We might as well have one of these, seeing as we have a goodly proportion of gamers.

Currently playing Company of Heroes again. Far and away the most fun of the RTS genre. Excellent balance of unit types and the problems it presents. Recently replayed the campaign on a higher difficlty, and now playing skirmishes against the computer and some online matches.

I tend to play the Germans; started playing them after going through the campaign the first time to understand their mechanics, and found they suited my style better than the Americans. Plus they are funnier; the American and British responses are all serious but the German units often respond with darkly comical comments; I expect this was to encourage peopleto play the bad guys of the war, and I'm happy to oblige.


Also playing... Age of Pirates: City of Lost Ships. This is a game with a strange development history, but it's a genre I enjoy. It's a sandbox RPG type game, in which you fulfill quests and side missions, all of which is basically an excuse for the action, which is C17th naval battles and piracy in the Caribean. Also some sword-fighting on land and during boarding actions. You start out in a tiny little boat and can work you way up to leading a small flotilla and sacking towns, either on your own account or on behalf of one of the national factions. You can also do peaceful trading, escorting merchant vessels, carrying passengers about, raiding particularly juicy convoys (including the Spanish treasure fleet), plus a series of storyline quests and a quest line for each of the nations.

I haven't finished with EUIII: I started a month ago a game playing Lubeck (can't remember the name right now!). It's going rather well: I am indeed dominating nearly all CoT in sight and thus can invest quite a bit in research.

The general idea is to accumulate nearly no provinces, except a few tiny exceptions (Jerusalem, if I can ; One in India for getting the East India Trading Cie bonus, one or two CoTs). Conquering and releasing African kingdoms has also nicely help my finances. And, if I can eventually lead in technology by a significant margin, go on a blitzkrieg, if possible in the 1700s, to "conquer the world".

Restarted a M&B game. The Native Expansion one. It's just more fun. But it's interesting to note how M&B is better at lower levels than higher, IMO. Too high levels and you're basically just mauling everything.

I really want to give a go at Take Command: 2nd Battle of Manassas. But it does look intimidating. So much stuff in there!

Also, I just tried Red Dead Redemption. It's quite like a Wild West GTA but the graphics are truly awesome and while i tend to resent having to travel mundanely, for long times, from A to B, I just like the idea of being a Wild West gunslinger as much as I like the idea of being an Eastern European enforcer...

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I presume you mean either Mecklenberg or the Hansa? Bear in mind you get a 15% compete chance penalty for each non-core COT you own.

Anyway I never really finish with EU3, it's a permanent fixture on my HD. My most recent game formed Germany from a start as Hesse. It was touch-and-go for a while but breaking through to Osnabruck and Friesland gave me manpower and coastal access.

The American Civil War doesn't interest me much but I enjoyed Imperial Glory, a Napoleonic game, and would like to try Empire TW.

I'd like to try RDR but I sincerely doubt my PC could handle it.

Originally Posted by contracycle

I presume you mean either Mecklenberg or the Hansa? Bear in mind you get a 15% compete chance penalty for each non-core COT you own.

Mecklenberg is the one. And, yeah, I know but I was really considering grabbing one of the indian/chinese/NW CoTs. I need an Indian province for the East India Company bonus so I could as well make it a CoT...

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Anyway I never really finish with EU3, it's a permanent fixture on my HD.

Yeah, it will be the same with me... I guess it speaks nicely of the game. But I am still not happy at the economic modelisation. And I just wish we had a few more politico-diplomatic options of some sort. But, overall, it's great. Far far better than TW civilian management system. TBH, I did like TW - Rome but the twon dvpt stuff annoyed me pretty fast and the military stuff seemed a bit limited eventually. I had plenty of one-off battles and, frankly, maybe I wasn't good enough a general but nothing was better than infantry in the centre, cavalry/elephants on the wings and forget about catapults, scorpios and the rest. Oh and fighting at Hard/Very Hard doesn't mean the opponent general gets better, just that it cheats more and more. Annoying. In Chess games, the AI gets better as its level increases. That's what I want to see in a battle AI.

