Get a free copy of Age of Wonders 3 at the Humble store

Far Cry 5 on sale at Fanatical for $14.00 while supplies last

On the subject, I finished New Dawn last week and I'd recommend staying away unless you can't get enough of the Far Cry gameplay and it's on sale cheap.

The world isn't very interesting, the enemies are boring, and the main boss is terrible. Probably a 5/10 type game.

Guacamelee free at Humble Store

hey thomkal, you're forgetting to beat me to an announcement!

Big sale on Train Simulator 2019. You can get all the DLC for only 4465.74.

Just finished Thronebreaker. If you're a fan of the Witcher series and enjoy digital card games at all the game is an easy 9/10. The story is fantastic and the gameplay is solid. It took me about 35 hours to complete so there's way more content and story than you'd think.

Does that bargain include the sales tax?

Come on someone here has gotta do it. ;)

Sims 4 free on Origin until the 28th:


The Sims 4 is free on Origin for a limited time | GamesRadar+

Playdek and GMT just released Fort Sumter. Its a card driven game designed by Mark Hermann. Its 8.99

War game goodness.

Save 10% on Fort Sumter: The Secession Crisis on Steam

Grid 2 is free to keep right now on Steam.

Epic has gone weekly with their free games in celebration of their latest sale/ Stories Untold is out now, Rime is next week.

Rime now free at Epic, Jalopy now free at Humble.

FHM 5 now 75% off (only $9.99)

Have you played it? I am really interested. I own Eastside Hockey, but never play it. Looking for something a little less than that.

I just purchased today and should hopefully get some time with it tonight. Been waiting on a sale. :D

I've put a bit of time into it today ($10 to support a developer?) and sadly, it still seems like a buggy mess. There's a fun game underneath there somewhere, but so far I've already run into a bug where I can't actually change which players dress for a game, the line editor seems to just stop working randomly so I have to have my assistant recommend lines and here's the kicker, it just put my rookie RW who has terrible defensive ratings on my third defensive pairing when one of my defensemen got injured, over the other defensemen who I have on my roster.

Given that, I think I'll probably not be putting too much more time into this one. Shame, as the scouting and draft seems to be pretty well done.

Anyone play The Last Hex yet? Game seems very similar to Slay the Spire and that may be a good thing.

It's nowhere close to where OOTP is and that's understandable but it's a little rough around the edges for sure.

I can't dress players either but I'm the GM so I believe that's how it's supposed to work. The AI seems to call up players from my AHL team so I'm not sure what all I'm allowed to override as the GM. There's definitely more control in OOTP when you're the GM.

I'm still messing around with it.

I certainly would not play hockey while undressed.

Larian Studios (Divinity Series) is expected to announce Baldur's Gate 3 at E3.

This is the biggest gaming news of the year.

JESUS CHRIST!

Good week for turn based stragey gamers:

Battletech DLC drops the 4th, Pathfinder: Kingmaker Enhanced Edition drops 6/6..

I remember Pathfinder had a rough launch. Have things improved? I’ve been in the mood for a turn based RPG for a while.

Yeah, it's still ultra tough in places, but it's way less buggy.

Edit: And all the Infinity Engine Games are coming to consoles.

Very big week for Turn Based RPG fans

I thought it was worth playing while buggy as all hell. It was that good. Probably the closest thing to the Baldur's Gate series we've seen.

It's can be very difficult and is balanced more like a tabletop game than a modern video game in some areas. By that I mean every encounter isn't balanced based on stats. There are some ridiculously tough encounters that can be made somewhat trivial by being a smart player and using the right spells.

My party wiped. A lot. And it was still a hell of a lot of fun because the scope of the kingdom stuff was beyond what we're used to seeing in games. I'll probably dive back in a check out the changes the enhanced edition brings.

Best game I’d played in a long time until the final chapter, then the most laughably unbalanced, frustrating and badly designed game I think I’ve ever played. Not sure if they fixed those issues, but even cheating my way through the last chapter it was a good overall experience

I loved Pathfinder till about half way in I realized I had wasted to much time and the Kingdom quickly went into a death spiral. I had spent way to me hours to go backwards to try and fix things, and it really killed my interest in the game. I have several times thought about replaying and maybe turning the Kingdom stuff off (which I thought would be cool to start, but turn out to be little fun), but I have heard it doesn't really run right on auto-pilot.

Anyone play Thea The Awakening? Recommended or nay?

Thea has some interesting ideas but it never really held my interest. Remember steam will let you play any game for 2 hours and still give you a refund.

