Animesh Karna

Civ 4: Colonization, Part 3 in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

Okay, I spent a week with Colonization . Unfortunately, as with Empire: Total War , I have been a bit too busy to really give Colonization a real shake. Strangely enough, though, this fact bothered me more with Empire: Total War than it did with Colonization . I can't put my finger on why: perhaps it was Empire 's compounded load times (loading the strategic game, loading the battle screen, back to loading the strategic game)

Civ 4: Colonization, Part 2 in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

I've been continuing playing Civ 4: Colonization . It is an interesting game so far, but it is hampered by some odd user interface choices (just now, it took me a while to find where the heck the "Governor's Tab" was hidden, so I could automate a trade route). Here and there I have encountered a bug, but nothing major. This game does have some major differences in "feel" than Civ games, even though this is a Civ mod. I spend a lot

Civ 4: Colonization in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

This week, I decided I would try to concentrate on Civilization 4: Colonization . As I had mentioned, I had purchased Civ 4 a few years ago, but I never got any of the expansion packs. Just recently, they released "The Complete Edition", which had all the expansions AND Colonization . The price was great, so this wasn't a particularly difficult decision! I had only played a little of the original Colonization , so this is turning out

Empire: Total War, Part 3 in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

My plan had been that I would concentrate on Empire: Total War for a week. I imagined knocking off the "Road to Independence" tutorial campaigns and getting somewhere in the "Grand Campaign". Well, I must admit: total failure! The problem is that this is a game that needs time, but I wound up being too busy to really give it that time. Also, I encountered a bug with the second "Road to Independence" campaign where it stopped telling me what to do . . .

Empire: Total War part 2 in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

Unfortunately, this week I haven't had as much time to devote to gaming as I had hoped. Empire: Total War is a game that requires time dedication! This runs counter to another trend in strategy games that I'm seeing, which is the a-game-won't-take-that-long game (such as Demigod or Dawn of War 2 ). I'm still not done with the tutorial campaigns ("Road to Independence"); I'm getting impatient to just go to the Grand Campaign, but I figure that if I d

Starting out with Empire: Total War in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

I'm finally getting around to actually playing Empire: Total War . Of course, I'm starting with the "tutorial" campaign, which details American independence. The first campaign was pretty straightforward, but then I started the second campaign. Armies became large and battles seemed complex . . . but I couldn't help but wonder if they realy boiled down to "select everyone and click on the enemy". Then, I got a new mission (to build up a fleet of ships and use t

Multiplayer Demigod: No Bots! Whoo hoo! in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

Not long ago, I was thinking "wow, I love Demigod . . . and I'm doing really well at these multiplayer matchs!" Then, I realized that these multiplayer matches were, for some reason or another, against bots. This was all during a transition phase, with beta versions and all that: I figured that had something to do with that. Last night, I fired up Demigod again, and played a ranked match. The other three players all had ping's! REAL PEOPLE!&nb

ITunes Woes in Personal Computing Stardock Forums

My ITunes library was corrupted, but I managed to recover most of it from some partial backups. One of my pet peeves about ITunes: I don't see any way to re-download purchased items, aside from purchasing them again. Am I missing something here? It seems like an obvious feature.

Sins and Steam Woes, Part 2 in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

First, thanks to everyone that advised me. Regarding my battleshield cap in Sins of a Solar Empire : all I can say is "duh". I thought I had researched that second level, but I hadn't. As for Steam . . . The premise behind how Steam handles DRM is that you can install Steam and all the games on your account on multiple systems, but that you can only log on to Steam on one system. This makes perfect sense: my license says one user can run the gam

Reply to Model creator in Personal Computing Stardock Forums

I had a lot of luck using Wings3d, which is free.

More with Sins . . . and Steam woes in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

Again, I didn't have much time to continue with my Sins of a Solar Empire game last night. I wasn't expecting much: I assumed I was at the "mop up remaining planets" phase. Well . . . not quite. I had one colony's loyalty dropping: I wasn't expecting that. The pirates are gone and can't launch huge attacks, I was expecting a somewhat more relaxed pace. Nope: now the other empire has noticed me, and has been pretty regularly launching huge attacks.&n

Continuing with Sins of a Solar Empire in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

I didn't have much time tonight to really go at it with my current game of Sins of a Solar Empire . I think I'm now in the mandatory "I have a huge fleet, plenty of planets generating tons of ships, and now I'm going from planet to planet mopping up" phase. I wiped out the pirates and now I've taken an enemy planet: damn those were some huge and spectacular battles! In many ways, Sins reminds me of Kohan . Kohan , for example, was the

Firing up Sins again, and Plants vs. Zombies in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

I don't know what it is about Sins of a Solar Empire . I dabble in the game, fire up a random map and mess around for a bit. Then, I save it and say "I'll get back to that game later." The next time, I start again. I have yet to have actually finished a game of Sins . Maybe it's that these random maps take so long. I'm trying again: let's see if I can make myself push through small random map. I'm about 2 1/2 hours into it, and I'm now

Demigod again, and a brief mentioning of Empire: Total War in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

