"All Black" is the name of a soccer team from New Zealand. I'm not clear on whether the name comes from their uniforms or from the people on the team.

But "all black" is also the Master of Magic starting strategy I've gotten hooked on. If you go with 11 spell books, you get all the first level spells, two second level spells, and one third level spell, and a 40% discount on casting cost. With 11 black books, you take Black Prayer, Shadow Demons, and Wraiths. Shadow Demons and Wraiths are overwhelming in the early stages of the game. A single stack of Shadow Demons can take a blue node as long as there isn't anything besides Phantom Warriors, Phantom Beasts, or Nagas.

A stack of Shadow Demons and a stack of Wraiths can even handle up to three air elementals.

Two stacks of Shadow Demons and one stack of Wraiths can handle almost anything you'll find in any color node or any lair on Arcanus if you're playing at "Normal" difficulty. Really tough stuff is beyond them, but you don't really run into those on Arcanus. (Myrror is a different matter.)

Meanwhile, a single unit of Wraiths can take over almost any brown village it sees. Or any enemy village which is defended by infantry, even up to pikemen, or any kind of normal cavalry.

What's even better is that a large number of those killed by the Wraith will rise from the dead, and you get an instant garrison to protect the place -- and they don't consume mana, gold or food. Instant totally-free army.

When you play 11 black books, you get out fast and scout widely, because the sooner you find an enemy wizard, the less built up they are and the easier they are to take out. I usually end up with two wraiths out exploring the world -- and taking over anything they find.

And it's all the easier if you play High Elves as your race. They develop slowly, but they also produce more mana than anyone else, and especially in the early game, an extra five or ten mana per term is a huge difference.

I decided I was getting bored with black and tried switching to 11 red books instead. That's when I realized how spoiled I had become. There isn't any world-beater I can summon in the early going with red. I did some experimenting with a hell-hound horde, and it works pretty good. But they die rather easily, and even though they only cost 24 mana per stack a full army of nine stacks is still 216 mana to summon and 9 per turn to maintain. And it can take two attacks with such a stack just to clear out a blue node containing only Phantom warriors and maybe one Phantom Beast. Against most other nodes, they're useless. They can't even handle bears and sprites in a green node, which are dead meat for shadow demons and wraiths.

And once the hell-hound horde is gone it can take 30 turns or more to raise enough mana and do all the summon spells to create a new one.

I tried one game of 11 blue a while back and didn't even finish it. I felt utterly crippled. There really wasn't anything that would help me in early stages. And in fact that's how it feels with all the other colors: you have to bide your time and do your best until you make a breakthrough and get one of the top summons: hydra or great drake for red, behemoth or great wyrm or colossus for green, sky drake for blue, Torin for white.

"Incarnation" is level 3, so with 11 white books you can start with that one. But it would cost 300 mana to summon Torin (counting the 40% discount for having 11 books). That's actually what Wraiths cost, so it isn't really out of reach. The problem is that Torin doesn't begin all that powerful; he doesn't become a world-beater for a long time.

If I was really going to be serious in an 11-blue book game, I think I'd probably pick Invisibility, Flight, and Air Elemental. Use one guy who is invisible and flying to explore and scout out lairs, and summon Air Elementals to do the fighting. But that won't work in green or red nodes, and I'm not sure it would really do very well even in a blue node. And that's a very mana-expensive way to go -- and you just don't have very much in the early game.

With 11 red books, I picked Flame Blade, Chimera, and Chaos Rift. Doom Bolt and/or Warp Lightning are tempting, but even if you have them, you can't use them until your skill gets high enough so choosing them as starting spells is a waste.

With 11 white, I think I'd probably go with Unicorns, True Sight, and Incarnation, but I might go with Prayer instead of True Sight. And then summon Torin as early as I could, and let him spend 50 turns aging in my capital until he was strong enough to really make a difference.

For 11 green? I suspect I'd go with Pathfinding, Change Terrain, and Gorgons, but maybe Earth Elemental would be better than Gorgons. And I could be convinced to go with Nature's Cures instead of Change Terrain.

As good at Gorgons are, they're not world beaters either. And they'd cost 360 mana to summon and 15 mana per turn, so you aren't going to have very many of them.

Compared to starting with Shadow Demons and Wraiths, though, all of those are second rate.

UPDATE: I just tried that idea with all white, and found out that Torin requires 12 mana a turn. Which is out of the question in the early game.

And the all-blue strategy also doesn't work in the early game. Air Elementals cost 50 to summon, and it takes a long time to get your casting skill up that high. Also, Invisibility and Air Elemental are both third level spells, so you can't start with them both. You could do Invisibility, Flight, and Phantom Beast -- but even that is problematic. Invisibility costs 10 mana a turn, and it costs 35 to summon a Phantom Beast.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Gaming at 08:39 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
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1 (The All Blacks got their name from their uniforms, by the way.)

