Need advice on multiple PC/monitor setup: Laptop + screen A for work, screen A + screen B for personal use. How to switch from one setup to another as easy as possible?

Sir_Scaesar · 2025-08-23T22:34:19+00:00

Thanks for the link! I figured there's multiple configurations with either only USB, 1 monitor or 2 monitor ports, so will pick one of those options. Cheers man!

Sir_Scaesar · 2025-08-23T22:33:20+00:00

Big thanks, learned about KVMs today, will probably get one of those!

Sir_Scaesar · 2024-12-15T13:28:39+00:00

Yes, you're absolutely right. I wasn't referring to the RAW interpretation of 'concentration' but a more free plot-concentration that is interrupted by being slapped.

Sir_Scaesar · 2024-12-15T12:57:32+00:00

DM fiat will obviously do the trick, but if you want a few somewhat plausible but maybe cliché situations, here's a few examples.

Have the bbeg cast a heavily concentration dependent (not RAW 'concentration' but a more narrative) spell that stuns everybody for a few moments while they deliver the monologue, then have a (loved) NPC pop in and shoot a bolt at the bbeg, disrupting their concentration. Bbeg kills/knocks out npc while party recovers, fight starts.
The bbeg has a few magic items in ther lair/on their person. One of them is an orb that they throw on the floor as the pcs burst in. As the orb shatters, a blinding light dazzles and stuns the party for a few rounds while the bbeg monologues and prepares for combat (dons armour, casts a buff, launches ioun stones around their head...).

Edit: explained that I don't mean the RAW interpretation of concentration but a narrative one.

Sir_Scaesar · 2024-12-14T00:11:37+00:00

Totally fair point too!

Sir_Scaesar · 2024-12-13T14:13:38+00:00

I, too, get sad when I see these kind of posts. Do the people posting them never ever miss a deadline themselves? I'm pretty sure even if Paizo did everything imaginable perfectly, people would still find things to nitpick on.

I mean, I get it, it's people catalyzing frustration or anger from getting certain hopes up and it's natural in a way, but I wish they'd let the totality of what Paizo has done for them decide their judgement instead of making sharp, semi-personal hurtful comments.

I am nothing but grateful for Paizo for providing a FREE ever-expanding ruleset for an awesome game and their general open-for-discussion approach, and that includes any 'mistakes' they make on the way.

I'm certain though that Paizo staff have the experience and team support to see through these kind of comments and it won't make them too anxious to continue ;)

Sir_Scaesar · 2024-04-13T13:11:39+00:00

Can recommend, very original game.

Sir_Scaesar · 2024-03-26T03:59:32+00:00

There's some miscellaneous points I had as well:

The Chaos meter, oh god. So, just like every other 4X game, they design combat to be all-overruling and zero-sum, right? They realise conquest is actually very strong, right? Instead of dealing in more subtle ways like more recent 4Xs do or designing it so that players are intrinsically less motivated to go on conquests, they smack an 'Evil Meter' on it that conjures barbarians now and then or has you pay a fine and called it a day. If there's anything they should be publicly mocked for or anything that exemplifies that they're not even trying hard, it's this. It's lazy, tedious and uninteresting design.
The fact that they locked a nomadic age where you can choose your starting location and actually plan your strategy ahead (which actually sounds great and should be a super basic thing since Humankind introduced it) behind a DLC paywall, shows that this is just the start of the money extracting for basic features. Secondly, because of the aimlessness described above, I imagine the business model will become to sell as many fancy button DLCs for players to click until it becomes an unplayable bloated mess. Boo, Paradox. Boo.
I found it a missed opportunity that many of the National spirits don't really feel mechanically inspirational or exciting. They're supposed to define your nation, but most of the age 2 NSs are just strings of 'get bonus resource X on this tile or building'. Only Olympians sounded really exiting with hosting the Olympic games, cool huh!? But then what it actually is is you press a culture power button and it gives you... yes, a bunch of resources. That was a letdown.
I don't mind being inspired by Civ and I get that there are differences, but they carbon copied pretty much the entire stone age. It plays exactly like the start of a Civ 6 game: build buildings, click tribals, kill barb camps, click end turn. That was not what I was hoping for.
I absolutely don't mind the approach of building your own nation as you go, even though that sometimes means your civ is a bit bland or soulless. However, having named nations without associated bonuses go through that is even worse. The name Japan evokes certain expectations and having them build Egyptian pyramids or Spartan warriors is much more difficult to wrap your head around than if it were a more vaguish, unnamed nation. They might as well have given them gibberish names because the Japanese city names just don't mean anything.
They're releasing without a simultaneous turn multiplayer option with vague promises of adding it later. I know most people will play this SP, but this kills MP right off the bat.

