Steam/PC Mega Thread

[RPS]

1 hour ago, Your Mom said:

I got The Stanley Parable for half price so the Steam sale is a sucess!  

Imma eat an edible and play it this weekend. 

[Krabby]

16 hours ago, Absolute JasonM said:

It's not a pain, tbh. HOI3 takes more time to get through a game, HOI4 in most aspects is more streamlined, also works well for coop and multiplayer.

I'd honestly suggest you try HOI4, it is much more flexible in taking a country a different route than historical. Especially the smaller ones have a lot more hope to punch above your weight.

Not saying going commie South Africa is impossible in HOI3, but it's much harder and more constrained towards historical outcomes.

HOI4 will give you much more interesting situations, and make you more useful even as a junior partner in the war.

Are all the DLC packs vital to the gameplay?

[JasonM]

9 hours ago, Krabby said:

Are all the DLC packs vital to the gameplay?

Yes and no, nowhere near as egregious as EU4 or CK2, but there's a few that will improve your gameplay. But here's what the DLC will improve.

- Together for Victory: Gives all the British Dominions their focus trees and flavour, reworks the puppet system.
- Waking the Tiger: Adds focuses to Nat/Com China, gives Germany/Japan AU focuses. (A bunch of QOL stuff for planning/generals)
- Man the guns: Reworks the entire naval system, Fighting as Government in Exile, alternate paths for USA/UK and new tree for NED/MEX.
- Death or Dishonour: Focus trees for Hungary/Romania/Yugoslavia/Czechoslovakia (+ a few changes to equipment)
- La Resistance: Adds spies/intelligence, enhanced trees for (Free-)France/Portugal/Spain
- Battle for the Bosporus: Gives Turkey/Bulgaria/Greece focus trees. (No gameplay changes)
- No Step Back: Heavily reworks the supply system (railways/supply nodes), reworks tanks in the same style as navy, reworks the combat doctrines. Adds (new) focuses for the USSR, Poland, and the Baltics.

If I had to order the DLC i'd do it like that:
1: TFV: Will make dominions/puppets viable and fun. (Since you indicated a distinct interest in that, top of the list).
2: WTT: Adds decisions/missions, a few mechanical changes, and the Asian focuses + German kaiser alt.
3: MTG: The naval system rework is big time, fighting in exile can be fun and let you play a 'hopeless' nation historically and still be useful. The UK/US alternate paths get wild (Wallis Simpson, Queen of the Americas). And NED/MEX are really fun and challenging with their own mechanics.
4: NSB: Honestly the biggest upgrade since Man the Guns, it reworks a lot. (Last place due to its new-ness and price)

Honourable mentions:
Death or Dishonour for the added focus trees.
Bosporus is less interesting than DoD because GRE/BUL/TUR feel disconnected from the WW2 theaters for most of it, but it can be fun down the line.
La Resistance is a special mention for last place, the intelligence system doesn't really feel all that fleshed out. And the Iberian+French focus trees aren't that exciting. Not worth the 'full DLC' price, even at 50% off.

TL;DR - Starter Pack if you want to spring for it is a good offer, it gives you 2 out of the 3 'core' DLC (not counting the brand new No Step Back) and the big time central european/balkan nation-flavour pack. Then add Man the Guns for the naval stuff.

A pretty good DLC must-buyness explanation: https://www.wargamer.com/hearts-of-iron-4/dlc

Also, once/if you're gonna play with mods, stuff like Road to 56/Kaiserreich all change up focus trees themselves, so you might not even need the flavour stuff from the DLC.

[Krabby]

@Absolute JasonM

I ended up splurging on myself and getting the mobilization pack and I have been loving it so far! I have been playing the Spanish Civil War today/tonight and its been a ton of fun (and nervewracking all at the same time haha!)

Thanks for the guidance!

[JasonM]

1 hour ago, Krabby said:

@Absolute JasonM

I ended up splurging on myself and getting the mobilization pack and I have been loving it so far! I have been playing the Spanish Civil War today/tonight and its been a ton of fun (and nervewracking all at the same time haha!)

Thanks for the guidance!