Posted by: Wonderduck at September 19, 2011 10:01 PM (o45Mg)

2 Isn't it New Zealands rugby team that's called the All-Blacks? That's a very different sport to Soccer (actually, I think the Soccer team actually wears white).

Posted by: DiGiKerot at September 19, 2011 10:03 PM (4G28J)

3 You're probably right.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 19, 2011 10:04 PM (+rSRq)

4 All this good MoM color discussion, and the comments are all about the throw away lead in bit? Sheesh.

For early striking power all black books certainly has a big edge. But you do give up a lot of other possibilities to get it, including Myrran and any retorts. And you still have to push hard on mana to support the early summons, if not as much as other colors would require for less effect.

It certainly makes a nice change from my usual slow-but-unstoppable expansion pattern.

Posted by: haphazard1 at September 20, 2011 03:40 PM (9yBYR)

5 Tell me about it. That's what it was always like for USS Clueless, too: I'd write some major article making some huge important point, and I'd get a scad of email all of which nitpicked unimportant details.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 20, 2011 04:46 PM (+rSRq)

6 Have you tried any book-light builds?  Or do those feel too much like a game of Civ?

Posted by: BigD at September 20, 2011 05:05 PM (u0/7E)

7 Isn't it natural though? If you are right, you're right; the ankle-biters are unable to pick up a fight with the thesis. Especially if it was expressed with unmistakable clarity. Ergo, nitpicking.

There is a more charitable version of it in programming, called "bikeshedding". It comes from a comparison of someone posting a project of a nuclear reactor and a bike shed. The critics see that they are not expects in reactors, and refrain from making fools of themselves, but they savage the bike shed project. Somehow the term itself turned to mean the nitpicking in the common use, perhaps because it's more common.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at September 20, 2011 06:14 PM (9KseV)

8 I don't play MoM, but I knew the answer to the "All Blacks" thing.  Sorry to derail.

Posted by: Wonderduck at September 20, 2011 06:16 PM (o45Mg)

9 All Black is certainly potent, as I recall, but its not *that* quick to get the game breaker summons.  While the AI may not be sufficiently aggressive for this to be a problem, I wouldn't necessarily want to play against a competent White or Green opponent who mixes logistics buffs with anti-Black spells.

Posted by: metaphysician at September 20, 2011 06:25 PM (3GCAl)

10 Eleven-books-plus-elementals (or phantom critters) is harsh on the mana supply, since casting combat spells far from your fortress tower costs triple. (Unless you're lucky and find the Channeler retort, which removes that penalty.)

All-black with wraiths is definitely the easiest and fastest win in the game.

All-white does ok with Stream of Life (no unrest & double growth rate; set your tax rate to 4gold/population and alchemize all the mana you need while you spend all your magic points to raise skill so you can spam heroism and holy armor on your army.) You have to fight with those normal units though, so this is a relatively slow strategy. You'll get steamrolled on higher "skill" (i.e. computer cheating) levels.

A faster win can be had with invulnerable guardian spirits. (Yeah, guardian spirits.) Add endurance and they move 4 squares everywhere, and they hit hard in melee. Stick to foes with a 6-or-fewer swords/bows/fireballs rating, and drop the occasional healing spell. Use Prayer against tougher critters once you've got the skill for it, and bless if you're fighting chaos/death summons where the extra crosses matter.

All-green reeks. If you're lucky you can get somewhere with basilisks or gorgons.

All-red reeks. If you're lucky you can get somewhere with chaos spawn or chimeras.

All-blue is all about the invisible (flying) ranged attackers. Another slow start, but high elf longbowmen or anyone-who-makes-warships is good.

Posted by: Mikeski at September 20, 2011 07:27 PM (GbSQF)

11

metaphysician, Wraiths are a game-breaker summon, and if you have 11 books you can start with that spell.

With the casting discount, they cost 300 to summon and 8/turn for maintenance, and one stack of wraiths is very potent. They can usually clean out a red node without taking any damage.

I've found that it doesn't take long before I have enough mana income to have a couple of wraiths and a couple of shadow demons. First priority is clearing out all the nodes and lairs on my home land mass, of course, but once that's done I dismiss the shadow demons and then use the wraiths to explore and look for enemy wizards and/or brown towns.

You take one town from an enemy, put your summoning circle there, and summon a couple of shadow demons and then kick butt. Not absolutely unstoppable but damned close to it; the highest scoring game I've had (at "Hard" level) used this strategy and I ended the game fast by taking out all four enemies.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 20, 2011 07:34 PM (+rSRq)

12 Invulnerable guardian spirits is an interesting idea. Wasn't one I had considered. Maybe I'll give that one a try.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 20, 2011 07:36 PM (+rSRq)

13

Isn't it natural though? If you are right, you're right; the ankle-biters are unable to pick up a fight with the thesis. Especially if it was expressed with unmistakable clarity. Ergo, nitpicking.

