Much like how the previous The Heat Is On DLC changed the game by adding magma underground and letting you use it to grow gas pockets or convert oil pockets into gas pockets, Deeper Underground changes the game again by removing gas and adding water pockets that can be found. With some upgrades, drilling from a water pocket makes the process faster and cheaper, but its main purpose is combining with oil to refine into petrol in the new refinery that your oil storage tanks can be upgraded to. Left and Right Inc can be switched between buying oil and buying petrol; so far I've always seen there be more oil than water on a level so you'll still need to be selling oil, but you want to be making as much petrol as possible since it sells for a lot more (and has its own sinusoidal price fluctuations). One other change is that you no longer need an upgrade to drill through rock – you can do it from the start – but it now costs extra money while you're drilling through it.

Then, every so many levels, you get to try drilling as deep as you can on a fixed budget, which requires careful use of water-assisted drilling and figuring out the most efficient route around rocks with the limited information moles provide (scans being generally too expensive to use much in this mode). There's no time limit on these levels (they go until you run out of money or reach a pre-determined depth limit), which makes them a first for the game and a bit of a slower-paced challenge for when you need a breather after balancing all the various systems in the normal levels.

Overall I'm quite enjoying it, and I like that all three campaigns are playable (base game + 2 DLC), and that each is its own thing with unique strategies required to beat it.

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In some ways this is about as close to the perfect game for me as I think is possible: it's basically managing a whole bunch of linked differential equations (with all the various fluid throughputs and processes), but in real-time and with very few actual numbers, so there's no way you could actually calculate things numerically and it's all about doing fast-paced intuitive calculus to make judgement calls on when and where to do things in order to maximize your score (net income) at the end of each level. The first DLC was a nice surprise when it came along (as was the free addition of an asynchronous multiplayer mode), and with how much fun I got out of it I'm looking forward to this one quite a bit.

One fly in the ointment is that I did have to switch to Proton Experimental to get the game to run after the update, something I've never had to bother with before. It seems to work, at least (I haven't had time actually play yet).

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Wow, the I Am Bread + Stray crossover we didn't know we needed!

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Battle Thralls! And we can already make Fallow Slaves with the Global Pacifier colossus. Maybe it's time for an Ur-Quan run…

That change to how planetary resource deposits works sounds goods, once I finally untangled it. And now I kinda want to make a storm-chaser civilization, set all the storm limits to max, and watch the galactic chaos unfold.

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Quoting: nullzero

Quoting: JarmerA game I have had wish-listed for forever just released to 1.0 just in time for this fest! I highly recommend you try it out if you're a fan of the genre.

Starcom Unknown Space:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1750770/Starcom_Unknown_Space/

Interested!

Found about that one in this steam fest and looks cool as I didn't play/knew the previous one. I also see another game with cult following, Starsector, which seems to be referenced every other review and which I never knew about.

This last one is not in steam, but it has modding and apparently linux versions too.

I've now ended up checking out both of these and will probably end up getting at least one if not both. Thanks.

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Interesting…as an astrophysicist, I might have to check this out. Oh, it has a demo? OK, I'll definitely give that a try.

QuoteSoundtrack composed by Yann Van Der Cruyssen (Stray, Cave Story).

That's a selling point for me! Though they didn't mention his best work, Seasons After Fall, where he wrote an incredible soundtrack using solely a string quartet with lots of expanded technique. (It's on sale right now for like $1.50 if you like 2D platformer-puzzle games with great music.)

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I'm intrigued. The movement controls shown at the beginning remind me of when you get randomly polymorphed into a worm in Noita.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyI notice it says "Linux and Windows" (but not Mac). I think there's going to be gradually more of that over time.

I remember first seeing that maybe a few years ago, and thinking "Ah, it's finally happening…" And then I was looking at Steam just now, and noticed a bunch of Valve's games have that too: TF2, Portal 2, etc.

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Can report that Star Wars: Bounty Hunter works perfectly on the Deck.

It unfortunately does not run at all on my desktop, however, which is where I wanted to play it. It did remind me that it's actually been years since I last bought a Windows-only game that didn't "just work" with Proton, so overall things are pretty good.

I also picked up Tactical Breach Wizards which I really enjoyed the demo of and looks to be a great Deck game, just haven't started it yet.

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Are there any potential complications/consequences for setting vm.max_map_count higher, or is this a set-it-and-forget-it sort of change?

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Quoting: rambo919now the current fad is no civilization is actually inherently distinct from any other

But…they specifically still are distinct? Leaders get bonuses, and civilizations have unique units/buildings/etc., so mixing and matching them allows for interesting gameplay combinations.

Quoting: rambo919you can take up a new civ with every age as if changing your clothes

This is a lot more historical, actually, given how most "civilizations" don't really survive more than a few hundred years before morphing into a different form or being absorbed into another one*. It's the "The USA popped into existence in 4000 BC and has existed unchanged ever since guided by the immortal Abraham Lincoln" take from previous entries in the franchise that makes zero historical sense.

It might be a bit too revolutionary for Firaxis to have civilizations restricted to certain eras, but it sure would be an interesting mechanic!

*China might be a rare exception, depending on how you feel about things like the Warring States period or the various dynasties founded by nomadic peoples from the north.

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