With my system back up I am now back to a varied play list of games. In no particular order:
- Crusader Kings II - Really, it is the best grand strategy game out there, and there are more than enough mods addressing so many aspects of medieval society that it isn't funny. The economic system is still a joke, and mods that think that spending a gold piece from the treasury is just one coin is ridiculous. The cost of actually building castles was in the tens of thousands of gold (or about a third of that cost in Pounds Easterling aka Pounds Sterling). In game it is a few hundred gold pieces, thus each gold piece represents about 1,000 actual coins. Thus the expenditures from the treasury for truly trivial items are ones that are unrealistic, and those all exist in the base game, not just mods. The holdings system is unrealistic, but good for its era and if you are willing to give it a pass, then you understand the grand strategy siege dynamics a bit better. Not a great implementation but it works.
- Fallout 4 with mods - I'm keeping different loudouts via Mod Organizer 2 for Horizon and Sim Settlements 2, plus Horizon and the entire Fusion City Rising
group of mods (Outcasts and Remnants, Depravity, Operation Valkyrie and Diary of a Madman). Also in the mix is The Machine and Her and it is one of the best all-around story mods available, and offers a good companion, to boot. Heather Casdin mod also gets high praise as it was made by the same mod author that mad Willow for FNV.
- Dragon Age Origins - A fun game with a good adaptation of the tabletop D&D game rules to their own in-house system after Bioware did some official D&D games. The setting is good, the game play mechanics intensive and the story interesting and not the regular run of the mill for typical D&D settings. A mention of the Chantry Monk mod that makes unarmed combat a reality and a real treat to play with.
- Cities Skylines - With lots of mods. For that relaxing, city growing experience. More or less.
- Horizon: Zero Dawn - Yup I'm late to the game but it was on my potential buy list at the right price and when it reached that price I got it. A fun and interesting game, though it could do more with background perks and awards and get rid of the tutorial stuff. Luckily you can ignore the tutorials and just play the game. An interesting take on a post-apocalypse, though the basis for running machines on biomass is not a physical reality given how much energy has to be used to move these machines around. It is a plot hole that any close examination reveals, but if you are willing to suspend disbelief it is a fun game.
- The Outer Worlds - Got its last DLC, played it and it was fun. Replayability after you go through the two main endings is limited. A bit of fun is being a sociopathic psychopath and doing missions and then, after you know an area is exhausted, wiping them all out.
- Fallout NV - What can I say? A perennial favorite that still has new mods coming out for it.
- Crusader Kings 3 - This game needs serious work by Paradox as its force gathering mechanic is just busted. What they had in CK 2, while bad, was still a lot better than this. They have a good idea in Imperator Rome of sending supply wagons to reinforce the troops in the field and that was a real think in medieval times (hell, even in modern times). The system needs a revamp and overhaul. Also the lack of CK 2 features for jobs and minor titles is a real missed opportunity in making court maintenance and assigning of jobs a real thing to worry about. The map for CK 2 needed work, yes, but there are a number of places where it makes sense to have small counties (like in England), which offered opportunities in game play that are just not available in CK 3. I am glad that there is more in Africa and the Russian Steppes all the way out to the end of the map in Mongolia. I'm not so fond of breaking up the Tibetan Plateau region and removing the more interesting biodiverse regions of CK 2. This game has potential, but it needs real work done to it.
- I've dabbled in a lot of Indy and small producer games, but none really worthy of a mention.
That's about it. A shout out for the Horizon mod for FO4 - this is the sort of thing I was expecting for FO4. Still it doesn't do anything to the plot which is godawful. Thank heavens for mods.