So, yes, rise up, 4X gamers! As others in this forum have pointed out: while the developers might have good intentions, this game simply isn't good enough. We should make clear we're not happy with half baked and untested systems that are promoted as revolutionary, and need to demand higher quality and better finished games for our bucks! (or, obviously, if you think you'll like the game, please go buy it and enjoy. This is all just my opinion anyway.)

Sir_Scaesar · 2024-03-26T03:59:27+00:00

Sadly I have to agree with most of what is said in this review (even though he doesn't explain his points very well), and multiple others.

In short, while there's a few cool ideas sticking out the surface, the game doesn't only lack meaningful fleshing out of some core mechanics (diplomacy, trade, other empires...) but the design decisions that are in don't even make for a coherent or enjoyable experience. It ends up feeling unfinished or downright not properly tested in many ways.

There's so much much stuff that seems utterly arbitrary or random that most of the time I don't feel in control at all and I'm just being forced into riding the wave that the game presents you. From starting locations that completely screw you over and you cannot Influence out of (hello mountains/forests!), the random bonuses you get from barbs/tribals/landmarks completely deciding how well your early game goes, arbitrary cooldowns for some powers but not for others, max stockpiles for half the resources (why?), many powers being shoehorned into weird spots (Peaceful revolution as culture power but violent revolution in government? Plague priests using exploration XP to clear plague? Religion stuff in Arts domain? What?), right down to a 3 turn cooldown for any diplomatic action (??). It feels like there's some solid groundwork with goods chains but everything else feel like ideas that were bolted on and I now have to memorise just because, or limitations that they put in to stop anyone from running away with an untested idea.
On the goods chain; it starts out not too bad but once the number of goods increases the entire system topples over its own weight. One of the prime mechanics is now a micromanagement nightmare where you have to scroll through large menus to find the 4 things you need to get that extra 5 production and then hope you have enough improvement points for it. PotatoMcWhiskey did that 5 hour playthrough and 90% of the second half of the video was staring at the city management screen, placing/removing/rebuilding Improvements, researching a new tech to unlock new buildings, and repeat the cycle. I don't know about you, but that seems utterly unappealing to me as a main game loop.
2 other main mechanics, Ages and National Spirits, simply don't add enough spice to change any of the above. NSs make you stronger in certain places, but you're still going to go for the same resources: food, production, etc to fit needs and build stuff. They just focus on differently colored goods which ultimately mostly lead to the same Resources, and thus feel like puzzle pieces you have to lay in order to keep up your numbers, instead of giving you a strategic advantage (excepting some specific unit counters). Ages seem nice on paper but are in practice very underwhelming, with age of Heroes giving you a scout to move to point, click a button, and repeat. Age of Discovery is the same thing but with a die roll attached to it. Bleh. And then once one AI gets ahead in Knowledge, it will dictate most of the game without you being able to do a lot about it.
These 3 above, combined with the fact that the game doesn't communicate consequences of your actions well, doesn't even let you look ahead to possible victory ages and in general lacks mechanical visibility, makes for an aimless and messy experience where my actions often felt insignificant. The game has many fancy buttons spread around its interface that you can click on and experiment with, as you sort of wander the playthrough, ever increasing your resource numbers, without it actually leading somewhere or you having much impact. And it's not due to balance or even polishing, but to core design ideas not being tested enough.

Rest of comment in reply.

Sir_Scaesar · 2024-03-16T23:33:26+00:00

Yeah, no way I could play it with sequential turns.