Pete, that assumes that the only reason to comment is to criticize. That was the attitude that I hated most.

Mikeski, I just tried beginning a game with all white and created an invulnerable guardian spirit. I lost it the first time in a green node to a basilisk, and after recovering from a save game I lost it again in a blue node to a phantom beast -- and that with it also having endurance and true sight.

I don't think those are as useful as wraiths -- but I think wraiths are unbalanced.

I wonder how invulnerable unicorns would go?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 20, 2011 07:52 PM (+rSRq)

14

I just tried beginning a game with all white and created an invulnerable guardian spirit. I lost it the first time in a green node to a basilisk, and after recovering from a save game I lost it again in a blue node to a phantom beast -- and that with it also having endurance and true sight.

Yeah, thus my "6 attack rating or less" caveat. Invulnerability just makes you defend as though you had 10 shields, so enemies who attack with 10-or-more swords will still tear you up. You use the Invulnerable Guardian Spirits to roll over all the sprites/ghouls/hellhounds/phantom warriors/halberdiers/etc. quickly, and you use your now-bigger powerbase to throw out some heroic holyarmored/invulnerable holyweaponed blessed halberdiers or whatever to mop up the bigger guys.

I wonder how invulnerable unicorns would go?

Not much better, though a multi-unit stack takes less damage due to the way damage is dealt in the game.

Each attacker has a 30% chance of doing 1 point of damage per sword (or bow or fireball) in its attack. (10% more for each "+1 to hit" they have). So a 20-sword, +2-to-hit critter averages doing 10 damage. Your 10-shields-due-to-invulnerability unit averages absorbing 3 of that (shields are also 30% effective). So that single hit does 7 damage to an invulnerable guardian spirit.

If it's against a multi-unit group, and the damage kills the first unit, the second unit gets to use its shields as well... so that same 10-damage hit, against Invulnerable spearmen, will only do 2 damage on average: 3 absorbed by the first spearman's shields; 7 gets through, and 1 damage kills the first spearman; 6 passes on to the second spearman, and 3 more is absorbed by the second spearman's shields; 3 gets through and kills the second spearman; the remaining 2 are absorbed by the third spearman's shields.

Posted by: Mikeski at September 20, 2011 08:33 PM (GbSQF)

15 Similar to invulnerability, Magic Immunity acts like a 50-shield defense.  So if you buff the heck out of a strong blaster hero like the warlock (to, say, +7 to hit and 40+ fireballs), you can actually shoot down Sky Drakes in 2 shots.  Which is immensely satisfying.

Posted by: Mikeski at September 20, 2011 08:44 PM (GbSQF)

16

The invulnerable guardian spirits are pretty good. Add Lionheart, however, and then they're really incredible.

However... I've got one lair left on my home landmass which contains a single gorgon, and for the time being there isn't anything I can do about out.

I cleared out nearly everything else using two stacks of unicorns, which were invulnerable, blessed, and had true sight. They did really well -- except that they got slaughtered by the gorgon.

At the time I didn't have lionheart or prayer. If I use more unicorns, and add those two spells to the mix, that may do it. If not, I'll just have to put up with them until I can summon Torin. Or an archangel. Or something like that.

The biggest pain about white magic is that except for Star Fires, it has absolutely no offensive magic.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 20, 2011 09:19 PM (+rSRq)

17 Lionheart is ok on a single-unit creature like a guardian spirit, but it really shines on 6- or 8-stack units, due to the way damage works (as above).  Lionhearted slingers are scary.  Lionhearted hammerhands are ridiculous.  (Assuming lionheart is the three-swords-and-three-hearts buff... if not, make this comment be about that spell instead.)

Posted by: Mikeski at September 20, 2011 09:37 PM (GbSQF)

18

Yeah, that's the one.

As to a low-book start? That's an interesting idea. Try this:

2 green, 2 blue, 2 red
Alchemy, Warlord, Conjurer, Node Mastery

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 20, 2011 10:02 PM (+rSRq)

19 I tried a 4 book start - all green, with Alchemy, Warlord, Myrran, and Archmage.  Myrran was a mistake -- all the nodes are too tough. Now that opponents have developed and are eating me with spells I can't counter. .

Posted by: ubu at September 20, 2011 10:59 PM (GfCSm)

20 The "Bikeshedding" is kinda like Usenet Nod Syndrome.  People rarely comment on things they agree with or have nothing to add to.  They just nod and go on to the next thing until they find something that outrages them and they feel compelled to comment.

For example, I only posted this comment because I wanted to bring up Usenet Nod Syndrome....

