It's going to be interesting to see how well they pull off the new missions system, seeing as it's essentially the national focus trees from HoI IV. Except that in HoI IV you could get away with focus trees for the seven major nations and everyone else getting a generic one at launch, whereas here you've got dozens of nations of roughly equal importance in 1444 that people are going to be clamoring for unique missions for. I guess it'll be somewhat easier in that a lot of these unique missions already exist for nations so it's mostly just translating them over to the new system, though I wonder if "unique missions for all the minor nations" is going to be the new "unique ideas for all the minor nations".

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Quoting: KimyrielleWhich is why I don't understand why the rumors that MS is looking to buy Valve were dismissed so quickly by us.

Because the rumor was "Microsoft wants to buy Valve", not "Valve is considering selling to Microsoft." Big difference. :) I will bet you dollars to donuts that Microsoft has wanted to buy Valve since, ohh, soon after Steam came out. (If not before.) It's not like this is anything new, and I don't understand why people seem so surprised about it. Of course Microsoft wants to buy the infinite-money-printing machine, they'd be fools not to, the question is whether or not they can.

Gabe Newell already owns a never-ending stream of money, probably a majority share of Valve, and dislikes Microsoft. I'm not saying it could never happen, just that it's so far outside the ream of probability that I'm not going to be losing any sleep over it.

Also: https://hothardware.com/news/gabe-newell-responds-to-outrageous-rumors-that-microsoft-is-buying-valve

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I was going to start out this comment by saying that I didn't use mods as much anymore as I used to, then I went down the list again and realized that every game on there that I've played I've used mods with: Cities: Skylines, Dwarf Fortress, Knights of the Old Republic II, most of the Paradox games I have (EU IV, CK II, and HoI IV, and I keep meaning to check out the selection for Stellaris, though they're all cosmetic and music mods that don't disable achievements), Portal 2, and XCOM 2. Phew! :) Come to think of it the only games I really used a lot of mods with before getting a Steam account and the ease of access of the Steam Workshop were Dwarf Fortress and Civilization III (though I was pretty heavily into modding it myself), so it's actually probably true to say that I use more mods now than I've ever done before! :D

(Though oddly enough, when it comes to Dwarf Fortress mods I've never used a graphics pack; I started out without one and learned the interface that way, and now find graphics packs to be incomprehensible and ugly. I'm like Cypher from The Matrix, I don't see the code anymore, just little dorfs, running around…oh look, a goblin ambush…how did that magma get there‽ )

Another game with an incredible modding scene worth mentioning here is Rimworld. There's a mod that lets you play it like Dwarf Fortress and design your starting people down to the last detail instead of picking randomly-generated ones if you like, there are a ton of content mods, and a very long list of starting scenarios that dictate how you start off and what creative restrictions you have.

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Oh, I know that one from that one Far Side strip! The answer is "duck". :)

They definitely make some pretty fun games, I've played Drawful and Fibbage at a friend's house and watched people play several other of their games.

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Microsoft wants to buy the money-printer that is Valve? Well, color me surprised! (Not!) :P

I'm sure Microsoft is pretty desperate to get Valve to stop funding improvements to gaming on Linux (not GamingOnLinux ;)), and they'd love to have access to the money fountain that is Steam, and I'm pretty sure they've felt this way for years now. But given that Valve already have the money-machine, I'm willing to bet that they're not short-sighted enough to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs for a one-time buyout. I'm not gonna be losing any sleep over this.

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Just played a game, everything worked fine for me. Played the Crystal Cruiser A and got pretty lucky, had a boarding crew of two Crystals + two Lanius, two Flak Cannon Mark I's, the starting Heavy Crystal Launcher, and a Healing Bomb, plus I managed to pick up a Clone Bay in sector 6 which made me a lean, mean, boarding machine! I hadn't really realized the utility of the Healing Bomb paired with the Clone Bay before. That's one of the things I love about this game, I'm still discovering new strategies and synergies 350 hours in. Breezed through the flagship fight no problem, though it was a fun challenge working to kill off all the crew in the main compartment with what I had. They couldn't really fight the lockout + asphyxiation strategy though! ^_^

The game itself looks slightly different, now that several bits of text have been replaced with icons, but it wasn't too confusing since I knew where everything was already and they generally made sense.

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"Some Non-Violent Features" :D

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Quoting: silmethEhh. I’d like to see one day a modern farm management sim similar to goo’ ol’ SimFarm from 1993. And not a combine-harvester driving simulator. I want to design and manage my farm and not do farm tractor racing, goddammit.

Yes! It's cool that there are multiple farming sim games out there that let you run around on your farm (I just picked up Stardew Valley over Christmas and boy howdy am I hooked :D), but I want that Sim Farm experience of running it from a detached bird's eye view and having minions farmhands to actually go out and plow/plant/harvest the fields for me. Why has no one pulled a "Cities: Skylines"-type remake of Sim Farm yet? :(

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Interesting. I haven't really played racing games for years (though I played a lot of Star Wars: Racer as a kid), but this one looks beautiful and well-done. I'll definitely keep an eye out for when it releases.

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Wow, a surprise update to one of my favorite games six years after it came out? (359 hours and counting) Nice!

While I can understand having difficulty on the normal or hard levels, I've got around a 90% win rate on easy and I don't think it's particularly difficult to achieve. Just remember that pause is your friend, carefully timing the firing of your weapons can boost your damage output considerably, and that the game's all about adapting to what you get and going with the flow rather than trying to force a particular loadout; all types of weapons have their uses and getting to know them all can give you a real advantage. Also boarding is overpowered; if you can consistently capture an enemy ship without destroying it you'll gain a small but noticeable boost in resources.

Also, use the doors Luke! :D
View video on youtube.com

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