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Strategy Video Game and Fiction Discussion Thread

Reinhard Von Lohengramm

Con Tý
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Dec 24, 2015
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I checked the General forum and saw that there was no thread for strategy video gaming discussion.

I find that horribly disappointing. I want to talk earnestly about how I want to turn a backwater into an industrialized nation, or how I want to play a game where I wage a war of independence against some seemingly invincible great power.

This is a thread for the discussion of strategy video gaming, particularly those that contain war and military themes. Examples which define the genre include games with Risk-style maps like, WarLight, Rome: Total War, Total War: Rome II, Crusader Kings II, Victoria II and so forth It's not about tactics thought. I am also a huge Legend of the Galactic Heroes fan, so I guess the discussion of non-interactive military fiction that deals with grand strategy is also good discussion material.

This is not a thread for the promotion of real-life violence or illegal activities. All content in this thread, even if based off real life, ought to be considered fictional. It is not a thread for in-depth discussion of our real-life political beliefs. Genocide ("the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group.") should not be promoted, nor should it be discussed. By its very nature however, strategy gaming involves a lot of emotional investment (who here doesn't like Prussia in a strategy game?), so some allowances on the above topics are made, particularly if it depicts a historical period.

Our patron gods:

YsTd5p3.jpg


Reinhard von Lohengramm

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Yang Wen-Li (sort of ironic because he didn't want to be worshipped as a hero)​
​
Icebreakers:​
  1. What strategy game are you playing?​
  2. What is your typical playstyle that is common across all strategy games?​
  3. Do you continue when you make a mistake or do you save-scum? What are your feelings on this?​
Right now, I'm playing CKII. A trend I've noticed across all my recent playthroughs is that I don't like expanding everywhere like a blob and that I tend to make small, clustered empires rather than scattered-all-over ones. For some reason, I find playing a pacifist/defensive playstyle more romantic and nuanced than the stupid snowball-building conquests I used to go on earlier when playing the genre.

The trend for me is that I'm beginning to understand that "losing is fun" in the style of Dwarf Fortress II. I just want to see my empire burn down rather than save scum now.
 
For CK2, I tend to aim for specific region. Like 'The Whole Mediterrania' or 'Scandivania' or 'Spanish Peninsula plus Algeria.'

Also, they are generally considered Grand Strategy Games - most Strategy Games is usually RTS.

I confess I'm somewhat opportunistic, though. There was one time where I restore Rome, got myself the whole Mediterranean. Meanwhile, Poland grow and eat like western Russia - not all of them, but a very good chunk of them.

Then my wife dead.

So I look for another wife, when I realize the fourth-in-throne of Poland is available. So, I marry her, do a bit of assassination, then....
 
So I'm playing the dynasty that starts with Cremona.

Some dickwad in Northern Italy fabricated a claim and declared war on me to get my ancestral homeland.

I say "NO". At this point, I'm playing a the person who inherited the Kingdom of Lotharingia.

So despite his stack of 2k, he gets owned. Someone, he later ends up in a Bulgarian dungeon.

The second part is going to be more interesting.

So the Kingdom of France declared war on me. I was allied with Poland, so they couldn't do shit.

They were fighting to steal Verdun from me.

I thought I had a chance. They had stacks of up to 10k, so I relied on Sun Tzu's "fight where they aren't" maxim, evacuated my Lotharingian levies through the Alps after having them retreat past the Rhine, went back through Provence and decided to harass one of their holdings near the Pyrenees.

The sad thing was, in hindsight, I could've won it by relying on this strategy, staying constant while they continued to besiege my Lotharingian holdings. But I didn't, because I thought I had a chance and so decided to have my levies go back to Lotharingia, betting that the French were going to keep besieging my holdings and counting on my armies to resupply.

Big mistake.

I lost that war. Mind you, I didn't surrender, I could at least say that.

But they stole Verdun.

So, when I go back to playing, my determination will to exterminate House Karling.

