:-D
22 March 2025
March 2025 assorted WIBPL
I'm back working and whatnot so am too tired to do much else. But managed to get some classic gaming done via assorted means.
Duckstation: Smackdown! 2: Know Your Role
This was done in February 2025 prior to me knowing how to map the controls onto a controller, so I played this again with a keyboard. The first thing I did was create the Blacksmith and friends and then started the Season Mode.
I managed to clear the first year of the Season Mode. It was super weird. I was buried in various feuds with the likes of Val Venis, D-Von Dudley and xxx. I never feuded with any top talent at all until I deliberately won the World Title in Single Mode by beating the Rock in a TLC match. Then suddenly I was defending against the Undertaker over and over (losing once in the process) and despite winning the Royal Rumble I did not headline Wrestlemania 2000 or even defend my title. I wasn't even on the card!
It was a grand old time, nice to play the Season mode again. I had done like 4 years before in maybe... 2006? 2007? Idk. Apparently if you complete 5 years of the Season mode it unlocks everything. I don't know if I'll ever bother doing that, even though I can simply hold down Tab and 1000x speed through endless pointless cutscenes.
Duckstation: GTA 1
I had a hankering to play classic GTA 1 over the last few months so finally got around to it. I figured out how to map the controls of a classic PSX to the Xbox One/PC Controller I have here so was able to play GTA 1 again on my gigantic curved monitor. I cleared it for the first time a few years back but on the PSX; I could dig up the old console but eh, this is easier.
Not much to say except everything was fine until the 6th and final mission when it became glitch tastic. Like, I saw no issues until that point. Whatever. So I managed to clear the first 5 missions relatively easily despite all the driving and the final one is just a load of killing missions.
Holdfast segue
I briefly segued into Holdfast and played it a few times; always good fun, kind of mad seeing the same people playing it. Shoutout to Berry, have fought with them on either side at various points now and I am assuming that's a Sharpe reference.
Initially I was just farting around being a pure musician but then decided to try some trophies. They changed the achievements (sort of) but I managed to get 2 more: healing 1000 points worth of damage and killing 2 people with a blunderbuss blast. Was particularly happy with the second one, as it is both easy and difficult to do. Also, it's called Harper's Pride which is again a Sharpe reference. Sharpe's buddy Harper wields a volley/nock gun, a brutal looking 7 barreled weapon. God save Ireland!
Project 64: Majora's Mask
I had not played this since 2018/2019 when I infamously cleared as far as the fourth and final temple and decided to mess around with the cheats. I gave myself all the masks and items (just to see!) but then when I went to undo it it would not let me. So I lost all interest in clearing the game properly and stopped. I was also playing with a keyboard back then which was super tough.
So it was a billion times easier with the Xbox controller. My goals fluctuated a bit but I got set on: get all fairies, get all 24 masks, clear the game. Also, collect no heart containers and complete no heart pieces - just have 3 hearts.
All was well until what I dreaded was coming: the Goron race track on the moon. I fell off a couple of times but eventually managed to complete it. It was not essential but I was worried that maybe the controls were off and would prevent me from clearing the track. All was well in the end and I managed to finish the game easily with the Fierce Deity Mask.
I could go back now and attempt to clear the journal and get all the bottles, upgrades and heart pieces etc but that's enough for now.
07 February 2025
February 2025 Age of Empires 3 hotkeys
I was playing a bit of Age of Empires III (Classic/2007 edition) on Steam lately and realised I had a slightly different list of hotkeys for this game now (compared to my old September 2009 post about Aoe2).
- Army - Initially I assign this to the native scout you get for free, but later I might assign my mass of Cuirassiers/Strelets etc to 1.
- Army - rare, but sometimes I assign a second army. I've been playing the French a lot so often I only have one army of horsemen.
- Town Center - this is one I build either with a wagon or most likely with my Explorer. Essential in pretty much every game but especially when running my fave side, the French. Their villagers take longer to build.
- Town Center - as above, I only build this with my Explorer.
- Original Town Center - one of the first hotkeys I assign in a game, alongside the Explorer and then the Market.
- Main Military Buildings Group - so in the case of the French, I may assign 1-6 Stables to hotkey number 6, possibly with some Forts as well. Simply anything that will be pumping out Hussars or Gendarmes later. If I'm playing the British or the Russians, it's Barracks/Blockhouses pumping out Musketeers/Strelets.
- Market - one of the first buildings I... build. I don't abuse the market as much as I do in Aoe2 but it's got some nice villager/economic upgrades.
