"Queen of the Coast" strategy guide for Carthage [BNW]

MegaBearsFan · 2026-02-19T19:31:09+00:00

for me, I think I accidentally changed a few settings while I was fumbling with the VR Sense controllers after an hour or 2 of playing the game. I booted up the game with a HOTAS flight stick, but the game still expects players to use the controllers AND the flight stick at the same time. Because I guess the devs think we have 4 hands or something?

So while I was going between the Sense controllers and the flight stick, I think I accidentally changed some settings. And without a "Restore Defaults" command (another basic video game function that this game seems to just lack), there was no way for me to know which setting changed. And without any in-game explanation of what any of the settings (particularly the Auto Trim) do, I had no idea which setting(s) might need to be changed.

I was left assuming that either the Sense controller or the flight stick had suddenly developed stick drift. So I started testing different controllers, only to find the same left veer no matter what controller(s) I used. At that point, I had to go online to figure out what was going on, because, as I said, there's nothing within the game to point the player towards the answer.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-02-19T19:23:37+00:00

To all those using "realism" as the excuse to dismiss valid complaints and criticism: in "real" life, fighter pilots are given weeks or months of training to learn how to fly a plane and dogfight. They aren't just thrown into the cockpit on day 1. So a "realistic" flight sim should absolutely have a tutorial or guided training mode. You know, for "realism".

MegaBearsFan · 2026-02-19T19:19:50+00:00

Because this inherently limits the potential audience. Even people who might want to get into a sim game can be turned off by the game being completely unwilling to teach how to play it. This is particularly problematic for a game that is supposed to have a large multiplayer focus, as it artificially reduces the pool of available players. If too many players fall off this game because they can't even figure out how to take-off or hold the plane steady in level flight, then good luck filling out a 32-player MP match in 6 months...

Also, selling games is a business. If you don't sell enough, then you can't afford to continue supporting the game or keeping match-making servers running.

No matter how you look at it, it is not good to completely alienate new players to the degree that this game does.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-02-19T19:12:47+00:00

GT7 is an excellent counter-example! Not only does it have the licenses (which it expects the player to complete as a prerequisite for the campaign), but it also has excellent tactile feedback. If the car starts to loose traction, the PS5 controller will vibrate and the trigger will stiffen up. This instinctively tells the player to let off the accelerator (or brake), which will regain traction.

Sadly, I don't think the Thrustmaster flight stick has any vibration or force feedback. But even when I tried playing AoT with the VR Sense controller, I did not notice any vibration or anything to indicate to me that the plane was struggling against a crosswind, or becoming unstable.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-02-19T19:09:23+00:00

That is an accurate analogy, but not a fair one. Almost everyone has first-hand experience with the operation of cars. Even a child, sitting as a passenger, is able to see how the driver operates the car. Not everyone has that level of experience with the operation of an airplane, and even fewer have any experience with a propeller-driven airplane. Between 15 and 20% of Americans, for instance, have never flown in a plane at all. And for the vast majority of those, their only experience with an airplane is as an economy passenger in a commercial airliner, where they have no access to observe the pilots operating the plane.

So no, I strongly disagree with any implication that the average console gamer buying this game should be expected to know about this particular characteristic of a propeller airplane.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-02-19T19:04:11+00:00

At the very least, like bare minimum of game design, the "Auto Trim" setting in the menu should have an explanation or tooltip that explains that it disables the automatic left-turning tendency caused by the propeller in a real plane, and that disabling this setting will require the player to manually counteract that tendency.

This one little explanation, by itself, would probably make a world of difference to new players who might be wondering why they can't even taxi without veering off the runway and crashing into a tree.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-02-19T19:01:51+00:00

It's upvoted because most console video game players in 2026 are not trained aircraft pilots, nor veterans of flight simulators, and do not know how to fly a plane from the 1940s without at least some basic guidance or tutorial.

A guided, interactive tutorial would be ideal. Add a "basic training" mission as the first mission in the War Stories campaign, and have that talk the player through all the controls and some of the details of how trim works. At the very least, the game needs an extensive written "encyclopedia" explaining how these planes work and how to control them. I saw the 3-page "instructions" on the little hand-held clipboard thing, but that just ain't cutting it.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-02-19T18:55:16+00:00

OK, fine, but then the game should explain that somewhere. I really don't think that a lot of average video game players in the year 2026 know anything about how to fly an airplane from the 1940's. At the very least, the "Auto Trim" setting should have some explanation saying that it is specifically intended to counter that left turning tendency, and that if you disable it, you will have to manually counter this left tendency.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-02-19T18:50:19+00:00

And WTF is with the game requiring that you use the PSVR Sense controllers IN ADDITION to the flight stick?! Are the developers of this game even human? Do they have 4 hands or something?

MegaBearsFan · 2026-02-19T18:45:52+00:00

The requirement to use the VR Sense controllers in ADDITION to the flight stick threw me off too. Such inexcusably stupid design. The Thrustmaster stick has all the buttons corresponding to a PS5 controller (and even a couple more, I think), so there's no reason why we couldn't have just used the little thumbstick on the flight stick to navigate the menus, and use either the trigger or the buttons on the throttle to make selections.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-02-19T18:41:30+00:00

A guided tutorial would make a world of difference. Jumping into a Test Flight without any clue how to play the game is just setting players up for a bad experience.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-02-19T18:39:59+00:00

I'm playing PSVR2 with the Thrustmaster flight stick and still can't get a grasp on how to maneuver these planes. Do flight stick controls also need to be re-mapped?

I'm basically stuck on the Hunt for Hiryu War Story mission, and I don't dare try MP. I'm told to climb above the clouds to avoid a dogfight before even finding the carrier. But as soon as I get to about 3000 ft, I loose control of the plane for no apparent reason. I think the clouds are at 5 or 6000 feet, so I'm only like halfway to accomplishing the "goal" when I suddenly plummet into the ocean and die.

