Lilura's Blog: An Ongoing Codexian Obsession

[Valky]

Lilura, a possibly interesting idea: If you were to fully take into account custom modifications for games based on highest quality to add weight to the quality of the base game, would your top 20 significantly become reorganized? Have you considered this at all?

 

[Lilura]

Things go surprisingly good. IIRC, when I played my own games, founding a Kingdom in Brytenwalda resulted in a nearly-instant world alliance against me, followed by a massive gangbang. I wasn't even thinking about expansion or annexing any random castles.

It's possible I'm just lucky. I'm at war with 15 factions yet have only seen 4 or 5 in my neck of the woods. I guess the others are far-flung allies of my foes, too.

It's also worth noting that I'm playing on much easier difficulty settings than you were.

, I'm curious about your approach regarding defenses. You currently own one town (Linnuis) and one castle (Chesterfield) - do you keep any garrison? You kinda have to, if you plan to continue expanding. Are you going to keep a large cheap force (can withstand a siege for longer) or a smaller elite band (capable of winning auto-resolved battles)?

It's a mix of large cheap force here and elite there. Garrisoned force are no longer ragtag: culture is mostly unified to Angles peoples. It's easier to keep track of and more.. aesthetic.

I have one town, two castles, one secret lair and six villages. One of the castles has been garrisoned for a while with 300 low-tier troops. It's tucked away and the enemy hasn't sniffed around it yet. Since treasury is healthy now I can garrison the other castle and Linnuis with 300+. I should be financially ok for a few weeks, even if I just sat around in Court doing fuck-all, barring some massive war waged against me by coalition.

I don't think Campaign AI checks quality of garrison, just quantity. Still, we need quality for any battle because there is a huge difference between lowest-tier and second-lowest when it comes to staying power: diff between no armor and rawhide, say.

Also saved some scills by disbanding all heavy and most light cavalry except caravan master (because they grant +trade). Bytenwalda cavalry are squishy and expensive. Nothing like Mamlukes or Slaver Chiefs of Native. Cavalry can still be useful for mop-up jobs and distraction, but I'll wait until I double my wealth before I bother with a cavalry force again.

Lilura, a possibly interesting idea: If you were to fully take into account custom modifications for games based on highest quality to add weight to the quality of the base game, would your top 20 significantly become reorganized? Have you considered this at all?

Yes, I have. It's written in the opener. I forgot about Warband in that graph. I'd probably fuck MotB off; it's good, but Warband is a far better experience. Also, the Obsidian legacy needs to be devalued and the Black Isle one propped up. I have never liked Obsidian.

 

[biggestboss]

Lilura has been quite active recently.

https://lilura1.blogspot.com/2020/01/Brytenwalda-Conqueror-aka-Britannian-Unification.html

 

[biggestboss]

For posterity: https://app.neilpatel.com/en/traffi...omain=lilura1.blogspot.com&lang=en&locId=2840

 

[Lilura]

For posterity: https://app.neilpatel.com/en/traffi...omain=lilura1.blogspot.com&lang=en&locId=2840

For some reason (and I'm sort of glad because it misleads my competition), that analysis mostly ignores my Infinity Engine warpath, which powers 75% of my traffic.

At any rate, such sites are at best indicative and at worst delusion-inducing. Only Google and I know how many views I get.

 

[Grimwulf]

You did it, Lilura. That was the most comprehensive summary of Brytenwalda I've seen, hands down.

Now, I'm sure the reader (at least, those familiar with Warband) can see what's on the horizon for me, gameplay-wise: A HEAVY, EXHAUSTING & REPETITIVE GRIND.

Not quite true. It would be a grind for you and a number of players, but it really depends on the settings you're using.

I remember having a considerably large kingdom once, three towns and a bunch of castles. It was getting harder to expand due to the failing economy, lack of defenses, incompetence of heroes-made-vassals, and the overall political situation. Most nations were allied against me. It took one battle gone wrong, my char was imprisoned, my companions fled and scattered across the world. By the time I broke out of jail, my kingdom was reduced to a single town and some backwards castle. Needless to say, I lost them too soon after that. Took me a while to find my companions and gather a new company from scratch.

