Shadows Past

by on July 31, 2019 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Books

The good news is that this is another good book in Freeman’s Borderlands series. Even better, we see more of Suiden this time.

The bad news is that it’s the last. This is especially bad because there are unresolved threads. Like the first two, this is a complete story, and you don’t need to read the others for this to make sense, it is a standalone with beginning, middle, and end. But like the second book revealed there’s a bigger group targeting Rabbit, this time the bad guys manage to kidnap a secondary character, and get him away before everything else gets resolved. So obviously, there should be a fourth book, which will hopefully deal with that, even if, like this one, we don’t move any closer to the bigger threat.

But it’s been nine years at this point, with no sign, no word on the author’s website for over eight years now…. I’m going to try not to torture myself too hard by hoping that book four will appear at some point.

As far as the actual contents of the book, we have yet another change of scenery, and associated set of new characters. And more of everyone immediately around Rabbit being a bit disagreeable; but with better reason this time. Again, part of the book might get short-circuited if a few things would be talked about early, and I think it’s a case of Rabbit giving events more lucidly than they’d be perceived as their happening again. And, while it’s obvious that something is happening, what exactly isn’t at all obvious, and things are confused by the fact that Rabbit has arrived in a place with at least three cross-currents operating.

In fact, overall, the situation is more complex than in the previous books, and is handled better. This still isn’t quite up to the level of the first book, which handled civil war and personal pain with equal with and aplomb, but its really close.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Ringold Gap Twice

by on July 28, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Back on June 22nd, Mark came over for some gaming. The main goal was to get some familiarity with the GCACW series again, and looking through the scenarios in Battle Above the Clouds, Mark found “Ringold Gap”. It’s a two-day scenario as the Confederates are retreating from their defeat at Missionary Ridge. So the entire scenario is a chase, with the Confederates needing to get a supply wagon (borrowed from the advanced/campaign rules) back to Dalton, with only a couple formations to protect it. The Union has a couple of corps, plus some extras, and overall, the scenario is pretty small.


Scenario setup.

Mark took the Confederates, and our first game was over with very quickly. Mark started pulling away, and I activated a couple of divisions who just couldn’t get anywhere. Then things went sideways. I got a couple more activations, and got nearly maximum movement on a pair of leader activations on the XIV Corps that saw me swing around the Confederate covering force, and catch the wagons near Graysville with only a small cavalry force. I defeated a small infantry unit, sending it routing back to Ringgold, and then destroyed the cavalry screen and wagon train. The supply points on that are the biggest VP earner, and I’d easily be able to burn a railroad station (a secondary goal), and there was just no avoiding a Union Decisive Victory at that point.


Sudden death.

So, we reset the scenario and tried again. This went more as expected, with the Confederate wagon train making its way east as the Federals vainly tried to find ways around or through Confederate forces. There was a serious battle near Ringgold; the Confederates had a nice cork in the bottle of the ridge there, but I maneuvered to his flanks, and handed him a serious defeat around the end of the first day. However, Mark was able to put more distance between us and get another division on top of Buzzard Roost. There was no way to get at his flanks there, and we called it with a Moderate Confederate Victory. My troops were largely worn out (so were his…), and I wasn’t going to get around Rocky Face Ridge, though I could just barely get to the rail line to burn a station.


Most of the way through the second game.

In some ways, it’s an interesting scenario, as managing the rearguard isn’t something you get to see a lot of in wargames. But it does seem like it’s really swingy. Given some early luck, the Union can get an easy early victory. Short of that, it’s hard to see the Confederates doing any worse than Mark did in the second game. The main variable is the supplies, and it seems like the Confederates won’t need to push the wagons enough to lose some of the supply points (which is Union VPs), once they’ve had a few initiatives to put things in place, as the Union needs a few moves to even begin to get into position.

└ Tags: ,
 Comment 

Darkest Victoria

by on July 25, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the third in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Victoria II. See the previous reviews here:
Victoria II: Same But Different
A House Divided: Limited Expansion

Just about a year after A House Divided came out, the second expansion for Victoria II was announced. The primary goal for Heart of Darkness was to re-work colonial ventures, and concentrate on the Scramble for Africa. It was released on April 16th for PC, with a Mac version that appeared slightly later.

Note that this review is just on this expansion, and you may wish to go back over my review of the main game and AHD, listed above, for a refresher on the full game.

