Strategy & Wargames - middlebrow autodidact "history buffs" who yearn to pull levers

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Strategy & Wargames - middlebrow autodidact "history buffs" who yearn to pull levers

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gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Am I gonna have to learn to play Dwarf Fortress. That all sounds really neat.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 02:43

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# ? May 17, 2024 15:05

BadOptics: Sep 11, 2012

Fuligin posted:

Want the Regiments dlc to drop already so i can do endless custom operations >:[

Same. I was using Flashpoint Campaigns: Southern Storm to kind of keep me satiated with Cold War stuff, but the game is just too opaque with some mechanics and has weird/annoying bugs. I understand enough that I can actually play it pretty well and overall enjoy it, but the moments where my units do dumb stuff (e.g. mech infantry dismounting way before their assigned waypoint even though I have the SOP set for 1 hex out) kills my motivation.

I also need to get through all the Unity of Command II DLC I've accumulated but never actually played. I've just started the Barbarossa DLC and the scenarios are a lot bigger from the base game + Blitzkrieg from what I've seen on Let's Plays.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 03:09

Impermanent: Apr 1, 2010

dwarf fortress is one of those games where you assume that it's overhyped because of how mysterious and meme-y it is, but it turns out it is actually is just that good. never been easier to start with the much-improved interface and graphical enhancements of the steam version being available now.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 03:25

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Playing UoC2 victory in the west and reflecting on how once they've actually dropped, it's pretty attractive to load up your paratroopers with engineers and artillery since they tend to be your most veteran troops and veterancy is useful for set piece assaults

# ? Apr 29, 2024 03:30

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

Frosted Flake getting called out in a random lecture posted on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi_MpZxLPFM&t=1767s

Academic publishing is truly the greatest forms of posting.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 03:42

Mister Bates: Aug 4, 2010

one of my favorite fun weird little things about Dwarf Fortress is that people can write books advocating a certain belief - arguing in favor of pacifism (or that war is a good and glorious thing), for example - and that book spreading around through a civ has a chance to actually alter that civ's values in that direction

this mostly happens in initial world generation and the player has nothing to do with it - but, the world simulation does not stop after the world is generated, which means it is entirely possible to generate an 'adventurer' political ideologue who writes tracts advocating a radical philosophy, disseminates copies of them everywhere, and slowly shifts a civilization's beliefs by doing so. it's extremely difficult to actually do, and will take a very long time, because a single individual can't make that kind of impact easily, but you can do it, it is technically possible within the game's systems

much easier, but less impactful, is to write songs or poems, perform them a bunch in public so other people start picking them up, and then watch knowledge of that song spread around the world, so eventually you're playing a fort game in the same world 20 years later and the band in the tavern is singing the song your adventurer wrote

# ? Apr 29, 2024 03:45

sullat: Jan 9, 2012

I taught my 10 year old to play dwarf fortress so I think you guys can handle it.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 05:12

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

BadOptics posted:

Same. I was using Flashpoint Campaigns: Southern Storm to kind of keep me satiated with Cold War stuff, but the game is just too opaque with some mechanics and has weird/annoying bugs. I understand enough that I can actually play it pretty well and overall enjoy it, but the moments where my units do dumb stuff (e.g. mech infantry dismounting way before their assigned waypoint even though I have the SOP set for 1 hex out) kills my motivation.

I also need to get through all the Unity of Command II DLC I've accumulated but never actually played. I've just started the Barbarossa DLC and the scenarios are a lot bigger from the base game + Blitzkrieg from what I've seen on Let's Plays.

The eastern front dlcs do a great job of driving home how utterly different the scale and logistics were compared to the western campaigns. Barbarossa is just a slow sinking feeling as you get overwhelmed by more and more unnachievable objectives. The Stalingrad scenarios start out manageable and by the end you're trying to batter down entrenched infantry in urban terrain with wittled panzers at the end of a ludicrously elongated supply tether

# ? Apr 29, 2024 05:14

FirstnameLastname: Jul 10, 2022

gradenko_2000 posted:

Am I gonna have to learn to play Dwarf Fortress. That all sounds really neat.

industrial irrigation megaprojects

# ? Apr 29, 2024 05:31

BearsBearsBears: Aug 4, 2022

Mister Bates posted:

one of my favorite fun weird little things about Dwarf Fortress is that people can write books advocating a certain belief - arguing in favor of pacifism (or that war is a good and glorious thing), for example - and that book spreading around through a civ has a chance to actually alter that civ's values in that direction

this mostly happens in initial world generation and the player has nothing to do with it - but, the world simulation does not stop after the world is generated, which means it is entirely possible to generate an 'adventurer' political ideologue who writes tracts advocating a radical philosophy, disseminates copies of them everywhere, and slowly shifts a civilization's beliefs by doing so. it's extremely difficult to actually do, and will take a very long time, because a single individual can't make that kind of impact easily, but you can do it, it is technically possible within the game's systems

