I find Troll shamans a strong strategy on higher difficulties. Thanks to GermanJoey, I have become aware of the Troll Magicians Focus Magic strategy which is (if you get that far) hard to stop. However, it takes you rather long to get there.
But in the meantime, shamans do really well. They have the same structural benefits as Troll magicians (high defense, hit points, regeneration). Best of all, they get really strong really easily (Orihalcon; Adamantium) and are comparatively cheap, especially with Coal. If you have all these three combined in one city (granted, it is rather rare), you get cheap, strong and versatile units. On top of regeneration they mutually heal each other. Out of ammo? Come get some melee! They can still be improved with easy spells (Focus Magic works well on them, although obviously not quite as well as on Magicians), but even all the other improvements (Holy Weapon, Eldritch Weapon, Heroism, Wraith Form, Eldritch Weapon) are useful even though they only work on the Melee part - because you are not afraid of using them in Mele if properly buffed. The death strategy makes this even cheaper, but it could also work with the sorcery strategy (build shaman stacks to strengthen your empire and lay the foundations for a magician focus magic assault). Corruption as a countermeasure is less effective due to the inherent ability of Shamans.
Of course, the same arguments go for everybody else's shamans - but there you have the fragility issue.
If anyone would like to see a report of a game played after the Winter patch (1.0.0.56), I played and wrote up a report for the CivFanatics Game of the Month 06, a Cultural game with Russia on Emperor difficulty. Back in the prior patch, I also completed a short Kongo One City Challenge game, which was also geared towards culture. Along with the current Epic One event, I've been on a bit of a Cultural victory kick recently for Civ6.
On a scheduling note: I am hoping to open Adventure Three this upcoming weekend. While that means some overlap with Epic One and the potential to split up the playerbase, Adventure Three is going to be significantly different from Epic One, different enough that I don't think this will be a major problem. And we have a long history of having more than one event running at once. Since Civ6 games play out a lot faster than Civ4 (and especially Civ3) games, I think we should be able to have two of them running on the schedule every now and then. Adventure Three will be the first of the new "open spoilers" games that the community has requested, and I'll be interested to see how that plays out. Stay tuned...
The seven of you were the first batch Gauis Baltar tested with his Cylon detector. Shortly thereafter, he was found dead, and two positive results extracted from the ruin of the machine. The argument over what to do with you all raged long and hard, until President Roslin proposed a test, to serve as a decision about the nature of humanity itself: can we discern, intellectually, man from the machine? Or is there no fundamental difference dividing us?
7 are locked in the brig. Whoever emerges will determine the legacy of humanity itself.
Days and nights end at 0800 GMT. The forum clock is used as the official clock. Votes and actions posted at xx:59 count, votes and actions posted at xx:00 do not.
Posting is not allowed after the day and night deadlines until the GM has posted a phase resolution.
In the event of extended forum downtime or downtime that occurs in close proximity of the deadline or some other event that disrupts the game, the day may be extended 24 hours at the GM's discretion.
During the day each player may cast one vote for someone to be lynched. Due to the impending threat of discovery, "no lynch" is not an option. If no players vote, the mod will randomly select someone to die.
Votes must be posted in red text or they will not count. Votes with spelling errors of names do count so long as it's unambiguous in the GM's opinion whom is being voted for. Votes embedded in quotes do not count.
The player with most lynch votes at the end of the day is lynched and eliminated from the game. Tiebreaks: There is a tiebreaking mechanism that exists, and makes sense to the GM.
Anyone failing to vote for 1 game day will be mod killed and removed from the game with a loss.
Dead players may make one posthumous post that doesn't contribute to discussion.
Forum profile camping is not allowed.
To prevent confusion that may arise in the case of cross posting, posts may not be edited for any reason.
Players may not communicate with other players about the game outside the thread via PM, email, chat, quicktopics etc. unless told otherwise.
Players must check their PMs and make sure they're alive each game day before posting.
If all players are simultaneously eliminated, or the game reaches a stalemate situation, the scum win.
Directly quoting role PMs or other communication from the GM isn't allowed unless otherwise specified.
Breaking rules will result in penalties ranging from warnings to loss of abilities to being mod killed, depending on the severity of the infraction and the GM's discretion.
Alignment PM's Pilot You are a loyal soldier stationed on board the Battlestar Galactica, dedicated to finding and eliminating the Cylon threat within your ranks.
