2014 in Review

by on January 1, 2015 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Life

Another year, and another look back at the year. It’s certainly been a busy one; I seem to have lost track of time completely around September, and am still wondering what’s going on.

The biggest thing for me is, obviously, starting my own business. I got all the paperwork for Fox Den officially filed in July/August, and finally got the first book out in November (after a large number of rounds of editing). This also entailed re-doing my site/blog (with a lot of help from Smudge), as I’ve moved to a WordPress multisite install, which meant ripping out the old install and transferring the existing blog over.

That also meant that it took over the home page of the full site, and Smudge is recommending I transfer everything else into WordPress pages too, but that’s stalled at the moment. Hopefully something will happen with that in 2015. The theme I had been using didn’t play nice with a multisite install, so we re-did that too, and managed to keep the basic look the same. Lastly, I recently re-worked my categorization scheme, a month or two ago and broke ‘gaming’ up into sub-categories for boardgames, RPGs and computer games—my apologies to anyone on LiveJournal for that last, since the converter plugin I use ignored my commands to not repost over there as I updated the categories on the posts.

Looking at the tags on the blog (which did not change) this year, I have 65 posts with: forty-three gaming, twenty-two review, eighteen history, fifteen books, seven reading, C&C Ancients, ASL, four Age of Wonders, Master of Magic, game genres, GCACW, three ArcheAge, Festung Budapest, two bgg blog, SFB, HoMM, Paradox, Dominant Species, Neverwinter, and one each AdCiv, King’s Bounty, Hearts of Iron, War in the North, time travel, 4X, Space Empires, Warlords, anime, Colonization, colonization games, Conquest of the New World, Gold of the Americas, Imperialism, city-builder, economic engine, Pharaoh, Settlers II, EU Rome, Fox Den, Up Front, F&E, vassal, Crown of Roses, DTO, GURPS, azuna, FFXIV, life. (I need to get more consistent with my book review tags.) The gaming subcategories have twenty-five Boardgaming, one RPGs, and seventeen Computer Games. So, I’m now averaging over a post a week, which is where I want to be, but the distribution needs to be a little less… ‘lumpy’.

Financially, it’s been a rough year. I started out on-plan for paying down my credit-card, but this year has been very rough on Baron (whose dad is now in a nursing home), which rippled out through the rest of the household. Add to that that I bought 100 ISBNs for Fox Den during the year (the next tier down is buying 10; buying 100 is cheaper than 20 (2×10), and I know I need more than 10…), and debt is back to about where it was right after buying Azuna last year. It looks to me that I’ll be paying the card down again next year, but I don’t think I’ll be matching the previous schedule.

Misfortune-wise, it doesn’t match a couple years ago where a lot of equipment failed. Well, it doesn’t match the number of things—scale is another matter. As I mentioned earlier, Baron’s dad is now in a nursing home, and this is the end of several months of fighting the system (the system won). I just found out my Aunt Ruth passed away Monday morning, which was a surprise, since she’d been as well as ever at Thanksgiving. I haven’t really seen her enough in recent years to say I’ll miss her, but she is the last remnant of a part of my childhood that I’ll always miss; she lived with my maternal grandparents, right next door, and I spent a lot of time there.

Moving on to the inanimate, the day after I returned from my trip to my parents, my car was in a hit-and-run while parked out front.

Car

Other than having a shot-trap for rainwater, the car is still sound. Thankfully, they missed the taillight and gas cap. I’ve been cheap on my insurance, and without any idea who did it, I’m left paying for it myself. I do plan on getting something done; still need to talk to the regular mechanic.

The apartment we rent is old, and was not a shining example of construction even when new. A while after we moved in, a couple of electrical sockets went out and had to be replaced. A couple weeks ago, the power went out along one wall of the studio and the kitchen—including the refrigerator. The handyman (manager’s husband) came out, traced the problem to a socket that was behind a bookcase, which had a single heater hooked to it. The socket was replaced, and we’ve transferred the heater out to a different socket. This Sunday, the power went out in Baron and Smudge’s bedroom and half of the living room. We then found a scorch mark above a light switch.

A real electrician came out the next day, and opened it up, turned to us and said, “This place could have burned down.” We looked at the open panel, where we could see arcing still going on with everything off and agreed. That has been fixed. But, in both cases this happened in the early morning when nothing was powered on at the point of failure. And, in neither case, did any circuit breakers trip. It’s their job to trip when something like this starts. In fact, I’m not sure any circuit breaker in this place has ever actually tripped. They need replacing. Convincing the landlord/management company is the fun part.

