I am way more excited about Chimera Squad than I've been about the XCom games since they've rebooted the series. The games' somewhat open nature and generated missions just made them feel hollow to me, but bolting it down to pre-written characters, with small scenarios that can actually play into the story, not just your own meta narrative? Yes please.
I just hope it's good, thankfully the discount doesn't end on release day, so I can wait for reviews.
Yes I played this about a year ago while it was in its Early Access release.
At the time it seemed like it had potential, but there were a lot of rough edges - animations missing, incomplete tutorials, a few placeholder skills on characters.
Seems like the last year has added quite a bit of polish to it, so now you do have a pretty decent looking fantasy XCOM like. The big thing about this game is that you're using physics for a lot of interactions. You can use a kick/grappling hook to push/pull enemies, you can make fire that will spread along certain tiles, and some telekinesis to move/topple taller objects. Some of the physics interactions require a bit of getting used to, since you're on a square-grid system and that means some objects will snap to a cardinal direction when interacted with.
The game also has a pretty decent sense of humour, and the colourful art style is pretty well done and scales nicely on my micro-laptop.
I haven't played a huge amount of it (had to restart for the full launch), so I'm not sure how the overworld stuff works yet. It seems to have some promise though, so I'd recommend checking it out if XCOM but Fantasy Humour is in your wheelhouse.
After career choices force them along separate paths, a Teacher and Architect vow to make their long-distance relationship work at any cost. Experience both sides of their story as the couple navigates the complexities of (mis)communication and the emotional ups and downs that separation brings. By flipping, folding, and unfolding the paper puzzles in their handcrafted worlds, you can help the couple overcome the emotional barriers of their relationship — but will love endure...?
20200417 - A Fold Apart (Narrative, Humour, Romance, Puzzle)
I just downloaded total war: warhammer 2 for the free weekend and I'm watching some videos, but all I can say is I'm way over my head here.
That is pretty normal, it's not an easy game to just jump into. That being said, some factions are easier than others. I would generally suggest Kroq-gar for the Lizardmen or Tyrion for the High Elves as good starting campaigns. Kroq-gar can get Saurus Warriors pretty cheap, and they make up the bulk of your lizardmen forces for a lot of the game. They also completely dumpster most of the nearby faction's early game units. Also you can put Kroq-gar on a t-rex (named grymloq, transformer fans). Tyrion has one of the absolute safest and easiest positions in the game, and high elves have a lot of units but they aren't too complex to play. Spearman form your core, archers shoot over them, and you can eventually get Lothern Seaguard which do both at the same time. You have a bunch of other units you can get fancy with, but your core for a long time will likely be Spearmen and Archers. Tyrion can also become a complete one-man army.
Other suggestions I will make:
DO NOT FORM DEFENSIVE OR MILITARY ALLIANCES. DO NOT. It can beneficial on rare occasions, but it's absolutely much safer to just not do it until you have more of a handle on things. If you do it, odds are your allies are gonna drag you into a lot of conflicts and then frequently do jack and shit to help.
Make sure to try and establish trade. It can be good reliable income. If you don't do it with anyone else, the Tomb Kings will almost always like you if you're doing well in the campaign (they respect power).
Do not trust Greenskins or Beastmen diplomatically. They are not rational actors.
Watch out for corruption! Chaos races, vampires, and skaven all spread corruption which can cause your public order to drop (potentially inciting rebellions) and chaos/vampiric corruption will cause other armies to take damage if it gets high enough. You can build structures to fight off corruption, but it's generally easier to fight the disease than treat the symptoms.
Skaven settlements appear to be ruins until you reveal them and Skaven can ambush you when they attack you. This makes fighting skaven very dangerous, so tread carefully and try and make sure you don't leave your armies outside settlements if you can help it when you're at war with the skaven and they're nearby.
Probably some others I can think of, but that's it for the moment.
Depends on the army really, but especially early on you do want growth. Growth is good because it helps you tech up to higher tier units, which while more expensive are frequently well worth the price. Public Order is not paramount unless you're having a lot of issues with it, and even then a rebellion or two won't hurt if you have your army nearby (free experience!). Additionally, it's generally easier to have certain provinces dedicated to building units, others more for economy, etc, depending on what resources or landmarks are available in a location. Like if a place has a gold mine? You generally want that for the income.
As far as higher tier units go, some of the veterans for the game can help you figure out what might be good options to aim for depending on what race you are playing.
Edit: Oh, and as for how many armies you want, I would generally suggest one large on early on. Each new army increases the overall upkeep of your others, so until you've got a more booming economy it can be hard to support another army. I would say you generally want in the area of 2000 or so gold a turn or better if you can get it. It's not a hard rule (and depending on race that's quite easy to do better after the early game), but that should help you determine if a new army is worth it.
