Starfleet Year One

by on December 15, 2023 at 2:19 pm
Posted In: Books

I got this at the same time as the two Enterprise Romulan War novels, but it was written noticeably before those. Those were done in 2009-11, after Star Trek: Enterprise was off the air and a lot more had been established. This was published as the series was getting going, and was written before that, and isn’t directly tied to it at all.

Apparently, it began as a serial, apparently appearing in the backs of the then-monthly publishing of Star Trek books at Pocket. So, the chapters are almost a sequence of short stories (the plot unifies as it goes on), that have been collected together. It also has its own cast of characters, and doesn’t lean on existing ones at all other than Dax.

As such, it has been somewhat overcome by events, though the concept is still a sound one, and you can change some details to save the general plot. The book covers the end of the Earth-Romulan war (which looks a lot different than in the later novels). Earth remains committed to strengthening ties to its other neighbors after the war (this is consistent), and wants to found a new fleet that everyone will be part of. Naturally, lead by humans, because it’s all their idea, but they’re trying to get as many aliens into the Federation and Starfleet as possible.

The real plot begins about a third of the way through with the idea that Starfleet is beginning with six ships taken from Earth Command, and soon, the first ship of a brand-new class, USS Daedalus (that’s her on the cover), will be commissioned and given to one of those six. These six captains fall into two rough camps, with external champions of each faction wanting to decide the direction of the new organization.

On one side are people from Earth Command, who see it purely as a regular military defense fleet, dedicated to nothing more or less than the defense of the new Federation. They derisively call the other captains ‘butterfly catchers’, who are backed by people who want to take the opportunity to explore, chart dangerous anomalies, and make scientific discoveries.

The bulk of the novel deals with the internal tensions of the new Starfleet from the point of view of the captains. It’s a good enough premise, and decently done in classic Star Trek action format. There were originally plans to do seven years of the beginnings of Starfleet, and I think with Enterprise to build off of now, it could still be a good idea to return to.

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Two Rounds of Sucro

by on December 11, 2023 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

After my failure in Hatten, Patch and I did our standard between-big-games round of Commands & Colors: Ancients. Up this time was the Battle of Sucro from Expansion #3. Pompey gets another crack at Sertorius, with a slightly smaller army, with almost all Mediums. Sertorius has the only Heavies present, and has an extra card. Considering victory is six banners, both sides have large armies.

Patch led off the first game as the Romans with Order Three Left to get a more solid line, I moved up Two Center, and Patch did the same to get a solid line established. Order Lights got me into range, but did no damage, and Leadership any Section let Patch get his left into contact, driving my Lights into the hills with one loss each on a Light and LS. I Counter Attacked, and knocked out a Medium for no losses.

Patch Ordered Mediums, moving up his right, and doing three hits to an Aux on the left. Order Two Left closed up my other flank; Patch Ordered Three Right, and took a hit on his MC for no gain. Line Command got nearly my entire army, and started fights on both flanks, doing a block to a MC, and two to a Medium while taking one block on an Aux. Patch used his Line Command to get his right and center into contact, forcing my weak Aux to run (three banners) after taking a hit and doing another in return. He also did three hits each to two Mediums and two to a Heavy, while they did six blocks total back.

Clash of Shields let me order three units, finishing off a Medium and chasing off another with one block left. Patch Rallied… one block on a Medium, who then did a ranged hit to finish off Perpenna’s Medium (conservation of blocks). Coordinated Attack let me finish of Memmius’ MC, drive off a LS, and do three hits to a Medium while taking two on a Heavy. Order Mediums allowed some reshuffling, and put a fresh Medium into contact (they were getting rare). He finished off a Medium and Heavy with a weak leader-led Medium, did a block to an Aux. Double Time got the rest of my center into action, finishing off the weak Medium and killing Afranius, and then finished off a Medium that had just tried to fall back. 6-2

I started the second game with Order One (Heavy), while Patch Ordered Three Center. Order Lights didn’t do anything (the Romans only have three), while Patch did a hit to a LS with his. Another Order Lights from me still did no damage, but did force a Light and LS to retreat. We then each Ordered Two (respective) Right for no result, and Out Flanked did a pair of hits to my Mediums. I Rallied to get my LS loss back, and he forced a Light to retreat. I followed Patch’s Order Three Right (no effect) with Four Right to do a LS hit. Order Three Center did a Medium hit, but I couldn’t do anything with Order Two Center.

Order Mediums finally got us in contact in the center, destroying a Medium, doing two blocks to another, and killing Pompey. Counter Attack got my line into action, getting me a Medium, and five hits on two others at the cost of one of my Mediums. Patch Ordered Two Center, driving off two Mediums with two hits apiece. Leadership Any Section moved up my left, and Line Command got Patch’s left into action, finishing off a Medium and driving off another with a hit. Inspired Center Leadership finished off a Medium and did two blocks to a Heavy, but cost me a Medium.

