Rex
3d ago
I have hundreds of hours in VP. I was a lifelong Civ player (started w/ Civ2 when I was 10) up through VI, which I mainly experienced with an iPad. My days with VI was during a 10 year period where I had pretty much stopped playing any games other than a few things like iPad VI and Xcom. VI BNW on iPad I believe was a complete experience. And I was able to win a few games on Deity, at which point I felt like I had solved the game.
When I bought a new desktop pc a few years age I was going on a tear through big mods and came across VP. The attraction there was that it radically tuned up the difficulty, set me back to noble/prince, and became a new puzzle to solve. To me, it still retained the core Civ feeling, but designed for someone with 30 years of prior Civ experience. The complexity was a bonus, not a problem.
I had dabbled with Civ4 Realism Invictus during this period, but I bounced off hard. I was looking for something for Civ4 like VP. Something designed for an experienced Civ player.
About a month ago I got that Civ4 itch again and found Advanced Civ. This is a rebalance mod that keeps 80-90% of the vanilla machines, but add in a much improved AI, UI improvements, and a very slight textures update. I’m now completely hooked on Civ4.
In my current campaign, Nazi Germany (me) just declared war on Rome and successfully razed on city and we’re a few moves into enjoy territory marching on Rome. The Holy Roman Empire saw that I had nearly emptied my garrisons in Munich (border city) and attacked with a 12 unit stack. I reloaded to try again with a smaller warband marching on Rome and delt with Charlemagne just fine. Several turns later I took Rome, but as I did, Gilgamesh attacked my northern city of Frankfurt. I think I need to reload again and pump out more units to defend the rear before taking Rome. It’s unclear to me if the AI is declaring war due to my weakness, or because I’m getting too powerful if I Vasselize/destroy Rome. I’m hoping there is a solution here to salvage the game. This is on Prince difficulty btw.
All of this is to say is that the core mechanics of Civ are absolute pinnacle game design. Expand cities, capture luxury/strategic resources, make GDP/science, war with neighbors. This makes it even more baffling to me how badly Firaxis fucked up VII. I find every entry in series, except VII has value. My biggest issue is that the vanilla AI are intentionally designed to be pushovers when it comes to strategy. Vanilla Deity is the same, just with bigger bonuses.
It’s hard for me to understand how people with a lot of experience with 4x games in general or civ specifically can have fun with the stock difficulty. I need the mods to make the underlying systems become meaningful and engaging.
I can see why it’s not for everyone though. I recall that I found the base game V to be the worst offender from a mechanics and difficulty standpoint. That’s why VP is so meaningful to me.
Rex
10d ago
On a separate topic. Does anyone know anything about Larry Niven’s Known Space book series? I’m at the end of my Culture reread and need something new.
One reason I reread so many books is that any fiction written after 2016 is completely pozzed. I’ve been through all the often recommended sci fi authors like Peter Hamilton and Alaister Reynold and Simmons. No one ever mentions Known Space. I only just now read about it while searching for the longest sci fi book/series ever written. There was a stay comment of someone saying they like Niven, with the caveat they they know it hasn’t aged well. That piqued my interest.
Turns out he’s some dude from the 1960 who’s written some beloved sci fi books - however he’s a massive misogynist.
Check out this gem of a comment from Reddit:
I don't say this to be rude, I say this with honesty so you have a starting point to gain awareness if you'd genuinely like to do that: if you can't tell Niven is a rank misogynist, you're likely pretty blind to the treatment and presentation of women in fiction. Sometimes when there's observable misogyny in writing, it's part of the universe or a characterization choice. Sometimes, however, it's pretty clearly a general miasma coming from the writer which underlies the way they build worlds and characters. Niven is very much the latter. Ringworld has two sentient female characters. One is too stupid to live, and is basically a sexy baby that the main character is using as a dick warmer in between scolding her, and the other is a manipulative hooker who, like all women according to the text, "enslaves men" with the "tasp between her legs." The other females mentioned in the book are literally non-sentient and used for breeding by sentient males. This is not one but THREE species. It's REALLY blatant.