Posted by: Mauser at September 21, 2011 03:05 AM (cZPoz)

21 Wow.

I just beat Impossible in Year 1410 with All-Black--and that included having to hunt down S'Srra at the end.

A single wraith is terribly, horribly broken against massed low-level living units.  OTOH, they are insanely expensive (same mana cost as summoning a hero, *after* the 11-book discount) in the early game, and there are certain high-level units that eat them for breakfast, *and* at the harder levels, every node is guarded by hordes of basilisks and the like.  So, I wound up only melding a handful of nodes, and sacking every town in sight.  I used the massive undead armies the wraiths left behind to garrison the snot out of my towns so that I could safely jack the tax rate almost to the top.  I was soon raking in hundreds of gold per turn and converting them at the lame 50% exchange rate, all to fuel more summons.

I hardly researched any spells at all, and I don't think I really used anything other than Black Prayer, the sleeping spell, and summon wraith/shadow demon (the latter was fairly lackluster, but was terribly useful for securing a Myrran town to move the summon portal to).

Was it fun?  Sure, the first time.  There's some *serious* curb-stomping to be had early on.  But, the whole thing is very hit-and-miss.  You're basically running around with 1 wraith for a long time, either winning easily or getting wiped out... and the latter means you're hosed for possibly dozens of turns early on.  I can see where that all-or-nothing would get a little old after a while--it's more fun when you have to (and can!) overcome adversity than when you have to play with a zero-mistakes mentality.

Still... pretty neat.  Something I'd never done before.

Posted by: BigD at September 22, 2011 10:01 PM (u0/7E)

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So there I was, minding my own business and starting a new colony on Arcanus.

What's that beneath my town? Looks like a blue node, doesn't it?

So I summoned a magic spirit, and the "meld" button worked, and I suddenly had 9 more mana income without having to fight for it.

The neighboring brown Halfling town sent the welcome wagon to see me, but every time the raiders tried to enter, they got redirected to the node, and then bounced back. (Pity they didn't actually fight, though. I guess you can't have everything.)

I ended up being curious, and after I killed off the raiders (because I got tired of watching them), I tried moving one guy back into my town. And suddenly he, and all my other defenders who were already in the town, were in the node and preparing to fight. (Time to restore from a save game, folks!)

The node defenders were three Phantom Beasts and six Phantom Warriors, which was easy meat for a single stack of Shadow Demons. But in order to fight it without losing anyone else, I ended up having to vacate the town. With all the defenders out, the Shadow Demons could enter and fight alone.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Gaming at 03:09 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Remember the easter egg? (Spoilers below the fold)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Gaming at 07:49 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I'm not sure how far I'm going to get in this.

The whole idea makes me feel a bit unclean. A guy and his two cousins get hit by lightning and slide into an alternate reality where all the women wear highly revealing clothing. That is their first sight of it.

But it does work fine in the XPmode emulator.

I didn't have to worry about the networked drive. Unlike the floppy, the built in DVD drive shows up natively in XPmode.

UPDATE: It may not just be fashion. It may be law. They were standing there being astounded at the lack of clothing on all the girls, and then a policeman rushed towards them. Yuuki was wearing a full miko costume, and it may be that she was violating some sort off law about non-exposure.

If so, it really does make me feel unclean.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Gaming at 02:41 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 Too bad that Sony has such strict rules for PSP, or they could've published a Strike Witches Portable...

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at August 24, 2011 03:05 PM (9KseV)

2 "...it may be that she was violating some sort off law about non-exposure."

Oh, like in Heinlein's Puppet Masters?  But maybe the parasites only attack cute Japanese schoolgirls, and that's why? 

Posted by: atomic_fungus at August 24, 2011 06:32 PM (v62gL)

3

Actually, what it reminded me of is one of the Soul Rider books by Jack Chalker, which describes a dystopia in which magic is used to make all the women gorgeous -- and stupid. Basically to turn all of them into sex machines.

I found it highly revolting.

The two girls there are (non-identical) twins. The blonde one is already something of an exhibitionist, and she's been doing a lot of modeling, including swimsuit stuff. She shows every indication of liking the situation. (Her name is Shana.)

Yuuki (the other one) is shy and strait-laced, and her reaction to it all was, eventually, to pass out.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 24, 2011 06:41 PM (+rSRq)

4 By the way, I don't remember how to reveal hidden files and directories in XP. Can someone tell me?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 24, 2011 07:06 PM (+rSRq)

5 I was going "Hmmmm, I'll take that red-head in the back," but then I opened the article in its own screen and got the full width.  Hubba hubba! Gimmie that blonde on the right!

Oh, and if you haven't found it yet, Steven, open any folder, then click Tools > View tab > check "Show hidden files and folders"   and then click Apply.   You might have to open a folder in the list named "Hidden files and folders".

