The Official Game Status Update Thread

[Seperallis]

Oh how the turn tables.



So I learned something about the AI that I didn't know until I'd annexed Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. After the annexations were completed, Russia (with whom I was still at war) just glassed the ever-living fuck out of them. Don't ask me how; by the point, I'd occupied the entirety of the Russian domain from Kaliningrad to Sakhalin, so who knows how they were able to keep control of the nukes...and I've no idea why they didn't do this to Afghanistan proper, or why none of the nuke were aimed there. Point being, for the next...oh, maybe 8 months, the newly annexed central Asian territories suffered a withering and daily barrage of nuclear death, to the point that death reports dwindled to the single digits before disappearing altogether.

The literally pounded certain cities into dust and bodies until there was nothing left, and then they kept going.




Then Russia nuked its former territories after I'd annexed all but Sakhalin and Kaliningrad. Truly, the Russians still believe in scorched earth.

After a few salvos, though, they ran out of warheads. Again, I don't know how, since I controlled all their launch sites...

But at least Afghanistan now has exacted vengeance.

[Blacaria]

LMFAO

[Jamzor the Jaxxor]

It is the ancient Russian tactic of scorched earth put to its most extreme implementation.

[Seperallis]

Be sure to click the images for a larger view.


Look at them. Look at this team of absolute killers as they just dominate the hidden underground alien base.
From left to right you have "Atlas" Anakinexi, "Mama Bear" Laevilium, "Stalker" Adwest, "Buster" Blacaria and "Scarecrow" Epsilon.
(Not pictured is "Cobra" Jamzor, who's still on the rope above)

I've kind of been spamming the chat with snippets of stories, so you'll probably know that I've been playing an XCOM: Enemy Within game using a custom name list of people from Eternity/Oracia/Caprecia. It's been a great fun absolutely slaughtering ayy all day with a troupe of absolute badasses, which makes me believe it's time to up the difficulty, but hey...it's my first EW run, so I was feeling like I needed to learn first. Besides, I already accidentally got King (remember him?) killed through of mix of over aggressiveness and plain bad luck, so it's not like my decision was completely unjustified.

At the start, anyway. I had a slow start because I like giving the enemy a chance hate wasting time and resources to move facilities around the base, and so waste time and resources digging to where I'm going to place them. Despite that, it's now June, only 3 months into the campaign and we've yet to lose any nations from the council. Actually, with the exception of a couple countries, the world's pretty calm about the whole "aliens are terrorizing our planet" thing.

Anyway, pictures! They're much more fun!

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I don't know what faces everyone's making. Deck's making a great face; someone meme it.
From left to right: Blac (behind Deck), Deck, Adwest, & Battlion

This was the start of what was to be the first real test, a terror mission in Berlin. The aliens have gotten tired of just abducting people, and wanted to send the message of "resist and you will be destroyed," so of course XCOM had to come in and save the day.

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Well...uh...is that it? I mean, I was kind of expecting something more; even on normal, I could have sworn my first terror mission in my first game was much more...uh...substantial. Oh well, time to continue onward.

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I love watching the dismount scenes, every single time.
Left to right: Adwest, Blac (in the back), Mestra, & Jam

The aliens really never had a chance with this crew. When the chips are down, Fal never fails to miss a headshot when it's needed most. Deck came out of the gate with those clutch kills, and I believe he still holds the highest kills per mission ratio. Blac's always there to support with rockets and suppressive LMG fire, but often steps into danger to clear entire rooms of enemies on his own, earning him the most total kills (if I remember correctly). I really abuse my assaults, so Jam and Batt are often in the medical ward, but they're both instrumental to braving enemy fire to get in close and murderize those that absolutely need to die.

Lots of people in the roster have pulled their weight. Truly, the game just feels so much better when you play with names you know.

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This one's for Blac.

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You finally get a good view of Jam in the back there, in red. I've been using him as my primo covert operative ("Cobra" Commando ) in missions to infiltrate and take down the traitors known as EXALT. I can't count the number of times I thought I'd lost him, but he somehow keeps surviving...so I gave him the Lightning Reflexes ability. Now he runs directly into swarms of ayys without a care in the world. \o/

I like carapace armor, it just looks like you're ready to get down to business. Sadly it'll be outclassed soon.

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XCOM's Ayy Team, suited up and ready to deploy. Truly the finest Earth has to offer.

Really, everyone's on the names list, it's just that the game hasn't seen fit to give me many people we know. Countries and genders are randomly assigned, so sorry if the game's selection offends you in whatever way somehow.

That's about it, I guess. Yeah.

[Blacaria]

Hehehehehe I looked good, come to the slaughter you alien scum!

[Seperallis]

XCOM Base Defense
an XCOM: Enemy Within video

The video is at the bottom of the post.

So I've continued the campaign. Everything's going pretty well; the aliens and EXALT have regained some ground in the tech war, but I'm a little over half a month from the last big tech leap into plasma weaponry and firestorms, so things are going to get very one-sided again. We've been stomping ayylien butts everywhere, to the point where, after three full months of fighting, the world is...really actually kinda nonplussed about the whole "Alien Doomsday Invasion" thing.