Good stuff, glad you're liking it!

A quick tip that I only found out through a video yesterday. IDK if the new resupply mechanic exists on non-No Step Back saves, but if it does be sure to pump out a lot of trucks and click the following button on your armies to actually motorize your supply lines.

I forgot to do that, and I made the US Army use horse drawn carts until 1945. (And i was wondering why it seemed impossible to keep my troops consistently supplied...)

Or, what seems to be a bit of a broken mechanic right now, use transport planes set to resupply duty. Which is so absurdly powerful that they can give the entirety of Siberia perfect supply.

[Mick]

Generalissimo Krabby is Making Spain Great Again. 

 

 

Probably not as Great as Germany though. 

[Krabby]

5 hours ago, Mick said:

Generalissimo Krabby is Making Spain Great Again. 

 

 

Probably not as Great as Germany though. 

Generalissimo Krabby had a good session of HoI4 after doing some WFH stuff tonight.

As Republican Spain in the Spanish Civil War fighting vs the Nationalists and their Fascist Allies:

• Managed to regain and set up a defensive line in the far southwest.
• The main western front is a bit tenuous but so far we've beat the nationalists back there. 
• The situation around Madrid went from bad to worst when the Anarchists revolted in the Northeast but the city has held despite the presence of Nazi armor on the battlefield.
• Spanish Royalists revolted against the Nationalists in the North. They are still enemies but they are also enemies of the Nationalists and Anarchists. So thats helped the overall situation.
• The big success has been on the new Eastern Spanish front. The Anarchists were unopposed until I could Chuck together a force to oppose them. Smashed through them with sheer numbers at Valencia and started to surround them. Their units started bolting for the NE as their escape corridor closed and I have been keeping the pressure on them heavily and sending raids north to their interior. Hoping to keep up the attack and start to move towards Barcelona next time!

[Lint]

Anyone played State of Decay 2?  I really liked the first one, but I wish it was less structured.  I was really looking forward to something that was more "Just find a place to establish a community and defend it from the hordes"

Basically, I want something thats along the lines of The Walking Dead, ie build and establish a group/community in a zombie outbreak.

Project Zomboid seems close, but its just 1 character

[apsham]

State of Decay 2 is pretty great - I'd call it a bit more open ended than the initial game for sure. There's a dedicated story mode, but then there's also just "go to a map with 2 random people and do your thing" - there's a narrative to follow re; destroying the plague hearts and eventually facing a final scenario (in my instance, a ton of people came to join at once - and I could only accept so many - the others that I rejected led a bunch of zombies to us and then attacked us after we cleared them out) - that led to a nice ending with my leader talking to everyone, and from there all of the people in my group entered a "legacy" pool - meaning that you can start a new game and use them, or have them show up - and you can keep a legacy pool of a certain size - it's really cool!

There are also a decent number of maps that are quite different overall - and unique places to set up your camps that come with built in advancements that are either entirely unique or cannot be changed. There are multiple ways to deal with or clear some hazards, and your group members will randomly come up with storylines that you can choose to follow or not - whether it's a one shot thing versus a chain of stories that leads to a bigger reward.

I think it works specifically because you're talking about a gameplay loop that would get boring after just surviving for a bit - so you can spice that up by ending the "cycle" when you choose to (you aren't forced to at any point, IIRC) - the game also has really great options for scaling not only difficulty but how you want to play. Do you want resources to be more plentiful but keep combat hard? You can do that - all the difficulty options exist on their own scales.

It's the closest thing to a Walking Dead game that there's ever been proper in my estimation.

3 hours ago, Lint said:

Anyone played State of Decay 2?  I really liked the first one, but I wish it was less structured.  I was really looking forward to something that was more "Just find a place to establish a community and defend it from the hordes"

Basically, I want something thats along the lines of The Walking Dead, ie build and establish a group/community in a zombie outbreak.

Project Zomboid seems close, but its just 1 character

 

[The Lusophone]

@Krabbywhen you're ready to check out mods and stuff, make sure you grab Red Flood.