Cylon You are a Cylon, sent to carry out a mysterious mission. The detection triggered the Cylon inside you, and although you are still at war in yourself over just who you are, but you know one cold, hard fact: you want to live. And the only way to achieve that is to walk over the bodies of your friends. You win when all but you and your fellow Cylon are fracked (or nothing can prevent the same).
Roles:
There is one macho security officer (cop), one doctor, three unskilled pilots (vanilla town), one Cylon agent (goon), and one Cylon seducer (roleblocker).
(January 7th, 2017, 03:56)Jeff Graw Wrote: Keep in mind that I'm a devil's advocate by nature, so when someone proposes a rule I'm compelled to try and poke holes in it
Now, who does that remind me of? It's on the tip of my tongue, probably someone who yammers on and on about all the things that might go wrong with crit mechanics or something, dunno, I'll think of it eventually...
I enjoyed your comments on overcrowding and non-sentinent wildlife. Here are some others. Poke away.
Cross Ladder Research
Cross-ladder research: Some techs could appear in multiple tech areas depending on race. The conditions would be:
1) The tech would have been generated in its original tech ladder already, and then have x% chance to appear in the alternate. Maybe 50%?
2) If a player researches the tech in the alternate field, it does not increase the (max) tech level of the original or alternate field, even if it is the highest device in that field so far. It does increase the original tech field level by 1.
3) The tech level (and rungs) are not changed when completing research on an alt-tech. If the alt-tech was the only option in the original ladder rung, a new rung is displayed in the original field (but tech level not changed until the original field completes its OWN project).
For example, Sakkra could find "Improved robotic controls K" showing up in their planetology ladder. The (rough) logic being that the species needs to adapt as much as the factory does for controlling multiple factories.
Meklar could discover terraforming technology in their computer field.
Alkari could discover ship deflector shield technology in their propulsion ladder.
Mrrshan could discover armor technology in their weapons field (hey, you gotta shoot those test weapons at something!).
I love the random tech ladders of MoO1. This toggelable mod would add some more variety to some races. These are buffs for the most part as their is no drawback to having an alt-tech showing up in a ladder. You can just ignore it and research it in its original field. Because of the requirement that the tech must be present in the original ladder, we are not adding more tech options--just 2 different ways to get a tech that would have been there anyways.
Creative/Omniscient
The ability to see future rungs in a field's tech ladder. You cannot actually research those options yet but you know what will be available later in the game. This can be given as a racial attribute and vary by depth of future rungs or even preset rungs. Mrrshan can always see 3 weapon rungs into the future perhaps. Maybe Meklar start by knowing what their final 5 rungs of Computers will be. Maybe Psilons start knowing the first 2 rungs of every field (but still must research the first rung first).
This effect could also be attached to discovering an artifacts-type planet or some sort of galaxy-wide GNN event.
Sliders
I think some races could have bonuses/penalties implemented through how they interact with planetary sliders.
Psilons, due to peaceful nature, do not want a planet's sole purpose to be building ships. Therefore, ship building can only make up 80% of a planet's output. The rest must be spent on research/industry/defense/terraforming. (This is nerf to ultra rich's for sure. Psilon war machine will have to get more individual planets involve in ship making).
Alkari: Learn by doing. 15% of resources spent on ships slider is added to research slider for that planet. The alkari are obsessed with ships and they even get to push scientific progress forward by building them.
Mrrshan: Military Industrial Complex. 75% of defense slider (missiles and shields) is added to industry slider. If factories are maxed this results in 'free tax payer money' by Industry funneling straight to planetary reserves.
Meklar: Economy of Scale. Industry slider cannot go below 10%. However, any allocation to Industry sees an additional 20% return. For example, a slider at 50% would receive an additional (50)*.2 = 10% towards industry. This makes Meklar the most efficient factory builders but hurts them slightly when factory construction is finished. (The 10% required would then feed into planetary resources--but would arguably be better spent on ships/research).
Less Risk/Reward spying
Either darlok specific or more general. I've thought the binary reward system from spying meant the penalties were also harsh. Unfortunately this is less of a mod and changes how spying works at a lower level.
Failed attempts at spying may result in adding that particular tech to your ladder (stealing blueprints) so that your scientists can research it later. Less failed attempts may add RP towards that particular tech, after 3-4 partial attempts you may accumulate enough RP on it through espionage to complete it.
