Total War Saga: Troy free on Epic Store

[Cold Meat Platter]

It's just been released but is free for first 24 hours apparently.

Again my library expands and I'm yet to give them a penny. Starting to get worried they'll call in a favour at some point like the mafia.

[Small Potatoes]

What's the catch with the Epic Game Store? Is it a parasitic app which metastasises all over your PC like Steam did when I installed it 10 years ago? I got rid of it almost immediately and haven't used it since. I'd like to try this, but not keen on invasive bloatware.

[Cuellar]

I've really wanted to get on with the later Total War games, but I can't seem to handle anything after Medieval II. I've got Empire and Rome II but can't have played more than 30 minutes of either. I can't work out what the campaign map is showing me, what's going on in my cities, which even ARE my cities, where my armies are, how to recruit more soldiers etc. It lacks clarity.

Maybe it's because I only ever play Medieval II like a big game of Risk (never actually command battles myself, always automatically resolve them), maybe these later ones are more geared towards the actual battlefield mode, but that doesn't interest me at all tbh.

Will give this a whirl though!

[Zetetic]

Is it a parasitic app which metastasises all over your PC like Steam did when I installed it 10 years ago?

When and how did Steam do this?

(Arguably one of the problems with Steam is how it breaks Windows security because it insists on stuffing everything into its own filesystem hierarchies and then doesn't both with sensible file permissions and sandboxing on any of this.)

[Kryton]

When and how did Steam do this?

(Arguably one of the problems with Steam is how it breaks Windows security because it insists on stuffing everything into its own filesystem hierarchies and then doesn't both with sensible file permissions and sandboxing on any of this.)

Zet I think he was on about Epic games being the parasitic app rather than Steam - Not sure how much is rumour, but I've not heard good things.

Oh I misread. Steam doesn't seem to be that way in the many years I've used it. However Epic has a bad rep for apparently having dodgy, intrusive software, but I've never used it.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

never actually command battles myself, always automatically resolve them

Part of the turn-based campaign draws you into doing that more and more, I find.

At the start the outcome of battles are particularly important and quite easy to control with fewer units, there's less going on with the campaign map too. Then the balance slips to management over being battle general.

Especially when you slave away and you get on top in places I personally can't be arsed winning battles I've basically already won due to numerical and class advantage. I tend towards mainly doing defensive battles to save a province or ones where I know the AI will fuck me over (siege-lifting in Medieval/Rome is particularly weak if you leave it to auto-resolve).

I can think of one occasion where I got attacked in one isolated province 15 times in a row and defended it each time by standing on a hill and firing arrows at everyone. Probably killed 5,000 troops with 150 by the end of it. If I let the CPU do even a single battle they would have set up in a ditch and it would have been all over at the first try.

[Small Potatoes]

Zet I think he was on about Epic games being the parasitic app rather than Steam - Not sure how much is rumour, but I've not heard good things.

Oh I misread. Steam doesn't seem to be that way in the many years I've used it. However Epic has a bad rep for apparently having dodgy, intrusive software, but I've never used it.

Sorry if I was a bit unclear - it's been a while (in fact, it might have been to play Half-Life 2 - I just remember Steam always moving things around, not letting me play games if I was offline, and admittedly, fucking up some of the dodgily-obtained games I had on my PC at the time. Not to mention its tendency to keep attaching itself to the Startup process no matter how often I deactivated it.