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The American Civil War doesn't interest me much but I enjoyed Imperial Glory, a Napoleonic game, and would like to try Empire TW.

I don't care either way but I just like the fact that you got to use the 3 arms (infantry, cavalry and artillery) in winning combos. The ACW does that and so does the Napoleonic period but, tbh, it's just 18C and 19C warfare anywhere that would fit that bill.

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I'd like to try RDR but I sincerely doubt my PC could handle it.

Mine wouldn't either. I tried it at a friend's who has an X-box. Beautiful stuff, it has to be said. As mentioned before, I think i'd get bored with GTA 'taxi' missions. The best I've seen so far in that category is the old Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (it seems Merc2 was plagued by bugs). I played that on a PS2 I bought in the US and can't use here (damn!) and hadn't finished it but it's brillant sandbox environment with lots of missions that felt different enough to me. And the travelling distances weren't too bad, with enough random encounters to make it interesting...

I think GTA-like stuff should try and emulate that.

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Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

Mecklenberg is the one. And, yeah, I know but I was really considering grabbing one of the indian/chinese/NW CoTs. I need an Indian province for the East India Company bonus so I could as well make it a CoT...

Oh it may well still be worth doing. You may need to retrench your merchants a bit, but thats not disastrous.

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Oh and fighting at Hard/Very Hard doesn't mean the opponent general gets better, just that it cheats more and more. Annoying. In Chess games, the AI gets better as its level increases. That's what I want to see in a battle AI.

Very much agreed.I also thought the battles in Rome got very samey after a while. Somehow the original MTW seemed to have more variety and zest to it which was lost when they moved to 3D.

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Mine wouldn't either. I tried it at a friend's who has an X-box. Beautiful stuff, it has to be said. As mentioned before, I think i'd get bored with GTA 'taxi' missions.

Well I think for those you have to enjoy the act itself; GTA plays best for people who really enjoy driving as such and so the missions are just a pretext. But I know what you mean. Agr of Pirates, mentioned above, has a fair variety of general missions as well.

Global Agenda Hi-Rez Studios :: Global Agenda: Home

League of Legends http://www.leagueoflegends.com/

Waiting on Starcraft 2, which is really closer to being called Starcraft 1.5, with better graphics StarCraft II

Keeping an eye on Secret World, could be good, the setting is nice, modern world fulled by myth, urban legend, and conspiracy theory. You can play as the Illuminati. D A R K * D A Y S * A R E * C O M I N G

And where are you guys finding Red Dead Redemption for PC?

I've gotta do allllot of catching up on games as I've been without my playstation for the past few months, but currently playing through CoD Modern Warfare 2 and Tony hawks 3 (which I picked up thee other day from a bargin bin for 79p!) have RDR aswell but am not gonna start with it until I know I can commit the time to it to get it done.

And online gaming am sticking with the original Dawn of War games. I bought Dawn of war 2 a few weeks ago and they truly messed up a fantastic game =/ and also play Killing Floor for quick relief :3

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DoW2 threw me off a bit when I first played it too, but I got accustomed to it and its not so bad, even bought the expansion.

Originally Posted by AnonymousIdiotSavant

DoW2 threw me off a bit when I first played it too, but I got accustomed to it and its not so bad, even bought the expansion.

There are some bits they made better, upgrading your heros equipment, squads using 'nads, squads using cover and most of the landscape being 'blow-upable' along with better graphics. But why in gawds name did they take away buildings and tech trees? I honestly spent the first 10 mins of my first game wondering how big an idiot I was for not being able to find the build a building option. lol.

The Campain mode was alright, and I guess more *realistic* given it's not like you'd build a base for every battle you'd have. But it kinda ended up being 'get all your men close together and move as a solid firing block' very quickly IMO. Though I can't really judge as I only went a few missions beyond the first orc boss.

The last time I was that disapointed in a game it was another RTS, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos. Except they took the 'S' out of it as you just chose troops at the start if the game ans that was that =/

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Originally Posted by AnonymousIdiotSavant

And where are you guys finding Red Dead Redemption for PC?

I assumed it could be found for PC. But, as I said, I played on a friend's Xbox...

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