Some racial traits, perhaps customizable (ei moo2)
Bulrathi ground combat bonus gets swamped by tech later on. This approach would cap the enemy's tech ground combat bonus to whatever the Bulrathi TECH bonus is. This does not include the bulrathi racial bonus or defender bonus. In other words, no matter the tech situation, Bulrathi would always have the upper hand. Essentially, Bulrathi are able to completely ignore ground combat tech and rely on brute strength.
Mrrshan spies use their WEAPON tech level for spying rolls instead of Computer tech level. Mrrshan piss everyone off anyways. Might as well give them a spying bonus to use while fighting.
Sakkra get overcrowded planets (mentioned in other thread).
Hello everyone, my (user)name is RifleAvenger, and I've really enjoyed lurking Realms Beyond for the past few months. So much so, in fact, that I'm going to try my hand at giving a report on the finale of my play-through of Shin Megami Tensei 4: Apocalypse. Specifically, I'm attempting a blind ironcore run of the game's final area and bosses. This may be a bit odd and even disorienting, as I'm starting this report at the end of the game! However, what I'm really trying to do is get practice at this sort of thing, in order to prepare for a full variant play-through and report of the original SMT 4 (Apocalypse is actually a full sequel, an SMT 4-2 if you will).
However, before we get to the report, I feel I need to give some quick background information on the Megami Tensei franchise, the nature of modern (post 2003) Shin Megami Tensei games, and mechanics specific to SMT 4 and SMT 4 Apocalypse. If you already know this stuff or don't care, skip on down to the next part of the post!
A Very Brief History of Megami Tensei
The Megami Tensei series of games had its first launch September 11 of 1987 with Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei, meaning it's slightly older than Final Fantasy! This first game was a very loose adaptation of the light novel series Digital Devil Story. It was a first person dungeon crawler with turn based combat, a trait every game in the series would retain until the late 90's early 2000's. Notably, even this first game featured the ability to negotiate and recruit the demons and gods that make up most of the games' enemies, as well as the ability to fuse them into stronger entities. Megami Tensei would go on to be one the Big Three Japanese RPG series alongside Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. However, unlike the other two series, very few of the games made it to North America (unsure about Europe) until after the 2000's. This is probably because of the whole "negotiating and summoning demons" thing combined with the Abrahamic God being a frequent antagonist in the series.
Future installments through the rest of the 80's and 90's (including the first SHIN Megami Tensei) kept to the first's blueprint while adding things like multiple endings and the overarching themes of the series. These themes include the eternal battle of Law and Chaos, the struggles of those caught in between to stay afloat (and often the rightness of finding the middle path), and the paradoxical strength and weakness of humans and humanism. This is a series where solo runs are nearly impossible, where you must rely on your party to survive; however, your divine and demonic allies constantly manipulate you while your human friendships are strained or even break, normally violently and tragically. Eventually, offshoots of the series took their own ideas in their own directions (the Persona series is a great example of this), but ATLUS kept making essentially the same games, seemingly unaffected by the flash and pomp much of the rest of the JRPG genre was embracing post FF7.
Then came SMT 3, what we knew here as SMT: Nocturne. Nocturne broke with the first person view and sprites in favor of third person and 3D models (though still elegantly stylized, the game's art stands up to this day), but its more important break was the introduction of the press-turn system. Every SMT game after Nocturne uses this system, even most of the spin-offs (including Persona) use some modification of it, and knowing how it works is essential to understanding combat in SMT.
The Press Turn System:
Here's the basics of the Press Turn System:
[*]The player and the enemy have separate sets of turns (a turn here = one action). One side takes all of its turns, and then the other goes.
[*]Each side has a number of turns equal to the number of active party members in it. Powerful enemies and sometimes the player are exceptions.
[*]Hitting an opponent's weakness or getting a critical hit transforms one of your turns into an "extra turn."
Extra turns cannot become additional extra turns, so at most you can double your actions per turn this way.
You can pass a turn from one party member to the next. This gives an extra turn if you have none, but consumes an extra turn if you have any.
[*]Missing an attack (except ailments) or hitting an opponent with an attack they are immune to (including ailments) makes you lose two press turns.
Hitting an absorb or reflect damage resistance makes you lose ALL of your turns, ending your round immediately.
[*] These rules apply to both you and the enemy.
