I've already covered strategies for the civilizations that have been added or explicitly changed in the Brave New World expansion and its major fall (2013) patch. Now I'm going to move on to other legacy civilizations that have not had explicit changes, but who may have had their strategies significantly altered by the expansions and other updates. This time, I will be covering one civ that surprisingly does not benefit from Brave New World's new mechanics as much as one might think: the Roman Empire.

Rome is one of the most influential and heavily romanticized cultures of the classical world. The early Roman republic was a system of semi-democratic representational government. Power was divided between two consuls who were annually elected by the citizens and alternated as military leaders to check each others' ambitions, while an appointed body of senators directed foreign policy and enacted laws. The city gradually expanded its power and influence in the second half of the first millennium BC through the overwhelming success of its legionary forces and defeat of its primary rival Carthage, until it eventually came to control almost the entire Mediterranean. Rome itself became the center of government and commerce for most of Europe, and it established an elaborate network of roads, aqueducts, and other engineering feats.

The Roman government was generally very tolerant of foreign religions and cultures, which helped to pacify subjugated peoples. But as Rome became an empire, and its holdings expanded, this tolerance became a liability. Foreign peoples were allowed admittance into the army in order to secure Rome's ever-increasing borders, which lead to a decline in loyalty to Rome as the army became more diverse and less centralized. Eventually, generals would begin competing with each other for control of Rome and the title of emperor, weakening the empire from within and making it vulnerable to external threats such as immigrating Germanic tribes displaced by the Huns. Eventually, these threats would culminate in the sacking of Rome by the Visigothic leader Alaric in August of 410 AD, and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. However, the eastern half of the empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, would continue to carry the torch of Rome for another thousand years.

After the death of Julius Caesar, his adopted nephew and heir, Gaius Octavius, along with Marc Antony and Marcus Lepidus, tracked down and defeated Brutus, Cassius, and the other assassins who had conspired against Caesar. This new triumvirate quickly disintigrated into civil war, with Octavius decisively defeating both Lepidus and then Antony and holding sole authority over a new Roman Empire. He changed his name to Caesar in honor of his adopted uncle, and reinstated the Roman senate as a puppet facade government to legitimize his dictatorial leadership. He was extremely popular among the Roman citizens due to his relation to Julius, and was eventually honored with the title Augustus. He instituted numerous domestic reform including official police and fire-fighting services, engineering projects such as roads, and expanded the dominion of Rome in Africa, Hispania, and Germania. Octavius found Rome a city of bricks; Augustus left it a city of marble, and the envy of the western world.

I've already covered strategies for the civilizations that have been added or explicitly changed in the Brave New World expansion and its major fall (2013) patch. Now I'm going to move on to other legacy civilizations that have not had explicit changes, but who may have had their strategies significantly altered by the expansions and other updates. The first such civilization that I am going to tackle is one that has been requested from readers on at least several occasions. So, by popular request, here is a strategy for Sultan Suleiman's Ottoman Empire.

The rise of the Ottoman empire coincided with the fall of the Byzantine empire that started in the late thirteenth century. Turkish immigrants lead by Osman I took control of a region of Anatolia and Osman declared himself the first Sultan of a new Islamic empire. The fledgling empire quickly began a cycle of conflicts with the Byzantine empire that culminated in the capture of Constantinople, which the Ottomans renamed Istanbul and made their imperial capital. With control of the valuable ports of Istanbul that linked the Mediterranean with the Black Sea, the Ottoman empire rapidly became a dominant force in the Middle East and Europe.

Sultan Suleiman The Magnificent ruled the Ottoman empire during the height of its power in the sixteenth century. His fleets dominated the seas of the Mediterranean - and extended its influence all the way to India and Indonesia - thanks in part to the successes of Hayreddin Barbarossa, who captured numerous ships on his way to becoming the Ottoman fleet admiral. In addition to military successes, Suleiman also personally initiated a series of sweeping social and legal reforms that contributed to the flourishing of the Ottoman arts and economy.

The Ottoman Empire would eventually become one of the most significant casualties of World War I. The empire was already starting to succumb to the stresses of internal strife and a weakening economy. Their defeat in World War I basically dissolved the Ottoman empire, and what was left of its holdings became the modern nation of Turkey.

A couple weeks ago, I published some basic tips for playing Bloodborne. That post focuses mostly on the major mechanical differences between Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and how your strategies and tactics should be adjusted to compensate.

