How many readers of The Gaming Table mistakenly thought I was done with Choose Your Own Adventures? 


Choices That Matter is a series of text adventures available for Switch and Android.  Each game is far too big to map out like a You Say Which Way or one of the random Spanish books I find, so don't expect CHOICE #[numeral] format.


"Day 95 and the orange ball of gas that sustained life on this planet for billions of years was still burning in the sky.  The scientists were completely wrong.  Thankfully".


So begins the adventures of our hero and Moti the AI companion.  Everyone's trying to figure out why the sun has disappeared, and the temperature has already fallen to 30 degrees Fahrenheit.  (Good thing for me, since I don't think in Celsius!).  The first decision was to visit Delores who's been calling me, or the deranged Professor Sole.  I went to see Sole since a scientist seemed like the more likely option for resolving an astronomical issue, even if one that defies all known laws of thermodynamics.


The second choice was to review Moti's message for Delores to explain my absence, or to say "No need.  I trust you, Moti".  It seemed more prudent to look at the message, which turned out to be professional enough.  Professor Sole was in the basement, and I had to either look in his suitcase or not.  Snooping wasn't a good idea since this wasn't an RPG.  Professor Sole insisted on not turning on the lights, so I asked why in the next option instead of saying "Professor?  Is that you?"


I approached Professor Sole instead of declining, and he "began to ramble incessantly about theories and equations".  One symbol looked suspiciously like a Choose Your Own Adventure map, with a square on top and branching lines leading to two circles.  I left the diary alone instead of looking at it, since a mad scientist was already dangerous enough without him becoming suspicious.  Moti claimed their "linguistics processing unit" was damaged and therefore they couldn't understand Professor Sole.  (Moti is a "they" according to the text.)


Someone shot Professor Sole and ran away after the murder, one choice after asking the latter why he called me.  Just before he died, I listened to him rather than trying to stop the bleeding.  His ideas seemed important to the plot, and the text said after the fact that my character didn't know much about anatomy.  (Is this an R.A. Montgomery scenario where if I DID try to heal him, then my character would be a surgeon?)


I took Professor Sole's revolver and tried to carefully approach the suspect rather than charging at them.  Two options were presented:  a suspicious person was going down an alley, and the bus stop may have had our suspect too.  I went with the alley and shouted "Stop!  Or I'll shoot!".  I chased this person rather than "Pull the trigger!" because it might have been the wrong suspect.  For the sake of discretion, I tried to climb over the fence instead of shooting the lock on the gate, but this may have been a bad idea because I almost lost my balance on ice.


The next decision was effectively "Are you REALLY sure you want to climb the fence?", so I shot the lock this time.  I was knocked out for about 5 minutes and Moti thought I had a concussion.  The suspect was now known as Gold Eyes, and Professor Sole's revolver had disappeared while I was unconscious.  Delores, or "Miss Montague" as Moti called her, called me for the fifth time.  With true tact, I asked "Why are you calling?" instead of "Is everything okay?"  I stood her up again by trying to return to Professor Sole's house to pick up his research.  (Hey, bringing the sun back is much more important than punctuality!)


A "man with a megaphone standing on a small box" shouted "The land will freeze over on the hundredth day!" among other doomsday prophecies.  Moti didn't understand the concept of apocalyptic religion, so they thought that people enjoyed lying to themselves.  "I am unable to find any scientific literature to support his claims, Teacher".  The next choice is where my character differed significantly from what I'd say in real life:  "He's just scared, Moti.  The sun thing got a lot of people spooked".  The option not selected was "It's a prophecy, Moti.  You won't find it in scientific journals".  (You have to admit that the sun disappearing randomly would disprove conservation of mass.  Even Revelation 6:12 is less drastic than these events.)


Delores was in danger too, probably from Gold Eyes.  I stayed on the line to listen rather than calling for help when Delores was attacked.  I've treated her badly for the whole playthrough so far.  Why stop now?  I hung up to take a taxi, but it might have been as slow as walking.  Moti warned me not to tell the police my identity, and listening to the AI was always a good idea.  A "bloodied bread knife" had stabbed Delores, and it was unknown whether she was alive or dead.