As such, the press turn system makes battles in SMT a game of momentum. You want to consistently hit enemy weaknesses to gain turns, while having the opponent hit your resistances, miss, or be disabled by status ailments to lose theirs. One bad party composition, tactical misstep, or risky gamble can kill the player even when fighting regular mobs, as all enemies can snowball the same way as the player given the chance. Overly defensive play gives up the ability to gain additional turns, and strong HP and MP restoring items are very rare to put the player on a clock (can't keep healing forever). However, the game is tuned such that, past the very beginning, the raw numbers of damage and HP are slanted against the player. Offense is king in SMT, but healing and support skills are essential to buy the player the time they need to win.
Shin Megami Tensei 4 Specific Mechanics
SMT 4 plays much the same as Nocturne, with a few exceptions. First off, unlike Nocturne (and many older SMT's) the game does not end when the protagonist dies. The entire active party must be wiped out to lose. However, if you don't teach your demons one of two very rare skills you cannot summon or switch out party members while the protagonist is dead, putting you in tight spot nonetheless.
Secondly, the protagonist does not learn skills from leveling up. Rather, when a demon learns its final skill, you can choose to pass any of its known skills on to the player except for passive abilities (if the player character has no empty skill slots, you may replace an existing one). Passing on a skill the protagonist already knows instead cheapens the MP cost for that skill when used by the protagonist.
Third, the unique magatama system of Nocturne is replaced by equipped gear, handling stat bonuses and resistances.
Fourth, physical skills use MP in SMT 4/4A, whereas they consumed HP in Nocturne.
Fifth is that SMT 4 does away with random encounters, though on map encounter can ambush you or sometimes spawn directly under you.
Sixth is the app system, which is unique to the SMT 4 games and lets you customize your character in various ways. The additional skill slot apps are sadly a near must buy which eat up a lot of app points, but beyond those there are a wide variety of choices to be made, from raising the level cap on demon fusion to apps which facilitate a diplomacy heavy play style. There are even challenge mode apps, like bringing back the "instant game over if the protagonists dies" mechanic.
Seventh is the smirk status , which furthers the momentum based nature of the press turn system. Whenever a character takes an action or has one performed on them that either gives their team press turns or takes them from the enemy, they have a chance to smirk. The player or enemies may also gain smirk at the start of a fight if they score a blindside. Smirking differs between 4 and 4:A, to prevent confusion I will only detail how it works in the latter.
A smirking character has their weaknesses converted to normal resistances while smirking, their next hit is always a critical hit, actions with variable numerical effects always use the maximum values (like maximize spell in DnD), and some skills have additional effects when used while smirking. Smirk is lost either two turns after it is gained or after the smirking character attacks, so it cannot be used to negate weaknesses forever. A character cannot smirk when afflicted by a status ailment, and smirk is removed should a smirking character be inflicted with an ailment. Some skills can forcibly grant or remove smirk with 100% odds.
So yeah, that's enough of that, on to the game! As I said before, this report will cover my attempt to beat the final dungeon of the game blind, without retreating, without reloading after a death (or taking Dagda's free do-overs) , and without any excessive grinding of any kind. Though I am already quite high level with high level party members going into the dungeon (it wasn't an ironcore 'til now, this is partly my attempt to redeem the game's difficulty after a lot of grinding to get my favorite gods and angels), the enemies in here go up to and even beyond the level cap of 99. The no grinding rule is more so that I don't grind demons to get specific skills before a boss fight, or abuse negotiation options to fish for specific items or macca for buying fresh demons from my compendium. If I lose, the report ends there (though I will finish the game on my own).
I'm playing the game on War (Hard) difficulty, as that's what I've been doing all game. Conflict (Normal) would make this a cakewalk, whereas Apocalypse (WTF Hard) would make this challenge impossible for my skill level (I might be able beat the game on it, but I'd need to further optimize my party and retreat to heal after any major fights).
I've banned any skills that passively restore MP, like Victory Cry or Chakra Walk, as they would trivialize resource management. The apps that do similar things, such as the one that restores full HP/MP on level ups, are also banned for this reason. The app that makes enemies of lower level than myself not engage is also disallowed. Energy/Spirit Drain are allowed, since I have to give up other actions to use them in combat, and with the no grinding rule I cannot farm easy encounters to top myself off. I've allowed myself one use from each healing station I might find in the dungeon, and only prior to finding another one, but I'd prefer not to use them if possible. They're a last resort to be used if I think I vastly underestimated the length/rigor of the final dungeon.
