Aug10

Vows of a Fallen Star

by Rindis on August 10, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: MMO

I’ve been meaning to say a few things about Final Fantasy XIV for a while now. Since my last post, patch 5.2 has come out, and patch 5.3… hasn’t come out.

By the normal schedule, 5.3 should have been out in early July, but with 2020 being… the mess that it is, SquareEnix had to delay things, and it’ll finally be out about a day after this post.

While frustrating for a lot of people, this has actually been very good news for me, as it means I’ve had a lot of extra time to get caught up on more side-projects in game. First off, I’d kind of given up on crafting after getting crushed by difficulty of high-quality crafting in the Heavensward level range. A bit ago, SE really went in and re-did crafting, and took a lot of randomness out of it. There’s still the good-excellent-poor conditions to deal with, but the bulk of the abilities lost their 90-70% success rates, so you’re not gambling on something working at all.

At any rate, I’ve now gotten my four primary crafting classes up to max, and have gone through the associated stories. In addition, both mining and botany (which was a secondary for me) are maxed out. I’ve got more I’m working on, and I’m a bit behind on getting the Skysteel Tools (the relic ‘weapons’ for crafting and gathering), but this is the best shape that’s been for ages.

In addition to that, Thayrin and I have gone through the two available beast tribes for Shadowbringers. These are the FF XIV version of dailies, where you grind reputation… and get to learn more about the non-(demi)humans in the world. We did the latest first, the Qitari, who are a small, peaceful race returning to Rak’Tika now that the lightwarden is gone, and they explore some of what the Ronkan Empire was like. The other are the pixies, notably those who deal with the dreams of children, and you get go to the dream realm, which starts out plain, but ends up as a fairly heavily decorated mini-zone:

(The slides actually work. Sadly the roller-coaster/tram—the red platform running across that shot—does not.)
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Aug06

Roman Heavy Cavalry (1)

by Rindis on August 6, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The Romans are not generally known for a well-developed cavalry arm, but here, like everywhere else, they looked at what worked for everyone else, and borrowed or imitated what they liked.

The second volume is still not out (nearly two years after this one), but I will assume it will cover the period where heavy cavalry is better known, while this is really more about early Roman heavy units. It starts with 1st Century references in Josephus and elsewhere, and of course deals with the Notitia Dignitatum unit list. Along with this, there’s a good section on ‘cataphract’ and ‘clibanari’, and how those terms are used in the sources, and the debate on what exactly was meant by having two different terms.

The overall production level of the book is stellar. This is a full-color book all the way through, bringing out subtleties even in technically monochromatic artifacts (such as carved stellae). The photography is similarly very good, and shows these artifacts to best effect, giving a good idea of the actual object (well, the ones that are not just fragments, there’s some art detailing a reconstructed helmet, and more like that would be good).

Unfortunately, the traditional color art plates of an Elite title are merely workmanlike. The compositions are all fairly static figures not interacting with each other, putting back into a slightly improved version of 1970’s military art. The backgrounds range from decent short-distance landscape that give a little feel to environment, all the way down to a meaningless ‘DMV backdrop’ (seen on the cover).

Finally, there’s some discussion of the organization of these units, and the tactics they employed. An interesting conjecture is that there’s no early sources for their organization, because until about the 3rd Century, these units were probably fully employed by pulling non-Romans in, who were left to their own methods of organization. (Effectively making them all auxilia.)

It is of course a bit specialized as a book, and it does seem like the subject fits well into the standard format. The photographs are plentiful, which breaks up the text some, but means its even better visual reference than usual.

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Aug02

AP73 Happy Valley

by Rindis on August 2, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Patch and I’s latest ASL fight revisited Action Pack 8, with “Happy Valley”, an early armor clash between the Americans and Germans (with a couple Italians thrown in) during the race to Tunis in November 1942. It’s not DTO, but there’s plenty of arid terrain, with brush turned into cactus patches, woods turned into olive groves (regular orchards are still that, and out of season), and all walls and hedges are cactus hedges (that’s a lot of spines on that board).

The Americans are defending the board 6a village with four squads, two MMG, two 81mm MTR, a 37LL ATG, two M3 GMC, and a T30 HMC. In addition, there are three HIP Stuarts who can set up nearly anywhere, and three more that come in on turn 1. The at-start Stuarts are meant for an ambush, as they are revealed in the same way as emplaced guns, and their TCA can be whatever is desired when first revealed. The Germans enter on turns 1 and 2 (BS is NA for the Americans, something I forgot during setup, and wasted a fair amount of time on…) with twelve squads (mostly 1st Line, but there’s three 5-4-8s), as passengers in trucks and halftracks, a couple of ATRs, DCs, six Pz IVs, three Pz IIIs, and two Italian AB 41 armored cars. They need to cross most of boards 2 and 40 to get at the victory area and take all the buildings there in 6.5 turns, and get random air support every other turn.

