A World Lit Only By Fire

by on January 25, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

William Manchester’s book is really an ode to his hero, Magellan. He’s not a bad hero to have, but I think Manchester gives him far too much credit. The real value however, is that Manchester is far more interested in establishing the world he lived in than examining the man. Considering how often it is difficult to get anyone willing to have the feel of a time period as their main subject, it raises the book a bit in my estimation.

However, ‘The Medieval Mind’ in the subtitle is an overstatement. There’s a brief establishment of his look at the medieval world at the start of the book, but most of it is really on the transition into the Renaissance. It’s well written, and tackles the subject fairly well, but there are problems. Most of the contemporary authors he quotes were probably doing so for moralizing purposes in the first place, and a lot of what is cited has a very distinct tone of ‘kids these days!’. So, the book paints a picture of a static society that was breaking down into license and abuse of power that is unlikely to be very accurate in either direction.

Its worth noting that he covers the earliest parts of the Reformation, and within limits, covers it better than Diarmaid MacCulloch’s large volume on the subject. He doesn’t go into the threads of intellectual thought that is the primary focus of the latter, but he covers the more temporal aspects of the early power struggle in a more readable, and I think, more complete, format.

The final section is on Magellan’s voyage, including a good grounding in what the original plan was, and where it went wrong: At the time, the Rio de Plata was known, and from its size, was assumed to be a passage to the Pacific, as it had been too large to explore thoroughly. It’s a very good summary of one of the great sea voyages of history.

In general, A World Lit Only by Fire is a good readable starting point for the history of the Renaissance, but a lot of nuance is decidedly not there. The general learned opinion is that his scholarship is too out date (I’ll note that Durant’s Story of Civilization looks to be the primary starting point of his opinions, which while great, is well over half a century old), though I don’t know of a more current ‘alternative’.

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Carrier Empire

by on January 21, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

After way too long, some of the local group finally got together for some FtF gaming last week. Patch was unavailable, and Dave was ill (and I was worried I’d have to cancel on account of illness), but me Mark and Jason got together for a game of Space Empires 4X.

We had a number of delays getting going, so despite hoping only three players would speed things along just a little, we only got to the 11th Econ phase. I had the setup area on the long side (as opposed to the two ‘corner’ ones, and was the only one who put his homeworld out in the middle of things. All our placements paid early dividends, with nearby planets (three of the six surrounding hexes of my home space had planets). I don’t think anyone’s planets formed an easy pattern for pipelines from there, though certainly we all built out some chains.

Mark ended up discovering two Space Wrecks just outside ‘home’ territory near the center. I tried to intercept him on the second one, but a black hole in the last space before it destroyed my (+1/0) scout, and that gave him enough time to recover both, one of which gave him a size upgrade, and the other gave him speed. I continued pressing in the area anyway, soon discovering that Mark had CAs already, and then I went the other way, discovering the same with Jason, who also started using exploration CAs shortly thereafter. This was more than troubling, since I didn’t even have DDs yet.

What had I been doing? Well, we had decided to go ahead and finally introduce the next advanced rule at the start of the session, which was carriers and fighters. I initially thought maybe I’d just get the initial point defense tech to stick on all the extra scouts I’d doubtless need to explore, but that was too expensive for a deeply speculative investment. So, I went for the initial fighter tech, and then concentrated on them, getting to fighter-3 before finally getting DDs.

It didn’t take long to see them in some combat, where they didn’t do too badly. The first fight against Mark went reasonably well, as all of my ships and fighters were +1/+1, and Mark didn’t have any bonuses. Things went less well against Jason’s more advanced fleet, but I was able to retreat the carrier itself, and eventually get it back home for more fighters.

Overall, Jason probably had the best position, partly fueled by exploring the big expanse of empty space in the corner between me and him, we me having no real way to get at it. I had managed to slowly trickle in a few 10-mineral markers as well as my 5-minerals, which helped fund everything. Mark sidled in, and shot up a colony, while I only reduced a 5 to a 3 in a return trip. If I wasn’t more-or-less the focus of attention, I think I could have done something with my position, and as it was, I should have been colonizing a deep-space barren in the center of the board shortly. A lot would probably depend on how well I could keep it.

Mark and Jason had a fight between their major fleets right as we ended for the day, where Jason’s advanced (+2/+1) BCs completely trounced Mark’s primitive CAs. We did an exhibition match between what was left of that fleet (Mark did kill a couple CAs) against my main fleet of 3xCV + 8xFtr. I lost all but one fighter, but took out his fleet, and if things had gone slightly different, I’d have still been able to pull out the CVs.

