Anyone play Second and Ten lately? I played a long time ago when it was more or less strictly single season replay and enjoyed it but now as a feature it lists:

Roll seasons from one year to the next, updating player rating and performing supplemental drafts.

It doesn’t say career mode, but it’s more than it had last time I played. Anyone have any experience with how well it works and if it’s worth checking out?

The plaay game?


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hxxps://www.secondandten.com/

I thought you meant this

https://plaay.com/second-season


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Hadn't thought about SAT in more than a long minute. Was fun but limited, the changes are at least intriguing.

More of an ACT guy, huh?

Kind of brutal how the new Indiana Jones is doing on Steam. It seems to be reviewing well but a peak of 12k players probably kills this as a videogame franchise. And before we excuse it as being a Gamepass game I think we should look at some other high profile Gamepass game peaks on Steam:

Starfield - 330k
Stalker 2 - 122k
Indiana Jones - 12k

Daily games being offered free by epic starting 12/19:

The Epic Games Store will give away 16 free games over Christmas | VGC

woot!

Giddy up, Thomkal!

Probably won't be a horse racing game HB

Anyone here doing any/a lot of VR/AR gaming?

If so, what is your setup and the games you are playing?

Here's what's coming up in 2025.

New games in 2025: All the upcoming PC releases for next year | PC Gamer



For me, the must get is Civ 7. The likely maybe is Menance (X-Com like).

I've come to the conclusion that my CRPG days are behind me. I didn't get past BG3 Act I and pretty sure it's just me. I've been itching to get back into FO76 as there's been a couple nice DLCs since the last time. Also, Stellaris and its several DLCs but (re)learning all the mechanics is daunting.

And as always, looking forward to Star Citizen whenever that releases ...

Looking at what is coming: Civ 7 for sure, Tales of the Shire (cozy LOTR game) and inZOI (Sims like game), and Solasta II (probably the top of my list).
I was excited when I saw a "Pillars of Eternity" sequel, but then I see it is a first person game, so hard pass."Broken Arrow" is a war game I had been looking forward to, but I have sort of cooled. I am not crazy about deck builder type logistic games.

When a well-built, AAA rpg/mmorpg like LOTRO or Skyrim (I know there's a hack, but...) or WoW comes out for VR, I'm buying in.

Stumble across Ghost of Tsushima, a port from PS5. I'm itching to try it out, anyone here play it?

Does look beautiful. My days of playing a first or third person combat game is over, but that does look nice.

The quick price cut and firing of the game's director was a good sign that the new Dragon Age didn't do very well, but EA officially let the cat out of the bag and states they were aiming for 3 million sales (or engagements as they note) and only hit 1.5. Probably should have just made a new Dragon Age game instead of this dodging simulator we ended up with.

It's like a better version of assassin's creed. Better story, better combat, better everything for the most part. It is very long game with large open world. I didn't see it as a GOY type game that some did but still enjoyed it.

I broke down and did something I rarely do: pre-ordered a game: Civ 7. Not only that, I went whole-hog and bought the Founders Edition. Probably spent more on this one game than I do in a full year on video games, but I suspect I will also play this one more than all other games this year... and next, and probably many years after that.

Thanks for the feedback.

Was thinking about pre-ordering also, but just the base version.

But now, arggghh ... have to keep up with the Joneses for $130. Tell me its worth it?

I have kicked it around, but I was trying this weekend to play around with Civ 6 and I realized even though I own every DLC, I have barely played it. I only have 22 hours in on the game, and my guess is most of that was in the first month after it initially released. As much as I have loved the game in the past, it seems like that love is very much in the past.
It might end up I buy it because I just always buy Civ when it comes out. I really shouldn't, though.

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I would at least have to wait for reviews before plunking down that kind of money for a game.

I've been going back and forth on Civ 7 too. I just looked and I played VI for about 70 hours but I feel like that was something like the first hour of playing the game 70 times.

I'm not posting the number of hours for Civ 5 but let's just say I got my money's worth on that one :)

Early access starts next week for it I think, and there should be a large numbers of streamers/You Tubers to give you a better view of the game before you buy

Oh I have no idea if it's worth it, sorry. I know I played the heck out of 5 and 6 (1108 hours and 178 hours respectively, though the numbers on 5 are skewed by me leaving the game open overnight at times so the reality is probably closer to what I have for 6). Even if they are each at that 178 hours mark, that's about $1/hr at the price I paid for 7 in Maple Syrup money.




This is a very common complaint about Civ 6, and one I share. I really really enjoy the first 150 turns and then very rarely actually finish a game. Firaxis has apparently heard this loud and clear and made serious attempts to keep the game fresh all the way through with 7, which I think is a big driver behind the decision to change civilization between each era. Time will tell how successful they are on that front.