Our soldiers have been faring well, as well. After a flawless data retrieval mission against an EXALT cell, things are really looking up for our intrepid heroes. Blac became our first max-rank (Colonel) soldier, becoming a Mayhem-Suppression heavy who likes to lock down ayys and keep them from doing anything. I got to the point where I really wasn't taking the enemy "threat" very seriously, as you can probably see.




Of course, as they say about XCOM, the moment you get complacent is the moment you should be the most scared. Little did I know at the time, that I was about to have the most difficult test the game could possibly throw at me: an all-out alien assault on XCOM HQ. Be careful, it's 1.5 hours of uncut video. I tried to make the slowest parts at the beginning more bearable.

[Seperallis]

So, I got Plague Inc during the last sale thing on Steam. After having it sit there for a bit, I decided to try it out. I kinda got frustrated with it trying to get certain events to pop; I got a few special events and their related achievements, but trying to chase them is finicky at best and pursuing most of them seems to run completely counter to having a successful game. (I didn't get some screenshots of those ones, sadly; a couple were pretty neat)

ANYWAY, while I was still having fun with it, I got some screenshots. Arguably, creating a name for your disease is the best part of the game. I am also incredibly puerile.

I've decided to spoiler the images, just to be nice to people.

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Oh no! It's got CHEEEEEESE!


( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


This is my favorite.





This is my other favorite.

[Seperallis]

I don't feel like writing a lot tonight, but I had a pretty fun Stellaris game as the United Roaches of Earth, which is probably the first or second empire anyone who picks up the game ever plays because of COURSE it is. The general premise being, we were like the super cool and egalitarian humans of Start Trek...except we were mutated roaches, humanity having offed itself in nuclear holocaust some centuries prior.

My roaches still had normal human names, though, as did our ships. Because of course they did.

Anyway, the game started off peacefully enough. I went hard on the exploration and expansion, formed the United Federation of Planets with my neighbor and first-contact (who looked suspiciously like Vulcans), and then proceeded to freedomize all the space autocrats. I didn't war much outside of the early game and a larger, later struggle with some large psionic bird empire that was no match for the superior technology and power of me & my federation; we broke it apart into small tributary states, while one of my friends vassalized what remained. Aside from one pacifist empire that basically did nothing all game, the federation ruled basically the entire galaxy in 120 years. Not bad for my first game.




I won the game, but didn't get credited with the win, either in steam or via the in-game "you win" splash screen that pops up. Instead, it credited the win to one of the tiny, single-planet vassal-states that I recently liberated from the psycho-space-birds. I knew deep inside the victory was for me, but I was still disappointed at having been cheated out of the satisfaction of a neat screenshot because of a stupid bug.

No pun intended.


">>blank<< has won a federation victory." Damn bug couldn't even give me a proper name, wtf is this.

The game progressed from there, with a disturbing lack of warfare...until the militant isolationist Fallen Empire declared war on one of my federation members. I wish I had some good pictures of it, but I don't; the combined federation fleet roflstomped them hard and just rampaged through their space. After the first engagement, it wasn't even a contest.

Now, though, well, I accidentally awoke the other FE, the Blorg, a group of Benevolent Interventionists...who are, admittedly, the best FE to awaken because they're so "nice." However, I refused their intergalactic peace treaty, and so now the entire galaxy is at war with them, and losing. I would be better off accepting the peace deal, but I'm looking to hold on until I can get away with not losing a planet to them, though it's no big concern if I do; I have about 40 more of them.

That's where I am in that game: space roaches conquering the galaxy through diplomacy (and a little warfare), who are now embroiled in a war with an enemy who is far, FAR superior to them in every way. That's where I left off, while I worked on an idea in my next Stellaris game.

Yeah. That's all.

[Seperallis]

Just a quick thing on Starbound. Sal picked it up again, and I tend to have about a 50% chance of following her lead any time she does. It's much more fun to play with someone, especially scanning new things together and watching the different reactions our characters have, Sal's Avian bird lady proselytizing to my clueless and slightly cynical renegade Novakid. Sometimes the interactions are just too perfect.

Anyway, we still haven't beaten the final boss and finished the story; we've both gotten side-tracked with little projects. Sal wants to make a new base, as do I...I've spent a couple days trying to find a Hylotl city to pillage use for stuff, but eventually resigned myself to just deconstruct the entire thing for building materials; I've killed the guards and have been slowly herding the inhabitants into a corner while I take their stuff and disassemble their constructions.

Truly, I am a greater scourge than the Big Bad I'm supposed to be fighting.