"While we have no confirmation that Miss Montague is still alive, we also do not have confirmation that she is dead.  This is not a totally unacceptable outcome".  -Moti


I called a taxi and said "Whoever it is, it must be important, Moti" before ending Arc 1.


"You and 33% of players will be taking the bus to Flying Falls in the morning".  Flying Falls was where Professor Sole wanted to go with his suitcase.  Not only am I ranked with other players, but there was even a nice odometer graphic of the percentage!  Does this mean that most players were Team Edward Delores rather than Team Jacob Sole?


EDIT:  It seems the next Arc is 2-3.  At first I thought it meant Arcs 2 and 3 would be short, but it might be notation for the different areas, like a Mario level.

It's the 30th anniversary of Sid Meier's Civilization 1 this month so I thought I'd finally go public with the final full release of my Civilization 1 For Windows - Soundtrack Overhaul Mod that replaces all the old CivWin short low quality WAV music files with full length high quality Roland MT-32 recordings. Full details below…

======================================================================
Civilization 1 For Windows - Complete Soundtrack Overhaul Mod
======================================================================

Author:
Blake

Version:
1.0 09/06/2018

ModDB Page:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/civwin-comple...erhaul-mod

Civ Website:
http://blakessanctum.x10.mx/Games/CivColSeries/ (If link doesn’t work Google Blake's Sanctum)

Civ News & Updates:
https://blakessanctum.wordpress.com/tag/civilization/

Demonstration Video:
youtu.be/eVfpkzb_C3g?list=PLZqnaGtTZxFbq3F5R6lqzyVvYzg9tRBPY



======================================================================
Contents:

1.    About
2.    Installation Instructions
3.    Known Issues
4.    Version History
5.    Credits
6.    DOWNLOAD

======================================================================
1.    About:

As someone who grew up playing the Dos version of Civilization I was frustrated when I tried the windows version and found that all the music tracks had been converted from midi to low quality 10-30sec WAV files. Some of Civ1’s music tracks went for minutes so a lot was lost, especially considering that the Civ1 intro goes for 3 minutes meaning you sat there in silence for 2.5 mins! There wasn’t much we could do about this in the 1990s as space was premium however these days a few big WAV files isn’t going to do any damage!

So I decided to test replacing the game’s music files with high quality full length versions of the soundtrack and was pleased to discover that the game allowed them and on most occasions didn’t ‘chop end’ playing the music. I hunted across the internet and managed to discover on youtube a very special high quality genuine Roland MT-32 recording of all the Dos version tracks uploaded by BarbarianBros. He very kindly gave me his original uncompressed WAV files to use for this mod. You can find his uploaded copy HERE.

I had the lower the quality a bit for the files to be compatible with the game (see known issues) however working from an uncompressed source instead of a youtube compressed file has produced a much better final product which I hope you all enjoy. Most people couldn’t afford a Roland MT-32 back in the day so this soundtrack mod for CivWin will give even experienced Dos Civ players a much upgraded music experience should they wish to jump ship!

Finally if you’re someone like me who also prefers the graphics & colours of the Dos version but wants to play in the higher resolutions of CivWin then I recommend you try out Honzas ‘DOS Tileset for Civilization I for Windows’ mod which combined with my mod converts CivWin into the ultimate classic Civ 1 experience. I’ve been playing Civ 1 in 1080p HD on my 46 inch screen with both these mods and having a blast!
Example Picture:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/attachmen...ng.494781/
Honzas DOS Tileset for Civilization I for Windows mod:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources...vwin.8830/

Check out my Civ1 HD tour & demonstration video to see how I used these mods:
youtu.be/eVfpkzb_C3g?list=PLZqnaGtTZxFbq3F5R6lqzyVvYzg9tRBPY

If you’d like to try out some cool Civilization 1 scenarios then check out my scenario preservation collection project:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/672488/
https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject:Civ1ModCollection&sort=titleSorter

