The Changing Land

by on November 19, 2025 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Basically the last in the line of Dilvish stories, this is the biggest (the others being short stories), and the most Zelazny.

Not to say you can’t tell who wrote the others, but this one has the space to spread its psychedelic wings.

The other difference is that the cast is much larger, and you spend a fair amount of time away from him. In fact, the first few chapters are spent setting things up by visiting a few different viewpoints in turn. Only after mood and initial actions are set up does Dilvish ride into the story.

It certainly helps to read the stories of Dilvish the Damned first, as you never get into his head, even as he dominate the rest of the action, nor get any explanation of any number of things. He’s powerful, extremely competent, and extremely driven here. And that’s about all you get.

Meanwhile, you get fragments of several other people as this is the only story to feature them. But the main focus here is a strange place (a timeless castle, and the ever-changing area around it), and plenty of sword-and-sorcery style action.

Past that, well, there is a lot to talk about, as there are several different plots going on, with various people maneuvering around the power a leftover from the days of the Old Ones represents. But, all these separate plots end up fraying and merging into the climatic action, and not even Dilvish gets to carry his story to his wanted conclusion under the force of other events. Really, the psychedelics take over here, and its a great ride, but somewhat lacking in character agency.

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The Secret of Platform 13

by on November 15, 2025 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

This is identified as one of the influences on Harry Potter, and it’s easy to see parallels with the start of that series.

That said, the influence is less about Platform 9 3/4, and more for the initial characters.

We have the nice people (the royal family of The Island—the hidden fantasy land of the book), the absolutely horrible, entitled people (the Trottles), and the eclectic mix of the rescuers.

The main part of the book is a caper. The prince of The Island was kidnapped shortly after he was born, and now, nine years later, the Island and modern England are in contact again for nine days and it’s time to get him back.

Plot-wise, and caper-wise, the book is a lot of fun and well done. Generally, I recommend it.

However, a bigger question comes up when the team sent to get the now nine year-old prince find that having been taken by a desperate, entitled, and rich Mrs. Trottle, he is growing up into a perfectly horrible boy. And there’s the nephew of his nanny, a very nice and polite boy of the same age, picked on by everyone in the estate except his aunt. Unfortunately, instead of wrestling with the problem of the horrible person with the right inheritance and the great person who isn’t, the book takes the predictable easy way out. That let a lot of the air out of an otherwise fun kids book.

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Europa Universalis V

by on November 11, 2025 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

Paradox’s latest game has been out for a week, and I’m actually going to go through my thoughts. It’ll be years before I get formally reviewing it.

It might also be that long before I’m past ‘first impressions’.

First off, I’ve been a bit disturbed by Paradox’s current trend towards more and more complicated systems. Part of what made EU IV a great game is they practiced great parsimony in major systems. Much of the game centered around monarch points, and many major decisions revolved around how to spend those. Since launch, more and more extra things got added in, most of which were dissociated from that. I actually consider the game was at its best around a couple years after release. After that, it’s much more mixed for whether any particular mechanic was worthwhile, and especially the more I have dealt with the mission trees, the less I have liked them.

EU V is massive, and much more complex than its predecessors. Despite the fact that I would prefer a more ‘game first’ design, it is well done, and I am enjoying it, even though I’m still barely getting my feet wet. This may be just the enjoyment of an especially long Chick Parabola, but I think the replayability will be there too.

The first thing I noticed is that the production and trade system has been scrapped and replaced with the much more detailed one from Victoria III. It’s a good system, and a nice elaboration of the earlier versions’. But a game about the 19th century is about industrialization, and showcasing all the changes that brought is part of the point. Trade flow, as seen in EU IV is part of the point of the Age of Exploration, so I really liked EU IV‘s trade network (with some notable problems). Obviously, trade will open up with longer distances available later, but I don’t think it’ll have the same kind of impact.

On the other hand, its a really good system for mucking around with internal improvements, and feeling good about building everything up. That makes it a good system for the local end. Unfortunately, there are some missing bits of information. The market each province is attached to is dependent of market availability, the ease of travel to each one. But, there’s no map mode showing how all that works out, i.e., how the pull to each market happens. Being able to find “dead” areas would be good for seeing if you want to start a new market, or just focus roadbuilding, but there’s no way to tell that I can find.

Warfare is familiar, but has changed. One thing I appreciate is that you do not have standing armies (or at least tiny ones) at the start of the game. Instead, you call forth levies for the vast bulk of your forces. Presumably, these are much less capable than the regular military units you can build, and become more penalized as the game goes on. Combat itself has changed for the first time since EU III. Namely, they now break it into a center and two flanks (like the CK series), which act somewhat independently. It’s a bit more detail, but I’m not sure how much difference it will really make.