The carrier path is interesting as the CVs are just SCs that cost twice as much. But the fighters can be on an even footing to anything up to a BC. Jason would have had BBs soon, and that would be a problem, though probably not an insurmountable one. Being able to pull out the expensive CVs after losing most of your firepower is a nice bonus, but you’ll lose lots of fighters, and resupply efforts will probably stall a lot of offensives. At the same time, the tech is expensive, so getting good fighters will keep you from getting better ships. On the other hand, point defense is about as expensive, so empires looking for a solution to fighter swarms will get strangled there too. Finally, the fighters will chew up a lot of yard capacity, which had me take to shipyard-2 at the end, after buying a number of extra shipyards (I actually usually take it early-ish, but was too cash-starved by paying for fighter tech and CVs). I’m really happy with having gone with CVs, but I miss the bigger ships….

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The Rise and Fall of Alexandria

by on January 17, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Alexandria is one of the great success stories of the ancient world, being founded by Alexander the Great, and then spending the next several centuries as one of the great trading ports of the Mediterranean, as well as a center of learning. So a history of the city has a lot of appeal.

Sadly, this isn’t really a history of the city. It does start with Alexander’s initial choosing of the site, and laying out the basics, and talks a little bit about the initial building. But past that, the book becomes almost entirely dedicated to the great minds that were at (or may have spent time at) the great library of Alexandria. So the bulk of the book is more of a who’s who of ancient philosophy. That still makes for good reading, but the authors are too enthusiastic, and make a number of statements that are problematic or error-prone.

The most startling mistake is a statement that the Julian calendar (correctly identified as being borrowed from Eratosthenes) is accurate to one day in 1,461 years. If that were true, there’d hardly be any need for the Gregorian calendar, as they’d only differ by a day or so, instead of 13 days. They also imply (in the Eratosthenes chapter again) that Columbus would have trouble convincing the King of Spain that the world was round, when the real trouble was convincing the court that he could make it, as the distance was too great for any amount of carried supplies (a conclusion that Columbus would have come to if he’d used Eratosthenes’ figure for the size of the Earth, instead of a much smaller estimate).

On the other hand, there’s an interesting note that an early draft of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus references Aristarchus’ heliocentric theory. Presumably they’re referring to the Commentariolus, and it’s an interesting connection that I hadn’t heard about before. (Though looking it up on Wikipedia shows that the authors perpetuate a translation-induced misconception of Aristarchus’ theory being considered impious at the time.)

This is a lighter, less technical, book than I was expecting, and for the lighter side of non-fiction, fairly well written… as long as you remember some of the wider-ranging pronouncements are problematic.

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Two Rounds of Mantinea (362 BC)

by on January 13, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Patch and I continued our tradition of a couple rounds of Commands & Colors: Ancients over the last couple weeks with the second Battle of Mantinea as updated in Expansion #6. The times are a-changing with both sides having some medium cavalry, and the Thebans having three units of heavy infantry (one of which is the special Sacred Band). The Heavies and two MC are further forward to set up a sudden Theban attack on the Spartan right flank.

I had the Thebans the first time, and started with Order Two Right to start bringing up my refused flank, while Patch started harassing me with Order Lights. I Move-Fire-Moved to bring my light infantry into range, but couldn’t do any damage. Patch Ordered Two Right to drive off a Light with one of his, and his MC hit one of mine, doing a block while taking two in return. I used Leadership Any Section to activate my left, and swarmed the weakened MC, killing it, and also engaged his Light (once adjacent, and once from cavalry momentum) doing two blocks to it, and in return a MC was chased off with a banner.

Patch Out Flanked to move up his allied MH, and drove off another MC with one loss. I Ordered Two Center to move up, and he Move-Fire-Moved to do one hit with each of his two Lights. I used Inspired Right Leadership to close up some of the MH, and moved my MC up to contact while my lights drove off his at range. Patch used Order Mounted to move up his left flank, and forced my MC to evade out of range, but only after it drove off his MC. I Counter Attacked to move up my left-center, and charged the MC back into the fray against his light inf, driving it into the baseline for a block. Patch Ordered Three Center to drive off my lights there, and I used Leadership Any Section to close up my center. Patch Ordered Four Right (with only three over there) to shuffle units, and picked off a second block on the Sacred Band with archery, while I Ordered Three Right to move more MH up and drove his Light off the board with my MC before he Ordered Two Center MH closer.

I used Line Command to move almost the entire army up, and engaged on my right-center. I picked off a couple blocks on the flanks with archery, and then eliminated two allied MH, drove off a Spartan MH with three losses (voluntary banner retreat; I could have followed up with leader momentum, but I’d be nearly surrounded), and did three blocks to his leader-led MH, which did one block in return. Patch countered with Mounted Charge, eliminated the Sacred Band, reduced the leader-lead Heavy to one block (which then retreated), did a block to a MH in the center and drove it back two hexes (three banners, reduced for support), and reduced two MH to one block each, while they did three blocks total in return.