Also, apologies in advance. From here on out, the pictures get pretty blurry. It's a 3DS game, and I don't have the equipment to get it hooked up to my PC for clearer shots, so I'm literally just snapping photos of my screen. The results are sadly predictable.
The Sloppy Cliffnotes on the Backstory You've Missed
To get anyone who cares up to speed, I am playing as Siddhartha (player chosen name, default is Nanashi), an androgynous youth living in apocalyptic Tokyo. 25 years ago some nasty experiments released all sorts of supernatural creatures into the world, which God took exception to and nuked the entire planet for. Tokyo survived the nukes when its guardian deity Masakado turned into a giant stone dome, but that also trapped Tokyo underground with all the demons. Siddhartha yearns to be a hunter and fight back against the gods and demons plaguing mankind, but gets horribly murdered at the start of the game before accomplishing much of anything. A god named Dagda offers to return me to life if I'll be his Godslayer and generally do his bidding. I accept, and with his boons grow in power and prestige as a hunter.
Along the way I accidentally release a bunch of world religion deities with an axe to grind against God, get the player character of the original SMT 4 kidnapped, learn that Dagda is not a people person, and proceed to kill every angel, demon, and god in my path. Eventually I kill Dagda too, because I disagree with his stance on other people being allowed to exist (his opinion is that they shouldn't). Though Tokyo is finally at peace, SMT's native Stephen Hawking expy informs me that God Himself is still out there and will never stop meddling in mankind's business (seeing as He believes it to be His business). So I get all my friends, human and divine/demonic alike together, and we decide to go kill God like any self-respecting JRPG heroes.
Those Who Stand Against God
Time to introduce our merry band. Up first is Siddhartha, the protagonist.
Don't let the bars fool you, they only scale up to 200, but Siddhartha's magic is nearly 420 . Also built with enough agility to always move first on my turn (more likely to act multiple times a turn as a result) and up my hit/evasion (since I use magic, which has high natural accuracy, I almost never miss esp. after buffs/debuffs). Luck increases critical chance, makes me less likely to be crit, grants me a little ailment resistance, and tilts damage rolls in my favor slightly, among countless other small effects. Strength and Dexterity only influence melee and gun attacks respectively, and so are dump stats for my magic inclined character. My current gear gives me resistance to physical attacks and the dreaded light/dark attacks (which can instant kill when user smirks). I cover the other elements with the rest of my team's resistances.
Siddhartha's moves, a mix of offensive and support magic. Ice age and judgement light are single target and multiple target severe damage spells respectively. Energy drain prevents me from running out of MP and heals my HP, but its offensive power is low and it takes several turns to refill my MP. Concentrate makes my next magic attack do 2.5x damage, meaning it's better in terms of damage per turn and MP economy. Doping raises the party's max HP during battle. Luster Candy is an all party buff spell that raises Phys/Magic Attack, Defense, and Hit/Evasion, and stacks up to 3 times. Salvation is full party heal that also cures ailments when smirking (one of the only smirk abilities I dislike, if I'm status'd I cant get smirk to cure myself! Old salvation didn't require smirk, but its high MP cost balanced it out versus less comprehensive alternatives). Awakened Power gives me pierce (ignores all resistances except reflect, but pierce is glitched in this game and goes through reflect too) and a sizable flat damage bonus; frankly it's OP and I don't understand why I get this ability when I'm not on Dagda's ending route. The ability to directly command and switch between my human helpers in battle would fit much better.
For my app selections, I've got the must have demon fusion, map, demon weakness analysis, and skill slot boosters for myself and my demons. I also have fusion level limit +15 (something I did very early in the game to get ahead of the power curve), 7 additional reserve party slots, 20% off buying demons from my compendium (lets you buy back demons you've previously contracted with), and a lot of apps for negotiation skills. This latter group includes nearly all of the scout (recruitment) tree, truce for dealing with the very low odds of running above normal difficulty, fundraise (needed to clear a sidequest, otherwise a waste of points), a heavy investment in trade to get rare items, an experience boost for winning encounters diplomatically, and both Demon Charmer AND Threatening Aura to play good-cop/bad-cop.
