Sousa

It's very good. I miss the expansion packs but those are apparently coming out soon. If you're cool with just having the base game then it does what the base game does perfectly well.

It gave you Dorothea and Manuela!? This goddamn game gave me Dorothea and Lorenz. I was so upset.

The default Civ answer since the first is "play the map" but I almost always go Scout/Monument/Slinger (to get the Arcery eureka) first. First district will be one of either a Holy Site or a Campus, depending on what I want to do--I have a bad tendency to build Holy Site first because I usually shoot for a religion, but I don't think that's necessarily a good idea. I plan districts with adjacency bonuses in mind, so like, if there's a valley surrounded by mountains I'll almost always drop a Campus or Holy Site there (usually a Campus), and if I put a city down for building certain wonders (like a desert-y city where I know I'm gonna shoot for the Pyramids and Petra), I'll try to put a Theatre Square near where I'd plan to build those wonders. If a civ has a special district, though, I almost always want it early because it's a cheap build. This is especially true of Russia, Korea, Germany, England, Greece, and Phoenicia. Unique districts tend to track with the best victory for the civ, too, so that helps. It's also why Germany is one of my favorites, because you can do pretty much anything you want with a shitload of extra production. Also I plan for adjacency. Industrial Zones next to a lot of hills/rocks that will need quarrying, even if the improvements aren't there yet. If I can find a coastal spot adjacent to a land tile with a river, that's good because I can build a Commercial Site next to the Harbor for a bonus.

They were not, no.

I'd probably let everyone pick at least one character to go totally hog wild with. I did well enough in the Awakening game having a super garbage version of Brady and y'all made me scratch and claw to make Gregor viable so it's possible.

I mean, maybe? The big problem is that you have limited time to train so it becomes a question of "should Lorenz be a good mage or a shitty grappler" and we both know which one everyone is gonna pick. Maybe picking the house, which units I recruit/use, people can vote to force me to use somebody, I dunno. I'm not as comfortable with this game as I was Awakening but I'll probably get to that "I can win if you just do stupid shit who cares" point eventually.

I just finished today! I went with Raphael as my partner. Last couple battles in Golden Deer are super fun and creative (weird dubstep version of the game's music notwithstanding). This was probably my favorite Fire Emblem and I... might be coaxed into doing it in the Cube, though I can't imagine what people would vote on.

Yeah, I have no idea what Lorenz's conversations around the monastery are like but there's a lot of depth of character to his supports. The writing in this game is actually really great, which is something I very rarely say about a video game.

I'm surprised at how much I like Lorenz and... pretty much everyone in Golden Deer. Leonie is a little boring but honestly Golden Deer has no duds, which surprised me because I was sure I was going to dislike one of Lorenz or Hilda. But... nope. I like everyone in this house.

Speaking of weird lesbian covens I'm probably gonna marry Raphael as it turns out because I just. Look I like Raphael a lot okay gosh

THAT BATTLE MADE ME SO ANGRY

What's giving you trouble? My biggest issues when I started was getting production going, which you can compensate for a bit by either playing with Rome (free buildings) or Germany (cheap, really broken Industrial Zone). Which expansions are you using if any?

Yeah, Bargain Quest is a lot of fun, it seems involved but it's actually pretty breezy to play so my wife and son were both doing fine with it. I've had Trogdor for a couple weeks actually but haven't played it yet! Took some pictures in the thread.

So I just got my Kickstarter rewards for backing Bargain Quest and if you've never played this I highly recommend it when it hits retailers. Lots of fun and not horribly complicated to learn, and it's one of those games where neat little side stories go on all game that to me make things more fun. We had a Fighter hero who basically lasted all game until the very last monster got drawn. She killed him, but because of his adventure card, he paid out his leftover money to the others--which included his successor who actually ended up killing the last monster. We'll never forget you, Fighter.

So no more tea parties for a bit and a hell of a lot more faculty instruction for the rest of Part 1 is what I'm hearing. 👍

So are you locked out of A-level supports until you hit a certain point in the story? I feel like I've been stalled at B with (of course) Dorothea forever and I'd be cool not having anymore tea parties if I've gotta get to part 2 before we can start properly lezzing it up.

"And now you, EWB, get to decide which of my students I'm going to marry, as is custom and definitely not weird."

Well I probably shouldn't have done it but I own Fire Emblem now.

They're also apparently locked to a Bethesda account, which caused all sorts of lovely problems yesterday.

FUCKIN YES Vanilla Civ 6 is fine (I gueeeeeeess) but Rise & Fall at the minimum absolutely changes the game from decent to great. Even something as basic as the Loyalty system does a lot for the headass AI, and I miss things like Governors and Government Plaza so damn much on the Switch. Also Mongolia.

Just in case you're like me and had your eye on those sweet delicious guillotines.

It's impressive that they've successfully managed to capture the drudgery and sameness of actually being in prison, and by "impressive" I mean "kill me."

God damn, you know what Dragon Quest Builders DIDN'T need, though? A stealth section. Stop putting stealth sections in your otherwise good games, jesus.

LMAO this is a big fat nope from me.