>>17090
I own no consoles and rarely played any games on those, Mario (dunno which one) at a friend and San Andreas at another. I only know Fighting Frogs - and other console games - thanks to AVGN.
I played HOMM III tho, quite a lot as it's really good, of course my fav faction is the Necropolis. While I didn't play as much with the much criticized IV I lieked that one too.

Nowadays I rarely play this year earlier went like two months without any. In the past weeks I gave a run to NFS Underground 2 which is installed for a while now, run a couple races daily, and still do, that's like 20 minutes...
I always think of reinstalling Mount & Blade: Warband, with some mod, maybe 1252AD or whatever it's called.

>>17121
Btw Need for Speed. I believe the best soundtrack title of that series goes to NFS 3: Hot Pursuit at least in the rock-metal category. I think I already did this before but I'll share it again anyway.
I found it in one big file so I hacked it into pieces by race tracks. Now they all consist of shorter samples, in the game different samples should play on different parts of the race track, all has a lighter and a heavier variant, also one for the police chases. They all end abruptly as they should go on loop then fade out when a race ends.

Does anyone have experience with Open General and/or Open Panzer?

Also some time ago GOG.com gave free Xenonauts for everyone, and I've spent yesterday with occasional playing. That is how your life goes to trash.

Game is ok though, it is very clone of original X-COM without really bad sides.

>>17148
Also, if you want to try some turn-based wargame, there is SP:MBT (not open source or even free though). It is pretty hardcore but playable, and also pretty realistic.

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Camo_Workshop/MBT/MBT_page.html

>>17153
>I switched EU3 to CK2 long ago

Very Swedish move

>>17177
Oh, there were also other game on same engine in series: Allied General, Pacific General, Fantasy General. I've played first and last only. Allied is clone of PG1 with somewhat changed balance and new campaign. Fantasy General is pretty different game with different balance and tactics though.

>GoG has the good practice to repackage old titles so they are compatible with later Windows'. Which makes them more compatible with Wine.

For DOS games it mostly doesn't matter because it is all about dosbox. Early windows games are worse, yes, and gog sometimes do good things.

>https://goggames.goodolddownloads.com/

This is so incredibly bold piracy, so I couldn't even find a word to comment.

>>17248
>P:T fanny pack
Might buy one.

>>17196
They also made People's General. Not that good I played through a campaign. Artillery shoots faaaaaaaar awaaaaaay, in the base PG2 it feels rewarding to get Marksman commander and get +1 to the shooting range, in this every arty reaches to the other side of the map. Almost.

As I mentioned writing an AAR, I might aswell start one. Don't expect anything too deep- I'll post few pictures and brief, game-centered narrations.

I'm playing Darkest Hour on its WWI scenario with the UK. Britain allows me to play a small part in the dreadful attrition struggle in the West, mighty naval battles with the Kaiserliche Marine and an entertaining second front against the Ottomans. Most other powers, with the important exception of Germany would be either a challenge to play or dull static defense. Thus, for an inexperienced player like myself, Britain and Germany are essentially the only good choices.

The scenario begins at late June. I start with zero manpower, but six infantry divisions and a dozen battleships at the production queue; thus, I order two batches of x10 convoy transports on serial production (i.e. I'll keep producing more after these ones finish). My merchant marine is massive, but it'll face attrition from submarines.

I appoint James Wolfe-Murray to Minister of the Army (or was it Minister of Armaments?) for extra manpower and John Simon to Minister of Security for reduced consumer goods need. My seven tech slots are mostly dedicated to industry and the Army, as I'm ahead on naval tech but lag behind on, amongst other things, Land doctrines, which Germany is several steps ahead of me.

My armies are reorganized into 3-division Infantry Corps. Three divisions guard the eastern coast, one division opresses the Irish, two x2 Cavalry Corps will be sent to Egypt and a force of 17 infantry divisions and an HQ is readied at Dover to fight on Europe. Outside of the Isles, I have 1 infantry and 1 cavalry division at the Cape, 3 infantry divisions at Egypt, several garrisons and a number of colonial militias. The Commonwealth has weak armies at the beginning - India has many divisions, but besides a single Australian infantry division everyone just has militias.