There’s three or so general approaches, the most obvious is right down the center along the board 2 road. There’s a fair amount of hindrance, but it’s a straight shot in more ways than one. One thought that worried me is swinging around the east side of the hill. It would be slow going for the trucks, but it would allow getting fairly close without worrying about defensive fire. To the west, the board 40 hill overlooks the victory area, and has a good amount of cover, and there’s a gully in front of the hill. Two of the Stuarts set up HD on level 1 hills, with the bow pointed along the hill for a quick getaway, and the third was in 2D7, where it could cover the D4 farm area, and possibly ambush that east route. One MTR was hidden inside the village with 6aP12 to act as spotters (with the MMG—I seem to have missed the second one when pulling counters), the ATG was in P10 to look down the center

Patch mostly went for the center route, entering just his armor on the first turn, and keeping the mounted infantry back. The first couple tanks started climbing the board 2 hill, while the first AC started down the center road before climbing up the shoulder, and ending next to one of my hidden Stuarts who promptly rolled a 10 and 11 to miss and reveal himself, and then malfunction the MA on IF. He also set up a park near the main road, and around of the base of the smaller hill, with one Pz IV a hex away from my hidden Stuart, with a Pz III with it’s turret pointed that way, and an AC behind the position.


Situation, German Turn 1, showing the full board. North is to the left. The river is fordable, but neither of us bothered, especially with the north end having three places with no dry land. EC is “Dry”.
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Jul29

Anime Spring 2020

by Rindis on July 29, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Anime

New series are starting up, and I’m still finishing up the old stuff, so yeah, I’m still behind on things.

Star Driver — Smudge introduced me to this since was a fairly light season for us. This is largely the team that started Trigger, before they had done so. And indeed its very Trigger in scope. I’m currently deep in season 2, and it’s doing a good job on the character front, while having all the usual giant robots action, and girls in improbable uniforms. It started off reminding me a bit of RahXephon, and I’ve described it as ‘Utena with giant robots’ (it had some of the same ‘ceremonial’ feel to the conflict at the start).

Beastars — This has been on the vague ‘to watch’ list, and we watched it with Baron and Dave, who seem to get a bit more out of it than me. It was certainly well-produced, though the use of mo-cap animation bugged me a bit, especially for the first couple episodes. This is one of those where I kind of wonder ‘just how did this world get to here’, but it is otherwise a well-done world. (With some discordant notes—carnivores are given as universally stronger than herbivores, instead of just better armed. There’s a reason why wolves hunt in packs.) Still, does a great job with presenting internal feelings and doubts.

Cromartie High School — This has been on the ‘to watch’ list for ages, since we saw the first 2-3 episodes on a sample disk. It kind of reminds me of Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast. Stream-of-consciousness writing, limited budget, and random electric guitar wailing for the ending credits. It’s random, sometimes painful, and sometimes screamingly funny.

Flip Flappers — I want to know what the creative team was smoking, and like Abe Lincoln, send some to a bunch of other creators. Smudge and I are most of the way through this, and it’s still really hard to say what I think of it, because it’s all so, so weird. It’s certainly offering up lots of trope-parody salad, but the overall plot is just coming into focus at the very end.

Black Clover — Okay, we’re now through the entire real arc that this has been pointed at all this time, and did a great job of it (and it was a nice example of focus that these long fight-series have problems with). Now, we’re in unknown territory—will it hold together? So far, not bad, and we’ll see how it goes. Since everything prior to this point, the writing just kept getting better, I have hopes for no more than moderate sequelitis.

Thermae Romae — Holy low-budget, Batman! The high concept for the series has a lot of fun to it (cross over the two great hot-soak loving cultures: Japan and the Classical world), so this as been on the to-watch list. Given the… splash… the manga originally made, I’m quite surprised that this is such a low budget show with limited animation that makes Hanna-Barbera look good. Writing has also been all over the place, with some episodes being hilarious, and others just not living up to the high concept.

And of course Smudge and I have re-watched with the guys:

Acca 13 — If re-watching wasn’t a separate section, this would be top of the list. It really is well done, and both Baron and Dave have really appreciated it. I’m also newly thankful that Smudge spotted the soundtrack at Crunchyroll Expo a couple years ago; it’s extremely well done.

