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[Bralbaard]

I'm currently playing Heroes of might and magic III
It's one of those old games I keep coming back too, and this time for good reason.
The game is a quarter century old, but has an active community and the HoTA modding team just released a new town and faction, the factory.
Quality of this and their previous town expansion is equal if not better than the original factions and it blends in seamlessly.

There is a youtube release trailer here

If you are thinking of installing the game (you need the base game to install the mod) to play this, make sure you buy the game from GOG.com. The version steam is selling is an incomplete and incompatible version that you do not want.

[None]

Straddling the line between incremental and puzzle game, I found Cavernous 2 where you're stuck in a time loop and need to plot out a course to a) get more mana to extend your loop, b) mine out useful things like gold and iron for one-time mana boosts and to forge equipment, c) use that equipment to cross gaps, create clones of yourself, etc. Every successful sip at a mana spring permanently improves your loop, and every action improves your speed at doing that action by a fractionally tiny amount.

The controls are a little obtuse:
the arrows and space input entries into the action sequence, delete/backspace moves them back. You can navigate within the action sequence by clicking within it or ctrl+ arrows.
P pauses and resumes the game, which gets confusing with:
W changes whether or not you wait when all actions are done, wait when any of your clones have run out of actions, loop when all actions are done, or loop when you've run out of mana. Look between this and P if the game isn't moving.
G turns on and off whether or not the game will use your best route time to automatically plot a course to mana springs you've already visited if you have enough time to gain more mana from it. This may screw around with your action sequence if you turn it on when you don't want it.
S turns on and off a 'grind for stats' route where it looks for your best routes to determine how to gain the most incremental progress in a given stat. I haven't had to use it yet.

Definitely a learning curve to understand the buttons and the UI, but it's a really nifty puzzler if you like optimizing things.

[Folly]

Cavernous 2 is definitely a fun little puzzle/idle game. I've only put a few hours in so far, but I love constantly exploring and finding new things!

[AlStar]

I had the most head-desk experience with the game for, like, my first 15 minutes. I never uncovered the second mana stone to the north, and I was going mad trying to figure out how to get enough time/mana to mine even a single tile of gold and use the machine to turn the gold into mana.

I've since managed to fix that and proceed a little into zone 2, but, even so, can't seem to find the mana to both mine the iron and build the bridges to find out what's past the double pits in the left corner of zone 1.

[None]

You've used the clone machine, yes?

Any mana rocks you siphon from in Zone 2 (and subsequent zones) also gives that mana bonus to previous zones, so you may just need to make your way further into zone 2 before you can reach that chasm.

If you're really confounded about it, you can copy the following script and then paste it into the 'import path' button to load the one I used:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

["RRDUURUUDDRDRDUIIDRRUULUURUDLDDRIIIIDIIDLLUIILULUULLULLLLLRRRDDLLDLRDDDRRDDDUUULLUUUURRUURRDRRDDRDRIIIIDRRUUIIDIDLLUIILULUULLULLDDLLDDDDDDLLDDDDRD","RRDUURUUDDRDRDUIIDRRDDRLUUUUIIIIDDLLUIILULUULLUURRRLLLDLLLLLDURRRDDLLDLRDDDRRDDDDRRRRLLLLDLRDRDDRLUULUUUUUULLDDLLDDDDDRD"]

[Folly]

I had the most head-desk experience with the game for, like, my first 15 minutes. I never uncovered the second mana stone to the north, and I was going mad trying to figure out how to get enough time/mana to mine even a single tile of gold and use the machine to turn the gold into mana.

I've since managed to fix that and proceed a little into zone 2, but, even so, can't seem to find the mana to both mine the iron and build the bridges to find out what's past the double pits in the left corner of zone 1.

Past the double-pits on the left side of zone 1 are trees, which take more time to cross the later you are in the cycle. So if you're still struggling to get the double bridges, then you're a long way from making progress there.

