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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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HoMM V: The Queen

by on December 6, 2014 at 12:02 pm
Posted In: Computer games

I picked up the Heroes of Might and Magic V bundle in a GoG deal recently, and tried it out to see how the new ‘post 3DO’ games are. First gripe: Each expansion is a separate program with its own campaigns and scenarios, instead of wrapping up into one big interface.

Mostly, it’s HoMM. Heroes wander around a map of paths and choke points defeating monsters and taking cities. They went with a low-poly somewhat clunky-looking full 3D environment that reminds me, stylistically of WarCraft III. It’s certainly not bad, but I’d prefer not to have to wrestle with the camera (there is a ‘Classic HoMM view’ which fixes the camera pretty well vertical, but there’s still a problem of things tending to get hidden, especially in underground caves). It’s pretty clear visually most of the time, though I don’t think I can tell most mines apart at a glance like in previous games.

Both the main map and battle maps are pure square grids now, unlike the hex grid battles from earlier HoMM games, though I recall HoMM IV went to a square grid also, though it was a finely-grained one, where even the smallest units were several spaces. Now units are one or four (2×2) spaces large. An annoying visual loss here is that the hero’s movement trail is just a series of dots, whereas they used to be arrows whose length gave you an idea how much movement you were consuming. On the other hand, combat now shows the order everything is going to move in, and you can see how many creatures you expect to kill in an attack.

Heroes can attack physically in battle as well as cast spells, but aren’t on the battlefield the way they were in IV. In fact, the game seems fairly close to HoMM III, but touches of IV do show up, notably, peasants are back, and can be upgraded to conscripts. They move at a semi-decent clip, so they aren’t the absolutely useless troops they were back in II.

All I’ve played so far is the first campaign (five scenarios), which gives less of an impression of the game than it should. Some of the scenarios take quite a while, as they have expansive maps with lots to explore. That isn’t necessarily bad, but at the same time, it’s more of a tutorial sequence with only two of the scenarios even featuring an AI player, who has limited resources. There’s a couple of full cutscenes… that I wish were better done. The rest is handled with in-game machanima, that often just consist of a couple of hero characters standing and talking. The plot is-well worn, but well done enough for me to be happy with it.

But all it features is the human (Haven) faction, and a variety of enemies. The only other faction I’ve got any handle on is the demon (Inferno) faction, which serve as the main enemy. I don’t have a very good feel for the game as a whole. I had to do quite a bit of flipping through scenarios to find that there are six factions in this version (the same number II had) but I have no idea what the others are like.

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