What have you played in the weekend?

Do your characters level up in this game?

Nope, all of you bitches are installing DCS and getting a free taste of what a flight simulator is in the 21st century. Doubly so if you have a VR headset.

I never play games to beat them, anymore. I would like to but can’t manage to stick to any one game for the long haul. Sometimes out of boredom but most of the time because something newer and shinier (or older and shinier) takes me away. I did put a number of hours into the first XCOM and really liked it - perhaps I should finish it first.

Actually, does the sequel continue directly from the first? Maybe I should finish that first.

Probably continue my new X4 Foundations game and consider picking up the new DLC. I am finally more than an hour into a game and making some progress. When I heard so many systems and simulations were broken on launch I shelved it until now.

Trying to stay alive in our MP Dominions 5 game here. @dfs is invading!

Probably continue some more on my Wurm Unlimited game server and explore the new cooking system and maybe make some bows, arrows, archery targets and train some archery.

EDIT: Forgot to add, getting my bowling fix in some online bowling leagues in Premium Bowling. Real life leagues are shut down and no tournaments so missing my bowling bad!

Here’s how to remove (well, mostly) the time limits. When you start a new game this menu comes up -

Click Toggle Advanced Options View.

In the new window, check off the following options -

Time limits are mostly no longer a concern.

Sort of, but you’ll see it coming. Your guys will be dying too often. You’ll be sending out too many rookies into the field and they’ll be torn to shreds by the more advanced enemies. You’ll figure it out that it’s not a winnable game.

You can research certain things faster or slower but there’s no real optimal path. As long as you keep researching and adding more scientists and engineers as fast as you can, you’ll be fine.

For the original XCOM2, I lost three games before I won one. It is certainly a learning curve.

But it’s fun even if you lose.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a Bannerlord type game, but without the FPS elements? I know that is basically the point of the game, bashing people with swords and what not. But is there a game that does only the rest of it? Building up followers and gold, taking over castles, building an empire from scratch, that kind of thing but purely from the strategic screen?

You can auto resolve battles in Bannerlord. You can also send companions on missions to do battles for you and avoid personal combat completely.

When you finish a mission, you take resources with you. In between missions you can spend those resources in tech unlocks which you can use on any other missions you go on.

I hear Kenshin is kind of like it…?

Battlebrothers too.

Can you skip the turn-based battles in Battle Brothers? I think that makes even less sense than skipping the battles in Mount & Blade 2…

Those games have combat (real time, turn based) on top of the strategic layer and there is no real kingdom building part; you can’t conquer the map in Kenshi, can you?

I think you sort of can but I’m not entirely sure.

Me neither… that would be a reason to buy it! I heard it was just sandboxy after all.

Yeah, it’s waiting in my backlog. I’ll play it. I think. Eventually.

I think I’ll be mostly playing X4: Foundations and The Elder Scrolls Online.

But now I kind of want to play WOTC too! I should probably wait for Chimera Squad and not burn myself out on it.

You can capture or kill anyone in this game and build wherever you want. I don’t think foreign lands become “yours” technically, but ownership of territory does change hands among the NPC factions, which you are free to influence.

Oh I had no idea this was possible but I should have thought of the possibility. Thanks!

I will check out Battle Brothers as well, though I wasn’t really looking for a turn based battle combat focus either. But thanks for mentioning it.

Looking like a mostly Factorio weekend for me.

@Balasarius gave a good tip. Also, I cannot stress enough that the Guerrilla Tactics School should be built ASAP. Lets you put more fighters on the field. I did get into that death spiral situation the one and only time I tried to play a second XCOM 2 campaign with the DLC and War of the Chosen. At a certain point you have to have more people in the battle or you will lose engagements, at least on normal. Also there are difficulty levels. And I never play Ironman because that’s for masochists, IMHO. :-)

Actually sorely tempted to start a new campaign now, but I should get started on my taxes, otherwise my stupid COVID-19bux are never coming.