Chuck-ese

Through sheer force of awesomeness, I provided universal healthcare, capped greenhouse gas levels, made No Child Left Behind work, and still managed to reduce the Federal Debt by 70%. This was all through the application of a few “tough love” taxes (like a $1/gal tax on gas) as well as repealing the Bush tax cuts. But yeah, if we balance the budget, we’ll be getting more money every year to spend due to the reduced amount of interest we would have to pay on the national debt.

Do better. I dare you.

Breakdown:

Debt: $8,400,000,000,000.00 –> 2,500,000,000,000.00

Budget Bust: 2033 –> 2070

Size of Government: 20.0% of GDP –> 19.5% of GDP

Badges: Health and Wellness (Achieved), Green (Achieved), Safety Net (Achieved)

Policies:

Defense and Diplomacy: Bring troops home soon, More for diplomacy and foreign aid, Spend more to fight AIDS overseas, End spending on missile defense.

Schools and Kids: Spend to educate disabled children, Fully fund NCLB, Educate disadvantaged children, More help to needy college students, More for after-school learning.

Science and Nature: Increase NASA funds by 50%, Double funds for weather science, Increase EPA budget by 50%, Increase NSF grants by 50%, Double funds for alternative energy.

Housing and Living: More rental assistance for poor, Increase food stamp benefits, More money for child care.

Misc.: Eliminate pork barrel projects (as if that would ever happen), Double FDA funding, Tighten production oversignt.

Infrastructure: Increase mass transit funding, Increase funding for Amtrak.

Health Care: Offer government health plan to all, Computerize health information, Increase Medicare costs for wealthy, Open Medicare to people 62 to 64.

Social Security: More low-income worker benefits, Cut SS for wealthy.

Taxes: Repeal Bush tax cuts/tax the rich, Add 50 cents to the gas tax, Increase SS taxes for wealthy, Cap and limit greenhouse gases, Reform and hike corporate taxes, Raise tobacco taxes, Raise taxes on multinationals, No breaks for extractive industries, Tax toxic industries, End breaks for big oil, Let everyone deduct property taxes (raise money by betting on people being too lazy to itemize), Tax private equity/hedge fund managers.

I bet it’s pretty aparent how I spent all that money and still managed to get the debt down.

In my previous Games article, The Power of Blue, I discussed making a mono-blue Magic deck. My deckmaking time was cut short after that article, and when I next had the opportunity to play it over at David’s house, I essentially had a random pile of blue cards salvaged from my previous deck. And it won. Well…it won one game. But still: random pile of cards vs. David’s lovingly crafted Red and Green deck. pretty amazing. It’s had lackluster performance since, mostly because it was down 7 cards and suffered some a severe mana crunch. Here is the updated deck list (with 7 islands added).
20 x Islands
1 x Veiled Sentry
1 x Envelop
1 x Intervene
3 x Unsummon
2 x Flight
1 x Tidal Surge
3 x Mana Leak
1 x Remove Soul
1 x Psychic Venom
1 x Errant Minion
2 x Puppeteer
1 x Rhystic Deluge
1 x Wind Drake
1 x Labyrinth Minotaur
2 x Vizzerdrix
1 x Recall
1 x Boomerang
3 x Counterspell
1 x Thalakos Seer
1 x Phantom Warrior
1 x Levitation
1 x Temporal Distortion
1 x Sunken Hope
2 x Confiscate
1 x Distorting Wake
1 x Scroll Rack
1 x Mesmeric Orb
1 x Chimeric Idol
1 x Mirror Golem
1 x Phyrexian Hulk

It really sucks.

I used to be into Magic: The Gathering (WARNING: linked site is pure shit). A few short conversations with a couple friends overwhelmed me with nostolgia, and for the past month I’ve been playing Magic constantly. This may just be a psychological defense mechanism against my immanent entry into college, but it’s more fun than, say, developing a neurosis. I built two decks in this time period, both utilizing the color blue, but in completely stupid ways.

The first of these we’ll call Three Color Bastard.

