Do you intend to use historical army compositions?

[gstephenopolous]

I'm exactly the same. The moment the game starts to become too unrealistic or too fantastic, or deviate so far from history that we're in "utterly impossible" territory then it's time to start a-fresh.

What sucks is that this carries over into other games as well, such as Skyrim. I'm fine at the start when I have barely any money, hardly any potions, a rusty sword and my armour is a potato sack with holes cut out for the arms and head. I feel like I'm starting in a fresh world and I have to work my way up. But as soon as I hit level 10 and I have a full suit of epic armour and awesome weapons and more money than I can spend I feel like I'm too powerful and start again lol.

Man, I can't tell you how OCD I was about Oblivion. I ended up spending more time modding and modding mods than actually playing the game. I think I only ever ended up clearing one Oblivion portal or something. I dabbled around a little in Skyrim but never got into it (which for me was a good thing.)

[Ludens]

I play historical games such as these in almost OCD-like fashion, rewriting history as I go. If the game gets too game-y a feel to it I'm usually compelled to restart. As a result I never get far quite often. Is it healthy to play this way? It is fun when I pull it off, though.

I'm exactly the same. The moment the game starts to become too unrealistic or too fantastic, or deviate so far from history that we're in "utterly impossible" territory then it's time to start a-fresh.

Same here. I take that attitude to other games, as well.

As for whether it is healthy: as long as you're having fun, does it matter? You are not obliged to play a game in the way the developers intended.

[I_damian]

Man, I can't tell you how OCD I was about Oblivion. I ended up spending more time modding and modding mods than actually playing the game. I think I only ever ended up clearing one Oblivion portal or something. I dabbled around a little in Skyrim but never got into it (which for me was a good thing.)

I found a really good mod for Oblivion! It was called "Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul" and it overhauls pretty much every aspect of the game, except for graphics (iirc, it has been several years!). Basically it removed level scaling entirely and introduced a living economy, so if you sold something to a shopkeeper for 500 Septims, the shopkeeper would have 500 less Septims. You couldn't just sell every single thing you had to one shopkeeper. It made heavy armour way heavier, you ran way slower in it. Enemies did way more damage and so did you, potions healed over time instead of instantly so you couldn't spam them, you leveled up much slower and best of all - enemies didn't scale. So in vanilla Oblivion you could go into basically any other cave/fort/ruin when you were level 1 and all the enemies were also level 1. In the OOO mod they had set levels, so if you went into the wrong cave you'd get killed in one hit by a level 50 wizard.

I remember getting to level 10 in OOO and thinking I'd be powerful enough now to go and kill the vampires that lived underneath the arena in the Imperial City. You could get to that area through the sewers by going down a well somewhere in the Imperial City Market District. I killed one or two vampires (with great difficulty) then got absolutely wasted by a vampire lord. He just hit me with a gigantic ice spell that killed me in one hit. So yeah, no matter how powerful you got in OOO there were always enemies way bigger than you that you'd have to avoid or run away from.

Same here. I take that attitude to other games, as well.

As for whether it is healthy: as long as you're having fun, does it matter? You are not obliged to play a game in the way the developers intended.

I can have fun playing like this in EB because I can start a fresh game as a totally new faction and play for 100 turns or so, which takes several days (or weeks even), and read all the new building and unit descriptions and stuff. It stops being fun though when you've played Skyrim for almost 400 hours (according to STEAM) but have never got further than travelling to High Hrothgar to meet the Greybeards because you always feel way too rich and powerful by that point. :(

[clone]

in dlv mod for mtw2 they have found a way to combat this(have a lot of money in the end game)
1 every city,spy cost money to simulate maintence
2 armies and agents that are outside the faction borders cost double upkeep to simulate the extra cost to travel ,do misions
3 if you have too much money all upkeep(the above) is doubled to represent inflatation

[Ludens]

It stops being fun though when you've played Skyrim for almost 400 hours (according to STEAM) but have never got further than travelling to High Hrothgar to meet the Greybeards because you always feel way too rich and powerful by that point. :(

As long as you had fun during those 400 hours. And if you didn't, why are you still playing?

This is going a bit off-topic, though. If you wish to discuss Skyrim, Oblivion or gaming habits further, I can create a separate thread and move it to the Arena.

[I_damian]

This is going a bit off-topic, though. If you wish to discuss Skyrim, Oblivion or gaming habits further, I can create a separate thread and move it to the Arena.

Don't you oppress me!