I enjoyed Thea, played around 50 or so hours. Its good, but not great. One of my issues, lack of events has been solved in the second one.

Vermintide 2 is only $12 now! SO worth it. I've gotten like $1000 of fun from the game so far!

I think I paid 15

SOSO fun!

I liked Thea as well. Pretty good story. Interesting card game strategy. My only problem is that there's not a ton of replay value. Once you've gone through the story once, there isn't much reason to do it again except to do the same thing a different way.

Free game: Kingdom New Lands from Epic Games installer

Major changes coming for Destiny 2 including the base game going free in September.
Also its coming to Steam on Sept 17

Baldur's Gate 3 is officially a thing.

Forbidden

Hopefully not an exclusive on Google Stadia, that sounds absolutely not the way I want to play my games (let alone another shitty launcher and ecosystem I have to run)

FWIW, Larian has announced it will not be a Stadia exclusive.

Enter the Gungeon now free at Epic.

I've probably put 200 hours into Enter The Gungeon. I think I've made it to the next-to-the-last floor too.

I guess you like it then? :)

I would say I like, and it also hard as hell, for better or worse.

Is it similar to Slay the Spire?

Not at all! It's pretty much a bullet hell game.

Grand Theft Auto 5 at Fanatical at the lowest price I've seen under $9. You get a DLC and 1 million game dollars to start your life of crime :)


Edit: This game will not activate at Steam but through Rockstar so you will have to set up an account there

Not sure if this is the right place for this but ... fwiw, I thought Boogie2988 did as good a hands-on take about Google Stadia as I've seen.

Just very ... relatable IMO. (Both good and bad aspects he talked about)

Not my thing but I figure it would probably be of interest to some here.

I see if for 14, still a great deal

Edit - It's for the Online premium edition for 8.45!

Yeah sorry for the confusion-its their Star Deal which should be linked on their front page if you can't find it

Fanatical gearing up for the release of Borderlands 3 it seems with a package deal the pre-sequel (is that borderlands 1?) and 2, and all add-on content for both of them for $6. Don't play that game, but sounds like a good deal to me:


Fanatical

Rebel Galaxy free at Epic for a week,

Dammit.

It's the Steam Summer Sale.

go get more free games instead :)

the steam site is being hammered :(

yeah there is some sort of weird "Grand Prix" badge game going on with the sale-choose one of five animal teams to support and such. Not sure exactly what's going on, but you can play certain games each day to support your team.

i'm looking at it. THey don't exactly make it easy to navigate.

The games they want me to play are games I don't like . Plus they list a bunch of participating games that i don't own and am not going to buy

Any recommendations on Surviving Mars?

I found it very dry and dull, FWIW. Build stuff, get people, rinse and repeat. Generic city builder with a Mars theme, so unless you are a space enthusiast or love that particular genre I’d steer clear. And like most Paradox games it’s death by DLC if you want the full functionality of the game.

Yeah, most everyone I know described the game as very shallow.

Football, Glory & tactics is on a 25% off sale and I gave it a try last night. It's actually a lot of fun and well designed. It's a soccer RTS with team/player development, contracts and promotion/relegation. I download the Premier league mod and started with Man U on the lowest level (I renamed the levels to match England).

Some of the moves take some researching to use right, but they have a cool "footballipedia" in game that shows how they work. For $15, you could do worse and I've enjoyed it:

Save 25% on Football, Tactics & Glory on Steam

Steam sale started on my birthday, and even with the "it's my birthday!" excuse to go a bit crazy with the credit card I couldnt find a single thing to buy.

Steam sales aren't as good as they used to be.

Frostpunk down to $15 at GoG. I think that's the lowest I've seen it Frostpunk on GOG.com

15 bucks for Chef: Restaurant Tycoon. Hmm.

Last Day of June is the new free game at Epic.

FYI I bought this game a few months back and I have enjoyed it. When I first bought the game it was fun but they have added more depth to it since then. Seems like they have been and will continue to regularly update it and it keeps getting better every time I reboot it. I would say it is worth the $15 but YMMV.

Steam has changed the way the Summer Sale works so it easier to understand and so the rest of us have a chance against Team Corgi :)

it's so damn broken :( Half the quests don't work :(

Pondering FM19 but is the scouting still that awful headache 18 was?

I bought it a while back, and only played it a little. It was ok, but I really wish one of these would be be simulator and less game. I might be a minority, but I think it would be fun if it there was a game closer to realistic.

I'm playing a ton of FM 19 right now and don't find the scouting to be that tedious at all, but I didn't touch FM 18 (or the last few versions.) I like the reports a lot and have enjoyed finding young gems.

