Dec05

SH54 …And Settle Their Hash

by Rindis on December 5, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

Back in August Patch and I played the next Y161 scenario, “…And Settle Their Hash”. A Kzinti squadron is performing drone bombardment when a Klingon squadron arrives to spoil the fun. The Klingon ships are much heavier, but with 18 drone launchers on three ships, there’s a lot of free firepower for the Kzinti. The cost is they’re loaded with all Type-IIIXX drones, which are two spaces, and so will run dry fast if just thrown out as fast as possible. I took the challenge of the undersized Kzintis, and played a little too conventionally.

The Kzintis set up in a line on the right side of the board, and can gain points by continuing the drone bombardment, i.e., launch drones ballistically in directions B or C, and they they get away. (They get 2 VP per such drone under Modified Victory Conditions.) The Klingons are on the left, just entering the (floating) map, but more paralleling the bombardment course than aimed right at the Kzintis.

Patch determined to close range with opening speeds from 21 (E4) to 28 (D7), while I went speed 24. I launched one set of bombardment drones on impulse 1, and a second set on 3. Even at these speeds he had not caught up to the drones by the end of the turn, and increased speeds to 27 (E4) to 30 (D7) while I stayed at 24 for turn 2. I turned across his path near the top of the turn, and launched a new set of bombardment drones on 10 while Patch started engaging the first two sets. On 16, the D7 turned towards me, with only one drone destroyed, while the F5 and E4 continued after them. On 22 I started turning off, but he turned in to pursue on 25, at which point I launched four drones at it. The D7 fired two disruptors for four damage to DF-77‘s #3 shield, and followed up with a drone launch on 26. The SDF had sensor channels powered, and turned off the tracking on the Klingon drone, while Patch destroyed a drone and damaged another with phasers.

Meanwhile, the other two ships cleaned up most of the rest of the first turn’s drones, and the E4 hit with a range 12 disruptor to do 2 damage to the SDF’s #1.


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Dec01

Prime Directive

by Rindis on December 1, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Prime Directive came out a bit after my primary era of reading Trek novels, money was tighter, and there were just too many coming out. But, it got a fairly good marketing push at the time, as one of the early (third, I think) hardcover novels. I have to say the current cover is much better than the original hardcover version.

So, we get a bit of a confused opening, as the action is over, and the crew of the Enterprise has been scattered in disgrace for a violation of the Prime Directive that ended in the disaster it was designed to prevent: a dead world. Most of the bridge crew has resigned, Uhura is under court martial, Bones hit an admiral… and the Enterprise is a wreck in orbit around a moon, with one warp engine having been ejected, and the other ruined and evaporating, possibly into subspace.

A common idea in SF for various FTL drives is that they can’t be used too close to the gravity field of a large body; either it’s impossible, or there is a great chance of something going wrong (like going to Pluto when you meant to go to the Moon, and your FTL drive disappearing in the process). Star Trek has been largely silent on the subject, implying that any such trouble is fairly minimal at most. But here its assumed that it’s not mentioned because everyone knows not to do it—and the Enterprise is now the first ship to survive the attempt.

Once the stage is set, we get an extended flashback to the mission that caused all this. This gives us a look at how the Federation works to obey its own Prime Directive while studying developing worlds. There’s some interesting bits showing how the inevitable slip-ups are generally accounted for. In fact, this section is generally well done, and would make a good, if not great, novel even without the tension of the coming disaster looming over it.

Star Trek at its non-philosophical best can deliver mysteries. Not necessarily murder mysteries, but related, where the plot and action are bent towards figuring out just what is really going on, what is our limited human viewpoint missing, and how to bring a solution to bear to what has been learned. The bulk of this novel is exactly this. Even before disaster, it is obvious that something is not right in the Talin system, and the desire to delve deeper helps the pages fly by.