Late game has always gotten boggy. That is not my biggest issue, though. I have just always hated the combat system. It is the same problem with pretty much all these Civ clones. I see there is a revamp with the new game, and it will be interesting to see how it works out, but I am really not all that hopeful. For me, I either wish they made the combat system almost completely hands off like Paradox did with Victoria 3, or they try to make way more realistic feeling. The system now just feels cartoonist compared to the rest of the game. I don't know if that is the best word, but it is what comes to mind.

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THAT is definitely not the answer. That would have been the death of the Civ series. (contributed to damned near killing Vicky)

This is the needle to thread, and I'm very skeptical they will manage to do this without making Civ feel less like Civ, but will give them a chance.

I'm not a fan of the other games that have done the multiple era/civ per era thing and I'm not in love with what I've seen in the preview videos either, so I'm a definitely wait and see.

DOLA - I agree on the combat argument as well, seems like in the last couple of versions you either have an overwhelming army or you don't, and if you don't then you might as well not even put any effort into that side of the game, just ignore it and know the AI will just break itself to death against a couple of well positioned encampments with a semi-decent ranged unit in them. At least until you got a particular late game breaking unit in 6.

Case in point:


- YouTube

I started this video, got bored, and skipped ahead like 15 minutes or so, and heard the dude saying that every building needs to be on its own tile -- I already hate that districts needed their own tile in Civ 6, so this just seems like it's worse. Also, every tile with a building becomes urban so I guess tiles without are rural? I'll try it out and all, but it sounds dumb.

It probably adds something to the game and all that, but doesn't it seem dumb to see the landscape riddled with districts or buildings, outside of where the actual city is?

Pretty much every change I've heard about seems either destination to fail or destined to suck, color me highly unenthused.

I feel like the easiest Civ fix was to allow units to move faster near the end of the game. It was always silly that warriors and modern infantry move at nearly the same speed. It just makes big maps a slog.

I recognize that is mostly a me thing. Games that would suit my interest are probably never getting made. I have long realized that.

I think its two buildings/urban district and you can get some good "combos" or synergies by placing buildings in districts next to each other?



For me in Civ games its just build one of each building in every city that you can afford to, and then just ignore them. Have to see how it plays out for myself but seems like having to make some decisions about which buildings you use and where is a good thing.

My 2 biggest beefs with Civ 6 are (1) it got tedious around the Modern Era and I didn't have enough time to really enjoy the killer robot and other fancy weapons and (2) religion. Although you can turn them off as part of victory conditions, those damn missionaries were still running around causing trouble.

I hope the new Era mechanics will solve (1) but seems Civ 7 will retain (2).

Oh, hope it continues to have zombie mode and non-mod options to tone down the pandemic some.

Yes this is my understanding, 2 buildings in one urban district create a 'quarter'. Some civs get bonuses for creating 'unique quarters' which place two of their unique buildings into a quarter. For example if you are the Normans and you put your Motte and Bailey buildings into the same district it creates the Donjon quarter, which gives a free cavalry unit on completion.


And yes I believe there are also further adjacency bonuses and the like, similar to Civ 6, though I haven't dug into the specifics on how those work yet.

I wonder how much it would cost to take SMAC and a) update all the visuals to 2025-tech and b) fix any lingering bugs? And could we trick a billionaire into funding it?

Took the plunge and pre-ordered Civ 7 base game for $70

I've got over 2,000+ hours on Civ 6. I don't doubt getting my money's worth, just wondering how long I'll have to wait for the couple patches. Firaxis has been good on release issues, but they typically need a patch or two to iron out gameplay.

I played Civ I ages ago, plus Railroad Tycoon, Pirates, F-19 & Railroad Tycoon. I wish Sid would take the effort to refresh some of his other games. He's 70 years old now, hope he has another 10+ years.

Is he still involved in making these things? I just assumed it was a branding thing at this point.

Good point. Dunno, but you’re prob right

Looks like Dragon Age is dead. Bioware restructured to focus on the Mass Effect series and the key people on the dragon age games were let go.

I haven't played the new one, but it seems like it kind of fell flat.

"Dragon Age: Origins" remains one of my favorite games of all time and "Mass Effect" is my favorite RPG series ever. It's tough to see Bioware begin to run out of steam.

I assume that he's done. He still has my favorite quote on game design; a game is a series of interesting decisions. So many games are bloated, chock full of choices that are just busy work and not interesting at all.

Anyone planning on picking up The Sims and The Sims2 re-release?

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Is Path of Exiles 2 something I can get into if I don't have experience with Diablo and games like that?

Sweet jesus don't pick that as your first dungeon crawl clicker.

I would, however, endorse Last Epoch as a pretty good one.

Path of Exile (and 2) I liken to: "What happens when there's no one to tell a developer no." It's absurdly overcomplicated and bloated with a billion mechanics.

Thanks I'll give that a try first.