If you like my work please feel free to check out my other mod projects such as my & Metropolis's Heroes of Might & Magic 2 Civ2 scenario, my Red Alert 2 Siege of NY Civ2 scenario, my Command & Conquer Civ2 scenario remaster, my Terminator Future War scenario remaster, my Deadworld Reborn scenario remaster, my Civ1 Graphics for Civ2MGE mod demaster, my ToT Graphics for Civ2MGE mod remaster, my Civ2 Playstation Graphics for Civ2MGE mod remaster, my Civ2 Better Terrain Graphics for Civ2MGE mod, my Attila's Conquest - Play as Barbarians in every Civ game scenario series, my old Star Wars Civ2 scenario, my new Master of Magic Enhanced Civ2ToT scenario, and my Civ1 Soundtrack Overhaul mod. I'm also the creator of the popular Star Trek TNG GZDoom and Quest For Glory IV 3D Hexen GZDoom mods.

======================================================================
2.    Installation Instructions:

• Just to be safe I recommend you backup all of your WAV files in your CivWin install folder just in case you don’t like the mod or it causes an unforeseen bug I haven’t already listed below.
  
• To install just simply extract all the WAV files out of the 7zip archive file into your CivWin install folder overriding all of the old music WAV files in there. If you don’t have 7zip installed, you should as it’s better than all the others. https://www.7-zip.org/
  

• 24,000Hz 16bit Mono WAV format was the highest the game would accept during my testing. If anyone knows of a way to trick the game into using higher quality files (eg 44,000Hz stereo) let me know!
  
• Unlike the DOS version CivWin uses only 1 track for both the title sequence and the evolution intro. Forcing me to combine both songs into one track that fits the 3 minute length of the intro sequence. As a result I had to edit out a few ‘slow’ bits.
  
• Music stops playing in Diplomacy screen once you start pressing the ok button. Unfortunately this would require someone very skilled with hacking the Civ1Win game files to fix.
  
• I had no other issues with my Windows XP VirtualBox VM CivWin test install, however I had these extra issues occur on my Windows 98 DosBox VM CivWin test install:
  
• Music starts playing when you receive the "an emissary wishes to speak with you" message however it sometimes stops playing when you continue into the diplomacy screen.
  
• Sometimes after the above issue all sounds & music would stop working and only restarting the VM would fix it. Not sure if it's the virtual OS or the VM program.
  

• File conversions, editing, mod assembly & release by Blake
  
• Original Civilization 1 Soundtrack composed by Jeff Briggs
  
• High quality genuine Roland MT-32 recordings done by BarbarianBros
  

• CivFanatics
  
• ModDB
  

It's the 30th anniversary of Sid Meier's Civilization 1 this month so I thought I'd finally release my Attila's Conquest 1 – Play As Barbarians Scenario for both CivDOS & CivWin. This scenario is the first in a series where I attempt to play as the 8th Barbarian slot in each Civ game via hacks, cheats & editor tools and release a scenario for others to play as them too. Can you also overcome all the Barbarian disadvantages to defeat the advancing regular 7 Civs in this special 8 Civ survival scenario? Full details below…

==================================================================================
Attila's Conquest I – Play As Barbarians Civilization 1 Scenario (CivDOS & CivWin)
==================================================================================

Author:
Blake

Version:
1.0 25/06/2018

Scenario Homepage:
http://blakessanctum.x10.mx/Mods/BarbSeries/ (If link doesn't work just Google Blake's Sanctum)

Scenario ModDB Page:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/attilas-conqu...s-scenario

Civ News & Updates:
https://blakessanctum.wordpress.com/tag/civilization/

Demonstration Video:
youtu.be/TyFLI_B_Cbg?list=PLZqnaGtTZxFbq3F5R6lqzyVvYzg9tRBPY



Screenshots:


The Series:

• Attila's Conquest 1 – Play As Barbarians in Civilization 1 (You are here!)
  