Island x3
Swamp x13
Plains x 6
Tainted Isle x 2
Tainted Field x2
Coastal Tower x1
Salt Marsh x1
Counterspell x3
Gravedigger x2
Grinning Demon x2
Yawgmoth’s Bargain x1
Havoc Demon x1
Morality Shift x1
Healing Salve x1
Mystic Penitent x1
Tireless Tribe x2
Standard Bearer x1
Glory Seaker x4
Starlight Invoker x1
Recuperate x1
Ancestor’s Chosen x1
Scroll Rack x1
Sleeper’s Robe x1
Psychatog x2
Recoil x1
Seer’s Vision x1
Undermine x1
Ertai, the Corrupted x1
Soul Link x2

This deck played one good game. It was a guerilla-style game, with my life fluctuating between 1 and 29, last minute Ancestor’s Chosen plays, and super-draws with Bargain. I was eventually backed into a corner with one card in my library, Ertai out (but with no creatures to sacrifice to him), Mortailty Shif played, and most of my cards removed from the game to fuel two now-dead Psychatogs. I was able to prolong the game by one more turn by sacrificing Yawgmoth’s Bargain to Ertai to counter a burn spell that would surly have done me in. The deck sucks because it lacks focus; it was mostly just a vehicle to give Ertai some play-time. Scroll Rack works well only in conjunction with Bargain, and that whole setup works only if Morality Shift is still buried in the deck somwhere.

This next deck has not been dignified with a name.

Island x10
Forest x7
Irrigation Ditch x2
Treetop Village x1
Unsummon x3
Envelop x1
Veiled Sentry x1
Flight x2
Intervene x2
Psychic Venom x1
Mana Leak x3
Remove Soul x1
Tidal Surge x1
Wind Drake x1
Puppeteer x2
Rystic Deluge x1
Errant Minion x1
Labyrinth Minotaur x1
Vizzerdrix x2
Recall x1
Thalakos Seer x1
Boomerang x1
Phantom Warrior x1
Levitation x1
Temporal Distortion x1
Sunken Hope x1
Confiscate x2
Distorting Wake x1
Norwood Ranger x2
Fog x3
Wall of Wood x1
Urborg Elf x4
Regrowth x1
Tangle x1
Wall of Ice x1
Creeping Mold x1
Desert Twister x1
Mesmeric Orb x1
Chimeric Idol x1
Mirror Golem x1
Phyrexian Hulk x1
Temporal Spring x2
Aether Mutation x2

The premise of this deck was to use the green creatures and blue control spells to survive until you could kill your opponents wtih small unblockable creatures (Phantom Warrior, Thalakos Seer), or with a flying Vizzierdrix. Why not use large green creatures (you know, what the color is known for)? Because I’m an idiot. I’m using two colors out of thier elements. The only redeeming aspect to this deck is Mesmeric Orb, which pisses people off to no end.

Come back whenever the hell I feel like writing the second half of this article to see how I combine these two decks to exploit the true Power of Blue.

This is related to my earlier post about GEWar.

My financial overview and list of my fourty-five cities on 15-March-2008.

A list of my armies effective the same date, with the creative names and everything. Every army that’s shown traveling to Canada will get me in trouble a few hours after this.

More on cities, recent attacks on my cities, and a chronological listing of my armies.

My status four days later, after PeonBoss took 2/3 of my cities and most of my wealth. Status is mostly current.

My good friend Stephen succeed in getting me back into GEWar a couple of weeks ago. I have, as my personality dictates, gotten sucked in. Which is a pisser, because it’s not even that great. If you started the original version of the game at any point after the reset, you’re boned; you will never be as powerful as the last powerful player who started, unless you’re a rabid jewel hunter. And the people, my God! Some of them are just downright obsesive! PeonBoss (my arch nemesis, as explained below) the number one player, has contol of 1047 cities. Second place La_Noce has 82. There are, in fact, only ten unoccupied cities in level one so far. They’re all pretty much worthless except for Durban, South Africa.

The new level system helps players get started and build up resources so that they can compete in the game, but also allow the players an unrealistic expectation of what the game is going to be like. The relatively few players allow each player to have a large slice of the Earth (or did, until PeonBoss started his batshit crazy approach to the game.) Unless you’re an unwashed loser who started at a reset, you will never have anything. Ever.

On to my personal narrative.

When I started, I was able to use the street name layer on Google Earth to place my home base very nearly on my house. (Aside: why are parts of the Alaskan wilderness at higher resolution than my county?). I attacked the two closest unoccupied cities: Marquette and Traverse City. Both fell, and I expanded into Canada. I was on a pretty good roll, and when PaidAssasin (the first-ranked player at the time) was bumped up, he left me some of the larger cities. Then another player left and I gobbled up his turf, including New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco. I was very nearly finished with my total conquest of Canada when I made a stupid mistake.