Source of the Nile

As the central focus of the expansion, colonization was completely reworked. The ideas of colonial range, and ‘life rating’ to restrict things remained, but just about everything else is different.

Once an area is open to colonization, you send an expedition to the region. If, after 270 days, no one else has sent an expedition to the region, you can establish a protectorate, and it will develop normally. Otherwise, you can send colonists, and then establish an outpost, a settlement, and guard posts, all in a race with the other power(s)s.

If you don’t keep pushing more development in the region, it will eventually go to the other power. If you both continually reinforce your holdings, a confrontation will eventually result as a crisis erupts over the disputed area (see below).

All of this takes colonial power. You get a flat amount of points for the early naval technology “Post-Nelsonian Thought”, and then more for every naval base and combat ship in your navy (with more advanced ones generating more). These points are invested in each step of colonizing, so a long fight with another Power over a region will sap both country’s power (and attention). Transforming a region into a true colony also takes more colonial power. Only releasing it as a dominion or transforming it into an actual state releases the colonial power for re-use.

In general, the new system works well, though there’s still no actual ‘exploration’ of Africa beyond the abstracted events that have been in the game all along. I’m a bit disappointed that there’s nothing around sending the expeditions specifically, that could tie into tracing the course of the Nile, or other bits of European uncertainty.

War at Sea

Naval combat got a complete rework, becoming a bit more like HoI III’s naval combat than a clone of EU III’s. Ships entering combat now spend time time getting into visual range, and then pick a target to go after. Ships will often be going after a ship that’s going after a different enemy ship, and so forth….

Ships have proper speed, evasion, and gunnery ranges, so light ships dart in and engage the enemy screen, while the longer-ranged capital ship guns open up on their counterparts. The damage and morale parts of combat work largely the same as before, so ships may go into a ‘retreat’ mode, where they try to get away from the enemy before being sunk. Of course, if the ships targeted on it are faster, it may not work out very well.

In some ways, it feels like it might be a little too detailed for such a high-level game as Victoria II, but it does make naval combat flow much more like actual battles, and it certainly captures the feel of a battle like Jutland very well.

Also, a new ship class, battleship, was added to represent the pre-dreadnoughts, and show more of the evolution of capital ships after early ironclads. Finally, ships now require certain minimum levels of naval bases to construct, representing the large shipyards needed to build the large warships of the early 20th Century. Since these also take a fair amount of effort to build, there is now quite a delay on getting the largest ships, which need two technologies (one for the ship class, one for the port facilities), and constructing at least one high-level port before even starting on the ships.

Origins of WWI

The feature that has the biggest impact on the entire game is the new crisis system. Every once in a while, a problem will emerge with two countries in a region, who will then start looking for Great Powers to back their resolution to the problem.

Once each side has a backer (which doesn’t always happen), any Great Power on the same continent has to get involved or lose prestige. Once involved, the Powers can align themselves one one side or the other, and the leaders of each side can offer concessions to attract support. And the two leaders can try to hammer out a solution, or one leader, finding itself politically isolated may concede.

There is only a limited amount of time for this to happen however. If a crisis goes unresolved long enough, it will turn into a war over the primary goals of the crisis, with all the involved Great Powers as belligerents.

Crises can arise anywhere there are two countries with an interest in the same state, either from one having cores (a valid/traditional claim) on another country’s territory, or two Powers trying to colonize the same state, or from liberation movements within a country.

The Balkans are a common source of crises, because Greece is already independent at the start of the game, and holds cores on most of the territory around it. In this situation, a minor nation is allowed to put a national focus on one of its cores, which will start increasing the flashpoint tension until a crisis erupts. If the Ottomans are still a Great Power, they automatically back themselves, but if Greece can get support from other Great Powers, they can get the Ottomans to back down and hand a province over, or fight them for it on Greece’s behalf.

Its a clever way to give minor countries a bit more control, and of course is a nice way to show the increasing tensions of the late 19th/early 20th centuries as the rising militarism of the population will cause crises to become more common late in the game.

