What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement?

[kabukiman]

I started to replay king of dragon pass (I love so much this game, that I was thinking of making a campaign of runequest in this forum, but the rules still scare me, so I decide to go safe with Conan).
I decide to play more violent and chaotic than my usual.
Well, I choose a war clan, short campaign, main gods Orlanth and Uralda, I can have thralls.
In the sacred time, I put 1 magic point in agriculture, 1 in herd (thanks Uralda!), 1 in health, 1 in war. I cannot put anything in mysteries, and left the others as reserve. Orthanc demanded that I increase my herd. Well, that’s why feuds exist, right?
In the fire season, I made a cow raid to get some cows from another clan that I have bad relations; 30 cows, not bad. Then I sent a group to buy cows in the marked, another 30. I explore the tula; found a valley with a duck people; the council want me to attack them (but I know from other games that it is a silly idea at the beginning), so I make a bargain: they pay me food for 50 persons by year (and I really need food and not land, since I cannot put much magic in farms).
An outlaw women have bring us a baby that was supposed to be a great warrior; I adopted the girl and send the women away (my council did not wanted any of them). I made some sacrifices to learn new mysteries.
A weaponthane defies the leader; I’m surprised , but I agreed, and choose another follower of Orthanc
New year: In the sacred time I spend points the same way.
Orthanc is happy because I increased the herd, and get me more magic points. But one herd suddenly get sick and I need to kill the cows (luckily, it's after Orthanc rewarded me). And then my weaponthanes get sick, I pay some shamans that tell me it was a curse. I ask them to send the curse to another people. A group of adventurers (a elf, a duck, troll, a weird, and some human) ask for a inn. Never heard the word, so I give them hospitality (the council is against). But they don’t know how to behave, so I kill them and get several magic objects, who are near worthless; maybe I will trade them for others. Several expeditions in the Tula find ivory and a good clay, that will bring more goods.
Suddenly the weaponthanes are angry again, want a new leader; I exile the leader of the group, who goes away with some carls to another clan. Worst: another clan complains that THEY got the curse; I paid the shamans to get ridd. I ask them very, very sorry and promise not to repeat again.
I need to learn to follow more the advices of the council.

[Mr. Handy]

I've heard great things about King of Dragon Pass, and I have it on GoG, but I've never gotten around to playing it. I won my game of Master of Magic a while ago. I defeated Jafar and Freya easily enough. Lo Pan was a little more difficult, but I barely managed to take down his capital once I got Shadow Demons. He had nine Doom Bats there, but I used Black Wind before the battle and managed to kill one before the fight started, and that was enough to tip the balance. All of my Shadow Demons and Werewolves were defeated while there were still a couple of Doom Bats left, but my Huntress managed to finish them off, and that was the end of Lo Pan because I had drained his mana before the fight and he could not cast the Spell of Return. Now I'm almost halfway done Wasteland Remastered, currently exploring Las Vegas, which wasn't nuked because the house bet against it, and nobody wins against the house. There are some bugs in the game that weren't in the original. Most notably, enemies with only melee attacks don't close with you, which makes it very easy to take them down if they don't start close enough, while enemies with ranged attacks will sometimes close with you instead of shooting. There are other bugs too that I don't remember from the original version, but I played on the Apple II, and the PC version had bugs that that one didn't. After I finish the game, I intend to play Wasteland 2. I've had it for years, but I haven't tried it yet.

I've finished Season 26 of Doctor Who and am finishing up the bonus material. After that's done, I plan to watch the original UK version of the House of Cards trilogy on Blu-ray (I've seen it on DVD years ago).

[kabukiman]

I stoped watching "Crusade" the spinoff from babylon V, it's simply boring.
For the past few days I have been playing cyberpunk 2077. I have finish the prologue after 10 hours. I like the characters and the story. But the game keeps crashing and I have decide to leave until a patch solves the problems.

[Mr. Handy]

I've heard about the problems with Cyberpunk 2077. They're so bad that Sony removed it from Playstation Store. Some people's saved games got corrupted and they lost all of their progress. This is one reason why I always wait until a game has been out for a while before I buy it. That gives them time to patch it, and the price also comes down over time. Wasteland Remastered came out in March 2020, but I only bought it recently. I'd have waited longer if I hadn't gotten an 80% discount on it, so that I got it for $3 instead of $15. Even after almost a year, it still has bugs. Right now I'm done with Vegas and exploring the Sleeper Base, which has all sorts of goodies.