I find the best, most reliable approach to this mod is take the warlord stage slowly. If you spend some years fighting in wars as a mercenary, you can reduce the number of kingdoms from 30-something you have at the start to 10 or even less. That makes the conqueror stage much easier, especially if you manage to ally with some of these leftover kingdoms. If you rush the conqueror/kingdom stage, you'll get ganged sooner or later.

In your review/LP of Brytenwalda you did a damn fine job winning battles against all odds. In the game though, if you only rely on your own personal army, it takes one defeat to lose it all.

Admittedly, there are a few aspects of Brytenwalda that I have not covered, namely naval warfare and diplomatic take-overs.recently.

The only thing worth mentioning about naval warfare is avoid. Avoid like a plague. They never managed to finish this feature and moved on to this other modification, what was it called? Viking Conquest or smth. Naval warfare in Brytenwalda is buggy as hell.

Diplomacy is basically vanilla + a bunch of mods made by separate groups and integrated into Brytenwalda.

 

[Lilura]

You did it, Lilura. That was the most comprehensive summary of Brytenwalda I've seen, hands down.

Thanks! It's nowhere near Grimwulf-level of commentary, though. *uncharacteristic show of humility*

Not quite true. It would be a grind for you and a number of players, but it really depends on the settings you're using.

I remember having a considerably large kingdom once, three towns and a bunch of castles. It was getting harder to expand due to the failing economy, lack of defenses, incompetence of heroes-made-vassals, and the overall political situation. Most nations were allied against me. It took one battle gone wrong, my char was imprisoned, my companions fled and scattered across the world. By the time I broke out of jail, my kingdom was reduced to a single town and some backwards castle. Needless to say, I lost them too soon after that. Took me a while to find my companions and gather a new company from scratch.

I don't play on such hardcore savegame settings; I reload. You keep forgetting that I'm playing on what Warband reports as 20% difficulty.

I find the best, most reliable approach to this mod is take the warlord stage slowly. If you spend some years fighting in wars as a mercenary, you can reduce the number of kingdoms from 30-something you have at the start to 10 or even less. That makes the conqueror stage much easier, especially if you manage to ally with some of these leftover kingdoms. If you rush the conqueror/kingdom stage, you'll get ganged sooner or later.

It's true that I rushed into Kingdom-found prematurely, but on EZ mode I honestly don't foresee a Kingdom-crushing gangbang coming.

The only thing worth mentioning about naval warfare is avoid. Avoid like a plague. They never managed to finish this feature and moved on to this other modification, what was it called? Viking Conquest or smth. Naval warfare in Brytenwalda is buggy as hell.

I'm glad, then. I haven't yet played their pro-release. Pretty burned out on Warband now, anyway. It's a marathon.

***

Now, back to my fave subject, my blog, according to that site linked to by biggestboss, I'm lagging a bit behind crpgaddict. However, note the massive mainstream love, backlinks and social media praise the guys gets, whereas I get none. What I like most, is that he's posted 4 times as much and been blogging twice as long; and also I have several hundred more organic keywords than he has. And organic keywords are the most monocled form of traffic-driving.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Viata]

Now, back to my fave subject, my blog, according to that site linked to by biggestboss, I'm lagging a bit behind crpgaddict. However, note the massive mainstream love, backlinks and social media praise the guys gets, whereas I get none

I'm reading your JA2's articles as I play it. Thank you for that!

 

[biggestboss]

I wonder if this is some next level SEO trickery: https://lilura1.blogspot.com/2020/01/Kim-Wilde-You-Keep-Me-Hangin-On.html

Lilura ?

 

[Valky]

Lilura what are non-RPG genres, if any, that you enjoy in video games?

 

[Lilura]

SHUMPS, run n gun, platformers

 

[Valky]

2D platformers? In the vein of platforming through single levels like mario or full game worlds that you backtrack through and have more combat/rpg mechanics like metroidvania?

 

[Lilura]

Both. I forgot to mention hack n slash side-scrollers, too. Love those. Stuff like Rastan, Lionheart etc.

