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Thank gently caress for an actual Matrix sale - I finally felt justified in throwing my idiot self down this rabbit hole, and bought War in the Pacific and CMANO since they seem to be thread darlings. THANKS, NERDS! I have...very little idea what I'm doing, but hey. Sounds fun. I've at least played things like Dominions 3 and love Distant Worlds, so that's...a starting point, I guess. Squiggle fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Nov 27, 2016 |
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Nov 27, 2016 05:52
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Happy Hedonist posted:Barents Sea Boomers, the 4th scenario in Northern Inferno, is super fun after having just finished Blind Man's Bluff (which is a fantastic book). I'm really impressed with NI, it's good. I wish I would have bought it sooner because it's a great intro to CMANO. Oh that's good to hear, I bought it but hadn't started yet. I should've started with NI! I struggled in the beginning, but before I found Baloogan's videos I started watching the SquattingFrog "Under African Skies" lets-play, downloaded the scenario, and played along. It's finally coming together, and that scenario especially is outstanding and was a hell of a (complex) intro to the game. I noticed it wasn't part of the Community Pack, so I figure there must be other missions buried away in the Matrix forums that are worth something. Are there any specific missions I should be looking at? Squiggle fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Dec 21, 2016 |
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Dec 21, 2016 17:33
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Dark_Swordmaster posted:Also the campaigns are 20% off, $24-$28 a piece. I could buy...one...or two. Any suggestions on which are the best bang for the buck? Edit: Oh my god I've very easily slipped from "well if I'm spending $50 on 2 I may as well spend $103 on 5" This is how this works, isn't it Squiggle fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 15, 2017 19:41
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Happy Hedonist posted:My recommendation is to buy whatever interests you the most. Bastogne and Ride of the Valkyries are a good place to start if you're interested in the Ardennes offensive. Cool, I wasn't sure if it was like Panzer Corps where some DLC packs seem to be up to a higher standard than others. gently caress it, bought the bundle. It's 70+ missions, so if that's not enough then I don't know what my sickness is.
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Feb 15, 2017 20:03
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I'm sure this isn't news to the thread in general, but just in case someone - like me - has a budding interest in playing some hex-based wargames but are afraid to spend those sweet dollars, I somehow JUST found out about Open General. People have continued and expanded development on Panzer General II, modernizing its options and adding a bunch of custom content and new campaigns. There are content packs for World War 1, Korea, and a 1950s B-movie sci-fi type thing where you fight giant ants and moon-Nazis. As with, I assume, most crazy fanboy labors of love, it's still getting big updates. I had been going back and forth on buying into Panzer Corps, but this scratches the small-scale scenario itch and from what I recall PG2 is highly regarded so I assume it is for good reason! Searching the thread, it looks like it's only ever come up twice in fours years, so...sorry if this is like "guys have you heard of this thing, Counter-Strike?" But I don't see "free" come up in grognard games very often. Between CMANO, Command Ops 2, and this, I should be set for a while. ...and Ultimate General and DC:Barbarossa and Strategic Command WWII and WitP and ... Edit: Unrelated, but the one major mention in the thread is right next to the release of CMANO, when Baloogan was first singing its praises and convincing people to buy it, it's very cute. Also right around there: mass-bitching about Matrix's refusal to list anything on Steam. Count me among the people who wouldn't have TOUCHED this poo poo if not for Steam. Squiggle fucked around with this message at 10:05 on Feb 25, 2017 |
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Feb 24, 2017 18:26
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Hey Baloogan y'all should get the patch notes for updates posted to Steam. Rooting through the Matrix forums blows.