A bit of expectation setting/trivia: The intro to the novel firmly says this is set during the final year of the original five-year mission. I was wondering, with all the dramatic career bits here, if it was intended to be the end of the mission and the reason for Enterprise‘s refit. No, an early novel claimed that bit of the timeline, and the Reeves-Stevens respect that claim. Current fan theory likes to instead place the novel a year earlier, and use it to explain some changes in the bridge crew and small differences in the bridge in The Animated Series.

The worst problem is that after the highly public nature of events depicted here, it’s hard to imagine everyone picking up right where they left off, set for another adventure without acknowledging this one. Outside of that, this is good, gripping Star Trek novel, and well recommended. At some point, I’m going to have to read Federation (which was the novel the authors originally pitched for this publication slot, but Paramount took years to be talked into it).

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Nov27

The Third Hundred Yards

by Rindis on November 27, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Jason came over on Sunday for some FtF gaming, and he brought over Last Hundred Yards again. He’d recently been in something of a rules argument that got him fairly heated, so this was a surprise, but he wanted to get back to the system with his better understanding of intent.

We started with the third scenario, “At Least It’s Quiet Here”, with me as the defending Americans. Even with the relatively small space, it is hard to think up a coherent defense with only four units (a platoon plus MG team). I set the MG up on the hill overlooking the church that was the victory goal. My major position was on the forward hill (G8/G9), and it was supported by the third squad in the D8 woods.

Jason came on in the center, and quickly started thinking he’d have done better to do an edge run (both sides have possibilities). But, lots of fire at low odds on both sides did nothing, and I was looking nervously at pulling back while the clock slowly wound down.

And I failed. Jason got up to G10, and I was planning on pulling out the squad, but hesitated, and decided to take the best shot the game had offered so far. And failed to do anything. Jason then got initiative and assaulted the hex, reducing the squad as it retreated out. Then the German mortar section hit my primary position, and I went over the very tight casualty limit and lost right there.

It was a good re-introduction to the system, but I knew the mistake I was making when I fired. In ASL, it would have been a 8 -2 shot that would be hard to pass up, but truly only not as big of a gamble because you almost never have a mere three squads to work with.


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Nov23

Armies of Castile and Aragon 1370–1516

by Rindis on November 23, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Osprey’s book on Castile and Aragon is really more about Trastamara rule, with Enrique II taking the throne of Castile in 1369 and the Hapsburg Charles II taking over Spain in 1516.

The beginning of this tale is familiar to many English-language history buffs, as it crosses over with the Hundred Years War. After that, not a lot of attention is paid until 1492 and the surrender of Granada allows for funding overseas adventures. As usual, there’s a good three-page chronology at the start to help place everything.

The Weaponry & Tactics section is brief, but introduces the important points, including vulnerability to English armies. This is best known for the battle of Nájera,  but lesser known is the battle of Aljubarrota, where Juan I Trastamara tried pressing a claim to Portugal and was defeated by a smaller force with plenty of English and Gascon veterans in it. Unfortunately, there’s little follow-up to this section, including how Iberian organization and tactics changed (or failed to) after this, though in the short term Juan refused any more set piece battles with English troops.

There’s a good couple of pages about sea power in the two kingdoms, a subject that hardly ever gets enough attention in this era. From there, we get a history of the campaigns from 1407-1444, which is mostly the Aragonese expansion into Sicily and Italy. This is also informative, if predictably a bit confusing (we are talking Italian politics here), especially as we get to see how the two areas tie together.

After that is a major section on the consolidation of Castile and Aragon, and of course the conquest of Granada. That section in particular was eye-opening, as it was logistically extremely difficult country, and the war was quite extended by the difficulties in campaigning there. The book then finishes up with further campaigning in Italy at the end of the Fifteenth Century.

This is much more of a ‘pocket history’ than the examination of the armies that the Men-At-Arms series is technically supposed to be. As such, it’s well-written and informative, but doesn’t really give much idea of what these campaigns might have looked like. Similarly, Gary Embleton’s color plates are decent, but nothing special. That said the plate descriptions are good, and there’s the usual plethora of photos of period artifacts, and art (all black-and-white this time, which is becoming less common in the series).

