T w e n t y S i d e d
This Thursday night, we’ll be hanging out and streaming, celebrating the New Year by playing one of Josh’s incomprehensible strategy games about history or politics or something else that isn’t kung-fu or aliens.
The stream will start at 10pm eastern time, by which I mean Josh will wake up and begin preparing food at 10pm and he’ll start the stream once he’s done eating, cleaning up, and watching a couple of episodes of Good Eats. So we should probably all start watching the stream at 10pm because that’s what we always do.
For those of you who don’t live on the eastern seaboard, you’ll have to convert the time zones yourself, or consult the little gadget below:
I’ll put up a link to the stream when the time approaches.
A Telltale Autopsy
What lessons can we learn from the abrupt demise of this once-impressive games studio?
Lost Laughs in Leisure Suit Larry
Why was this classic adventure game so funny in the 80's, and why did it stop being funny?
Spider-Man
A game I love. It has a solid main story and a couple of really obnoxious, cringy, incoherent side-plots in it. What happened here?
The Brilliance of Mass Effect
What is "Domino Worldbuilding" and how did it help to make Mass Effect one of the most interesting settings in modern RPGs?
The Best of 2016
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2016.
Oh boy Crusader Kings 2! I can’t wait for someone to get blinded / castrated!
Haha indeed. Hooray for Crusader Kings, the game so complicated that listening to people describe it as they play is probably more illuminating than actually watching the stream.
On the plus side, this is the best game to teach someone the history of the Middle Ages I’ve ever seen. You don’t just learn facts and figures, you learn why people make the decisions they did.
Crusader kings isn’t nearly as obtuse as Victoria or Hearts of Iron, not by a long shot. The basics aren’t that complicated, but it’s very self-directed and it’s hard to know where to start. A lot of waiting for nothing in particular happens, depending on what you’re doing.
It IS very good at what Extra Credits calls tangential learning, though.
Crusader Kings!
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
But will there be plumbing?
And will he sink or swim? Sorry – that was was awful; I had to faucet. I’ll put a plug in it. All tapped out now. These are sins against comedy – base sins. Basins!
*ducks, runs*
Wow,that went down the drain rather quickly.
Thanks to you any further punning is a wash.
I got this game because of the Cuftburt Dynasty, so it’ll be interesting to see Josh in action.
I’ve been playing this since it launched (although, I’m now completely absorbed by EU4 so that’s a thing). This is one of the most addictive and fascinating games ever made, not only for its utterly unique design but the sheer fact that someone would even decide to create it. And the *expansions* for it. (Those are hard to even explain). There’s no other games apart from Paradox where you can play for far more than 100 hours and still be considered a “beginner”. Maybe some of the very deep multiplayer games like DoTA or LoL, but definitely not a single player, and even there I would assume someone who spent that many hours would be competent at the game, just nowhere near pro tier.
I wish I could join you just to annoy Campster with using all the lingo from his Civ5 and Beyond Earth videos for CK2. The game communicates an entire concept of how to see and define defined a world and political relationships. Quite the radical departure from the usual 4X model of strategy game. (Not that there’s anything wrong with it; it’s just not what Paradox wanted.)
It would be kinda fun if Josh had to play EU4 instead of CK2. Like KSP all over again but with fewer spacecraft and more early carracks. And I guess fewer helpful comments – for a given value of ‘ful’ – from Shamus et. al. Still, I suppose that pacewise EU4 doesn’t really lend itself to streaming, unless we all agree to stay up until Tuesday or something.
It’s also highly likely that he’s vastly more competent at the game than he gives himself credit for, and any previously self-disparaging remarks to the contrary can be entirely explained by the exact phenomenon Hector describes, beginnerwise! :Dhttp://steamcommunity.com/id/FFJosh/stats/236850/?tab=achievements
I have Basileus.Aha – well, the self-disparagement was a while ago, now! That … is not easy. I … I have the one for winning a war without fighting a battle! Woohoo. Go me.
Like most of the “Impossible” ranked achievements in EU4 (and in some ways CK2), it ends up being a game of getting lucky enough to have a good start and then playing normally.
Which isn’t to say it doesn’t require any skill, it totally does, but I don’t find Basileus that much harder than, say, a run-of-the-mill campaign as a prince in the HRE. It’s just much more frustrating to get out of those opening 20 years or so.
Edit: The only ones that are well and truly stupid are the ones like taking over the world as Ryukyu, which basically just end up as a flowchart asking “Is there currently a completely broken mechanic in the game [Y/N]:”
This is true. Byzantium actually has a number of big advantages over other small minors nations; it has a number of contested cores and a lot of powerful decisions, and its ideas are pretty good, especially the +3% missionary strength finisher. It just has an incredibly annoying start, being surrounded on all sides by the Ottomans. Only Albania is really in a more precarious position at the start with regards to the Ottomans (and they don’t start at war with them anymore, so it’s a bit better now). The winning Byzantium strategy is pretty much to just get lucky with advisors and alliances and hope the Ottomans don’t declare war on you before you get allies/while those allies are already at war somewhere else.
… The Paradox is strong with this one.