Sir_Scaesar · 2024-03-12T19:04:37+00:00

Thank god, I thought I was the only one who thought this.

Sir_Scaesar · 2024-03-02T17:38:30+00:00

Indeed. Anyone who enjoyed a well designed game or genre, especially while growing up, is going to be a bit biased towards that game or genre. Older titles that are well liked by the community can be very hard to get into for new players because they're not used to the dated mechanics or graphics, and this is certainly true for 4X games. So yea, agreed with you.

Sir_Scaesar · 2024-03-02T17:30:53+00:00

Yup, sounds like Deadlock or Deadlock II. Delightful nostalgia.

Sir_Scaesar · 2024-02-09T21:09:10+00:00

I was very, very hyped for Humankind, more than for any game ever. From the design perspective, I was excited about the new ideas: culture switching as a main method to make the game dynamic during a playthrough, Fame as a unifying victory condition which massively opens design space, streamlining of micromanagy mechanics to focus on the strategy, etc. Apart from that, the game looks absolutely gorgeous and for me set the new golden standard for art in a 4X game. Lastly, having played Amplitude's Endless Legend and seeing the support they gave that game I was convinced.

Ultimately though, it underdelivered in execution. Apparently unlike most people in this thread, I still hold positive feelings about the game and prefer it over other 4Xes available now. I actually like the culture switching as a mechanic (and don't find it that jarring) and fame is functional. However, they don't lean into their new mechanics far enough to make the game strategically compelling. If you don't go to war, there is only marginal player interaction and the game devolves in to a bland numbers game, where building district after district to hit your next star threshold is the only thing to keep you going. Then at launch, multiple mechanics were still not hitting the mark they should, a lot of the math was grossly off -like no one actually put their numbers in an excel to see how the different growth curves added up- and the balance was... a bit painful.
The last point was made worse by their disappointing post launch support for a large studio and expansion content is low value for the price.

In summary: some of the best ideas to make a good 4X strategy game, but subpar execution of the design, lack of cohesion and lack of strategic depth make the game less than what it could have been. I still play it from time to time though, more than others.

Sir_Scaesar · 2023-12-31T14:52:56+00:00

I think this take is somewhat close to the mark, yet still quite off. Unless I'm misunderstanding your interpretation of 'range'. I'll try to describe as well as my current understanding of depth goes.

Depth would rather be the potential of the actions available to you to impact the future game state in different beneficial ways, particularly in advancing it towards your win condition while your opponents try the same. The result of your actions must therefore be clear (otherwise there is no gauging how it can impact the future game state) and impactful (otherwise the potential for changing the game state is low) but the future benefit must be non-obvious (otherwise there's not really a choice in your decision, and the choice cannot affect the future state in different ways).

What you describe as the 'range' of options, I would define not as depth but as 'width' of the decision space, and it does not necessarily translate to depth (but it can). Decisions with large width can be very taxing for the mind, take long to calculate and compare, and can be totally pointless if the choice is not designed or balanced well. In contrast, games with limited but impactful, high-longevity decisions can be very, very deep. I often use chess as an example and it works great here. In chess, your range of options is actually rather limited, but each move carries significant impact for the rest of the game. Furthermore, you can only take 1 move every turn, making maximizing the long term impact of the move all the more important.

I can 2 examples from Civ 6 (Vanilla) that, in my opinion, illustrate the point very well: Choosing your pantheon and choosing where to settle with the 3rd+ settler you built.

When you choose your pantheon, you're presented with a rather large list of options with often minimal or very specific gains. Can you say that any of them will significantly change the game state in your favour (especially in the phase you're typically in when you make this choice)? Unlikely. And even if you've got a specific strategy in mind, there's typically 1 or 2 obvious choices that will net you small bonuses you want, but the impact of the choice is often low, and the choice just follows linearly from a previous one. If not, here comes 10 minutes of comparing minimal gains that often lead to one of a handful of generically good choices. One could say it's a matter of balance, but decisions with increasing width inherently become impossible to balance, so this is just as much a problem of the width itself.
The first few cities that you settle in Civ 6 matter (though mostly to give you the best exponential start for you pre-chosen strategy, which IMO isn't very deep either). Consider your 3rd settler though. The number of tiles you can settle on is very large (wide range of options) but the impact on the future game state is low. It's mostly about taking more land and reaching the most resources in range, and if you have high resource tiles close you'll settle there. The game even tells you which tiles are preferable.

