I've got about 60 hours into the game. I was mistaken in my initial post, looking at my saves in retrospect I started on Ruthless, got destroyed on one early story mission, restarted on Merciful, found that to be too easy and restarted on Standard which I eventually won easily (last mission is crazy and I came close to losing dudes). I started a new campaign on Ruthless and I am on the mission that destroyed me my first run through and I expect much better results.
You are definitely going to get wounded knights on any difficulty but it is very possible to never lose any permanently, especially on non-Legendary difficulties. The main difference between this and Xcom is you must play aggressively on the tactical map. It is very similar to Gears Tactics in that regard, if you played that. Every mission has a meter that fills up by X% depending on the mission at the end of the turn and when it gets to 100% a random bad thing happens and the meter resets. Sometimes the random bad thing is no big deal, sometimes it can be a PITA. Also overwatch is terrible relative to Xcom. It takes you out of cover and early on the enemies have better range than you do and is only ever worth it if you are facing one of the maybe 3 enemy types in the game.
Honestly, Big Noon Kickoff aside, why would they not put the game on in primetime? Is there another game on ESPN/ABC that would threaten those ratings? They would get more TV eyeballs at 6/7p central than 11a central so why wouldn't they do that?
Saw this tonight and thought it was one of the worst movies I've ever watched to completion. Nothing about it was good. The first half was a slog. The second half picked up the pace but it still sucked. Lone highlight for me was him sliding his sword through the dude's cut off nose and talking shit while doing it.
Yeah I thought it was great. JT has a hell of a lot of talent and impressive range as an actor. I can't believe she got off, again though don't know anything about the real case maybe the show made her seem a lot more guilty than she was. The whole 41 times thing though...I thought the scene with Jonah/Pat whacking on the tree stump was great.
Oh man I thought Devil in the White City was fantastic. I thought it was his best work. I liked Dead Wake a lot too. Didn't like the Hitler one at all. All the rest I enjoyed.
Hulu show debuted last night and they are releasing one a night for five total episodes. Crime drama, pretty sure it's based on a true story but I don't like to look that up to avoid spoilers. Jessica Biel is the lead role and Jonah from Veep plays her husband. Starts sort of slow but gets real good after 20 mins or so. Candy is sort of a stereotype Texas suburban housewife from the early 80s.
On to my next WH40K set video game! This one just came out and it's pretty good. Think Xcom2 and Gears Tactics have a baby. You are in charge of a ship that serves as your base and visit various systems putting out fires with a squad of four grey knight space marines. There are 4 classes initially (4 more late in the game but the way it works is you could go a whole game and not see all 4 of the other classes much less recruit one of each) and they all play pretty different. You research tech using 1 resource, upgrade/repair your ship using another and requisition new gear and marines with yet another.
It is really hard early on if you go in blind. 4 difficulty levels where the easy one gives you bonuses, standard gives nothing and the two above standard buff enemies and nerf the player. I started on standard and got my ass handed to me early and restarted on easy. Probably should have just started a new game on standard again as once you start getting levels and gear the game gets a lot easier.
Very much like Xcom you are expected to have casualties and there are a few game mechanics around this. The biggest reason the game is hard early is because of the wound mechanic. Basically if you take any damage at all, whether you heal it or not, your guy will get a debuff post mission that gives him -X HP and a recovery time before that debuff goes away. You can still use them on missions they will just have less HP. And the more wounded you get the greater the HP penalty and the longer the recovery time. Compounding this mechanic's significance is that marines are in very short supply early on. You start with just 6 guys and you can't pick the classes, they are preset. On easy this mechanic is nerfed a lot and you also start with 8 guys instead of 6.
In actual combat if you go to zero HP, once per mission you will come back after 3 turns at half health. If you get to 0 HP twice in one mission you are permadead. Also most marines have a counter on them that decreases by one every time you get to 0 HP and if that counter gets to zero you are permadead. This counter starts at 3 and goes up as you level. Anytime you go to 0 HP on a mission that marine is unavailable until fully recovered at which point they also get a random implant that gives them a small stat boost of some kind. Finally you can respec your guys but it requires some research AND having 1 permadead marine for every respec you want to do.
Anyway, this is a must buy IMO if you liked either Xcom2 or Gears Tactics.
The thing that kills me is how is Texas good to great in like, almost literally, every other sport we compete in except the one I care about most, football, and the one I care about the second most, men's hoops.
https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/stock-market-dow-nasdaq-sp-500-51651273777?mod=mw_latestnews
This article says the following regarding YTD performance
S&P500 worst since 1939 (fucking aggy)
DJIA worst since 2020
NASDAQ worst since 1971
Seems bad
Pretty much any coupe or sedan with 300+ HP can do 140 if its not governed. Cars with 300+ HP grow on trees these days too. Average HP is like 250 now.
I should have clarified by saying its Civ-like set to domination victory condition with a lot more units. Even then there is a way to win the game without killing everyone via the faction quest lines. Also while it is a $40 title normally I got it for $9 and change during one of the Steam sales. I will try almost anything at that price point.
I have Total War Warhammer 2. I like the idea of the Total War franchise and I have probably 3-4 of them. I really hate real time combat (or RPGs or Paradox strategy games) though so Warhammer 2 was probably my last one. I saw Warhammer 3 came out recently and gave it a look but passed.
I looked into how many officially licensed Warhammer 40K games there are and holy shit it has to be more than any other franchise. They have been making them since the late 90s and there are multiple games a year most years.
You can get on Youtube and put his name in there and listen to some interviews from him before you pull the trigger on a book. He also is a guest on some podcasts if you do podcasts. He has his own website too, but I can't vouch for it.
I don't think most people know or care who directed the movie they are watching. I know maybe 5 directors by name and film alike. Vikings are pretty hot right now and this has some fairly big name actors (Skarsgard has been in a ton of good HBO shit and if you don't know him your lady does. Kidman isn't exactly chopped liver on the actress side), I am surprised it is not doing better.
The biggest takeaway is their demographics. The one child policy and no immigration has destroyed their future. He claims they are the fastest aging population in world history as well as having the largest sex imbalance in history. He thinks they will cease to be a unified country within 10 years (historically the norm for them, disunity) and that there will be half as many Chinese people in 2100 as there are now. To be fair I have only read his first two books and am just starting the third. I think he has a fourth coming out this year.
Peter Zeihan's books are recommended reading for anyone that wants to be talked off the ledge regarding China as a threat to the US. Dude seems pretty sharp and his books are very easy reads.
Bought this a while back but only getting around to playing it now. Pretty great game. Think Civ set in Warhammer 40K universe minus diplomacy of course. A lot of the factions are paywalled (and not cheap at $15 a pop), so that sucks if you are interested in one of those but the base game comes with 4-5 factions and they all play pretty differently. It occurs to me that there are a lot of really well done Warhammer/Warhammer 40K games on the PC. I can't say I am familiar with the setting outside of the PC games but man I own like 6-7 of them without being a fan of the lore.
It's mind-blowing how terrible the LHN coverage is. If you want to take commercial breaks fine but pick up the fucking action from where you left off. How many plays have they missed on the TV coverage at this point?