• Play as Natives in Colonization
  
• Attila's Conquest 2 – Play As Barbarians in Civilization 2 (Coming soon)
  
• Attila's Conquest 3 – Play As Barbarians in Civ2 Test of Time (Coming soon)
  
• HYKGOMP 2217 - Play As Aliens in Alpha Centauri
  
• Attila's Conquest 4 – Play As Barbarians in Civ Call to Power (Coming less soon)
  
• Attila's Conquest 5 – Play As Barbarians in Call to Power 2 (Coming less soon)
  
• Attila's Conquest 6 – Play As Barbarians in Civilization 3 (Coming not so soon)
  
• Attila's Conquest 7 – Play As Barbarians in Civilization 4 (Coming very not soon lol)
  
• Play as Natives in Civ4 Colonization (Coming very not soon lol)
  
• Civ5, CivBE, Civ6, FreeCiv etc (Who knows when!)
  

• To install just simply extract all the files out of the 7zip archive file into either your CivWin or your CivDOS install folder. If you don't have 7zip installed, you should as it's better than all the others. https://www.7-zip.org/
  

• If you're using CivDOS then backup all of your save game files in your CivDOS install folder as this scenario will override anything in the first 2 save slots.
  
• Start CivDOS and load the Attila save game in slot 0. Use the Rome save game in slot 1 in JCivED if you wish to make any map changes and then switch the player back to Barbs (loading the Barb slot 0 save will crash JCivED). Once playing you can use CivED1.5 to make any city building changes.
  

• Start CivWin and load the S_Barbarian.sav save game file to start the game. Use the CivCracker editor to make any map or city building changes.
  

• Set your cities to build what you'll need before sacrificing to barbs (if you try naturally), you can use an editor to place a barb city and give buildings, build forts on mountains and hills with your starting civ or editor (barbs can't get construction),
  
• Barbs can't get bridge building so if there's a pesky river in the way of your army train, build a city there and you'll have a nice bridge to link your roads to.
  
• AI last city units are invulnerable. To kill a city you need to wait for it to have 2 cities, then attack the capital (still gets a huge defence bonus against barbs) until its empty, then you have 2 choices:
  • 1 take the capital and use a barb leader (diplomat) to buy the other city
    
  • 2 attack the second city at the same time with another attack force and then once both cities are empty you can march in without worrying about any invulnerable units.
    
• Settlers will pillage all irrigation and mines. So if you really need them then get the settler to do the work but then disband it after the job as the pillaging only happens when you try to move the settler off the square.
  
• Because you are effectively an 8th civ you are now fighting 7 opponents instead of the usual 6. Because you have to rush before anyone gets gunpowder.. you'll be doing most of your killing in BC which means anyone you kill or is killed by anyone else will return once as a new civ in a empty spot on the map. So technically you're actually fighting 14 opponents!
  

• Scenario created by Blake
  
• Special thanks to CivZ and AutumnLeaf for helping me push the Barbarian limits! https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/p...-1.632894/
  

• CivFanatics
  
• ModDB
  
• Internet Archive
  

Hello all, see attached for the weird but kind of appealing map the Lakes Full of Resources threw. Seven is wack, but this isn't bad.

Attached Files

  Candidate62a.zip (Size: 8.69 KB / Downloads: 10)

1. Currently the game calculates the production output of each individual percentage bonus source separately, using the same rule for rounding. (round down)
This is simple, easy to understand but can result in inconsistent output between individual additional workers. (sometimes a new worker will cause each line separately to increase by more due to how rounding works, adding much more production than other workers who don't trigger this side effect.)
2. It's also possible to add all percentage bonus together and apply this bonus in one go.
This leads to inconsistent rounding rules (each separate source of production will randomly round up or down depending on which is required to get the desired total result) but a more stable difference between individual worker outputs (as there is only one rounding for percentage production, there can only be a total of 1 difference coming from this type of rounding - albeit other effects can still add more.) and also causes inconsistency in the Omniscient effect (Power, Research always rounded down, but gold and production, sometimes not.), however it does yields the result you'd expect from looking at the surveyor bonus which shows the total percentage.
It might also lead to a tiny bit slower turn times and city UI times as it requires a longer script to calculate.

Capital will be Eliza Lee



I have WAY WAY WAY TOOOOO many Sea Shanties left over from PB59, so you all get that experience without ever having to EVER read that thread.

All shall be well.