My fleets are reorganized to hunt small enemy fleets in the Mediterranean and block Germany at the Channel and the Scotland-Norway block. Why 12/18/30? Each naval leader has a maximum of ships he can effectively command according to his rank. You can increase a commander's rank at will, but that lowers his skill level. Sadly I promoted one of my good admirals to a 30-ship leader, bringing his skill down to 2. Each fleet, of course, has an equal number of capital ships and screens. Submarines and transports are kept in separate fleets and surplus screens stay in port as "reserves". For instance, I sent six light cruisers to Alexandria as my Mediterranean reserves.

Austria DoWs Serbia on the 8th of August, and Germany invades France three days later. I immediately enact Partial Mobilization (giving me a million manpower and weakening my industry) and ship 18 divisions to Dunkirk. The Germans smash through Belgian defenses, but are stopped at Bruges by my troops and what was left of Belgium's army, led by the King himself. Their advance into France is a province deep from Eastern Belgium/Luxembourg. From Western Belgium, the right flank of their advance gets several provinces deep, but relentless French counterattacks turned it into a back-and-forth struggle that the Entente is currently winning. The front is still fluid there and hasn't fully settled into trench warfare.

In the East, Russia fares poorer than historically and loses all of Poland and some of the Ukraine.

Germany's colonies are a nuisance; with travel times measured in months and far more provinces than divisions, their colonial militias sneak deep into Entente Africa. So far only Togo has been neutralized. In the Far East, I sent a single Aussie militia to Papua New Guinea and am otherwise waiting for Japan to do the heavy lifting.

>>17499
I've played until October 1915. First I'll discuss what happened outside of the Middle East.

The bold French offensive kept on for five more months, taking massive casualties but liberating Belgium up to the Meuse. A bridgehead was then established on Liege, but quickly pushed back. Several German counteroffensives then failed to cross the river, and trench warfare finally set in. The first British air battle of the war took place in these combats, and ended inconclusively -low tech air wings are too weak to cause any major damage to ground units or each other.

In the North Sea, I had a decision to blockade Germany by parking my fleets in front of German ports. My numerical advantage made it easy to do, but to my disappointment, all it did was a slight nerf to German IC. I then kept my fleets parked, and thus every once in a while they wiped out pairs of clueless DDs and CLs returning to port. A few months later, the same happened to a pair of German battleships, but the ensuing battle damaged some of my own and I had to shuffle around my fleets and send one of them back to port. And for some unexplained reason, Germany later lost that nerf and I myself got an event telling me that my ports were blockaded, even though no German ships were in sight and nearly the entire Kaiserliche Marine was stuck in port!

Production-wise all of my divisions in the Western front are furnished with extra artillery by June and I shift my industry to more infantry divisions, interceptors, bombers, and, for variety's sake, armored cars and super heavy artillery (even Canada is building it!). Divisions in the Middle East did not receive any artillery due to the importance of mobility in that front. I also upgraded a few militia divisions to infantry.

Italy entered the war on the 25th of March. They took a single province in Tyrol and then stopped. With the Western front reduced to a defensive position, I managed to ship six divisions to their aid. Casualty rates in that front are the worst I've seen.

Serbia gives up on the 22th of April, in large part due to an ill-conceived plan of mine to ship all of their divisions to the Middle East -it worked for Belgium in WWII, but was a disaster now; Serbs just disbanded their divisions and went back home upon learning of their defeat.

Greece joins on the 13th of May. A n Indian corps earkmarked for Palestine was immediately sent to reinforce them, and over time I dispatched more and more divisions, allowing me to launch a minor offensive into Skopje to secure better defensive positions.

Bulgaria entered the war on the 5th of March.

In Africa, Kamerun falls to the French by May and Von Lettow Vorbeck surrenders with a ragtag band of just 50 men in June. Divisions are slowly transfered to the Middle East.

Russia continues to fail, with the Central Powers encircling several divisions and reaching Kiev and the Baltics. Their revolt risk is high, and there was even an uprising in Finland. Revolution is imminent.