I'm well into House of Cards, and I'm almost done the second series, To Play the King. I don't remember how Francis Urquhart gets out of the mess he's in, but I know he will.

[kabukiman]

I usually just buy games after a year too. But this was a gift from my family, the edition of the pre-order that bring some physical goodies, so I couldn't resist it.

[Mr. Handy]

I've now done everything I can for now at the Sleeper Base in Wasteland. Now I'm exploring Project Darwin, where I need to find something in order to get the Sleeper Base's best stuff.

I finished To Play the King and started The Final Cut, which completes the House of Cards trilogy.

[kabukiman]

So I resume the game of kingdom of dragon pass.
New Year: it will be a bad year to trade. Oh, well.
In water season made several sacrifices to Orlanth to near his mysteries, and I build a temple to Barntar the god of farmers that allow my farmers to be more vigorous.
And suddenly my weaponthanes complain that never made a raid outside the tula and they are a war clan and demanded a raid. I complied, attacked the clan that I have a feud, and captured 20 cows; the weaponthanes were so happy that they made me a song. There is a girl that suffered a bad omen; I made divination that aid there was no problem. Except the girl died next season. I explored the tula and found the relic of a dinosaur: I put in my house with proud. Several refugees appeared and ask asylum: I made them tralls as my ancestor did, and they were proud and give me extra magic.
Next year: I did a heroquest! Orlanth and Asoka. I gained some windy stones that help to defeat the enemies in battle. I’m raided by some foreigners but I defeat them and get some extra horses. The cultist of the god of hunt offered to make a ceremony to increase the game: I accepted and give them a reward.
But the owners of the thralls (some distant horse people) came to ask for the thrall: I refused. They said they would revenge themselves. I build a temple to Humanki, the god of dead (the blessing is that my warrioes have better moral).
I'm increasing the population, the animals, but I need to recruit more weaponthanes (12 is a very low number for such a powerful clan likne mine, and I expect trouble soon).

[Mr. Handy]

I finished with Project Darwin and the Sleeper Base, though I will have to return to the base at some point to learn the Helicopter Pilot skill. I didn't have enough skill points to pick it up at the time. Now I'm storming the Guardians' Citadel, where I'll find what I need to progress to the endgame and get the best equipment in the game.

I only have one episode left in The Final Cut, in which Francis Urquhart finally gets what's coming to him.

[kabukiman]

My shortest successful strategy game ever.
I played master of orion 2. I was playing the humans. I decide to go full mode colonization: creating colonization ships and colonize planets (all the systems near had planets that supported life). I started to find other civilizations and made trade and science treaties, and after not aggression pacts. And suddenly one of the others was attacked by the silicoids and lost a planet. I continue to expand, until the silicoids send an emissary, insulted and declared me war. And I saw that they had a fleet in direction of one of my planets and would arrive in 3 turns. I sold all my buildings, put the taxes at the maximum and in the last turn, I bought a military station that destroyed their fleet. So now, I started to build a fleet. After a while I had one , and conquered one of their planets that didn't have any defenses (the one they conquered to another civilization). So they were preparing to send another fleet and suddenly there is an election. There are 2 candidates: me (that is a friend with every other civilization) and the silicoids (that have insulted and threaten to conquer everyone). I'm elected and end of game.

[Mr. Handy]

Nicely done! Humans are the best at diplomacy, and Silicoids are the worst (in fact, they can't engage in it at all). In my own game, everyone hated the Silicoids too, and I had to conquer the Humans in order to keep them from interfering with the voting.

