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[Neonivek]

Total War and Paradox titles. The sources of 98% of my historical knowledge.

It's certainly 98% of my geographic knowledge.

Uuuuuhhh... I am not exactly sure that is a good thing.

[Silverthrone]

Aah, historical games... Of course, the great charm of Paradox titles is to find ways to utterly derail history from its original course.

Speaking of, Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword is one of the best purchases I have ever made. It is meditation. O'er fields and forest I did ride; Sword and Pistol by my side...

What do you mean, 'joke'? It's just the truth. I'm not sure why you specified 'Finland and Norway', but I rather like you left Sweden out of this grouping.

The worst thing is that I cannot even argue. Well, I can argue that it depends on who you ask. The urbanites have gone soft, and their sisu and cold resistance faded as they stopped drinking vodka (Replacing it with only beer and wine. The only hard spirits that will pass those lips are the trace amounts present in the average over-priced candy-drink). Nord magic is still alive and well elsewhere, that much I can assure.

Unfortunately, the picture of the kingdom has been reduced to Stockholm, with a few little bits attached. Both abroad and domestic. So, no, I cannot truly argue... And it hurts. But happily, it is friday, and nothing smarts that cannot be drunken away!

(Of course, it is also Good Friday. But still, I doubt Jesus would mind. While frightfully unpleasant for him, it is, after all, a great occasion that it occured. Not to mention, I am sure Pontius Pilatus needed a drink or twelve after a dreadful day; I shall drink in solidarity with him. Yes, I have decided! Cheers, everyone!)

[Neonivek]

Aah, historical games... Of course, the great charm of Paradox titles is to find ways to utterly derail history from its original course.

I find the weird part (and a huge turn off personally) is that even if you eliminate the factors that made it come to pass, the characters will still be railroaded into acting the same way.

You really have to go a few extra steps sometimes.

It is almost like Paradox is making some sort of argument for determinism or fate.

"You will kill your wife!"
"But I love her"
"Don't matter, kill her!"

[Silverthrone]

That is rather odd, yes. And a bit of a shame. I do wish there were more options to decide how closely the game ought to stick to the script, as it were.

Perhaps it is that Manifest Destiny jiggery-pokery that people talk about?

[Tawa]

Aah, historical games... Of course, the great charm of Paradox titles is to find ways to utterly derail history from its original course.

I find the weird part (and a huge turn off personally) is that even if you eliminate the factors that made it come to pass, the characters will still be railroaded into acting the same way.

You really have to go a few extra steps sometimes.

It is almost like Paradox is making some sort of argument for determinism or fate.

"You will kill your wife!"
"But I love her"
"Don't matter, kill her!"

This is only a problem in EU as far as I've seen. CKII flies totally off the rails after you unpause the game, save for playing Charlemagne (whose special events you can turn off if you so wish.)

[NJW2000]

Talking of weird determinism in games, Horizon Zero Dawn

Spoiler: story spoilers (click to show/hide)

 takes a weirdly biological determinist line. Like, you have that person's DNA, you are that person. Maybe it makes sense that Gaia would think so, but still odd that it goes unquestioned the whole game.

[Digital Hellhound]

Talking of weird determinism in games, Horizon Zero Dawn

Spoiler: story spoilers (click to show/hide)

 takes a weirdly biological determinist line. Like, you have that person's DNA, you are that person. Maybe it makes sense that Gaia would think so, but still odd that it goes unquestioned the whole game.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well - to some degree, she just needed someone with the same DNA, so they could access all the stuff in the game that's DNA-locked to Elizabeth. Also she might've been expecting to end up with someone who at least has Elizabeth's intelligence, which would certainly help in dealing with HADES. Intelligence is... somewhat genetic, at least, so it'd be fair enough. Aloy and Elizabeth have kinda different personalities, so it's not like the story really considers them identical.

Even if she does expect someone identical, it's far from GAIA's only mistake, anyway - doesn't she assume the Nora will adopt Aloy as one of their own without issue, too?

[Lord Shonus]

Aah, historical games... Of course, the great charm of Paradox titles is to find ways to utterly derail history from its original course.

That is one of my biggest peeves of the Hearts of Iron games. They do too much to encourage a historical path, both in the outbreak of the war and in the technology system (which penalizes you for being "ahead" of history, even though quite a few technologies were only introduced so late because they were being ignored), making the alternate history potential much weaker.

[TheInquisitor]

Aah, historical games... Of course, the great charm of Paradox titles is to find ways to utterly derail history from its original course.

That is one of my biggest peeves of the Hearts of Iron games. They do too much to encourage a historical path, both in the outbreak of the war and in the technology system (which penalizes you for being "ahead" of history, even though quite a few technologies were only introduced so late because they were being ignored), making the alternate history potential much weaker.

Yeah, really. I can have Nationalist Spain be 80% Falangist, but the Civil War will go down just the same no matter what.