Posted by: ubu at August 24, 2011 07:21 PM (GfCSm)

6 Thank you. I couldn't remember where that was.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 24, 2011 07:38 PM (+rSRq)

7 atomic_fungus, ALL parasites attack Japanese Schoolgirls.  With Tentacles.  That's why they have mandatory immunizations.

As for Chalker, that sounds pretty typical.  Almost all of his books seem to exist for sexually torturing his characters, and often do so through physical transformation.  I met him at PhilCon once, and he made off with the 'zine I was showing him, assuming I was giving it to him rather than just letting him look at it.  I suppose he liked the Furries some of the illustrators did.

Posted by: Mauser at August 25, 2011 02:15 AM (cZPoz)

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I'm beginning to get played out on Master of Magic. Considering how much time I've put into it, it's a testimony to the rich game play that it hasn't happened long since.

So I'm thinking it's time to try something new. I got onto the Microsoft PC Games site, wondering if they might have an updated version of "Pandora's Box" which doesn't run full-screen at 800*600 resolution. (On my 16:9 display, the aspect ratio is so wrong that the game is almost unplayable.)

Please note that I'm not looking for suggestions for games I "might want to consider". Just don't go there, OK?

The one thing that looked interesting to me was Spore. The Microsoft games site lists the fact that games have DRM, and this one didn't mention it. But I just looked at the Wikipedia article about the game, and it said that when the game was first released back in 2008, there was a big controversy about the fact that it used SecuRom.

It also said that there was a non-DRM release of the game. The version on the MS Games site says its release date is June 14, 2011, which makes me think it's a special version created for the MS Games site, which I gather is DTO. (True?)

So does anyone know anything about it? Just how much did they include in it? The description mentions "Spore's unique Creator tools". Does that mean they bundled things like Spore Creature Creator into this version of it?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Gaming at 08:43 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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1 Hmm.  I didn't play much Spore, but my wife did for a while.  I think her summary was "interesting but not nearly as deep or balanced as hyped."

Posted by: metaphysician at August 04, 2011 08:54 AM (hD30M)

2 My friends that tried it also became bored quickly. Apparently it just doesn't have much depth or strategy.  And if you just want do design 3D creatures, I seem to recall that you already have some 3D design software.

Posted by: Boviate at August 04, 2011 10:22 AM (RPpft)

3 Spore is boring.  Don't get it.

To quote the previous: "Apparently it just doesn't have much depth or strategy.".

It has cute/great graphics, no real strategy.

Posted by: Mixie at August 04, 2011 10:58 AM (PZbQA)

4 Spore has extremely invasive DRM - Shamus had a great post on this:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1651
where the key point is:
"You get three total "activations”. This means the game can be placed onto three computers. This can be three different computers, or the same computer upgraded three times. Every time you try to run the game on what the server thinks of as a "new” system, one of your three activations is consumed. This means your relationship with the game is directly affected by how often you upgrade."

Posted by: azizhp at August 04, 2011 11:43 AM (wOzPT)

5 Also, I haven't played Spore, but many other people have told me not to bother as it's basically a "free style" game with no real narrative. 
I'd like to take the opportunity to mention that World of Warcraft still deserves your attention. It's lightweight, it's got no invasive DRM (since you have to be online to play to communicate with the game servers), and the game is basically three to five diferent games in one, depending on your preferences:
- you can Quest, which follows very detailed storylines about teh world and the major events, you get to be a major player. This is "solo" game play - you can go into Dungeons - these are for casual group gaming (3-5 people), and the software allows you to find a group automatically so theres minimal social outreach involved - you can go Raiding - this is a more active social group thing where you join Guilds and go on large 10 or even 25 person missions - you can fight other players in Battlegrounds (large group) and Arenas (one on one) - you can do your own thing, which is any combination of the above
Personally I am a solo player with some dabbling in dungeons as needed to advance quest storylines. I play anywhere from a few hours a week, to a few hours a month depending on real life etc. Some of the people I know just log on to go "farming" for minerals and other consumables that they then sell on the auction house, gaining gold that they can then spend on vanity stuff like cooler weapons and mounts. 
at any rate, if this is something you'd like to explore, I (like everyone else) have a few codes for you to play teh game for free for a couple of weeks or until level 20, which should be more than enough for anyone to decide if its something that works for them. The free trial makes it pretty painless. 

Posted by: azizhp at August 04, 2011 11:54 AM (wOzPT)

6 There's always one...

Master of Magic just does a darned good job in being a lot like the old Civ games, but with a bunch of variety (especially in the interaction of different elements - X might not seem like a good idea, but in Y situation with Z spell cast on it?) Others have tried to mine the same lode, but generally they're spectacular failures.