I finished Wasteland Remastered in late January, and then I played Wasteland 2, which I just finished about a week ago. There was a nasty twist at the end, but I still managed to easily prevail in the final confrontation. Now I'm starting a new game of Civilization VI since I recently got the New Frontier Pass on sale for only $10 (the full price is $40). The random civilization and leader I got was China, led by Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor. My starting location is poor, up near the north pole with only tundra and sea around, though at least there are some good resources. I'll need to research Sailing first and then quickly get Celestial Navigation so I can build a Harbor and a Lighthouse in order to get enough food to grow my capital. I'll be building a bunch of early wonders due to my advantages, which will help me breeze through the tech and civics trees, but I probably won't be able to build the ones I want most: Stonehenge (no stone nearby) and the Pyramids (no desert nearby). A few weeks ago, my old desktop computer's monitor died, and I was unable to get it working with another monitor. I was overdue to get a new desktop anyway, so I ordered one and just got it and set it up last night. It's amazing! The 4K monitor's graphics are so detailed, and the solid state hard drive is extremely fast, though not very large. I'd been using my laptop from 2014 for the last few weeks, and it would take about an hour to start Civ VI and load a game. I would start it going in the morning and just leave it running all day, playing when I had time. Now with my new computer, it only takes about a minute or so to get into the game!

I recently watched Dark Skies, a TV series that aired for only one season in 1996-7. I'd seen it then and loved it. It's similar in some way to the X-Files, but it's its own thing. It centers around congressional aide John Loengard in the 1960s, and his discovery of the alien threat posed by a parasitic species and the ruthless organization Majestic that fights against it. I like how it used historical events and people, and it was good to see the bonus material on the DVDs. The plans for future seasons were interesting, and it's a shame they never happened. Then I started watching the first season of The Fall Guy, a 1980s show about stuntman Colt Seavers who moonlights as a bounty hunter. I'm currently in the middle of the final episode. There were five seasons in all, but only the first is available on DVD in America. The second was available in Europe, but they never put out any more because they didn't sell enough copies.

[kabukiman]

I also finished watching firefly, then I rewatch serenity. If I wasn't so busy, I would probably, GM a traveller game.

[Mr. Handy]

Firefly and Serenity are great! If any series should get a reboot, it should be Firefly. I have them both on video, but I haven't seen them in some time. If you ever do have time to run a Traveller game, I'd be very interested in playing.

I'm about a dozen turns into my Civilization VI game, and it's going fairly well. On the first turn, I founded my city on the coast and got the Eureka for Sailing, and I discovered Crater Lake with my starting warrior to get the Eureka for Astrology (they count as half the tech for me instead of 40%). I finished researching Sailing and have started on Mining so the builder I'm producing can mine the copper next to my capital before I send it out to start fishing for crabs in order to get the food I need to grow. Next I'll have to research Astrology to get started on a religion and complete the requirements for Celestial Navigation. I've recently finished building a scout, and it and my initial warrior have explored much of my starting landmass. I've found no other civilizations or city-states so far, which means I have a good chunk of territory for myself. I found three tribal villages and got an Inspiration (which counts extra for me) and some gold. I haven't reached the third one yet, as I ran into a barbarian scout and am in the middle of fighting it with my warrior. Fortunately there are no barbarian outposts that can easily reach my city by land, but a barbarian galley did sail past. I'll have to make a galley of my own to deal with it so that it won't sink my fishing boats when I build them, and I have to track down the outpost it came from and destroy it, which will require more force.

I finished watching The Fall Guy and have started on the complete collection of Monty Python's Flying Circus. It's as funny/silly as I remember, and I've seen the first three episodes so far. The first episode included the sketch about the funniest joke in the world, which is a favorite of mine.

[kabukiman]

I would actually prefer new seasons with the same cast and not a reboot.
I have started to play again cyberpunk 2077. I have only found a minor bug and the game don't crash anymore. If one person ignores all the hype ("this would be a revolutionary, open world with more freedom than any before") and don't compare too much with other games, it's a decent game with a good story and great characters.

[Mr. Handy]

That's what I meant by a reboot: the same cast making new episodes. A lot of shows have been doing this in recent years, and it would be awesome for new episodes of Firefly with the same cast (minus the two characters and one actor who died).

I guess they've fixed most of the problems with Cyberpunk 2077. It's a game I'd like to play now that they've got the worst of the bugs squashed. I'm just waiting for the price to drop considerably.