- Harbour/Docks or Native Outpost - rare but sometimes you need to zip to these fast.
- Explorer - one of the first hotkeys I assign. I usually pair the Explorer with Minutemen and go around killing treasure guardians, using the Explorer as bait.
Otherwise I can either just find stuff manually or press stuff like Ctrl+C to get the Church or Ctrl+R for the Arsenal, but it's not hard.
Just wanted to post something handy!
Just wanted to post something handy!
01 January 2025
January 2025 Britannia 4 games write up
OK finally I can type up something about Britannia after having played as each of the 4 colours in 4 games between January 2023 and January 2025.
Color ranking
Red is the best, so far. 3 wins and 1 4th place finish (an aberration).
Yellow is second, with 3 second place finishes in a row.
Blue has been redeemed somewhat. They've been placed everywhere but now with the Saxon burhs rule being properly executed (see below) they should do better.
Green trails in fourth place; anytime I play it solo I do well with it, but the reality is hard.
Looking at Yellow
Yellow has come second 3 times in a row, then finally a third place finish in the fourth and final game.
Romans are the main point scorer, obviously. I played Romans in the first game of this series and got a mighty 257 points and still lost by 18 points to Red.
It is basically essential that the Romans dominate everyone in England, Wales and Scotland. I accomplished this in my game for 128pts as did Billy in the last game for 136pts. Billy was able to benefit from the limes system as his burnt out forts were occupied by the Welsh. Royce did not go to Scotland, opting to turn around and thus only got 107 points.
The Scots are the other main point engine of the Romans. Billy lost his Scots by the very end of the last game and Scotland was a mess of sniping throughout so they scored lower than usual. In other games the Scots did well enough by simply holding the ‘Scottish Crescent’ of Skye-Dalriada-Dunedin. If Scotland is relatively peaceful throughout, they do well.
The Dubliners and Norwegians have extremely tight point margins, with both the former only scoring holding points (and not that many) in Round 13 and 16 and the latter can score up to 30 points for ‘passing through’ in Round 15 and then a lot less for holding ‘any English territory’ in Round 16.
So Yellow has done well, but the closest they got was Red doing better, which is partially down to a mistake I made in the rules (see Burhs section).
Look at Green
The Greens have been in third place twice and last place twice.
The Welsh are the main point scorer of the Greens, but are kind of funny to play. It is easy to fall into the ‘defensive trap’ and just spend the whole game sitting behind the ‘Green Wall of Wales’, watching as the others colours fight over England. You will net 70-80 points but the Red Saxons most likely will win the game. Green must sally across the Welsh line into England and cut down Red a bit. Not too much, but here and there, plus it helps the Danes.
The Caledonians should just sit there and then die (or hopefully survive with one territory) to the Norse. Getting around 40 points in the first 3 scoring rounds and maybe 8 in the subsequent two is all you can do with them.
The Jutes are a bit of a throwaway nation but if you can score the initial 8 points for holding Kent that’s all you can ask of them. I think I am the only player to have the Jutes live to the end of the game, netting 34 points total.
So the key to Green doing well is the Danish. I still have not figured out how to do it, but I think they will start to do better soon (see Burhs section). Dave scored the best with the Danes with 70 points, though the average over 4 games is 64 points. I think all 4 of us who have played the Danes don’t carve out the Danelaw on the east coast, opting instead to brutalise the overstretched Angles further north. Though York is tempting, it is probably better to carve out a beachhead based around Lindsey. I think we all replaced the Angles on the east coast in Rounds 11-13, but were eroded in turn by first the Dubliners then the Norwegians. Better to hit the Saxons, plus any Angles and Belgae in the area and live in the Danelaw. Cnut’s kingship and later Svein arriving have to be played well. So Green must fight Red in the south.
Looking at Red
The Reds have 3 first place finishes and one last place finish somehow.
The Brigantes get loads of points (6) for killing Roman legions, most likely in self defence. In the last game of the series I was the Reds for the first time since 2007 and I did not kill a single legion. In two other games, they managed to kill at least 2 for a fat 12 points in the opening rounds.
In one game, the Brigs refused to surrender and were wiped out by Round 5. This was the game where the Reds were in last place. Looking at it now, if the Brigantes had survived and held a reasonable amount of territory all game they probably would have won instead of being in last place.
It just goes to show how important they are as a ‘points engine’. They average in the region of 50-70 points for the whole game.