 
No mention of the Romance of the Three Kingdom game series by Koei? :3
 
Ahahaha, this is the best.

The tale basically is:

The chosen heir of a King of Lotharingia, a baby boy becomes king. Then, his older relatives usurp it from him.

This results in the ancestral homeland of Cremona being lost as the usurping idiots don't know how to fight against... Tuscany.

A couple of decades later, the pope says he has a right to the throne.

Imbued with courage, the middle-aged man, having been usurped to the level of Dukedom, starts a faction.

He reclaims it from the spawn of the usurpers, who have fought amongst themselves such that his uncle is now the king.

The usurper cedes it without a fight.

But the middle-aged king knows that the tragedy that his ancestors gave him was because the Kingdom was not centralised.

Identifying traitors, first he takes the titles from the imprisoned ones.

His uncle usurper, who isn't imprisoned, thinks he's a karma houdini.

The middle-aged king sees this and prepares to revoke the title, but fails. A civil war ensues, which was kind of what he was looking for.

France at first helps, but the lost of a marriage destroys it all.

At first, the middle-aged king almost loses, but his loyal 2nd wife, a German countess and the Duke of Moravia, having formed an alliance fight.

The king almost loses, until he borrows money from the Jews and the Templars. One of his sons is impressed into Templar service.

In the end, he wins the civil war, imprisoning his usurper uncle and revoking his title. His Templar son, however, has died in a battle against Irish heretics.

His name was Flavio of Lotharingia.

The rightful king returned, but was it worth it?
 
Hmm, haven't played CK2 for a while though. Was busy playing Pokemon fangame.

Anyway, looking forward to Paradox's new galactic GSG. Seems fun!
 
For traditional Grand Strategy, I played Hearts of Iron 3 some times back. Put a lot of effort into it, my Germoney won half of Europe and a land war in all the Chinas and it wasn't even 1939 yet. Had a lot of tanks ready to roll into the Soviet Union, but then my laptop died an ignoble death and I just didn't have the strength to star over again.

I did eventually, but this time being locked in a stalemate I was losing against the Soviet Union for three years sapped the rest of my energy for the game.

Recently I was engrossed in Endless Space, but after learning some of the tricks of the game playing became a chore. A shame, really, the tactical combat was interesting and fun to watch and the diplomacy system felt like it made sense, unlike pretty much every other space 4x game I played.
 
Guardian Box said:
Germoney
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Is that a pun?

Anyways, so right now in my same CKII playthrough, the current King of Lotharingia is a Russian Catholic member of my same dynasty. The guy is absolutely brutal. He went crusading in Lithuania, playing the part of Teutonic Knight and stuff.

Here's another piece of trivia - apparently, nextdoor neighbour France has fallen to a Muslim dynasty.

They tried to snatch the Upper Lorraine from me.

My character's a brutal Russian, probably vodka-drinking crusaders who whose got like 10 or so prisoners from getting rid of backstabbers and taking pagan prisoners.

Now Lotharingia is de jure part of the Holy Roman Empire, which hasn't been formed yet.

But there is an ahistorical Muslim dynasty that has taken over Spain and is now looking to eat the rest of what is west of the Rhine.

I'm really smothered with choices on whether to expand eastwards or westwards.

My characters a veteran crusader with high piety.

God (the one controlling the player and so, me) is really vindictive when it comes to whatever he's observing.

Deus vodka-drinking vult.

Medieval Putin wants both Francia and the Holy Roman Empires.
 
If we're talking CK2 my personal favorite in terms of kingdoms/dynasties is probably the Byzantine Empire, though Norse or a Zoroastrian is also up there.
 
Damn Tuyyubids stole south west of Lotharingia from me. I lost a major battle with a king captured.

This is some dark alternate history.

I was hoping the Aztecs were going to invade them, but they decided on Ireland instead.