Christ, how long did you spend trying to do THAT? (I think the toughest one I have is the one where you have to take Paris, Moscow and Vienna as the Ottomans)
I remembered wrong, so before anyone corrects me (not sure if anyone would know to, really), it’s Istanbul, Rome, and Moscow. The ‘three romes’. I also have the Manchurian Candidate, which is forming the Qing dynasty (I think I even did it before Ming would collapse every game), Ruina Imperii for dismantling the HRE (That was that Ottomans game, pretty sure), and a bunch of others that are less interesting.
I enjoy playing the Byzantine start (and harder starts in general; I still want to do the Najd achievement), so really I’ve done it multiple times. But I’ve only completed it once in ironman for the achievement.
I’m absolutely in love with the idea of these games but I found out that I don’t actually enjoy playing them all that much* so I’ve been mostly reading the let’s plays. They make for excellent storytelling and especially with some players who took a few liberties to make the narrative sound better I’ve found myself actually quite invested in some characters or playthroughs.
That said Paradox is working on doing a grand strategy game in space I was told and I’m definitely getting that.
*Which may be an odd statement considering how many hours I clocked into EU3 according to Steam…
I am incredibly excited for Stellaris. It sounds like Victoria in space with a 4x in front.
As far as the current games, go, EUIV is easily the most accessible. It’s almost like a board game.
Shamus! You’ve got the counter set for 3:00 AM EST!
Thanks!
I mentally corrected for timezones, and it wasn’t until you pointed out that I realized the app ALREADY corrected for time zone. Whoops.
Should be fixed.
So will this be Josh’s Shogun LP continuation? It would be on par with his release schedule if it was only done during the New Year stream.
Shamus, you’ve mislabeled the diagram. The player is currently in jetpack mode, they’d have to press Alt-R to switch to vehicle controls.
To be fair to Josh, Good Eats is a great show.
Hell, I wouldn’t mind if the first hour of the stream was just a couple episodes.
I think the Food Network would have some choice words about that.
I’d give it a good tumble.
Fanboy moment: I’ve LOVED Crusader Kings ever since I picked up the first one in 2007, and could never imagine the sequel being so successful back then (we had to BEG for a sequel…). Excited to see you guys playing it. I’ve got plans for New Year’s but I assume you’ll be uploading the result later; looking forward to it.
Oh boy, a grand strategy stream! A time to plot murders, seduce cousins, engineer eugenics programs and stare at maps for hours and hours.
Can’t wait!
Ahh, I’m going to miss this one again. Working dayshift on the 1st (no holidays for emergency services) so I’ll have to watch it once it’s archived. Wish you all some great time during the stream.
Wait,”steamtroller hangout”?Didnt we have that one already?Is Josh going to play with a steamtroller once again?Or has Shamoose just screwed up the text?
That is waaaayyy too late for me to be able to watch and participate, so I’ll have to watch it on twitch in the morning. Hopefully it doesn’t get deleted.
Unfortunately, my wife kept bugging me to replace my Twitch advisor with her friend Rutskarn. So it has a 50/50 chance of disappearing into the ether immediately after being broadcast.
(Which is to say, yes, it’ll be on youtube don’t worry I would never let Rutskarn handle it.)
Youre the one to talk,mister never-published-the-second-part-of-8-by-zombies.
understandable considering the processing power needed to work on that video. i think we all need to pull together to get josh a government supercomputer…and by we and mean everyone but me :P
still remember how fun that was. sucks that livestream ate the original uploads, along with the saints row and x com runs.
I don’t really need it on Youtube, since that would involve me waiting on you to upload it. I plan to watch it directly on twitch couple of hours after it ends by going to spoilerwarning twitch page and diving into recent broadcasts videos, which should contain the recently broadcast new year’s stream. Unless of course somebody cocks something up. Of course.
However,youtube has the advantage of no flash.Thats worth the wait.
You fire your advisors just for a +15 opinion bonus?
…Wait, I guess the question I should ask is, you have advisors?
Every once in a while the replacement is nearly as good and sometimes making your wife mad can be /really/ bad
Joooosh you should get Victoria 2! (I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s actually /good/ but it IS fascinating. And they just released a patch for it! Although it’s kind of buggy for now…)
I should definitely be able to show up to this one, albeit an hour late. (by the sounds of it that might be right on time)
So I don’t know how long you’re planning on streaming but if you get bored of CK2, might I suggest, given the season,
http://www.gog.com/game/star_wars_rebellion
I am incredibly hyped to see you guys do a grand strategy game. It’d be impossible to make an actual, complete season out of something like Crusader Kings or Victoria, and “softer” 4x like Civ doesn’t really have a lot of potential for chaotic stupidity, but I’ve always wanted to see the outcome of an attempt to establish the Cuthftbert dynasty. Best of luck and happy new year!
Your Wish has been granted.
“Only” 15 hours left to the stream? Well, at least it is holiday.
Edit: The timestamp for the comment was, when posted, 6.57 am. Where I live (Finland) it is currently 13.59 o’clock. Aren’t timezones fun?.
Is this still happening?
Here’s the place, but they haven’t started quite yet.