Next up is Shiva, the god of destruction and rebirth, at maximum level. Shiva hits single targets like a truck with physical attacks, and Akasha Arts can pierce if he's smirking. He drains Phys, Fire, and Lightning, and is immune to mind status ailments with no weaknesses. I also gave him Tetrakarn (grants party phys reflect for one turn) and Imposing Stance (User cannot make further moves this turn, reduces enemy press turns by 1) for support. A very strong ally, whose only weakness is a lack of coverage and no smile charge for guaranteed pierce.
Krishna, Vishnu's avatar and the main antagonist of the game until recently. His plan to stop God involved creating a new universe where all are one, whereas I introduced him to my plan of peace through superior firepower and a katana through the gut. One backtrack to where I originally met him and a brief conversation later, and he came around to seeing things my way. A magic build like me, Krishna actually has only a single attacking move and poor resistances. However, he is still one of my strongest party members, carrying an all around buff, an all around debuff, doping, a spell that revives and summons an ally (meaning he can take over summoning duty if I fall), and the absurdly good ability to use healing and supporting items to essentially have any healing/support ability at his fingertips (normally only the protagonist can use items). He also has a status ailment spell that inflicts every mind ailment while lowering enemy defense (he has one that inflicts poison/sick/bind too, but I had him forget it before coming in here). His only downsides are his crap resistances, below average HP, and having no way to regen his MP beyond a few precious items.
Mastema, a very sketchy angel. Repels four elements while only being weak to one. He has the same offensive spells as Siddhartha, including energy drain, but also has passive abilities that greatly increase ice and light damage. However, he lacks natural pierce and has Smile Charge in place of concentrate. To round out his smirk happy nature, I gave him the support spell Magaon, which removes smirk from the enemy.
Another angel I've somehow shanghai'd into fighting God. Seraph is basically Mastema, but with more (weaker) resistances, weak to a different element, and has Fire and Gun attacks in addition to Judgement Light and Energy Drain (but no Ice). Carries Salvation in place of Magaon in the support/healing slot.
SMT's God is basically the demiurge, so I'm pretty perplexed by this guy being willing to help me. Anyways, Demiurge is a mixed bag. He has the crazy powerful Anticthon spell that is severe almighty damage plus debilitate to all foes, but anticthon now requires smirk for the additional effect and is super MP expensive. Worse yet, Demiurge has shit MP and no way of recovering his MP. He'll likely only be good for a single battle. He'll be REALLY GOOD for that battle, but that'll be it. He does also have the Lightning God's single target spell, which isn't as MP hungry.
Inanna, Mother of All, was part of Krishna's Divine Power's faction. Her role, to continuously given birth to new gods (and rebirth ones demonized by God) to supply the Divine Powers with an army and make themselves invincible. Until I defeated her and forced her to join me that is. Inanna has superb elemental coverage with low cost severe fire/ice/force/lightning spells and concentrate to power them up (these unique spells do come with the cost of making her weak to the opposing element after use). She also has debilitate and imposing stance for support, and a LOT of MP to make use of. Beyond the downsides to her elemental spells, her only other glaring issue is her shitty, shitty HP. Without doping applied she risks dying even when max buff/debuff stacks are applied against tough encounters.
Another member of the Divine Powers I've beaten and later recruited. Odin is honestly not one of my stronger gods. However, he has the useful ability to use items, a phys move that pierces without smirk, some decent lightning attacks (Thunder Reign would be great if it could pierce, but alas it cannot), and the outdated but still useful ability to lower enemy defense (and only defense). He's also got a repel gun resistance, which is rare and might come in handy. Since he's not boss fight material, he'll actually get used a lot to help clear mobs.
The Egyptian god of storms, deserts, and foreigners, Set is a character I really, really like in the series, but his appearance here will not be very glorious. Set is on trash mob duty, pure and simple. He has greatly increased force damage, but this is undercut by his best spell is only heavy damage and low magic stat. His strength is decent and Rending Claws is a good move, but without pierce too many enemies resist physical at this point in the game. He has Luster Candy and Makarakarn (reflect all non-almighty magic for one turn) and a passive ability that amps his hit/evade rate, but lacks the MP to keep up the support spells over a long fight. What Set DOES have is a powerful auto-attack and the Makajamaon (seals/silences all enemies) spell + an affinity for ailments. This lets him pound on random enemies for no MP and shut down any dangerous mobs/bad situations.