These Reddit people are so embarrassing. A bunch of dorky guys all patting each other on the back for spotting the misogyny. Fuck these people for ruining the whole genre.
Rex
11d ago
Matter. An odd choice I know as it usually ranks low. I think I just like different things about Banks work. I remember the MC in that was such a boob. I was always amused with his antics. And very cool setting.
Rex
11d ago
Most people find it to be the worst the series. I’d try player of games and if you get a good bit in and still hate it. Call it quits. Player of games is a better book
What’s everyone reading? (Sorry guy who usually makes this one)
I’m 1/3rd through a reread of The Player of Games by Iain M Banks.
I’ve been rereading a lot of Banks this year since I’ve finished most of the sci fi author i think I would like. Before this, I went to reread Use of Weapons and quickly realized I had not in fact read it before! I had always put off reading it for some reason but I ended up really liking it
One of my favorite qualities of banks is that everything is so low stakes, but memorable and satisfying all the same. The plot is at best, a neat device. But there are so many memorable and creative vignettes in his books that it makes him one of my favorites
Speaking of The Culture series, I’m saving the Consider Phelbas reread for last. It was my first culture book and quite contrary to public opinion, one of my favorites. Perhaps because the MC is so disgusted with the Culture. Ever since I read that, I can’t help but notice even in the later book the undercurrent of critique of the Culture. It’s puzzling to me because Banks wrote an essay where he swears up and down that he earnestly believes The Culture is the best possible outcome for humanity and his preferred societal structure. Even after reading that, I can’t help but believe he’s still just yanking everyone’s chain.
Also, I find it very odd how many smart people I know don’t reread good books or rewatch good films or tv shows. Anything that is good or enjoyable the first time around is often just as good or better when revisited. Particularly if what you think of as good includes some decently complex theme or subtext that’s impossible to fully appreciate without knowing where the characters or story is going.
Rex
16d ago
I give my highest recommendation to Valheim. It’s hitting 1.0 in a couple months, but do not miss this. I was in a very similar position as you a few years ago. New gaming pc after not gaming at all for 10 years.
If you’ve followed gaming trends at all you’ll have seen the whole survival sandbox genre explode in popularity. Valheim was one of the catalysts for that. It’s by far my favorite in the genre because it’s carefully designed. Boy just a bunch of shit thrown at the wall or giving players exactly what they say they want. I think the design of that game is a good example of “video games as art”. Certainly more so than the typical narrative I’ve slop that gets bandied about with that term.
Rex
17d ago
I don’t know if it will bomb or not. But I watched a CAM bootleg on my computer this evening. It was literally the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Now, given that it was a pirate copy and most people don’t n ow what that means, imagine someone with a camera on a tripod in the projection booth filming the screen. As such, I can’t really say if the visual impact of the movie makes up for everything else. But since the fidelity was so low, I have to judge the film by its characters, theme, acting, dialogue and plot. I give it a 2, 1, 0, 0, 1 in each category. Overall score 1 out of 10.
I just watched The Return last night. As such the final scene with Odysseus, the bow, and the suiters was particularly horribly executed. I beg everyone who’s watching the Nolan movie to go find and watch The Return. That movie is also flawed, but the final scene is absolutely epic. Watching Matt Damon swing and axe around in a circle like a retard is laughably bad. And watching him play a famous archer and basically hip firing a bow and arrow is so silly.
I saw one good review say it was “Bracingly modern”. With that, I agree.
Are all Nolan movies this bad? I know he’s got some detractors out there, but I recall telling people I liked Oppenheimer. I need to rewatch it to see I was just caught up in the hype of that too.
It’s hard to emphasize how bad I thought a lot of it is. And then to see the critical reviews give it a 10/10. And I’m sure all of the normies will rave about it too. Am I just crazy?
It’s the worst movie Ive seen in quite some time.