[Iduno]

Not worth resurrecting an old thread, but Factorio's modding community is weird.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Iceblaster]

bitcoinmining_irl

Yeah, Factorio's mod community is wild. Watched a guy's video on Space Exploration and I am amazed people find that level of management fun, I find base game hard enough as is

[n9103]

Are you looking forward to the Space Age expansion?
It brings a lot of new content, particularly to the post-rocket gameplay, and is made by the same guy that made SE.

[Robsoie]

I gave a try to Mordheim, the current freebie on gog.

Played the 3 first tutorial missions and found it nice with some potential, but there was a very heavy dependance on dices/RNG as shown in one of my tries in which a character with a 40% dodge ability missed a lot of dodges roll in a row and died stupidly or an AI unit that somehow decided that every of its attacks on one of my characters would result in a "miss" .
Being extremely RNG based is typical boardgames from games workshop anyways so it's not a surprise but it sure will easily lead into frustration at some points.

Then i went to start a warband, basically the SP campaign, and selected a human mercenary warband to start with the basics.

First mission i separated my guys in order to scavenge around and gather those wyrd things, i quickly noticed it was a bad idea as it felt that the AI ignore every scavenging spots and instead will beeline its troops to one of your guys, put him out of action (so you lose all the loot) and move to another. Until my last guy lost a routing dice roll and the mission is over.

Most of my "out of action" guys recovered, one died (the "hero" convenientely so wasted the XP gained and wasted the expensive money it cost) , still managed to have 2 "wyrd" as my leader that gathered them never went "out of action".

Replaced the hero by another one and moved to second day, and so 2nd campaign mission, this time i decided to play like the AI did : ignore most scavenging and wyrd spot and moved all my guys in group, managed to gather a few wyrd on the way.
The AI beelined again toward my position but because it didn't moved as a group, i easily destroyed each of them one by one (out of the case in which 2 arrived at the same time but i was outnumbering them anyways) , wow looks like the winning strategy is not actually a strategy at all, it's just "keep everyone together and kill the AI enemy by vastly outnumbering it or kill it in a chokepoint".

Looks like the AI isn't coded as an actual boardgame opponent, because it's obvious it has not only 0 care about looting the items and wyrd around the map, it additionally has 0 care about their warband member survivability , unlike you as your surviving troops may get some crippling malus from wounds and etc... that are ported to the next mission.

Anyways, happy to see my warband managed to destroy that warband of Sisters of Battle Sigmar, i was then ready to gather all the loot they left behind before the end of the turn with my guys that had not yet moved in this turn ... except that the game does not let you pick those bags that are litterally at the feet of your mercs, it goes automatically with "victory" and bring you back to the base camp without the loot that is still in those bags... what the hell.

Ok, 3rd day and 3rd mission, this time there's a vampire and a couple more guys that i can see, one is looking like some ghoul/zombie
the additional mission is to gather 50% of the wyrd from the map, that's probably impossible considering the AI does not do that on its side and will attack your troops
And ending the AI troops would end the mission immediately so you can't even loot what's around you.
Mission start and to my surprise i was wrong : the AI gather 2 wyrds, so i send my troops doing the same. But then the AI decide to go back at its brainless "don't care about objective" code and rush into my troops, fortunately i manage to rally everyone and a "normal" dressed guy get "out of action" but the vampire in turn KO one of my henchmen (that have all been mostly useless so far).
But my hero character hit very hard (a wolf priest) and thanks to his strikes manage to get the vampire KO, while my leader character surprisingly parry successfully a couple of strikes.

The enemy lose the routing roll before i can gather a couple more wyrd and the usual "victory and no you don't get to gather any loot not already in your pocket" .
At least my troops have now reached rank 1 from this mission, unlocking the ability to field more henchmen so it's all good.

And apparently i was given a task in the base camp : gathering 75 weight of wyrd before 10 days. Result of those 3 missions (and so 3 days)  :  31 weight so it looks like this task is doable, but i wish the AI wasn't beelining your troop like that so i could gather or scavenge around a bit.