The Irish arrive as raiders and remain as raiders for quite some time, after which they must settle down. In the last game, my Irish were wiped by Round 7 I believe so were a non-factor. I failed to land in Cornwall and after living in Cheshire and/or Cumbria for a round or two they were killed off.
The Saxons are the top scorer for the Reds. It is not unusual to win all 3 Bretwalda votes and 4 kingships with them with relatively little effort. They are generally pulverised (or wiped out in my case) on or around Round 16 but they did their job already.
In the last game, the Norwegians used their stack of doom and major invasion to push as far south as the Downlands. The Welsh sniped from the West, the Danes the east and the Angles were sitting in South Mercia. The Normans then landed and Harold the Saxon was killed off by the Welsh at the start of Round 16. I was the Reds/Saxons but praised the Welsh player particularly for not letting me run away with the game, he had been actively crossing the border all game at Hwicce/Avalon and kept the Saxons in check.
In other games, the Saxons became this absolute behemoth that no other player would dare attack. With up to 20 infantry tokens and 8 burhs, they were unstoppable. It was so formidable the Normans could not land properly and other sides that might oppose the Saxons with some success (Welsh, Angles, Norwegians) simply didn’t bother. See the Burhs section.
The Norsemen are a nice spoiler in Scotland at the end. They typically annihilate the Caledonians and live in their lands for good points in R13 and R16 (6/6/6 then 4/4/4). A visit to Cumbria (and loads of other territories) nets nice small points in the late game, which is quite possible given that they have boats for a long time and everywhere is potentially weakened and/or empty.
Looking at Blue
Blue has placed everywhere, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th in 4 games.
The Belgae generally submit, then burn a bunch of forts with Boudicca and usually die. They have only lived to the end in one game, the last one under Royce’s control. He managed to burn 6 forts, 3 with Boudicca, then 2 more near Wales and finally against all odds a fort in Lindsey where they would survive until the very end of the game as standard. I think in the very last round or two they retreated into Norfolk, but they lived for 44 points total. Every other game they scored around 20 points and died before Round 5.
The Picts should usually just live in the ‘Pict Triangle’ Mar Moray and Alban. Anything else is a plus. They must live to the end of the game anyway to qualify as one of the two Blue point engines. In pretty much every game they have done well.
The Angles are the key to Blue winning. Blue has won once under Iain’s leadership - this was the game where the Brigantes were dead, so there was plenty of peace in the north of England. The Angles must live in the north and all along the east coast, somehow, then get as many Bretwaldas and possible kingships as they can. If they can’t get them, they must at least deny Red from getting them. They also must avoid the ‘overextension trap’ that almost all of us have fallen into, stretching ourselves way too thin on Round 10 for holding points, then midway through Round 11 the Dubliners and Danes start cutting the Angles in half.
The Normans did not do so well in the first 3 games, scoring around 30 points average and having lackluster landings. On all the postgame maps, the Saxons still have 3-4 territories due to the Burhs mistake probably while the Normans only hold 3-4 territories by the end of the game. By the very last game I had realised my mistake with the burhs, making the Saxons much more vulnerable and thus justifiably being wiped out by the Welsh, Norwegians and Normans. Iain, when he won, had held 5, but they were all along the east coast, possibly due to the (erroneous) defensive strength of the Saxons. In the last game, they scored 50 points, their best ever, and held 6 contiguous territories. So Blue will only get stronger now that Red has been corrected.
The Burhs mistake
In the first 3 games, I had made a mistake with the Saxons. In rounds 12 and 13, the Saxon player is allowed to build forts, 1 for every 2 population points, instead of getting units as normal at the start of the turn. So if the Saxon held, say, territory worth 16 population points, they could decide to spend 6 points on 3 forts and the other 6 on a single unit as possible, netting him 3 forts that function as regular units except they can’t move plus an infantry he can place anywhere and move as normal.
The ruling also states: the Saxon can only place burh/fort tokens equal to 8, minus the number of Saxon territories. So if the Saxon controls 6 territories, they can place 2 burhs if they can afford it. Conversely, if they control 8 or more territories, they can place none.
There are 8 burh tokens, and in the past, the first three games I did not adhere to the 8-territory rule properly, resulting in all the Saxon players having sometimes all 8 of the possible fort tokens placed between Rounds 12 and 13, freeing up loads of Saxon troops to defend their borders or even expand like wild in those rounds and beyond. By Round 15 when the Normans were expected to land off the English Channel, they usually faced this absolute behemoth and it seemed impossible.