Some generated characters have higher ideas of themselves than others.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 05:34

Mister Bates: Aug 4, 2010

my favorite Dwarf Fortress book story is the time I decided to build a massive academy-fortress with a grand library and as many dwarves as possible assigned to scholarly pursuits, importing every book I could buy, sending out expeditions to find books in abandoned sites and bring them back, all in pursuit of becoming the greatest repository of knowledge in the known world

anyway, after a few years of this, a were-hyena shows up on a rampage and attacks the fortress. the were-hyena is carrying a book in one hand. it is the were-beast's own autobiography. the prose is very good.

it charges a couple of the fisher-dwarves before the militia can organize and beats them to death with its own autobiography.

the militia commander had been studying in the library, reading a textbook about geography, if I remember correctly. for some reason when they were called to arms she did not drop this book, and still carried it in one hand, shield in the other, as she led the fortress's defenders into battle. she was always the fastest, and she reached the beast first. she swung her book. the beast dodged and struck her with his book. there was now a book fight. each of them ended up bruised and exhausted by the book duel. sooner or later the rest of the militia decided to get involved and beat it to death with warhammers. somehow the militia commander was unharmed except for some book bruises.

we promptly put scribes to work copying the were-beast's autobiography and I made sure to export a copy on every caravan from that point forward.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 06:02

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

Lostconfused posted:

Frosted Flake getting called out in a random lecture posted on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi_MpZxLPFM&t=1767s

Academic publishing is truly the greatest forms of posting.

What's calling him out in this?

# ? Apr 29, 2024 06:41

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

code:

https://twitter.com/KKriegeBlog/status/1784400422179860864

quote:

Ok. Manor Lords review time. In short, I LOVED IT. But, maybe not for the reasons you might initially think. A review 🧵on the indie peasant sim/city builder that took the internet by storm. It's been compared to Total War, but is something else.

So, I'm currently 13 hours in, and I think I have enough of a feel for it to give you my impressions. I'm not reviewing this as a gamer first, but as a history professor who has read, written, and thought about peasants in German History in the period just after this one.

Although I write and teach (mostly) about the United States now, I wrote my dissertation on peasant soldiers in the eighteenth-century, and had to read extensively on European peasants from the late middle ages to 1800s for my PhD comprehensive exams.

I write about this peasants who fought in the Prussian army in my professional life, but their world overlaps with my hobbies, too: recreating their villages for tabletop wargames and as a volunteer at historic sites.

First of all, the game absolutely nails the art design/visuals of medieval and early modern village life. Below are four of my favorite images of village life, (very late from 1800) by Johann Friedrich Hennig, drawn outside Berlin. Again, later, so clothes, etc, a bit off.

Compare these shots with footage captured by my current playthrough. Absolutely stunning visual work.

Beyond the look of the village, though, how is the game, as a game? I'll tell you my thoughts before moving onto evaluating it historically (I'm not a medieval historian, so take that bit with a grain of salt.) So, how is Manor Lords, the game? First, combat.

This is not a game that is primarily about fighting, it does tactics in an interesting way, but so far, most of the fighting that I have done is pretty small scale. It's not Total War, and it's not trying to be. The battles are small, and the map is also very small.

Archery is surprisingly ineffective against unarmored and unshielded targets, but aside from that, I think the combat system is pretty much what you would expect. Units that are standing their ground and well organized have buffs, etc.

I've not done a lot of combat yet, at least it doesn't feel that way: this is definitely a peasant sim/village builder with combat included, rather than a Total War title. Imagine a really awesome/visually updated Caesar III/Pharaoh in terms of the balance.

Armies are divided between peasant militias, more professional mercenaries, and your (lord's) retinue. In the more peaceful game modes I've been playing, you can usually defeat early bandits with your initial militia. If your militia die, though, they die: Each death is the loss of a family/community member that will hamper the productivity of your village. My first fight with bandits, I lost 5 peasants, literally 1/8 of my village.

It really drove home some of the things I wrote about in my dissertation: When units like the Itzenplitz Regiment took heavy casualties at battles like Hochkirch (1758) whole extended family networks were wiped out. My dissertation looked at the letters of an uncle and nephew, both peasant-soldiers in the same unit from the village of Nitzahn.

They both died, alongside many other men from their region: war had dire consequences for the village community. I've never really encountered a game that brings this fact home to the player so well. Well done, Greg!

