Tigranes

1. Diplomacy is Best July 1099 - December 1102 Hi. My name is Brian. I'm a Beylerbey. I'm 39 years old, I own quite a bit of land, and I'm especially good at diplomacy, which is the art of making people not hate you even though you do terrible things to them. Sadly, I don't really have many people in my realm to diplomatise, but I'm sure that will change. Wait, why does he look like a Mongolian circus act now? In fact, I have only two Beys, or Counts as the stupid Europeans call them, and one of them hates me because I'm Turkish and he's Levantine. With my great diplomatic expertise, I decide the best thing to do about this is wait for the bastard to die. He already looks eighty. I'd like to be able to diplomatise more people, but this is made difficult by the fact that a lot of them are bigger and stronger than I am. The Seljuk Turks have split into the Sultanate of Rum, carved out of the Byzantine Empire after the Battle of Manzikert, and the rest of them in this big fat chunk of land to the East. Of course, notable is the rise of the Crusader Kingdoms after they succeeded in their little crusade; Christian kingdoms of Jerusalem, Edessa, Antioch and even Armenia surround my lands. This is a very recent development. In fact, it happened yesterday! Map fresh off the painter's room. So... am I going to be listening to him talk for the next 30 years? Seriously? This is my cabinet. My Grand Vizier, the other Bey that doesn't hate me so much, manages the diplomatic parts of government that are beneath my own diplomatic expertise. This generally involves circuitous legal arguments to show how someone else's lands should be mine and that I am perfectly justified in killing them all. It's very diplomatic. The other guys do stuff too, I think. This is a bit different from Brian I've known, you know. He seems a bit more... unhinged. Although I guess there is that clown costume he used to wear... Obviously, the military is an indispensable part of any diplomacy. From our lands in the Aleppo region, I can personally raise 3828 men, while my two Beys and lower vassals provide 1679. This disparity is very important, in case I need to diplomatise the Beys as well.

Koreans are very, very determined not to pay for anything they don't have to, by the way - combine that with an internet cafe gaming culture (where people go there to play even if they have good PCs at home), lower levels of disposable income for youths because too much studying = not much working in high school, superfast internet, etc, and an even stronger stigma against games on the part of parents, and you can see how a monthly subscription model just does not work.

Standard LP'ing will begin with the next update in a bit, as soon as I accrue enough screens. I don't have enough patience to do the C-grade hollywood for long.

He did have a bit of an appetite, especially for potatoes cooked in vegetable oil... But above all, he was well known for his gregarious nature. How do they know all this? Who are they? The lands he ruled were neither small nor large, amounting roughly to what Muslims called a Beylerbeylik, and the Christians Dukedom. Well, children. Shall we recite the deeds of Brian the First, as is recorded in the history of the Builders? Well I'll be. P.S. The terrible, terrible photoshop filters will be used with discretion in future updates. Please don't kill me.

He was neither a great warrior, nor particularly learned; His talents lay more towards diplomacy, and mastery over the hearts of men. He was always a good CEO, Brian. But... We might almost call him a charismatic negotiator. What the hell is this? Fortunately, Brian the First possessed no physical defects... And was regarded by many as a quick-witted fellow.

Now you must know the reasons. You must understand what enemies we face, so that we may continue to survive. Go, and see what has transpired, and return. Wait, what are you talking about? What, I- what's happening? Wha- Where am I? Our history, children, begin in the year 1099. Who is that? Hello? What is this? Is that me? That can't be me. What's happening? That looks like- That is the year that the first Builder rose out of the depths, and forged an empire that would last centuries. Wait... Brian? Is that you? Hey! Brian! It's me- Brian the First, as you know, was reknowned for his smashing good looks.

On a dark and windy day, sometime in 2012... {Screen flickers} We won't survive like this, you know. We will always survive. It sure doesn't look like it. Look, we've lost everything we have- We've got one. Matt- Oh, please. If you really think those two can bail us out, then you've lost your touch. No. We can do this. Trust me. I just... I just can't believe this is all we have left. All that we have created. All that we have done. I know we made mistakes along the way, but- Mistakes. Yeah, mistakes. I mean, we didn't always do a perfect job, but- There were no mistakes, my friend. None of this is a mistake. What do you mean? Remember... Of course I remember. The fires. The despair when we heard- Yes. And remember, still more. Even before, yes... the forests, the animals. We built it all, we built it all with our hands. But- The destruction of all that we have built was neither mistake nor circumstance. There are reasons, and the reasons have been kept from us.