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Mar 2, 2017 22:14
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Oh gently caress yeah, random Slitherine sale? I can finally get Flashpoint Campaigns! Steam is the best, eat your words Matrix motherfuckers I can't wait to not know how to play this one too
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Mar 10, 2017 16:42
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:Kind of interested into dipping a toe into one of these titles, but I never got huge into the large scale war games. Between their size, scope, and everything they had going on the UI, they always seemed so impenetrable. I've always been vaguely interested, but the price and the way they seemed to pander to an established audience was always a big turn off. Hello, friend! You're me, circa December! I bounced off several of the hex-based golden children of the genre - War in the Pacific and East - before I dropped hexes and got Command Modern Air Naval Operations and followed along with this excellent, EXCELLENT Lets Play series by SquattingFrog on Youtube. It's not the large scale war game, and controlling flights and ships and such is a lot different than moving tiles around a hex board, but it's the first groggy thing that stuck as actually fun and inspired me to try other things. For the hex-based stuff, could I recommend Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm and Decisive Campaigns: From Warsaw to Paris? Flashpoint Campaigns is zoomed in, focusing on areas of Germany during a hypothetical Cold War-Goes-Hot scenario in 1980-whatever. It's UI seems to be pretty reasonable and it has an interesting mechanic where orders are executed simultaneously but you issue NEW commands asynchronously, with how frequently you can change your units' orders determined by your army's organization. So Russian turns may be 30 seconds long, while the US gets to issue commands every 14 seconds. The better organized and supply situated gets more opportunity to adapt to their opponent's tactics. It's cool. I actually have DC Barbarossa but From Warsaw to Paris is apparently a better introduction as it's missing several complicating mechanics. People recommend it, and it's more a classic hex-and-tile based historical scenario. Barbarossa adds a Crusader Kings 2-type "choose your own adventure" reputation system with the generals and Fuhrer, which is cool, but the game is also mechanically solid and not so mindfucky as War in the East, which covers the same theater. Also, not related to the sale, but a very good/free place to step into the hex-base is the open-source evolution of late-90s game Panzer General II, Open General, which I said something about somewhere earlier: Squiggle posted:I'm sure this isn't news to the thread in general, but just in case someone - like me - has a budding interest in playing some hex-based wargames but are afraid to spend those sweet dollars, I somehow JUST found out about Open General. It took me a bit to figure out, but the content packs are different fan variants of the game and have different campaigns - all of them are complete and competent, and the "Blitz 2012" campaign is the PG2 campaign transferred over. It's cool, and lots of material online to learn about it. I admit, I don't know what I'm doing sometimes and it's complex and challenging, but I find these grog games weirdly rewarding. The detail in some of them is mind boggling, and it's fun to play with such detailed pieces of history. Squiggle fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Mar 11, 2017 |
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Mar 11, 2017 01:11
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thorsilver posted:Is CMANO fun even if I'm totally new to modern strategic warfare? I'm kinda into simulating plausible poo poo going down like North Korea going nuts or whatever, but I won't know what the gently caress I'm doing or what anything means. CMANO is the first groggy game that actually stuck for me, after watching the fantastic LP series on a really well made community scenario, Under African Skies. It taught me a lot about the game and paired with Baloogan's youtube videos made it easier to put to gether. It can be tough at first but you get the hang of it pretty quick. The depth is awesome.
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Mar 13, 2017 06:02
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Drone posted:Distant Worlds is so good Distant Worlds is my favorite 4X and it's amazing
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Mar 13, 2017 16:18
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Hav posted:I'm going by a lot of old memory here, but the layers matter rather than depth, per se. gently caress me I've been looking for a resource like that ASW article for ages, thanks.
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Mar 14, 2017 00:03
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Darkest Hour is $2.29 on GMG if you sign in, so since I've dramatically lowered my UI expectations with a few months of other grog games, I finally picked it up and NOW YOU CAN TOO, DEAR READER
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Mar 17, 2017 20:05
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I will get both Kaiserreich and Total Realism! I also heard good things New World Order 2, but god knows how these all differentiate (other than Kaiserreich, that's obvious)
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Mar 17, 2017 22:21
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Thank you thread for recommending the Kaiserreich mod for Darkest Hour. It crashes more than I'd like, but I chalk that up to running it in a jerry-rigged windowed setup. It is good fun and by far the best deal I've gotten out of something for $2.29.
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Mar 20, 2017 19:25
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Yooper posted:WarfareSims (CMANO people) ...this list checks out, honestly.
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Mar 21, 2017 15:33
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Looks like today is the day I learn what Graviteam Tactics is. gently caress yeah.
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Mar 21, 2017 17:22
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Drone posted:Link to these people? Oh! I just found this the other day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2DiDaQkO-0 Most of his video history is Combat Mission AAR videos, and they're all making really good side-monitor entertainment at work so far.
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Mar 21, 2017 18:27
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Which reminds me: is that Community Pack curated in some way beyond "post a link to your scenario here and I will include it?" I've admired the quality of the few I've played, but wasn't sure if I was just getting lucky or if there's some sort of quality control.
