Red Dead Redemption 2 - For a Few Redemptions More

Those fuckers killed my horse

Since the Pinkertons didn’t protect their trademark, they kind of lose it. They are never gonna win this case.

The real thing that blew my mind about this was… The Pinkertons still exist??

These guys were basically hired thugs and murderers. My earliest readings about them were in the history of the coal mines in apalachia. They were hired by the mine owners to basically just beat the fuck out of miners and terrorize them so they’d put up with essentially being slaves in a company town.

It’s crazy that such a company still exists today.

All right, I managed to complete the “study every animal” and “skin every animal” achievements and with that, I’m declaring my single player career done. Unless Rockstar decides to release single player DLC, in which case A HA HA HA HA, sorry, I almost made it through that without cracking up.

Total time played: 10 days, 10 hours, 21 minutes.

The gambling challenges are nuts. I made it through the Blackjack one but the next one is winning three Dominoes games in a row.

You can game the system by quitting the game on your turn before you lose. It won’t reset the count of wins that way.

Also, play 1v1 dominoes against folk at your camp. It’s easier than 1vmany.

I can’t make heads or tails of how a dominoes game is scored. I played one game with Tilly and read the hints and everything but wasn’t getting it.

I didn’t know anything about the rules of playing dominoes and I still may not, given that for all I know Rockstar just made all this up. But if I remember correctly, the version of dominoes you play in camp is Threes, which just means that you want all the open ends of any played dominoes to add to a multiple of three. If they do, you get points. If not, you get none.

So let’s say you get to lay down first. In that case, the best domino to have is the double sixes, because just laying that down gets you 12 points. If you had a domino that was six on one end and five on the other, you’d get no points, because the total of the open ends would be eleven, not a multiple of three. OK, so that’s the easy part. You also want to get rid of your high number dominoes first because any you’re still holding if your opponent goes out gets calculated into their score. So again, laying out the double sixes is a good move if you have it.

Let’s say you don’t start, Tilly does. And she lays down the double sixes, and gets twelve points. Naturally you need a domino with a six on one end just to lay down. If you have a domino with a six and a three, you get nine points. You’ve closed off one end, putting your six end against one six end of her domino. But the open ends are the six of her original domino, and the three of your domino you laid down. That gets you nine points.

Anyway from that point, you just want to try to keep your options open and if possible, lay out all your dominos first, but of course there’s an element of luck in that, so good luck. Hope that helps.

Little things that please me more than they should:

That creepy guy in the tent on the top of a hill that has the NSFW photos in his tents and is obsessing on some widow who will surely love him and he can make her love him etc. I’ve shot him a couple of times, but he keeps reincarnating. So last time I ran into him, I immediately roped him and dragged him through creeks and bushes and over trees then rode over to a train station and, sure enough, a train was there about to leave, so I put him on the tracks. When the train got close to him, it blew it’s horn but it ran right over him. I looked to see the damage and he was dead, and it cut off both legs and one arm. (OK, now I sound like the creepy serial killer.)

Second: One mission line, towards the end, you have to track down and capture and bring back to town a guy they make out to be pretty unredeemable. He’s surrounded by his gang and the first couple of times I tried he jumped on a horse and got away.

So I tried again, this time approaching so that I was between him and the horses. As I dealt with his gang he ran away on foot. Crap. So I start chasing him and he stays ahead of me and I’m only slightly gaining on him. I decide to take a risk and try to shoot him in the leg thinking well I may kill him or it may just do a calculation (e.g. 2 shots with this gun and ammo = dead) but what the heck. So I use deadeye and manage to shoot him in the leg.

And he keeps running but now he’s limping! Cool! I now easily catch him and as I’m tying him up he says “You SHOT me!!!” LOL! I love that shooting him in the leg actually made him limp!

I was shocked the first time I mortally wounded someone and had to listen to him scream out his dying breath. Gruesome.

I really want to play this again as a bad guy, but I don’t want to be tied down to the story as it’s such a slog. I wish they offered the entire game minus the story. So in essence, all the cool side quests.

Speaking of which - I wonder if all the side quests would still be available if I plowed straight through the story with no stops for anything happening on the side?

I’m pretty sure that some stranger side quests are only available during certain time windows. Check out the RDR2 Wiki on Powerpyx (adblocker strongly recommended-- on mobile Chrome I got an aggressive redirect): http://www.powerpyx.com/red-dead-redemption-2-wiki-strategy-guide/

Ugh… I’m on the final mission and encountered a game-breaking bug (this) (that link is a spoiler, obviously), which means I have to repeat the entire mission and hope I get past it, or wait for a patch. :(

Micah, I wish I knew how to quit you!

I did the horse glitch exploit enough times to FINALLY get a Golden Turkoman. Very nice horse, way better than the Arabian because it’s got a much calmer temperament.

Chapter 5 was a rollercoaster of emotions and then that one mission, dayum. Just started chapter 6. My Arthur just maxed his good level.

Man wtf were they thinking with this epilogue. Fucking dreadful. Talk about a game that overstayed it’s welcome. I was in love with this game for the first 30 hours and now I almost hate it, what a roller coaster.

Went hunting for a beaver pelt yesterday. I had read that these were hard to come by, so I was somewhat anxious: would I find a pristine beaver? So I went to the lake west of Strawbery, and amazingly I find no less than four (!) pristine beavers sitting together on a beach. So I sneak closer, aim, decide to move up just a tiny bit further (not sure about the range of a varmint rifle), aim again and… slide of the hill, scattering the beavers who flee straight in to the water and swim away.

Haven’t seen anything other than poor beavers ever since…

I get very confused on reliable info on horses.

I had the white Arabian since early in the game (Destiny) and loved her. Easily outran everyone such that missions where bounty hunters jumped you didn’t require a fight, I just quickly left them in my dust. Then I got into Chapter 4 and the Black Arabian was available which many said was better than the White, and some said the Trotter was just as good but less jumpy. So I picked up one of those and took it to full bonding level. He was good but didn’t seem quite as quick as the White Arabian so I’m breaking in the Black Arabian (Shadow) and have him almost to full bonding level. Quick, fast, but not sure if he’s a bit better or worse than the White. Online opinion and data varies; some say the official guide says the Black is better but others say their in game numbers differ.

Now the Golden Turkoman? What are the numbers vs the Arabians? I see I can buy the Gold Turkoman in the stables in Chapter 4.

I think the best horses may be similar enough you can just pick a personal preference.

Turks are considered to be top of the line. Arabians beat them on speed, but are skittish as hell. Fox Trotters are slightly, slightly faster but you barely notice and they are also more skittish. Silver Turks are said to be less skittish than Gold, so they’re supposedly the “best horse”.