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Jul25

Daughter of Lir

by Rindis on July 25, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Like White Mare’s Daughter, this is a… not-quite-historical novel, that explores how some of what we know of prehistoric societies might have worked. In this case, we’re around 3300 BCE, with the beginnings of the Bronze Age, and the invention of chariots.

Once again, this is a clash of two cultures; a sedentary, goddess-worshiping one, and a nomadic steppes-tribe which has developed chariots. We get a peek at the wider world this time, with a secondary character from Sumeria, which was nice (and he could have stolen the show if given more screen time).

The stories in this series are ‘mythic’ in feel, and again reminded me of the feel of Renault’s The King Must Die. Fairly down-to-earth characters are part of something larger than themselves, and also stand in for bigger forces in the world. The plot is a bit more intricate this time, with two young princes sharing a spotlight as they help the reader see their culture, and cross… destinies in the middle. The broad outlines are telegraphed, but it’s a great journey

While the goddess’ country is again a bit too utopian to be true here, but it’s not perfect, and I am reminded of some of the discussion in GURPS Religion about the hierarchy of a religion potentially being separate from who the god(dess) they worship imbues with power. There’s some good thought here, but it’s all seen from the outside, so it more ‘happens’, rather than is examined.

Its really best to just enjoy these as coming-of-age adventure stories, but there is more here, and I am disappointed Tarr didn’t include an afterword on the actual cultures she’s talking about, like she did with White Mare’s Daughter.

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Jul21

Lost Time

by Rindis on July 21, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Mark and I have fallen into a bunch of fairly regular Vassal sessions over the past few months. Our primary slot has been our learning sessions with Operation Dauntless, and we had a few weeks of three-day weekends, so I proposed we start something a bit faster moving than our fumbling learning sessions, and well-known to the both of us, and we ended up going for A Victory Lost, doing one turn per session, and it (after a later schedule shuffling) became our Sunday morning slot.

Now, neither of us has ever been experts, and it’s probably been a decade since I last played, so expect a lot of sub-optimal play from us (moving HQs was a particular problem on a few occasions, espeically later, since the module, for all its great features, doesn’t mark the HQ as active along with everything else, so it can be easy to forget).

Mark wanted the Germans, so I started with a decision to mostly press in the center, keeping the 1GdA, 3GdA, 5ShA, and 5TkA chits (along with Popov who shows up at the end of turn 4), and of course picking 1GdA for the special combat segment, which eliminated the Ravenna division and retreated Julia and Tridentia, but got no effect on Cosseria and Cuneense.

Turn 1 chit sequence: 5TkA – 3GdA – 1GdA – R3A – Hollidt – 4PzA – STAVKA

My first chit draw also saw my first losses, as I tried a 1.5:1 and two 2:1s to get across the initial river lines (thought it was three 2:1s until I saw a town, which reduced it to 1.5:1), for a pair of A1 results, but I pushed the 7Lw back to break that line in the middle. I got a mechanized division across a gap for a second try to eliminate a pair or Romanian divisions, and then blew open the Italian sector (pretty standard stuff), to start heading west, with the 1st heading south towards Millerovo after bouncing the It8A HQ away from the remaining Italians. However, a 3:1 was NE, to keep a road clogged.

The Romanians ordered a fall back, with units heading to Millerovo, while the 62nd shifted to hold the flank of the southern line. Hollidt also fell back, with a thin line of infantry while the 11Pz headed northwest toward Millerovo. 4th Panzer Army sent two divisions circling behind the lines towards Hollidt and everything else putting up a light screen… safely away from the Russians. Stavka found that three divisions had been too eager, and were out of command range, so my tanks (most notably) didn’t roll any further forward. There wasn’t a lot of combats, and notably, the Hungarians refused to budge to a 2:1 in the north, even as the Italians next door ran for the hills.

Mark put all three new divisions and Kempf in and around Valuyki, and F-Pico went to Millerovo, while I put the 2Tk a bit behind the 69A, ready to use strategic movement down into the fairly open center.


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Jul17

Holy Madness

by Rindis on July 17, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

In premise, this is more of a meditation on history than a ‘strict’ history book. Zamoyski had some thoughts on nationalism, and faith, and wrote this book to explore his thoughts. The general theme is that as the church lost its place of primacy in European society, the habits of thought remained, and devotion got redirected to the idea of ‘the state’.