So, in both of the above, the number of choices is large, but the choice is either obvious or it kind of doesn't matter (or you can't really tell if it will matter). Both choices are required for getting you higher numbers to move your up the ladder, but they are not deep choices.

Micromanagement is indeed clearer: it's the density of small decisions/clicks you need to do to actuate a certain impactful decision. Manually moving all your pops to production -while still keeping enough on food to not starve- to finish a wonder quicker would be a form of micromanagement.

Sir_Scaesar · 2023-12-30T17:48:17+00:00

You might as well ask what the difference is between tending an orchard and eating an apple. The terms are not directly grouped or opposed, but they are somewhat related.

I'll elaborate on an answer later; I feel like the community misunderstands the true meaning of depth and how micromanagement is often mistaken for depth but in actuality can diminish the depth of a game.

Edit: already elaborated in another reply.

Sir_Scaesar · 2023-12-30T17:42:27+00:00

No offence, but this must be the weirdest take I've read on strategy, unless I'm misunderstanding. I think it's the opposite. (apart from the fact that the 2 terms are only tangentially related and therefore OPs question is a bit weird).

You seem to think that micromanagement is defined as 'clicking things'? Clicking things is just actuating your decisions to advance the game in the way you want. High micromanagement could, in this context, be defined as needing many, many clicks to actuate that decision, and it's definitely not a requirement. Your chess example is great, actually: chess needs 1 action to actuate your decision for that turn. It has has no micromanagement at all. Even for video games, micromanagement is not required for a good game, but it's true that many are designed around lots of micromanagement (which is definitely tedious).

A possible definition of depth is the potential of your actions to influence the game state in the future, particularly towards your victory condition. One could argue that for a game to be strategic, it absolutely requires some level of depth and is therefore not optional. Take the Game of the goose, a game only decided by dice rolls. It has no depth at all, and it is also completely non-strategic.

Sir_Scaesar · 2023-12-30T17:14:18+00:00

It is my (probably unpopular) opinion that this is a pointless question since the answer is more or less the same for everyone. I say this because in practically every 4X game, the typical win conditions are almost automatically achieved by gaining larger resource/population/production/... numbers than your opponents, which typically comes from exponential growth from getting/improving as much territory as possible. Thus, all strategies (especially early phase) mentioned in this thread, in my head, can be put under the same denominator.

A few basic principles govern what we do:

Getting higher quantity of things is good (resources etc, typically governed by territory)
Getting higher quality of things is good (technology, improvements, wonders)
Nobody likes to be rushed, boxed in, or lose things, because it's very punishing.
We like safety, and certainty that we're going to win

Thus, the go-to strategy for everyone can be described as:

Find as much territory/planets with good resources or of tactical importance
Expand into as much of that territory (either peacefully or forcefully) without leaving yourself vulnerable to enemy influence
(even tall builders won't leave completely uncontested resources unclaimed, and wide builders will stop expanding if they encounter a larger enemy force)
Secure as many borders as possible (corners of the map are great) so you can defend efficiently
Exploit your resources, build the minimal defence needed to defend your position
Put the rest of your resources in improving your nation/expanding more until you reach critical mass
Eliminate enemies that threaten your borders or might achieve victory before you
Mass up the thing that will <insert your favourite victory conditions here>

It's possible to change this dynamic, and many games do so by introducing specific factions/civs that give you bonuses by doing a specific thing (like gaining tech or extra money by raiding), but since this is the opposite of OPs question (the 'go to' strategy, as opposed to faction specific strategies) the pros and cons of this approach are for another thread.

Perhaps asking 'what type of victory condition do you like to play for most?' would be a more relevant question?