I had sent my forces to a few small towns in Canada that were at the time unoccupied. When I attacked them early the next morning, they were occupied by PeonBoss, but I unfortunately didn’t see that until after I had already taken one of the cities. I then faced a dilemma: should I assume he’s a rational, understanding person and appologize and abandon the city? Or should I assume that he’s a dick like everyone else on the internet and keep fighting this war before he comes at me with everything he’s got whether I apologize or not? I chose the latter option because…well…have you been to a forum?

My suspicions were confirmed when I next logged in. The exact transcript:

As a future reference, attacking me was a bad idea.
in fact it almost always is…

I am the freak who will spend 36 hrs straight on here and take over the whole world, i know since i have done it a few times… but i do not attack folks till they hit me.

so you can learn and keep some cities or not and be zeroed. your choice. I am pretty relaxed about it.

Grade A dick right there. Anyway, he wasted me and took nearly all of my good cities, leaving me with Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, and a buch of inconsequential cities. Now my strategy is to sit, soack up the taxes, and have Stephen infuse me with cash right before I upgrade to level 2.

I had a LAN party on Saturday/Sunday, which is why I am only able to update on Tuesday (today). At said LAN, while playing Warcraft III (the only game we can consistently get to work), we discovered a nice multiplayer map called “Are you a Retard?”. It was fantastically fun for about an hour, and provided a nice change of pace from playing melees or some varient thereof. However, we quickly became frustrated, and abandoned it before we were able to finish. Below is my description and walkthrough of about half of the map.

The map opens with all (four, in this instance) players on a raised platform. The only path available is to the south. On the ground are gold coins. If you pick one up, you die. If you try to get one of the free items from the store, you die. If you start attacking your teammates out of frustration, you die. If you die, you get a message telling you to type “-res” to be revived; if you do, you are ejected from the game.

Continue south, then east along the corridor. You’ll come to a gate. You will receive very strong hints to pick up the key next to it; if you do, you die. (I might as well mention this now: if you pick up any item, you die.) Wait for a specific (in-game) time, and the gate will become vulnerable. Bust it and proceed.

The area you are in now will have two colors of flame to the north and a glowing pad to the south. Step on the pad and you die. It’ll be hinted that you should walk through the red flames, and a little guinea-pigging should confirm that. Next area has many flowers, which the game tells you that you will need to pass through the patch of blue flowers. This is nonesense; just click through.

Do NOT go through the “Exit”.

Bash through the gate, you’ll come to two paths. The north path will lead to an encounter with a horse that will kill you all. The southern path will lead to an encounter with an Orge that will only kill one of you if you pass it around 6:20 (game time.)

Pass through the entryway, go south (north will get you killed), you’ll see a 4×4 grid. Step only on the grid squares (stepping on the dirt will make you explode.) Step only in the pattern South, East, South, East, South, East and you’ll make it through the maze. Again, do not step on the dirt or buy anything from the shop. Stay on the white line through the goblins and the Naga (though you can go around them, slightly), and go north when you’re out of the water.

Do not go through any of the gates. Wait, and the brown trees will disintegrate, clearing a path. Pass the first acolyte and click on the second. You’ll be teleported to another part of the map. DO NOT CLICK IT^^. Continue east, then south. You’ll come upon another grid. Just take the middle row of gray tiles south.

We’d only gotten to this spot once. While in WorldEdit, it shows three green Treents, I clearly saw two red ones before Stephen bit the dust.

What happens here? I don’t know. I guess I’m too much of a retard to find out.

(Oh, yes, we did think of looking in WorldEdit for clues and such, but a good portion of the trigger names were in German.)

[It’s Thursday, backdate this to one of those days before Christmas, like the weekend.]

Take your mind back to that weekend I was at the LAN party instead of updating this. Earlier that weekend, I had wasted my time playing the same five levels of the same video game over, and over, and over again. That game? Panzer General II. Specifically, the “Blitzkrieg” Campaign. Here I will present my thoughts on each of these five levels.

Madrid: Unless you are relatively new to this game, you should not get anything less than a brilliant victory in this scenario. Buy a dive bomber right off the bat, and use that armored car they give you to snatch up any minor objectives that are out of the way. Artillary and armor are your friends.

Poland: This is a mildly difficult map, but I was able to get a Brilliant Victory on it every single time. Make sure as much artillary and armor as possible starts on the right side of the river, so you don’t get jammed up. Before the scenario, buy some fighters for air support. But make sure you buy the Bf-109s. They are identical to the Me-109s, but cost less. Also stock up on PzIV tanks (2 or 3). I was given a StugIII for the BV in the last mission, keep it. For infantry, I like SS.