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Nov19

Lords of the Realm

by Rindis on November 19, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the eighth in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Crusader Kings II. See the previous reviews here:
Crusader Kings II: The Second Crusade
The Old Gods: That Old-Time Religion
Sons of Abraham: A Little of Everything
Rajas of India: My Elephant for a Kingdom
Charlemagne: Back in Time
Way of Life: The Short Way
Horse Lords: For the Horde

Paradox took a while while to announce the another CK II expansion after Horse Lords, but when they did, it turned out to be focused largely on the inner workings of the realm (while most expansions had been focused on expanding the scope of the game), and hoped to increase mid- to late-game challenge.

Conclave came out on January 1, 2016, alongside patch 2.5, which featured the same ability to log into your Paradox account from the launcher that had recently been introduced to EU IV.

Shattered Combat

Combat came in for a round of changes again. In this case, the number of casualties from each day of combat was reduced. This only has a moderate effect in modest realms as a multiplier was taken out that was causing what was considered excessive losses in huge armies. Overall, the plan was to make combat less decisive, so that one battle would not make the main army useless, and not decide a war completely on that basis.

To aid with this, shattered retreat was brought over from EU IV, so that a defeated army will automatically try to retreat some distance to somewhere ‘safe’, where it can regain morale. Also, an army in friendly territory will start regaining a few men every month, instead of them going to the appropriate muster/garrison.

Overall, the differences are somewhat subtle. The ability to rotate armies ‘home’ for some reinforcing is welcome, but outside of large realms (admittedly, this is more aimed at the experience of the Holy Roman Emperor), shattered retreat isn’t accompanied by the ‘blocking’ action of forts in EU IV, so its still not too hard to chase down a defeated army for another defeat, and so just makes the ‘ping ponging’ that Paradox was working to eliminate take longer.

Education

Children got a rework in the expansion. Normally, they had need of a guardian/educator at age 6, and were then with that character until something happens to him or until the child is considered an adult at 16, when he/she gets all their main traits. Along the way, the child had a chance of picking up traits from the guardian, as well as some form of the guardian’s education trait (and… could even pick up that character’s religion and culture).

With Conclave, childhood is in three parts (including the 0-5 pre-education phase which didn’t really change). In childhood (6-11), they get a focus (akin to the ones used in Way of Life), which determines what kind of (new, child-specific) traits they get. At age 12, they switch to an education focus, which will eventually turn into the education trait at 16.

A lot of the effect of the guardian is taken out, and you can’t really drift cultures and religions that way anymore. The childhood focus generally determines what childhood traits are likely, and those determine which educational focus will be the best fit, with poor fits causing lower-level traits, and good fits making high-level ones likely. Similarly, primary attribute growth is more directly tied to the parents’ base attributes, though the educator can intervene, if he has an appropriate trait and direct the child towards a positive, rather than negative trait.

There are ten childhood foci (two per attribute, just like the normal ones in WoL), all with their own likely traits, which then tend to turn into adult traits. So overall, it’s a much more robust and natural system. I’m not sure how much difference in attribute scores there tends to be between the two, but the results certainly feel more natural.

Diplomacy & Favors

The diplomatic system was overhauled, with marriages now creating non-aggression pacts, which can then lead to alliances. This requires good relations with the ally as well as… relations. Close relatives can also become allies, and while they are rarer, alliances can now automatically pull someone into a war, making them a bit more certain than in the past.

A version of EU IV’s coalitions showed up with the patch as well, though they were renamed defensive pacts in a patch to give a better idea of their purpose. Conquering land generates a threat value with everyone around you, and when it gets high they start entering defensive pacts with each other (this is almost a direct return of ‘badboy’ ratings from earlier EU games). If you go to war with one member, all the other members automatically go to war with you.

Threat does decline over time, and members of the pact will drop out again once threat gets low enough. But it’s not too hard for the pact to feel futile, as the defensive pact is still too small to deal with your expanding realm. But of course, taking land from them drives up threat, and the pact gets bigger….

