Enoch

R.E.M. -- Fall on Me Buy the sky and sell the sky and tell the sky and tell the sky Dont fall on me (what is it up in the air for) (its gonna fall) Mike Mills' backup vocals are really good on this track. Small wonder that they had him sing the lead for the first time on "I am Superman" later on the same album (Life's Rich Pagent).

I have once again abandoned my Civ4 game. It was rather late in the Medieval Age, and I had a strong enough tech/population/production lead that an eventual victory was pretty much assured. So rather than endure the tedium of building a huge army to kick everyone elses ass or climbing the tech tree to the spaceship, I started over again. This time, I'm Ghandi. I began by executing a perfect Axeman rush against the Celts. My warrior spotted their worker outside their capitol and stole it in the opening moves (AIs get a free worker on Monarch difficulty). Because this is Monarch, the AI had a free archer defending her city, but my warrior just camped out on a forested hill next to their capitol. He was never attacked. With an enemy on its doorstep, the AI is essentially crippled in the early game, and won't send out workers to improve its territory or settlers to expand it. While my warrior was hanging out in Celtia, I discovered bronze working and a source of copper 2 tiles away from Delhi. As soon as I had the Wheel (to make roads), I had it connected to my city, and my 2 workers (one of which I had captured from the Celts) were chopping forests to make Axemen. After plenty of chopping and a little whipping (using Slavery to sacrafice population for production), I had 7 experienced Axemen (I had chopped a Barracks while waiting for the Wheel to finish) and marched them south to Celtia. The AI had 4 archers and 40% cultural defense by that point, but it was no contest. That left me in an interesting situation, though. I'm on a small continent all of my own, with Galley-range access to another continent that is home to at least 1 other civ (Peter of the Russians). I have a work boat underway to explore the other landmass and look for more rivals. The problem is that my continent has some very odd resource distribution. There's a band of jungles between Delhi and the captured Celtic capitol with a couple rivers running through them, but they contain no special resources at all. The only happiness-producing luxury resource on my whole continent is Wines. So my two main technological priorities will be Monarchy (for Wineries and for the Hereditary Rule civic so that I can sustain more than 5 content citizens in my cities), Iron Working (so that I can deal with all this Jungle), and Code of Laws (so that I can build Courthouses, which are essential to maintaining a big empire without drowning in costs). I'd love to grab the Pyramids because they'd help solve my happiness problems and have great synergies with Ghandi's "Philosophical" trait. But the only stone resource is on the far Southern end of my continent, and I doubt that I'll be able to get a city down there anytime soon. Without Stone (or the "Industrious" trait), I really doubt that a city limited to a population of 5 would be able to beat the AI to the wonder. Another excellent wonder to build would be the Great Lighthouse-- given the shape of my continent, a most of my cities are going to be coastal. That one, I think, is a bit more in-reach. I'm thinking that I'll research Masonry once Sailing is done (Sailing was chosen to open up trade routes with Peter), and then through the religious techs to Monarchy. I'm also hoping that Peter's Judaism will spread to me once trade is opened. A state religion and temples will really help with my happiness problems.

My brother-in-law-to-be bought a PS3 last week. While visiting over there this past weekend, he and I played a round of the new MLB game. It was fun, but I lack a certain frame of reference for judging this kind of game, since the only post-NES baseball game I've played is Wii Sports. (His Diamondbacks defeated my Phillies 6-5 in the 12th inning. I think I left my reliever out there an inning or so too long.)

15,000 is high points? Pfft. Try a half-million! I only got time to play my Civ game for a half-hour or so last night, comprising about 10 turns of peaceful development.

You're welcome. Also: What, no details?

Last night, I made tapenade to bring to an office potluck today. Pitting a pound of mixed variety black olive is not particularly fun, but I'm happy with the end product. Also, I had no idea how expensive good anchovies were. Delicious, but expensive.

I don't know about "biggest nonsense" ("All your base..."), but here are some design decisions in relatively recent games that made me slap my forehead in frustration: Arcanum: Ridiculously awful skill/ability balance. Completely dumbassed experience system. Fallout 2: Stupid pop culture references. Rome: Total War: The Egyptians. Ridiculously powerful far beyond what history would suggest. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: . Makes no sense for the game to have a great project that completely shuts down the "probe" (a.k.a. spying) element of the game.

Heh... If you think that's bad, wait until she finds out that she had sloppy drunken sex with a guy who talks about his love life on an online forum for video game nerds.

My addiction problems are mostly kept in check by the fact that I don't enjoy the endgame very much. I come back to the game every few months, but eventually the tedium of the late game drive me away again. Addendum to the scenario above: I am starting to get worried about Stalin. He seems to like me well enough in diplomacy, but he has a very large army that has just come back from war with Elizabeth, and I've caught a couple spies lurking around my territory that I think are his. I have recently gotten my second good production city up and running (it took a while to carve it out of some former-jungle) with the Heroic Epic, so that town is producing units non-stop to boost my Power rating and deter an invasion. I may not get any time to play tonight (have to do some shopping and make some tapenade to bring to an office potluck tomorrow), but when I fire it up again, I'll try to post a screenie or two to further tempt you all.

