The AI seems kind of crazy.

My favourite thing about the game so far is how complete it feels compared with my first few games of Civilization V. There had been considerable exposure of the mechanics prior to the launch of the last game, so I was prepared for one unit per tile and hexagons, but there was a point in the mid-to-late-game where I…

The Essen Spiel, or massive boardgames convention if you will. We drove there, and got annoyed with all the roadworks going on >_<

My first game was as Greece, and the free policy slot was really useful. I like the sound of free monuments though. In my current game as Japan, I am making use of the bonus strength on coasts but there's not much else to get particularly excited about. I suppose the extra district adjacency bonuses are nice - it…

Last weekend I was taking a lot of painkillers, and the weekend before that I was in Essen, so this weekend I'll finally be playing all the things I brought back from there. Ok, maybe not all of them, but hopefully a good number of boardgames. I'm also wrapped up in Civ VI, with my second game as the Japanese, and an…

In my game Russia is pretty scary, they've captured a capital, are ahead in culture and religion and might snowball. I declared war to trash a city they put right next to me (sigh) and there was little resistance - maybe because the army was fighting elsewhere. On the other hand, Spain moved all its troops to one…

I'm enjoying it. Some minor bugs and interface complaints but nothing glaringly awful in the design. It's great to have new mechanics to get to grips with!

Can't talk, too busy with Civ.

Great to see you back :)

Call of Cthulhu Report

Just use VATS in melee, it can't be blocked or dodged. Helps if you have a good Agility.

Call of Cthulhu Report

Well, he's no Kate Bush.

I'm a bit too busy for a Call of Cthulhu Report this week, but I'll make sure to next week. I recently bought the whole Civilization IV package on Steam (a laziness fee since I own it all on disk somewhere anyway), and have been playing the Rhye's and Fall scenarios, which are really rather difficult. That also led me…

The problem with Sonic games isn't really that they went 3D, but that they thought the key ingredient of the earlier games was speed. But it wasn't really about speed, it was a platformer with speedy interstitial sections, and so it's just not as interesting to play as a proper platform game.

I was lucky to be in RI about 6 years back, and on a weekend when the historical society were running a Lovecraft tour. It was a great way to see odd, and old, bits of the city with a mixture of nerds and literary history buffs. There's a plaque to HP outside of the Athenaeum (I think it's that library), and I got a…

Call of Cthulhu Report

I think success is somewhat required for a game, yes, but it has to come at a real cost to fit the genre. It always feels wrong in the RPG when a character keeps gaining sanity, through luck or overt caution. So a good game would make it clear that your character's life is not the same afterwards, either through…

I did not know there was a scenario of that name, but it wouldn't surprise me given how CoC the IF felt.

Unsurprisingly, I have An Opinion on these things! To me the single most important aspect of a Lovecraftian story is a deep sense of insignificance. This can be on an individual basis, or reflected in the actions of the frequently featured cults. A protagonist in such a story must realise that they are not alone, that…