Rail Baron

Railroads got a graphical overhaul so that they appear in all map modes now (a complaint of mine originally). Also, they don’t sprawl to all possible destinations, but generally (graphically) connect to one other province that already has a railroad. This makes them look a bit more natural, but as separate regions develop railroads that grow together, their rails never connect, which make projects like the Trans-Continental Railroad look wrong. It’s a nice boost to the looks of the game, but I think they should have had more connections appear as the level of rail in the province go up, which would solve the trouble.

Conclusion

This is a much easier recommendation than the previous expansion. Every major feature helps Victoria II feel more like the 19th Century. Some of the ideas work out better than others, but they do all work. They add a bit more complication to the game, but since they don’t complicate the main parts of the game, the expansion does not make the game any more difficult to learn. I recommend getting this expansion in general, and if when initially getting Victoria II, you can get it as a complete package with both expansions, I definitely recommend going straight to that.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Children of the Sky

by on July 22, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

A Fire Upon the Deep is an important novel that SF fans really should read. I think, like Niven’s Ringworld, it’s a flawed book with really good ideas. Like Ringworld, it also has a much better sequel.

The original book had two completely different plots centered around different, very interesting ideas. It was obvious that the one plot was moving toward the other, but only because they were appearing in the same book. There was no actual causal relationship between the two, so the book was extremely disjointed until right near the end. That does not happen here, and the plot is well structured throughout. At the same time, not everything gets truly addressed this time, so let us hope the next book does not take another twenty years.

One thing that helps both books, is that in the end they are character focused. I think that’s part of why this book focuses on the Tines, and examines more of the ways that their pack intelligence operates; the Blight and the entire zones of thought side can be fairly impersonal, and harder to do a more human-level story around. However, that part still drives conflict, and that is part of what isn’t resolved here, and it looks like Vinge is well set up for a fight over what to do about the Blight, how to do anything about it, and to delve into the entire nature of the ‘zones of thought’ in the future.

Another problem I had with the original book was being a long slog of a lot of depressing content. All the main characters are in horrible situations, and don’t have a whole lot of agency about it. This book does some of the same, but the characters retain a good sense of agency along the way. Yeah, things go from bad to worse, the fractures in the tiny remnant of human society are worse than it first appears, but all along there are possibilities, and one more card for the main characters to play.

My biggest problem was that it has been more than twenty years since I read A Fire Upon the Deep, and while I remembered some parts, there were a few things that came up here that I had forgotten completely. Vinge takes his time with this book, so while there’s a certain amount of being thrown in the deep end, I think new readers will get a good feel for what’s going on before the plot really gets going. That said, this is a direct sequel to another book, and I do recommend having read it first.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Two Rounds of Hellespont

by on July 19, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

After finishing up “Far From Home“, Patch and I did our usual scenario from Commands & Colors: Ancients at the beginning of June. Up this time was the Battle of the Hellespont, the first of the Successor battles from Expansion #1. Both sides have roughly equivalent armies, though deployment is different, and the big unusual part is that each leader eliminated reduces that side’s Command by one, and if either side loses both of its leaders it automatically loses the battle at that point.

I had Craterus first, and we both led off with Order Two Right, and moved up our flanks. I followed by moving up the center, and Patch used Order Lights to get into range, and did a block to a Heavy with archery. I Ordered Mediums to engage with my MC and did two blocks each to a MC and LC, but unfortunately took two blocks back on one, which retired back to where he started. Patch Out Flanked to chase the weak MC, and surround the other one. My weak MC finished off his counterpart, but was then eliminated by a second MC, and Neoptolemus evaded off the board to keep from being eliminated on a Momentum advance (since the special rule states that you loose a card/Command for each leader eliminated, we figured that did not count, but clarification would be nice). Instead they traded blocks with an Auxilia. On the other flank, Craterus lost his unit, but only after wiping out a MC, and then evaded back to his own lines.

I Ordered Light for no damage, but did force his right MC to evade away. Patch Coordinated Attack to bring back his damaged units, while I Ordered Three Right to solidify my line, and drove off a MC with a banner. Patch Ordered Four Center to bring up the heavier infantry, and I brought up my Heavies with Order Three Center. Patch Ordered Lights to get his LB out of the way, and did two more damage to the wounded Heavy with a lucky shot. Leadership Any Section brought up my right, and reduced two Auxilia and drove off his LC in exchange for one block. Patch Ordered Two Center to bring up a Heavy and finish off my unfortunate Heavy at range. Darken the Sky damaged a depleted Auxilia, and two one-block Auxes ended up retreating two hexes each from various banners.