And finally, the expansion introduced favors, akin to what had just appeared in EU IV: The Cossacks. However, there it was just a brake on using an alliance offensively, and here it’s a more full-featured system in keeping with the personal nature of the game. I find the favors are a little rarer in use than I’d like to see, but there are a number of ways to get one (including providing a hefty amount of cash, though that also requires that they like you). Once a character owes you a favor, you can use it to pressure them into certain actions, such as leaving a faction, or joining yours.

Council

The central feature of the expansion however was the council. Along with the original five positions that help with certain ‘realm scores’, and do tasks such as aiding research and diplomacy, the men in those positions are on the council, which can have little, or great effect, depending. Additionally, kings have an extra advisor seat on the council, and emperors have two.

A new faction goal is to increase the council’s power. The first step is to empower it as a potential decision-making body at all, and then there are seven types of things that can be made into a council decision, instead of the ruler’s, including declaring wars, granting titles, and so on. This is a new tab in the laws section, which got a general overhaul as part of this.

Whereas before council positions were generally a matter of appointing the most qualified person who liked you enough not to stab you in the back (quite literally for the spymaster), now your most powerful vassals expect to be on the council, and get very upset (making them more likely to plot against you, or join factions) if they are not. You can still ignore this, but since they are the powerful nobles, it’s not a group you can afford to have angry with you, even if they are all simpletons.

Once on the council, a character has an attitude that determines largely how they will vote. The three general attitudes are pragmatist (opposes challenging wars, and creating other strong vassals), glory hound (favors a strong realm and wars against stronger opponents), and zealot (favors enforcing his religion in the realm). Some may also be loyalists (who will generally follow the liege’s lead) and malcontents (will oppose anything the king wants that doesn’t grant him power).

All of this adds to the power tug-of-war that CK II has built in to its structure for some time. A relatively weak and unpopular king can be bullied into signing away much of his power to the council (largely through faction demands), limiting his (and his heir’s) options. On the other hand a council can be a way of approving a number of centralization options as the council gets a say in it. Not only can a well-respected king swing members of the council around, but favors can be used to get votes.

Conclusion

This is the second time CK II looked more internally than just expanding the scope of the game, and is very successful at it. Way of Life is a ‘take it or leave it’ expansion, that is generally good, but doesn’t necessarily add a lot to the game as a whole. Conclave is a great expansion of one of the core features that is important to every titled character, and does a good job with it.

I’m a little more iffy on the changes to combat in the patch, but it didn’t really break anything either. The overall changes to diplomacy are something of a wash… except that favors are also a big help to the council system. My biggest disappointment is that I feel the rework of childhood should have gone into the main game, rather than splitting it off into the expansion.

If you like CK II as a medieval drama generator (which is the main reason to like it), this expansion delivers more of that. This is the best ‘general use’ expansion, and short of wanting one of the “scope” features of another expansion, this would be a good first expansion to get.

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Nov15

A Song For Arbonne

by Rindis on November 15, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Once again, Guy Gavriel Kay does not disappoint. That said, the very beginning didn’t really grab me (especially the caper on Rian’s Island). But partway through chapter 3, Blaise, our main character, gets ambushed, and I was hooked for the rest of the novel.

This is a fantasy drawing deeply of southern France. The Court of Love rules here, and troubadours and joglars are what keep the Court vital. There is a god-goddess duo here which is much reflected in somewhat separate but equally important male and female characters of the novel. The nature of Corannos the god are not much gone into, but Rian’s, the goddess, power all emanates from an island in the southern sea. The world is much wider than we really get to see, Gorhaut being somewhat developed as the antithesis of Arbonne, and Portezza being an Italy-equivalent that a couple characters are from and the main character has spent time in, and other areas merely mentioned.

The novel is, as ever with Kay, well-paced, with the action working up to greater heights after every lull, and Blaise becoming more important in every lull. His centrality to events flows naturally as we learn more about him, and he takes to himself more responsibility.