I Counter Attacked again, activating the remnants of my line, and moving my MC behind his line. I picked on his reduced leader on the flank, and a First Strike only did a block to me, while I knocked out the unit, and used momentum to get the next unit in line. 6-1

For the second game, Patch started with Order Two Right to start moving up the refused flank, while I used a Coordinated Attack to pick on the flanks to no effect. Patch Ordered Three Right and did a block to my Light. Another Coordinated Attack moved more units up, and returned the favor with a hit on his Light. Patch Ordered Lights, and got three hits at range, reducing my exposed Light to one block, and doing a block to a Spartan MH. I Ordered Mediums to re-form my line further forward, Patch Ordered Two Right to drive my reduced Light to the baseline (two banners, which I was happy to take), and I Ordered Mediums again. The left flank drove one of his center Lights away, while the left MC did a block to one of his flanking Lights.

Patch Move-Fire-Moved to do a block to the left MC and two blocks to a MH. I Ordered Three Center to force his other center Light back, while he tried more ranged fire with Order Two Center, but didn’t get any hits this time. Inspired Left Leadership got me back in contact with two of his Lights, who evaded, but the reduced unit was eliminated with two hits anyway. Patch Ordered Three Right, and eliminated my MC with two banners. Ordering Lights didn’t do anything for me (other than get my 1-block Light off the baseline so it could evade again), and he used Inspired Right Leadership to bring his MHs into striking range.

I Ordered Three Center, forcing his Lights to evade, and break up his line, and did three blocks to a MH while taking one in return. Patch countered with Mounted Charge, coming into contact along my left-center, and engaging my MC with his on my right. The MC took a hit and forced his to retreat while he did two hits each to two Spartan MH, one of which was forced back two hexes by another three-banner hit, and one of my allied MH was reduced to a block. In return, I did two hits to one of his MH, and a First Strike eliminated a MH before it could hit a two-block led unit.

Leadership Any Section moved the remnants of that line up, and I eliminated two weakened MH while doing two to another and forcing it back a hex. Patch Double Timed his Heavies into action, eliminating two MH, while taking a block in return. I Double Timed fresh MH into the flank of his Heavies, doing a block to his MC and two blocks to a Heavy, while I took two blocks on an allied and a Spartan MH, both of which were forced back. Patch re-engaged with Order Heavies, eliminating two MH. I Ordered Mediums, killed the center Heavy, used momentum to try for a second unit, muffed the roll (four green circles, ‘And that’s a go!’), and took two hits and retreated. And my MC knocked out his. 6-5

Afterword

The Spartans have a nice enough army that I hadn’t realized just how much smaller it is than the Theban army until late in the second game when I was wondering where everyone had gone. They really have a tough time in this scenario, with fewer units, and near-equal overall quality. The five-block Spartans are nice, but that just makes them about equal to the Heavies. The first game really came apart for the Spartans after a very effective Line Command, and I thought Patch had me in the second after he got the Heavies into my smashed up center. I had to take chances, and avoided the MC combat at first since it could so easily backfire.

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Anime Fall 2017

by on January 9, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Anime

And this was another season where I ended up watching a lot of current series. I was out a week and a half on vacation, and then Smudge came down ill around Christmas, so I’m running a bit late on seeing the end of most shows. Nothing truly outstanding this time, though there’s a lot of good ones. As usual, this in rough order of my preference, though the bulk of it is really close together for me this time.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride — This is the big one getting a big budget, and all the push this season, and deservedly so. I’d have to say that I like the prequel OAVs better than the series, but I’m still enjoying this quite a lot.

Last Man — This has continued to be good, and really well written. The rabbit hole is still going down, and I’ve been wondering just how long this complicated prequel can go, though it’s showing signs of going for an ending.

Recovery of an MMO Junkie — It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it. The members of a MMO guild are all relatively close to each other in real life but don’t realize it (which is a lot easier in Japan than in the US…). It’s a romance between the main pair, and not only did well with the MMO side, but had a good story. Also, my favorite opening of the season.

Voltron: Legendary Defender — And fourth season was short again. I’m certain they’re doing just enough episodes to get to another point where you yell ‘noooo!’ at the fact that you’ve hit the end.

Garo: Vanishing Line — This is the lastest in a series of stories all set in the same world; Smudge has seen a couple of earlier Garo series, but this is my first one. And it’s surprisingly good. The world’s a bit odd, as you have what’s obviously a successful American city as the start point, and then you go off into a mid-west and Rockies that have been abandoned to the Horrors, so it’s not actually Earth, despite a lot of US signage….

Food Wars — The season started out with a standard story, with a big public fair/contest, but then went off the rails with a hostile management takeover, which surprisingly is tying directly into the backgrounds and attitudes of some of the secondary characters. It’s been a very effective changeup.