Edit: Password is

Second multiplayer civ4 game for me. In first game I went Cha/Fi and while that worked fine, I'll do something else just to shake things up. Maybe Agg/Imp

This information pulled from my website, if you're interested in this team variant please feel free to hop on the Sullla Discord and let us know!

Main Post:

Diablo 2 Resurrected is set to be released in September 2021, a graphical re-skinning of the same game that came out more than two full decades earlier. Aside from making me feel impossibly old, the impending release of D2R had me scratching that old itch to go back and play some more Diablo once again. I've written about this a number of times previously on my website, about how every few years I'll get the urge to try out a different character build or some wacky new variant for the old game. With Diablo 4 still years away from seeing the light of day, this was the perfect time to dive back into Sanctuary and enjoy some more dungeon-crawling fun. Even better, with interest being high in D2R, I hoped to put together a new team variant and recruit some other folks to share in the journey. Some of my most favorite D2 experiences came with the Rogue Revival and Nature's Cabal teams which I chronicled for the website many years ago.

I started out by looking at the old variant list still hosted at Realms Beyond and quickly spotted a team concept that looked interesting. This was the Low Rent Legion originally created by Occhi, which I'll link here for anyone who wants to see in its original form. The Low Rent Legion was a classic example of Realms Beyond Diablo variant fare with the goal of creating characters that completed the whole game using nothing but the character level 1 skills for each class. In other words, clearing the game with the likes of Bash, Charged Bolt, Raise Skeleton, and so on. I did not take part in this variant team when it was played (I recall that they used Hardcore characters and had to do a ton of backtracking to catch up new characters when suffering the inevitable deaths) but it was a great concept that had a ton of promise. I'm making a few tweaks to Occhi's ruleset in the hopes of updating and modernizing the original idea - we'll call this the Low Rent Legion Resurrected to keep with the theme of D2R.

First I'll lay out some ground rules for the team and then look at the individual classes.

LOW RENT LEGION: RESURRECTED
Main Restriction

"The Low Rent Legion comes from the social dregs of Sanctuary. It barely gets its GED from school, or a certificate of passing the bloody exam in the Canadian system, and as such must learn on the job. As a result, the only skills that can be applied are CLVL 1 skills. Any further skill enhancement has to come from passive/synergistic skills that accompany the life lessons learned in applying those CLVL 1 skills. Any skill that boosts a CLVL 1 skill can be boosted, the way one boosts the weight on a bench press when working the pecs, triceps, and shoulders: more is better."

To explain Occhi's quote a bit better, I'm dividing the Diablo 2 skills into three categories: Active skills, Passive skills, and Synergy skills. Low Rent Legion characters can only use Active skills that are available from the very beginning of the game at character level 1. Any other active skills (i.e. anything that has a mana cost) can never be used under this variant. By contrast, Passive skills that have no mana cost and are never activated are always OK to be utilized. There are also Synergy skills which can never be actively used by characters but which can receive skills points for their synergy bonuses with other active CLVL 1 skills. Trust me, this will all make more sense when we look at the individual classes.

Characters

All data on character skills comes from the Arreat Summit which remains a fantastic resource for D2 information.


Amazon
Amazon Active Skills: Jab, Magic Arrow, Fire Arrow, Inner Sight
Amazon Passive Skills: Critical Strike, Dodge, Avoid, Penetrate, Evade, Pierce
Amazon Synergy Skills: Exploding Arrow (for Fire Arrow)

Amazons can fortunately still opt into either of the two main paths for the class, bowazons or spearazons. Bowazons will be based around Fire Arrow and max out Exploding Arrow for the fire damage synergy; even this variant setup almost certainly isn't viable for a Magic Arrow-centered build. Spearazons are stuck with Jab which offers an excellent attack rating bonus and a rather poor damage bonus. To make up for these more limited active skills, the Amazon has one of the largest list of different passive skills, all of which can be maxed as desired (though many of them have severely diminishing returns on skill points). This is one of the classes that I have very little firsthand experience with running and I'd love to see what people can come up with in terms of character builds.


