StrixNebulosa posted:

Age of Mythology: completed the tutorial campaign and first mission of the Atlantis campaign and hmm based on how our hero is leaving his son home at Atlantis while they're losing Poseidon's favor, I think I smell a tragedy in the making.

Chadzok posted:

It's a very vibes-bases thing, but the asymmetry, distinctiveness and personality of the factions gives you echoes of SMAC's factions and leaders (I feel like it's a natural evolution from SMAC to make the factions play so radically different).

They both emphasise the plotline in gameplay ways that make them satisfying once-off single player experiences as well as being repeatable (the factions in Endless Legend almost demand at least one playthrough each). They both share that sense of a growing, seemingly inevitable ecological catastrophe.

Auriga is totes drawing on Planet as well, both games are well in front of any other 4X I've played in having the environment almost (I mean literally in SMAC) be a character in the game/plot.

Research/technologies also felt like they were taking the example that SMAC laid out, using them as a place to inject lore, personality, drama into the game. Both really capture an epochal, evolving science fiction, new insights laying the grounds for insane later technologies that seem internally coherent and logically consistent, and fuckin cool.

They also share poo poo redundant unit customisation and combat systems that really need to be rethought.

I'll take other thoughts but I think it's pretty clear to people who played and loved both that there is a strong link there.

Chadzok posted:

hopefully the street cred gets even more subscribers to my newsletter. I also played every DLC thoroughly and all the ones that add factions, if you're playing for primarily that one playthrough for lore reasons and not multiplayer or whatever, are at least as good quality as the base game and a few are better. An extremely, extremely creative team that has taken two dramatic missteps into Endless Space 2 and Humankind but I'll forgive them knowing that the practice will help make the eventual Endless Legend 2 loving top notch.

But please, someone tell them to add a simplified, abstracted combat system or something cool. like a quick Into the Breach-esque or chess type matchup. be creative. bring something new to civ-style 4x, make combat a compelling mini game in its own right. but keep it brief, like a HoMaM battle length.

Now don't get me started on Dungeon of the Endless - not the new one. Not the new one, with the infuriating country versions of the OG's incredible chiptune ambient horror masterpiece soundtrack. The pixel art, stripped down, viciously hard and mechanically fascinating original.

StrixNebulosa posted:

Also:

Age of Mythology: completed the tutorial campaign and first mission of the Atlantis campaign and hmm based on how our hero is leaving his son home at Atlantis while they're losing Poseidon's favor, I think I smell a tragedy in the making.

Mordja posted:

Wish they'd just make an Endless RTS, then I'd be interested.

Automata 10 Pack posted:

bought played balatro all morning and I might be done with it, stumbled into a really killer deck build and got to the final “boss” and now it feels like the runs are strictly about luck and grinding for the joker cards that’ll get you past the “wall”

Volte posted:

My Balatro runs usually either die in the first ante because I get incredibly unlucky trying to grind out straights or flushes after skipping the first two blinds, or on the 8th ante boss because I made a late-stage blunder trying to swap out jokers for scaling. My number one piece of advice is to never pass on tarot cards, if you can destroy or replace cards to make one or two suits dominate, there are a lot of ways to exploit that, and steel cards are good to have on hand too.

Volte posted:

My Balatro runs usually either die in the first ante because I get incredibly unlucky trying to grind out straights or flushes after skipping the first two blinds, or on the 8th ante boss because I made a late-stage blunder trying to swap out jokers for scaling. My number one piece of advice is to never pass on tarot cards, if you can destroy or replace cards to make one or two suits dominate, there are a lot of ways to exploit that, and steel cards are good to have on hand too.

Jack Trades posted:

I have some news for you.

ninjoatse.cx posted:

There is a ton of DLC for this thing. Any that come highly recommended for someone who rarely multi plays

RBA Starblade posted:

Balatro is the only good deckbuilder

kazil posted:

When are they going to make a game about being a dad and building a deck for your house?

kazil posted:

When are they going to make a game about being a dad and building a deck for your house?

Hwurmp posted:

Cobalt Core

Chadzok posted:

So the good ones for additional lore-expanding playthroughs are the ones that add new factions. Basically they will add a new faction/race that generally have quite unique sci-fi aesthetic and their own storyline that explain the whole deal and usually some core internal struggle that is the basis of a choose-your-own adventure plot, plus layering on some additional significant world mechanic that all the other existing factions also interact with. In general the new faction is a specialist in this mechanic and is what gives them their asymmetry and a lot of their flavour).

Shifters is probably the best of these, adding moth-people who are the only true natives of Auriga and significantly enhances the winter mechanic, adding a collectable resource as well as making winter feel more like doom for everyone except the mighty moths.
Tempest is also pretty essential, turning the essentially static oceans from the base game into an entire field of play with weather systems, broken up into territories like the land and given key loci of control. A sea-based "escaped from the lab" mutant sea monsters faction provide all the lore accompanying and are super unique to play as.
Inferno and Symbiosis were made by an external team that extremely grokked what made the game and the DLC great and are modelled on the two above DLC, Inferno adding terraforming cute little lava dudes (paired with randomly occuring worldwide Dust Conflux events that are a pretty interesting addition and work well in the existing lore) and Symbiosis adding mushroom people that have a special relationship with new wandering titan creatures that all the factions have to deal with. They are both Cool In My Opinion.
Shadows adds Fremenish shadow people and an extremely in-depth espionage system to all factions that the Forgotten are specialists in. This is my least favourite just because I thought the Forgoteen were a bit less well realised/unique aesthetic.

Lost Tales and Echoes of Auriga are both cheap and add more little questy lorey plotlines and more music respectively and I reckon are a good shout if you're going to try immersing yourself absorbing all the great sci-fi the game has to offer. Monstrous Tales is by the aforementioned external team but is modeled on Lost Tales, it looks like, and is the only one I don't have much experience with because I'd finished all my lore playthroughs by then, but I feel like it's probably going to be a good addition.

Adding all these DLC and turning them all on at once is pretty dramatic in how it expands the base game, there's a million different directions to go in with every faction and there is always interesting poo poo happening. Probably just layer them on one by one otherwise you'll be way too loving confused about what paths of the game you should be pushing your particular faction down.

err posted:

I tried searching for this but, does the C&C Collection open up the EA App to play it? Or is only launched through Steam?

Megazver posted:

This is a solid write-up; I agree with all of it.

I personally feel all of the DLCs are decent enough to keep turned on (cough unlike Endless Space 2 cough).

ninjoatse.cx posted:

There is a ton of DLC for this thing. Any that come highly recommended for someone who rarely multi plays

ShadowMar posted:

just like breath of the wild and elden ring which also released alongside a horizon game, dragon's dogma 2 is going to be the game of the year

Countblanc posted:

board gamers cashed in this joke a decade ago

John Lee posted:

Triarii posted:

I tried to get into Dragon's Dogma three times but I never made it further than a few hours in, so I don't know what to think about the sequel.

ShadowMar posted:

i own dragons dogma on literally all of my systems it came out on