So, with the rest of the review, I want to talk a bit about village management. There are parts of the game I haven't really explored in detail yet, such as the policies and all the different taxation methods, or fully building out the manor house.

But, I did nerd out for about 12 hours on the village economy. I'll talk about the game mechanics first, before ending with a few thoughts on the history. Much like Caesar III/Pharaoh, you need to develop construction materials and food/water to keep your people alive.

Then you go through the process of "evolving" your houses (burgage plots) by providing them with greater access to amenities: from raw material, to processed good, to the storehouse to the market stall, and finally to the homes of your people.

Greater varieties of food and clothing will keep your people healthy, keep village morale high, and most importantly, keep the flow of settlers moving to your village. A tried-and-true formula utilized by the other historical city-builders I have played, it works here.

I was delighted to see that you could also spend significant resources to level-up your parish church: this goes a long way towards raising village morale, and (I hoped) a nod of the head to late-medieval lay piety. A beautiful parish church WAS important to peasants.

The "pops" system is based around both the individual and the family, as housing. Jobs are assigned by family (~3 adults). Housing (Burgage plots) can be constructed in such to provide for vegetables, goats, chickens or apples to be cultivated on the plot.

You can clearly see in the image above, the smaller plots directly next to the housing are worked by the families who own the housing, whereas the larger (3-field cycle) communal agriculture of the village is conducted by only families assigned to it.

As you develop your burgage plots, you can specialize the families who live their into artisans rather than farmers, if you choose. The amount of land you give to the burgage plots, particularly those devoted to vegetables and apples goes a long way to feeding the village.

As a history professor, the coolest part of the game was seeing that multifamily houses were represented. Although the various classes of peasant (B�dner, K�tner, Koss�ten, Halb/Vollbauern etc Early Mod terms, sorry) weren't represented, you could squint and see them.

Being able to stand at the entrance to a Baurenhof or Fachhallenhaus was SO cool. I am hoping that the widespread financial success of this game will convince Greg to give us a 1500-1750 DLC: that would be incredible.

Gripes: where are the pigs and diary? Fish?

To sum up, if you liked Caesar III or would like to try a similar game with great graphics and a better combat system, this is the game for you. If you are a sucker for medieval warfare, this is a game for you. If you are a social historian, this is YOUR game

Obviously, still Early Access: it has many bugs. In my experience, it didn't greatly detract from the experience.

Just a final thought: there is a lot more room for MORE social history in this game, too: Feast Days, boundary disputes, legal cases/decisions and fights between families seem like low-hanging fruit that should be in this game.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 09:37

Cassian of Imola: Feb 9, 2011; Keeping her memory alive!

Mister Bates posted:

one of my favorite fun weird little things about Dwarf Fortress is that people can write books advocating a certain belief - arguing in favor of pacifism (or that war is a good and glorious thing), for example - and that book spreading around through a civ has a chance to actually alter that civ's values in that direction

this mostly happens in initial world generation and the player has nothing to do with it - but, the world simulation does not stop after the world is generated, which means it is entirely possible to generate an 'adventurer' political ideologue who writes tracts advocating a radical philosophy, disseminates copies of them everywhere, and slowly shifts a civilization's beliefs by doing so. it's extremely difficult to actually do, and will take a very long time, because a single individual can't make that kind of impact easily, but you can do it, it is technically possible within the game's systems

much easier, but less impactful, is to write songs or poems, perform them a bunch in public so other people start picking them up, and then watch knowledge of that song spread around the world, so eventually you're playing a fort game in the same world 20 years later and the band in the tavern is singing the song your adventurer wrote

btw this mechanic is the explanation for a line in the most recent patch notes:

quote:

Fixed world gen crash from the appointing of chefs by demon rulers that had been influenced by outside reading materials on decorum and leisure time

# ? Apr 29, 2024 10:17

Endman: May 18, 2010; That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even anime may die

gradenko_2000 posted:

code:

https://twitter.com/KKriegeBlog/status/1784400422179860864

well that�s me sold

# ? Apr 29, 2024 13:57

DJJIB-DJDCT: Feb 1, 2024

Lostconfused posted:

Frosted Flake getting called out in a random lecture posted on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi_MpZxLPFM&t=1767s

Academic publishing is truly the greatest forms of posting.

For a split second I thought that was meant literally.

