What are you currently playing?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Also recommend Monster Train. 

Don't know how many of you are butterlords, but I also have been playing Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord. Maybe 200 hours in it. It is in early access, and has a lot of work still to be done on it, but I love it.

Bannerlord really met my expectations, still a long way to go. The rate at which patches have been coming out is absolutely amazing.

[Bobchillingworth]

I enjoyed Starcom Nexus, up until the end of the game where the plot abruptly transitioned from "interesting" to "absurd". Also, the main villain was so sympathetic I lost interest in actually completing the story. Still, it was a fun Escape Velocity-esque adventure for a good while.

[TheArchduke]

Huh, there is an interesting game concept, too many games so little time.

I can recommend Control, the FPS if you are into that. Last time I enjoyed myself with a FPS like that was Quantum Break.

[shallow_thought]

Finished Persona 5; I enjoyed it more than any game from the last couple years or so.  It doesn't really excel at anything except art direction, but even after 110+ hours of playtime I was disappointed to see the story finally conclude (although there's a sequel coming out sometime this year).  I also appreciated that it didn't waste my time; for all the hours I sunk into it, I never had to grind levels, harvest rare crafting materials, run fetch quests, etc.  As a semi-functional adult, I've found I no longer have much patience for games which indulge themselves at the player's expense.

I enjoyed Persona 4; something about the review put me off 5.

I'm very glad you persuaded me to give it a try (I'm just running through the story on easy - I expect to enjoy a 100% new game plus with the aid of a guide in a few months). It is an absolute time sink, but it's never dull, and yes, the art and music are great. And it still gives me giggles thati, in Japan, being good at exams apparently makes you popular with your peers as a schoolkid (it was not my experience in the UK, and popular culture doesn't give me that impression of the US, either).

The only downside is it cutting into my time for SGs here at RB!

[Miguelito]

The only downside is it cutting into my time for SGs here at RB!

Still up for the new Luchuirp game though?

[Bobchillingworth]

I enjoyed Persona 4; something about the review put me off 5.

I'm very glad you persuaded me to give it a try (I'm just running through the story on easy - I expect to enjoy a 100% new game plus with the aid of a guide in a few months). It is an absolute time sink, but it's never dull, and yes, the art and music are great. And it still gives me giggles thati, in Japan, being good at exams apparently makes you popular with your peers as a schoolkid (it was not my experience in the UK, and popular culture doesn't give me that impression of the US, either).

The only downside is it cutting into my time for SGs here at RB!

I'm glad you're enjoying it! P5 was my introduction to the series, and they just released P4 on Steam, so I know where much of my free time will be going shortly...

[Jowy]

Fire Emblem Heroes. Started in December, been playing daily ever since. I thought it would suck because it's a mobile game, that's why I never tried it before. But it's actually the deepest FE game.

[sunrise089]

Civilization IV In the early days of COVID-19 everyone was off work and so I got more MP games in than I've done in years. Right now I'm trying to grind a non-gimicky Deity win. Closest I've gotten is a potentially winnable position in 1530AD before I got DOW'd and crushed. It would help if I had the patience to play on Epic anymore instead of Normal

[Cheater Hater]

Fire Emblem Heroes. Started in December, been playing daily ever since. I thought it would suck because it's a mobile game, that's why I never tried it before. But it's actually the deepest FE game.

As someone who's been playing daily since launch, no way that's true. It's obviously better than most F2P mobile games and if you're just playing the story I could see that, but if you're trying to maximize it (I've been trying to max as many five-star L40s as I can as my main goal) it quickly turns into P2W garbage--most strategies have only a single counter, and at a point merges/newer units/obviously OP units matter more than actual strategy.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

I've gotten back into Civ 3 recently, trying to win all of the conquests on emperor. Haven't been very successful in many of the scenarios, with sudden defeats that come out of nowhere.

Won the very first one as Mycenae (easy mode, sure, but not that easy).

Haven't tried rise of rome, because it's way too intense and huge.

Tried fall of rome, but lost to what seems to be an error in the game code? Still trying to figure out how my nearest opponent, with 13k fewer victory points won. Maybe i didn't read the scenario rules carefully enough. Played as the celts and knocked out both halves of the roman empire, the franks, anglo-saxons.

Medieval scenario is too much for me, I'll do it last.

Almost Mesoamerica to an absolutely brutal Inca. They marched up to me before taking out their neighbor just to punish me, and I barely got out the culture victory in time.

Then tried Age of Discovery as Inca. The start is very difficult in terms of worker micro. Got beaten by a portugal which had lost its European possessions, but had way more colonies than anyone else. Was 3 turns away from culture. Maybe I can save-scum it back to victory?

Started a shogun playthough, but it is absolutely insane, the units are horrifically unbalanced, and there's stacks of these 2/5/2 units rampaging around my territory burning tile improvement. Started as the Takeda I think, but sort of gave up on it, even though I am in a pretty dominant position around the entire middle of Japan.

Beat the Napoleonic wars one as Prussia with a blitz through France.

Won the WWII one on diety as Japan. Pulled back my carriers, didn't bomb Pearl Harbour and instead devoted all my efforts to China/UK. UK proved to be annoying as hell, and by 1943 I lost most of my airforce. I still managed to roll over China, and once my industrial base in Japan was fully operating, I was cranking out ships to prevent the onslaught from the US. By 1945 I had the entire Asian portion of the map secured, along with the Philippines, and a few Indonesian possessions. In the last few turns, I managed to wipe out key VP centers in the US letting me consolidate victory. Not satisfying, but playing as the allies, even China, gets boring. Japan on diety makes you watch all your borders.

Why civ 3? Well, I've loved it since I was a kid, and it has far more modding done to it than civ 4. Why now? I was recently drawn in by a youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvJNJ8H...rL-RpvqbYQ

20 years later, and videos about this game are still drawing thousands of views, and this guy's discord has pretty much single-handedly revived the civ 3 multiplayer scene. I would actually estimate there's more activity in the civ 3 lobbies than the steam ones for civ 4 or Zulan. They've managed to create a bunch of mods, just like realms beyond did with RTR and CTH, with some focused on later starting eras.

Although I get more fun out of civ 4 multiplayer and the intricacies of the game, civ 3 is still a more relaxing single-player experience for me, something about it just feels like home.