Definitely a fun game and played it a ton. 2 thumbs up!

Just bought SteamWorld Quest - similar to Slay the Spire. Not quite as good but still a positive one for me.

Has anyone here played Elite: Dangerous? If so, what were your thoughts?

So I've been watching the development of Planet Explorers for a while now, watching for a good sale on it. But some very bad news for the developer has turned into very good news for the rest of us, the server code base for multiplayer functionality was lost during a server outage in May, and apparantly they did not have a backup and/or a good one. They finally admitted defeat on the multiplayer version of the game and are now giving the game away for free on Steam. No idea if its any good-kinda reminds me on Minecraft/ARC/No Man's Sky, but hey its free to check it out now:


Planet Explorers Goes F2P Because The Multiplayer Code Was Lost - MMO Bomb

And on this day where we celebrate our Freedom, Epic joins in by offering Overcooked as their next free game.

Distant Worlds: Universe is the star deal on Fanatical-about 85% off-around $7.50

Thanks for the rec, I've been enjoying this too. I never got into Blood Bowl, but I guess that's the best comparison for on field play. FM & FIFA/PES have their place, but it's nice to have a game I can pick up for 15 minutes here & there and actually play a couple matches without needing to set up a ton or immerse myself back in detailed characters. Feels almost like it could be a (very well done) freemium game too (and I noticed they have an early access version in the mobile store), but they've done a great job simplifying things while still making it fit both soccer on the pitch & the player/league/club progression. With the different skills and AI defensive set ups it's also the first time I've really enjoyed changing tactics game to game. One thing I will say is their default setting of 48 turns per match seems quite short & a whole half can be reliant on one good/bad dice roll, so I'm playing on 60 turns per match, and I do wish it was a straight sliding scale by 12's (so each team gets equal turns in a half), instead of the next jump being all the way up to like 120 turns per game.

Opinions on Kingdom Come: Deliverance? It's on the Humble Monthly for $12

Add me to the list of satisfied customers. There is a surprising amount of depth here, yet you don't have to invest enormous amounts of time to enjoy it.

Ahh, didn't realize you could change the game length settings. Definitely going to set it to 60 turns going forward.

The thread for it covered it pretty well. I gave my opinion both while playing and after completing it. If you have any questions let me know.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance - Front Office Football Central

Steam sale ends tomorrow-they have decided to reward a random 5000 users who participated in the races no matter the team with the top game on their wishlist-so everyone who did participate make sure your wishlist has the top game you want. If anybody does win or won by being on the top team, i'd love to hear about it.

Yeah, I change the settings from 48 to 60 actions and the RNG type from Default to Decreased. Default does 1-100% of potential on the dice roll, while decreased does 30%-100%. I like it because it's not quite as random when you play better/worse teams. On the default, I've beaten or tied a few teams I had no business against because they got a 2 on a 95% max roll.

I'd also recommend choosing the English League Full 18-19 mod (or one of the others) when you select a team. You can get to them right from the screen. The logos and colors are nice - some also come with names that are right (but the attributes/ages are random).

I like to slow play and pump a ton of money in Youth Academy (try to get to 3 stars ASAP) and Glory into coaching (usually Def, For then Mid). Then, by season 6-8 I have a good group of players in their early 20s developing well. You can also go the transfer route and play it like a stock market where you don't do coaching but instead do the two assistants (one lowers age, the other increasing the players). You can get better faster using that route, but I don't think you are as good long term.

That race was the worst :(
And I bought too much stuff :P
Team Hare forever!

60 actions, for sure. Probably should be the default but I get that they're going for more of a quick pick-up game feel.

Arles, are you spending Glory on field Coaches AFTER spending on Bench Coach or instead of? Seems a very tough road to develop young players by play time only.

What did everyone buy? Someone had given me a $50 gift card so I was a bit more buy happy than usual.

megaquarium
Cliff empire
City-state
Simmiland
Islanders
Shadowhand

~$50 with the steam sale $5 off 15000 token purchase.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

I immediately start spending on Defense coaching for a number of reasons:

1) I use 5 defenders, so it will improve the most players at a time.

2) As you get into the late game, stats for Forwards and Midfielders matter much less than skills. Stats for Defenders always matter.

3) At the beginning, you'll be starting most of your decent young players anyways.

4) Once you've built the defense up, then the bench coach bonuses will work in tandem with your defense bonuses. So if you have the full 400% for defense, then your defenders on the bench will also get 400%. The miniscule amounts you get for bench coach at the beginning don't help very much.