Suosalmi: This is, by far, more difficult than the preceeding two scenarios. The Finnish auxilaries you get aren’t worth a damn, most especially the airplane. Two tanks and two green infantry should be enough to take the north objective. In the south, you have a Finn anti-tank gun where you should be putting artillary, so move it to the back. Watch out, because the Russians have a habbit of sneaking some armor around your southern flank and making a drive for your Major Objective (the Airfield). Keep your planes the hell away from the last objective, there’s an AA gun. Also, keep an eye on the weather; snow can really screw up your air-related plans. I may have only done better than Victory on this scenario once, and I’ve lost on occasion.
Norway: This is actually quite easy, the only difficulties being the lack of auxillary troops and the tempramental weather. Two tanks, an artillary (which you’ll have to requesition), that damned armored car (if you didn’t kill it off at Suosalmi), and a couple infantry for the east half of the map should serve you well, provided you back them up with at least one of your 109s. When you capture your first objective, leave a semi-strong infantry unit there to guard it, as the British player will attack it with an infantry in the latter phases of the scenario. Poor unit placement and not thinking ahead usualy screws me out of the Brilliant Victory every time, but only by a turn or so.

Sedan: The invasion of France! Contrary to what all the Francophobes will tell you, victory is anything but certain here. If only they would just “drop their rifles” and surrender. Instead, they put up an increadilby tenacious defense, and it is a testament to the German Blitzkreig operational doctrine that it was able to prevail. I am unable to beat this scenario. Anyway, after maxing out my Prestige to load up on tanks and troops, I deploy them thus: The northern deployment zone is where all of the armor goes, as well as any infantry that won’t fit into the southern zone. The southern zone should have your most experienced and decorated infantry right up against the river, with all of your artillary and aircraft in support. Blast the pillboxes with artillary, and cross the river. Your armor will take care of the pillboxes in their zone, hook around, and split up. Half will go west with that infantry and take the two objectives there. The rest will proceed south, where they will encounter some stiff resistance and near-constant artillary bombardment. After capturing Sedan proper in the opening stages of the scenario, buy some more tanks. Also, keep one or two infantry in and around Sedan, because the French will sneak some men in to take it if you aren’t careful. They do this alot, so blow your prestige as soon as you get it.

Do NOT make these mistakes that I always do, and you should be fine: engaging French armor 1 on 1, letting your dive-bomber get caught in the open by French fighters, letting your fighters get caught in the open by French fighters, completely forgetting about the southern objective and the force you sent to capture it, leaving Sedan undefended, leaving Sedan over-defended, that sort of stuff.

In conclusion, bravo SSI for making such a fun-yet-challenging game.

So, sure, it’s Tuesday, and I never wrote the weekend-ly ‘Games’ article, but I have an excuse. I was at a LAN party on Sunday/Monday. (Snow Day).
At said LAN party, I was destroyed at Stonghold: Crusader. Good news, though. I was crushed using the very same tactics that I wrote of in my article.

I also spent a good part of the weekend playing the same five levels of the Panzer General II “Blitzkreig” campaign over and over again. Damn you Sedan! Damn you!

[Yes, I wrote the below article while at that party.]

Yesterday, I had the honor and privilege of playing the best aweful game I’ve ever played: “Blood Wake” for the XBox.

To begin with, we were unable to play with the full complement of ships, as Eric has gotten no further in the campaign than the first mission. Thus, our choices were limited to the Sampan (oh Jesus, not the Sampan!), the Large Sampan (or something very much like it), the PT Boat, the Devil Boat, and some other kind of fast boat. The major flaw I saw with the ship-selection system is that one class of boat is clearly superior to another. There is little/no balance; a Sampan cannot defeat a Devil Boat.

The terrain is…well, water. But for some reason our arena was a lake completely surrounded by giant cliffs, obviating the need for the artists to render anything resembling the world. The lake had no inlet or outlet! Are we to believe that it is fed entirely by rainwater? [Caveat: I only saw one map, the same map, both days I played. There may be some good ones.]

Physics were good but not great. The Mighty Devil Boat ^(TM) bounced off the waves like it was a jetski, and  at one point became lodged, vertically, on the cliffs. This mightly beat also bounced on top of the smaller boats, and while it realistically damaged it, it didn’t realisticaly snap the damn thing in two.