Patch Double Timed his center into my main line, knocking out a Heavy, doing a block to another, and to a LB, and two to an Aux, and forced two of those to retreat, in exchange for one block. I Counterattacked to bring in my unengaged Mediums, and knocked out a Medium and forced an Aux to retreat at a cost of three blocks on two units. Patch had Leadership Any Section bring his center forward, and knocked out an Aux (sending Craterus fleeing to the baseline), and did a hit each on a Med and Heavy, in return for taking three hits on a Heavy. I used Clash of Shields to activate three units (I get to use it so rarely!) to finish off a Heavy and send other units fleeing with multiple banners. Patch announced I Am Spartacus to order a Medium and an Aux, who drove off a Light and a Heavy with one loss. I Ordered Three Center to get Craterus to a new unit, and did a block to an Aux at a cost of… three blocks to a Medium. Patch Ordered Three Center to finish off a Heavy. 4-6

Patch led off the second game with Order Two Left to get his Auxilia in motion, and I Ordered Lights to bring up my Auxes and do a hit to a MC with my LC. Patch Ordered Mediums to bring up his center Mediums, and force my LC back with his MC. Order Three Left did another block to his MC, and forced it back. Patch used Order Two Right to shift Craterus from the depleted MC to a Heavy, and I used Order Two Left in an attempt to finish off the MC, but couldn’t get any hits on six dice, and my MC retreated on banners. Order Four Right moved up his line a little, and he did a ranged hit on an Aux.

I moved my Heavies up in the center, and Patch reworked his left flank (including detaching Neoptolemus to shift to a Medium), and I brought my right flank up. Patch Ordered Two Left to force a MC back to the baseline, and I Out Flanked to bring it up again and knock out his MC, and do three blocks to an Aux, who did one in return, and I brought up a left MC that had retreated to the baseline there. Coordinated Attack let him move a Medium up, while his Aux struck back, and did another block to my MC, who then forced a two-hex retreat on the Aux. I shifted my center forward, and Patch did the same on his right. I Ordered Lights, and did a block each to two units with ranged combat.

Patch used Mounted Charge… on his one one-block MC to do two blocks to a Aux in return for being wiped out. I Counter Attacked and did a block to an Aux before forcing it back to the baseline on three banners, two blocks to another, who did two in return and forced the MC back, two blocks to a LB, killed a depleted Aux, and did a block to a Light that was forced to evade twice all the way to the baseline. Patch had Inspired Leadership to bring his Heavies forward, and did a block to a MC. I called out I Am Spartacus to order a Heavy, two MC, and a LC. The MC finished off the Light, and the LC took a block for no hits. Patch used Line Command to get two Auxes, a Med, and a Heavy into contact with the rest of the Mediums and Heavies getting uncomfortably close. Neoptolemus’ Mediums one-shotted a full Aux and then did two to an Aux, who then went under to his Aux. The Heavies did two hits to an Aux, who retreated on a banner rather than take a follow up attack, which instead forced a MC to evade. Coordinated Attack allowed me to throw in a Medium and Heavy, and back off a LC to get room to fire, and did three hits to Craterus’ Heavies, and one to another, taking two in return. Order Four Center got all his good units involved to finish off a Heavy, and wipe out a Medium. Order Mediums got my cavalry in motion to work on his flanks, and brought up my remaining Medium. My attempt to get Craterus backfired, with no hits, and losing a MC, while two attacks got rid of Neoptolemus’ Medium at a cost of three blocks, and Momentum went after the Aux he evaded to, getting two blocks on it in exchange for one, and another attack did one more… but my MC was lost on battle back. 5-6

Afterword

You definitely have to be careful with this one, since each side only has two leaders, and losing one is especially bad here. And they start out on the flank MCs, which are a bit fragile. Craterus has the infantry to be effective, but Eumenes’ cavalry can easily decide things early. In fact, the second game was looking like a possible shutout until Patch suddenly turned things around. Some of that was die luck, but I was doing quite well with four MC, and that one-block Mounted Charge was just a gift to me.

I pretty much threw away the first game early by getting my MCs into trouble, and nearly losing both leaders at the start. I did well after that, but couldn’t make up for momentum I’d handed Patch.

└ Tags: ,
 Comment