The following table is a comparison of Commonwealth troop strengths on several theatres on four different moments:

Number of divisions
____IOct14IFeb15IApr15IIAug15I
West__I_18I_18I_19I_25___
Africa__I_11I_10I_6_I_4__
Mideast_I_20I_16I_18I_28_
Greece/EgyptI_0_I_12I_15I_15_
Italy_I_0_I_0_I_0_I_6____
Senussi_I_0_I_1_I_5_I_0__
Yemen_I_7_I_1_I_1_I_1____
Total_I_56I_57I_64I_79___

The increase is not just from my own production of infantry divisions, but also from the arrival of Commonwealth forces from abroad -two Canadian corps in the West, two Australian corps in the Middle East and a New Zealander infantry division in Iraq. The Anzacs, however, are annoying to handle: for some reason you can't just embark a division in transport ships on Wellington and tell them to ship it off to Alexandria; instead, one must ship them to Brisbane, Darwin, Singapore, Colombo etc. And manually check if they've arrived at each of those stops, which I always forget to do.

>>17511
On to the Middle East.

The Senussi annex most of Libya by event. I'm aware they'll start a war later on and keep a cavalry division at the border. Meanwhile, I leave Kuwait with just a few militia divisions and concentrate everything on Alexandria. To my surprise, those militias (including Kuwait's 1870 model cavalry) fight off an Ottoman attack.

I also take a "preparations for the Dardanelles Operation" decision which gives me a free division and 3 transports, and another decision to annex Thessaloniki. I even shipped 6 divisions from France to Egypt. All in all, I had around 16 divisions and 15 battleships ready for the gamble. Most were waiting in Thessaloniki when the battleships engaged an Austrian fleet of equal size in an inconclusive battle that ended with a single casualty -the HMS Hercules (BB).

However, three events forced me to change plans in March: Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, blocking any attack into Thrace, the Senussi declared war and Russian advances into Anatolia led the Ottomans to weaken their defences in Palestine. My armies abandoned Thessaloniki, with three cavalry divisions (plus two militias transferred from East Africa) putting down the Libyans, a handful supporting an opportunity offensive into Palestine and the rest following the Mesopotamia invasion plan I had previously laid out.

The Senussi surrendered by event in July. Mesopotamia was a slow grind at the beginning due to an overreliance on militias and a large number of enemies, with the Russians breaking into Baghdad while I was still struggling with Kut. An encirclement attempt was blocked by divisions retreating from Basra, but a few other divisions in Kut weren't as lucky.

From Palestine, Eilat and Gaza fell by May and the Porte reached its breaking point. Only a few divisions with low organization faced me, and my armies (aswell as some 3 French divisions) pressed onwards to Syria with little casualties. Mustafa Kemal led a cavalry division, but his tactical genius was not enough. Another encirclement attempt failed: a division cornered in Transjordan escaped through Jabal Shammar (the northern Arab state), which gives transit rights to the Ottoman Empire. It remained there, unable to break out.
Damascus fell by July, and the Russians attacked from Iraq into Syria. Expecting little resistance, 3 Indian divisions with shore bombardment support from 2 battleships bumped into an equal number of relatively well entrenched Ottoman divisions and suffered heavy casualties before reinforcements arrived.

By the time Aleppo fell, those Ottoman divisions that had faced me in Basrah had found themselves surrounded in northeastern Syria. About six of them surrended in Qamishli. Another division surrended in Antioch when my divisions captured the province north of it.

With the entire Fertile Crescent subdued, massive dissent in the home front and many divisions annihilated, Anglo-Russian troops thus stood poised to flood into Anatolia and put the sick man of Europe out of his misery by September. The pressure was too much and they sued for peace by late October, giving up the Fertile Crescent to me and France, most of western Armenia to Russia and Smyrna & Thrace (without Constantinople) to Greece.

Because of how treaties work in this game, the Australian divisions that were in Anatolia by the time of the armistice have been strategically redeployed back to their forsaken continent. Maybe I'll have to edit the savegame to bring them back, because it wouldn't be realistic to waste 4-5 more months bringing them back.

My current plan for the future is to gather all forces that were tied up in the Ottoman Empire, ship them to Greece and launch an offensive to decisively knock Bulgaria out of the war. I have to act quickly, as Russia is about to collapse.