I've had a few good Demigod matches (by "good", I mean that I didn't suck and my team actually won), but I find myself haunted by a little question . . . was I actually playing multiplayer? Does anyone out there know if there is an easy way to spot if other players are AI? Anyway, I've been mucking around with Empire: Total War . At this point, I have determined that I am playing altogether too many strategy games, and perhaps this would be a good ti

FIOS and 64-bit Vista problems, continued part 2 in Personal Computing Stardock Forums

I think I might have solved the problems I'm having with my 64-bit Vista laptop and my wireless connection. As I mentioned before, I tried an experiment: I hooked another router to the FIOS-provided Actiontec router. It seemed to improve things, but I was still having problems. On Friday night, I tried something: I switched the security on the Actiontec router from WEP to WPA. Since then, I have had no problem at all. Still, I'm not going to celebrate just

Demigod! Demigod! Demigod! in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

I just played a really exciting match of Demigod . It didn't take long to get in to the 2 vs. 2 match (matchmaking has improved, it would seem), the connection was smooth, my team won, and I actually felt useful . . . in fact, I did really well! I think we need to deal with a little reality with Demigod : once they fix the matchmaking, this game WILL be the Game of the Year. The gaming world for the rest of the year is suddenly a whole lot less interesting.

The Path, Demigod, and Dawn of War 2 in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

In a fit of apparent masochism, I have tried playing Demigod using my laptop's glide-pad. It actually works, but . . . well . . . why? Anyway, last night I encountered a bug, and I'm not sure if it is with Demigod or if it is some sort of "gotcha" with the glidepad-and- Demigod combination. Basically, the mouse cursor worked fine for clicking on, say, the Citadel or right-clicking to tell my character where to go. No problem there. The

FIOS and 64-bit Vista problems, continued in Personal Computing Stardock Forums

As I mentioned yesterday, I have been having problems with my wireless connection with my laptop, which is running Vista 64, and my FIOS connection (using a Verizon-provided Actiontec router). Basically, I connected a Linksys wireless router to the Actiontec router, and I'm connecting to the Linksys. First problem is that Vista keeps trying to initially connect to the Actiontec. This makes sense, as that was to what I was connecting all this time. I think I migh

An Hour with Battleforge in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

I decided to try Battleforge , as the idea sounded intriguing. I've only played the first two single-player missions, so I don't really know what to think of this game. So far, I'm seeing some interesting ideas that might or might not work . . . This is basically a combination of a trading card "Magic: The Gathering"-type game and an RTS. Unlike other games of this sort that I've tried, this isn't a "straight duel". Once you use a card to, say, summon a

FIOS and 64-bit Vista problems in Internet Stardock Forums

My shiny new laptop runs the 64-bit version of Vista Home. I started noticing some oddities with connecting to the wireless network. It would start up and connect, but it would say "local only". No biggie: click, go to the necessary screen, click on the "X" in between the icon representing the network and the Internet, and tell it to repair the connection. Except . . . I would have to do this several times before it would work. And I seemed to have to d

Reply to Gaming on my new laptop in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

PauseInTime: it's a 9800, I think. Verspunken: THAT makes a lot of sense! I was wondering why everyone was playing .91 or .92! Astrath: Say, what do you think of ETW? By the way, I used to have problems with Sins (including REALLY long load times), but that all turned out to be RAM. More RAM, and it worked beautifully . . . in other words, I sucked at it even faster than before!

Gaming on my new laptop in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

The other day, I purchased a new laptop. When deciding which-one-do-I-want, I did the "graphics adapter search", going down the shelf to see the cheapest one I could find that had a real graphics adapter. I wound up buying the Asus G50VT-X5, which has a Dual Core 2 and an Nvidia Geforce card. (So far, my only problem with this laptop is that when I boot up, it connects to my wireless adapter for "local only": I need to reset the wireless adapter each time in order to

Gaming Podcasts in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

Cutting to the chase: my favorite gaming podcast is "Three Moves Ahead". There's one big reason for that: this is a gaming podcast that actually is about gaming. On occasion, I do enjoy the informal a-couple-of-friends-together joking-around-and-occasionally-talking-about-games podcasts, but lately I have found I lack the patience for them. "Three Moves Ahead" talks about gaming, and talks about gaming in depth. This podcast, by the way, is responsible for two r

A Too-Simple RTS Design in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

A little bit ago, I stumbled across a "game" called The Linear RPG . I thought this was hilarious: it had the essense of the gameplay for most J-RPG's in the form of guiding a stick-figure person on a line. I started thinking: how could other game genres be simplified to this form. The other day, I was chatting with a friend about my thoughts of RTS's. Here is what I came up with: First, here is my definition of the " Starcraft Model": the

Demigod Addiction (and connection problems) in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

As I wrote before, my intention this past weekend was to work on my rented-games-backlog. Specifically, I wanted to get back to Dead Space . I had the best of intentions, really. On Saturday, I made the decision that I wouldn't bother with Demigod : I would concentrate on Dead Space . I did that. But, as I was playing Dead Space , I was thinking about Demigod . It felt dirty to keep on playing Dead Space .