Assassin
Assassin Active Skills: Tiger Strike, Dragon Talon, Fire Blast, Psychic Hammer
Assassin Passive Skills: Claw Mastery, Weapon Block
Assassin Synergy Skills: Shock Web / Charged Bolt Sentry / Wake of Fire / Lightning Sentry / Wake of Inferno / Death Sentry (all for Fire Blast)

Assassins can be built down the physical melee route with Tiger Strike / Dragon Talon or the spellcaster route with Fire Blast. The physical skills arguably aren't even variant material as serious builds are frequently run based around these skills. Fire Blast definitely is variant material but it has more synergies than any other skill in the whole game, six of them in fact, and there should be skill points enough to max it out and then drop another 70 or so skill points into synergies for legitimately good fire damage. (This will make the Assassin useless against fire immune monsters but that's what teammates are for!) There should be room for some fun stuff here.


Barbarian
Barbarian Active Skills: Howl, Find Potion, Bash
Barbarian Passive Skills: All Combat Mastery skills
Barbarian Synergy Skills: Stun / Concentrate (for Bash)

Barbarians don't have many choices in terms of active skills; Howl and Find Potion are utility-based skills that likely only need a single skill point. That means that this is going to be a character built around Bash and that's not such a bad thing. Bash does a lot of base damage and even more with its two synergies to potentially max out. Barbarians compensate for their limited active skills by having free use of the entire Combat Mastery skill tree. Every one of these abilities is a purely passive skill that can be maxed as desired. How many points to put in these skills should be one of the most interesting aspects of the character. Sadly there won't be any Leaping or Whirlwinding for these Barbarians but Bash + the weapon mastery of their choice should have them dealing a ton of damage.


Druid
Druid Active Skills: Firestorm, Werewolf, Lycanthropy, Raven, Poison Creeper
Druid Passive Skills: None
Druid Synergy Skills: Molten Bolder / Fissure (for Firestorm)

There are viable options for two of the three Druid paths under this ruleset, the spellcaster route and the weredruid route. The summoning Druid appears to be ubervariant material with only Raven and Poison Creeper available and is not recommended. On the spellcasting route, Firestorm has two synergies to max and will deal respectable damage after dropping 60 points into the skill; this is another build that can't deal with fire immunes without help but toasts everything else. The weredruid path is limited to Werewolf and unfortunately can't make use of any of the werewolf-only skills which leaves it a bit crippled. It still may be viable, however, especially if there's a Paladin around to help out with damage. Werewolf gets tons of attack speed and attack rating and only needs something to boost damage.


Necromancer
Necromancer Active Skills: Raise Skeleton, Teeth, Bone Armor, Amplify Damage
Necromancer Passive Skills: Skeleton Mastery, Golem Mastery, Summon Resist
Necromancer Synergy Skills: Bone Wall / Bone Spear / Bone Prison / Bone Spirit (all for Teeth), Bone Wall / Bone Prison (for Bone Armor)

This looks like one of the most entertaining classes under the LRL ruleset though that may be due to my personal fondness for Necromancers. There are several options here, starting with the summoning Necro who gets to bring skeletal warriors (but not mages) backed by Skeletal Mastery and Summon Resist. Note that Golem Mastery is technically allowed but the Golem skills themselves are not! Amplify Damage is available to greatly increase the damage of the party's physical attackers and Bone Armor comes with all of its synergies for additional protection. It may actually be possible to run a Teeth-based character here by making use of all four synergies; slvl 25 Teeth would fire more than two dozen projectiles with each one dealing roughly 300 non-elemental magic damage. Probably not optimal even under this variant setup but it certainly would be fun!


Paladin
Paladin Active Skills: Might, Sacrifice, Smite, Prayer, Resist Fire
Paladin Passive Skills: None
Paladin Synergy Skills: Redemption / Fanaticism (for Sacrifice)

Paladin auras are considered Active skills for the purpose of this variant even when they don't cost mana; sorry, no Fanaticism or Salvation for this setup. This in no way reduces the usefulness of the Paladin, however, as Might is available at CLVL 1 and will be invaluable to any team effort. Every physical attacker of every class will want to have their holy friend along to supply them with the massive damage boost from that aura. But the Paladin isn't just a walking aura bot as the class also gets to play around with the huge damage of Sacrifice (if they can keep from killing themselves) and the invaluable crowd control of Smite. Prayer and Resist Fire are probably ubervariant materials but hey, you never know.