Another Line Command kept Patch’s left moving, and did a hit to a Medium, after First Strike finished off one of his. Order Three Center… only ordered two units, but drove off his Heavy with a loss, and Momentum finished it off. Patch Out Flanked to finish off a Medium. 4-6

Afterword

Patch had a good hand in the first game, but the dice were a major disappointment. There was a couple of turns when I feared for my right flank, but then the rest of the battle heated up, and Patch’s opportunity passed.

In the second game, we both started with poor hands and had to spend time just cycling to useful cards. Losing Pompey was especially bad, as he could have made my Counter Attack much more effective. As it was, both of our centers were basically gone at the end.

Its something of a standard smash-em-up fight, but a very enjoyable one, and certainly required some thinking and maneuvering.

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The Battle of Quatre Bras 1815

by on December 7, 2023 at 1:21 pm
Posted In: Books

I will take Robinson at his word that there’s been no single work focused exclusively on the battle of Quatre Bras before in English. It seems unlikely that there’s nothing, but with the long shadow of Waterloo, it’s all too possible.

However, I was also surprised, and skeptical, when he said that his look through French sources did not turn up anything of help in writing the book. Having read it, I now wonder just what he was looking for.

Overall, this is an account of the battle using as many low-level primary sources as possible. I assume that Robinson’s trouble revolves around a lack of Frenchmen who survived the campaign, and desired to talk about it in writing. I would still think there’d be something, but perhaps not nearly enough to assemble a narrative from the French side.

What this means is that it is a very lopsided book. To Robinson’s credit, he does draw in a lot of sources from allied contingents, so this is not presented as just a an English show. However, everything is told from the British point of view. French forces are encountered the same way Wellington’s army did, as masses of men moving around, firing, charging, seriously challenging the allied army’s hold on the field, but no unit names or other specifics are given. What is actually going on in the battle is lost. Bédoyère’s conflicting orders aren’t even alluded to.

I found following the action very rough going in this book. I think it’s partly because the one-sided nature of the book, which aids a jumbled narrative. It got a lot of—limited—detail, and worth studying for anyone wanting to dive deep into the battle. But there is still yet to be a good one-book study of the battle as a battle.

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HF4 Liehr Launches First

by on December 3, 2023 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After Unhorsing Patch, we went to the next Hatten in Flames scenario. Both sides are preparing for a new attack on the morning of Jan 10. The Germans get going first, and attack into the teeth of American resistance.

A little too in the teeth, in this case.

I had the Germans, who have thirteen squads, two late-model Pz IVs and two Panthers. The Americans are defending with ten squads, two each MMG, MTR, BAZ, and a pair of immobile HIP M10 tank destroyers, with another pair entering on turn 2. The Germans are trying to get six buildings near the J27 crossroads in 5.5 turns, and get credit for taking I28 early, and having more functioning vehicles at game end. (You know, I hadn’t really contemplated til now that they do have to be Mobile, so the at start TDs don’t even count.)

I eventually decided to follow the prodding of the victory conditions, and move on the north side of town, hoping to have a shot at I28. Two of the tanks and some infantry would attempt to hold defenders in place while I raced towards getting access to the H26 area.

Patch had one good shot, which of course was at a 9-1 and two squads. Thankfully, the 1MC only battle hardened squad and generated a hero. But, it made me a bit more cautious on the rest of my moves, which was something I probably couldn’t afford on this plan. The Panther parked in its assigned space overlooking the town, but the PzIV went slow for armored assault on the next stack through the vulnerable area, instead of parking in B23.

In Final Fire, Patch got several hits on D20 with a MTR, but couldn’t get an effect. Return fire from D20 broke the MTR HS, and revealed a concealed squad, but my lead Panther also malfunctioned its CMG in AFPh. In CCPh, Patch revealed a TD to prevent “?”… in B23! (My original movement plan would have gotten very exciting.)


Situation, German Turn 1, showing the full map area. North is to the left.
↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Secret Mystic

by on November 29, 2023 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the tenth 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
Way of Life: The Short Way
Horse Lords: For the Horde
Conclave: Lords of the Realm
The Reaper’s Due: Crusader Kings: Pandemic

The immediate goal of CK II development at the end of 2016 was a further round of optimization and some UI improvements. The next expansion, Monks and Mystics, was announced on December 2, and released, alongside patch 2.7, on March 7, 2017.

Mystic Improvements

Several additions were made to the UI with the patch. First, the idea of marking that a battle will happen in a province, based on current troop movements, was taken from EU IV. Most of the rest centered around the Intrigue screen, which got a redesign to show more decisions at once, and a new panel was separated out added to show all the plots you personally are involved with.

Those who have Conclave saw improvements as well, as icons showing a character’s most likely voting stance if they were on the council were added to the selection menu with an extensive hoverover to show the reasons why. When wanting to change a realm law, you can now go to a council screen where it will show you the likely votes, and you can interact with the characters to try and change them. Also, the children’s education selection got some tips to show what they’d excel in at a glance.

The rules screen got an update as well, with save slots where you can have multiple pre-sets for use in different games. And, Monks and Mystics added one new rule for the devil worshipers.