Going to have to "unify the Large Magellanic Cloud to defeat Lugovalos" or create the Holy Roman Empire by force.
 
DEUS VULT, DEUS VULT

The 3rd Crusade for Aquitaine was successful under King Afanasiy "the Kind", who actually is also an impaler. He also has intrigue at the whereabouts of 25-ish

Needless to say, I now use the character searcher to find people for ministerial roles. As a result, my state intrigue is roughly 50.

Gotta stab and kill and impale and impale and impale. The Tuyyubid Empire is now a de jure empire over the Kingdom of France.

Now there is a case for forming Francia instead of the HRE.

HRE or Francia?

I mean, Francia is now a lot smaller, so I'm still leaning towards forming the HRE...

And apparently, this is the dynasty I'm playing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supponids

IRL, they died out after the 950s, but in my came, they became the Kings of Lotharingia, and one of my dead daughters had a son through the King of Poland via matrineal marriage, although Poland is Agnatic Elective.

From the Counts of Cremona into the Kings of Lotharingia who are reconquering France from the Tuyyubid menace.

Is it just me, or is having members of your dynasty spread over everywhere, such that you have actual distinct Russian, Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, French, Greek and even a Georgian branch just a one off for me?
 
I wouldn't know about spreading dynasties into countries not my own. Most of the time I expand by force of arms and while I do give family members land there it's not quite the same thing. Well that and I tend to keep to my own culture since it makes vassal management easier.
 
So the Tuyyubid interlopers actually lost their holdings in Central France to the Teutonic Knights, who are effectively serving as a buffer state between the Tuyyubids and Lotharingia Proper. However, Acquitaine Lotharingia is still exposed to the Tuyyubid menace.

The Aztecs have gone and converted to Catholicism.

Lower Lorraine, earlier lost due to a king being captured, has now been reclaimed.

I fully won a war against the Tuyyubids and the Tulunids of Egypt, who respectively, declared an invasion to seize Aquitaine and and Holy War for Lotharingia.

As a result, I got around 1000 gold from smashing them both despite being nastily outnumbers, my 20k versus their ~50k and 30k. It might've been me selecting high-martial level officers. I actually got Jean D'arc.

Jeanne D'arc of Lotharingia. Surreal.

Wonder if I should do a bizarre alternate history Madoka Magica crossover.

Right now, the Teutonic Knights are launching a full crusade to take what is left of Tuyyubid France.
 
Finished my first full CKII playthrough as the Kings of Lotharingia.

Earlier, I made the decision to decentralise and give independence to various vassals. They were quickly invaded by the Tuyyubids (who lost the Empire of Hispania) and their successors.

The Kings of Lotharingia, in that alternate universe, will probably go down in history known as the fiercest and most effective Crusaders in medieval history, preventing the encroachment of the Tuyyubid interlopers past the Rhine.

A beautiful, somewhat tragic tale.

My dynasty managed to control Sweden and Lotharingia, Sweden control by the computer.
 
Lost a game as Count of Urgell, a vassal to the incompetent Duke of Barcelona, to a Holy War.

Screw this, time to carve up the world.
 
Reinhard Von Lohengramm said:
If I actually had the skills, I would make a LoTIM mod :V

Anyways, got a devil spawn character after my previous character carved a crusade through Andulusia. My previouys character was an orthodox convert to catholicism.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Paradox script is rather easy to learn, tbh. You probably can make LoTIM scenario, when the game come out.
 
Had another playthrough, started as the Counts of Demetria, I managed to create a series of strong marriage alliances that saw a Polish catholic member of my dynasty ascend the Byzantine Imperial throne.

And you know what that meant?

The Byzantine Empire became Catholic.

And that means Crusade crusade crusade.

At the end of the game, North Africa was Catholic and the Byzantine Empire stood, stretching from Croatia to Armenia with a couple of colonies in Spain.

That and the Mongols and Aztecs converted to Catholicism as well, so they might've had a role.
 
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