Ignoring frozen terrain and snow, the French start another offensive in the West in late November, with Belgians (under my command) and Britons soon joining in. A quarter million men die (an unrealistically low casualty rate and battle time for the Western Front), but Arlon and Longwy are liberated. A German counterattack into Nancy is beaten back, and the stalemate returns.

Around that time, my first engineer and super heavy artillery brigades are deployed to the Western Front, and modern infantry equipment arrives. My doctrines are still outdated, though.

With the Turk defeated, Bulgaria is the next target. I plan to gather 65 divisions and 3 bomber wings (The entire Greek army, almost all that I had on the Eastern front and six divisions from the Western Front) and attack by January; however, an apparently undermanned enemy line convinced me to begin the first stage before everything was in place.

The plan envisioned the encirclement and destruction of two Bulgarian divisions at the Aegean Coast and a pincer movement from Thessaloniki and Greek Thrace towards Sofia. An abundance of divisions allowed the last-minute inclusion of an attack against Burgas.

The enemy was overwhelmed by numbers: Sofia fell after a month of fighting, and the divisions at the Aegean, shelled by 15 battleships, surrendered a week later. The only setback was a successfullarge German counterattack on our left flank in Macedonia, which was guarded only by the Greeks. Mutinies spread through the Bulgarian army on the 8th of February, and two Australian divisions attacked Varna on the following day. Bulgaria sued for peace on February 10, and was allowed to keep its annexed territories -for now.

This creates a new strategic situation -the only point of contact between the Entente and the Central Powers in the Balkans is Albania, where rough terrain, African infrastructure and a narro w front prevent any offensive operations.
This leaves the West as our last viable front. The Greek army and four Commonwealth divisions will advance into Tirana whilst everything else, aswell as a dozen fresh divisions and reinforcements from Portugal, which has just joined the Entente, will regroup in Belgium. As soon as the ice thaws, a massive offensive will then take as much territory as possible.

What makes an attack in the West urgent is the impending Russian collapse. German and Austrian troops are on the gates of Petrograd, a dozen rebellious provinces stretch all the way to the Far East and strikes paralyse the country. Entente superiority in the West is only temporary.

>>17954
And then when I though it's gonna be alright fucking ayylmaos landed. Well I gathered my finest warrios and reppeled the attackers. Those centipedes can soak a fuckton of damage, but scythers can't shoot you if you chop off their hands with longswords heh. Despite me having only pump shotgun, revolver and couple of bows, centipede knew he would die anyway so he started shooting at the peasants in the fields who were enough stupid to work during literal battle. And of course he had incendiary launcher. Not my fucking crops again!

Some time after the battle a meteor landed near my base, and of course in the middle OF MY FUKKEN CROPS REEE. At least it was made of literal dosh.

I got a call from a refugee, Sweetpea the medic. I decided to dispatch a rescue team. This is the new feature I loved the most. You can move around planet almost freely with your party and also complete certain quests like this. When you're on the move you can take any amount of men, equipment and animals from your home area. You need food for travel obviously but skilled gathers can supply you during the road. Any additional gear like armors and weapons can be freely changed. Stuff like medicine and bedrolls will be used in appropriate moments. How much you carry, how well your colonists can move, how much they can carry and how big your party is affects how fast you move on the global map. Size of your party also affects your visibility. You can get unexpected encounter like traders but also enemies like this deadly manhunting rabbit.

Oh shit he dodged all the bullets and arrows and is heading straight to Lemur's neck. Will our heroes survive this encounter?

Previously I mentioned I found a few open source and free as in library space flight/trading/combat games, namely: Endless Sky, Oolite, Pioneer and Vega Strike (with a total conversion of it, the Privateer Gemini Gold which is a remake of Wing Commander: Privateer).
Time to times I find myself getting enthusiastic about such games I still got the hots for Hardwar (while it's not really a spaceship simulator and I don't play it anymore and never finished the actual campaign, just roamed around on Titan in single player) and reinstall Freelancer once in a while (sometimes I put the Discovery mod above it).
Freelancer is great but I finishing the single player campaign once was enough and just fighting, mining, trading, scouting gets old fast. It also has problems and can be criticized it's oversimplified space mechanics (basically no physics in that game which should govern space flight and one can roam around regardless of gravitation and such, everything is on the same plain, the scale of things and other stuff) but actually that makes easily playable and the controls straightforward.
But now I decided to check it out these others as they are also native to Linux - being cross platforms - which is great.