I'm not into RPGs from the "16-bit" era.

 

[octavius]

Since I've started playing Icewind Dale, and even the original without expansions or mods (one reason being I want to experience the original Xunemei and final battle again), I'm currently reading Liluras write-up of that game. There's some golden nuggets:

• Rest Until Healed has been added as an option. This degenerate, newbie feature reduces the need for clerics & consumable use. Thus, I recommend not checking it to on unless you are a lamer.

But later you write

We can also flee and rest outside when things are looking bad and likely to get worse (there are no on-rest ambushes scripted in the hills).

Tsk tsk! The correct thing is to go back to the Temple and heal for 10 gold per 10 HP (although to be fair it consumes more real life time). It takes much less in-game time then resting does. My power trio of Fafhrd, Gray Mouser (backstabbed both Shamans to death) and Cappen Varra only needed to retreat once, before the final fight against the Ogre and his little friends.

 

[biggestboss]

SHUMPS, run n gun, platformers

Are you a CAVE/Psikyo/Treasure-era enthusiast or do you enjoy older retro shmups? Would ask about Touhou but I feel doing so is likely within iggy bin criteria.

 

[Lilura]

My power trio of Fafhrd, Gray Mouser (backstabbed both Shamans to death) and Cappen Varra

Are you gonna cheese Free Action acquisition?
Are you reloading random pool itemization?

If by original you mean non-HoW, three-strong party should hit XP cap before Lower Dorn's (which is not necessarily a bad thing).

 

[biggestboss]

I'm assuming that YES! is for the former rather than the latter, or at least that's how I feel your tastes would match up comparatively with your CRPG tastes.

What's your favorite Shmup Renaissance era game? Mine is Dodonpachi Daioujou.

 

[Lilura]

What's your favorite Shmup Renaissance era shmup? Mine is Dodonpachi Daioujou.

Radiant Silvergun. My all-time fave SHMUP is arcade R-Type.

 

[biggestboss]

Maybe it's time for me to revisit Radiant Silvergun this year. I've always thought that game was superior to Ikaruga, and a port is conveniently located on the Xbox 360 marketplace.

Biggest pain of playing it right now would be needing to rotate my monitor since I currently have it set up vertically to play TATE titles.

 

[Lilura]

To be clear, never actually played R-Type in the arcades, just MAME. I also have PC-Engine version which is 2nd best. Of course, SNES framerate of Super R-Type was horrid, but I still like it. R-Type III was also good on SNES.

In general, Genesis and PC-Engine had much better shmups. And Neo Geo. So many to play...

Best Amiga shmup is Apidya. Check it out on YT. It's a largely unknown masterpiece. Also check out Agony for its +aesthetics, though its game-play sucks.

 

[Grauken]

I love the aesthetics of Android Assault: The Revenge of Bari-Arm and Gate of Thunder

 

[biggestboss]

From your choices I take it you prefer horizontal over vertical shmups, with Radiant Silvergun being a vertizontal. My preferences have historically been the opposite of that although I've been getting more and more into horizontal shooters through games like Rolling Gunner and Devil Engine.

Do you play newer shmups or stick to the older ones? If you play newer ones, I was wondering how you feel about Zero Ranger, which kind of has those Radiant Silvergun vibes with simultaneous multiple weapon types.

 

[Lilura]

I only play old shmups. No real preferences in respect to scrolling direction: can enjoy horizontal, vertical, isometric, multi-directional, single-screen, flip-screen, on-rails, tube...

Shumps to me are the most monocled genre in gaming.

 

[octavius]

My power trio of Fafhrd, Gray Mouser (backstabbed both Shamans to death) and Cappen Varra

Are you gonna cheese Free Action acquisition?

I don't think so. By cheesing, do you mean taking advantage of FA working with Haste?

Are you reloading random pool itemization?

No, that's for lamers.

If by original you mean non-HoW, three-strong party should hit XP cap before Lower Dorn's (which is not necessarily a bad thing).

I made Gray Mouser a Half-Elf Fighter/Thief, though.