Messages from Foxxee

I can't imitate anyone, but I always find a voice for each of our pets and whenever I talk for them I use it. Does that count?

I just went and checked it out on "GameSpot"......looks pretty good. How long does a game take to play??? .....it looks like we could get sucked in for days/weeks on end

steve, yes, the games look to be quite long. not something you're going to do in one sitting.

i also managed to get into the multiplayer server yesterday. sheesh, what a pain just to get that set up. had to register on the Paradox (game maker) forums and then find another thing where i had to enter my cd key to register. what an odd system. and, when i finally got that all worked out, i loaded up the game and went to the servers and there was nobody there. no games to play. lol. i'm beginning to wonder when this game came out. and i'm also thinking that others decided that online games must take too long and be too hard to manage keeping players there in a game long enough to get anything done.

so, i think if we decided to do this, we'd have to do it on almost a play by mail basis. we'd set a time of week and time of day to meet and log into someone being the host, play for a bit and meet again at the next scheduled time slot. oh, and you can set up one person as a host and not even bother with the registered Paradox servers. the host sets up the game server and others simply log directly into it using the host's IP number. simple.

but, since i seem to be the only one with the game... lol.

it's quite an involved game. not your typical mindless, shoot-em-up. i've been trying out various countries and each has its own starting conditions, advisors, ratings for political, ecomonics and military. they also come with a difficulty rating. the big countries are the easiest to play, france, castille (spain), portugal, and so on. also, at game start, countries are not laid out as they are in modern times. france, for instance, is missing quite a bit of its modern day territories, and this is true for many of the countries we know today.

i played france a bit yesterday. i started the game already at war with the english. lol. wasnt expecting that one. i had intended to take a few of the traditional provinces of france and then make peace and go explore and colonize the new world. after many years of chasing Brittany armies around and kicking the english off french soil, i was able to broker treaties with both, getting provinces ceded to me by both.

i then had to stablize out the country's unrest for a bit. your population doesnt like war very much and if you do too many stupid miliary and other things, your provinces may revolt on you. so, i had to do a bit of pacification of the populace before i could set my eyes abroad.

when i finally got things stable enough, i set sail for the new world only to find that i was quite late and territories were being gobbled up already. i also lost an explorer in the process. you cant explore new areas of the map without an explorer (on the seas) or a conquistador (on the land). so, i decided i didnt like france that much and started a new Portugal game

if you want to play explorer, portugal seems to be the one to do it with. nobody seems to want to war with portugal and it has few natural enemies, unlike the french and english. so, i'm portugal and am now exploring and colonizing as fast as i can. my colonization base of operations is the carribean. this gives me access to both north america and south america and there are some fairly rich islands there.

thus, my trade is increasing and i'm getting more revenue in my home, and other, trading markets. lol. but this brings a new problem. other countries are now trying to compete for these newer, richer market places. did i mention you have to maintain merchants in your markets or you cant trade there? merchants compete for a spot in the marketplace. you can get bumped completely out of a market. the richer the market, the stronger the competition. so, i've had to cut a deal with Burgundy and also sent spies in to disrupt their trade. one got caught and shot

but, i've also managed to kick out a number of other competitors in other markets besides my own, so trade revenues are picking up and, i found a new world market that is richer than any of the european, north african or middle east markets and, it's wide open! sweet!

and, i've increased my ability to trade. 'trade' is a technology in the game. there are several technologies which you can get better at, government, trade, naval, land, stability and one or two others. you invest in these technologies to get better at them. since i am playing mostly a colonize and trade game here, an investment in the trade technology gives me better competitive ability and keeps me from getting bumped out of markets so easily. and, even with that, it's something i have to watch and maintain constantly.

some of the stuff in the game i think they've done wrong. i am extremely limited to how many colonists i can send per year. diplomats and merchants are doled out on some arbitrary basis also. those things always annoy me. if i'm the ruler, let me rule! i can somewhat understand it. the game is trying to somewhat simulate traditional governments of the time. there are a number of sliders one can move to simulate the political views and outlooks of your nation. those sorts of things dont always change easily and even though governments of the time tended to be authoritatarian and unflinching, they did have to look out for popular and accepted views of the people. so, changing politics upsets your people and they tend to revolt if they get too upset.

all in all, though, it's a fun game with lots of different ways to go and keep your interest up. the game has a speed slider that you can increase when things are pretty boring and not much is going on. boring times? just fast forward!

it's an open-ended game. you can play it however you wish. there is no linear fixed track. there are influences that pop up that might try to sway you one way or another in some venture or tract you are on, but it's still open-ended. i like that. if you want to play the ottoman empire and conquer all of europe, go for it. if you want to be the ottoman empire and discover the new world, it's yours to try. or maybe you'd be happier playing a sailing empire and discover the routes to the orient and create the silk trade. have at it. it's a fun little game that is taking up way too much of my time

I'm going to pass on this. I'm not smart enough and the baby will be here any day; naturally or by C-section.

couldnt figure out what that kai commander thing is. is that something to allow console players to play with pc players on the net?

C&C does look impressive, but in recent years i've gotten tired of the click-fest, build and rush type games. starting with Total Annihilation or even earlier, those were fun... for a while, but it just got so repetitive; build your power centers, crank our 1000 x-bot warriors or whatever and rush your opponent. that's just not what i want in a 'strategy' game any more. i mean, where's the strategy? it's not that it doesnt look cool or is a pretty amazing looking piece of coding; it is. but, it just doesnt have the appeal it once did. you know where your opponent is. you know what's going to come at you and you know where, for the most part, it's going to come from. so, it's no longer strategy; it's a race to see who can click the fastest. and for that, i'd rather just play a real time, first person shooter.

in fact, what i tend to play quite often is an oldie, Wolfenstein ET. the game is free, several mods out there, easy to find teams and competitors and there's always a game somewhere via the free, in-game servers. there's tons of maps/levels/scenarios and i'm even in a clan, which i almost never do. so, if you ever just want to go bash some heads, find the AR (acid rain) servers and i'll fry you with my flamethrower i forget the website name. it's something like rainhosting.com. the server i normally play on is 66.199.232.5 . you can connect to it by starting the game, and picking 'play online' and then picking the option 'connect to IP' and then just typing in that address. you will have to have the right version of ET to play there, though. i think it's 2.60 or 2.60b ... i think. i have about four versions on my machine so i can never quite keep track of which is which. if you try to log in there and get an error about 'mismatch', then you've got the wrong version. i play there about every other day when i leave here.

I'm moving this thread from General Discussion to our new forum called Offtopic.