There is a much wider cast of characters, many of which get to be viewpoint characters at one point or another. However, Lisset, the second-most prominent, seems a little undeserved as her progression doesn’t seem to mirror the novel’s like Blaise, even though she’s a vital viewpoint, and in the center of the distinctive artistic-centered culture Kay is presenting here.

And that just barely scratches the surface of an expansive novel. All of Kay’s books have enough going on to feel epic, and I think this one tops Tigana and Al-Rassan in that for me. Better yet, I have thought for a while that Occitian France needed more attention, and this makes a good primer on the subject.

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Nov11

Newfound Memory

by Rindis on November 11, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: MMO

So, we’re approaching the halfway point of the patch cycle between FF XIV: Endwalker and the next expansion. 6.25 came out a couple weeks ago, and Smudge and I have been spending a lot of time with the new Variant Dungeons feature, and enjoying it!

Now, there’s a couple of raid options on this called Criterion Dungeons, but we haven’t tried that yet. For one thing, we want to get through the regular part first. For another, it’s much more interesting to us, since it is meant for 1-4 characters, and Smudge and I are going through it together, whereas the rest needs four or eight. The general idea with the Variable Dungeons is that it branches at certain points, and each branch has an ending associated with it; there’s 12 endings, and a lot more than 12 branches. Sadly, we had to give up and look up a guide for the last ending we needed. We generally got the first eleven on our own, which is better than I thought we’d do.

Beyond that, the mechanics of the place are interesting, as you always have two boss encounters, and the first one is always the same, even when on different branches, while the last one depends on the door you went through at the very start. However, the mechanics those bosses present you with depend entirely on the path you’ve taken. There’s common themes and the like, but there’s a lot of variations built into the main fight, and that is a very interesting idea.
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Nov07

Russia Against Napoleon

by Rindis on November 7, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Dominic Lieven’s position as a professor of Russian studies shows clearly in this book. He clearly knows whereof he speaks as he tackles the last stages of the Napoleonic Wars from a Russian perspective. And he is quite right in that this is an overdue work. Russian histories of the period have been overshadowed by Tolstoy, and tend to focus on 1812 to the detriment of the following two years, when Russia led a coalition from its borders to Paris.

Russia was by far the main power involved in 1813 and 1814, and if they don’t bother to talk about it, who will? I personally hadn’t realized much had gone on then, much less the very contested campaigning of 1813 until I recently read Chandler’s The Campaigns of Napoleon.

So, this book is excellent just for providing a good focus on that action. Of course, he talks about the earlier war (ending with the Treaty of Tilsit) somewhat briefly, and then spends a lot of time going in-depth with Russia’s preparations over the next five years, and all the fighting in 1812. Those of you who are familiar with Tolstoy also get a parenthetical ‘reader’s guide’ to War & Peace, as he points the people who are the basis of major characters of the novel.

And not only is this book informative on two different levels, it is well-written. Not stellar prose, but still very clear, and well put together. There is a lot packed into the book, and it is highly recommended.

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Nov03

1863 Civil War

by Rindis on November 3, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Mark and I decided to revisit The U.S. Civil War a bit ago, this time trying the 1863 scenario, and using the advanced naval rules. This time I took the Confederates, and was not reassured by what I saw on the board at the start of the year.

Most notably, Grant is already sitting across the river from Vicksburg. But Bragg is facing a slightly superior army in east Tennessee, and Lee is facing a superior Army of the Potomac in Virginia. Many of the coastal forts have already fallen, and the Mississippi is only held between the forts in Vicksburg and Port Hudson. And things can only get worse.

All game, rounds tended to be a bit on the short side (lots of 2 and 3 action point rounds), and Winter 1863 set the tone. I used a card early to build a fort in Petersburg, and secure it against the Federals in Norfolk. Longstreet moved to clear out North Carolina, eliminating the garrison in Plymouth. Mark transported Sigel with a small force to New Bern, which with its existing garrison was more than Longstreet’s small army was going to handle. When Longstreet pulled in the garrison of Goldsboro to help, another 3 SP arrived in New Bern to keep Union local superiority. On to Richmond in the final round (i.e., 4 APs) produced an offensive in the Shenandoah to take Strasburg. This prompted Jackson to detach from the Army of N. Virginia and march into the valley, while I used another card to fortify Goldsboro, NC.