Spent Easter hanging out with my fiancee's cousin, who is a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. He's stationed on a Frigate that is off in the Western Pacific, but he's currently stateside for a few weeks of training (mostly in how to use some of the Navy's newer toys). Really enjoyed looking at all the pictures on his laptop (he's the ship's "photo officer") of the ship, the crew, and the places they've been.

More Civ4:BTS. I lost interest in my Darius game, and restarted as Hannibal. (Whose trait combination and excellent unique building probably makes him the best leader in the game, if you can manage to get most of your cities on the coastline.) Anyhow, the game is on a Standard size map, Fractal map script, Epic speed, at Monarch difficulty, with the default 7 civs. Drew a very nice starting area. My continent is shaped like this: | | --------* Elizabeth is in the far north with the Zulus just south of them, and, West to East, are the Aztecs, the Russians (Stalin), the Greeks (Alexander), and Me, Carthage, where the * is. The Incas are the other Civ, and they have their own island that is reachable by Galley to the NW of Aztec lands. It's a very aggressive slate of opponents (Alex, Monty, Shaka, and Stalin are all complete bastards), but my starting position will let me take them on one at a time. So, I scouted out my area and managed to place my first city quite close to Greece, near the only copper resource I could find (Iron would later show up next to Carthage). That and a barbarian city that popped up to my SW helped focus Alexander's expansion towards the Russians in the West, and left me lots of room (with lots of luxury resources) to settle peacefully. I even built a couple early Wonders, which is unlike me. Stonehenge and, most importantly, the Great Lighthouse are both in Carthage. The Lighthouse (+2 trade routes in coastal cities) is absolutely godly on maps where you can build lots of ports (which I have), especially when combined with Carthage's unique building (replaces Harbor, +50% trade route yield, +1 trade route). I avoided founding a religion so that I can pick the one that will help me most diplomatically. Thus, Stalin's Buddhism (ha!) has become the dominant religion in every civ but England (Confuc.) and Incaville (Hindu). But I got a little too focused on my internal development in the early "Classical" period and let my "power" rating slip. Alexander invaded. I beat his invasion force back pretty quickly, and fought to a stalemate for a bit while I finished a few important technologies and built up my forces. My kickass trade routes had given me a strong tech lead. Once I had some Catapults on-line (and razed his Iron Mine), he started to crumble. I eventually let him capitulate with 2 cities left along the Southern coast. As for the others, Stalin and Shaka (my best buddies) have been at war with Liz on-and-off. Monte has had an occasional scrape with the Incas, but I don't think that any cities have changed hands (the Trireme I sent scouting found them both contained on their repsective sides of the sea separating their homelands. Now, I'm rebuilding my infrastructure and building up a strong lead in technologies. The Incas are my only real threat as a tech rival (the other Buddhists are drowning in unit costs and Liz is perpetually besieged due to her heathen Confucianism), but they don't have the land area to support a particularly large population. This may be the first time I've had this strong a lead this early on a Monarch level game. Now I have to decide if I want to play out the string peacefully and shoot for space, or leverage my tech lead into a military juggernaut that will roll over Stalin and Shaka for a Domination victory.

I think that the example in the magazine is probably a poor one to highlight for this point. It's an introduction for a new character. Regardless of the stance taken by the player, the devs want to at least get us to the point where we know something about her backstory and personality, which is right where the excerpted conversation left off. The real divergence between the different conversation stances probably comes with the hero's response to her introduction.

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Nothing about Arcanum's character creation system deserves to be emulated. There was a serious case of Idiocy going around Troika HQ when they came up with their character mechanics.

To be clear, I wasn't basing my list on a micro-level parsing of the statements made in the preview article. (I think it's far to early in the promotion/hype process to do that kind of analysis.) I was assuming a generally "Fallouty" approach to skills, and then stating how I would structure the skill system, based on my interpretation of the inspiration/source material (i.e., spy movies). It's more what I think it should be, rather than a guess as to what it will be.

I don't know about stingrays, but I just had a rather nice Stinger*. * 2 parts Brandy, 1 part white Creme de Menthe. An excellent after-dinner cocktail.

Perhaps you need bigger, more noticeable signs? You could buy them with all the money the tourists spend on the Metro. The problem, as I see it, is that the trains are called by their line (a color) and their eventual destination (the last spot on the line). This is profoundly unhelpful for people unfamiliar with the area-- seeing that a train is going to "Largo" or "Franconia-Springfield" doesn't really help people figure out if it's going to get them to the Smithsonian or the Capitol Building. Oh, and even more irritating than normal tourist traffic? NCAA Basketball tourist traffic. I took the walk to Metro Center today to cut out the transfer on my commute. The area around the Verizon Center (which is presently hosting the Belmont-Duke game) was absolutely mobbed with hoops fans. The scalpers were entertaining, though.