I have trouble with the game just because, well, it's -really- old and the interface gets to me. Cutting-edge for fifteen years ago (maybe not even that, heh...) I can live with crap graphics - even Dwarf Fortress! - but the interface is king (...Dwarf Fortress... ;_

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at August 04, 2011 12:23 PM (j42B4)

7 Curse you, smiley!

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at August 04, 2011 12:23 PM (j42B4)

8

What I was thinking is that it was a lot like some of the world-builder games I used to love so much, like Sim-City, Sim-World, Sim-Life.

Having no narrative is fine. I don't want one. Being free-form is nice, too.

I am aware that Spore had dreadful DRM when it was released. But I see a couple of hints that the version Microsoft is offering (3 years later) is not so encumbered. It looks like a compilation of a lot of earlier releases, hoping to milk a game for more sales after the initial feeding frenzy has ended.

That's what I'm hoping, anyway. Ah, heck. It's only $20; maybe I'll risk it.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 04, 2011 12:40 PM (+rSRq)

9 Well, its your call, obviously.  And its not like my wife didn't get enjoyment out of it.  I just wouldn't go in expecting to get as much value as from MoM.

( not that I can think of many games that have. . . )

Posted by: metaphysician at August 04, 2011 01:22 PM (hD30M)

10 Minecraft looks awesome for free-form exploration and engineering... I just haven't had the time to get into it myself.

Posted by: BigD at August 04, 2011 01:52 PM (1VXek)

11 I've played a fair bit of Spore.  Without the Galactic Adventures expansion, it's over pretty quickly; each of the stages is interesting but none of them have any depth.  Galactic Adventures expands the last stage a lot; it pretty much delivers on the original promise of the game as far as that stage goes.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 04, 2011 02:17 PM (PiXy!)

12 I played a little Spore when it first came out. I found the game frustrating because I never had enough DNA to build the creature I wanted, and as soon as I started to get there the game declared a new phase. For example, once you get a certain amount of DNA, your character moves out of the protozoan stage; you can't stay in the protozoan stage to add DNA and fiddle with the bits.

Posted by: Anachronda at August 04, 2011 05:11 PM (6fER6)

13

I too, never had much luck or fun playing Spore.  Too tedious and like Anachronda above, you'd finally get the DNA you want and the stage would end.  Strange game design.

The only game that ever came close to MoM in my mind was 'Dominions 3'.  (I know, DWL!, I'm sorry.) Now THAT's a grognards game.  In fact- I have an extra copy of the game (manual and CD) and would be willing to send it to you at the cost of postage-

Just sayin.

Posted by: Gothmog at August 05, 2011 07:50 AM (089tw)

14

Played it myself, and honestly, it's not that great. The closest it comes to a 4X game is the Civilization stage, and it's so dumbed down it's more like Risk than Civilization, with the exception of city management, which is needlessly complicated by its own attempt to be simple, strangely enough. You have only five buildings you can actually add to a city, one of which is the "town center" that essentially counts as the city itself, and another being a gun emplacement that can only be located on the edge of the city. That leaves three buildings that change the city's productivity, morale, and population limits: a factory building, an entertainment building, and a residential building. While this seems simple enough, they went one step further and decided these buildings also need to produce auxiliary functions depending entirely on their exact location with regard to one another and the town center, mostly to keep players from minmaxing. There are also several different city layouts that are randomly chosen when a city is built, so if you were hoping to be able to build a fleet of ships ASAP at your new harbor city, but it gets a layout that's nearly impossible to add factories to without causing the population to riot, you're SOL.

The Space Stage is the deepest one, if only for the fact that you can terraform planets yourself by building a custom ecosystem. Unfortunately, that gets boring pretty fast, and then it becomes nothing more than a MoO3 style "spreadsheets in space" adventure, without the Galactic Adventures expansion pack.

It does have really cute visuals, though, and everything from the critters to the vehicles to the buildings to the planets are actually fully customizable. You can even search online for other players' designs to use yourself, if you don't have time to design your own City Hall, and there are some really nice ones... I found a really amazing building that looks like a grassy green hill floating in the air, with a waterfall cascading off the side of the floating hill and terminating in a lake at the bottom, and downloaded it to make into my entertainment-type building. The game can also be set to use randomly downloaded creatures from online as alien races or competitor species, which pretty much ensures that everything in your game is going to look like some variety of human genitalia and be named  random combinations of four-letter words that only children under the age of ten find entertaining.

Posted by: Tatterdemalian at August 05, 2011 08:29 PM (4njWT)

15 Oh yeah, and lest I forget... nothing in Spore is turn-based. It's all "real time with pause." Probably should have mentioned that first. If you're just getting it for the Creature/Building/Vehicle/Spaceship creators, though, that's not a problem.

Posted by: Tatterdemalian at August 06, 2011 05:19 PM (4njWT)

16 Real time with pause is not a bad thing, IMO.  I've played many RPGs where it worked fine, and also a couple RTSes ( Sins of a Solar Empire, notably ).  I can't remember the implementation in Spore though; in fact, I may not have even realized it was RTwP.

