There were times I felt pretty dirty doing what they asked of me in order to close more sales.

So many companies! Back when I worked Arclight, it was a small bit of subtle manipulation: “would you like to turn that to a large for only an additional 40¢?”

I hated it, because I knew the purpose was to pressure people into buying more than they wanted.

Thankfully, the place was run like the Trump Administration, so no one really knew how consistently the company’s stupid mind games were being deployed against our guests.

But anyways! Yeah. Feeling dirty is pretty reasonable. The things we do for rent money…

This guy was a real asshole on top of it all, and he was trying to pull it off on my watch, so, no regrets on shutting him down.

What’s with that, anyways? Why aren’t real-life thieves more like charismatic, charitable Robin Hoods?

I’m really glad someone out there is costing these companies money.

So many times it’s AT&T and Verizon selling you an “insurance plan” for your phone that still requires you to pay $99-$300 if you actuality need your phone replaced. That’s objectively worse than no “insurance”.

Maybe I’d feel differently about it if I had that pro-capitalist “your loss is my gain” mindset… and also owned shares in AT&T. But being a human capable of empathy and humanity, AT&T and Verizon just disgust me.

I’m glad I could help.

Have you played Supreme Commander? It’s basically a simplified Supreme Commander.

You gather credits by building extractors, and extractors can only be put on resource deposits, so your aim is to control those deposits.

But where SupCom 2 has mass, energy, and research, Rusted Warfare has only credits.

What I look for

When I play RTS games, it’s almost-exclusively:

• co-op against the AI
• with teammates
  • ^^ teammates who don’t spend time practicing RTS skills

So I’m looking for very specific things in a game. So far, of the games I’ve played, Rusted Warfare is top three when it comes to those things. (The other two in my top 3 are Age of Empires 3 and Nemesis of the Roman Empire (aka Celtic Kings 2)).

It got into my top three by being strong in the following areas:

Simplicity

Rusted Warfare is simple enough that my teammates can follow my requests without needing to train and practice on their own.

For instance, I can advise my teammates, “upgrade your extractors” and they can follow my advice without requiring a tutorial on resource management and energy shortages.

For comparison, in Supreme Commander (the franchise that was very clearly the inspiration for this game), trying to upgrade your extractor without sufficient knowledge on energy shortages can lead to choking out your entire economy.

Bull-headed AI

This is the most important thing I look for in casual co-op RTS.

In most RTS games, if the AI has 100 units? They are now attacking you on 100 different fronts. And focusing on any one front will deliver you losses at the other 99. It’s a game of whack-a-mole where you are punished for every mole you miss.

I know I said Age of Empires 3 is in my top three, but Age of Empires 2? Exhausting, excrutiating, and infuriating. It’s basically impossible to enjoy playing against the AI.

Same goes for Company of Heroes. I have broken a clavicle and wrist, and I can tell you without hesitation that playing against the AI in Company of Heroes is several times more painful than breaking bones.

Some people like that in a game. I do not.

Rusted Warfare, on the other hand, features an AI that mostly attacks you directly. Put a cluster of turrets between your base and theirs? You’re now battling 80% of their incursions. They’ll attack your flanks eventually, but you don’t have to divide your attention evenly between all 100 different locations. It’s almost like you and the AI are looking at the same place.

It’s rare to find an RTS game where you are allowed to enjoy yourself. Most punish anyone who drops below 200 actions per minute.

But in Rusted Warfare, you can just… play.

Progression

I have extraordinarily heavy ADHD (first percentile on impulse control and sustained focus). But as long as a game has the bare minimum of progression (upgrades, building tree, etc) then I don’t get bored and disengaged.

And Rusted Warfare has that. It’s got at least the bare minimum.

There’s always something for me to do: upgrade extractors, add turrets, build experimental factories, etc. And finishing this process does yield some pretty satisfying armadas… especially if I’m playing with mods.

In summary

I highly recommend it for casual co-op.

I grabbed Rusted Warfare RTS not long ago. It’s a real-time strategy game. $1.99 on the Google Play store.

Have you heard of DeVone Boggan and how he managed to reduce gun violence in Richmond, CA?

How does a nature-over-nurture person interpret the success of such a program?