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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   1967 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 11, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Video games

I've been playing Dune Spice Wars on PC. Its an enjoyable RTS. I initially passed on the game, because while RTSs were some of my first games (age of empires) they have evolved in ways that I'm not always a fan of (relying on micro and speed).

Dune has been a good "dad game" as I like to think of it. I can sit down and play a session for thirty minutes to an hour and not feel blueballed or teased. Pausing is fine in single player, and coming back to a saved game is not hard.

The factions have good flavor. The mechanics are straightforward.

I'm playing Drova right now, it's amazing. Gothic 1/2 but with a better story, a bigger world and a slightly more involved crafting system. Easy 9/10 recommendation.

I occasionally get recommended the Gothic games when I'm looking for a game that allows for overpowered and unlimited levelling. How is Drova in that regard?

The first 10 hours are brutal, you are a literal peasant running away from insects. The last 10 hours, you are close to the level of a god, almost impervious to damage and killing everything in 2-3seconds.

but with a better story

What? I mean it's pretty cool, but how is the story better?

The events in the Primeval Forest won me over. The gothic games don't have plot-twists anywhere near as cool.

True, I liked that part too (though I wouldn't call it a plot twist). OTOH, the ending was a bit underwhelming, and I couldn't quite get as invested in the factions as I was with Gothic.

I’ve been getting back into classic wow and terraria lately. Lots of nostalgia for me.

Terraria has to be one of the greatest games of all time.

Ever played They Are Billions?

Yes, enjoyed it

I hate 'micro' and 'speed'.

Where is the RTS where you give AI units rulesets and tactics depend on emergent behavior?

Mechabellum is the closest I've found. It is not RTS, but plenty of people say it fits the niche.

Zero-K was mentioned just a week ago, I think, which seems to put "less micro, smarter units" as its mission.

Decent, but I wonder why they did not simply add LOS and recon. That's a giant part of war and crucial.

Usually leave the genre and try turn based strategy, or grand strategy.

I think you'll probably still generally enjoy Dune Spice Wars. I run the game at double speed and then just constantly pause and unpause it. Some micro is necessary at the early parts of the game. Like when you want to save one of your 5 soldier units, and you have just that unit do a tactical retreat while everyone else stays. By the end of the game its more of the reverse where I'll might leave one guy behind to die while everyone else retreats, or more commonly everyone retreats at the same time if the combat doesn't look like it will go in my favor.

There is a bit of tactics changes for small units. They have an "armory" that provides different unit bonuses, or sometimes tradeoffs. The tactics and tradeoffs are pretty limited though.

Most important skill is planning out your territory expansion, and adapting those plans as needed when temporary status effects come into play.

Honestly, doesn't programming unit tactics sound appealing?

Grand strategy is very meh in my opinion. EU4 or HOI boil down to stacking predictable multipliers.

That's incredibly lame.

In the abstract, sort of.

But in practice I've seen what those games look like, and no it was not fun.

I think pillars of eternity had a super in depth programming system, just about any input could be a trigger for just about any action.

The reward for all your hard work is that you get to not play the game. or if you are like me and don't enjoy that combat part you can much more easily just turn down the difficulty.

The reward for all your hard work is that you get to not play the game. or if you are like me and don't enjoy that combat part you can much more easily just turn down the difficulty.

What id you simply couldn't and had to use them?

There are programming RTSes out there. I found them unfun. Probably because I've been programming for a living for a long time, so it doesn't feel like a game, it feels like work to me. Your mileage may vary, thats just like my opinion man.

I mean this would be functional programming or some sort of combination of priorities etc.. not typical pin-headed BS you deal with normally..

Dune Spice Wars is an awesome game. I haven't played in a while, but I really enjoyed the time I put in. It captures the flavor of the Dune universe very well, and it unfolds at a pleasantly slow pace so that you don't have to constantly be clicking things to keep up with the AI.

I just figured out that the free tier of Geforce Now can run COD warzone. The return to Verdansk event is so incredibly nostalgic, I have many fond memories of this game during covid. A more serious FPS player might take issue with the low performance, but I don't mind. On the second lowest graphics preset I get around 40fps, the lower resolution only becomes an issue when sniping, but even then it's mostly manageable.

The gunplay/tactics feels great to me, there is a nice balance between high ttk and strategy. Half of my kills are coming from outflanking or anticipating what the enemy is going to do next, which feels like a big improvement over previous seasons where fights could be a dps stat check.

That's been on my wishlist forever. I liked that studio's previous game, Northgard, and I'm under the impression Dune: Spice Wars plays similarly to that. But I feel like I have more games than life left to play them in my libraries, so I'm trying to do a "I need to beat two games before I buy one" type rule.

Ya I enjoyed Northgard as well. The games are sort of mechanically similar, but it feels more like "influenced by Northgard" than "Northgard with different paint".

The main similarity is the territory and unit mechanic. But that's obvious from any videos.

What's not as obvious is that there are other areas where factions compete:

  1. The Landsaraad which is a political forum, where various random gameplay effects can be voted on. The gameplay effects can be large, and the politically powerful factions can basically operate at a permanent advantage.
  2. Espionage. There are agents than can be assigned to give resource bonuses, or sent as spies to other factions. At the highest levels you can assassinate enemy leaders to eliminate a faction.
  3. The spice market. This mechanic is a little straightforward "buy your way to victory".

I've also really enjoyed the campaign gameplay. Which consists of a string of skirmish missions, or sometimes special victory condition missions (like conduct an assassination, or befriend the fremen). Victory at the main objective and secondary objectives grants resource bonuses for future skirmish maps. By the end of the campaign I'm usually acquiring enough bonuses to make me almost unbeatable, and missions become more of time attack challenges. But I enjoy being the overpowered unstoppable team in RTSs and I've only been playing on medium difficulty.

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