Posted by: metaphysician at August 06, 2011 07:56 PM (hD30M)

17

It's pretty much standard issue for all Will Wright games since "The Sims." It works in most Sim* games because there's no serious threats you have to deal with, except the ones you decide to cause yourself. Not so much in Spore, especially in the "Civilization" stage, where most players find themselves getting wiped out repeatedly on Hard mode until they learn to judge the speed their craft can move, and from that which battles they'll be able to affect the outcome of and which ones you're too late to reach anyhow, while the game is paused and nothing is moving. It's got a lot more in common with "Starcraft" than "Civilization" really.

Posted by: Tatterdemalian at August 07, 2011 10:26 AM (4njWT)

18 I was curious about the original "The Sims" but I kept waiting until the final "Complete" collection came out, then I waited for it to go on clearance and the price to drop below $40 (I was out of work at the time) and instead, they took it off the shelves rather than marking it down.

Posted by: Mauser at August 07, 2011 11:37 PM (cZPoz)

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Getting bored with my other games, I dug out my copy of Microsoft Casino a couple of days ago. I usually play Blackjack and Pai Gow Poker, which is what I used to play when I went to Vegas, back when I was still able to travel.

But eventually those get boring, too. I did some experimenting with Video Poker in the game, and noticed something odd:

I can win this particular game consistently. I think the payoff matrix in it is wrong. The problem is that with four wild cards in the deck, it isn't all that hard to get 4 of a kind, and that's a huge payoff. You can adjust the price-per-point, and for a while I was playing it at pseudo-$10 per point, playing five points per hand. When I first dragged out the game, I began with about $3000 simulated. Now I'm up to $23,000, and that was with just a couple of hours of play.

I've gotten 4 Aces at least once, and I've gotten 4-of-a-lesser-kind several times. Each of them was a huge payoff. In fact, every single time I've played it I've ended up a big winner.

In theory this whole thing is a simulation of how gambling is actually done in Vegas including the payoffs, at the three specific casinos they simulate -- Treasure Island, Mirage, and Bellagio, which are all part of the same company. So how did they get the payoff matrix for this one game so badly wrong? If it's really like that in Vegas, I need to force myself to schedule a trip!!!

UPDATE: After I wrote this I started playing it again, and just got another 4-of-a-kind. In this game I've also gotten a straight flush. Right now my balance on the machine is about $4000, and my total is up to $27000.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Gaming at 06:13 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Today only, on Amazon, a real bargain on red summons!

I was rather surprised to see that. Here's what the bookshelf looked like:

The manual doesn't say what the casting discount is for 12 books. 8 books is 10% off, 9 is 20%, 10 is 30% off, and 11 is 40% off, so presumably 12 books is 50% off. Chaos Mastery is 15% off. Conjurer is 25% off.

It looks like they added all the discounts together rather than multiplying them. 50+25+15 == 90% off, and a Hydra, which ordinarily costs 650 mana, costs just 65. Definitely a bargain. (And maintenance cost was only 11 mana per turn.)

I had managed to locate a flight spell, so the rest of the game I ran a stack of four flying Hydras around and finished clearing the board. Flying Hydras are much better than Great Drakes because they're cheaper, and because they're tougher, and they're faster (3 move versus 2), and especially because they're regenerators. Great Drakes keep getting wounded and only time will heal them. Hydras don't have that problem.

And now I'm going to try an all-black game. It looks like the preferred campaign units are Shadow Demons, then later Wraiths, and ultimately Death Knights.

UPDATE: Of course, the obvious question is, what if it had been 13 spell books? Would that be another 10% discount, making the summon free? I had 13 books of one color in one game but I didn't note just how much the discount from that was.

UPDATE: Just finished the all-black game. At one point I did indeed have 13 black spell books, and the discount is indeed 60%. Then I found Conjurer, and Death Knights, ordinarily 600 MP to summon, were just 90. Add Channeler, and they only cost 3 MP per turn to maintain.

Death Knights are truly awesome. I had a single one take out a Sky Drake in one combat round. It had to hit the Drake twice, but it only took about one quarter damage. Experience with Great Drakes was similar.

Djinn and Colossuses were the things that caused me the most trouble, but not intolerably so. Air Elementals were simply opportunities to recharge.

And Zombies, Skeletons, Ghouls? The problem with them is that they're already dead, so you can't life-steal from them. Easy to destroy, but occasionally getting in a shot, leaving the Death Knights damaged. Nothing for it but to seek out a few caves and hope there are bears in them. (Yummy! Good for recharging!)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Gaming at 06:32 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I tend to get stuck in a rut, playing MOM with the same setup over and over. For a long time I played Myrran, with Draconians, and at least half my spell books being green.