Reading-wise, Goodreads tells me I’ve read 52 books this year, which is the one a week average I shoot for. It’s also way up from last year. One of my goals for this year has been to get back to reading more SF&F, and that has gone fairly well. I’ve still spent a lot of effort on reading history, but my ‘Reading My Way Through History’ project is stalled at 1600, since I’ve been reading a lot of cheap Kindle reprints (which really, really, needed at least a single round of edits) on earlier eras. One of my goals was to start converting ‘less important’ books in my library to electronic versions, but most of the stuff I’ve got is old enough that there’s no electronic version, so that’s failed.

On the other hand, a plan to expand my RPG collection a bit has gone fine. Thanks to some early sales, I have the latest versions of RuneQuest and Pendragon (really meant to review them), and have expanded my GURPS collection nicely. And in fact, that and various computer game sales have been the bulk of my game buying this year. It’d be nice to actually do something on the RPG side, but I’ve had a hard time getting my head back into that creative space.

└ Tags: 
2 Comments

McLemore’s Cove

by on December 30, 2014 at 8:15 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Mark missed gaming on Sunday, but has gotten better, and came over for some long-overdue 2-player gaming. Trying to decide what to do the night before, we gravitated to the GCACW series, and then to Mark’s just-punched copy of Battle Above the Clouds (which I also had on loan at that point). Looking it over this morning, I set up the first scenario, McLemore’s Cove, and after we reviewed the BAC rules (not skipping enough of the Tennessee River rules…) we went at it, with Mark taking the Confederates.

Most of the forces in this 4-turn scenario are inactive for the first turn, so once setup and the like was finished that didn’t take too long. Mark was also a bit cautious, and Negley’s division of the XIV Corps moved back on one of the victory areas after being threatened on two sides.

McLemore 1

The second turn, of course, took a lot longer. I opened with a move south by the XXI Corps, near the north end of the lines. I stuck Palmer’s division too far out, and a couple of lost initiatives later saw the demoralized remnants routing away, having lost three strength points (one during the retreat). Not a good start. I re-aligned the rest of the corps, and things quieted down up there for a bit. I eventually came back to that flank, and moved Wilder’s mounted infantry against the Confederate cavalry units holding his right flank, and the path to a victory area. He won two quick battles, and knocked out both brigades, giving me a much better casualty count.

Down in McLemore Cove itself, I was worried because of the number of Confederates in the area, with only three divisions to hold them off, but an assault from the south failed to go in (a ‘6’ to halt the entire thing), and as Cleburne was just north, to flank the Union position, I sent a division down to flank him, and drove him back with losses. By this time, I finally got an insubordination check (well, it is just a 1/18 chance per activation), and was successful on Buckner’s Corps. (Insubordinate: no assaults, and all movement attacks have a -2 to the attacker’s die roll.) That halted the column coming from the north, and the turn ended with a fair number of exhausted units.

McLemore 2b

We had to put the game away just short of end of turn 3. The Confederates got up Lookout Mountain with the gap I had to open to get at Cleburne, but stopped short of Trenton before a good die roll got a reinforcing unit in there to block him. I got a division around the end of a stream to get at Cleburne’s Division, and sent him back with some minor losses again. I was contemplating going after some of the Confederate victory areas past Pigeon Mountain, but guessed it would take too long, though I might cause more losses crashing through the small regiments holding the ridge.

On the north end, more poor die rolls from the Confederate attacks brought things to a halt with more losses (poor demoralized Palmer from the first day took two fatigue to keep from being able to recover that night either, but at least it was no worse).

The Confederates had Thornton’s Mill for 10 VP, and Campbell for another 10, and while there was going to be some interesting fighting there on the fourth day, it was unlikely I’d retake them (since the VPs are awarded for holding either of two points, and I’d probably just have one of each set). Union losses stood at 5 strength points for 10 VP, and Confederate losses were at 9 for -27 VP. Total: 3 VP, a Union Substantial victory (by one point). I had yet to actually take Summerville, but I was likely to take it on the fourth turn, or cause more casualties in the process.

└ Tags: ,
 Comment 

Wooden Horses Could Not Stop Me

by on December 29, 2014 at 10:16 am
Posted In: Boardgaming

Had the gang over for one last game day of 2014 yesterday. We were scheduled for a five-player game of Advanced Civilization, but Mark was down with the flu. Normally, this would also strand Jason, who gets a ride from him. He’s renting a car this week, and showed up just a little late. While I was out checking the train station for him, everyone else decided to stick with a four-player game, using the full map (by the rules, it should be three of the four panels…).