Fair point, I suppose. Anyhow, another thing that bugs me: Tourists in the Metro during rush hour. It's getting to be that time of the year when the DC Metro (subway) is mobbed by tourists. Nothing wrong with that-- it's a great way to get around the city if you don't mind a longish walk to some of the big attractions. But there's no reason why they have to be on the Metro during rush hour. Especially at the transfer stations like Metro Center (which I go through twice a day), you often see crowds of tourists step off of a train or escalator, then immediately stand perfectly still, blocking all the people behind them, because they don't know which way to go next.

Played some hoops after work yesterday with the usual crowd of middle-aged bureaucrats (which is just right for my skill level). Now my feet are sore.

I'm roughly 3.5 years older than you, and I'm part of a different generation? Ouch. (P.S., Get off my lawn!)

Using the "Van Buren" style categories: Fighty-skills We clearly nees a Gunplay skill, as well as a Close Combat skill. I also like the idea of a defensive skill-- call it Evasion. I think that should probably cover it sufficiently. I really don't think that bigger guns needs a separate skill-- sure, there are occasional instances where 007 gets to spray bullets from an AK during a motorboat chase, but I really don't think that movie spies are known very much for being really good with the big guns. Sciency-skills This one is a little tougher. Computers is a definite yes. Apart from that, I'd like the Fallout-style split between Mechanical (a.k.a., Repair, but would also include the picking of non-electronic locks) and Theoretical science (chemistry, code-breaking, electronics, etc.). Although I don't know the degree to which the latter would be integrated into the game mechanics. One could easily eliminate situations where theoretcial scientific knowledge is needed and instead lump the remainder in with "Computers." Talky-skills From the "conversation stance" info we have, I'd say that, at a minimum, we need an Intimidation skill and a Sweet Talking skill. (I read the "professional" conversation stance as a neutral approach to take when you don't want to risk offending someone.) I don't really like the idea of a discrete "bluffing" skill-- "Sweet Talking" is pretty much the same regardless of whether you're telling the truth or lying. Ditto with a "haggling" skill. (Although, if the "bagging chicks" element is played up, there might be a use for a Seduction skill.) Other skills I hate "Stealth" skills. In any semi-realistic environment, the ability to hide and sneak is determined so much more by circumstances (environment, cover, light, attentiveness of the hidee/sneakee, etc.) than it is by skill of the hider/sneaker that there really isn't much point in having a skill for it modeled in a game. (Plus, it suffers from either "fail roll = reload" problems or, if thresholds are used instead of rolls, "high skill = invincible" problems.) I do, however, like the idea of a general Athleticism skill, which could cover climbing, damage from falling, keeping one's balance while engaged in combat on the roof of a moving train, and the like. A lot of the hiding and sneaking could be handled through this skill, gaining the player access to places where less-athletic characters cannot (e.g., guards don't notice guys hanging from the rafters). Lockpicking, I think, is best handled under the Mechanical/Computers skills discussed above. There also probably needs to be a Sleight of Hand skill, so we can cheat at cards and pickpocket the key to the launch-code briefcase. This skill would probably also be useful in attacking from hidden locations. (The skill involved in slipping a garrote around someone's neck isn't all that different from the skill used in nicking the keycard in his pocket.) Disguise would be fun, but it's tough to imagine that there would be enough opportunities to use it for it to be on par with the other skills. Plus, it shares the same "fail roll = reload" problem that "Stealth" does. Given the preponderance of chase scenes in the inspirational material, Driving might be a useful skill, but I really don't like it when my RPGs turn into racing games, so I say no. Lastly, this may be covered as an attribute, but I really like the idea of an Observation skill. Perfect for picking up an opponent's "tell" at the Baccarat table, noticing the far-to-expensive watch the dealer is wearing, or spotting the femme fatale quietly slipping something into our martini. So, my list goes: Gunplay Close Combat Evasion Electronics/Computers Mechanics Intimidation Sweet-Talking Athleticism Sleight-of-Hand Observation

Probably AP, based solely on greater familiarity with the source material/inspiration. (I liked Alien well enough, but I've never gotten around to seeing more than bits and pieces of any of the sequels.)

Playing a campaign as Darius of the Persians in Civ 4: Beyond the Sword. Built up a stack of my unique units, the Immortals, and used it to deprive the Ethiopians of 2/3rds of their empire. Now I'm REXing (that's Rapid Early eXpansion) to fill out the available good terrain (taking advantage of Darius' "Organized" trait that decreases city maintenance) and building up my economy.

Family Guy. It's just not that funny, people! Also, the use of the word "random" to mean something other than "determined by pure chance." Merely "unusual" or "surprising" is not "random."

It's not a TRUE RPG unless I can play as a 300-pound Samoan homosexual with a clubfoot and L3WT N1NJ4 SKILLZ.