The Japanese creator goddess who died and became a death goddess. Izanami is here for one reason; she is the only party member I have with decent magic who possesses a powerful Dark elemental attack. My only other access to the element with this party is using Mudoon stones with the protagonist. She carries Thunder Gods for additional elemental coverage, as well as concentrate AND smile charge to pump her damage and proc extra effects. Also carries a full party healing spell and spell that grants immunity to a single light or dark spell to each member of the party. Poor HP though.
Those present but not shown include:
Mara, a physically inclined attacker with a unique multi-hitting physical move that does great damage and lowers defense when smirking. Has charge AND smile charge, much like Izanami but for physical. Also has an all hitting charm spell and Thunder Gods for coverage. Not depicted because his/her design looks a LOT like a dick.
Mitra-Buddha, the last of the major Divine Power's bosses I previously defeated. Honestly, really disappointing. Sky high attacking stats, but pitiful, pitiful MP and all of his moves are MP expensive. Has two weakness, unheard of for this point in the game, likely to proc his (not yet learned) unique ability that boosts all his stats when hit by something he's weak to. However, that's not even a good ability, since he'll still take a lot of damage and it can't go higher than the usual limit of 3 stacks of buff. He might be able to power through one fight to earn his keep, much like Demiurge.
Huang Di, the Yellow Emperor, has Demiurge/Mitra's issue of having jack all for MP while possessing some of the strongest, most MP expensive moves in the game. Unlike the others, this isn't my fault; as a famed, he resulted from a fusion accident, meaning I had no control over his skills. Unlike Demi and Mitra, Huang has a good mix of attack and support skills including four different attacking elements, Salvation, and Luster Candy. Like the others in his situation, he'll be good for one boss battle.
Throne, an angel 30 levels below the average party member that will act as an out of battle heal-bot to conserve other's MP and items. Knows a revive spell, an ailment healing spell, and an all party healing spell.
Vetala, a random crappy demon along for the ride. Will probably get]no use unless I'm desperate.
[*]
Besides the gods and demons, since I turned down Dagda's "kill everyone" plan I also have human allies backing me up. Unlike my supernatural zoo, I cannot control them directly, they act on their own for better and for worse. Luckily, they're pretty smart for the most part. I'll mostly be using Hallelujah (high offense magic user who can also grant an endure effect to the party or preemptively ward against ailments) and Isabeau (jack of all trades who can attack with any element, heal, and buff, but not as well as any of the others).
Given the tastes of the RB community when it comes to video games, I'm curious what everyone thought were the best games of 2016. We already kinda do this in the "What are you playing" thread spontaneously anyway so might as well organize it a little bit better in its own thread.
In no particular order by 5 favorite games of the year are:
XCOM2
Fireaxis did a great job building on the good parts of their wonderful XCOM reboot. I haven't revisited it since beating it the first time so I haven't seen the DLC goodies. I'm waiting for when I have a chunk of time to play Long War 2.
Total War: Warhammer
It finally happened, Total War did a fantasy setting with some store/quest focused RPG stuff. I'm planning on buying it sometime this year when most of the DLC and the rest of the trilogy is released.
Civ6
Finally a fun 4x game. Its definitely not perfect but it has the charm and personality that is missing from those otherwise mechanically fun Endless [Noun].
Banner Saga 2
Sequel to the great Oregon Trail + Tactical RPG hybrid. Beautiful everything all around.
Predynastic Egypt
A fun little puzzle/strategy game based on the early days of the Egyptian Kingdom. Its very much a fun little worker optimization puzzle game rather than a true grand strategy game. For some reason I really like these.
Emancipation: Reverted to Base BtS Values
Mercantilism: +1 free specialist, Medium Cost, requires Banking.
Free Market: +1 Trade route, +25% Trade route Yield, High Cost, requires Economics
Free Speech: +1 commerce from villages, +3 commerce from towns, +100% Culture, Low cost, requires Economics
Traits
Creative: +2 culture per city. +100% production of Theatre. +35% production of Library, Observatory.
Charismatic: Charismatic: +2 happiness. +1 happiness from Broadcast Tower. -25% XP needed for promotions. +100% production of Colosseum, +35% production of Library.
Imperialistic: +50% production of Settlers. +100% Great General points. +100% production of Custom Houses.