I was lucky enough to study under someone who pioneered video game designs as a teaching tool in medieval studies in Canada. Pretty cool stuff.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 14:07

Minenfeld!: Aug 21, 2012

I hadn't played Dwarf Fortress since the mid-2000s before they'd added z levels before buying it on its Steam release. It's pretty good but my God setting up tasks is annoying af.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 15:10

sullat: Jan 9, 2012

Minenfeld! posted:

I hadn't played Dwarf Fortress since the mid-2000s before they'd added z levels before buying it on its Steam release. It's pretty good but my God setting up tasks is annoying af.

It's a lot better now once you have a manager you can create recurring tasks and then forget about them until you find out that they haven't been triggering for some reason and you're out of booze again.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 15:12

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

Now that the new Dominions patch is out, I can actually post this:

As a sidenote, I have to say that I did not expect to have to proofread "The Succubus has collected enough semen" when I became a beta tester.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 15:41

Typo: Aug 19, 2009; Chernigov Military Aviation Lyceum
The Fighting Slowpokes

I want to play manor lords but my friend who got it told me "early access not worth yet"

# ? Apr 29, 2024 16:49

Mister Bates: Aug 4, 2010

in theory I think you could probably improve the chance of altering a civilization's political ideology using books by stealing all of the other books from a civ's libraries and dumping them in the woods somewhere, ensuring they only have your reading material to work with, but in practice that's potentially thousands of books across dozens or hundreds of sites so that's not really practical

You'd also have to deal with adventurers going on quests to retrieve the lost knowledge and return it; maybe if you dumped them in a volcano?

it might be viable if you deliberately targeted a civilization that's on the brink of extinction due to war or getting overrun with undead or something, such that they only have a couple of sites left.

I know sermons and oratory can influence people's individual beliefs but I don't know how that influences the overall ideology of the civilization itself, or if it does

I'll probably experiment with it a bit more once adventurer mode is working properly on the Steam version, find a hidden enclave of dwarven civilization in a world facing an undead apocalypse and see how radically I can alter their political ideology by spawning a bunch of ridiculously charismatic demigods to philosophize at them

my dad posted:

"The Succubus has collected enough semen"

new thread title

# ? Apr 29, 2024 16:56

The Chad Jihad: Feb 24, 2007

Goddamn I'm getting a hankering for thrawns revenge again. Is that thread relevant? I could go either way

# ? Apr 29, 2024 17:53

Stairmaster: Jun 8, 2012

Mister Bates posted:

in theory I think you could probably improve the chance of altering a civilization's political ideology using books by stealing all of the other books from a civ's libraries and dumping them in the woods somewhere, ensuring they only have your reading material to work with, but in practice that's potentially thousands of books across dozens or hundreds of sites so that's not really practical
new thread title

thats also how it would work IRL

# ? Apr 29, 2024 18:00

Takanago: Jun 2, 2007; You'll see...

The Chad Jihad posted:

Goddamn I'm getting a hankering for thrawns revenge again. Is that thread relevant? I could go either way

Thrawns revenge rules. I love all the dipshit imperial warlords there are. my favorite guy is the one who�s such a loser the only illustration that existed for a while was him dying

# ? Apr 29, 2024 19:17

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

Soundtrack is still the best part of Victoria 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZJTY4e_u3M

# ? Apr 29, 2024 20:16

palindrome: Feb 3, 2020

I'm still looking forward to the dwarf fortress magic system, I remember watching an interview where Tarn (the dev) talked about it. The religion/faith system was going to be a prerequisite but eventually I think they plan full on magic casting in DF. It sounded to me like the complexity and randomness of creating an artifact or writing a book, except it's discovering/creating a spell that turns silver bolts into teeth, or lets you remove layers of skin from things at a distance if they have certain syllables in their true name.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 20:24

Cerebral Bore: Apr 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

my dad posted:

Now that the new Dominions patch is out, I can actually post this:

As a sidenote, I have to say that I did not expect to have to proofread "The Succubus has collected enough semen" when I became a beta tester.

late age pyrene seems slightly busted, tbh

# ? Apr 29, 2024 20:39

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

Cerebral Bore posted:

late age pyrene seems slightly busted, tbh

It's really not. It's a strong research/blood hunting nation since, funnily enough, the Sorginak losing the prestige they had in the earlier eras means they're much more easily affordable while remaining solid mages even in their weakened state, but the blood/glamour combo of the rest of their national roster doesn't really do much. And the succubi/incubi summons cost too many blood slaves for what they give you. Dream seduction is not particularly great, either. Sure, you go full vtuber and can seduce enemy mages regardless of their preferences, but it also means you have to beat their magic resitance too, rather than just making them fail a morale check.

The sacred demonic heavy cavalry is great, of course, by virtue of being sacred demonic heavy cavalry.

