gunnervi

I think the genre you are looking for is “immersive sims”. Notable historical examples are Thief, Deus Ex, and System Shock.

I’ve set my computer so that holding caps lock lets me type in Greek

Ultimately, these sorts of crimes are incredibly common for occupying armies. Culture impacts the way these crimes are handled – are they punished, ignored, covered up, or tacitly (or even explicitly) encouraged? But the common element is soldiers, and the way that war leads to the dehumanization of the enemy, not that some cultures breed uniquely evil people.

I generally have a few “forever games” that I sink thousands of hours into. Right now that’s Stellaris but in might try to get back into Crusader Kings with the new patch and of course when Civ 7 comes out I’ll be all over that.

I generally prefer my other games to be fairly short, especially for story heavy games. I’ve left hundreds of Civ games unfinished, and it doesn’t really matter, but I do actually want to finish games with a strong narrative, and really long ones can be hard. I never finished either of the Divinity original sin games, for instance, despite enjoying then quite a lot. Same with Witcher 3, though in that case it has more to do with rapidly becoming fatigued with the open world and also starting grad school about 3/4 if the way through and not having much time to play. I’m general though, I’d say about 20-30 hours is ideal for a game that I can’t just replay forever.

I’ll take “statements that aged poorly” for $600, Alex

Its the same design but with 2020 aesthetics instead of 2005 aesthetics

Some of them are. IMO the best are Way of Life, Holy Fury, Conclave, and Old Gods. If you want to play some who isn’t a Christian King, such as a Christian merchant or pagan/hindu/muslim king, you’ll need to get the expansion for that. Respectively, those are The Republic, The Old Gods or Holy Fury (either will unlock Pagans), Rajas of India, and Sword of Islam. That being said, if you like playing a Christian, Sons of Abraham is worth picking up. Finally, if you’re the type of person who really likes optimizing these sort of games, then you’ll probably want Legacy of Rome, which adds retinues, customizable standing armies that let a skilled player solve the combat system to punch way above their weight

honestly i think having been in on the ground floor makes things easier. its way easier to learn the changes to mechanics you already understand than it is to learn mechanics that were designed to be, in almost all cases for Stellaris, more complicated than the original, already complicated mechanics.

Paradox put a lot of effort into making Ck3 more accessible, and I think largely succeeded. of course its still a massively complicated game, but strategy fans are generally willing to put up with that. its being obtuse and impenetrable and confusing that’s the problem

3/4 but i can see why you went with universe sandbox; paring it down to 5 words was tough

Fight on both screens simultaneously

Explore a toybox solar system

Push logic like blocks

Die while climbing a mountain

When I was in school, the bus route did not stop near my house, and it was too far to walk, and there was no good bike route (though one exists now). In middle and high school I would often walk or bike to a friend’s house after school but that wasn’t always an option.

This is a situation forced on us by car-centric city planning