But that started getting dull, and I decided I wanted to try something different. One idea was: 11 books of a single color. Since I love Green magic so much, that was the obvious one to start with.

With 11 books, you start the game with all ten first level spells, plus two second level and one third. I always went with Path Finding, Change Terrain, and Iron Skin.

Since it was 11 books, that meant no retorts, which meant starting on Arcanus. I played High Men, and soon came to know the virtues of the Paladin unit. You reach a certain point where you can deploy a stack of 8 Paladins, with Regeneration, Stone Skin, Endurance, Water Walking, and Path Finding, and you can readily clear the board. Nothing can stop them. (Chaos Spawn are the only enemies I even slightly feared.)

But that was beginning to turn into another rut, so I decided to try 11 white books, and chose True Sight, Prayer, and Incarnation. That was a lot more difficult, and it became clear that I had to use High Elves, because a pure-white strategy demands a lot of mana and in the early going that was the only way to get it.

The big problem for me was, no Wall of Stone spell. Before, even when I was playing a predominately white or predominately red game, I always included a couple of books of green just so that I could guarantee to have Wall of Stone.

If it was three green books, it would be Wall of Stone and Water Wallking. In the all-white game, not having Water Walking proved a huge impediment. Only reasonable way to get off my starting island was with ships, which I am not in the habit of building.

On the other hand, the Plane Shift spell can, if you are lucky, compensate for that a bit. Depends a lot on the relative layouts of the land masses on both sides, but sometimes you can cross a strait on one side by shifting to the other and walking across dry land.

The main point of an all-White game is to get Torin going as soon as you can. Which can still take a while, because Torin has an 11 mana per turn maintenance, and even with High Elves that can be difficult to come buy in the early game.

With 11 white books he only costs 300 to summon, however, so if you get him killed it isn't all that hard to get him back again. But I did end up converting gold to mana a lot earlier in that game than I usually do. Most of the time when I do that it's just because the gold is piling up; this time it was because I desperately needed the magic.

I reached a certain point where I began praying for specific treasure: a magic item I could give to Torin which had Water Walking or Flight, or something! It turned out to be a green spell book, which gave me Water Walking, Change Terrain, Web, and Natures Cures. I tell you, green magic sure is useful.

I think I'm going to try an all-red game next. That one may demand a lot of mana, too, because the only way to survive in lots of summons. So the spell choices? I think Lightning Bolt, Flame Blade, and Doom Bolt.

UPDATE: A pure red game turns out to be pretty easy in the early going. Where in a pure green game you can defend your cities with Wall of Stone and Web, in a pure red game you defend your cities with Fire Elemeentals, which is even cheaper. Where in the green game your goal is Behemoth or Colossus or Great Wyrm, and in the white game you aim for Torin, in the red game it's all about Great Drakes. Once you get that spell, you're really ready to kick ass.

I'm playing it with High Elves, but I don't think I'd have to. Given that with 11 red books, a fire elemental only costs 12 mana to summon in combat, you don't have quite the mana starvation problem that all-white has in the early game.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Gaming at 01:17 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Duke Nukem Forever was legendary as a vaporware title, yielding joke names like "Duke Nukem Whenever" or "Duke Nukem Maybe Never". But now, at long last, it's out.

And Ars Technica says it's awful. They left out the fun, and loaded up on vulgarity.

So what shall we call it now?

UPDATE: The Escapist hated it. So did Eurogamer.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Gaming at 09:06 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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So there I was, playing a white/green game with the Trolls, and getting up on my research and aced a few really nice spells.

I've never messed around with angels before. They have the ability to add one shield, one sword, and one cross to all units in the same stack, and I figured it couldn't hurt my elite war trolls. So I summoned an angel, and put Regeneration on it, and added it to the stack.

And got a surprise: any enemy range striker would shoot for the angel, leaving my trolls alone. And since the angel was a regenerator, I didn't care. I cared even less after I got the Invulnerability spell and put that on the Angel.

Where that was the biggest surprise, and the most help, was in taking a red node that had one Great Drake and eight Fire Giants. All the fire giants threw their rocks at the Angel, and since it was invulnerable, none of them did anything. Had they been throwing at my war trolls, I might have lost a couple of stacks just for that reason alone. But this way I was able to use all eight of them against the Great Drake, which resulted in a pretty easy win.

When you're trying to take out an enemy, cities full of shamans are a pain in the ass. But they did the same thing: all the shamans, not to mention catapaults and other similar annoyances, picked on the angel. So did the enemy wizard.

The trolls were the big danger, and with all the enemy artillery lifted, they were able to easily kick ass.

I've learned another thing: it is vitally important to get Eldritch Weapon or Holy Weapon on a war troll, because trolls can't build alchemist guilds.

Both is even better yet. But once you get at least one of those, things go a whole lot better against a lot of kinds of enemies.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Gaming at 09:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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