Speaking of damaging ships, the combat was rather…boring. Left Trigger was some sort of machine gun that I can only suppose is effective either a) in the campaign or b) against the Sampan. The whole thing degenerated into a melee, with the two ships chasing each other in as tight a circle as possible, rendering most of the map superfluous.

I’m done typing now. Don’t play “Blood Wake.”

Stronghold: Crusader is a mighty old game, having been released in 2002. Age, though, has not diminished the greatness of this game, for it taps into two seperate but equally playable genres, the Real Time Strategy Game, and the City Builder. The RTS elements consist of cranking out troops and flinging them at your adversary. The city building aspect derives from managing the mood, diet, and size of the population so that you can support your armies. However, while these aspects are well-developed enough to give the game a more realistic feel, it is not explored thouroughly enough to make the “Castle Builder” mode fun in any way, shape, or form; far be it from this game to rival the Caesar games in that department.

One thing that must absolutely be mentioned in any guide to this game is its playability. By “playability,” I don’t mean aspects of gameplay which make it easy. I am reather calling to mind the fact that once the game is installed on the computer, the CD is no longer required at all for any purpose. This leads to situations like mine, where everybody I know who has this game installed it from the same disk. Of course, the game is playable in the other sense of the word, too. The interface is generally like that of other RTS games, and learning the basics of the game can be accomplished in one game against a couple of Rats.

Speaking of the The Rat, the different forms of AI the computer lets you choose from are a unique feature. You can play against any combinations of builders and fighters, at any difficulty, although the Sultan, the Rat, and the Snake are so pathetic you can’t tell which role they are supposed to fulfill (although the Sultan must be given props for making an aesthetically pleasing castle). Any of those three AI types can be dealt with in the same way: use Arab horse archers to clear off the walls, then assassins to finish them off. Easy as cake.

Any discussion of more advanced strategy in the game really revolves around one point: archers. Anybody with a bow in their hand is one of the most powerful men in the Holy Land. A volly of arrows will seriously put the hurt on anyone foolish enough to approach your domain, and an archer is one of the cheapest units you can produce in the game. Horse archers are fairly faithful to the Turks and Arabs fought, and 25-30 of them make an impenetrable perimiter guard. After you’ve bult your walls and staffed them with a buttload of archers, a force of 50 horse archers makes a pretty good strike force, especially against the lower level AIs. Speaking of the wall garisson, braziers are your friends; put them on every tower and every gatehouse. To re-iterate: archers, archers, archers!

When on the other side of the walls, things become more complicated. If the walls have been cleared and the defenders reduced by your horse archers, a force of 50 swordsmen should be able to finish off the opposing lord. If the walls havne’t been cleared, a force of 50 swordsmen should still be able to penetrate the gatehouse and do away with the opposing lord. Never use assassins on a fully protected lord, and never use fewer than six. As far as seige artillary goes, the best course of action is to be able to hit the enemy castle with seige engines on towers in your own castle. This opportunity happens frequently on small maps.

Pitched battles don’t occur that often in the game, as opposed to seiges and couter-seiges. They most often occur if your resource denial troops (horse archers and slaves) are caught by an enemy force, or if they sally forth to attack your seige-works. In the former case, let the slaves go, and use your horse archers Mongol-style. If the latter, you already have your crack force of swordsmen. If you’ve been using resource denial effectively, they shouldn’t be able to challenge you. If you haven’t, or are playing somebody who’s very good, use pikemen/spearmen and archers/crossbowmen to guard the seige machinery, and knights and horse archers to engage the enemy units.

Economics are simple. If you build your fams within your walls (where possible), you have a safe food supply, and can afford to sell it off to buy things. Ditto for hops and ale. You’ll need lots of wood, and when you don’t it’s sellable.

Things not to build: When playing as the crusaders, the mercenary camps are only good for horse archers and slaves. Any other units should only be purchased in emergencies. Seige ladders are useless. Monks are extremely weak, don’t waste the money. Water pots and wells are wastes, just let it all burn and rebuild (not that anything should be burning in the first place). Apple and dairy fams are superior to wheat farms because they food doesn’t need to be processed to eat, and requires fewer laborers that can better be used as a recruiting pool in the early game; when you gain the means to process labor-intensive crops, go for barley first.
Thus ends my review/guide/thing of Stronghold: Crusader.
Note: I have no experience playing this against human players. I also only rediscovered this game since I stopped playing about this time in 2005, so I only have limited current experience agains the AI.