0. Prologue Brian I, 1099- 1. Diplomacy is Best 2. Inter-Regional Diplomacy

Interesting, but hard to think through what kind of ramifications it will have, so wait and see before cheering for Great Valve. First I thought it would be some kind of Steam Kickstarter, which would suck, but it's not and they have an interesting idea. Not sure how it works when you go from fnished games wanting Steam launch to much more early concepts though.

For one of my research projects this summer I've been interviewing people, mostly students, related to music consumption habits, self-narratives, etc. It's tough going because for most things in life, it's difficult for people to get beyond the stock set of phrases and statements that we normally employ, and also because it's hard to hold people for more than an hour per group. But it's always interesting to actually talk to people about stuff. Today it was interesting to interview the teachers at a high school first, and hear them talk about how things have changed with the change of devices and other factors, and how music as a thing to cherish and to really pay attention to has transformed into something that is more like a 'spice' in life; then, of course, I talk to their 15, 16 year students, and they'll tell you about how older songs are better and the new ones aren't as good. (What's old? 2008.) But it's regularly over 30C here and I'm often using public transport between 1 and 3 hours to get to places, so it's wearing me out. I hear the US is worse at the moment, though.

I've confirmed I lag too much on US servers here in Korea, so won't be playing till September unless the situation changes. Can't say I'm too fussed about it, though.

It's on sale right now, Hurlshot: http://www.amazon.co...1/dp/B006ULENFG $10. There are also a few Paradox Packs going round at similar prices for DLCs and other things, but I don't know if they're still on. I don't know how long this price lasts.Gogo!

First vid looked kind of cool, despite the terrible, terrible art and likely terrible story - a turn based RPG romp is always good. No word on PC I guess?

I'm glad you all understand my woes, my true friends. Also trying to get some books to read during the summer, and it turns out getting English copies of Bakhtin and Weber in Seoul can be difficult. Excuse me while I break down and cry a little bit.

It won't let me pay for CK2 Sword of Islam so I put in a ticket, we'll see how long it takes. Of course, I had to get CK2 on steam in the first place because paypal kept blacklisting me. It's nice how they can't handle a lifestyle that involves less than 5 international trips a year.

CA talk about AI, Scope, etc: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/07/03/rome-total-war-2/

They already have all the faces rendered, I assume each unit type will get Rage / Normal / Fear face types and then they'll mix them in varying proportions, or something like that. It definitely multiplies the number of textures required to show, but not at an exponential level. Anything more sophisticated, yeah, would be crazy.

True. Though they're talking late 2013, which probably means early 2014, and that means either a new console generation officially in the works, or at least, computer games moving on without them.

Myst, I loved reading the books and the lore in the first island but not a big fan of the puzzles yet.

RPS Dev interview: http://www.rockpaper...ew/#more-114276 RPS Preview: http://www.rockpaper...rome-2-preview/ Yes, I get all my news from funcroc, my 5-year-old bookmarks, and the Codex. Tidbits:

I meant Romans, actually, brain fail. What kind of army would have thousands of centurions? A late communist Roman regime that's started selling military ranks for cash? CA went from great to meh to terrible between RTW1 and ETW, and have only shown some signs of good design sense in Shogun 2 (have not tried Napoleon). Now that they are making a 'big fat grand' game, can they actually manage to add lots of new features and keep some semblance of balance, long term playability and AI? I'm skeptical but TW is a unique genre and I still remember the hundreds of hours I put into MTW1 and RTW1.

And this time, let us achieve the miracle of having a single thread chronicle all the Obsidianite negativity from announcement till release. http://www.eurogamer...ing-it-up-to-xi Notable points:

Of course nobody put 500 strength on a wizard (at least, not very often), but there was a significant difference between a zero-mana wizard and someone who pumped it a bit to use Energy Shield, etc. What, you need to see a high strength wizard as proof that stats matter? Even if you go to highly competitive battle.net players, there were always competing theories. You might as well say the first minute of RTS games should be automated because it all comes down to 3 or 4 select builds, except for extremely creative / extremely screwy types. That is not to say it didn't devolve down to "pump Dex Only" or something a lot of the time, so D3 was a good opportunity to improve on that. Why killing stat allocation is better, I don't know.

Me and my family are honoured to be part of the contemporary art scene.

I know what Brian wants to do with zombies, as I've been following Dead State since the very beginning. Yes, he is trying to do something different from shoot 'em all and other interpretations of the setting, and yes he's pumping up the survival factor. I like that. I just think, purely personally, (1) the zombie stuff still sounds incredibly boring, and (2) take a Lord of the Flies like marooned setting, or a postapocalyptic setting that takes a nature-go-wild view rather than Fallout-desert view, or something else that plays up survival in similar ways and I'd have been a lot happier. But in the end, I think it's the survival based gameplay mechanics that are the core of this game, and that's why I put my $ down.