I've completed 46 turns in Civilization VI,and I'm falling behind due to my poor starting location. Still, it's a good challenge. Barbarians started popping up, including an outpost in my city's backyard. Galleys are coming from a farther outpost, and they keep sinking my fishing boats, but now I have a galley of my own (which just got a promotion) to protect my sea resources. I finally managed to crush the nearby outpost, which the barbarians left undefended, and then my warrior and slinger mopped up the survivors. I just researched archery, so that slinger just became an archer, and barbarians had better beware! Now I can take care of that further outpost and stop it from spamming galleys. I had to delay building a Holy Site even though I got Astrology early due to the barbs, but I just completed it and started work on a shrine. Before I did, someone I haven't met yet (which is currently all of the other civilizations) built Stonehenge and has founded Confucianism early. Another civilization built a Holy Site a turn before mine finished, so I really need to hurry and get my religion founded before they're all gone. To make things worse, due to poor food production and being kept busy fighting barbarians, I haven't gotten my second city out, but almost all the others have (though I haven't met them, I can tell their growth from their score breakdowns). After the shrine, I'll have to build a settler. If I'm really lucky, which I doubt I will be, I can get the pantheon belief that gives me a free settler. I'll probably have to settle for the one with the free builder, which is still good for me. It also helps that I have my landmass to myself other than the barbarians, except for the part that their outpost is blocking. Once the settler is done, I should be able to build the Temple of Artemis (and even rush it with a builder thanks to one of my special abilities).

I've now finished the first six episodes of Monty Python.

[kabukiman]

I finished cyberpunk 2077 (the good ending). I like the main storyand the smaller, but this is not the quality of baldur's gate or deus ex. But the characters and NPC's were also interesting, so it is ok.

[Mr. Handy]

I managed to come back from behind in Civilization VI and win a religious victory in the Renaissance, which is usually how I win. Even with a bad start, it was still all too easy once I got back in the game. What really did it for me was getting Dance of the Aurora as my pantheon, which gave me an insane amount of bonus Faith from all the tundra around my Holy Sites, and Work Ethic as a belief, which gave me a production bonus matching the Faith bonus. It was better than having Industrial Zones, and much earlier! It got completely insane once I got the Scripture policy, doubling my already high faith and production bonus. I then played Anachronox, which I successfully completed. It's a great, though buggy, game from about twenty years ago. Now I've started replaying Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, another excellent game I haven't played since it was fairly new. I'm playing a Scoundrel this time, light side, and planning to become a Jedi Consular (my first play was Soldier->Jedi Guardian, also light side). I've found Bastila and am now on the verge of escaping from Taris.

I watched the rest of Monty Python, though I couldn't see part of one episode due to one of the DVDs having damage. Then I rewatched Firefly. Then I watched the 1990-1 series The Flash, which I hadn't seen since it aired. Two of my DVDs didn't work at all, but I found the episodes to watch online. Then I started watching Allo Allo, a hilarious British comedy from the 1980s and early 1990s. I'm currently in the middle of the fifth season. One early episode and one bonus feature were unwatchable due to DVD damage, but I found them online too.

[kabukiman]

"Allo allo!" here in Portugal was one of the most popular shows.

[Mr. Handy]

I had watched 'Allo 'Allo on public television before when it originally aired in the late eighties and early nineties, and I'd seen some episodes in the last decade when they aired it on public television again. It's amazing how much I remember, but there's still so much I don't recall, and I'm not sure if I've seen every episode before.

[kabukiman]

I finished watching the italian tv show "Romulus", about the first roman king. It is a very different world from the usual classical rome, it is in an iron age. It reminds me a lot of glorantha, full of gods that demands weird rites, small villages made of wood and violent populations that follow traditions at any cost. The main story seems a mix of Hamlet and Macbeth.

[Mr. Handy]

That does sound interesting. I know some about Republican and Imperial Rome, but not so much about the early days.

Speaking of history, I've been reading the Apocrypha for the first time, and I'm almost done. I'm currently about halfway through the final book, Second Maccabees. It really fills in the gap in history between the Old and New Testaments. The Romans are involved at this point as well, as friends of Judea. I had known that there were treaties of friendship between them in the Republic and early Imperial eras from the histories of Flavius Josephus, but there are a lot of details I hadn't known.

In Knights of the Old Republic, I've just defeated archcriminal Davik and his associate, bounty hunter Calo Nord (well, the Sith bombardment of Taris helped some). Now I can hop aboard Davik's ship, the Ebon Hawk, and get off this rock before the Sith destroy everything.

I'm now more than halfway through the fifth season of 'Allo 'Allo, which actually has almost as many episodes as the first four seasons combined.