u/erythemanodosum

I'm new to Pokemon Go and have been trying to rank up in PvP. I didn't read up on strategies beforehand and have done some absolutely godawful stupid things. I didn't realize that having low attack on your IVs was important, at least not before spending a bunch of candies and stardust to power them up and learn second moves.

My biggest brainfart was to use an Elite Charged TM, which I didn't know could actually teach you moves that aren't otherwise available, to teach my R2500 Swampert Sludge Wave because I thought it would be interesting to try out that move.

I only learned this today because I finally got a R7 Umbreon and only AFTER spending 75 candies and 50k Stardust to learn a second move do I learn that Last Resort needs an Elite Charged TM to learn.

So I've decided to ask for help before doing anything else braindead - is it worth spending an Elite Charged TM on Last Resort, now that I've already spent the money?

My current team is a R1000 Fearow, a R1289 Stunfisk and a R129 Thievul (with Icy Wind). Considering switching Thievul for an Umbreon with Last Resort for more bulk, otherwise with only dark moves available I fear it's a one trick pony who will get slapped by Tinkaton and Azumarill.

I played the original Rome Total War as a kid, so trying out the mobile version was a no-brainer for me. I never actually played Barbarian Invasion on PC, so it was a new experience to me when I tried it on mobile.

The TL;DR version is that the mobile port of Rome Total War is excellent, and way better than I thought it would be. Barbarian Invasion was a letdown.

Long version:

The controls do take some time getting used to, and there will be some frustrating moments during battles, as unit selection can be especially janky. But with liberal use of the pause button this isn't a big issue. Other than that it's very easy to navigate the game.

The game runs smoothly and auto-saves your progress regardless of whether you actually manually saved or not. I cannot stress how much this helps a mobile game. Playing a mobile game you'll often find yourself having to close the game in a matter of seconds, and not having to manually save every time just makes life a lot easier. Be aware that reloading ongoing battles can result in you opening up a battle where units are in completely different positions or even wiped out altogether.

The original Rome Total War is just as I remembered it, and is an enjoyable experience. It holds surprisingly well with age!

Now on to Barbarian Invasion, which I've never played before:

The main difference is that you start in medias res where you already have developed cities, armies and roads, and you have to fight against other established empires and invading hordes.

Some new game mechanics are religion and the fact that some units can swim. Both of these additions are very underwhelming, religion is just a percentage stat and mostly an annoyance. Swimming is super janky and if units are stuck too long in a river they'll start drowning with no warning beforehand.

Being a Total War Veteran I decided to go straight for a Very Hard WRE campaign (with Medium Battle Difficulty as I hate spamming missiles and struggling vs enemy Peasants).

I hate to say it, but I was very disappointed. I was expecting to manage constant rebellions while desperately fending off Barbarian hordes, maybe with some help from my Eastern Roman buddies as we defend the Roman world.

I was managing rebellions, sure, and having an actual Rebel WRE Faction was kind of neat. But rebellions are easily cheesed by deconstructing military buildings, so by the first 5-10 turns my Empire was more or less in control. The faction members for the WRE are often hilariously incompetent, and moving the -80% tax income and -6 law generals out of their settlements went a long way. Samaritan Auxilia are also completely cracked and carried my armies to victory after victory.

I was then ready to prepare myself for the coming Barbarian apocalypse. What happens instead? My Eastern Roman buddies attack me for no reason within turn 5 and invade my eastern settlements. The Barbarian Hordes, when they eventually arrive, consist of enemy doomstacks controlled by a drunk AI who aimlessly wanders around with them. If they do capture a settlement, instead of settling they create a Rebel settlement and keep wandering. They are at most a nuisance and never a real threat. They are easily annihilated by camping a relatively strong army on a bridge and waiting for them to attack you one by one (they never attack you with all armies at once).

So the main enemy for the WRE Faction quickly becomes the ERE faction. Any attempts at making peace results in the ERE faction backstabbing you within 1-2 turns. This makes it too similar to the original RTW, where the Civil War is the main late game antagonist for a Roman Faction.

I tried ERE as well which was very easy, and even then the beleaguered WRE fighting both rebellions and barbarian invasions go out of their way to immediately break our alliance and declare war on me. I even tried a Romano-British campaign where I focused on the Barbarian tribes, but 2 turns after making an Alliance with WRE they backstabbed me.

It seems that WRE and ERE are hardcoded to be assholes. Sometimes, they will even propose a ceasefire and an alliance just to declare war on me again the next turn.

I really wanted to experience desperately fighting to preserve the Roman Empire against enemy invasions, not "Roman Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo".

Another super annoying mechanic is the "A People in Flight" event. If you defeat an enemy barbarian faction, once you capture their last tiny town that you are instantly surrounded by a massive enemy doomstack that as per usual starts wandering aimlessly around the map and has to be defeated to the last family member to finally get some peace. Who the hell came up with this?

All in all, I'll conclude with the following ratings:

Playability on Mobile: 9/10

Original RTW: 8/10

RTW: BI: 4/10

I've loved all the books in the DCC series, but I think A Parade of Horribles might be the best in the series so far. Not just because how entertaining especially the second half of the book is, but because of how well Matt Dinniman has streamlined the story.

The reason I'm impressed is how Book 7 ended. It was well written and entertaining, don't get me wrong, but hoooo boy were there a lot of subplots, unresolved questions and general chaos at the end. I was worried Matt was going to make the same mistake as George R.R. Martin, which is making the series too complicated to resolve in a satisfying and logical way.

Instead, the plot at the end of book 8 (while still chaotic) is engaging while also being quite easy to understand. Matt knows how to use the game system and the AI as narrative tools, and somehow makes >!"Carl's suicidal plan No.xx, as always not explained to the reader beforehand"!< not seem repetitive or overdone. The ending had me rolling in laughter - I expected the unexpected, but >!turning the world-ending, literal symbol of death and final boss of the dungeon into a sexy level 1 crawler madly in love with Carl!< was not on my bingo card.

Can't wait for book 9!