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Comments
God dammit, even when I agree with the Jimquisition the man is so insufferable I want to disagree with him.
Why am I watching this shit?
You do realize he does that as a joke, right?
I do. I don't see how that invalidates my point.
Yeah, it's still valid. I was just checking. A lot of people somehow think he isn't.
So I'm playing the Sea of Ghosts Skyrim mod.
It's pretty awesome. If you have the PC version, check it out.
I am currently enjoying Crusader Kings 2. One of my games last mounth was as the Frence Empire. Its ended in the mid 1350s when nearly everybody revolted against me, resulting in me going via rage to retire my dynasty.
At the moment I am enjoying ruling as the Holy Roman Empire. God it feels good having their power! The Kingdom of France is under my control durning the time of my first ruler.
Its good to be Emperor.
How's your relationship with the Vatican? If you want to roleplay it, be sure to dick them around as much as humanly possible and then act hurt when they hate your guts.
> 1350s
Damnit, that's before Avignon-versus-Rome shit got hilariously real.
That's pretty much the standard M.O for everything in CKII. :P
Yeah, but the Germans set the bar for trolling the Vatican and then being pricks when the Vatican told them to shove it. In fact, the Germans were probably the best trolls of the age all up, despite being sandwiched between hostile kingdoms. The Vatican might have hated them less than Poland, France and Denmark did, but not by a whole lot.
And then a bunch of landsknechte sacked Rome.
^ Wait, really?
Yeah, over pay disputes. About six thousand of 'em, during the Renaissance.
If only that kind of drama still played out like that. Swordplay, government overthrowing, and all.
Well, the landsknechte were German-speaking (although not necessarily German) mercenaries rather than state troops. Given that their loyalties lay with whoever provided the agreed upon money, not getting paid for risking their lives in brutal zweihander combat obviously rubbed them the wrong way. So they decided to take their money at the end of a sword.
They were perhaps less wrong than the Vatican on this matter, but landsknechte were seldom known to be good men, as so few mercenaries are. The citizens of Rome likely suffered the brunt of their assault, although I couldn't say for certain. Mind you, war and battle had rules -- the abuse of civilians and executing prisoners were both considered cruel and unjust. But those are the kinds of rules state troops and knights would follow, not mercenaries.
If you want the "good" counterpart to the landsknechte, you'd be interested in the Swiss troops of the Renaissance. Switzerland was getting close enough to democracy to make neighbouring territories antsy, and by all accounts, Swiss troops were well-disciplined both in combat and in more domestic contexts. They also rivaled the landsknechte in effectiveness, the landsknechte originally being a German response to the efficiency of Swiss infantry.
The Swiss were pretty baller.
"How's your relationship with the Vatican? If you want to roleplay it, be sure to dick them around as much as humanly possible and then act hurt when they hate your guts."
I have already gone to war with them over a barony. If I forge the Kingdom of Italy I might consider... although then I will have to deal with the Italians wanting the kingdom for themselves.
That said I am enjoying being a pain to France (who would have been the big blue blob if not for me taking over their "little kingdom") and to Egypt after my victory in the first crusade. Currently they are attempting revenge by commencing Jihad to try to get Jerusalem back while I am trying to gain land from Spain which is all but taken by the Andalusians, barning bits of Leon and the Kingdom of Aragon which is under, you guest it, my control.
I am though likely to resist the vengence for I has a massive army. One of the likely outcomes of defeat as noted in the CK II wiki is going to war with the HRE. I am the HRE. I AM THE LAW!
BTW how you do you quotes in this forum?
[ quote ] [/ quote ]
Thank you.
Ten Greenlight games got approved. I'd upvoted five of them. That's a better ratio than I expected.
And I'm pleasantly surprised that Slender: Source isn't one of them.
Any predictions? I'm betting $250 and a release date in November.
Man, upon replay Super Mario 3D Land has a lot of flaws I didn't notice on my first run because I was too busy jacking off to how AWESOEM it was.
I mean holy shit did I just get 3 1-ups in the same level?
^That's sort of a thing with recent Mario platformers. I remember going through harder levels in Galaxy and coming out with 4 times the lives I went in with.
Yeah, Mario games have generally been disappointingly easy.
Of course Nintendo doesn't care because Mario still makes them a fuckton of money.
Or because difficulty should not be the be all and end all of whether a game is considered good?
Really?
What other factors should you consider?
well
fun
for one
Well if there isn't much challenge, it isn't very fun, is it?
You literally just said you had a great time playing Super Mario 3D Land the first time, which you also said was easy.
...point.
Yeah, I guess it's the sheer kiddy fun Mario offers. Hell, I'm totally getting NSMB2 even if it's a rehash (from what I've seen, it seems like more of the same) because KOOPALINGS
But that doesn't mean that I don't want some of the flaws it has to be fixed.
Difficulty balance is tricky; too easy and a game lacks engagement, whereas a game that's too hard is merely frustrating. I think difficult games are at their strongest when an obstacle has a variety of solutions, though, which can validate multiple playstyles.
Although I think the reason so many games are easy today is a more fundamental design problem. Most games have a dominant strategy that, when mastered, allows players to go through the entire game without worrying about a thing. Games that lack a dominant strategy will almost always present a certain level of challenge, because they at least force regular alterations in strategy.