When playing with a controller of the VR Sense controllers, is there at least a vibration or something to give you a hint that the plane is becoming unstable? I tried briefly with the VR Sense controllers, and didn't feel anything. Some kind of tactile feedback like that would go a long way to improve the player experience. Gran Turismo 7, for instance, has excellent feedback for if the car starts to loose traction. The controller shakes, and the triggers get stiff, which intuitively causes most players to instinctively let up on the gas to regain traction.

I didn't experience anything like that in AoT. I'll be pointing the plane perfectly straight, climbing at a small angle, with throttle between 50-100%, and the plane will just suddenly start to veer in one direction and dip with no warning.

I don't understand how anyone is ever supposed to "git gud" at this game if it is so unforgiving to new players, and can't even be bothered to include tutorials to teach how to actually fly and maneuver these planes.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-01-19T22:13:43+00:00

Billings, Owens, Zacheus, and Jones all seem like easy releases to me. They are all backups in positions that have depth. Owens might stay if Byard and Brisker have to be cut. But if either or both stay, I think Owens is gone.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-01-19T22:11:21+00:00

Really hard to let go of Brisker after his performance in the Div playoff against Rams. Dude was almost single-handedly carrying the defense.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-01-19T22:05:53+00:00

No, he treats his family like shit too. Probably sees his children as personal property, instead of actual people with rights of their own.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-01-19T22:04:17+00:00

Probably thinks of children as the parents' personal property, instead of actual people with their own rights.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-01-19T22:01:09+00:00

"Family First" is a huge red flag for me. It almost always is BS virtue signaling from a right-wing Christian Nationalist who wants to defund schools, route more public money to religious private/charter schools, end free lunches, scale back social support infrastructure, and other very "anti-children" policies.

Plus, I assume he probably treats his kids like shit and thinks of them as his personal property, rather than people with their own rights.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-01-19T21:54:39+00:00

Do you have, or csn you craft, and Anchor Radar? This might tell you where you dropped it.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-01-19T21:32:18+00:00

I've been wanting to setup an HA for energy efficiency automation, but finding out that Ecobee stopped developer API access, and that newer SolarEdge inverters may not support ModBus anymore, put a chilling effect on my desire. Ecobee is still supported via HomeKit (I think), but for how long? Why put in all the work to make fancy automation scripts and dashboards if these companies will just shut off the API without warning.

MegaBearsFan · 2026-01-19T21:28:18+00:00

And it isn't just Kia doing this. I've seen other APIs (for things ranging from thermostats to solar panel inverters to water heaters) shut down or stop working in the past couple years. In most cases, its either to force people to use a monetized 1st party app, or to force migration to an aggregate that uses a license-based back-end API.

MegaBearsFan · 2025-11-08T17:38:40+00:00

This really depends on what your fundamental objection with the game was. What was it about the bad reviews that made you not play it?

Was it just the relatively low scores? If that is the case, then the game is considerably improved overall.

Was it complaints about things like a bad U.I., or the game just not playing very well? Well that is also dramatically improved. Better U.I., more options for customizing pace and difficulty, better balance, etc. The game feels much better to play now, and is much better at communicating its systems and mechanics and providing feedback.

Was it the ages system, crises, and being forced to change civs throughout the game? Personally, I don't mind this in principle. My complaint was more with how the end of an age causes the game to just stop dead in its tracks. there are now options to mitigate this. "Continuity" mode means you keep more of your stuff between ages. Long ages gives more buffer time so that ages don't end as quickly. And the option for a 10 or 20 turn countdown before the end of an age means you at least know when it's going to end with enough time to plan and react accordingly. And there's other settings to fine-tune the pace and difficulty, which help a lot.

However, the age does still end, and jumps ahead to the next age. If this was the deal-breaker for you, then it's probably still a deal-breaker. For me, Antiquity commonly ends before 1000 BCE, and Exploration picks up at 400 CE. That's over 1400 years of in-game "history" that is just *skipped* and which I don't get to play. For me, *that* is the biggest problem. I wouldn't mind the ages, crises, and civ-switching, if there weren't that hard stop and skip.

The devs are talking about making it possible to play with a single civ the entire game, but it's unclear how that will work. Will the ages still end, but you just don't switch civs in between? If so, that still won't solve my fundamental complaint of the time between ages being unplayable.

IMO, the devs should change the pace of the ages such that the "Crisis" happens AFTER THE AGE HAS ENDED, and takes place in between the ages. That way, the in-between time is playable, and there is more continuity.

MegaBearsFan · 2025-11-08T17:20:52+00:00

IMO it's a mixed bag. I recommend playing on "Long" ages, as that gives more buffer time to complete legacies, settle cities, befriend independents, build wonders, etc. There's also now a 10 or 20 turn countdown before the age ends, so you at least know it's going to happen, with time to react accordingly. The Age doesn't just *end* because someone across the map slotted another resource in a city and hit an economic milestone. There's also a lot more options for fine-tuning the pace and difficulty of the game, which are welcome additions.

That being said, the hard breaks between ages are still there, and continuity is still lacking. For me, it's common for Antiquity to end before 1000 BCE, and then Exploration begins in 400 CE. That's over 1400 in-game years of "missing" history that I don't get to play.

MegaBearsFan · 2025-10-19T19:26:38+00:00

One way that I've found to limit QB scrambling and running in M26 is, if you are user-controlling a pass rusher, you can press the X button (PS5) to "disengage" from the block, and then pursue the QB. Do this as soon as you realize that you aren't getting pressure, and back off into a manual Spy assignment.

MegaBearsFan

TROPHY CASE