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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1867 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 9, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Video game thread! What did you get over the holidays, what are you playing?

Having a blast playing Skyrim modded. Been playing a lot and also just looking through modlists. This is one area I've found AI to be extremely fun and useful to work with, which has been rare for me lately.

I was feeling an urge to play XCOM 2 over the Christmas break. When I opened it from Steam, I found that it gave me the option to play the War of the Chosen DLC, which I didn't remember buying. It adds so much new content to the base game that it's a bit overwhelming at first brush, but the base game is so addictive that I got into the swing of it pretty quickly, and I think I've logged a few dozen hours into it so far, having killed my first of the three Chosen assassins.

War of the Chosen is great. @Southkraut actually just mentioned The Long War, have you ever heard of that mod for XCOM? It's also awesome.

Hah. Allow my partial disagreement - War of the Chosen is a complete mess, and if XCOM2 hadn't already jumped the shark on its and with its other DLCs, WotC would have been the final nail in its coffin.

Mechanically XCOM2 tactical combat is pretty good - the stealth mechanics for example are a nice addition. But the whole theme, plot and writing are superhero-movie-tier trash, the strategy layer is a mess, the visual design of the entire game is godawful, the character building has gotten far out of hand with mutiple overlapping systems, and the DLCs make it all even worse by adding more systems that barely fit together.

If I want a cartoonish everything-and-the-kitchen-sink XCOM game, I'l play X-Piratez, thank you very much. At least that one knows what it is.

I used to think that Xenonauts was too boring compared to XCOM, but after XCOM2 I actually found myself appreciating Xenonauts 2 for being less messy and more grounded.

Ultimately, my favorite turn-based tactics game isn't XCOM at all but Battle Brothers. Maybe Menace, coincidentally by the same developers, will be the go-to in the future...but that one isn't out yet.

XCOM:EW with LW is very good though, IMO. Showing its age by now, and they couldn't fix some of the base game's issues (pod mechanics, stupid-looking weapons), and the mod isn't perfect itself (too many MEC classes), but at the time that one was pretty much non plus ultra.

Ultimately, my favorite turn-based tactics game isn't XCOM at all but Battle Brothers.

I had a lot of fun with Battle Brothers. Have you had a look at Stoneshard yet? It hits a few of the same notes.

I have! I keep retrying it occasionally. But in the end, it feels to me like a game the dev really wanted to make, but not one that he really wanted other players to enjoy. The UX is terrible, the dungeons go on for far too long, far too much time is spent manually travelling and backtracking, the inventory management is onerous, and the combat is mostly a matter of stacking dozens of tiny 1% and 2% buffs to this or that stat in the hopes that it will tilt the odds just enough in your favor...

Yes it hits some of the same notes as Battle Brothers, but it has none of BB's streamlined elegance. Maybe I'll come around to it at some point, but so far I always found myself having decidedly too little fun for how much time it costs to play it.

Yeah I kind of agree. Its a lot of fun, but what isn't fun is having so many different stats (eg 'hands efficiency?') that you need to invest time in reading about to understand. Games are meant to be fun. If you need to go read a build guide outside of the game to make a decent build, something has gone wrong.

I am waiting until the final release before getting back to it as I hope it will have a lot of QoL polish by then.

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