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Mar 27, 2017 22:05
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V for Vegas posted:The only reason I hadn't bought Strategic Command 3 was because of its terrible map graphics. Found it! Squiggle fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Apr 16, 2017 |
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Apr 16, 2017 05:24
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glynnenstein posted:More scenarios of varied type and complexity that have good pre-planned missions as examples. I think this was one of the best things for me to learn; I could sit down and see how a well-planned set of patrols is set up and mimic it. As things went right or wrong in my imitation I learned a lot about why they're set up a certain way. I agree! Learn by observing. The other method that's given me the most help was watching DrZaius' Lets Plays of things like Yankee Team, Under African Skies, etc. They're long, detailed, and informative, AND he's not REALLY that good so it feels closer to something I could pull off. In place of that steady narration, more "introductory" large-scale missions with more frequent event or suggestive pop-up notifications along the way could be helpful. Sort of a guided tour of how to manage larger operations? I do like the short-and-simple scenarios, but compared to something like Under African Skies it feels like an entirely different game. I guess what I'm thinking would be lower-difficulty but higher-complexity. I've also always secretly wished for a way to order the scenarios by their stated difficulty/complexity. --- Unrelated, but speaking of scenarios: how does the big-rear end community campaign Northern Fury? Is it comparable to Northern Inferno? I like the idea of a continuing narrative, versus detached one-off scenarios.
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May 11, 2017 18:45
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Yooper, are you building the Strike Commander missions for your LP yourself? I meant to ask in the thread, but here we are in this thread, so...
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May 11, 2017 18:52
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xthetenth posted:Maybe some tutorializing techniques from coding might be in order? Rather than a whole mission, give a mission where everything's planned but the SEAD, and put detail into that. Then one for the strike tasking. Then one for CAP management, and so on down the line. The adult military megadork version of the "connect the dots" pages where 80% of the picture is a painted gorgeous cartoon and you're supposed to draw the lovely stick-figure bunny in the middle. EDIT: I think it's a great idea, by the way.
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May 11, 2017 18:58
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Dimitris posted:1) You can turn music & sound effects on/off. Maybe it should be less hideously obnoxious by default instead of suggesting people dig through game files or disable all sound entirely? Don't be a dick. Dimitris posted:Now undoubtedly someone will say "well I want to click on a message in the past and center the map on the message event". But think: You click on a past takeoff message, the map centers there..... and the plane is long gone. Useful? Still, yes.
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May 12, 2017 16:58
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The first mission of Chains of War is a pretty great introduction to complex missions! Plenty of fancy stuff to play with, a manageable enemy, a few simple ground rules: stay outside the enemy ranges and use your superior range, try not to fly overland and anger the long range SAMs - Taurus' and SLAMRs and the Task Force's cruise missiles are your friends! It's real fun. This is the kind of ease-in mission I was talking about : not so simple that I don't feel like I accomplished something, but not so overwhelming either.
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May 25, 2017 06:57
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Speaking of Northern Inferno, I am Bad At Games and definitely have a harder time with the 70s era equipment, so I had a question about the 3rd mission - Fast and the Furious - because I excel at getting my poo poo sunk by Hinds and missile boats. I had an idea while at work: Since you have a handful of weak-rear end, Penguin-less torpedo boats with poo poo for range, are they most useful as a radar-loud, distracting screen to draw out Vampires from the flotilla of missile boats? Leaving them, ideally, vulnerable to the hunter group and other MTBs' guided missiles? My first attempt at a direct confrontation got my frigates sunk almost immediately, and the Soviets were able to out-range my Penguins and sink some of the MTBs before I sunk the missile boats. I'd lost half of my poo poo and didn't have any weapons beyond heavy guns by the time the amphibious group came into range. Edit: I like these NI scenarios...standoff missiles and other godlike modern tech makes it easier to flub through, so this 70s-era stuff forces you to learn how to read and use the assets you have. Less room for error, I think? Maybe? Squiggle fucked around with this message at 19:47 on May 26, 2017 |
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May 26, 2017 19:28
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Dimitris posted:Here's how another guy managed it: https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/19562197/ These are exactly what I was looking for! I tried the Matrix forums, but they're pretty all-over in terms of quality. Thanks buddy.
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May 26, 2017 20:12
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Baloogan posted:I think that WITE is just set in a supremely ugly piece of topography (imo), can't really do much to make a big piece of land look appealing without making it 3d or something. I've played Mius Front, it doesn't help.
