Viridian Dreams Forum

Does that still qualify if I'm using a flash card?

I'm gonna say yes to that.

Nah, it's Ninteno's anti-piracy measure.

Oooh that's a good one. SquareEnix has had some nice ones too, I remember being stuck on a ship that would never dock because of antipiracy measures.

Now, if it was me coming up with piracy countermeasures I'd be far more annoying about it, constant massive lagging, infuriating yet catchy music stuck on a loop for the entire game, random insane spikes in difficulty, sudden high pitched female shrieking, random high pitched baby crying, snarky insulting messages every loading screen, the screen going blank during fights for a few seconds as you get your ass whupped, wildly distorting graphics.

Stuff like that, but I'd also be cool about it.

If someone managed to complete the game from start to finish without cheating despite all of the crap I just put them through I'd let them keep it and have the Anti Piracy stuff disabled, because after what I would have done they would have earned it.

Although to add an extra touch of evil, make it randomized. One guy completes once and gets the complete unbugged game. The rumor spreads but the next guy has to beat the game three times to unbug the game. And the other seven and so on.

Didn't Earthbound constantly change the language the game was in? It was either that or it would randomly delete your save file.

That has never happened to me. At least, not yet.

Now, if it was me coming up with piracy countermeasures I'd be far more annoying about it, constant massive lagging, infuriating yet catchy music stuck on a loop for the entire game, random insane spikes in difficulty, sudden high pitched female shrieking, random high pitched baby crying, snarky insulting messages every loading screen, the screen going blank during fights for a few seconds as you get your ass whupped, wildly distorting graphics.

Stuff like that, but I'd also be cool about it.

If someone managed to complete the game from start to finish without cheating despite all of the crap I just put them through I'd let them keep it and have the Anti Piracy stuff disabled, because after what I would have done they would have earned it.

So, Eternal Darkness with insanity effects permanently stuck. Clever!

Playing Star Ocean for the PSP, and Medieval II: Total War for the PC. Playing as the English right now, and while their calvery is crap subpar, their archers are everything you wanted in an archery unit but were too afraid to ask. Have taken over the Scots, have the French on the ropes, non-English piracy in the English Channel and the North Sea is down, the Danes are wary of launching an assult on us right now, our merchants are slowly taking over Northern Europe, heresy is decreasing, the Pope likes us, and we hold Jeruselem. Life is going good right now.

Star Ocean has some of the best ideas I've seen yet when it comes to grinding; you can enter a "training mode" where they handicap your stats and you get bonuses to XP. Basically, they're making fights more challenging and letting you level at an acceptable rate, rather than making you fight pibsqueaks for the same pitiful amount of cash and XP that you really should be getting. The story is moderatly interesting, and there seems to be a romantic side to it that even I can follow without it being stupidly obvious and artificial. The combat system is decent, although sometimes I wish that the magic users were a little more consistent with their power levels; they can go from game-breaking to worthless and back again in as many fights. Item creation is also interesting, and an interesting way to level; you can do things like (if you have ranks in Writing) write a book on another skill such as Item Knowledge. If someone reads the book, they get a free rank in that skill, and that would help haggling with merchants. Or, they could read up on Blacksmithing, and increase their DEX score by an additional +2/level. Overall, it's seems to be a fairly solid buy for anyone who already likes RPGs.

while their calvery is crap subpar, their archers are everything you wanted in an archery unit but were too afraid to ask.

The French will never live down Agincourt and those making RTS games will never forget it.

Which Star Ocean by the way? The one with Claude (the blonde guy) or the one with his dad who's name escapes me, something Kenny.

Main character's name is Roddick, has blue hair, and time travel is involved. That help any? I think the subtitle is something like Star Ocean: First Departure.

All told, the French are possibly the best civilization in the game, really. They start out with good real estate, get the best heavy calvery in a game where (as it was in the time period you play through) calvery is king, don't suffer any glaring weaknesses, and can fill their coffers almost as fast as the Byzantines if they play the game right. This is a stark contrast with most of their neighbors, such as the Spaniards (takes forever to get decent troops, bankrupt, and dealing with the Moors on the Ibearian Penensula) or the Scotts (hold exactly one territory, worse calvery than even the English, bankrupt, and can only really expand in one direction).