Oh, I forgot one other nice tip for new players to Total War: Warhammer 2. Grab the free DLC! There's quite a few free lords, including Repanse who adds Brettonia from Game 1 onto the Game 2 map. Some might not make good starting campaigns mind, but still, free! Gor-Rok for the Lizardmen is also pretty simple to use, though his position is a bit more precarious (he kind of starts in the dead middle of a continent, with a lot of nearby enemies) but he also starts with Lord Kroak, an undead frog wizard that is absurdly powerful. Kroak's Deliverance of Itza spell will be able to nuke masses of infantry, and can't even hurt your own units so it's super easy to get value from. Gor-Rok himself is just a brick that can take a lot of punishment. Lohkir Felheart is also probably the simplest Dark Elf campaign I find.
Plus bonus opinions on the Various DLC since they are back on sale.
With the free Total Warhammer 2 weekend ongoing and a bunch of sales on it’s DLC, I hope people don’t mind if I repost my recommendations on DLC for it.
In case any of the Total Warhammer 2 DLC goes on sale again when they have the free week coming up, this is kind of my tier list of DLC.
1) Rise of the Tomb Kings. Tomb Kings are one of the most unique factions in the game and have a bunch of really cool construct units like a giant scorpion statue or a giant statue of a man with laser eyes. In the campaign their units don't cost upkeep or money to recruit (they're reclaiming them), so instead it just costs money to build (unearth) the buildings to produce them and they have caps on how many they can get based off how many recruitment structures they have. All four of their legendary lords are pretty rad in their own right, too.
2) Curse of the Vampire Coast. The Vampire Coast is a really cool faction thematically, as Karoz mentions you have an undead pirate crew armed with all sorts of fun gunpowder weapons as well as giant zombie crabs, giant golems made from ship hulls with cannon arms, zombie snipers as heroes, etc. Campaign-wise they can eschew holding land to instead go around being pirates, or can decide to take and hold ground. Or just do both, whichever you feel like. I will say their legendary lords aren't quite as rad as Tomb Kings. Luthor Harkon is pretty awesome and becomes a fucking total unit once you have him upgraded and Noctilus has one of the coolest campaign positions in addition to being a fantastic spell caster and a very tanky bastard (and he can ride one of those golems I mentioned), but I'm not as much of a fan of the other two lords. Cylostra is neat, pretty potent spellcaster with some unique abilities and a unique hero, but her starting position kind of blows. Aranessa has a cool starting position (though not as rad as Noctilus), but is a living person so she doesn't get vampiric regeneration, or necromancy, or even a cool mount like the others. Thematically this is my favorite DLC, but I think it's a weaker overall package than the Tomb Kings.
3) The Prophet and the Warlock. Ikit Claw is a fucking radical mad scientist ratman with power armor and a flamethrower that can build nuclear armaments to utilize against the fucking renaissance era enemies you're fighting. Also he comes with gattling guns, snipers, and motorcycles. Tehenhauin is a much weaker package, but is still pretty rad (and they've done some buffing for him) but that's kind of a common theme with the lord packs, so I think this is still the best. Tehenhaiun is also kind of a challenge campaign where as Ikit just kind of crushes the competition. Also he does come with triceratops that can call down orbital lasers.
4) The Hunter and the Beast. Despite being a lord pack, this adds the Empire for the first game to the second, and also completely changes their campaign gameplay. Wulfhart has a real fun campaign where you recruit a fucking D&D party to help the empire's fledgling colony survive, and has some fairly unique mechanics in terms of recruitment. Nakai is a horde faction for Lizardmen, but once again his campaign needed a bit more time in the oven. It's not bad, but it's very simplistic. You do get a giant fuck off crocodile and a bunch of crocodile men though, so once again, kind of rad.
5) The Queen and the Crone. Alarielle is a strong addition, she is a powerful support spellcaster and offers a unique start position on Ulthuan that's a bit more challenging than Tyrion's. She has to try and keep Ulthuan free of non-elves and is weakened by corruption, being the incarnation of the elven nature goddess. She also gets access to the Wood Elves' treemen units, which are very fun, and she brings some very strong archers to the High Elves. Hellebron is the loser for this lord pack. She starts very close to Malekith, and while she has a unique mechanic there's no interesting choices you make with it, so it kind of becomes more of a tax. She does bring some nice units like sisters of slaughter, as well as the unique Doomfire Warlocks (cavalry with some spellcasting), and in combat she's very cool since she's an absolute blender that you can put on a manticore. It's just her campaign doesn't bring much to the table compared to just playing Malekith. Both these lords do suffer a bit in that they also released free lords that are quite competitive with them. You can get Alith Anar free for the high elves and he has a drastically unique and interesting campaign (he can ambush when attacking like Skaven and gets unique assassination missions), and for the Dark Elves Lohkir Felheart is free and he at least has a unique starting position and a mechanic that actually matters (When he takes a major port, he gets to recruit a Black Ark, sort of a floating pirate city that Dark Elves use to support their armies abroad).