I’m rambling but I don’t think it would have affected the results too much, but there were definitely moments in these games where by rights the other players should have been sniping at the Saxons, but psychologically couldn’t do it, because the Reds had so many fecking units. Likewise, the Saxons had all their territory goals so didn’t bother pressing too far out in any direction. The biggest losers were the Normans, who kind of needed to land convincingly but were severely blunted by sheer red numbers on the beaches, followed by the Angles losing out on kingships etc and the Danes not bothering to cut into the south-eastern coast too much.
So it’s fixed now and I was pleased to be the first Saxon player to be affected by this ruling, with Saxony being justifiably wiped out by Round 16. In other games, the Saxons held on in 3-4 other territories by the end. Billy’s Norwegians felt emboldened enough to swing south and take a bite out of the reds, followed shortly after by the Normans. In the past, this simply would not have happened.
So while I still think Red is the best colour overall, it only is if the other players go easy on them. Once I had won the Kingship in Round 14 for the fourth time as the Saxons, they were fair game in Round 15 and 16 and rightly so. In the past, players probably wanted to cut down the Saxons but there was no easy way to do it.
Ironman nations
Romano-British - have survived often enough, surprisingly. I think everyone is fine with them living in March.
Jutes - have only survived one game to the end, when I controlled them. The Saxon player was very defensive so it helped my cause there.
Irish - the Irish can fail and die, as they did for me in Game 4 but it's not essential. In most games, they have lived in Cornwall-Devon peacefully enough.
Belgae - Belgae living all game in Lindsey is not unusual. I think in the 4 games, the only time they were wiped out early was when I, as the Romans, deliberately did so.
Anachronistic Awards
Welsh in London - Dave occupied many burnt out forts for Billy in Game 4, but infamously did not occupy Essex, denying Billy 6pts. He allowed the Romano-British to live in Clwyd as an apology, I think. I think in Game 1 Cian did the same thing for me when I was the Roman but was gracious enough to stand in Essex haha.
Brigantes dying - it has only happened once, in Game 1.
Other instances -
Bretwaldas
I think only myself and Darren have swept every single Bretwalda.
I recall myself and Cian voting against Royce the Red to give Billy's Blues the Bretwalda one time.
Kingships
Again, I think only myself and Darren as the Reds have swept the kingship stakes.
There have been no Yellow or Green Kings. Certainly no Kingship for Cnut in Round 14, sadly. One day maybe!
Regicides
Specifically Harold, Harald, Svein and William.
There have no kings in England at the end of some games, usually there is at least one king but they do not hold 'double territory' so no 10 points.
No more tokens
Almost always the Saxons. Once or twice the Welsh.
Conclusion
Britannia is a great game, I have fond memories of playing it back in 2008 or whenever it was and finally bought a near-pristine copy of it in 2022 (?) for 100+ euro. With 4 games played with 8 different people, it's been worth it.
31 December 2024
2024 retrospective
2024 was slightly better than the very good 2023 (by like 1 point) only because the lows weren’t as low; the highs of 2024 weren’t as high but it was consistently good.
Overview/Timeline
January - birthday battenberg, A, return to ATU for more coding
February - ‘Triplecon’ Akuma-Itza-Athventurecons attended; visit L in Dublin
March - voting, was sick, the hunt begins; Theo is 12
April - Japanese Film Festival, K, finished off ATU semester 3
May - cycled 25 days in May, went to Sweden, then Finland, then Estonia
June - home from Estonia, ran 80 km, went to Amsterdam for a weekend
July - Film Fleadh, cycled 21/31 days, hi M, Westport
August - Hagstravaganza 10 in Sligo, London AEW ALL IN
September - Culture Night, final semester begins
October - musicals, Galway Comedy Festival, jury duty lmao
November - jury duty cancelled; elections, assignments, A
December - assignments, Japanese dinner, Christmas, 31 days of strollin’
Music
46842 minutes on YouTube Premium. Slight increase from last year’s number, but it did say I had about 12000+ minutes listening to podcasts so not sure. An entire 30 days of listening to YouTube? Sounds about right.
Top 5 tracks according to Premium:
Stone Cold Steve Austin theme (lol, see Exercise)
Cult of Personality
China In Your Hand
Plush
Final Song
My actual top 5 (I think)
Just Close Your Eyes
Final Song
Rather Be
Plush
Tick Tock
Top track(s) by month:
January - COP, CIYH, the FF3 Field Theme (various) hangovers from 2023
February - Red Wine Supernova (Chappell Roan) L’s fault; the only Roan song I know
March - No Forever (Elaine Mai, MayKay) IYKYK
April - Tick Tock (Mabel) love it
May - Rather Be (Cleanest of Banditos) so good?
