I'll offer this unsolicited opinion fwiw ... CK 3 is by FAR the most accessible of any of the CK and/or EU iterations.

I'm already deeper in my first attempt at a game than I think I've ever gotten in either. Yes, they've simplified some things (and I'm not entirely sure combat is where it oughta be in that regard) BUT it's definitely easier to pick up than any of the others have been.

Just took part in the worst boss fight I've ever experienced in a video game in Redfall. The fight was a pain in the arse for the simple reason that the fight was designed like crap.

The fight is just two phases, but when the boss goes immune the objectives become completely unclear. To make matters worse you are constantly swarmed with adds and when you do figure out what to do the hit collision is almost impossible. To top it all off you are presented with absolutely trash visuals of white on top of washed out white with a swirly white background. The cherry on top is the fact that the game crashes down to like 10 FPS during this on my 3080ti.

I had to watch a video for the first time so far in the playthrough to figure out what to do and laughed when the guy showing it was like, "You have to destroy the red orbs, but you can shoot the red orbs all day and nothing will happen. What you actually have to do is spray gunfire over top of the the orbs like a blanket until you randomly hit the right spot enough times to destroy it.....this fight is basically unplayable."

It's a shame because we were enjoying it up to this point. We got through it and decided to put the game down for the day. Not sure if we will pick it back up or not honestly.

FWIW, Jagged Alliance 3 is -20% at $36. Release date is Jul 14.

There's not been EA reviews and the discussion board doesn't have a lot of insight. So TBH a little concerned about how good it really will be.

I think I'll wait for the reviews.

Crusader Kings II is free to claim at GoG.com

For those that don't already have it, XCom2 + WOTC is on sale.

$5.99 + $3.99

Well worth it IMO. And after you've beaten the game a couple times, lots of mods to play with including the Long War mod.

Seconded. One of the best games ever.

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I was unimpressed. The new mechanics meant to speed it up made the game a lot less fun for someone like myself. In general though I'm pretty out of touch on this; a lot of modern games have a 'must go fast now' theme, which ends in gameplay being so super-super-hurry and frenetic that it makes it completely unenjoyable to me.

There is a way to slow down the counter and also increase turns per mission. I think that’s delivered functionality but if not, there are definitely mods. I use them because I did not want to be rushed.

And if you really want a long duration game, do the Long War mod.

Fair, but in general I don't mod a game if I don't enjoy the game to begin with. If it's something I enjoy enough to play the vanilla version of, then I might try mods. When I don't like the core experience, I don't look for mods to change that; I just play a different game.

I had that problem on first playing, but I quickly learned it made the game even better. You still have as much time as you need to plan your moves. It just forces you to be aggressive. My biggest issue was my own physical problems. My hand twitches and will accidentally confirm a move I didn't mean to. But that was a me problem.

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Okay, just bought BG3 as a Father's Day present for myself.

I figured I was going to get it anyway, it won't come down in price anytime soon, and I'm slowly coming to the realization/dread that my laptop doesn't meet the minimum specs for StarField.

2.5 months till go-live.

Space Engineers is $9 at Fanatical. They are also having a "rewards week" for email subscribers where there has been a free game(Alchemy Garden) and a discount coupon on Jackbox games today

I agree with this. That's exactly the part that I don't like.

Never played either of the X-Com's, despite them being in my Steam library. I thought they were turn based. Is there a timer? How is it rushed?

It is turn based. There are a number of turns you have to complete each mission.

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It's rushed in the sense of mechanics that require you to complete missions in a set amount of turns. I don't mind some time pressure mind you; the bomb missions in XCom1 had it. I do mind it when it's basically constant though. They were trying to prevent people turtling heavily as happened in the first game, but it's a case where IMO the cure was much worse than the disease.

You just described what sucked the fun out of the game for me, whatever iteration I last played.

It took it from difficult-but-enjoyable for me to this-is-just-stress-and-I'm-not-having-fun {shrug}

I'm really surprised you guys had that much of a problem with it. Almost every game has some kind of time constraints, and Xcom was much easier than about any game I ever played. It is much easier than the average RTS game. Maybe it is just the understanding that the game is made in a way that you are going to lose soldiers. It is a resource game, and part of the resource are your soldiers. If you take out the turn timer, the game would be way too easy.

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{shrug} It literally killed it for me, haven't touched it since I realized that there simply wasn't much fun left for me. If I happen to be in the mood to play something sweaty I'll just go play an FPS, where the penalty for rushed mistakes is temporary and you carry on.

It's a ... pace of play (?) thing. I've got (looks to see) 896 hours in HOI4 right now. I'd bet that as much as 20% of those have been spent micromanaging fleet upgrades.

