Monday, July 12, 2004
Attack of the board games!
Good ol' Apple bashing. It's not that I don't like Apple or Macs, but I find that the company is portrayed far too often as being this wonderful, happy, can-do-no-wrong paragon of computing virtue. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to hear that they screw up just like everyone else.
It is over. While I have not gotten to the position of crushing the innate spitefulness of Linux, I am definitely winning quite strongly. Think of it like Risk, where I am red and it is black, and you look at the board and see nothing but red, except for Madagascar, which has one solitary army on it and is only hanging on through rolling lucky sixes. My system is running Gentoo happily*, with my programs being emerged quite nicely and more and more of the hardware bending to my will. CD burner isn't going yet, neither is sound, and I haven't checked the 3D capabilities of my card yet, but it's only a matter of time. Could this still all be for naught? Entirely possible. City of Heroes being silky smooth and sublime to play is a large criteria for me keeping this setup, and I haven't gotten that going yet.
* Sure, 'happy' probably isn't the best word, since it's a kind of forced happiness - the kind brought about by sticking a gun to someone's head and ordering them to enjoy themselves - but that counts, right?
Any DJs in the house? Loop some Castlevania into your next mix.
Funfurde is quickly becoming one of my favorite blogs. Today they had the Word Clock. The clock literally says "It's about twelve" or it's "half-past 6". How freaking cool is that?!?
There was much game playing this weekend too, with a double header of Diplomacy and Settlers of Catan. I have decided that Diplomacy is one of the most elegant strategy games out there, lacking most of the typical parts that other games of its ilk have. Dice, for one, and copious rules for another. It also lends itself very easily to different maps, which makes for some interesting games - the game on Saturday, for example, was on 3 mirrored Scandinavias (6 in total) arranged in a circle.* The orders system is both simple and complex, allowing for some pretty cool game tricks. Basically you have two bits to each turn, where you first plan and plot and wheedle the politics of the game, and then everyone writes down what their units will be doing for the turn, and said orders are executed. Most of the rest of the game just governs building of units and resolving of orders. Pretty easy to pick up, but the dynamics are quite deep, and that's almost always good for gaming.
* Other combinations that are decent, I hear, are 5 Italies (is that how you spell the plural of Italy?) and 5 Middle Easts (yet again showing that people love symmetry). The version that uses a map of the entire world is apparantly pretty insane.
This is just plain bizarre. Politically aligned ketchup. Really.
Playing Diplomacy makes me recall Risk 2. It was a PC port of Risk, but it had a very interesting adaptation that combined elements of Diplomacy and classic Risk. Like Diplomacy, players do the plan, then order thing, but like Risk (and quite unlike Diplomacy), you roll everything out. On a computer, this is all simple, since the PC can sort everything out for you and you simply sit back and watch things unfold. I have thought about trying this on a board, but it would definitely not be for the faint of heart. To make matters worse, in Diplomacy, if two armies attack a territory separately, they just cancel each other out. Ditto for neighbouring armies attaching each other's territory. In Same-time Risk (as I like to call it), you roll it out, but with varying degrees of priority. So it looks fun, but quite complicated. It could even be necessary to have one non-partisan player server as umpire, organizing and sorting out all the orders.
Speaking of all these board games almost makes me want to run out to the nearest store and pick up all the games that I really like, but haven't played recently. Carcassonne, Cosmic Encounter, Risk 2025 (with MOON BASE ACTION!)... especially Cosmic Encounter - I really liked that game. Basically it was a "settle your neighbourly disputes with nuclear weapons" type of game, except that each player is given a way to break the core rules somehow. For example, normally you would play an attack card, add the card number and your forces and compare to your opposition, but if you happen to be a Virus alien, you can replace the word "add" with "multiply". Or simply state that one of your units is worth four of anyone else's. The game was originally made in the 80s, and had a few expansions out before Avalon Hill bought the rights and made their own version. I am thinking that a visit to eBay might be in order...
I must read this book. It has everything: cunning perspective, mystery, song references! My wishlist grows longer...
Man raised by chickens. It's as strange as it sounds, folks.