So in the end it looks like there is a good potential with Mordheim for some fun, but it seems to me it is filled with some bad idea and frankly questionable design decisions regarding the AI ignoring the objectives.

[nenjin]

You can go read up on my Mordheim thread if you want a little bit of a deeper dive.

TLDR: great attempt but seriously flawed. The fun is there, but you have to play it a certain way that many people will find unfun. Yeah, the AI isn't coded to be anything like the board game. They know where you are at all times, they don't care about objectives and they will swarm any isolated unit which means you shouldn't divide your warband and consolidate your position ASAP.

Really it just comes down to a slug fest. Out number your opponent in 3:1 encounters and wipe the floor with them. The AI are generally a notch above your own guys in terms of HP and a few other stats to give the AI a helping hand, so 1:1 is risky, 2:1 usually goes your way but not always. 3:1 is a guaranteed win against most opponents.

It's got the RPG goodness and grindiness and you can make some beast warband members, even thought I think the overall implementation of stats, gear, traits, all that jazz is a little lackluster. It's a game I want to love and I enjoy......but I could never seriously recommend it unless you absolutely love Mordheim as a setting and are willing to accept all the boils and pus along with it. Which I do.

The saddest part is...these guys went on to make Necromunda, the 40k version of Mordheim and it has similar massive flaws which meant it was never going to be a mid-range success. I haven't even tried it and I love Necromunda too.

Truly, I wish that dev team the best. But man there is just so much jank in both games.

[Robsoie]

I read a bit on that mordheim thread, and from what i gather it looks the game rules have been changed a lot from the boardgame with those health bars and the fights taking longer to bring a target down, i wonder why the devs did that if the original system was working good for the boardgame players apparently.

I noticed that missions can have the AI warbands either at the same level as yours, or give some unfair advantage to it  (i suppose that's what the rating is "normal" or "deadly", "brutal" etc...)

Apparently the AI warband additionally match yours in number : take less people and the AI will have less people , take more and the AI will have more.

On my latest mission in which i didn't took my hero unit (he was unavailable due to training to learn a new skill), the enemy warband leader AI stupidly decided to stay at a short distance of their wagon for the whole mission duration.
there were plenty of "climb down" spot around him but he never bothered, completely stupid considering it meant i was always outnumbering the AI troops he had sent and then had a very easy time KO-ing them all.

Spoiler: AI wasting its time on top of a city wall (click to show/hide)

At least it finally gave me time to gather wyrds before my archer started to slowly wound him (arrow damage are rather small), then i sent my henchmen (while my leader was busy gathering, scavenging and moving things back to my wagon chest) to climb up and knockout the guy.

Mordheim is still fun so far with the rpg stats/items/levels grinding to improve your poor guys into decent warriors and the fact losing a mission still contribute in improving your troops that survive, but i wish there were alternative to the "everyone stay grouped and fight together focusing on one enemy at a time for easy victory" tactic

[nenjin]

Alas, that is the game's biggest weakness, the AI.

That said, the story missions are quite good and some of the set pieces are mind blowing.

Mordheim is the kind of game that's fun despite how broken it is, but that feeling can pass at any point.

[Robsoie]

speaking of AI weakness in Mordheim, looks like the AI calculation can sometime get completely stuck and will never complete the AI character turn.
From googling around it's a known bug since at least 2016 .

2 ways around : the sure one is to abandon the mission but abandonning the mission gives wounds and sometime crippling injuries to every of your characters, this method at least work all the time but the RNG with the wounds/injuries can be crippling for some character.
the "most of the time it will work" , when you see the AI not completing a character turn press Escape and select "Save and Quit"
Exit the game, the relaunch it, click on Continue and that AI turn should hopefully be immediately resolved once the save is loaded, allowing you to continue.
The cons of that method is that it seems the save will not load anymore for some people (for me luckily it worked) :
https://steamcommunity.com/app/276810/discussions/1/351660338721197701/

[Ulfarr]

I've never had any loading problems with the "Save and Quit" method but it gets tiresome after a while.