If all you do is take out the turn timer, sure. But everything is balanced with that in mind. I.e. XCOM 1 was hardly considered too easy by most people - and it has difficulty levels. I've yet to meet the person who think the first XCOM on Impossible is a walk in the park, and Classic was even considered quite challenging.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. There are parts of it that I thought were promising. As far as the RTS comparison - it depends on which RTS you are talking about, but I dislike most modern RTS for similar reasons. My brother is a huge Starcraft 1 fan and recently played Starcraft 2; his impression was basically the same. It goes so fast you can't enjoy it basically. It's not about strategy to my mind so much as APM and memorizing hotkeys because you can't keep up with the action otherwhise. You can't ever just survey the battlefield and take your time considering what to do. You can do that in a turn-based game such as XCOM of course, but most of the time I'm not a fan of games that force a narrowly specific playstyle like this. A lot of gamers enjoy it, and more power to them. I enjoy things like Factorio, or RTS that have the ability to pause and give orders, AI War 2 being a good recent example that doesn't have heavy time pressure unless you intentionally add it via factions like the Scourge. In both cases the player has a lot of creative liberty in their playstyle.

I just didn't find the turn timer that tough. And I am in general really bad at games.

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I will just add, my two favorite games probably of all time are Xcom2 and Battletech. But are turned-based, but both also require you to finish missions in a certain time. At first, I had the same dislike for the turn timer, but quickly learned it really wasn't that big a deal. All the missions could easily be done in the time frame without really feeling that rushed.

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Eschalon II, a classic RPG,is free to claim over the next couple days at GoG.com

Just to clarify, I'm not saying it makes it too hard. I'm just saying it makes it not enjoyable/fun.

EDIT: Wrong game listed for giveaway. Real one is Hell Division, a shooter where you pilot military drones.

Free weekend of Football Manager2023.


EDIT: And Stellaris

That's enough to, what, assess your squad and staff and set up your first training regimen. Maybe do a friendly or two? :D

Ancient Enemy, a card-based combat RPG, where you fight for the last time against the monster who destroyed most of the world, warping that which remained is free to claim at Gog.com. I've played a bit of this one, and it has some Darkest Dungeon/Slay the Spire vibes. Certainly worth giving it a try.

I did it. I got to Level 10 on my steam summer badge and I don't think I've bought a single game yet.



I did buy Steam Decks for my kids for their main Christmas present though. I have near infinite points for whatever I want now though.

nice...i typically make it to 11 but sadly I've only made it to 3 so far. I haven't been keeping up on my badge sets. depression and such :(

Free weekend of Prison Architect on Steam.

Some Jagged Alliance 3 reviews are out. Some are more favorable than others but basically a solid-to-good game but room to get better.

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Jagged Alliance 3 review | PC Gamer

Jagged Alliance 3 review: a strong sequel that aims to refresh, not merely repeat | Rock Paper Shotgun

The Whisperer, a point and click adventure/mystery game where you try to figure out what happened to the residents of a fort in snowy Canada in the early 1800's is free to claim at gog.com

A couple reviews out for Xenonauts 2 Early Release (Jul 18). Sounds promising.

Never played the original but read it's closest to the older XCom games. Still playing XCom WOTC now and then, but since XCom 3 isn't going to happen (anytime soon), I'll have to pick this up closer to release date.

Xenonauts 2 review – extra tense extraterrestrial tussling | Wargamer

Xenonauts 2 review: old school XCOM-like doesn’t pull punches - Polygon

Free weekends of Two Point Campus and Warhammer: Boltgun on Steam

Marvel's Avengers is $6 on Steam

FIFA23 and Forza Horizon 5 are free to play this weekend on Steam

Release date revealed for the upcoming HOI4 expansion "Arms Against Tyranny". Drops 10/10/22

For The King free to play on Steam this weekend

Great RPG. Highly recommend.

It is pretty fun! The only downside is how everything scales with your character.

Hero of the Kingdom 2 is free to claim over at GoG.com for the next 72 hours

King's Bounty: The Legend is free to claim at GoG.com over the next couple of days

Claim the game Ghost Master for free at GoG.com the next couple days

Steam has a Dark Souls sale this weekend-most 50% off

Requiem: Avenging Angel: A 3D action game featuring a battle on Earth and beyond between Heaven and Hell is free to claim over the weekend on GoG.com

Fanatical has been expanding into ebooks for a while and have one today (and the weekend?) on International Day of the Programmer 2023 Giveaway. Not sure anyone here is interested, but this is the link for it:


International Day of the Programmer 2023 Free Giveaway | eBook Bundle | Fanatical

Over at Fanatical, you claim Crumble, a weird physics platformer where you apparently play as a living blue ball trying to make your way through the level using you frog like long tongue to help. Yeah probably why its free :)


Assassin's Creed:Valhalla is their current Star deal where you can get the Standard Edition for just under $14, and other editions also on sale and more expensive.