Oh, one thing I really would want in such game is some base management. Owning a station to use it as a base of operation, for storing shit or use it for trading like in Hardwar - or maybe it was in a mod for Hardwar I'm not sure. I know in multiplayer Freelancer player factions can have their own bases and stuff.

So.
After a tiny peek I can tell this:
1. Vega Strike was updated in 2014 last time and when I tried to install from .deb it said there are dependencies which can't be met. Probably with compiling from source this problem could be solved. Or not, I won't go there just yet.
2. Dl-d Privateer Gemini Gold but haven't checked it yet.
3. Oolite is an Elite remake of course I was familiar with the name already. Played around in the tutorial looks interesting but the graphics (well, the HUD otherwise it's fine) and the controls feels somewhat dated.
4. Pioneer... this looks somewhat too realistic. Tried a first flight I crashed into the nearest building just after launch. Then I took a look on the keyboard configuration and tried again. I managed to leave Earth, well, I reached 50-60 kms above surface then I got shot down by the police because I shot my laser as I tested things out and it is forbidden on Earth. Oh well. I will revisit this game because while it needs to get used to it, it looks promising - but maybe a bit too realisitic, we'll see.
5. Endless Sky. I think once I played this few years ago. The grapchics was a little different. This is a 2d top-down view game with some third dimension elements. Kinda simplistic but fun. I decided to write in AAR style or rather Captain's Log style posts of this as I play a little.

I bought my first ship on New Boston, my home planet where I was born. It's a Sparrow class light interceptor. They said most pilots die fast in this. Hah, losers. I baptised her Autism Space Ship Borg or ASS Borg.
Right at the docks I was approached by an oldtimer, a captain who's just retired. He asked me to transport him to New Greenland in the Arcturus system in exchange for a few tips for a beginner such as myself. I agreed to do it and bought some medical supplies as well as he advised me. I also bought a map for the star systems around. Launched the ship then maneuvered a bit to familiarize myself with the controls. Then I planned my route on the map and activated the hyperdrive. Off I went.

We arrived safely at New Greenland and the ol' cap'n gave me a small sum of money. Then at the docks he found another job for me, to play the role of chaperone for a trader who is harassed by pirates. I accepted the offer as my ride ain't really suitable for trade but fighting should be right up in his alley.

After I got disabled in the first fight I checked the controls which key is used to fire my weapons and reloaded.
After two jumps I got killed in a dogfight. These lasers suck ass.

Third times the charm. I pushed for jumps rather than fight and reached our destination, a planet called Gemstone. Here I got my payment. The ol' cap'n dude is still hanging around and went to find another job for me. I've some cash to invest into weaponry but no outfitter on this planet.
Also it's time to git gud in dogfights because I don't want to rely on the save/load function but I also don't want to restart every time I die.
Beside this it will be advisable to learn to recognize when to fight and when to run, so getting used to the radar and such will help. I should read the documentation or at least parts of it.

So on Gemstone I got a new mission with the help of the ol' cap'n. I've no idea if my ship can actually outrun anything.
Well, I made it. The star system was three jumps away which seems the maximum amount for this little guy. I was attacked but I jumped immediately. After we arrived I had a conversation with the ol' cap'n and it seems this will be the way of doing things until I get a stronger iron below my ass. This small fighter really sucks.
I bought another map because choosing the next jump target every time I arrive delay the jump with few more seconds which might be a bit dangerous. Also I don't know if there's a wormhole or whatever from one system to another until I visit the system but a map show the routs.

This loan I have to pay interest on and is biting in my profit. I started my first job (by my choice) with just over 100K and the job payed over 20K but my money was just at 112K when I finished it. They subtract from my cash a hefty sum every day. I'm not sure how much time pass during jumps but I see notifications about the payment. I think when I take off from a planet and than land back to it that adds one day. So I have to pay back the loan fast, or at least reach a low number so the interest will be less.
It will be advisable to choose jobs with good route length/payment ratio so I'll spend less time with traveling.
I could also earn a few dimes trading in parallel with the jobs. Just need to pick up commodities if the price difference is known.