Eventually I want to make a super big colony on some very dangerous world with habitation stations and biodomes and whatnot, and that's why I'm destroying entire alien civilizations for their building materials and cute stuffed animals, but that won't happen for quite some time still. My most immediate task is to fill out my ship crew with more useful persons, as it was mostly filled with soldiers and outlaws; I've since booted most of them and replaced them with a medic, engineer, and another mechanic, but I'm still looking for three different kinds of chemists (I only ever get the yellow-suited ones appearing). I'm trying to get some Protectorate achievement in the meantime for having all 7 different playable races in your ship crew, but I'm missing a Novakid, and finding an NPC village of them (or even just furniture that I can place in my colony and eventually do quests for so he joins my ship) is a long and painful process as I have visited five separate star systems and have yet to see one.

That's pretty much it, I guess.

I also sometimes just spend an hour on my farm. It's great. All I need are to find some neonmelon seeds and I'll have grown every food an unlocked every cooking recipe.

[Seperallis]

For Liberty!
Part One
State Reforms and the Wars of Liberation

A Victoria 2 Japanese continuation game from Europa Universalis III

>> Click Here for the "Ethiopian Campaign!" <<
>> Click Here for the "European Expedition!" <<
>> Click Here for the "Sino-Japanese War!" (Part 1) <<
>> Click Here for the "Sino-Japanese War!" (Part 2) <<
>> Click Here for "For Liberty!" (Part 2) <<





State Reforms
100 Years of westernized imperialism had culminated in 38 million dead in a war with China to starvation and disease from the carrion in the fields shocked the people of China, Japan, and the world. Back in the home islands, even with a censored press, the casualties were felt as several hundreds of thousands of families suddenly found themselves without sons, fathers, and husbands.

The gruesome horrors of war piled themselves upon decades of government oppression. Despite the creation of the Diet and the ceding of some authority, the Emperor (or at least, the Court in the Emperor’s name) continued to rule by decree and limit the practical authority of the increasingly liberal legislature in favor of the old conservative establishment, using the protection of the emperor to form and fund roaming, violent suppression squads to quiet dissent to the old order. Unsurprisingly, these tactics only fomented further resentment, and these “citizen police” squads had already become less effective even before the war in the face of a larger, well-educated and more insistent population demanding such unthinkable horrors as citizen governance, equal representation, and a free press.





So too was the power of the socialist corner growing as the people continued to work unlimited hours for paltry pay with no state benefits despite living in an increasingly prosperous and powerful nation. Thanks to old Emperor Reigen the First’s education reforms, these poor workers were quick to organize across most of the empire and joined an unholy alliance with liberals in protest against the Emperor...which was clearly treason, resulting in even more brutal suppression; riots and armed uprisings became nearly a constant occurrence somewhere in the empire, which would eventually be snuffed by the conservative-controlled military, which in turn (of course) generated more unrest.



Reigen the Third assumed the throne at the beginning of this era, surrounded by powerful conservative ministers. Watching his country slowly weaken from within even though outwardly the most powerful country in the world, he made a calculated move to preserve his rule and strengthen his nation: first granting unconditionally the right of a free press, then granting a constitution that divested nearly all of his powers to the Diet and giving it the sole mandate to govern with true universal suffrage to all male citizens.

This immediately weakened the position of both the various armed rebel groups and the power of the conservative ministers as the reform-minded Emperor became much more popular with the people, and for a time the masses were quieted as men of various walks of life met in the Diet to determine the future of the nation, and actually have their deliberations matter. For the next 50 years, the liberal democratic government of Japan - wary of the inaction that might spring the growing socialist bloc into power - would pass various safety, wage, pension, health and other reforms that bettered the lives of the people and made the country prosper even more than it already was, though this time for all people. In time, the country would become one of the leaders in civil rights and equality, becoming the first to allow female suffrage and end the discriminatory school system for non-Japanese peoples in the empire.

Show ContentReforms in Japan:

The state of reforms in Japan, circa 1899.


The state of reforms in Japan, circa 1936.

The reforms would put paid to the riots and rebellions, which ended and would not resurface.


The Wars of Liberation
The new liberal government also changed Japan’s foreign posture. Gone were the days of imperial conquest (at least, overtly), and begun were the days of “freedom and liberty.” While the other great powers continued the game of expanding and subsuming, Japan became a champion in defense of the democracies and the smaller, weaker powers against the creeping spread of communism - and later fascism - and imperial expansionism. Japan sought to liberate those outside its region, supporting the rise of American post-colonial countries like Brazil and the Kingdom of America, the unification of Italy, and the resurgence of previously occupied old-world nations like Iran and Turkey.



These small expeditions and projects did much to weaken the power of the Ancien Regime of the Great Nations, many of which fell into internal disorder: Spain and China became communist strongholds, while even Great Britain became a Workers’ Commonwealth for some years before anti-communist insurgents seized the government and re-instituted the monarchy.



With most of Asia already free from the old European colonial rule, the largest point of contention (outside Africa, anyway) became India: split largely between the colonial powers of Britain and Portugal, with a few minor independent realms protected by Japan, the sub-continent became the last noticeable vestige of European power in Asia, a base of large European armies that could threaten Japan and the liberty of her protectorates. To end this, plans were drawn for a pair of campaigns that would liberate the various Indian people under their own nation, in a war that would finally give a real test for new Japanese tanks, aircraft, and chemical weapons.