6) The Shadow and the Blade: This DLC may honestly go higher on the list depending on what races you prefer. The Skaven side is once again amazing. You get Snikch, a badass ninja rat, a new type of spellcasting, and some fun new weapon teams, and Master Assassin Lords who are very cool. His campaign is also very unique, having a fun mechanic where you can dispatch Eshin characters on assignments for special effects and extra levels. The units of other skaven clans you can recruit are limited so at first so you need to make due with Eshin's ninja bullshit (which is much buffed under Snikch). This creates a very different playstyle than other Skaven, which is quite refreshing. On the other side, Malus has some unique mechanics (you start with two holdings, but can abandon one for buffs), but his main campaign mechanic is a bit half-baked and mainly serves to prevent you from using his big cool feature, being able to go super saiyan and become possessed by a demon. He does get some fairly rad new units, like Beastmasters and Gorgons, but overall I'm kind of waiting for them to make some changes to make his campaign more interesting. As is it feels deathly afraid of letting me use his cool bullshit.
Oh, also buying the first game sort of acts like a DLC for 2? Unlocks a new sandbox campaign mode with a gigantic map where you can use all the factions from both games. Some people prefer this mode, though personally I like the second game's more compact map.
Edit: Wrote this very quickly before work, so I went back and made some edits and added a bit in.
No trying to be specists here but aren't titties a mammals specific thing?
not if you're unimaginative enough
+1
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Who says they aren't mammals themselves? They look similar to earth snakes, but that doesn't really mean anything.
Alternately, who says that alien life follows the same kingdom structure as life on earth? Especially when we're talking life from a number of different planets.
No trying to be specists here but aren't titties a mammals specific thing?
Insofar as the root of the word refers to the organ in question, sure.
On the other hand, I was surprised to learn that certain species of snakes are viviparous. Who's to say that as the biological cost of rearing individual young increased, that selective pressure wouldn't favor that kind of maternal support system? It wouldn't be the first time Nature threw in a convergent evolution that screwed with our nice clean taxonomical charts.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
+4
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BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
i don't understand why rage faces made a comeback in 2020
zoomers dragged it back up because I guess they didn't see them 10 years ago. But they're also kind of totally fucked so fair enough if that's what they want.
I'm kind of disappointed that X Com's timeline is moving even more sci-fi because the less grounded it gets the less it appeals to me. I hope that they don't skip Terror From The Deep entirely because that could be a nice change of pace.
Posts
I just hope it's good, thankfully the discount doesn't end on release day, so I can wait for reviews.
EVERYBODY WANTS TO SIT IN THE BIG CHAIR, MEG!
New variations I think. The whole zoomer vs boomer meme can actually be funny tbh
So!
Yes I played this about a year ago while it was in its Early Access release.
At the time it seemed like it had potential, but there were a lot of rough edges - animations missing, incomplete tutorials, a few placeholder skills on characters.
Seems like the last year has added quite a bit of polish to it, so now you do have a pretty decent looking fantasy XCOM like. The big thing about this game is that you're using physics for a lot of interactions. You can use a kick/grappling hook to push/pull enemies, you can make fire that will spread along certain tiles, and some telekinesis to move/topple taller objects. Some of the physics interactions require a bit of getting used to, since you're on a square-grid system and that means some objects will snap to a cardinal direction when interacted with.
The game also has a pretty decent sense of humour, and the colourful art style is pretty well done and scales nicely on my micro-laptop.
I haven't played a huge amount of it (had to restart for the full launch), so I'm not sure how the overworld stuff works yet. It seems to have some promise though, so I'd recommend checking it out if XCOM but Fantasy Humour is in your wheelhouse.
20200417 - A Fold Apart (Narrative, Humour, Romance, Puzzle)
What is this trash character design??
@Elaro, @Iblis has been throwing out Total Warhammer 2 new player wisdom in the G&T thread (starting here).
Plus bonus opinions on the Various DLC since they are back on sale.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
(Berserkers are also canonically female)
Also we have a Total War thread! Drop on by!
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
not if you're unimaginative enough
Alternately, who says that alien life follows the same kingdom structure as life on earth? Especially when we're talking life from a number of different planets.
Insofar as the root of the word refers to the organ in question, sure.
On the other hand, I was surprised to learn that certain species of snakes are viviparous. Who's to say that as the biological cost of rearing individual young increased, that selective pressure wouldn't favor that kind of maternal support system? It wouldn't be the first time Nature threw in a convergent evolution that screwed with our nice clean taxonomical charts.
eh when you're dealing with weird alien-modified hybrids, who cares really
They're actually venom sacs.
mission log: paving paradise, putting up parking lots
All Warhammer knowledge essentially boils down to:
Skaven are greatest-best! Yes-yes.
I could swear there's a fish that shoots insects out of the air with water bullets
There is
It's the DouglasDanger archer fish!
I understand that Overcooked is mainly a co-op game, but is it any good single player?
It's not great in single player, the AI chef does okay, but the game is very much about communicating with other people.
4 player is a blast though, it's a fun chaotic time
That makes sense. Does it also have AI chefs if you've got 2 or 3 players or does it have a proper 2 player mode?
oh god yeah
Yeah how are you supposed to scream at bots?
No it works fine with fewer players, they just reduce the score thresholds.