And finally, a number of updates were done to the map, making the Ural mountains impassable (other than a pass through the middle), fixing the geometry on some lakes, and redrawing rivers to look better, as well as seriously adjusting the path of the Danube.

Secret Societies

Some of the societies introduced here operate in secret, and interestingly, they were available with the patch, instead of needing the expansion.

The societies in question are more properly cults. You can now publicly profess one religion, while secretly following another. That doesn’t have to be tied to the society; you may just privately hold a belief without being in contact with others.

This isn’t as hard as it initially looks, since you can ‘secretly convert’ to the religion of your spouse, or land that’s in your demesne. More importantly, you can tell your lord you’ll convert to his religion when he demands it, but secretly keep your old faith, or if your councilor turns to heresy, you can join him, but both keep it secret.

Each religion has a society of people who secretly follow that religion, so you can set up a network of people, and try to covertly convert others into your sect, and possibly get strong enough to go public.

In many cases, it’s not a big deal, but it does add a nice dimension of religious plotting to go along with all the political plots. It’s also makes religion a bit more personal in feel.

Monastic Orders

The more common type of society is the monastic order. There are nine of these (two for Catholics, with three more for the other major branches of Christianity, one for each of the Indian religions, and then one for the Hellenist religion). They use all the “default” society mechanics, you generally gain a bit of devotion each month for your positive (to them) traits, occasionally get missions from the head of the order (which will grant devotion), and you can trade in devotion for a higher rank in the society, possibly becoming its headmaster someday. Most of them grant a Learning bonus just for being in them (the Benedictine Order instead grants Stewardship), and as rank goes up you get some decision-like abilities, including managing yours and others traits away from negative ones.

The Hermetic Society is like the monastic orders, but has a wider range of activities. Joining causes negative relations with clergy, but can grant a number of bonuses. As opposed to just having event-chain missions, “apprentice” becomes a new minor title to grant, and there are decisions that can be taken to further your investigation of the mysteries of nature and the universe.

The Assassins became a Shiite society focused around Intrigue. Being an Assassin by itself generates more plot power when you want to murder someone, and you can get other Assassin to join in, raising the plot power even more.

And then the demon worshipers are a large expansion-only secret society. They only exist if allowed in the game rules, but always get supernatural abilities if they do (which, if not historical, is largely in line with what a lot of people in the Middle Ages thought was going on). The abilities from this society are generally more powerful than the others, but will cause a character to accumulate negative traits, including physical ones like hunchback or clubfooted.

Inventory Management

For some time, there had been some items in CK II; you could have a saint’s relic, which would get handed down through the generations, for instance. The expansion greatly expanded on this, and systematized it with an inventory screen, and a single modifier trait shows the total of all bonuses you may be getting from them.

It is a fairly basic system as such things go, but does allow for gifting them to another character, looting them from a holding that’s been besieged and such. Occasional event chains can let you search for a rumored artifact, and there are ones that you can have made.

The list of potential items is quite large; many are of course different qualities of the same thing, but even after allowing for that, there’s a lot of potential items here. These range from the mentioned relics to special arms and armor, to items for Hermetic Society missions.

Overall, I find the promise better than the delivery. CK II isn’t an RPG at heart, and the item system shows that. That said, it beats trying to manage a few item-like things without having an item system, so I’m certainly glad it exists.

More Work

Councilors are mostly useful in pushing up the score of the realm in their field, but they can also do three different jobs on the map. With this expansion, each position gains a fourth job, which becomes their default activity when not assigned one of the regular three.

Chancellors can perform statecraft, which reduces threat, and can improve relations with random neighbors or vassals. Marshals can organize the army, which reduces maintenance of retinues and can cause events that improves the skills of your commanders. Stewards administer the realm to speed cultural conversion and add some positive modifiers to provinces in your demesne. Chaplains hunt heretics to find the members of secret societies which you can then deal with.

Spymasters can now sabotage a province, which will cause unrest and various other types of damage. Unlike the others, this is an ‘on map’ job. Instead, the existing scheme job becomes ‘off map’, which had always just slightly enhanced the primary role of discovering plots anyway.

This was a clever addition to the game. Giving the councilors something to do when you aren’t supervising what’s going on manually is great, and would be especially valuable for a new player, which makes it a shame that it’s part of the expansion, but it certainly adds value.

Conclusion

There are complaints that the societies aren’t that good in the long run as they keep throwing the same events at you over and over. This is valid, but there’s more than enough societies to give interest for some time.

My primary complaint is mechanical. This isn’t the first time it has come up, but it’s not hard for these events to have you or someone else in the order traveling some distance to meet for the event. Since being in a society puts you in fairly decent contact with the other members, who may be some distance away, this problem gets accentuated here. Pilgrimages/Hajj have your regent take over while on them, so it is possible to account for this. Just making the character unavailable for commanding for a set time would be enough to get rid of the worst of the problem however.

I’d rate this as a lesser expansion among the more “personal” ones. If those are what you’re interested in, don’t skip this, but certainly get Way of Life and Conclave first.

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