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Hey now, he's an all-star. He got his name on, went, played. Hey now, he's a rock star. He got the show on and got paid. The lead singer of Smash Mouth passed away today, and much of his work speaks for itself. He has left a positive influence on the world.

I have been a Total War fan ever since I say someone playing Rome Total War in a Youtube playthrough. My first game was Medieval Total War, which I got in disk form from a family friend. My computer at the time could not even run the graphics for the campaign map, but it was fun, and I really enjoyed the historical battles. Shogun 2 is a treasure, especially with mods. Vanilla Realm Divided destroys me, but I enjoy it! A few weeks ago I bought Rome Total War and started playing for the first time. A historical battle against Phyrus on Medium difficulty went really well, if you discount the part where my general's cavalry unit went hunting for elephants in the forest and got ground into mulch by their gigantic feet. But I lost every other historical battle I played, even on Easy, and I didn't get far into the campaign! ...Then I bought Rome Total War 2. I read the reviews when it came out, and saw the game had several flaws addressed. A key fix is that troops do not simply become blobs when they fight, professional units try to keep their formations. This game is beautifully designed and the combat is quite fun. My first campaign was Imperium Divided. The barbarian warbands are simply too powerful, and I do not know how to excel there. But for the Grand Campaign... Carthage is awesome! You need around three or four good-sized armies in the start and to try trading with all of your neighbours to get a good start going. Carthage thrives best when their armies have a host of hoplites and missile units, with cavalry and mercenary elites accompanying them. A healthy Carthaginian army is able to form a solid mass against the enemy and then consistently swing around their flanks and hit their rear while rapid-moving units repeatedly hammer and anvil the archers and anything that is either soft or able to be rapidly struck in the back, before the skirmishers and cavalry hastily pull back and then do it all over again. In that campaign, Carthage joined the Etruscans in carving up the Roman Empire! Carthaginian troops rolled into Rome! I dropped the Carthage campaign to check out others. The Iceni rely on a wall of warriors to hold off their enemies, whose forces are largely the same. It is in the application of missile units and chariots where they thrive, shattering vulnerable troops and slaying enemy generals to bring chaos and disorder to the entire host of foemen! Their warriors are nearly equal to your's, but they lose heart once their leaders have perished and their archers have taken flight! Though I see plentiful success there, I wanted to try Macedon, because that was the only Greek state I had unlocked before buying the DLCs. Macedon has, like in the original Rome Total War, a number of PIKEMEN units. Pikes are amazing. Nothing is going to have a fun time walking through the forest for the sharpened trees arrayed before the foe. Heavy spearmen can do it, but you can outflank them with more units or whittle them away with skirmishers! My Macedonian playthrough involved subjugating Epirus and a number of barbarian tribes, but now the Macedonians are too spread out, and they broke their word with one of the tribes they formed a peace treaty with. This in combination with banditry and slave revolts has led to a situation where the Macedonians are strong, and their armies stand tall, but they have so much work cut out for them. And I realised I can do better, and I'm starting that playthrough over from scratch. But you know what? It's FUN to start over. It's fun to try out new combinations and see what's good. RTW 2 is like that, where there is huge variety and the game is a funalicious sandbox I can just keep playing in. How do the Gauls play? How does Rome play? How does Numidia play? Or Libya? Sparta or Athens? Armenia? The only clues I have are from my armies meeting and beating theirs in the field. This game is a whopping $70 on Steam, and gets a solid 9/10 recommendation from me. The only flaw I see is that many of the grander, richer factions are not actually that rich when you start off in the Grand Campaign. They could use more starting income. And diplomacy is a little wonky at times. Mods fix that, as they do in most games.

Free use boat, the Boney Fish.

I'm a few months late, but here is the finished product!