Sorceress
Sorceress Active Skills: Fire Bolt, Charged Bolt, Ice Bolt, Frozen Armor
Sorceress Passive Skills: Warmth, Fire Mastery, Lightning Mastery, Cold Mastery
Sorceress Synergy Skills: Fire Ball / Meteor (for Fire Bolt), Lightning (for Charged Bolt), Frost Nova / Ice Blast / Glacial Spike / Blizzard / Frozen Orb (for Ice Bolt), Shiver Armor / Chilling Armor (for Frozen Armor)

My favorite class has an active skill in all three of the elemental trees to use under this variant, though Sorcies are encouraged to focus on lightning or cold since there's plenty of fire damage available elsewhere from Amazons, Assassins, and Druids. If no one is playing these classes, Fire Bolt backed by full synergies and Fire Mastery deals serviceable damage to a single target. Ice Bolt is likely the stronger choice from a pure numbers perspective thanks to having more synergies and being able to cut the cold resistance of non-immune targets with Cold Mastery. Both of these skills have exceptionally low mana costs and no casting delay which should make for some entertaining pew-pew-pew action. Get some fast cast items and have at it! There's also full access to Frozen Armor as well as Charged Bolt though the lightning skill probably doesn't do enough damage to be viable. We'll have to see.

Other Restrictions

* No mercenary hirelings. It defeats the purpose of the variant if the Act II town guards can make use of forbidden auras and so on.

* No use of items with spell charges. Again they basically defeat the purpose of the variant!

* No twinking items. Use what you can find, buy, or make for yourself (or trade within the team). This is a pure team concept.

* No running games with these characters outside the group please. This is intended to be a team variant that plays together.

* No "variant within the variant". You can run solo characters any way you like, but no macho stuff when playing as part of a team. Follow the rules and play within them to your full potential.

Team Organization

Obviously a team variant would be impossible without other players. I'm posting this prior to the release of D2R in the hopes of starting on the organizing well ahead of time. We can run this team with a couple of players or the full maximum of eight - the more, the merrier! In terms of scheduling, I'd like to run these games during my normal Friday Livestreaming sessions; there's some room for adjustment there but the timing falls between roughly 10:00 - 16:00 EST. This should be pretty good for Europeans and Americans who don't have to be at work during the day; it's terrible for Oceania and East Asia but unfortunately that's life. We can run the sessions towards the beginning or the end of that time range depending on what works better for the group (it won't be the full 6 hours, more like 2-3 hours). I'm assuming that Battle.net will still let people choose their server for cross-region games as it did a decade ago for D2. I'm looking for people who can make a weekly session for at least a month or two. If you can't make a consistent schedule then I'd rather keep that spot open for those who can.

Most importantly, you do not have to have any prior experience with Diablo 2 to sign up! Some of us are grizzled veterans at this game but D2R provides a new opportunity to learn this classic title. The only things needed are a copy of the new Diablo 2 Resurrected game and a willingness to learn. Send me a message on the Sullla Discord or an email to let me know if you're interested in joining. We'll be using Discord for voice communication in-game and additional planning/logistics so keep an eye on it for more information. Feel free to play any character build desired, we can have multiple versions of the same class and that's part of the fun! I'm hoping we can get a great turnout for this team so let me know if you're interested. Thanks!

In the "Retorts and books you can find in a given game" thread, zitro1987 brought up a pretty good point:

Quote:Yes, the score modifiers generally rub me off the wrong way, as if a different rule not optimized for AI deserves having your expert game give you easy-normal scores or worse. Even land size tweaks were absurdly punishing in cost modifiers and the tree of knowledge change honestly doesn’t feel like it hurts the AI much, if at all, deserving maybe 0.8X or 0.9X

A rule change that is not far different from changing mineral frequency or node power shouldn’t make you feel like you played on easy. Maybe a bunch of combined could be like playing on 1 or even 2 difficulties below, and should be treated as such.