I also finished Marble Age, a unforgiving but fun game.

I tried Gremlins Inc, TASTEE Lethal Tactics, Bronze Age, Polaris Sector, Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville.

Not bad, promsing games. I did finish Bronze Age, a neat little package, fun.

Someone was telling me something in what seems to be in English but I cannot make out what she was saying. She could not get to the point.

Yesterday, I had two insurance folks visit me. They also said a whole bunch of things. Again, they seemingly spoke in English but I could not make out what they were saying. I asked many things for clarification but they left me puzzled.

I did also try Wartile. Slick and well implemented. However, despite my interest in Vikings, the gameplay doesn't seem compelling.

I tried a few more games yesterday. I had tried 16bit Trader some time ago. This time, I went a little bit further and I think I figured the game out. It involves doing quests to supplement income. It is hard to trade without quests as travel is extremely costly.

I also tried Killing Floor 2, it is not bad at all. It runs on the Unreal Engine. Unlike other games, this doesn't give me any headaches. I tried the Berserker, the Gunslinger and finally the Commando. I managed to get through four waves with the Commando only to meet my demise at the Boss.

I tried Airmech Wastelands which is a RPG-ish implementation of the basic Airmech. Slick, evocative but.. it feels a bit like a cash grab despite the amount of great work put in. I hear Front Line Assembly music in the background. Very nice.

I tried more of Battlevoid Harbinger. Good game. I think I have pretty much exhausted it. Time to move on. Recommended.

I went to take a look at Torchlight II again. No, I don't like it.

I also took a quite look at Void Destroyer. Five sets of tutorials. It looks involving.

I am trying the ATOM RPG.

I tried Age of Wonders III, Islanders and Surviving Mars tonight. I doubt if I will be playing them again.

A battle between the Saxons and Vikings

It has been over a year since my last Field of Glory II game. I have been playing Grim Dawn a fair bit. There have been two or three expansions since the last time I played.

I set up a custom battle between the Saxons and the Irish Vikings, circa 1000 CE. These are armies from the Wolves at the Gate expansion.

I had forgotten how to play the game, it had been a year. I set my army in an L-shape, with the battle line extending across the width of the battlefield. I have four units of cavalry on the left. My shieldwall and housecarls form the battle line with about six or seven units behind as reserves. I have my light skirmishers forward of the line to seize the high ground. The terrain is broken and would badly affect the shieldwall and other heavy units. I expect the Viking army to be not very different in composition to my Saxon army.

My plan was to advance fast, close in, seizing the high ground with my left flank swinging like a hook. My right flank would be anchored to the forest on the right.

The computer AI for Field of Glory II is competent. As we will see later, it can do a lot of damage.

As I advance my battle line forward, it split in half due to a large pond in the centre of the battlefield. My skirmishers seized the high ground and began driving their skirmishers off.

As my left wing swung into their shorter line, their stronger left wing hit my weaker right. It would be a race of which army would manage to destroy their opponent's flank first.

The AI had cleverly inserted a light skirmisher unit into the forest, tying down a heavy unit of mine.

The Viking smashed my right flank and also my reserve units sent to reinforce that flank. I managed to crush their flank as well and rolled their line up. In the end, I orientated a new battle line and met theirs head on and won.

Emptiness

I did wish that he hadn't showed me. A game such as this is about finding solutions and when the solutions are laid out starkly like that, there is no game left.

 I don't mind spoilers to the story however.

Yes, one can try to find new possible solutions or variations to those solutions. However, these being on paths well-trodden by much better players, there are unlikely many more.

Revealer

Oh dear. My friend revealed all the endgame builds that allow one to eliminate the superbosses in Grim Dawn.

Suddenly, there is no mystery nor purpose left to many of the characters I have built. Many of the characters have no future while others can succeed if I were to do those builds.

As the game is deterministic, it suddenly removes the game aspect. I would be sure to succeed if I strive towards those builds, there is not much need for experimentation left, thus no game left.

It is time to take a long break from Grim Dawn.