What games are you playing now?

I think so, but I've long been in the minority about Mass Effect 1. I thought at the time and still think that it's massively overrated. Mass Effect 2 is my favorite in the series and a lot of people (including people who like ME1 a lot more than I do) agree. I think ME1 is the worst in the series, but the series in general has never meant nearly as much to me as it does to a lot of other players.

ME2 also has the consensus best DLC: The Lair of the Shadow Broker. I've never played it myself, so I couldn't say whether or not I agree.
I'll try and push on then. The combat is also kind of clunky, which is what I hear is also improved in the following games. What I do love about the series is the music. That's pretty great overall. There's also a particular piece that is phenomenal, in Mass Effect 3 iirc.
 
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I think so, but I've long been in the minority about Mass Effect 1. I thought at the time and still think that it's massively overrated. Mass Effect 2 is my favorite in the series and a lot of people (including people who like ME1 a lot more than I do) agree. I think ME1 is the worst in the series, but the series in general has never meant nearly as much to me as it does to a lot of other players.

ME2 also has the consensus best DLC: The Lair of the Shadow Broker. I've never played it myself, so I couldn't say whether or not I agree.
The entire series is massively overrated imo.

I agree with danutz about the music though. That was pretty good. Not enough to make me want to replay the trilogy though.
 
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You know, I've never actually finished Mass Effect; it just felt so basic. Then EA went ahead and made the sequels Origin-exclusives and, well, any remaining curiosity I had for the series went out the window.
 
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Mass Effect 1 in the new Legendary Edition is much less of a slog and more streamlined in the combat akin to ME2. I had a blast playing them all in one go last year.
 
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Of course I'm sure. I've played EU4 for 350 hours.
You'll have to explain what you mean by no issues with Austria. The Emperor doesn't care if you have a cassus belli or not. If you take HRE territory, they're going to be pissed and want it back (unless you ally them)

I'm also in 1710. In the 1400's, things are a lot easier. Most potential targets don't have large allies at that point.
What I mean is that Austria doesn't defend HRE members when I have a cassus belli, when playing as Brandenburg within the HRE. They just ask for unlawful terf back and I say no. People don't like me, I wait for manpower to recover and I do it again.

It only breaks when I do too much and everyone starts hating me.
 
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I tried to take a screenshot, but that was harder than I thought it would be. The screenshot shows the entire world, even though I was zoomed in. Anyway, you can click on the image and zoom in to Europe. I'm the brown blob. If you're familiar with how big Brandenburg is at the start, you can see how much larger I am now. The white all around me to the west and south is Austria. Poland is pink.
View attachment 4141
Yup, seems you've managed quite well then as you've taken over the Teutons and all the smaller neighbours... So I wonder if the mechanics change when you're bigger - maybe Austria has to defend the smaller ones then ?

The main suggestion then would be to make a big ally and build Trust - trade for favours and ask them to join a war.
 
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Started playing a game called Tavern Master. It's almost similar to another game called Crossroads Inn. I even thought it was the same developer bit it isn't.🤔
 
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Been playing Deadfall Adventures, which (apparently) I've had in my Steam library since 2014.......! Blimey! I must keep better track of things.
I't a nice little first-person graphical adventure, for want of a better description. Good grahics. In the Indiana Jones style. Plenty of puzzles (a few being a bit obscure -but that's what Youtube is for..) and some shooting Nazis etc. Overall, quite an an enjoyable game. Light entertainment really. Well worth the money. (About 9 bucks in American lingo...)
 
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The main suggestion then would be to make a big ally and build Trust - trade for favours and ask them to join a war.
I don't want this to come off wrong, but you can... stop giving me advice now. :) I shared my original post not so much to request advice as to just share what I was playing and how things were going. I can't seem to convince you that while I'm not an expert, I know what I'm doing, and so basic stuff like that is not going to be news to me.

(Btw, I also play on Hard, which buffs other countries in a few ways and adds a -20 relationship penalty agaist every diplo action automatically)

I never said Austria would join EVERY war. They do, however, get called into a lot of them that you declare in the area, which you'd 100% find out if you continue to play. I was talking not just about Austria, but about other huge allies. For example, the remnants of Bohemia in my game is currently allied to Sweden, Lithuania, France AND Italy, which off the top of my head is somehow around 400k troops.
 
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I don't want this to come off wrong, but you can... stop giving me advice now. :) I shared my original post not so much to request advice as to just share what I was playing and how things were going. I can't seem to convince you that while I'm not an expert, I know what I'm doing, and so basic stuff like that is not going to be news to me.