And yeah, I have trouble seeing who's going to let them forget that little tussle, because I know the English still don't. To be fair, it wasn't just Angincourt, but that's the one battle that everyone seems to be familiar with. I'm gussing that that's one of those things that influenced the English ever since, because I seem to recall British naval doctrine around the time of the Armada to be something along the lines of "stay at range and pound away" rather than the Spaniard's "get in close and maul them", so....yeah. [/historygeek]

Main character's name is Roddick, has blue hair, and time travel is involved. That help any? I think the subtitle is something like Star Ocean: First Departure.

All told, the French are possibly the best civilization in the game, really. They start out with good real estate, get the best heavy calvery in a game where (as it was in the time period you play through) calvery is king, don't suffer any glaring weaknesses, and can fill their coffers almost as fast as the Byzantines if they play the game right. This is a stark contrast with most of their neighbors, such as the Spaniards (takes forever to get decent troops, bankrupt, and dealing with the Moors on the Ibearian Penensula) or the Scotts (hold exactly one territory, worse calvery than even the English, bankrupt, and can only really expand in one direction).

And yeah, I have trouble seeing who's going to let them forget that little tussle, because I know the English still don't. To be fair, it wasn't just Angincourt, but that's the one battle that everyone seems to be familiar with. I'm gussing that that's one of those things that influenced the English ever since, because I seem to recall British naval doctrine around the time of the Armada to be something along the lines of "stay at range and pound away" rather than the Spaniard's "get in close and maul them", so....yeah. [/historygeek]

Probably the first SO then, I played it as a SNES rom many years ago.

Everyone remembers Agincourt because it was a massive battle the English should have lost. I'm not going to add anything else because my history is not-great and I'm probably confusing wars.

Whee history geeks unite.

Agincourt is so famous because William Shakespeare immortalized it Henry V. It was the last in three great English vs French curb stomps.

The first occurred at Crecy at the start of the Hundred Years war.
Final Tally: +10,000 dead for the French about 100-300 for the English
French King Barely escapes.
Winner: England.

The Second happened at Poitiers. Where the English were led by the awesomely named "The Black Prince"
Final tally: 2500 dead and 2000 captured for the French. The English lose about a dozen guys.
French King captured and ransomed
Winner: England.

The last one is the big Kahuna: Agincourt this battle would have won France for England permanently if Henry V's heirs hadn't sucked so bad.
Final Tally: 7000-10000 dead and 1500 prisoners. The English lose about a 120

These three battles are pretty much why the English always considered the French as wusses at war. Wellington beating their asses in Spain didn't help.

Incidentally I to play that game. I usually play as Milan or England. And you are right about Spain Slamu. so very right.
(I took the entire Iberian Peninsula most of Egypt and Jerusalem and I'm still flat broke)

Played (and won) as Milan. Much love for the Pavaise crossbowmen. Those guys won me so many battles it's great.
Planning on going out and upping my game; think I can take and hold Rome as the Egyptians, everything dialed as far up as it can go? My brother's trying it as the Russians, and is having slow going with it. Me, I figured that the ability to ignore what the Pope thinks of me is a great enough boon to offset the lack of pretty much anything more heavily armored that a leather jerkin, so...

And yes, just the name "the Black Prince" is awesome. Clearly propoganda too, but does anyone remember who named him thus? Because it would be interesting to see whether that's a product of English or French naming.

Who does take the French seriously? I'll try to be impartial about this, but I don't know how successful I'll be. When you can type "French Military Victories" into Google and get "No results found, did you mean 'French Military Defeats'?", that's saying something. I'm pretty sure that they've taken that down by now, but I've seen it with my own eyes. On a related note, this is not for the easily offended.

I believe that the Black Prince was named such for his jet-black custom armor....and his tendency to rape and pillage the French countryside like it was going out of style.

I hate the Pope in Total War 2 I really do.
"Don't kill your enemies even though they started it!"
"Don't take their cities!"
"Build me a huge church for my own amusement."

Jerk.

As an aside yes the French have a history of well not doing the great at war. On the other hand despite that they've done phenomenally well despite that. And the WWI isn't fair. They took more casualties and held more ground then any of the other allies. Verdun was the bloodiest fight in WWI it was between France and Germany. France won. The French individually are usually pretty badass. Their leaders just suck.