Buildings
Colosseum: +1 happy, +1 happy per 20% culture slider, +1XP to melee, archery, mounted and seige units. Cost 80 hammers, requires Construction
Babylonian Garden: +2 health, +1 happy per 20% culture slider, +1XP to melee, archery, mounted and seige units. Cost 80 hammers, requires Construction
Mayan Ball Court: +3 happy per 20% culture slider, +1XP to melee, archery, mounted and seige units. Cost 80 hammers, requires Construction
Greek Odeon: +3 culture, +2 artist slots, +2 happy, +1 happy per 20% culture slider, +1XP to melee, archery, mounted and seige units. Cost 80 hammers, requires Construction
Wonders
Taj Mahal: Triggers Golden Age, +2 Great Artist points/turn. Cost 700 hammers. Requires Nationalism (No production bonus from marble)
Mausoleum of Maussollos: +50% Golden Age length. Cost 450 hammers. Requires Calendar. Obsoletes at Nationalism (No production bonus from marble)
Units
Crossbow (and unique units): +25% defence against macemen
Maceman: Melee unit, strength 8, +50% against melee, +25% against cities, cost 70 hammers, requires Civil Service, Machinery, [copper or iron].
Samurai: Japanese Unique Unit: strength 8, starts with Drill 1, 2 free strikes, +50% against melee, +25% against cities, cost 70 hammers, requires Civil Service, Machinery, iron. J
Impi: Zulu unique unit: spearman replacement: Strength 4, 2 movement points. +100% against mounted units, -40% against archers. Cost 35 hammers, requires Hunting, copper or iron.
War Chariot: Egyptian Unique Unit: chariot replacement: Strength 5. +100% attack against axemen, -25% attack against archers. Cost 30 hammers, require horse, Wheel.
I'm new to MOO1. Discovered it along with MOM and MOO2 a few months ago. I'm deep into my first full MOO1 game now. Humans. Easiest setting. Medium galaxy.
I first met the Alkari and Bulrathi. I setup trade routes and exchanged tech. Then I met the Sakkra. They only had one world, so I decided to test my new battleships on them. I knocked out their ships and was immediately contacted by the Psilons. I setup trade routes with Psilons, exchanged some tech, and then invested 100% on spying them for espionage. Then begin a long bombing campaign of the Sakkra home world.
So here's the part that jarred me over the next ~20 turns:
The Psilons, despite our twice refreshed trade deal and exchange of tech, abruptly declared war. The only thing I can think of is I had 3 or 4 spies stealing tech from them (which had net me 2 or 3 techs in the proceeding ~15 turns). Is that why? If so, is it weird I never got a notification that they caught me spying? Based on how abrupt it was and their wording, it seemed totally uncalled for and frankly silly.
After only a few turns after declaring war on me, I got a message from Psilons that more or less said, "The Sakkra are a threat! We must work together to defeat them". I was floored. First, we are enemies! Second, the Sakkra have 0 fleet, 1 world, 0 factories, 60 pop, and I'm bombing them as we speak!
Hey, I'm having fun. But what the hell? Is the dumb AI due to my low difficulty setting? Or is there a 'randomness' to AI logic that sometimes disrupts immersion like this?
, which furthers the momentum based nature of the press turn system. Whenever a character takes an action or has one performed on them that either gives their team press turns or takes them from the enemy, they have a chance to smirk. The player or enemies may also gain smirk at the start of a fight if they score a blindside. Smirking differs between 4 and 4:A, to prevent confusion I will only detail how it works in the latter. ![[Image: p3ZFeWR.png?1]](http://i.imgur.com/p3ZFeWR.png?1)
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. Also built with enough agility to always move first on my turn (more likely to act multiple times a turn as a result) and up my hit/evasion (since I use magic, which has high natural accuracy, I almost never miss esp. after buffs/debuffs). Luck increases critical chance, makes me less likely to be crit, grants me a little ailment resistance, and tilts damage rolls in my favor slightly, among countless other small effects. Strength and Dexterity only influence melee and gun attacks respectively, and so are dump stats for my magic inclined character. My current gear gives me resistance to physical attacks and the dreaded light/dark attacks (which can instant kill when user smirks). I cover the other elements with the rest of my team's resistances.![[Image: WVW69j-OAoYSy-Y6Qe]](https://d3esbfg30x759i.cloudfront.net/ss/WVW69j-OAoYSy-Y6Qe)
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