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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4044 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 10, 2023

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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I "beat" Per Aspera this week. I played it probably over a year ago for the first time, and muddled through most of it on an easier difficulty setting, but got stuck with an atmosphere of the wrong composition to achieve the final "breathable atmosphere" goal. Then my mouse buttons began to quit working, and I got side tracked researching what microswitches to replace them with and how...

This time around things went much, much quicker. Bumped up the difficulty, and beelined for transportation tech as quick as I could. Knocked out the final goal in maybe 3 or 4 evenings? I had bought the DLC that lets you build aquatic buildings which I think helped a lot. Had quite the expansive naval network by the end, although fluctuating water levels had me constantly pulling my ports back.

So yeah, fun enough game.

I started They Are Billions again. I hadn't played this for years and years and years. Before my daughter was born I think? Apparently at some point they added a campaign mode, and that's been fun. Although I got far enough along that I have to clear out a zombie hoard to unlock more missions and I failed spectacularly. Not entirely sure what to do about that.

I remember hearing about Per Aspera- flawed but interesting.

Don't have enough to say about games for a top post in this week's fun thread, so I'll just write some things here and hope you won't mind too much.

Are there any cooperative RTS games ? Where e.g. you have a complex economy and large armies that require many people in the field directing the troops?

Maybe?

Age of Empires, Rise of Nations and Empire Earth are kind of like that, and you can always play a custom match with a buddy where it's you and him versus an AI of an appropriate difficulty level. Comp stomps are a time honored tradition of RTS fans who aren't good enough to cut it against actual people. Like myself.

The Settlers was always a series that had a fairly in depth economy and a languid pace. I'm not aware of what it's multiplayer options were from version to version. No explicit coop I'm almost certain, but a custom game against an AI with a buddy may have been an option.

Are there any cooperative RTS games ?

All I can think of is a mod for Forged Alliance Forever where everyone on a single team shared control of their units and buildings. It's a pretty complex game that requires managing large and diverse armies on multiple fronts across very large maps. Just look at the list of units: https://faforever.github.io/spooky-db/#/

The cooperative mod felt weird to play, IMO. There were a couple of balance changes that came with it but it feels strange to have people messing with your stuff. I wasn't on comms with others to be fair, that would help a lot.

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