Chutiste here, experimenting with a small corner of the internet. Topics systems for life gaming Recent Posts {{posts | limit:10}} all posts ...
I've started a game in easy mode, to get to grips with army movements and suchlike. As this disables achievements, maybe I ought also to have taken advantage of enabling gender equality. Started with an independent duchy in France, that of Duke Konan app Alan of Brittany. This should help with my understanding of French geography! My RNG Duke is paranoid and highly skilled at intrigue. IRL, he may…
I picked up Crusader Kings 3 last week. May have been a mistake, given the 30+ hours already spent in play, plus watching videos and reading the wiki. Ah well. Here's the story of my first post-tutorial playthrough. I started as the Earl of Dubhlinn because one video suggested that it was an interesting start, and the terrain of Ireland was somewhat familiar from the tutorial. Earl Murchad (1066)…
This weekend I watched an old guide to starting Elden Ring with more resources in just 30 minutes. It's not wholly obscure, having 42k views, but doubtless it would be more widely watched except that it's in French. Some things that reveal the genius of Sevolund's Guide to an OP start : it's edited to be almost completely spoiler free it stays in Limgrave, mostly it's only modestly OP, a perfect…
Picked up the blindfolded playthrough again. Seems that Tasha has made it to level 59, without grinding iirc. She's got new drip in the leather armour, foot soldier greaves, and the exile hood. New drip to go with new weapons : dual knives. Never done that before, but hoping that it will improve my dodge game. After watching a bunch (too much) of @robdood's overexplained playthrough, I admired his…
My first attempt at this run ended, um, badly for our heroine. This second run feels very different so far. A good reminder of just how many paths through this game there are. Much of that is down to the luck of the dice: this run she succeeded at opening the crypt door (natural 20!) rather than failing (despite Astral Knowledge!). She got through and met Withers, then up the ladder and…
I started a new run, roleplaying Lae'zel as my main character. The mantra: What would Lae'zel do? In the early game, this is obvious: locate and head for the creche. Sometimes the game helpfully provides specific dialogue options, so that's easy. It also is taking me down a story path that I wouldn't otherwise. No Rolan, for instance. Lae'zel's single-minded goal of being purified means that she…
I picked up the steam deck last night for the first time in a while and resumed the initial (secondary?) graveyard in Dark Souls 3. Last time, I'd died several times to this first boss, only once getting him as far as his second phase. This time, for reasons that are still unclear, I succeeded. I started with several rounds of this graveyard route, initially to see whether there were more fire…
I remember reading a thread about Elden Ring merchants saying something to the effect that they were foolish to be selling wares when they could just kill things. There are a couple of things that make us Tarnished special in the game. One is that we see the guidance of grace , those sparkling spectral lights that indicate both the presence of a site of grace and the direction of travel toward our…
As I've got potentially a lot of work travel coming up (and it was on sale) I've taken the perhaps unwise step of buying a steam deck. Installation was slightly fiddly, but ok once it had a couple of attempts at installing and updating the OS. Followed Adam Anderson's guide to installing GOG on Steamdeck and it seems to have worked a treat. So now I've got Solasta installed but not tried actually…
Maintaining your equilibrium over time is crucial, recharging the batteries, etc. I've got a couple of habits that help me with this. The first is a set of sanity-restoring activities, like going for a walk, or prioritising sleep, or learning something new. I try to do something from this list daily. The second is something that the French enforce by law — taking at least two weeks of vacation all…