[misko27]

Speaking of Paradox, I've encountered a mind-boggling computer issue. I was trying to send EU4 back to the old version because I'm playing a game on that patch. Right? Right. So I accidentally set it back to 1.9 instead of 1.19. An amusing error. But then I set it to 1.19, and in the middle of updating my internet cuts out due to knocking off the wifi adapter. So I plug it back in, and the download finishes... mostly. I decide to verify the cache because it makes mistakes when it gets interrupted. But it tells me it can't finish updating because "Content File Locked". Something to do with /common/church_aspects. I say "ok, that's a new error", and head in to change the permissions. And... I can't. At all. Can't open the file, can't delete it, I'm not even permitted to look at the permissions, let alone change them. Now as I'm the administrator on my computer that's very fucking weird. I try deleting it through an elevated command prompt, straight up "Access is Denied." So ok, I uninstall EU4, and reinstall it. Not only does that not work, but now there is a new folder with the same problem, Europa Universalis IV\_CommonRedist\vcredist\2010. I tried installing a registry edit that would allow me to take ownership of the folder. Nothing. I just get "You need permission from the computer's administrator to make changes to this folder," then prompts me to try again. And it does that with everything.

What kind of bloody sorcery is this? Its Win10 if that makes a difference.

[NJW2000]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well - to some degree, she just needed someone with the same DNA, so they could access all the stuff in the game that's DNA-locked to Elizabeth. Also she might've been expecting to end up with someone who at least has Elizabeth's intelligence, which would certainly help in dealing with HADES. Intelligence is... somewhat genetic, at least, so it'd be fair enough. Aloy and Elizabeth have kinda different personalities, so it's not like the story really considers them identical.

Even if she does expect someone identical, it's far from GAIA's only mistake, anyway - doesn't she assume the Nora will adopt Aloy as one of their own without issue, too?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

While I'd agree that Aloy could be expected to have some similarities to Aloy, and genetics is a factor, GAIA adresses Aloy as "Elizabeth" several times, I think. The story definitely has it more as a kind of mother-daughter relationship, you're right.

She assumes Aloy will be allowed to live. Semi-correctly.

The weirdest thing to me is certainly GAIA. She is an AI that feels "sad" about the extinction of the dinosaurs - but is it because the dinosaurs on earth died of meteorite, or because the species were lost? The game never says... and both possibilities have weird implications.
-An AI that dislikes the deaths of any living creatures? But has to make a world?
-Or an AI that attaches value to species rather than people? Scary. But I guess no reason she can't care about both.

[Silverthrone]

I must confess that I have not played Hearts of Iron IV (Nor do I believe I will, that blasted thing irritates me. I like arranging corps, armies and theatres, and I really liked the emphasis that HoI III put on that. Seeing HoI IV boiled down to yet another Little Men Walking Around on a Map-em-up was terribly disappointing.), so it is rather difficult for me to gauge it, but dear me, do I believe it. Is there an optional switch for historical scripting? If not, then it is a terrible oversight.

Before it was patched, however, Hearts of Iron III could erupt in some very interesting alternative history. Finland, for instance, could always be counted on joining the allies and develop an unnatural fascination with invading Tobruk, gradually emptying the land of units to send to Africa. Odd behaviour, in all.

[Digital Hellhound]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well - to some degree, she just needed someone with the same DNA, so they could access all the stuff in the game that's DNA-locked to Elizabeth. Also she might've been expecting to end up with someone who at least has Elizabeth's intelligence, which would certainly help in dealing with HADES. Intelligence is... somewhat genetic, at least, so it'd be fair enough. Aloy and Elizabeth have kinda different personalities, so it's not like the story really considers them identical.

Even if she does expect someone identical, it's far from GAIA's only mistake, anyway - doesn't she assume the Nora will adopt Aloy as one of their own without issue, too?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

While I'd agree that Aloy could be expected to have some similarities to Aloy, and genetics is a factor, GAIA adresses Aloy as "Elizabeth" several times, I think. The story definitely has it more as a kind of mother-daughter relationship, you're right.

She assumes Aloy will be allowed to live. Semi-correctly.

The weirdest thing to me is certainly GAIA. She is an AI that feels "sad" about the extinction of the dinosaurs - but is it because the dinosaurs on earth died of meteorite, or because the species were lost? The game never says... and both possibilities have weird implications.
-An AI that dislikes the deaths of any living creatures? But has to make a world?
-Or an AI that attaches value to species rather than people? Scary. But I guess no reason she can't care about both.

Spoiler: HZD Spoilers (click to show/hide)

I only vaguely remember GAIA's message to Aloy (there was one... right?). The use of Elizabeth I can understand - it's not like she could know what Aloy would end up being called, but yeah. I imagine it's also wishful thinking - GAIA pretty clearly misses Elizabeth and would want her back.

I'm pretty sure she cares about both. I figure she's sad generally of the species being lost. I mean, she's built to care so much it even conflicts with her task - refusing to start over when needed, which they needed HADES for. But there's no indication she puts any less value in people.

[CABL]

-snip-

Speaking of EU4, how did people react to the new DLC? Did they put the combat width mechanic back or not? Methinks EU4 jumped the shark after that "wonderful" update which removed it because of the complaints that "battles were too long".

Unrelated: It's bad that I unironically like "Never Gonna Give You Up"?

[Lord Shonus]

Unrelated: It's bad that I unironically like "Never Gonna Give You Up"?

Why would it be? It is an excellent song.