In this post, I'm going to go a little bit more in-depth into some of the game's features in order to provide some more advanced strategies and tips that will become useful for players as they progress deeper into the game. As before, these will be general tips. I will not focus on tactics for defeating specific enemies, bosses, or levels. I invite you to view any number of walkthroughs, strategy guides, and let's plays scattered around the internet if you're interested in how to beat a certain part of the game.

But if you know any general tips that I missed, feel free to post a comment!

Trying to find your blood echoes after dying can be annoying in Bloodborne. This is because it isn't in a predictable location every time. Sometimes it will be held by a specific enemy that you have to kill in order to retrieve the blood echoes. Other times it will just be dropped on the ground near where you died. This does make the game a bit more challenging, since you usually have to defeat an enemy in order to regain you echoes, rather than just sprinting through the level to pick them up like you could in Dark Souls.

Look for the enemy with the glowy, purple eyes. It won't necessarily be the same enemy that killed you.

If the blood echoes are held by an enemy, that enemy's eyes will glow with a bright purple-ish energy. But the enemy that holds the blood echoes is not necessarily the same enemy that killed you. The echoes could be given to the closest enemy. When attempting to retrieve your echoes, try to do some recon of an area to find out which enemy has your blood echoes. If you're lucky, it may be an enemy that is easier to get to ...

Bloodborne is finally out, and so it was finally time to bite the bullet and buy a PS4. This is the first - and so far only - game that makes me want a PS4. Sure, there are other games that I want to play (Shadow of Mordor, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, to name a few), but they are all also on PC and Steam, and probably look and run better on the PC. So I had very little incentive to purchase a PS4 up till now, and only needed to temporarily borrow a friend's in order to see if the new Madden was worth anything and to play the exciting P.T. demo that may not be so exciting anymore. Shucks...

Anyway, I've been playing Bloodborne, and it's been quite an adjustment from Dark Souls (much more than the adjustment from Demon's Souls to Dark Souls). As such, I've compiled a short list of tips to help new players and experienced Dark Souls veterans to keep alive in Bloodborne:

I apologize in advance for the poor quality of some of the screenshots that I am including. I had some local network issues during my first playthrough and had to broadcast to Twitch using reduced quality...

Continuing my series of strategy posts about Brave New World's modified civilizations, I'm going to take a look at strategies for George Washington's America. Since Brave New World's Fall patch (2013) America's ability was buffed and its unique unit now allows it to generate more late-game golden ages.

The lands of North America have been occupied by various native tribes for thousands of years, but these tribes lived in relative isolation from the rest of the world, except (possibly) for a brief period of interaction with the Danish Vikings. After Christopher Columbus landed in Haiti in the late 15th century, a flurry of explorers and colonists primarily from Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands began arriving in North America, rapidly exploring and settling the continent. These colonists gradually displaced the native inhabitants, including the Iroquois and the Shoshone. But conflict between the colonies and their European masters (primarily Britain) eventually culminated in a revolutionary war in which the colonists retreated to the countryside, and used guerrilla tactics to defeat the British and establish the United States of America.

Despite being founded on the principles of "equality" and "inalienable rights", the early history of the United States is dominated by tension between its slave-holding and free populations. These tensions eventually culminated in the outbreak of the American Civil War, which resulted in more American casualties than the Revolutionary War, both World Wars, and the Vietnam War. Combined. Union victory established America as a modern industrial nation with a singular identity, and Americans stopped referring to the country as "These United States", and began calling it "The United States". This war is also significant in world history because it is the first major war in which industrial technologies such as the machine gun, telegraph, railroad, steam-powered ironclad ships, and (probably most significantly) photography were used to large effect, which changed the way that future wars would be fought and the way that they would be perceived by the public. And it was one of the first major wars to employ new urban fighting tactics that would become the basis of combat for the wars of the 20th century. America would play a pivotal role in those 20th century wars as well, and would emerge from them as a dominant global super power.

George Washington was a colonial general who lead the British colonies in America in wars against the French and various Native American tribes. When the colonies declared independence, Washington became one of the premiere generals for the new colonial militia. Knowing that they could not defeat the British in conflict in the cities or open field, Washington and the other colonial leaders gave the cities to the British and retreated to the hills and forests of the countryside. Here, they successfully employed large-scale guerrilla tactics that weakened the British supply lines and culminated in American victory. Washington would then become the country's first President and set several precedents, such as the idea that the President would be a civilian position (as he refused to wear his military uniform while in office), and that the President should step down after two terms.