Tobold's Blog

Two posts ago I said: "I won't be getting Manor Lords on April 26th". Today I'd say that this statement is probably not correct. Unless for some reason the 26th is extremely busy for me with some...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/04/i-lied-about-manor-lords.html

Over the last decade or so, media have been full of stories of scientific fraud and plagiarism. And a rather cynical thought crossed my mind: I don't believe that scientific fraud and plagiarism ...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/04/proof-of-originality-in-science.html

Manor Lords is the most wishlisted game on Steam, with over 2 million people. It will be released into early access on April 26th, and this weekend a large number of streamers were allowed to sho...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/04/manor-lords-hype.html

I now have both a YouTube Premium and a Twitch Turbo subscription. In both, I am basically paying to watch ad free, and the revenue from the subscriptions is divided between the platform, and the...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/04/what-do-i-owe-you-or-you-me.html

It is A.D. 1909, turn 350, and my colony ship just blasted into space, winning me the game. I played through all ten ages, choosing the standard version of the age each time, and the age of depar...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/04/done-for-now-with-millennia.html

Once upon a time, this was "Tobold's MMORPG Blog". So I played a lot of MMORPGs. Not only did I play some MMORPGs for thousands of hours, I also played a great number of different MMORPGs to try ...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/04/games-at-release.html

I don't generally care about achievements in games. But yesterday I couldn't help but notice that I got a Steam achievement for Millennia, that only 0.1% of players have reached: Age of Old Ones....

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/04/an-achievement-kind-of.html

I have played Millennia for over 50 hours now, but I haven't finished a single game yet. The furthest I got was to age 8 out of 10. I didn't lose any of these games, but decided they weren't wort...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-run.html

I was reading a review of a game on Board Game Quest , when I stumbled upon the following passage: "Beyond current commitments, Board Game Quest is not planning on covering games in the future th...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/04/ai-luddites.html

Millennia can be played with a wide range of different strategies, which work best when taking into account the geographic conditions of the map you are playing on. But in this post I would like ...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/a-winning-strategy-for-millennia.html

A week ago I predicted: "I would consider it extremely likely that in a week the Steam concurrent user numbers and user ratings of Millennia can only be described as "disappointing"." I wasn't wr...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/millennia-launch.html

Verisimilitude is defined as the appearance of being true or real. Something doesn't have to actually *be* real, but at least it should do a good job of appearing that way. Arguably verisimilitu...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/ai-verisimilitude.html

Dragon's Dogma 2, an otherwise decent action RPG, caused a lot of negative reactions by having "DLC" in the Steam shop that are essentially microtransactions. You can buy a currency, or items lik...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/microtransactions-and-mods.html

Imagine you are a huge fan of Baldur's Gate 3. It is 2028, and you see two new games advertised: A game called Baldur's Gate 4, licensed by Hasbro to a new game developing studio you don't know, ...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/an-evolution-in-brands-and-ip.html

I have already written a bit about Millennia, and I will certainly write more after the game releases and I can play the full version. I am very much looking forward to playing this, as the compl...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/not-fan-fan.html

I find myself in the curious situation to already know a lot of details about a game that hasn't even released yet. Millennia will come out Tuesday, but I have already played the demo repeatedly,...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/pre-launch-game-tips-on-millennia.html

The typical games of Paradox Interactive are not for everybody. They are typically (grand) strategy games, and usually rather deep, which makes them not easily accessible for the casual gamer. Th...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/influenced-by-paradox.html

I finished my most successful run in Victoria 3 ever. I played Belgium for a full century, reaching great power status, the highest GDP per person in the world, the highest living standard, and w...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/victoria-3-no-dlc.html

Strategy games have some fundamental game design rules to make them work: For example they should be balanced, so that the winner isn't already determined by choosing the starting side. And while...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/grand-strategy-toys.html

Jean-François commented that he would like to see more D&D posts from me. Bad news: I am not currently playing Dungeons & Dragons anymore. A few years ago I had two groups: One fell apart during...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/d-and-state-of-my-tabletop-gaming.html

My wife bought a fully electric car, and I wanted to write about our experience with it. Due to differences in national and regional conditions and regulations, not all of our experiences are rel...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-electric-car-experience.html

It is easy to believe, albeit fanciful, that a company that mainly makes grand strategy titles does have some grand strategy in mind with their marketing and game releases. At least for Paradox I...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/paradox-spring-offensive.html

In October 2023 a small board game company released a card game called Forest Shuffle  (or "Mischwald" in German). This turned out to be a rather good game, and thus became rather popular. As a ...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/03/is-there-advantage-to-be-large-in-video.html

I followed the tutorial and main story in Nightingale, as it gives you a sense of purpose. So at one point you have to choose between a forest, desert, or swamp "abeyance" realm. Abeyance basical...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/02/moving-house-in-nightingale.html

Solium Infernum is Latin for "the throne of hell", and that is exactly what you are fighting for in this game. Solium Infernum is a 4X game that just released for $40 (-15% discount now) on Steam...

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2024/02/solium-infernum.html