Rex
18d ago
I was recently listening to an interview with one of the survivors who was there.
After the ship was hit by a torpedo plane (I think), the ship sunk. Dozens of Americans abandoned ship. The Israeli planes then strifed the Americans in the water with machine gun fire from their aircraft - presumably to kill everyone and keep the story contained.
I always wondered, do people think this is a fake story? Or is it just not a big deal?
Rex
23d ago
Died suddenly after brief illness is such weird phrasing and reporting.
Wouldn’t “old senator found unresponsive after cardiac arrest, dead” make a lot more sense if it was as you suspect?
Rex
25d ago
I’ve got about 30-40 hours left in modded Cold Steel III.
I’ve also been following the slow moving crash of Civ7 on CivFanatics now for past year+. Amazing stuff going on there. It motivated me to reinstall Civ4. I mainly play Civ5 Vox Populi, but for whatever reason I want to give modded 4 a spin now. I found AdvancedCiv mod for 4. A moderate gameplay mod that improves the difficulty curve and does some UI updates. I’m a bit torn though between this and vanilla gameplay. Civ4 is not flawed like 5 is, so ai tweaks being a positive or negative is hard to assess.
I guess my thought process is this: I have 1000s of civ hours over the course of my life. If there is a mod for a 20 year old game that still has an active forum and active development, I reckon they will have it better tuned for my tastes. Better than even peak Firaxis who is still catering to a much broader group than players like me.
Rex
25d ago
I recently had my third child and my much younger brother broke his leg. As a result, I’m spending a lot of time in doctors offices, medical offices, and physical therapy outfits.
For whatever reason I started to notice that every one of these places have these big horseshoe front desks with somewhere between 6-12 women working. They’re generally between 20-60 years old, natural blonde or dye job, mostly slightly overweight or seriously overweight, at least one tattoo, and all of them pretty miserable. These are the working women proles. When people talk about the outrageous healthcare costs, I can’t help but think that it’s all a racket and jobs program. Healthcare companies make a nice margin and get an army of women that toe the line with “public health” and collect a paycheck.
I’m 42. It wasn’t always like this.
I’m saying this all tongue in cheek for Friday fun. But I am kinda curious what people think about the socio-economic-political forces that are driving this.
Is it the same in the UK? In China? I’ve been to a Chinese hospital. That seemed like a lot of young village type Chinese in white uniforms and hats.
What makes these people so miserable? Do people go into this field and turn into this stereotype? Or do the stereotype people get attracted to this field?
I opened TheHill.com this morning and see that the Michigan Democratic Senate primary is too close to call and high drama as far as summer politics go.
On one side we have Abdul, a progressive Democrat middle Eastern man. On the other hand, we have Stevens a white liberal affluent woman - described as a “centrist Democrat”, mentored by Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. A real “battle for the Democratic Party”.
My politics have be quite odd for a while now. Historically I voted republiclan and came of age in the George W years. About 10 years ago I switched registration to non affliliated and would describe my politics as MAGA (until MAGA was redefined to being pro-Israel movement). My tongue in check response on politics would be to sometimes describe myself as a Francoist or Facist fellow traveler.
Back to Michigan, I was thinking to myself “gun to my head” who would I prefer? The middle eastern Muslim progressive or white woman establishment Dem. I reviewed their Wiki policy positions and quite easily decided I’d prefer Abdul. Stevens is so odious to me that it wasn’t even close. What’s a bigger threat? A dem that publicly calls their regular trips to Israel transformative? Or a Muslim that wants to abolish ICE? Both are big problems. Stevens is a big “public health” nut so that’s pretty much puts two enormous Xs next to her name for me. Abdul is anti monopoly and these days it’s hard for me to disagree that there are some major problems with the corporate class (despite me being a part of it).
It was a fun little thought experiment. What do you all make of it? For those that are generally against the progressive project, what’s the lesser evil? For those that are for it, who do you trust?
Edit:Abdul won.
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