[JasonM]

1 hour ago, MadJack said:

@Krabbywhen you're ready to check out mods and stuff, make sure you grab Red Flood.

Both that and Kaiserreich are top tier mods. Although for both you'll have to roll back before the NSB patch or wait a few months for the inevitable update.

[Krabby]

3 hours ago, MadJack said:

@Krabbywhen you're ready to check out mods and stuff, make sure you grab Red Flood.

 

1 hour ago, Absolute JasonM said:

Both that and Kaiserreich are top tier mods. Although for both you'll have to roll back before the NSB patch or wait a few months for the inevitable update.

Awesome, thanks guys! I definitely will be looking for mods at some point! I've heard of Kaiserreich and read some about it, it sounds awesome!

What is Red Flood like MadJack?

[JasonM]

1 hour ago, Krabby said:

 

Awesome, thanks guys! I definitely will be looking for mods at some point! I've heard of Kaiserreich and read some about it, it sounds awesome!

What is Red Flood like MadJack?

Where Kaiserreich is about "What if the central powers won WW1", Red Flood is more like "What if WW1 ended on a status quo truce". Where every nation went home to an angry populace, no resolved conflicts, and 30 years of enmity boiling inside and outside.

 

[Krabby]

9 minutes ago, Absolute JasonM said:

Where Kaiserreich is about "What if the central powers won WW1", Red Flood is more like "What if WW1 ended on a status quo truce". Where every nation went home to an angry populace, no resolved conflicts, and 30 years of enmity boiling inside and outside.

 

Yikes! Sounds like an angry world lol, so what is Russia like in that one?

[The Lusophone]

6 hours ago, Krabby said:

What is Red Flood like MadJack?

Insane, kinda. France falls to revolution and has a new ideological movement take over - Accelerationism, which is basically defined as speed and violence. Germany is a socialist state led by Goebbels, Japan can fall into a communist revolution, Finland can embark on a mad focus tree whereby they declare themselves to be the true Egyptians and seek to take Egypt from the British, one of the Central Asian states can be either a Rasputin-cult led nation or their leader can become some kind of Buddhist living deity of vengeance and war.

Churchill is stuck in a fractured India, stranded as head of one of the few factions, with some 'fun' ways to go to.

[Krabby]

5 minutes ago, MadJack said:

Insane, kinda. France falls to revolution and has a new ideological movement take over - Accelerationism, which is basically defined as speed and violence. Germany is a socialist state led by Goebbels, Japan can fall into a communist revolution, Finland can embark on a mad focus tree whereby they declare themselves to be the true Egyptians and seek to take Egypt from the British, one of the Central Asian states can be either a Rasputin-cult led nation or their leader can become some kind of Buddhist living deity of vengeance and war.

Churchill is stuck in a fractured India, stranded as head of one of the few factions, with some 'fun' ways to go to.

Goodness that sounds downright crazy!!! That could be a lot of fun!

Have you played any other mods? Looks like some popular ones on the steam workshop are Road to 56 and The Great War

[MalaCloudy Black]

I got my first win in Super Auto Pets today, by running one of the cheesiest builds the current stable game has.

(to sum it up: fly summons units when another unit dies, turkey buffs any units summoned.)

[Maxx]

1 hour ago, MadJack said:

Insane, kinda. France falls to revolution and has a new ideological movement take over - Accelerationism, which is basically defined as speed and violence. Germany is a socialist state led by Goebbels, Japan can fall into a communist revolution, Finland can embark on a mad focus tree whereby they declare themselves to be the true Egyptians and seek to take Egypt from the British, one of the Central Asian states can be either a Rasputin-cult led nation or their leader can become some kind of Buddhist living deity of vengeance and war.

Churchill is stuck in a fractured India, stranded as head of one of the few factions, with some 'fun' ways to go to.

I very much enjoy that the French overthrew their government in the name of going real fast

[Krabby]

3 minutes ago, Maxx said:

I very much enjoy that the French overthrew their government in the name of going real fast

Ricky Bobby-ism

[thepunkrockicon]

7 hours ago, Merry Christmaxx said:

I very much enjoy that the French overthrew their government in the name of going real fast