Ah Earth. The Cradle of Humanity.

Always liked these simple space conquest type games. Many years ago I discovered them by chance when trying a KDE-focused distro which had konquest pre-installed.

These days I can't seem to find enough interest for games.

Right now the best jobs are escort jobs. I mean escorting trader ships to other systems... There's nothing lewd in this game. So far. They can pay 20K credits for a three jump ride. Best payers are rushed deliveries with 35-40K, but they usually need 9+ jumps which means extra days traveled, ergo less money.
Also savegames are essential. It's so random what's awaits me above the planet and some can kill me just with a huge salvo. Autosave is a very nice function and it's activated just before departure.
I accepted a job to a system far away from the last known because that's the only one that pays somewhat well. It's far away in it's in The Deep which is a dangerous part of the galaxy. Or at least the traveling traders said so in their broadcast.
I start from Arcturus and the first part will be a three jump travel to Phecda. The second is also a three jumps travel to Zosma. From there it will be unknown but I count on three or four more jumps.
I was killed after the first jump from Phecda in Tania Australis. Interesting feature that the game continues, so no "Game Over" and similar messages.
On the second try Tania Australis was the most peaceful place ever. Such cases.

I landed on Memory, a planet in Zosma system. Interesting outfits (ship parts) can be purchased here: "atomic" steerings and thrusters. On most planets with outfitters there are only ion and plasma engines, one is smaller the other is stronger I think. But these atomic stuff look great. They are strong and small, but expensive as fuck and produce much heat. I dunno yet how heat can be handled (I saw cooling units for sale tho) and how much difficulty it does but with these puppies in this light ship could make huge difference in maneuver and speed. I could fit a pair in.
Price is very steep, especially with the mortgage and the constant reduction.
I bought a map and it's almost clear there will be four jumps from Zosma to Regor. I have to land on the planet Valhalla in the Epsilon Leonis system, to refuel the hyperdrive (this is automatic and free - it seems - just like repairs), because I don't know what's await for me in the next system and if I will be able to do that there.
I found a shipyard on Valhalla with a few options. They are expensive but good to know I can buy something more substantial here then my current bird. This Berzerker looks good but I've no idea the worth of ships in this game. Yet.
Arrived to my destination in order. Here on the planet Windblain they also sell atomic stuff. Prices are fixed everywhere so it doesn't matter where one buy his ship components.
But that's it for today.
I wonder how much I have to grind until the story picks me up again.

>>18991
>>18990
He is cute! We're battling our pets!

in 2019 they (slavshits from S*viet Games) will release this cancer called L*ve, M*ney, R*ck'n'R*ll

https://sovietgames.su/en/love-money-rocknroll/

their previous game "Everlasting Summer" was such a fail, Katawa Shoujo >>>> this shit

at least its all made by "anonymous" (however most of them are namefags with social media accounts but its not important)

Was at zoo. The oldest russian zoo. Nothing interesting, besides abaddoned part and coons.

Found a cross-platform fantasy rpg, called Balrum. Fights are turn based, the walking around is real time. Haven't played two minutes and I've never heard of this before so I can't tell you much. Skill and not class based, that one I know.

I bought a fifth catrige (+skyrim + titan quest + mariokart + just dance were bought online) and now i have all games i wanted. Waiting for pokemons, diablo 3 and Super Mario Bros.

Stellaris Megacorp DLC is out, together with new patch that completely changes planet administration, add space-faring civilizations, galactic market and some other things.
Got raided by space mongols on my first day, 10/10 would angrily restart my game again. I also been funding pirates to raid my rivals, literally bribing other civs to let me have branch offices on their planets so I can make even more money, funding space orks and some other slavers civs and then buying captured slaves from the market to work in my factories.
As for the galactic market it's not great for now other than that it allows you to buy some resources you can't produce. The price will go up or down depending on your selling or buying but it goes back to normal very fast. Maybe that will change later in the game, don't know.
GOG has some nice discounts on the game and all the other DLCs so go get it now.