I'm.. flabbergusted. the rare combo of Flabbergasted and Disgusted.



this is the only explanation:

Unity CEO: I really loved being the most hated CEO in the world when I was running Electronic Arts. I really wish I could be that hated once again. A red-hot virulent hatred, pitchfork and torches lynch mob glow.. What can I do to get that warm fuzzy of everyone despising me?

Why every game developer is mad right now, explained | PC Gamer

Highlights:

We get paid per INSTALL.
Yes, Per Install. Install a game you own twice? We get paid twice.
Demo? Yup, we want money for people installing your demo
Pirated/cracked versions? Yup. We want that too.

Oh, and this isn't just going forward, we want money per install of all the already-released games that used our engine under good faith going forward.

This guy has a history. He was the one who proposed a $1 reload microtransaction in Battlefield

Add to that Unity doesn't have actual sales numbers, they're going to charge based on an aggregate estimate based on a formula that they aren't sharing.

They said Unity doesn't phone home...so how will they track pirate installs? Or reinstalls? The whole thing sounds like a Superman 3-level scheme to devalue the company.

AND that GamePass installs ALSO count.

If playing a game on GeForce NOW, does each stream count? If your session starts and dies multiple times in a 10-15 minute window due to a bad internet connection, is that multiple installs?

Unity says that Sony and Microsoft owe that money not the game dev. I mean, what happens when Microsoft tells them no? I’d say there is almost zero chance they get money from Microsoft.

One possible reason is they need a carrot to get people to switch to their engine on other things, the carrot is they're offering rebates if you switch to their stuff in some areas (and stop using competitors).

Of course, they'd probably end those rebates as soon as AppLoving or the other things are no longer a major threat.

Unity is offering a Runtime Fee waiver if you switch to LevelPlay as it tries to "kill AppLovin" - Mobilegamer.biz

I predict that within a week, Unity will have backed down, and within 90 days, the CEO will be turfed.

He might actually go to jail. He sold 2000 shares of stock before announcing this and tanking the price.

best line of the Unity discussion elsewhere:

"Everyone expects the invisible hand of the free market to lift everything up. No one expects it to punch them in the face repeatedly"

Forget Phantom Liberty, Cyberpunk 2077's free 2.0 patch is a staggering upgrade on its own | PC Gamer

That article outlines some of the changes coming to Cyberpunk for everyone, even those not buying the xpac. They also announced that the 2.0 patch is releasing on September 21st, 4 days ahead of the xpac.

Marvel's Avengers leaves storefronts forever on the 30th. Steam currently has it at a whopping 90% off or $4 if interested in the game

Not a steam game, but I just saw Star Citizen has crossed $600 million in crowd funding and released alpha 3.2 (after 10 years of development) and it's crazy that with that much money raised I don't know a single person that has ever mention playing or supporting this game.

Yeah I think it may turn out to be a bigger scam than Trump University :) Find it very hard to believe its ever going to come out at this point

By the time it's ready for Steam, we'll be playing games on Apple Vision Pro. They'll have to start development all over again.

It's ridiculous it's taken so long with so many resources. Yeah, it's a scam. It'll be fun when it finally collapses.

(But I want to be wrong. I'm rooting for it to come out in next 3-4 years!)

Paradox announced a new 4x game today. Millenia. It appears to be a historical strategy game set on Earth over many years where you shape what Earth will become:


Millennia on Steam

Saw either a story or an ad for this earlier today.

Feels like Civ Paradox (or maybe something like Humankind Paradox)

Yeah seems like a mix of the two to me

It will be interesting to see if they can challenge Civ. Humankind was just ok.

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Speaking of Humankind-you can get it for $9 at Fanatical :)

Gog.com has one last free game to giveaway as they celebrate 15 years.



Truberbrook-a quirky sci-fi adventure game set in a parallel universe in the 1960's

So here is a new take on Civ type games: Solium Infernum-a combination Civ, Doom and even a little Dark Souls where after Lucifer disappears you try to control Hell. There's a demo on Steam.


Civilization goes to Hell, as brutal new strategy game gets free demo | PCGamesN

We all need to chip in and get Thomkal a "thank you" gift for the game news work he does. He is like having our own game news feed.

Thank you Thomkal!

I played the original version a long, long time ago. The developer was talented from a game design perspective but the platform used was pretty bad. It was some version of Adobe or something. The guts to this game should be good.