June - You’re in Love with a Psycho (Kasabian) fun music video. Slightly cursed
July - Plush (STP) Fab. It’s in GTA:San Andreas but it’s also quite famous
August - Final Song (MØ) Love her voice. Reminds me of Sigrid, Robyn etc Scandies
September - Cry Baby (Paloma Faith) a return from 2017/2018 whenever it was
October - Metalingus (Alter Bridge) Brood vibes
November - Just Close Your Eyes (Story of the Year/Waterproof Blonde) Fantastic
December - When You’re Gone (Cranberries) Mixed up with SOC; fabulous
Movies/TV
So 39 ish things watched? Pretty damn good anyway. I would say my fave movie this year was Conclave, a very late horse in the race to beat Furiosa. Fave tv series has to be either Shogun or Fallout, but Reindeer was good, the Boys etc. lots of good stuff.
Games by month 2024
January - Ocarina of Time, Fallouts 3,4,NV (Very Hard, Unarmed runs)
February - FF8 REMASTERED, FF12
March - FF12, FF7 og
April - GTA4 100% completion
May - New Vegas, Civ 4
June - FFX, Fortnite, DayZ
July - DayZ
August - DayZ, FF13, Resident Evil 1
September - Kingmaker, Outer Worlds (blogged both)
October - Civ4, Fallouts 3,4,NV (Very Hard, Endurance 1 runs)
November - Fallout 4, Cod Blops
December - Counter Strike Source, Civ 6 (still playing this)
More Fallout once again, my comfort video game series at this point.
I also did most of my fave Final Fantasy games again, but quit halfway through 13, just too bleh.
I blogged about most of the rest of these this year. Civ 6 is my current game and is pretty damn great, so much stuff to do. On 123/320 achievements atm.
Reading
I read the AJ Lee book around the start of the year, and it was very interesting. I also managed to finish ‘Germany Divided’, a history book looking at the pains of unification in 1990. Other than that I didn’t read much, the first two Sandman graphic novels come to mind. Need to go back to those.
I was also re-reading Rise and Fall again on and off but generally didn’t make much time for reading. Will have to re-learn the habit. I've fallen far from my almost nightly ritual of reading in bed from 2015-2020. I was also pretty consistent most of my childhood and teens.
Exercise
Walking
I didn’t walk all that much this year until the very end when I did an arbitrary ‘walk 31 days of December’ personal challenge. Mostly I would just be walking home from the cinema/pub on Thursday nights or if out on a Friday or Saturday. Did a lot of walking into town for nights out as well to save on taxis. So I started walking a lot more in December, also because my hips and knees are turning to dust. Hard to tell any progress so far but feeling fine and have even worn a 20 kg weighted vest to spice things up. Stay tuned.
Cycle
I cycled a bit more often in 2023 but still managed to do almost as many cycles in 2024 and more distance. Traffic and cars are just such a pain. By the end of the year I was only cycling on weekends. Will probably continue this trend into 2025, I usually only cycle on weekdays more in the summertime (May-August) as there are less students in town.
Running
I ran 48 times this year, with only 346 km done. 12 of those runs were in June when I did the Laura Lynn 80km challenge. I peaked around there, my legs started to fall apart later in the year and I stopped in late October.
Lifting
Chest/bb - still doing 2 chest and triceps a week and 2 back and biceps. I reduced a lot of the weight as it's just not working for me, will try something different again in January.
I used to plank to a few different 3 minute tracks, 1 minute plank, 1 minute rest, then 1 minute plank, but I largely settled on the original Stone Cold Steve Austin theme ‘Hell Froze Over’ and with 612 listens, 2 planks per listen, means 1224 planks (by late November). That’s almost twice what I did the year before, so that’s good.
Travel
Dublin - February
I got to stay very near the Spire, visit the Gin Palace, hang out with L.
Sweden-Finland-Estonia May/June
I hadn't been to Sweden, Sverige, since 2012. Finland, 2019 and same for Estonia, 2019. The latter two are dear to my heart. I think I blogged about them elsewhere but was a good trip.
Amsterdam June
I didn't really budget for this but went to see L again while they were on this continent. Amsterdam is always a good time so was not a stretch.