(Btw, I also play on Hard, which buffs other countries in a few ways and adds a -20 relationship penalty agaist every diplo action automatically)

I never said Austria would join EVERY war. They do, however, get called into a lot of them that you declare in the area, which you'd 100% find out if you continue to play. I was talking not just about Austria, but about other huge allies. For example, the remnants of Bohemia in my game is currently allied to Sweden, Lithuania, France AND Italy, which off the top of my head is somehow around 400k troops.
No worries. It's fine :) I was trying understand what was going wrong.

The reason I was trying to figure it out is because I thought you said Austria was joining all the wars initially which sounded off. Maybe I misunderstood.

Sorry about that.
 
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No worries. It's fine :) I was trying understand what was going wrong.

The reason I was trying to figure it out is because I thought you said Austria was joining all the wars initially which sounded off. Maybe I misunderstood.

Sorry about that.

No worries! It's not so much that anything is or was going wrong, I was more expressing the frustration of trying to manuever in the HRE. It's like trying to dance in a room packed like sardines.
 
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No worries! It's not so much that anything is or was going wrong, I was more expressing the frustration of trying to manuever in the HRE. It's like trying to dance in a room packed like sardines.
Makes sense.
Is there a reason that you haven't tried or wanted to try becoming the emperor?

I don't know how feasible that is in the latest version but it used to be a matter of befriending a few electors which wasn't an impossible task.
 
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Makes sense.
Is there a reason that you haven't tried or wanted to try becoming the emperor?

I don't know how feasible that is in the latest version but it used to be a matter of befriending a few electors which wasn't an impossible task.

I started out with that in mind. I allied Austria early and got a couple of electors on my side, but by the time an election rolled around, I had lost influence. I can't remember why. Probably because I expanded.

It's something I would like to do in the future, perhaps with a different HRE country like Bohemia.

Lubeck would be interesting too, once the next expansion comes out. It's getting a lot of unique content.

Btw, I just left the HRE (in around 1715). The imperial influence is non-existent at this point, so the Emperor can't pass reforms.
 
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Started playing Elite: dangerous yesterday. Played a few hours already with my newly bought HOTAS, and it's pretty fun.

I'm guessing I'll get bored quite quickly, but it's fun enough for now to just learn how to use the new controllers.
 
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Might replay Elex and Elex 2 or start some NWN modules. :unsure:
 
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I started SOMA. I tried it some time ago, but really wasn't in the mood for creepy horror sci-fi. Seems I'm a little more in the mood now. We'll see how it goes. It's definitely atmospheric as hell. Sneaked past my first robot just now. Creepy. I'm getting a mix of Cthulhu and sci-fi horror.
 
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I started SOMA. I tried it some time ago, but really wasn't in the mood for creepy horror sci-fi. Seems I'm a little more in the mood now. We'll see how it goes. It's definitely atmospheric as hell. Sneaked past my first robot just now. Creepy. I'm getting a mix of Cthulhu and sci-fi horror.
I played this a while ago and found it incredibly atmospheric and interesting. The need to find out what is going on at all, which you only achieve after being deep into the game, adds a lot to this. Also it has very interesting philosophical questions as a background. This is one of my favorite games since then.
 
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I am playing Elden Ring and am about 300 hours in, still in my first playthrough.

I started it for pure curiosity since I heard of the open world aspects. Normally I hate Boss-arena-fight-oriented games and was therefore never interested in souls-likes.

But the exploration aspect and even characters and story are very good and atmospheric and make this a great open world action RPG, if you forget the boss fights. There are also many NPCs with their own side quest. The difference to most RPGs is, that you have no quest log and the hints how the side quests proceed are very rare., Sometimes you need to accidentally meet an NPC again during exploration in order to progress their quest.

According to my play style I try to reduce the impact of the boss fights by one of three methods:
1. Find a way to cheese the boss; e.g. by finding a specific weakness, which allows you to kill them easily. I have to admit that I rely heavily on walkthroughs for this, whic normally never do in my first play through of a game.
2. Avoid them. You can avoid many of them, only a handful is mandatory- you can for example even avoid the first boss and his castle by finding a different route - I like such small ideas.
3. Level enough in order to make them easy. Because of the open world nature of the game you have so many new areas to explore that leveling is never tedious.

I have now reached the last area of the game, where fights are quite tough, so i will now probably go on exploring elsewhere in the meantime...

A short and exaggerated bottom line for Elden Ring would be:

Without the yellow walls this game would be one of the best or may be even THE best exploration-oriented action RPG(s) I know.
 
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Started King Arthur: Knight's Tale and really enjoy it so far, they nailed the grim and heavy atmosphere accompanied by the great music and voice acting. Looks pretty complex with the morality chart and has a ton of combat. Only level 5 so far but seems the game is long, steam's HLTB says 50-60h.
 
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