This definitely bent the game a bit, as everyone had plenty of room to spread out in, and minimized conflict. It also made larger civilizations more stable, and helped us get through the later stages of the game, where we normally stall out. Everyone was happy about that part, though I think some kind of slightly tighter format would be better. Also, it meant everyone needed to pay more attention to their token cycle, so it was instructive that way too.

Anyway, I took Egypt (picking second after Patch’s Illyria), Dave took Assyria, and Jason Crete. The opening stages were fairly standard, with Crete heading into Asia Minor and me taking a one-turn bounce before building two cities to pass into the Early Bronze Age. The first calamity of the game was a Treachery that Patch passed me to take one of the cities in upper Egypt. Thanks to the fact that there’s only a 2-space and a 1-space (and another city) adjacent, it survived as such for a long time, as there was no way to get seven people in to break the city. I eventually reduced the other city in a later calamity (probably Epidemic) and then tore down that one before rebuilding both.

Before that point, Patch passed me Treachery again, to take a city on the North African coast. And then Jason passed me Treachery to take another North African city. Horses, rabbits, ducks… are any of these giant wooden animals safe?!

Patch and I got into a lead as the mid-game commenced with Dave and Jason falling behind, partly thanks to various calamities. I figure I had a slight edge going into the Early Iron Age (got in slightly early with a three-advance purchase), and then got pounded by three round of calamities. Patch had been maintaining nine cities fairly consistently, while I was struggling between seven and nine. When the disasters got me, I couldn’t get the token cycle to kick loose the population to rebound properly (probably too spread out), and I sunk down to five cities without a lot of growth.

And then Patch drew Civil War. He was at the height of his power, and for most of the game, the recipient would probably been Jason (Crete). But at this moment, I had more in my Stock than he did, and was suddenly boosted to a fairly stable nine-city configuration. Patch had already hit the first space of the Late Iron Age at this point, but couldn’t pick back up before we quit for the day, and I finally hit the Late Iron Age on the last turn.

Here’s the end of the day photo (African cities are from a couple rounds of Piracy):
Wooden Horses

And the final scores:

Side Player AST Cities Civ Cards Trade Cards Treasury Total Place
Illyria Patch 1300 250 1350 48 3 2951 2
Crete Jason 1200 300 760 3 3 2266 4
Assyria Dave 1200 450 900 5 0 2555 3
Egypt James 1300 450 1470 40 7 3267 1

It was a fun time, and way too long since we’ve played AdCiv (2 and a half years? yikes!). The win is very nice too, especially since I’ve noted a tendency for Patch to do very well if I’m not adjacent to him.

Oh, and I finally drew Treachery myself near the end of the game. Along with two other calamities in a round with little trading. I passed Barbarian Hordes off to Jason in return for Epidemic. To my chagrin, random draw picked Treachery to not happen, leaving me with the Epidemic and Piracy.

└ Tags: ,
 Comment 

King’s Bounty: The Legend

by on December 15, 2014 at 9:34 am
Posted In: Computer games

Way, way back when, New World Computing released King’s Bounty; a game where you were a hero leading a band of hired mecenaries doing quests for the king. You visited towns to hire more men (there were a bunch of options on what to hire in a limited number of stacks), fought monsters and so on. This was basically the prototype for Heroes of Might and Magic, where you went from being an independent adventurer to a warlord that actually controls the towns you visit.

In 2008, the name was revived by a Russian company, with King’s Bounty: The Legend. It wasn’t developed or published by the same Russian companies responsible for HoMM V two years before, but it’s impossible not to make comparisons between two Russian revivals of old New World Computing titles.

I got this on a GoG sale recently, and have been trying it out in various stolen moments. I’ve gotten through the first map, short of some especially tough encounters, and am currently a little lost. The area the next ‘main’ quest goes into is obviously way too tough for me. I’ve now gone off to the south, and it looks like I can get a few things done there.

My first impressions of the game were a bit poor, as GoG offers three wallpapers, and two of them were heavy on the cheesecake. (I wish they’d offered the title screen image as a wallpaper.) The game itself, however, has been good. It is no surprise that like HoMM V, it is all in 3D; but where HoMM V felt crude and uninspired, this one feels polished. The models look good, and are well textured. The camera is more limited than I’d like, especially when I’m trying to see into the distance, but I’m not struggling recognize items either.

The combat is turn-based on a hex grid, with your troops moving around and attacking or using abilities, while the hero (you) can also cast a spell once a turn. So it feels much closer to traditional HoMM combat than HoMM V does. Just about all the troop types have one or more special abilities, which is a nice touch, especially since even the easiest ones are limited to being used no more than once every other turn.