My favorite alignment is to play a flat back 5. I like this because one of the AI's favorite maneuvers is to move a FW behind your line and do a Long Pass through your defenders. With your flat back 5 on the 2nd row, the AI can't do this because it will be offside.

If you guys want to check out a dynasty I did a while back, it's here: https://forums.operationsports.com/f...ad.php?t=95255

I can't see bench coach being that useful until you are at the top level and have Def and Forward maxed.

To echo what Larry said, I like having a ton of defensive players. My goal is to have one RD and LD, 1-2 CB and the rest DF. DF are great because they stack against non-special shots and try to block passes. I also like the flexibility of using one in the DM spot against certain formations (they still acrue DF exp in the DM spot and their intercept pass skill works a lot like DM). As you get higher up, your goalie will be good against either cannon shot or rainbow feint. So, if you face a team with strikers with that skill, having DFs setup to block their normal shots can really stifle an offense.

In terms of development, I pump a ton into Def coaching and then Forward coaching. I try to get both to 100+% before putting some into mids. My normal roster is 8 Def, 5-6 Forwards, 1 goalie and a 3-4 mids. I like 1-2 CM and 1-2 LM. My design on offense is to have one good RF/LF with high control I can use the break through skill with (great way to start games/after goals), 2-3 CF with heading pumped and 1-2 FW with a good special (cannon or rainbow) and high acc. Then, I either go heading if the opp has good special defenses and no one in the sweeper spot or use the FW/RF guys if their special defense isn't great and play a ton of defenders in the sweeper area. I also don't mind losing a bunch and getting relegated if I get promoted with a lot of young guys. Finishing 5-8 with an older team isn't as good as getting relegated with a young team earlier on. Finally, I sell anyone when they get to 30-31 (outside of goalie) as their value starts to drop and their yearly contracts get super expensive.

When do you start putting points on def coach? I never do the goalie because you have just 1 guy (and can increase his exp in specialization). Do you max out Def, Forward and Mid before putting points there? The 5% just doesn't seem like much.

Yeah, you have to be careful with teams with good heading CF though. If you play the 5 flat against them, they will try a ton of headers. You also have to shift if facing a good RF/LF with high control. If you don't block the far right square (or left against LF), they will use break in against you and can get 1-on-1 with the goalie if your def isn't double their control. If I face a RF, I use a DF and RD to block the right and put my CD in the right box slot. This causes a second check if the RF does a break through by the CD.

Very cool, I will check it out. I'm always interested in other strategies/plans for this game!

Heading is a great way to get some surprise upsets early on, if you have someone with the Heading skill and the defending Keeper is low on Control. Also, you can neutralize the sweeper if you can launch the header from the square right next to him.

When upgrading Forwards, I'd make anyone with the Header skill a CF, since it automatically gets them an extra level in Heading. For Rainbow Feint/Cannon Shot guys, you'll want them to be FW for the extra mobility.


I fully max out Defense Coaching, with a few upgrades for the transfer list along the way. Then I max out Bench coach. I don't put much emphasis on stats for my Forwards and Midfielders.


Yeah I struggled a bit with wing forwards for a while, but I have a few ways to stop it...

1) Strategically place your CD's so that two of them will make a tackle attempt on the break-in.

2) Put a 6th defenders back there. Once, I actually played a 7-1-2 just to completely cut them off.

3) If the opposing Forwards don't have Cannon Shot, you can actually leave a hole in your line and just move your LD or RD to the last square. This prevents the break-in skill.

Yeah, it was fun to get a cupset or two in my initial career because I had good rolls, but now that I'm good for my level I appreciate the "decreased" randomness.

For team building, it looks like Larry got to the point where he was dominant at that top level while I'm still bouncing around careers & working my way up the ladder, but I also go 100% of glory into coaching because I prefer homegrown teams. I actually think forwards first is the way to go because scoring is so difficult early on unless you're gifted a good striker, and being able to run up the score on bad teams & get some cheap glory points that way. Also, unlike my advice & unlike you guys (partially because I'm unwilling to completely game it and use 6-7 defenders) I've actually gone first into midfielders in this career & I'm still having a ton of defensive success. Maybe he's less useful at higher levels where players have better passing/control & can use lofted passes more, but I have an absolute boss DM with Long Pass who can lock down the middle of the field & move it back up the field, usually 3-4 other M's or F's who have slide tackle, so 80% of the game is played on their half of the field. I think I've allowed the fewest goals every season, even when I couldn't promote because I'd tie half my games 0-0/1-1, and right now am sitting on 2 goals allowed in 14 games despite fairly weak defenders/average GK. In other careers I feel like my defenders were much better than the opposition, but they were still susceptible to crosses or the random guy hitting like 3 straight rainbow feints on me to score. This is contrary to what Larry says & he's actually won continental cups though, so ymmv.