Mayo July
Always a good time with the fam! Climbed Croagh Patrick once again.
Sligo August
Hagstravaganza 10! A nice trip and got to stay the night in nice accommodation with 4 friends.
UK London August
Myself and my cousin got to see AEDubya All IN 2. Was fun but a lighting quick trip.
Work/College
I didn't work at all in 2024. College was fine, 2 modules in Semester 3 and 3 in Semester 4. I think leaving a year between Java was my undoing; though I'm still doing the final Java OOP assignment as of writing, it will decide whether I get a 2:1 or 1:1; I don't really deserve the latter so we shall see.
Writing
I passed on writing during NaNoWriMo 2024; I did it at last during 2023 and the whole organisation is just too cursed. I'll write at my own leisure... one day it will all see life.
Wrestling
I didn't really watch much wrestling this year, other than obviously AEW All In in August. Oh I watched Wrestlemania 40 and it largely went the way I thought it would. Though I still follow the backstage gossip via podcasts I have chilled out a lot on my following.
D&D/board gaming
I recently updated here on my 5e game, other than that I played very few, if any, board games. I will correct this in 2025, tbc.
My own weird shit
Personal challenges per month (cycling, running, walking, post per x etc) I ran 346km in 48 runs (not great) 108 cycles for 1217km (little less than last year) and walked 200km in December anyway.
Necut? It still does be developed. It is at the point now where it has a life of its own. I decide something and organically, of its own accord, it defies me. Tbc.
If I refer to you/ye in some way, it's cause I like ya.
The blog itself
2 post per month
Terrible idea but admirable. Will revert to 1 a month in 2025.
Plans for 2025
Stay alive and thrive!
05 December 2024
December post #1 Civilization VI "initial thoughts"
I picked up Civ 6 within the last year or so plus some of the DLC. It was just sitting there, unused, as I was still trying to clear Civ 5 of all achievements. I only have 7 achievements left for Civ 5 but they are all the absolute hardest ones.
So with Civ 7 on the horizon (Feb 2025) and spotting that Civ 6 was on sale for 6 euro on Steam a few days ago, I bought a copy for Cathy as a 'Christmas present' and we played our first game ever.
I went for Peter of Russia because in this version he is the leader/civ with extra added border expansion upon founding a city. Build a city, start with extra territory. Love that. The Shoshone in Civ 5 were my faves because they could do that. Cathy went for Catherine de Medici of France.
It was OK, some initial confusion on both our parts but we managed to push through as far as the renaissance or just before the industrial era, I can't recall exactly.
---
I played another couple games after that by myself, one as Russia and one as the Netherlands on an islands map.
I won the second game and my first ever victory by Diplomacy somehow? I had launched the spaceship and was waiting for it to land and then randomly I had acquired enough Diplomatic votes or whatever to win. None of the drama of Civ 4 where it's a binary choice for Diplomatic Victory and you can see the votes tallied afterward, or the very clear tomfoolery of Civ 5 with city-states inflating your votes. It just sort of happens. The Congress in 6 is worse than 5 for sure.
I won my second game (barely) by score; Archipelago, Standard, Quick, Netherlands (randomly chosen). It's an islands game so no one was anywhere near productive enough for space. There were less than 50 turns left and I spotted I was maybe 100 points or so behind Genghis Khan who had settled all over the map. I just settled 3-4 towns on random scraggly islands to inflate my score and destroyed a bunch of districts to build Wonders and took the lead.
---
Warfare is difficult, not that it's hard to do but units last way longer, cities are almost impossible to reduce health/have shields now because of walls and stuff. I fired a nuke at someone after my Diplomatic Victory and I spotted it reduced health and shields to 0 so that was good I guess. I also fired a nuke at a volcano near St. Petersburg for the craic, damn thing kept going off.
Natural disasters kind of suck, I think they're cool it's pretty ominous when the game suddenly zooms in on them happening but I find the penalties seem to outweigh the benefits. In that Russia game I had a volcano next to my capital and had 4 cities around it and built my Campus districts around it so every time it rumbled it would blow them up. My science rate didn't suffer that badly as I could rebuild them quickly but was tedious.
I LOVE Eurekas. Adds a lot of incentive to try and do a whole load of different things in order to speed up a discovery of a tech or civic.
Districts and governors are kind of cool but after a while it all boils down to my main takeaway from 2 and a half games played:
It's just like Civ 5, but not as good (so far). I'll keep at it for a while but I'm not blown away.
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