so im still playing nier: automata. ive completed routes a and b and im now engaged in c/d. uhm i might have to lower the difficulty for this virus section, i have no cures against attacks on my systems. she’ll buy those when it becomes a problem, i said of 2b. ughhhh lmao i just play way too fast and lose for this segment to gel but i am stubborn and dont want to back down from hard
im also doing a diablo 2. im playing as an assassin. her name is molasses.
aaand shadowrun: hong kong. i love the role-playing aspect in the dialogue and writing. really fun
My first aspirant in Cultist Simulator is finished thanks to the meddling of a nosy doctor, who successfully compiled evidence of metaphysical wrongdoings such that the Ministry of Suppression was moved to arrest him. This may have been a mercy; I could not reliably produce the Despair I needed to fight off his latest bout of Fascination, so his mind was not long for this world. Lessons learned: expeditions are difficult and dangerous. They will kill your followers if you have not assembled a suitably skilled troupe to engage them; and even so, your followers will be occupied such that they cannot assist with emergencies. More importantly, unless a contract needs imminent completion, there is little reason not to simply outwait the expiration of Notoriety or Evidence. Just keep your head down and your hands clean; nothing to see here, Officer.
It sounds really good! It feels weird to play SNES music on a record player but Earthbound’s soundtrack is so warm and sentimental that it fits the medium. The bass comes through a lot clearer than on SNES hardware. The only problem is that each song only plays for one go-round. Every single track ends sooner than you want it to! But the advantage of that is that you get a whirlwind tour of every location in the game, which has its own charm.
Upon beginning my second ascent, I find I may now select a background of my choice—and as my initial aspirant (a villain I named Archibald) wound up imprisoned, I now permanently have the option to begin play as a detective. But what’s this?
The game declares outright something I had merely hoped to imagine: my detective was that same figure responsible for my prior character’s imprisonment! My excitement was short-lived, as a misinterpretation of what I thought to be flavor text resulted in my detective’s choosing to burn the sealed file rather than to reopen it. Without the Archibald file, Lt. Benchcombe was deprived of any inclination to Dream of something more: a circumstance which would bring about an inevitable end by Disease, unless I could locate another window through which to glance the Mansus. No such window was forthcoming, and so the good Lieutenant pursued investigations with a single-minded zeal, ultimately earning promotion into the Suppression Bureau, itself. This was a minor victory.
That great war we did win, netting some provinces of France for ourselves and expanding our little vassal of Memmingen. That would mark the last time any country would declare war on us.
Anyway, this screenshot marks the time we just finished up war with Bavaria, because I wanted Spain out of the way for a necessary fight with Norway. Spain has ended up the Emperor of the HRE due to the fact that they are the only big Catholic country who gives a shit about that organization who doesn’t have designs of their own cough Brandenburg and France. cough So any war on a country of the HRE brings Spain into the fight and, unbeknownst to me, they can call in their allies as well. Because once they joined the war, I was surprised to see Portugal AND Norway AND Sweden also show up on the other side.
I guess it turned out okay in the end. I had a strike force prepped in Europe and my enemies were scattered and unprepared. I could grab hold of Bavaria and Wurttemburg (not pictured 'cause they had been absorbed) without a counter-attack and then leapfrogged into Spain to squat on their capital. This racks up the war exhaustion on a dangerous country and in turn the unrest and rebellions. While this was happening Brandenburg was busily smashing up Sweden and Norway for me.
Now I needed to fight Norway because there’s an achievement called The Sun Never Sets on the Indian Empire which is basically the inverted Imperialism for India. I have to take and core four provinces; the relevant one here in this case is Ottawa which was owned by the colonial nation Vinland under Norway. My last big war was for the Cape previously owned by Portugal. The third was Canton that Ming had owned long ago before me and jealous Bengal dismantled them. The fourth and why I was building so many heavies in the picture is London.
Anyway I sent a fleet over to North America while the war was wrapping up, dropped off an army to rush a fort (can’t take land underneath the protection of the fort if you haven’t sieged it or they haven’t unconditionally surrendered) and the province I needed, and then essentially called for peace on everyone involved.
It turned out the heavy ships plan needed tonnes more and I wasn’t motivated enough to do so. Great Britain was allied with Ottomans however, the second largest nation. What happened was we fought and between Brandenburg, Ethiopia and I we took barely enough war score to be able to get something out of the peace deal. It was a tough deal because the goal was to acquire London and I couldn’t cross the channel with their 200 strong heavies and equal number of trading vessels, so the ticking war score kept moving in their favour. We had to take over a large portion of Ottomans and smash a lot of armies to keep just above 10% warscore.
Remember that rule of you can’t take territory that’s under protection of a fort of their control? Does not apply to islands that have a crossing! So with the peace deal I took the scottish islands and loaded them up with an army to storm into Great Britain once the truce was over.
After that, I already own a large portion of silk producing provinces and there’s an achievement towards owning them all. I’ll finish off this game by beating up Ottomans for the nth time because they own the last three.
Oh, the fight with GB is done, that went swimmingly once I got one of their forts on lock and bypassed the numerous mercenaries they had trying to siege it (late game countries just stockpile ducats like they’re the pope; GB had something like 20k sitting around). I’ve got time enough for a long drawn-out pissing match with Ottomans. There’s a small country prepped to draw them in if I wanted to do it before the truce finishes. But I’ve got about 30-40 years if I wanted to be lazy.
However, if I wanted to rule the world I would be out of luck. I could have earlier, I was well situated if I sat down and ground my way through. I’m still a baby when it comes to world conquest. I hate fighting multi-front wars and I don’t know relative military strengths well enough to judge when I can steamroll.
