Carl's Strategy Guides

Current Project: God of War

I immediately jumped into God of War because it was one of my favorite franchises (I played the original trilogy). The game has changed massively, but in a good way. It's not quite open world, but there's much more exploration and lore, along with a big boost to storytelling quality in the newest title. I've got tons of notes and screenshots of my journey to go through, but started with a God of War Tips Page.

Latest Guides

Atreus Combat Guide (Early Game) - Making the Most of The Boy in Combat

Stats: Strength, Runic, Defense, Vitality, Luck and Cooldown

Stats Tips for Making a Build

Status Effects - Permafrost, Immolation, Shock, etc.

Niflheim - Ivaldi's Workshop and Mist Echoes



No Man's Sky

My No Man's Sky Guide is quite out of date, though I may return to it as they've heavily improved the game:

Walkthrough: Repairing the Ship to Leave the First Planet

Walkthrough: Traveling to Other Stars in No Man's Sky

Ships in No Man's Sky - An overview of all you need to know.

Money - How to make it, crafting profits etc.

Mining in No Man's Sky - Tips and Best Practices for Finding Metals

Multi-tool: Mining, Weapons, and Scanners

Antimatter, Electron Vapor, Suspension Fluid, and Warp Cell Crafting

Atlaspass V1 and the Priest Choices inside Atlas Path Anomalies

Finding AtlasPass V2 and V3 in No Man's Sky

Finding Trading Posts using lines from space stations (Trade Routes)

How to Buy a Better Ship with more Inventory

Inventory Upgrades for the Suit and Ships. Carry more Items!

Scanning Plants and Animals for Credits

Signal Scanners, Beacons, Monoliths, and Finding Crashed Ships

Survival: Elements to Carry to Recharge Gear When Exploring

Controls for No Man's Sky on Playstation 4 and PC with Xbox Controller

Sentinels and Wanted Level 5 (Max)

Stardew Valley

I've been writing on the indie RPG Stardew Valley, beginning with guides to Farming, Fishing, Foraging, Mining, and how you gain skill experience and level up those various skills.

I've also written guides to help you to pick between two Professions at level 5 and 10 in a skill, know the items to keep for Community Center Bundles, teach you to fish, or use bait and tackle. For your smelting needs, I've also written on how to find Copper and smelt it into copper bars. I've fallen in love with this game and plan to write as much as I can about its systems. Soon enough it'll be out for Xbox and PS4! Here are other new pages:



Skills in Stardew Valley

Giving Gifts to Raise Villager Relationships & Marriage

Caring for Cows and Getting Milk

How Grandpa Scores at End of Stardew Valley

The Skull Key & Skull Cavern - Accessing the harder dungeon for Iridium

Planting Trees - Farming Fruit and Using Tappers - includes pictures to help you tell normal trees apart.

Tools, Upgrades, and Effects - How and when to upgrade your tools, and what they do.

The Desert - Unlocking via vault bundles

Stardew Valley Tips & Help Basic beginner information that provides handy advice

Things to Do During Winter - for when you can't grow crops and still want to make money.

Crops to Grow - Lists the crops you will want to grow each season in order to complete bundles.

Crop Prices - The most profitable plants to grow

I've started coverage of Fallout 4, with plans to do a much better job staying on top of DLC than I did with Fallout 3. I also plan to go deeper with my information so as to be more helpful for future readers. I do NOT plan to make a walkthrough for the game, but may occasionally cover quests. I believe a lot of that is up to the player. I'm fascinated by its gameplay elements so am more focused on making guides to help players find Bobbleheads, analyze Perks, SPECIAL Stats, the game's Settlements system, weapons, and other aspects of gameplay. The site is now 60+ pages of pure content, so I've already outdone my past effort on Fallout 3 with plans to write more.

The guide is ever-evolving just like my other projects. It's fully usable now, but will improve over time as more information is clarified and I learn more about the game. You can contact me if you'd like to share a tip!

My Terraria Guide focuses on gameplay and how to get specific, desireable items. My walkthrough portion highlights a lot of little strategies that can help a player progress past the Wall of Flesh, into hard mode, and one day conquer the Moon Lord. Here are the most popular areas of the site:

Progression Walkthrough

Bosses - guides to defeating all of the game's bosses.

Moon Lord - defeating the hardest boss

Hard Mode - guide to getting started in hard.

Money - making money in Terraria

Gameplay Tips

Getting Wings so that you can fly in Terraria

Crafting a Terra Blade

Mining in Terraria - general advice for efficiency's sake.

Farming Plants for Potions - you'll want to do this before hard mode if you're an average player.

Civilization 5 Strategy

I've written a huge Civ 5 strategy guide which features information on all major gameplay mechanics, how they work, and how you can exploit them in this grand 4x strategy game. The most popular guides for this game are:

Civs & Leader Bonuses

Science

Happiness

Spies

World Congress

Victory Conditions

Diplomacy

Cities

Social Policies

City States

Science Victory

Skyrim Guide

My Skyrim Guide is about 40 pages and features information on all of the skills and perks within the game. Tutorials and explanations for most gameplay concepts are offered. It's less about quests and spoilers and more about how to use the game's systems to your advantage.

You'll find guides about:

Combat Skills

Archery - Snipe enemies from afar. Synergy with stealth.

Heavy Armor - High damage resistance

One Handed Weapons - for sword and shield or dual wield

Smithing - upgrade your gear!



Magic Skills

Conjuration - summon monsters to help you fight.

Destruction - deal magic damage to opponents.

Enchanting - Learn to enhance gear with magical effects.

Restoration - curative spells to aid in combat



Stealth Skills

Alchemy and Plants - for a handy boost or huge money

Lockpicking - get through locks for shortcuts and loot

Pickpocket - steal from NPCs and line your own pockets

Sneak & Stealth - deal massive damage and avoid combat



Gameplay Guides

Dragons

Cheats

Guilds

Perks

Races

Fallout 4 Guide

My Fallout 4 Guide is one of my most extensive. It covers every perk in the game, the Automatron and Far Harbor DLC, and offers advice without spoiling anything in the game. If you end up on a quest page, you'll generally find that it lacks plot details so that you can enjoy the game for yourself. I'm just there to help explain how things work to new players and how you can make a powerful build.

Fallout 3

Fallout 3 Bobblehead Locations

Fallout 3 Guide and Quest Walkthroughs

Cheats

Sims 3 Cheats

Sims 4 Cheats



Miscellaneous Blogs

Gifting a Game Through Origin: Workarounds

Make Twitter Show Newest Tweets First Ghosting: Breakups by Disappearing

Overcoming Jealousy for a Healthy Relationship

Climate Change and Global Warming Information

How long have we known about Global Warming?

What Will Happen if Climate Changes?

How Do We Know the Climate's Changing?



Links

Realm of Gaming: Game Reviews and News

VGCollect - a Video Game Database to help track your collection

Variety Reading: Inspirational Articles

Touching Stories