MA Pyrene was stronger just by virtue of 1) being in the middle age, rather than the late age with its infinite crossbows against their somewhat subpar armor and 2) Having the Akerbetz who can just spam disease demons at people out of the box.

e: Needless edginess of LA Pyrene aside, I do like how it presents the Sorginak and Akerbetz getting politically outmaneuvered by the clergy because as powerful as they were, doing evil rituals in the woods all the time means you're not in the cities doing the politics needed to keep the nobles in line.

my dad has issued a correction as of 20:58 on Apr 29, 2024

# ? Apr 29, 2024 20:50

Cerebral Bore: Apr 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

at least in my test game dream seduction seems p drat strong when you get it right out of the box and can start the bullshit before anybody really has the research to counter some invisible dick spamming warrior illusions or even worse phantasmal wolves/warriors

also when it works it can easily break you into a whole lot of magic paths you wouldn't get otherwise. i managed to steal a couple of sauromancers from c'tis and a whole lot of mystics from arco and that helped tremendously

the demon heavy cav is really dope too, as you said, even with a kinda mid bless they clear out indies real easy

# ? Apr 29, 2024 21:06

Bro Dad: Mar 26, 2010

Lostconfused posted:

Soundtrack is still the best part of Victoria 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZJTY4e_u3M

soundtrack dlc is also the best part of surviving mars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=758tX7FL-uY

# ? Apr 30, 2024 00:48

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Bro Dad posted:

soundtrack dlc is also the best part of surviving mars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=758tX7FL-uY

surviving mars has an incredible soundtrack. there is a ton of music in that game.

# ? Apr 30, 2024 04:27

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Bro Dad posted:

soundtrack dlc is also the best part of surviving mars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=758tX7FL-uY

Was listening to this during the morning commute and felt very serene

Ty

# ? Apr 30, 2024 06:25

Cerebral Bore: Apr 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

Cerebral Bore posted:

also when it works it can easily break you into a whole lot of magic paths you wouldn't get otherwise. i managed to steal a couple of sauromancers from c'tis and a whole lot of mystics from arco and that helped tremendously

also also i've kept tooling around in my test game to try out some lategame strats, and it turns out that kidnapping mages is actually really loving strong if you can hit the right nations, especially once i remembered how easy it is to empower mages into blood magic. i empowered those sauromancers i mentioned to blood 2, and now i have the good ol' vampire factory up and running and it'll only get worse once i can start summoning vampire lords

# ? Apr 30, 2024 08:13

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

Bro Dad posted:

soundtrack dlc is also the best part of surviving mars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=758tX7FL-uY

Yeah, the rest of the game is OK-ish, but the soundtrack is amazing.

# ? Apr 30, 2024 10:38

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

I thought "Surviving the Aftermath" was much better, having played it on the PS

it's also somewhat topical insofar as trying to scratch some of that "settlement" itch of Fallout 4

# ? Apr 30, 2024 12:38

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Lmao almost got a perfect score on the Gothic Line scenario in UoC2, though I was taking a bit more casualties than I'd like. But there was one optional objective I was just one or two units shy of taking. I was gonna call it even and move onto the next scenario when I noticed i had like a half dozen armor units sitting at the edge of the map that I'd completely forgotten about thr whole scenario

# ? May 1, 2024 14:34

Tankbuster: Oct 1, 2021

gradenko_2000 posted:

I thought "Surviving the Aftermath" was much better, having played it on the PS

it's also somewhat topical insofar as trying to scratch some of that "settlement" itch of Fallout 4

if todd had brains he would just reuse fallout 4 assets with AI upscaling and make a basic city builder for the franchise.

# ? May 1, 2024 14:35

Regarde Aduck: Oct 19, 2012; c l o u d k i t t e n; Grimey Drawer

Tankbuster posted:

if todd had brains he would just reuse fallout 4 assets with AI upscaling and make a basic city builder for the franchise.

they don't really like the idea of progress so any city would have to get nuked at the end

i get that they don't want the setting to change much but why do they keep moving the timeline forward lol

# ? May 1, 2024 14:39

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

yeah it's like, it's fine to say that if you go past 1836 then it's not Europa Universalis anymore and it would be Victoria (and you don't want to make Victoria)

but if you want to keep making Europa Universalis over and over, you should probably structure your games better so that people stop expecting to see what happens after 1836

# ? May 1, 2024 14:49

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# ? May 17, 2024 15:05

DJJIB-DJDCT: Feb 1, 2024

I really wish someone would just make a game that's 1885-1914, like Congo, Source of the Nile, Heart of Darkness.

# ? May 1, 2024 14:51

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Strategy & Wargames - middlebrow autodidact "history buffs" who yearn to pull levers

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