Conquest on the other hand, seems to be a lot more punishing. The process of making a new territory in any way useful is much harder and slower so far. Also, the EU IV version made it pretty clear what you needed: a ruler with good administration, to get the monarch points to kick off the process. Here, you have to assign integration to the cabinet, and there’s a hard limit on the number of actions you can do. Worse, you can’t concentrate on one location, but must spread attention across an entire state (…which encourages just taking a bit of a state at a time, not what I think Paradox has in mind), which slows it down. And strangely, this process is ruled by military ability instead of administrative.

The government mechanics are more of an evolution of… later EU IV‘s. With monarch points gone, there’s nothing nearly as direct to tell you how things are going, but the effects of the people in charge can be felt. For instance, going from a reasonably competent king to a bad one has done much to my game. Revenues are down, I just discovered all the spare manpower of the kingdom has drained away….

Which is why I do like game systems over big sims. With a big sprawling game, there’s a lot to keep track of and juggle. Parsimony in systems means everything’s pointed the same way, and and it easier to see what is going on. As an additional problem, the game is fairly heavy, and it complains that what was a top-of-the-line graphics card five years ago isn’t good enough. One of the reasons why I like strategy games is that they don’t generally need big graphics cards.

While I did pre-order EU V, I was worried that it would be too much sim and too little game for me. Well, it’s one of those sims that you can really sink your teeth into, and spend way too much time with. But it is not a focused game in any respect; if you’ve played EU IV or Vic III and like them, by all means get this game. If you’re newer to big strategy games, this is probably way too much. I’d get EU IV or III first, though those are not good first-time games either.

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The British Army on Campaign (3): 1856-1881

by on November 7, 2025 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

In 1988, Osprey did a four-part series on the Nineteenth Century British Army by Michael Barthorp. I’ve only read part three, but I can say that it does stand well on its own.

This volume covers from after the Crimean War through the First Boer War. The main famous incident during this is the Indian Mutiny, but there’s a nice chronology of everything else that Britain got involved in for a decade-and-a-half.

On the art end, this book is severely lacking. Surprisingly for a book done well after Angus McBride had transformed the MMA color pieces to being much more dynamic, this one is all static fashion plates. No interaction, no background, except for perfunctory splots of color behind the figure’s knees(!). Worse, the color/tone balance seems off, making it all muddy. Thankfully, the B/W reproduction is as good as usual, and there’s the usual large number of photographs and art reproductions.

The first main section goes into general tactics, including the speed at which troops were expected to maneuver. This could have done with some more technical bits thrown in, and some diagrams, but it is a good introduction, and follows up the introduction thesis of the British army being mostly involved in low-intensity warfare while becoming better equipped for a European war well.

There is a good section on the standard equipment of the time, and how that changed in this period. It’s a bit brief, there is also a good diagram of the Enfield, the ‘short’ version, the common bayonet, and the conversion for Snider. But, the real reason this is short is there is a much longer section on all the modifications to official equipment that happened in the field. Barthorp goes through all the major campaigns describing variations in dress and equipment for them all, giving general sources (which are text descriptions in journals and reports, often as not).

Overall, it’s a good guide. By this point, Men-At-Arms books were evolving to a more general military hobbyist audience than miniatures gamers, so this is a bit of a throwback, especially art-wise. But it does provide details of interest, and a good chronology. There’s also a good amount of cross-referencing to other other MAA titles, generally to the earlier books in Barthorp’s series (naturally), and to the Crimean War title.

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The Indian Mutiny

by on November 3, 2025 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

This is an older Osprey Men at Arms book, and has a few characteristics related to a 1977 release.

First, it is something of a light guide to the history of the Mutiny. This would be better in an Essential History (which they did in 2002), but at this stage many MAA books were light histories, instead of being more specialized on the troops.

The color plates are early Gary Embleton, in the older ‘fashion plate’ style with just some hints of background. For what they are, they’re fairly good, and the usual good description giving all the details of equipment types, sources, etc., and there’s a small box giving the facing (detail) colors for all the native regiments. There are seventeen black-and-white photographs reproduced, some of prominent people, but mostly showing troops in actual dress, and a couple of locations. There’s a good amount of period art reproduced in B/W as well, which is also handy, and all of it shows fairly well for 1970s reproductions. There are also maps of Delhi, Cawnpore, and Lucknow.

The main text is pretty much “the Indian Mutiny in four sieges”. The introductory section goes into the rising tensions of the mid-1850s, but avoids any easy answers as to the actual cause of the Mutiny. Then we get a section on Meerut, where the crisis begins, and the mutinying troops move to Delhi, which is naturally the second section. This is the biggest section, and then there’s sections for Lucknow and Cawnpore, the latter of which gets a couple paragraphs to wrap things up.

Overall, it is by no means a bad history, especially for the page count. Neither is it truly a good nor sufficient one. It is almost entirely looking at the British side, and does not get into any of the weeds of causes, blame, or even what the Mutiny hoped to do. It covers the central actions well enough, which for an early MAA title is to be expected. But much more is needed. On the arms and equipment side, I would expect that Men-At-Arms 268, The British Troops in the Indian Mutiny 1857-59, would be a superior replacement.

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