I also always do build up that youth academy, but weirdly at this level where I can plug in many of my young players I preferred it when they were showing up as "D/M/F" & I could pick their first skill, not already having a full position & 1 skill level learned. Having a forward with high control show up as a CF instead of someone I can stick right on the wing, having a defender show up with like rainbow feint, or having another AM show up when I already have 2 young ones in my rotation & I could use another winger is definitely annoying. There's also times I appreciate having guys in specific positions, but I didn't even realize that it's anyone you make DF/MF/FW who has access to that 2nd special skill, and that can be a killer combo. A FW with slide tackle + rainbow or cannon or being able to add in Olympic Kick to a defender for when I'm facing a team with high control across their backline? Yes please!
Yeah, that's definitely something I'm liking. Going heavy on midfielder coaching was super frustrating when I had a season I couldn't even make it out of the Amateur's because I had 4 goals scored & 1 allowed for the season, but it forced me to be a little more creative & I'm starting to see some nice combinations. Moving the ball through the AM & using his False Kick ability can open holes, I've also developed his scoring to the point long shots are an option late in the clock, and I have an LM with Cannon shot who can take a pass from the defense/GK & get one of those off in the same turn if the set up is right.

That makes sense. As you can see from my career, I struggled quite a bit in the lower levels, particularly with scoring.



I had a great DM in my career. The only problem was I didn't build up his control. He'd often intercept that opening pass, but then give it right back up, causing a big stalemate in the midfield.


One way to deal with multiple Rainbow Feints is to have two CD's on your back line next to each other. This way, even if the Rainbow Feint is successful on one of them, the other will make a tackle attempt.

By the higher levels, my GK had the Playing Out ability and I 'd have 1-2 Defenders with the Header ability, so those weren't a big issue for me.


For guys like this, if they're worth keeping for the long haul, I'll simply retrain them. I had a CF with high control and just played him on the wing long enough to give him a 2nd position.

For those of you with questions on how to play, I'd check out their "footballipedia" by clicking the ? in the top right of any screen. It explains the moves/specials and also gives tips. I'd also recommend watching a few games. The AI has some holes, but it does use the break in, power shot, rainbow feint and other specials pretty well. It also does a good job crossing when that's possible.

Anyone play Starters Orders 7 Horse Racing? I haven't played a HR sim since back in the Atari days and Steeplechase. :)


This game looks helladeep.

If you go to their main site, you can download a demo version of one of their betas which will give you an idea. Its located on the main page, under the news section.

https://www.startersorders.com/index.html#

Personally, have not tried the new version but played version #6...or at least I tried. Seems to be the deepest race horse simulator out there, but I am no racing expert so was hard to wrap my head around it. Did really enjoy watching the 3D races though. Although had some US races, it seemed more geared towards other countries, but maybe I am wrong about that since I didn't get that far.

Anyway, worth a shot to try the demo out....

I haven't played 7, but played a lot of SO4 and a decent amount of SO6. It looks nice and is a challenge to get a winning stable (at least for me). My biggest complaint is that it's still geared for UK racing. I used mods to make the US racing more palatable but the race classifications are still odd. Being a horseplayer this bothers me maybe more than it should, but YMMV.

Awesome, thank you!

That might bother me too.

I've played probably hundreds of hours of all the versions of Starters Orders, and all the previous versions have been plagued by the same crucial issue: when racing on the US schedule you will eventually come across prestigious high-stakes races with only 3-4 entrants, which allows even your weakest horses to get money and good finishes, and goes pretty far towards entirely ruining the game.

I haven't played SO7, but I would bet the house that hasn't been addressed in any way.

There's a steam review that implies exactly that - US still redheaded stepchild.

Well then... moving on..... :(

That being said, I have enjoyed it enough over the years to keep playing for those collective hundreds of hours. The nature of the issue is such that you probably won't notice in the early game, and then by the time it starts bothering me consistently I'm also immersed/invested enough in my horses & stable that I try and suffer through it until I eventually get bored and/or frustrated.

I think it does everything well enough that I've often considered trying out the UK schedule and seeing if the supposedly better-behaved functionality will make up for the lack of familiarity, but I've never actually tested that out.