Well that doesn't sounds too good. :( Hopefully the developer has changed that part of it.

Thanks guys! I like having my own little "corner" of the community to contribute to. I think we are all pretty much gamers here given the fact that this whole community formed around a football game. If you have a particular game/genre you would like to see me talk about when I find something interesting just let me know.



As for a gift, I think picking up some free games from the community from time to time kinda counts as that for me. With that being said, Christmas is coming before you know it, and some Steam gift cards/or game codes would look nice in my "stocking" if you feel like doing something like that but really not necessary.

They did! It looks totally different from the original. The gameplay was excellent so I have high hopes. Thanks for posting, I had no idea someone bought the rights.

Cool! I'm glad you are excited for it.

This was the first PC game I ever played (on Apple 2 in the 80s). I'll be picking it up (if only for nostalgia reasons) - looks like a pretty solid remake/homage:

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord on Steam

Don't remember why now, but the Wizardry series never really grabbed me. I'll be sure to take it a look at it when it comes out of early access.

Have fun reliving those glory years!

First non-arcade game I can remember was MULE on the Commodore 64. Good times where we were in a group and played together.

Sprinkled with D&D, The Fantasy Trip, and a series of Avalon Hill games like Squad Leader & Diplomacy.

Bards Tale. Hours upon hours on the C64. There was also a golf game and a game where you trained a knight to joust which I can't remember the names of.

Steam Next Fest week has started where you can play demos of upcoming games, wishlist your favs, watch developer livestreams, etc.

First game I ever played on PC (well, if one can call the TRS-80 a "pc" lol)

Bedlam (1982 video game - Wikipedia)

Not bad, not bad at all.

Yeah, right or wrong, (and this case, probably wrong), the CEO always has to fall on his sword. Wonder how golden his parachute is.

Ship of Heroes, the City of Heroes inspired MMO is available as a demo this week as part of Steam's Next Fest

I guess we should also officially add FOF 9 in this thread

Front Office football Nine is here - Front Office Football Central

http://www.solecismic.com/frontofficefootball.php

I've been liking The Lamplighter's League, very Xcom feeling but with an Indiana Jones-like story from Paradox.

Set in the 1930s, there's an Xcom-like World Map split into sectors and you send out your little gang of Lamplighter agents to perform Xcom-like missions in a race against The Banished Court bad guy faction and their three leaders (who are like The Chosen in Xcom). Everybody is trying to snag the power of the lost Tower of Babel for themselves.

The Lamplighters have different skills depending on their class, so it's mix and match your agents for each mission in an Xcom-like fashion.

I'm about 12 missions in to my first attempt, the difficulty ramps up quickly and I've suddenly realized it's more of a stealth game than a fighting game. Your list of agents is small enough that it doesnt take many injuries and/or deaths to really mess up your chances, I should have been a bit more protective and selective on which fights I got them into. Almost time for a restart.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but this game is like Xcom.

Thanks for the tip. Downloaded through Game Pass, but haven't played. New meds got me a little queasy while gaming. Hope to get into it soon.

Battlefield 2042 is free to play this weekend on Steam (I think) and maybe others in the series.

Star Trelk: Stellaris...er Infinite released today.

Has anybody tried the Star Trek game yet?

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Oof. Star trek infinite gets a 5 out of10 review from IGN

"Star Trek: Infinite does a great job of capturing the look and feel of Star Trek, but those enticing bones splinter under the weight of its bugs and glitches."

Some good deals over at GoG.com, both 80% off


Endzone:A World Apart is $6 and for lovers of traditional roguelikes like me:



Ultimate ADOM: Caverns of Chaos is $4 for a more modern graphics/gameplay take on roguelikes.

F1 Manager 2023 (the newest release from July) is headed to Gamepass. Figured that would be relevant to this group's interests.

Cool. I wasn't buying it again this year, but I have heard decent reviews. I hope it doesn't have the fatal bugs of last years version.

Also literally just read that Football Manager 2024 is Day One Gamepass on Nov. 6.

Endless Dungeon is out today (not to be confused with Dungeons of the Endless) I quite like the Endless series of games, so likely will pick this one up too:


https://gg.deals/new-game/endless-du...he-best-price/

Also out on Steam today, two 4x games:


Galactic Civilization 4


Hexarchy-a combination deckbuilder/4x game that you can win in 60 minutes


Save 20% on Hexarchy on Steam

Steam has a rare free game offer: CryptArc-a scifi shooter where you play as a heavily armed privateer taking on govt contracts to board and deal with alien space hulks.

You can play Diablo 4 for free for 10 hours on XBox starting today thru the weekend.


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