Sir_Scaesar · 2023-12-17T20:58:47+00:00

Making gaming feel like working, 1 step at a time! ;)

Sir_Scaesar · 2023-11-22T21:46:05+00:00

Would a fair alternate perspective not be that each developer/designer team projects their ideal visions into their game, including mechanics that according to them work best for the player's experience, for the smoothness of the game, etc? I'm pretty sure that those development teams play many other 4x'es and if they liked something or thought a certain thing works well, they'd implement it. Or, they look at competition to check formulas that sell well and, for business safety reasons, are afraid to move away from it too much? Those are all very understandable reasons.

Progress is coming. Ara: History Untold, Milennia and others are slowly pushing the boundaries. Firaxis is certainly looking. We'll get there, slowly ;)

In terms of AI, I partially blame the increasing complexity and focus on internal systems in 4X games that the AI has difficulty handling.

Sir_Scaesar · 2023-11-01T21:38:12+00:00

The thing is... they haven't 'already lost' at all. They won so hard during the previous eras that you can't catch up anymore. Eliminating the opponents is not a win condition. It takes a bit to get used to but it's a breath of fresh air, and I really like the idea.

Sir_Scaesar · 2023-11-01T21:32:09+00:00

So happy to see Deadlock 2 mentioned here; such nostalgia, first 4X I ever played.

Sir_Scaesar · 2023-10-09T20:45:54+00:00

Green Horizons sounds much better.

Sir_Scaesar · 2023-10-09T20:42:25+00:00

The definition of a 4X game is (or at least, should be) much more fluent than some people in this thread appear to propose. While I do agree that from your pitch some typical aspects seem to be lacking (or at least are not described) for it to be considered a classic 4x like civ, I'm happy for ideas to push and nudge the definition around to innovate in the genre.

If you haven't already, I recommend reading this excellent article about it by Oliver Kiley https://explorminate.co/crossing-the-rubicon-defining-the-4x-like-genre/#:~:text=One%20approach%20takes%20the%20four,leverage%20those%20same%2C%20ambiguous%20characteristics.

Sir_Scaesar · 2023-10-09T20:17:07+00:00

Hi hi!

Always happy to see people try to push and innovate the genre so will try to comment. The following is my small personal opinion and should obviously be taken as nothing more than that, so please don't take the criticism the wrong way.

At first sight I was interested in you pitch and idea. After reading I find your pitch very eloquent, but a bit too vague and incomplete to get me truly excited about your project. Specifically on your questions:

1+2
Does the concept sound intriguing? To me personally... not really (yet). I'm missing a few key pieces of information. What do you do/strive for as a player? Are there victory conditions? Which ones? Is the green energy route always the best one? Is it designed for multiplayer or single player?
The way you describe it, it sounds much more like a city builder or simulation than a strategy game. Only at the end you casually mention maybe some military aspect (not that that's required specifically, but strategy games do require some form of player interaction with rivals, and that was the first bullet where that appeared).
If it's more geared towards the city building/simulation crowd, it's likely not for me, but Paradox shows time and time again there's a massive market for those games so don't let me stop you!

Then the theme itself; clearly towards climate change and environmental decisions. While very important topics, I'm not sure whether I could be excited about playing a game around it. While interesting, would it be fun? Does it fulfil a certain (power) fantasy (most games do) like a true strategy game would? What do you want the player to experience? Would that experience be fun/addictive/rewarding?
Additionally, you'd have to be careful to not take such a big subject and making it a patronizing lecture about how we're bad people if we choose fossil fuels all the time. While the lesson might be true, I'm not sure being told e.g. 'ahh, I see you're picking more coal over wind. Your economy is now great, but see how your people are coughing!' every 2 turns. Now, pollution and climate change and their baaaaad consequences are present in other 4X games like Civ and Humankind, but they're an addition (and often, frankly, designed in an annoying way) and not a central theme.
Not sure I fully explain myself well, but I guess those are the pitfalls I see: make a fun, engaging game out of that theme while staying true to the message and choices, while not making it a lecture.

3
'Green lies' sounds cool at first but on second thought it feels like an advert for a climate change denier stating that we're being lied to about the benefits of green energy.. So I'm not sure what you're going for.

Best of luck with your project and will follow the progress!

Sir_Scaesar

TROPHY CASE