¶ 2:45 p.m.
Good ol' Apple bashing. It's not that I don't like Apple or Macs, but I find that the company is portrayed far too often as being this wonderful, happy, can-do-no-wrong paragon of computing virtue. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to hear that they screw up just like everyone else.
It is over. While I have not gotten to the position of crushing the innate spitefulness of Linux, I am definitely winning quite strongly. Think of it like Risk, where I am red and it is black, and you look at the board and see nothing but red, except for Madagascar, which has one solitary army on it and is only hanging on through rolling lucky sixes. My system is running Gentoo happily*, with my programs being emerged quite nicely and more and more of the hardware bending to my will. CD burner isn't going yet, neither is sound, and I haven't checked the 3D capabilities of my card yet, but it's only a matter of time. Could this still all be for naught? Entirely possible. City of Heroes being silky smooth and sublime to play is a large criteria for me keeping this setup, and I haven't gotten that going yet.
* Sure, 'happy' probably isn't the best word, since it's a kind of forced happiness - the kind brought about by sticking a gun to someone's head and ordering them to enjoy themselves - but that counts, right?
Any DJs in the house? Loop some Castlevania into your next mix.
Funfurde is quickly becoming one of my favorite blogs. Today they had the Word Clock. The clock literally says "It's about twelve" or it's "half-past 6". How freaking cool is that?!?
There was much game playing this weekend too, with a double header of Diplomacy and Settlers of Catan. I have decided that Diplomacy is one of the most elegant strategy games out there, lacking most of the typical parts that other games of its ilk have. Dice, for one, and copious rules for another. It also lends itself very easily to different maps, which makes for some interesting games - the game on Saturday, for example, was on 3 mirrored Scandinavias (6 in total) arranged in a circle.* The orders system is both simple and complex, allowing for some pretty cool game tricks. Basically you have two bits to each turn, where you first plan and plot and wheedle the politics of the game, and then everyone writes down what their units will be doing for the turn, and said orders are executed. Most of the rest of the game just governs building of units and resolving of orders. Pretty easy to pick up, but the dynamics are quite deep, and that's almost always good for gaming.
* Other combinations that are decent, I hear, are 5 Italies (is that how you spell the plural of Italy?) and 5 Middle Easts (yet again showing that people love symmetry). The version that uses a map of the entire world is apparantly pretty insane.
This is just plain bizarre. Politically aligned ketchup. Really.
Playing Diplomacy makes me recall Risk 2. It was a PC port of Risk, but it had a very interesting adaptation that combined elements of Diplomacy and classic Risk. Like Diplomacy, players do the plan, then order thing, but like Risk (and quite unlike Diplomacy), you roll everything out. On a computer, this is all simple, since the PC can sort everything out for you and you simply sit back and watch things unfold. I have thought about trying this on a board, but it would definitely not be for the faint of heart. To make matters worse, in Diplomacy, if two armies attack a territory separately, they just cancel each other out. Ditto for neighbouring armies attaching each other's territory. In Same-time Risk (as I like to call it), you roll it out, but with varying degrees of priority. So it looks fun, but quite complicated. It could even be necessary to have one non-partisan player server as umpire, organizing and sorting out all the orders.
Speaking of all these board games almost makes me want to run out to the nearest store and pick up all the games that I really like, but haven't played recently. Carcassonne, Cosmic Encounter, Risk 2025 (with MOON BASE ACTION!)... especially Cosmic Encounter - I really liked that game. Basically it was a "settle your neighbourly disputes with nuclear weapons" type of game, except that each player is given a way to break the core rules somehow. For example, normally you would play an attack card, add the card number and your forces and compare to your opposition, but if you happen to be a Virus alien, you can replace the word "add" with "multiply". Or simply state that one of your units is worth four of anyone else's. The game was originally made in the 80s, and had a few expansions out before Avalon Hill bought the rights and made their own version. I am thinking that a visit to eBay might be in order...
I must read this book. It has everything: cunning perspective, mystery, song references! My wishlist grows longer...
Man raised by chickens. It's as strange as it sounds, folks.
¶ 2:45 p.m.