It’s an interesting idea, and he’s certainly onto something. I’d kind of like something a bit less nebulous, though it’d probably go over my head. At any rate, in Holy Madness, it’s obvious that he has found every case of religious imagery, or ecstatic feeling in the writings of 19th Century revolutionaries. But I wonder how much (or really, how many people) doesn’t follow that theme? Perhaps its a consistent tone/theme across the vast bulk of them, but since there’s no examination of that, there’s no way to know. Certainly, he does show a strong ideal of martyrdom in a lot of writings.

Overall, there’s certainly some very interesting things going on here. The end of the French Revolution and Napoleon left a lot of people with unfulfilled dreams in Europe. Whenever some new ‘national project’ came up these people would show up to try to help, aiding revolutions with fundraising for arms, and a people who could form up revolutionary units to fight for a glorious death in the name of liberty. The three decades after 1815 in Europe aren’t dangerous for the ideals unleashed to cause the population to rise up (the general population in the countryside often wanted no part of it), but instead dangerous for all the flotsam and jetsam of previously wrecked hopes washing back and forth across the continent.

Post 1848… ‘revolutionary society’ is shown to be the transition out of the age. Some of what these men have been fighting for is happening politically. The new idealists have very different views, and the people who are powering all this struggle are aging out. The social circles get smaller every year, and while they still hold their decades old grudges, its becoming harder to fire everyone up for a new cause.

To a certain extent the formation of Italy and Germany mark the end of the movements this book is following, but it’s not quite presented that way, with things tending to trail off, not quite off-screen, but not really focused on. As with any natural process, there’s no neat end, no turning of the page, though there is further summary of where some of these passions went next.

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Jul13

The Short Way

by Rindis on July 13, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the sixth 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

The next expansion for CKII (the eighth, not counting Sunset Invasion) after Charlemagne was a small, focused, ‘character experience’ one. After a bit of open beta testing, CK II: Way of Life was released on December 16, 2014.

It really was focused, with just one actual feature, though of course it did cause some changes elsewhere. Patch 2.3 featured a change to the UI (right-clicking on a portrait to interact with the character—from anywhere—instead of hitting a button that character’s main screen), and added some more modding hooks, as well as properly multithreading the game startup.

Each count-level and above character can now choose a focus, one of ten different subjects to focus his attentions on. There’s two per primary attribute, and they generally provide similar bonuses to that attribute, but different secondary bonuses. Despite what the main advertising art might suggest, these pairs are just separate interests for each attribute, and not any sort of good/evil pairing.

With WoL enabled, the normal ‘improve this low attribute’ ambitions are disabled (see the Intrigue section of my original review), largely reducing them back to the original set of ‘become wealthy’, ‘become steward’, ‘have a son’, etc., ambitions. However, if you take a focus in an attribute that is low (below 8), the same ambition-driven events to raise them become available, so they’ve just been moved from one system to another. (However… the focus gives a +3 to an attribute, so if you were 5 originally, you go to 8, don’t get any special events to raise it, and go back to 5 if you switch to a different focus….)

Additionally, of these foci can generate character modifiers to ‘level up’ the appropriate abilities. These generally come in three levels, and will stay even if you change your focus. While the AI will generally stick to one focus for a character, you can change it every five years, either as needs change, or once you get the bonuses you want out of them.

Conclusion

As a small, focused (cough), expansion, this is a great idea. It doesn’t really interfere with anything, and doesn’t enhance some major aspect of the game, so it comes down entirely to how you feel about it. The theory is to add a bit of role-playing to the game, but for some it still feels gamey, as you can just cycle through foci, picking up bonuses (starting with some that are known to be very reliable in providing them).

I generally like it, and like pulling the self-improvement goals back out of the ambitions (I felt that was too gamey), but think a couple of opportunities were missed. The AI sticks with one focus his entire life, which is generally fine, but I think it would have been better to have some events have a chance of an AI character switching to another one (say he gets a trait that’s opposed to one of the ones the focus can grant—have a chance to switch out; or a hunting accident causes a change away from the hunting focus, or going on pilgrimage can cause a shift to theology).

I’d say this is among the least necessary expansions, but if you like CK II for the opportunity for a bit of mental role-play, it’s well worth looking at; and if you don’t, you may still find it a fun idea.

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Jul09

The Anarchy

by Rindis on July 9, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Being American, history classes didn’t go much into the British Raj. I remember one book talking about the process of expanding British influence that ended with the Empire getting control of the entire subcontinent. But this was a one-page overview; I still had zero idea going in on why a book on the East India Company would be titled “The Anarchy”.