Out west, Taylor crossed the Mississippi twice, picking up Gardner’s force and heading off Bank’s advance into western Louisiana, defeating him and chasing the demoralized army past Thibodaux. It was found that Grant had supply next to the Mississippi, but any further south, or away from the river, supply would rapidly run out, so he headed north to shore up the depot network, and then came back to Vicksburg. Porter ran the guns at Vicksburg to support a landing just south of the city, which Pemberton intercepted to put McPherson in the displaced box. A second attempt landed further south, which Pemberton failed to react to, but then activated to put McClernand into the displaced box before returning to Vicksburg.


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Oct30

Metamorphosis

by Rindis on October 30, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The “giant” novels were Pocket’s stepping stone to hardcover Star Trek novels, which took over the ‘premium’ slots in the production of way too many novels at the start of the ’90s. They were longer, more involved stories, and the three Original Series giant novels were excellent. I’d heard good things about Metamorphosis, the first (of two) TNG giant novels, at the time, so I was happy to finally get to read it.

Now, I’m frustrated. This novel is well written, but has a big glaring problem.

Now, this isn’t a spoiler, this is the high-concept of the entire novel, stated clearly in the blurb: Data is turned into a human. The core tension of his character is that while as an android he is superhuman in many ways, there is much he is missing, and he longs to understand just how organic sentient life, and humans in particular, work. This is 1990, the series is still airing, so you know going in there’s going have to be a big reset button in there somewhere. If Data is still human at the end of the novel, then it’s not going to fit with anything else, and therefore he won’t be.

In fact, this novel is placed explicitly as happening right after “The Measure of a Man” in second season. (Which, by the way, is a very good episode, and well worth reviewing. Especially as it is the first appearance of Bruce Maddox, who shows up again in the first season of Picard.) Everyone is still feeling the emotional effects of the trial to determine if Data could be considered property, or an actual person. The Enterprise moves on to it’s next mission which is very interesting in and of itself.

In fact, given the prominence of that high concept, the plot does quite well without it. I won’t spoil that, but we are fairly deep in before the magic happens. Which, from our viewpoint, it might as well be, since Data is turned into an ordinary human down to the last detail (if perhaps with an uncanny resemblance to a 27-year old Brent Spiner). And we get treated to Data’s viewpoint as he discovers all he’s been missing. Sleep, eating (and the complexities of the human perception of taste), emotions, not being superhumanly strong and durable…. And, this is well done, and well thought through, and well presented.

This also serves as something of a bridge to a completely new plotline in the novel, as the Enterprise finishes up its mission, and goes on to the next, which, in the ordinary, run-of-the-mill, aired episodes scheme of things would be another episode entirely. Of course, Data (newly re-qualified for most of his duties) is different, and that ties in intimately with what’s going on here.

And here’s where we run into trouble. The big reset button that you know must be in here somewhere shows up. I do think it’s a little more forced than the change itself, and a bit more abrupt, pacing wise. But the big problem of the novel is here: the reset is basically going back in time so that Data never becomes human, and in so doing, he also loses all memories having been human. (Technically, he has the memories, just sealed away, so he gets a couple bouts of deja vu as we go through the finishing leg of the time loop.)

Plots are the general ‘engine’ of a story. The mainspring that serves it is that the main character will learn (or occasionally, spectacularly fail to learn) something by the end of the story. This is often subtle, but robbing the character of his memories at the end makes them unable to do this at all, and spells danger to the plot as a whole. I particularly find this irksome, and I am put out by any story that does this (the end of Silver on the Tree wrecked an entire series for me).

That said, Data does get to save the day at the end, and does learn something related to the main theme here anyway. But… we still have nearly two hundred pages that might as well not exist as far as any of the characters are concerned. I still give a limited recommendation to this novel because it is well written, and if you want to see how Data handles being human, this is a good presentation of it.

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