Barry's Bar

[Pericles of Athens]

Congratulations on your graduation! I've heard that a major is usually the best path forward to a history student without a teaching degree - unless you'd consider going to law school?

Spain was unfortunately a little beyond my reach this time. I only could afford a second trip to England because family friends took me in and covered all of my housing and food for the week. I hope to come back again some day though!

My parents are pushing for law. Truthfully I have no idea no idea what I’m trying to do, which is making the job search.. problematic. But things will work out eventually I’m certain.

You must, if/when you return to Europe. The north is filled with natural and manmade Beaty, and the people are gorgeous like myself. Madrid is nice too, and the south has some lovely beaches and Islamic architecture. You’ll also find more Roman ruins in good condition in Spain than you will in Italy, surprisingly enough.

['Gunny]

I am allegedly still alive.

[Dan the Man]

My parents are pushing for law. Truthfully I have no idea no idea what I’m trying to do, which is making the job search.. problematic. But things will work out eventually I’m certain.

You must, if/when you return to Europe. The north is filled with natural and manmade Beaty, and the people are gorgeous like myself. Madrid is nice too, and the south has some lovely beaches and Islamic architecture. You’ll also find more Roman ruins in good condition in Spain than you will in Italy, surprisingly enough.

Hopefully less touristic than the ones in Rome too. I actually found Rome rather difficult to enjoy because of all of the obnoxious hawkers standing around trying to sell you scammy "skip the line" tickets or crappy souvenirs in front of every important landmark. I'd heard bad things about Paris when it came to scammers, but Rome was so much worse!

I am allegedly still alive.

Rumors of Gunny's death have been greatly exaggerated!

[Barry Goldwater]

Hopefully less touristic than the ones in Rome too. I actually found Rome rather difficult to enjoy because of all of the obnoxious hawkers standing around trying to sell you scammy "skip the line" tickets or crappy souvenirs in front of every important landmark. I'd heard bad things about Paris when it came to scammers, but Rome was so much worse!


Rumors of Gunny's death have been greatly exaggerated!

Rome's probably the worst European city I've been to when it comes to scammers and ridiculous rip-offs. The last time I was there some guy tried to slip a bracelet onto one of my friends' wrist and demanded payment for it. And the cafes & restaurants put out incredibly expensive food that, at least IMO, was at best okay - it's like as soon as they detect you're a tourist, they immediately start jacking up their prices and expect you'll be too dumb to realize what's happening. At least I never ran into any €64 ice cream though

Also, hey Gunny!

[Xion]

Still lurking around.

[Dan the Man]

Rome's probably the worst European city I've been to when it comes to scammers and ridiculous rip-offs. The last time I was there some guy tried to slip a bracelet onto one of my friends' wrist and demanded payment for it. And the cafes & restaurants put out incredibly expensive food that, at least IMO, was at best okay - it's like as soon as they detect you're a tourist, they immediately start jacking up their prices and expect you'll be too dumb to realize what's happening. At least I never ran into any €64 ice cream though

Also, hey Gunny!

Yeah, we saw the bracelet thing happen to a few tourists. Had one guy with a fistful of them motion towards us and try to get us to come over, but we just ignored him. We got really lucky because we met an Irish guy on the train in from the airport on our first night, who was a very experienced traveler. He took the time to show us a restaurant he liked and where he knew the owners. We had just met him so I was worried he was trying to pull one over on us, get a nice meal and then head for the hills, but he actually paid for the whole thing himself. He warned us about how the real scammers work as well. We tried to stay away from the touristic areas for getting food and actually made out pretty alright in the end. Having a European student ID is also very helpful for getting into attractions at a more bearable cost. Found gelato for 2 euros a scoop, too. Definitely beats 64!

For the first day or so when the "skip the line" people would start bothering us I'd answer them in the very limited Croatian I managed to pick up in Dubrovnik, but after a while that stopped being fun and I started to just pretend they weren't there until they went away. Probably the funniest scammers we saw were guys who were "painting" and selling pictures of some of the most famous landmarks. If you looked closely you could tell that they were just pictures with a watercolor filter photoshopped on. The brushes they were pretending to paint them with weren't even wet.

Augustus must surely be rolling in his grave.

[Kip]

Nice to read updates from everyone. Glad everyone is doing well!

[Dan the Man]

Hey Kip (belatedly)! How have you been doing?

[Kreigsmarine]

Um... hi! I’m Krieg on the discord, and I figured this might be a good place for a new person to stop by.

[Barry Goldwater]

Hey there! This is Child of Light from the Discord. Welcome to our community, as old and often inactive as it might be these days.

[Kreigsmarine]

Oh hi there! It honestly seems like a nice set of forums, and I look forward to doing things here!

[chesser2538]

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.


As per tradition.

[Barry Goldwater]

Likewise, I wish a merry belated Christmas to any IHer I wasn't able to address on Discord last night

[Dan the Man]

Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

['Gunny]

No u

[Kip]

Hello old friends! I’m returning from a deep hibernation looking for advice.

For the first time in what feels like 10 years, I own a computer that can run programs more advanced than Word. The last Total War title I played was Napoleon. Which titles should I buy in the Steam sale?

[Barry Goldwater]

Hello old friends! I’m returning from a deep hibernation looking for advice.

For the first time in what feels like 10 years, I own a computer that can run programs more advanced than Word. The last Total War title I played was Napoleon. Which titles should I buy in the Steam sale?

Heya Kip

Definitely at least get Shogun 2, if you get nothing else. It's the best Warscape Total War title to have come out, IMO. Total War: Warhammer is also pretty good, but a bit more expensive, and of course not something you should get if you don't like the Warhammer Fantasy setting.

[Xion]

Hello Kip!

I have to agree with Barry's recommendation, besides that, I would recommend Rome II if you are not interested in Warhammer. It's become a decent game and has some good mods to enhance it.

[Kip]

Thanks for the advice, guys! I wound up getting in on Warhammer and the expansion, and I'm already more hours in than I care to say! Now that the Steam Sale is winding down I'm tempted to grab a couple more titles to save for later, though I keep flashing back to memes about endless Steam Libraries that I finally can empathize with...

[Dave Strider]

Hey Kip, missed your posts by a month or two lol. Can definitely recommend the Warhammers as very good quality games, I also personally quite like Attila for its aesthetic and survival-oriented gameplay, though it does have its optimization issues. If you're looking for other games with a similar feel, I'd also recommend Ultimate General: Civil War - it's very Total War-like and has a campaign with persistent units that you equip and maintain and bring from battle to battle, and the battles are very well done and intense.

Also, nice to hear from you again in general buddy. Consider joining the Discord maybe, I have a blast on there. As I'm sure Barry and others can attest.