If you go back far enough, the French had Charlemagne (well, really, the Franks did, but close enough). He was cool. If his kingdom hadn't been divided, the French could have potentially controlled most of Western Europe and a good part of Central Europe for centuries.

I'd play Medieval Total War 2, if I had it. My historical strategy games are mostly limited to Paradox titles right now. Europa Universalis III, for example, is really really neat. And the pope is crummy in it, too. He enjoys excommunicating me way too much for his own good.

As for what I'm playing right now... Let's just say Blizzard as good as owns me. Starcraft, Starcraft 2 Beta, and Diablo 2 (the ladder reset again earlier today!).

Over history the French/Gauls have been pretty badass in general, then they surrendered in WWII and the propaganda department of the allies, not wanting to give props to the Germans, acted like the French lost out of their own stupidity and cowardice rather than German skill and strength. It was just less scary that way.

Now they're the most right wing country in the world and riots break out every Bastilles day

I haven't played Total war,
I'm an AoE girl Ahhhh mongol horde, how I miss you, nothing beats 50 flaming arrows of death backed up by a couple of trebuchets.

Except the English Longbow backed up by trebuchets.

Obviously you have yet to learn to fear the Huns. Attila shall lead his Tarkans to pillage your pitiful settlements, stripping from you all you hold dear! Wealth! Loved ones! Cheesecake recipes! All must fall before the Scourge of God!

...okay, there was that one time that someone failed to fall before him, but we have our PR guys working on making people forget about that. And besides, I'm a Hun player, what did you expect?

And wouldn't those horse archers fall to skirmishers and light calvery? Same with the longbowmen, although one might also consider the Gothic Huscarls. Not to mention the trebuchets...

If you liked the Age of Empires games, might I reccomend Rise of Nations? Fun stuff there, made by the same guys and all. Haven't played any of the expansions, but over all I found it to be quite enjoyable.

I admit that the French were pretty impressive there for a while, but after the Napoleonic Wars I haven't really been too impressed with them. Germans? Yes. Russians? At times. Japanese? Not really militarily, but socially and politically definatly. The French? Eh, not really. Somehow the Dreyfus affair seems to stick out in my mind.
Fun fact; if you trace Charles the Great's liniage, his tribe was Germanic, not Frankish. Take that how you will.

You would think so but no....fully upgraded and in sufficient numbers the Longbowmen can mow down any army. Seriously they are broken I killed an entire stack of Huscarls with a longbow horde.

I've never been exactly impressed by the French either. But somehow they keep on kicking and maintain their major power status and that impresses me.

And the Germans are/were crazy bastards in war. The Russians...like the people think most of their leaders (With the Exceptions of Zukhov, Michael of Kiev and the commanders during the Napoleonic wars) Are blooming idiots.
As for the Japanese I'm honestly more impressed with the Koreans. They do have a nifty culture and history though. Musashi Miyamoto is from there after all

The Swiss are cool to. You've gotta be badass to be the only nation forbidden by international treaty from shipping mercenaries outside the country.

Mongols? English? Huns? What be these civilizations?

Charge, my loyal cataphracts! For the glory of the Byzantine Empire!



I agree; Rise of Nations is pretty neat. Though I burn out after around a dozen games whenever I install it, it's still fun to go back to every year or so. Might be more interesting against non-computer bumbling idiot opponents.

Heh. What would history be like if the Swiss weren't so neutral, and used their own troops instead of renting them out as mercenaries? Why, the Swiss would have dominated all of Europe, of course. Mmm, alternate history with a global Swiss empire...

And wouldn't those horse archers fall to skirmishers and light calvery?

The thing about the Mangudai is that they reload really fast. You get a decent sized horde and nothing can get close enough to hit them.
I never really played against real people though, I'm sure there are ways to counter it but the AI never discovered them.

Mmm, alternate history with a global Swiss empire...

The world would be a more efficient place.

Or not. Running a global empire is hard......

Hmm Riddle me this. If Saladin died before he could mess up the Crusader States would they still be around?

Random fact: The Swiss watch industry started to crack once quartz watches became mainstream. The perfection and precision of their craft turned against them.

Makes you think.

Dragon Quest IX, a seriously awesome game.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (DS)

I'm so OCD with this game. Must get every single dijinn.