Mod recommendations time. The Master Chief Collection has created new opportunities. Finding mods in the Steam workshop makes it easy to change up the game, and most of the mods outright change the whole campaign experience. I'll go through my favourites. Lumoria Rebalanced The voice volume is horrible and they need to consider subtitles. There is one point in the storyline that, for a few seconds, made me have to hold back my disbelief because it was stupid. That is my harsh criticism out of the way. This is a custom campaign with beautiful scenery, close quarters tight-walking assaults and outdoor massed battles that fit the bill for Halo Combat Evolved's playstyle while still changing things up in just the right way. To go with this, the music is full of well-made tracks, most of which you can find on sites like Youtube. 8/10 recommendation. Better With Friends Halo levels have plentiful short portions where there is no combat. You can use these to meditate and enjoy the good vibes, stand still to hear dialogue, or look around at the good scenery and see how Bungie put the work in crafting these masterpieces. But sometimes, you've had enough calm and need more organised chaos, and Better With Friends is here to help. The mod employs more UNSC and Covenant dropships in strategic positions, and different groups of marines will follow you through large sections of the mission. Both factions are vying for control of the Silent Cartographer and will deploy troops and vehicles in fitting numbers and locations to achieve complete victory. The changes in gameplay are nice, and I can see the mod-maker has clearly valued where enemies and allies are added into the game. A bit of advice: when dropship Victor-22 crashes, do not leap out of the building to go down there. Take the scenic route back, the fight's more epic that way. It's just a mod that affects The Silent Cartographer mission for now, but I hope they do more missions. Everything felt like a well-oiled military op mixed with the horrors of war on an alien artifact. 10/10 recommendation. Ruby's Rebalanced Ruby does solid work. There's some cut weapons reinstated at reasonably frequent rates throughout the game, a few cut encounters are back, and there is a heart-touching moment in Two Betrayals that almost convinced a couple of tears to fall from my eyes. He did a good job. Further, he touches up and makes slight changes to each level that still feel very much like Halo CE, but as if it was done the way Bungie intends. The Library was actually fun for me because of these changes. The added details also bring more mystery to Halo, because one must wonder about the trials and terrors that various corpses went through before sealing their fates. I cannot accurately describe how very good this mod is, except that I would offer this campaign to first-time players in the place of vanilla Halo CE. It's just that good. 10/10 recommendation. Escape! This one's a standalone mission tied into Two Betrayals where you play as a marine. It is both immensely fun and horrifying, as it plays into the threat the Flood poses while offering large scale battles. Your objective is to get to the Control Room and escape via pelican, but other pelicans will try to rescue marines at one or two points throughout the rest of the mission. And honestly, that's one of the flaws with this mod. I accidentally created a better time for myself by blocking off the pelican when it tried to grab up all my marines, so they ended up following my scorpion tank into the tunnel anyway. The mod tries to rescue some marines prematurely and that sacrifices some of the potential for mass combat. 9/10 recommendation. Massive Mod There are a few mods I've tried out that just didn't make the cut. They all add some unique things to gameplay, but they were too alien or too frustrating to deserve a mention in this list. Massive Mod is not one of those. Massive Mod scales up the number of marines, throws in some friendly SPARTANs, changes where the Covenant arrives in the levels and drastically increases their numbers while also changing some of the weapon properties. For example, the sniper rifle lacks an aiming reticle unless you zoom in. This means any no-scopes you make are extra cool. Fighting additional enemies in this mod feels really satisfying, but don't get cocky now! Needlers are deadly, especially against people with breached shields, and you and your marine pals can still get killed. The one flaw I perceive in this mod so far is that there are too many friendly spartans and they are usually equipped with one magnum each. That's just dumb. The rest of this mod though, oooh, it's fun and worthwhile to play at least the first two levels on varying difficulties. Being able to mass-annihilate Covenant squads has scratched an itch I've known that I had for quite some time. Plus the placement of enemies offers different surprises and gameplay challenges that feel fun to tackle. 9/10 recommendation.

Necroposting from two years later to remind anyone who plays this game to ALWAYS outflank the enemy at every opportunity.

It’s always good to see good friends coming over here too, as it’s nicer to be outside of Discord every once in a while as well.

Arigato gozaimasu, Briano-sama. I’m certain you have met me on Discord as well, sometimes I post stuff there, including new weapons and new attire like the Ember Elements I’ve just posted like forever ago. I believe I’ve seen your work as well and I love it. 👍🏼

Welcome to the Forums Ember

Welcome to the ol Forums Gir 👍

Hello, what’s happening everyone? I’m Ember 1-6, also known as Verdant via the Sprite Wars Discord server, and G4051 on Deviant Art. I’ve been in this forum for 6 years now, forgot to even post here as life caught up to me again as per usual. As for participating in the Sprite Wars campaign, I only did 2 arts, one is where my Alpha Team is getting briefed for a mission that’ll be somewhere in Southeast Asia due to terrorist activity, which I haven’t gotten myself around in making continuation because of real life, and I don’t have access to PC as of now, and another is inspired by Monstarules’ short Sprite Wars 3 campaign comic. Nothing too special, other than introducing some of my OCs using his sprites with his permission of course.

Good to see you here, Gir. 🤙

To the dear friends who have passed on, and to the friends who over the years had to move on Through the ups and downs and the in-betweens: you were and still are: all my family A motley crew of folks across the world whom came together for the love of the games we grew up with, the art we created, the stories we have written and the bonds we forged I love you all with all my heart and you have weaved yourselves into my mind as cherished and treasured memories I will hold you all near and dear; forever Kevan Santos and Isaac McClaine; you were dear friends and even brothers to me; and even now I mourn your passing. But I will carry you're memory for the rest of my life De Oppresso Liber my friends: the Liberators Army honors you both

Monstarules with more followup comics!

IVAN PASSED AWAY. UBIQUITOUS IS ALSO GONE. WE ARE POURING OUT 40s AND STUFF IN THE HONOUR OF OUR FRIENDS WHO ARE NO LONGER IN THIS REALM. I DID NOT GET TO SEE BEARDLESS UBIQUITOUS. RIP KEVAN SANTOS AND RIP ISAAC MCCLAINE.

Football_Camp_Final.pdn

Monstarules' newest comic, released today!

Recaps from Monstarules' Task Force 100:

Rayranaldo's Demon Empire: as the demonic Emperor plans his army to merge out of the ground he first gather his subordinates and told his plan. Demonic Emperor: Demon kings, queens, and lords as you know I am your emperor and do not despise my plan of action. We will gather humans, experiment on them to become our loyal monster, I also want all of the demon beast to be tamed and at my command. We will start with the Dezminos Spiders. Tamed them and the rest of the demon beast will follow. Got it? Demon kings, queens, lords: yes your highness Note: demon kings/queens and lords are demon ranking. Kings/queens are at the second rank, meaning they are the one next to the heir of being the Demonic Emperor.

Captain Neko's United Bakkefolk comics: