge pain. I've mostly stopped using them. Now if they make me run ducts through the walls into every room, then I'll stick to the radiators. What I want is to place a central heat and air unit outside and then just plop a vent in each room.

 

[Zimbaly]

@Frindis road kill in some areas is like winning the lotto. I've met people that have gotten animals literally just hit. When you're out in the middle of nowhere far away from any major city or even a small town. The deer that was just hit by someone is like gold, only food is way more valuable then money.

Also Spacers Choice Edition should be avoided until it's patched so just a heads a up.