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Jul 25, 2017 19:57
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Sigh, if I were thinking of getting one of the Combat Mission games with the engine upgrades, what's my pick? Battles for Normandy? Fortress Italy? Red Thunder? If I'm upgrading engine anyway, does it even matter beyond units and nations? BFN seems to have more expansion content, but I like beating up on weak fools so maybe Fortress Italy is the way to go. Or, I can just stick with Graviteam Tactics Mius Front. Also an option. I just miss the old CM games, but wanted the updated engine. Squiggle fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Jul 25, 2017 |
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Jul 25, 2017 20:41
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Oh, fascinating. I know WW2 better than the modern era, and I guess I think of CM as a WW2 engine, but...I'm intrigued. Out of curiosity, can you pin down what makes it so much better in your mind? edit: Watching a LP, I like this - gameplay seems similar, but the modern setting is kind of cool. I suppose I have WW2 covered by Graviteam....nice. Squiggle fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Jul 25, 2017 |
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Jul 25, 2017 21:32
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Kenzie posted:Regarding their WW2 games: Awesome, this is exactly what I was hoping for and kind of expected. So as long as the engine is up to date, I'm not missing out on much (that mods can't fix) going Normandy over Blitzkrieg? I do like the winter look, but its hard to deny the comparative value. The main thing that kept me from pulling the trigger on FB was that I already have Command Ops 2 for my Bulge-Battling needs. If that's the only real difference, Normandy it is. Kenzie posted:You can also just do what the other guy said and get Black Sea. I did May as well cover my modern era and WW2 bases.
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Jul 27, 2017 23:54
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Kenzie posted:CMFB has some new tanks and vehicles and unit types and whatnot (like volksgrenadiers I think), but yeah I don't think you will be missing all that much. I think CMBN even has winter texture mods. Rather than paying $60 for two single-player campaigns and a bunch of standalone scenarios in FB or Red Thunder or whatever, the Normandy bundle gives you like triple that with 6 or 7 campaigns (some of them really long, with like 14-16 missions in one campaign), plus all the scenarios and user-made stuff. So it does seem like the best value to me. That's what I've done! I just got the BN big pack, and spent two hours downloading Aris vehicle skin mods and getting angry at how ugly all horizons are AND how hard they are to edit without breaking them entirely. Getting the full Battlefront experience. On the plus, they apparently allow unlimited downloads now.
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Jul 28, 2017 16:20
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Drone posted:Baloogan is a cool poster in this thread and a good grog goon but drat if his gimmick isn't unfunny as gently caress when he's in shitpost mode. Yyyeeeah... I like CMANO, though, so
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Jul 28, 2017 17:50
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Yvonmukluk posted:Yeah, they've put out a call for new tutorials, and they've already got a few for strike missions as well as one for air to air. Link that poo poo
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Aug 5, 2017 20:24
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I bought Black Sea and Battle for Normandy, had a great run through the Basic and Advanced tutorials that follow along with the manual, and then promptly sit on my dick every single time I try any of the other campaigns or missions. Been watching and re-watching the Armchair General tutorial videos, which are outstanding, but I only seem to be slightly good enough to not get my tanks shot to poo poo every five seconds. I really really like them, but I always wind up muddling my approach and getting my squads murdered and then I exit and try again 10 minutes later.
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Aug 5, 2017 21:14
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Kenzie posted:If you want more tutorials and whatnot try this site here: http://battledrill.blogspot.com/ Holy poo poo yes this is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. Thanks!
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Aug 6, 2017 18:14
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Gewehr 43 posted:I am the worst Combat Mission commander. I was assaulting a hill as the Soviets and the first squad I sent up the hill got cut to ribbons by a minefield laid out in front of the German positions. I kinda accidentally forgot about the minefield and sent in the next squad... four times. This sounds extremely Soviet to me
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Aug 9, 2017 22:55
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Speaking of sales, Bundle Stars has their summer sale starting and there looks like some Slitherine stuff including CMANOOOOO
Squiggle fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 06:29
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The bagel I had this morning for $4.70 was "okay" and I'm happy with that, so
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Aug 16, 2017 01:05
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I play/let Qvadriga run at work on a side screen and pretend I'm booking the horses
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Aug 17, 2017 17:07
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I had the most fun with Distant Worlds doing a fully-manual run to start with, following along with this excellent if not goofily written newbie's guide. I think one of the greatest things about Distant Worlds is the private sector vs public sector - you can design freighters and such, but the NPC citizens buy them and shuttle goods around for you, keeping the empire running via resource movement, and you're in charge of the big government-run and military stuff. It's also big and grognardy and complex, so that goes over well with some people too. I genuinely love it, but I should say I've only ever finished a single game. It's thick. And as far as the bad art goes, DW Extended Universe replaces all of the lovely race art with pictures culled from other sources, and adds a ton of new races with race art of their own, and generally just does....exactly what it says: extends the game.
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Aug 21, 2017 00:33
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