The Mughals are at least something I know of, mostly their beginning, thanks to Harold Lamb. So, this was very informative on the process of disintegration that had settled in at the time European powers were getting more and more directly interested in the East. Dalrymple doesn’t give much in hard numbers (this is popular, not analytical, history), but does show that while some parts of India were doing just fine, there was widespread chaos of the type when central power breaks down. The anarchy of bandits, central works going to rot, and mass economic displacement. This period is generally named ‘The Anarchy’, and it’s suitable enough.

The English (and French, and Dutch) exploited this, and made things worse, but they didn’t start the process at all. And the leeching of treasure from India was spectacular… and a reverse of a much slower process that had occurred over centuries. There had been a ‘trade imbalance’ of precious metals going east since before the Romans, and I’d certainly like to see any sort of analysis of just how much wealth went down that flow. How much precious metal, at any point, originated from where, and where did it end up. It’d make for an interesting economic history… brought to an end by the violent colonial siphoning off.

Certainly, there is a fair amount of finance here, including the egregious mismanagement of the first company ‘too big to fail’. And this is the story of a corporate entity that from unlikely beginnings came to hold too much power in both India and Britain. The problems they caused internally for the British government (they regularly gifted stocks to members of parliament… who could grow quite rich, if the Company did well), are certainly familiar today with lots of large companies stretching far beyond the bounds of any regulations on them.

My unfamiliarity with the subject also means I could have used more maps. There’s a couple of very attractive ones in the front (of the Kindle version), that aren’t sufficient for parts of the book. Most of the action is general enough to not need more, but some of the later parts particularly get into campaigning that I’m still quite fuzzy on. Still, despite a few lapses like that, it’s a great introduction to the subject, well told.

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Jul05

Operation Dauntless T5 x 3

by Rindis on July 5, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

The last step before diving into armor in the Operation Dauntless tutorial series is “Let the Shells Fly”. It is recommended to play it twice, with the second play incorporating the Friction Fire rules; I was hesitant at first, with the alure of the second half of the tutorials so close, but I can say now that it’s worth doing.

However, the main point is to have a good integrated example of combat and assaults with ranged fire support. It really does showcase much of the infantry side of the system. Ranged fire the the third combat system of the game, and uses its own result table, which is just trying to get a 14 or higher on 2d6(!). The base ranged combat value of the unit is added to this (ranged combat is always per unit, never added together), with some modifiers: bulk kills, with a +1 to the result per company present in the target hex, and then there’s the normal terrain modifiers, degraded performance for more distant direct-fire weapons, and bonuses to indirect-fire weapons that can see their target (instead of needing a spotter). As heavy machine guns are enough to provide a ranged attack factor, almost every unit has some ranged ability.

The general result from ranged fire is suppression, which prevents a few things (notably Friction Fire), and causes a shift in any following combat/assaults (really good results can cause a step loss or two). However, suppression comes off at the end of the current phase, so suppression caused during the Action phase is of now help during Combats (but will help assaults). A wrinkle that defeated us for a bit is that while you can do ranged fire against anyone in either phase, if there is going to be a combat against a particular hex, all ranged fire against it must be part of that combat. You can’t do ranged fire against a hex, and then engage in combat with it. This turns into a sequence at the start of combat where you declare all offensive and defensive support right after the main combat is declared, and then resolve all those ranged attack rolls before going on to the main combat.

The British have two full battalions backed up by a heavy mortar company (who technically have transports, but are immobile in this scenario), and plenty of off-board artillery (which is just longer-ranged, heavier, versions of on-board indirect fire units; I was thinking them assets at first, which are more limited and hampered my use for a while). The Germans are trying to hold St-Pierre (/the ground in front of the bridge across the Seulles) with about three companies; six platoons, three pioneer platoons, a MG section, two IG batteries, a mortar battery, five off-board batteries (including one of nebelwerfers, my personal nemesis), and then roughly another company enter as reinforcements on each of turns 2 and 3. Some of the British start as loaded up MG sections and towed AT batteries, giving a chance to play a bit more with the transport rules.

We stuck with the same sides as before, and Mark set up the Germans in front of the bridge; half the British set up fairly close, and the other half is over on the other side of the map, and needs a turn just to get into range. There’s a couple of light bocage hexes on the fringe of the entire built-up area, one of which was left empty, so my first action was to move down the road into that and then assault a platoon in an open field.

An average roll got a 0/2 on a 3:1, pushing the Germans back into the village (we also forgot that he had a possible shot at my carrier platoon on the way in). The rest of the Lincolnshires moved up into 0508, while part of KOYLI went down the road to stop in 0706, preparing for a big attack on the other light bocage hex. Two more companies marched off-road, only getting partway to the action, while the MG section and towed 6-pounders motored to positions overlooking the village.


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