Pokemon Sun and Moon — Continuing to be a good series. I sometimes wonder if the new style for the show is just so they can do some Tex Avery takes.

Blend S — Okay, a show about a fetish cafe shouldn’t really be my thing… but it’s hilarious. It helps that all the characters are characters away from their ‘on the job’ personas, and the chemistry between them is surprisingly good.

Kino’s Journey: The Beautiful World — With how great of a show the original series was, this was promising for a top spot in the season. However, a decent number of stories were re-cycled from the original (admittedly, it’s been so long, I only recognized one of them, but Smudge noted others), making me wonder just what’s going on. Smudge was also unhappy with Kino’s design here compared to the original, and I think I agree, though not as ardently. At any rate, it never seemed to really recapture the surreal feeling of the original for me, which it really needs to to make a world full of isolated ‘countries’ work.

Two Car — Girl’s sports anime. I didn’t really expect a lot out of it… but it was actually solidly written, and had a good overall arc as well as solid individual episodes. Probably the best ‘overlooked’ anime of the season.

Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond — Four-word title lotto bonus! This was a good follow-up to the original series, and maintained all the crazyness of it, while, I think, having better stories. I certainly hope that we get another season of this; though I hope they don’t feel a need to add another ‘B’ each time.

Konohana Kitan — Okay, this is cute, and fluffy, and awesomely cute. An inn between the worlds with kitsune staff. Really charming, but not necessarily very deep, so I have a hard time truly recommending it, even though I do.

Infini-T Force — Tatsunoko does a crossover fanfic of several of their properties. Somewhat surprising is the decision to do it in CG, and I felt the animation was a bit weak in places, but it held up pretty well, especially for a TV budget. The story itself was pretty good, and and Smudge especially enjoyed it, possibly because she knows the properties better than I do (I’m aware of two of the four used, but have never seen them). The last couple minutes sets up for the movie sequel, which hopefully I’ll get a chance to see too.

Elegant Yokai Apartment Life —The current season of this has been interesting, with a fair amount of focus on Inaba finding his place in the world, and a decent amount of moralizing on the various ills of today’s youth.

Black Clover — The real big shonen push of the season was extremely underwhelming, and I was more than ready to drop it after a couple episodes. However, I did end up sticking with it, and the writing has gotten a lot better. Yelling as a substitute for characterization is wearing, but as long as it doesn’t draw out plotlines (ha!) it’s good.

Code: Realize — League of Extraordinary Bishies. The general ideas here were good, but poorly handled. Poorly-done steampunk (just stick a random gear on it!), with period literary characters… that are way off concept. If it was done on purpose, it doesn’t show, and just looks like the creator stuck known names on characters ‘because’, since nothing matches but the general role, and everything else is wildly off.

Sengoku Night Blood — Okay… alternate world that name-drops all sorts of Warring States people, but they’re pretty-boy vampires and werewolves. And a modern-day girl gets dropped into this. The plot is all over the place, and while there’s hints of an overall situation behind the scenes, what’s presented is fairly directionless.

I managed to find time to see a couple of older things this season:

Girls und Panzer: The Real Anzio Battle! — The ‘missing episode’ of the series, it actually features the series opening and closing. I have some problems with the main fight as several tanks probably really should have thrown tracks. But it was well done, and there’s some good bridging with the surrounding episodes in the series as well as a good overall story.

Girls und Panzer der Film — Finally got to see the (first!) Girls und Panzer movie recently. Definitely meant for the fans, as they don’t give a lot of re-introduction to Sensha-do, but the setup is fairly solid. The school isn’t as saved as it seemed from the series, and gets closed down, with the solution being more tanks! Or at least a Tankery fight against impossible odds, with even wilder vehicles than the Maus, a 1941 reference… needless to say, it’s packed, and probably could have used a few more minutes even when you know what’s going on.

Patema Inverted — Okay, playing around with the camera angles to drive home the opposite gravity problems felt heavy-handed at first, but does work, and I came out of the movie with a couple, ‘no you’ll fall!’ moments. As with a lot of movies with a bit of gimmick, there was an extra layer of twists, and I managed to spot a couple of them a bit before the big reveal. Solid writing, and I’d like to see more. Recommended.

Tokyo Godfathers — Smudge has been wanting the rest of us to see this as a Christmas movie, and managed to round us all up this year. Another really solid movie, that manages to present a sympathetic, but not romanticized, look at homeless people in Tokyo.

Fairy Tail — VRV doesn’t have the ‘hole’ in the series that is a problem with the Funimation streaming service, so I finally saw the rest of this. Tartaros Chapter was in many ways about what I expected… too big, too drawn out, and too ‘the stakes must be higher!’ to be a really good story. Not bad, but overwrought. Fairy Tale Zero was a good prequel story that I enjoyed a lot more.

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