Still playin' on 1.7 with all the modpacks there. 1.7 best patch! :D

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Quoting: ColomboParadox removed westernization and added "idea" spread (whatever it is called). But you can't interact with it unless you have several DLCs.

Institutions. Interacting with them requires the ability to develop, which is unlocked by a single DLC. That being said, I will agree that's one of the few things that should not have been a paid feature, as Paradox then proceeded to balance things around it that they really shouldn't have. They've tacitly admitted themselves that it was a mistake, but aren't sure how to fix it yet.

Quoting: ColomboAlso, that nonsense that patches are somehow FREE... could you please STOP repeat this nonsense?

I'm sorry, but what? I get patches for each Paradox game I own every couple of months that I can download without paying a cent. That seems like (one of) the definition(s) of "free" to me. :)

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Just got this a few days ago, and boy does it look pretty. I'm still struggling to control my hypersensitive spaceship in combat, but I suppose that'll come with time. :)

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QuoteThis time, all contracts are available at the start with a new ConTracker item to help you keep track.

This is technically true (and also what it says in the patch notes), but it turns out it's slightly more complicated: you start with a single contract available from the pass, and when you complete contracts you get 'stars' that you can use to unlock others in a sort of tree structure. So it's true that all contracts are available as soon as you unlock them (which could potentially be the same day you buy the pass), but you can't just jump in and start with whichever one you feel like. Just wanted to clarify.

Otherwise the update seems pretty good, servers were struggling yesterday like they always do on release, but I played a match later in the day and had fun. So many Pyros, though, and the new Pyro weapon, the Dragon's Fury, is a beast. Also the new banjo taunt for Engineer is great. :D

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Quoting: KelsI've been seeing discussion about this, wondering just what the devs who leaked are getting out of this. Seeing as sales are traditionally depressed right before a sale people know the date of, this just hurts their full-price income. It's not exactly a benefit, and in fact I don't really see anything positive for the leakers.

I've read things by people talking about the impact of Steam sales, where they talk about how they expected to make less money from the sale but actually made a lot more. It seems to be that, instead of getting, say 1,000 people to buy your product at 100% price, dropping to 50% doesn't get you 2,000 people buying for twice the sales (for the same overall profit), but much more than twice the sales.

Like, I have a number of games on my wishlist that I'm only kinda-sort interested in, probably not enough to buy them at full price no matter how long I wait (given that I already have plenty of games competing for my interest). But drop the price by 20, 30,…,75 percent, and suddenly I'm giving it another thought (currently trying to decide on Everspace, which is 33% off at the moment. :) )

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Quoting: STiATWould be cool. I do own AoE2HD... being able to play it would be cool

Same. I got Age of Empires II on CD when I was maybe 12, and it was the first computer game I was completely and utterly hooked on, so much so that I bought the HD version when it came out even knowing I was planning on switching from Windows to Linux in a year or so and wouldn't be able to play it natively anymore.

I also loved Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, so that'd be cool to see as well! :)

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Quoting: no_information_hereThe current yes/no question is impossible to interpret. Otherwise, you need to specify:

"Did you use wine in the last month?" Yes/No

+1 to this—this is a much more specific question with a specific bit of data that can be gotten out of it: how many people used WINE in the last month. Otherwise it runs into ambiguous situations like does using WINE a lot two years ago and not touching it since count as "using WINE", or what if I only use it every four months? Etc., etc..

Like, I'm currently using WINE to make a Let's Play of an indie game called Dodge That Anvil! from 2006 which the developer has directly told me can't be updated or ported to Linux due to the technology used to make it (Macromedia Shockwave) being killed off by Adobe, but when I finish with that I have no current plans to continue using WINE. @no_information_here's question would let me update my WINE-using status each month in case things change.

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Played a few hours as a Rogue Servitor with a friend who went just "regular" machine hive mind, and it was great. I named my empire the Cosmic Embrace and had an absolute blast constantly spouting off lines about how organics were really much happier being pampered and cared for under our watchful optical sensors, that our entire purpose was to bring all organics into the fold, and how eventually the other organic races out there would come to realize that fact, oh yes, one day, they'll see, they'll all see… :)

It's great for role-playing, is what I'm trying to say.

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There's also a big Paradox sale that just started to coincide with the release of patch 1.8 and Synthetic Dawn for Stellaris.

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Just FYI that's the Avian ship set I believe—I just loaded up my pre-order copy of Synthetic Dawn to check out the new empire creation features, and there don't seem to be specific "Robot" ships. Kinda makes sense as these synthetic empires are explicitly said to be created by another space-faring race, so it's only natural they'd continue using ship designs (and city designs) that already exist rather than start from scratch.

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