There’s three classes of hero to pick from: Warrior (might), Mage (magic) and Paladin (mix), and then there’s a a set of three skill trees for extra abilities which each class can use, but obviously each class should have an easier time with one of the skills. There’s also ‘leadership’ which limits how many of each troop type you can command, which is an interesting way to keep you from just loading up on a large number of troops early on and plowing over enemies.

The questing is fairly clear, other than the earlier problem of not knowing what’s supposed to be easy, and what’s hard. I’ve seen a few quests already that branch off in different directions depending on what you say and do, which is very nice.

I think it’s better than HoMM V, though I’m starting to feel a little lost.

└ Tags: ,
1 Comment

Where Wisdom Fails – Part 2: The Pursuit

by on December 12, 2014 at 6:59 pm
Posted In: SFB

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

[See Part 1.]

Patch and I did the second scenario of the UL2 mini-campaign this Tuesday.

I knew, going in, that this was going to be bad. It wasn’t until I started looking at the DG again for repairs that I realized how bad.

The idea is that there are three Klingon ships available to counter the two-ship Hydran raid that assaulted their BATS. The raiding ships head their separate ways, trying to lose their pursuers, and the Klingons also split up. In the campaign structure, each Hydran ship goes through two follow-up scenarios, “The Pursuit” and “The Ambush” against either a D7 and F5 or a single D6.

In my case, only the Dragoon survived, so all three Klingon ships were present. As there is no time to visit a base, the only repairs allowed are the standard Continuous Damage Repair set, which on a cruiser is four boxes, and pulling out spare shuttles, which gave the DG its full complement of shuttles and a second fighter (there had been one recovered during the first scenario). And all shields are repaired, which was good, since the DG only had two left in decent shape.

I had already repaired one Warp box during the previous scenario, and so selected two more Center Warp and one of the hellbores for the rest of the CDC.

Because of the unbalancing caused by the newer base rules, I also did a round of Emergency Damage Repair as if I had done it on turn 0. There were only three labs left, so I eliminated the top ‘4’ box on the DamCon track for chances to repair another C Warp, Ph #3 (FA+L) and another hellbore.

All three repairs succeeded, giving me 27 power (19 warp), two phasers and three hellbores. I had 10 turns to disengage by separation from all Klingon ships, which meant finding some way of slowing them down significantly.

The best I could manage was speed 14, arming all three hellbores and holding a suicide shuttle. The Klingons start 10-11 hexes behind the DG, and all went speed 22, putting up 1 ECM and one 1 ECCM.

I ran straight for a few impulses, and the D7 and F5 (which start on either side of the DG) started sideslipping in, and so I turned to the left, to bring the what I had to bear on the D7.

We both opened up at range three on impulse 11. The Klingons launched drones, and I launched the suicide shuttle. The D7 fired the five bearing phasers (mostly 5s and 6s), and hit with 3 disruptors, to do 7 internals through the #5. The DG fired both hellbores on that side, but one missed (again!) to seriously dent the weak #4 without actually bringing it down.


Impulse 11; too expensive, and no meaningful result.

I turned off after that, but I couldn’t afford internals at all and lost 6 power, and the one bearing phaser in that exchange. I could have set up a longer range pass, but wanted the hellbores in the 15 damage bracket… not that it did me much good.

Patch took a couple of phaser shots to kill the shuttle before he reached it, and the D7 managed to get back onto the #5 shield to do another 3 internals (a ‘6’ at range 3…) to knock out another power.

I then turned the other way to get the #5 away from him, and fire the third hellbore at the F5. I hadn’t counted on the #3-5 shields being equal, so even with a hit, it didn’t do much. I launched the two fighters at this point, since they had a chance of living until they could fire as long as he concentrated on the ship.

He managed to pick off one of the fighters while all the disruptors on the D6 and F5 fired on the DG with two hits at range 1 (!!) The D6 then tractored the DG and then fired bearing phasers, which rolled only slightly better and the disruptors to put 15 internals through the #4 shield. The F5 followed up several impulses later with the RX phasers for another 12.

At that point, I was down to four power, a FA ph-2 that had never been hit (never bore on anything…), a probe launcher I didn’t have the power to arm, and two shuttles. We called it at the end of the turn for a Klingon Substantive Victory.

In the more ‘normal’ form (D7 & F5 vs a DG with about six internals) it should be a challenging scenario. The hellbores will punch through the weak rear shields fairly easily, so some lucky hits can definitely give the DG a real breather. Though its top speed is 28 (only 27 warp), so getting away from speedy Klingons is a problem.

We’re going back to our usual ASL next, but hopefully we’ll be playing SFB a little more regularly next year.

└ Tags: , ,
 Comment