20 November 2006

Weekend Update

Tonight I'll talk about a couple things.  First is a little review of a new PC game I picked up, Sid Meier's Railroads! To begin, I love strategy games and economic games like the  Civilization, SimCity, and Railroad Tycoon series of games, in just about every version.  Railroads! is Sid returning to a title he developed a long time ago, the original tycoon game, Railroad Tycoon.  This version makes use of the power of modern video cards, as the most obvious improvement is the fully 3D rendered environment.  For an example of the level of detail you can expect in this game, you can see the engineers in the cab of the locomotives!  and not just a model of an engineer...when the train is running at speed he goes to the side and sticks his head out the side to view the track ahead.  When he's stopped at a signal, he goes back to idling about the cab.  If you're familiar with previous versions, you should be able to jump right in like I was. The object of the game is the same and the economic model is similar.  This version really goes into detail with track layout.  You have a normal click and drag operation to lay out track, and if you want double track, you click a separate button and follow along a run of track you've already made.  There doesn't seem to be a limit to the number of parallel tracks you can make...this can make operation at stations and terminals more efficient if the trains have more options to load and unload from (at one point I had 5 tracks side by side through Pittsburg in one scenario) but in order to get from one track to another, you have to run a switch between them.  No previous version of Railroad Tycoon had this detail level.  You can run track pretty much anywhere, it will automatically make tunnels and bridges for you as you run your track.  Buildings, Industries, and Resource locations (raw materials, like coal and grain), and parts of cities will move out of the way when you lay track in the area.  You can't make rail crosses though; you used to be able to run track across another track you owned at 90 degree angles and now you must run a bridge - which makes laying out track a little more tricky when it gets crowded.  And it will get crowded:  I played a scenario against 3 AI players in the Midwest and it was very difficult to expand into needed cities late in the game.  But there is absolutely one thing that I consider unforgivable about track laying: I have yet to find a way to bulldoze track.  If you screw up and drop track in the wrong place, oh well.  I wasn't really happy about that.  At all.  The Economic model is pretty similar; you make money by transporting goods from A to B, the faster the better.  You can purchase Industries in a city, but in a twist when you want to buy one it goes on an auction block, you have to outbid the other players for it.  You will also have the chance to bid on industries they want to buy.  Owning an Industry requires a hefty purchase price, but the payoff is every load delivered to it earns 20% of the delivery value to the owner.  There aren't upgrades for passengers, like the previous Hotel and Restaurant, instead passenger revenue goes up when you upgrade a depot to a station and then a terminal.  Trans also load and unload faster, and switch cars faster, with each upgrade.  You can't own resources though; you can't buy a mine, farm, well, etc.  Any railroad that connects to its delivery area (a little green radius you must build a depot within) can get access to the goods.  The economic model could use a little more variety, there isn't the variety or detail of previous Tycoons.  For example, you could boost cattle production at a ranch by delivering grain.  Something very funny about the new model, is all it take to make steel is coal.  That's right, there's no iron in steel.  The maps are small for my taste; there aren't any coast to coast maps of the US, or a European or African continental map.  Small maps get too crowded for the level of detail expected in track layout.  A patch was released almost immediately after it was released, V 1.01, which hopefully addressed some graphic errors I ran into before I found out about the patch!  Overall, I'd give it a C+ primarily because of the small maps and the simplistic economic model.  I'm sure there will be an expansion next summer or so, which will add some new maps, locomotives, and freight types.

Sunday night I saw the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale...in short, very very cool.  No Q in this film, not a lot in the way of super gadgets.  Lots of good action, and not a bit of it over the top.  Well, maybe the construction site chase was over the top, but it was way cool.  Personally, I give it 4 stars!  See it if you can.

Also, don't forget, if you're watching Heroes on NBC at all, you NEED to see tonight's episode...from the previews it looks like its "all coming together!"

18 November 2006

Kublaaaa!

Big photo gallery update today, I've uploaded the pictures I took at Kublacon 2006.  Kublacon is probably the biggest gaming convention in Northern California, and usually has a great turnout.  At this convention I ran a demo of ACTA and also the King of the Jumpgate II tournament.  I also got to meet Matthew Sprange as he was speaking at several seminars and signing at of the retailer booths; he seemed very impressed by the convention and I hope convinced him to have a greater Mongoose presence next year.

I plan on running more events next year!  You can count on seeing me at ConQuest Sacramento, Kublacon, and Conquest San Francisco, with more demos and much gaming goodness.  I'm thinking of having KOTJ 3 at Conquest Sac, and running an ACTA mega battle at Kublacon as KOTJ 4.  Ideas?

17 November 2006

WAAAAARGH!

What a pain in the A$$....Excel and Adobe were really giving me fits today.  Every time I tried to print to PDF, various lines and boxes of text were getting shifted left or shrunk horizontally for some weird reason.  Anyway, I was finally able to get a good print of Sheet 2 for the Feral Orks, as well as correct the entry on the first sheet regarding the speed of some units.  So there you go.

Also, dad came through the operation fine.  Took a little longer than they thought, but he was never anything but stable and is in great hands.  Thanks dad!

15 November 2006

WARLORD SNAGGA SNAGGA'S FERAL ORK HORDE

I've posted the first card page for the Feral Ork army cards for Epic: Armageddon.  I made up a symbol for the Feral Orks, I hope you feel its "primitive" and "Orky" enough, let me know what you think.  The page posted has the easiest 3 formations to do, all infantry for which I had to do no new artwork.  I expect the rest will take a bit.  Let me have some feedback on the cards, so I know if you like that Feral Ork symbol.

NBC's Heroes last night was awesome...and next week promises to be even better.  All the Heroes are coming together!  "Don't hear about in the morning...watch it Monday night!"  We got to see a lot more about Claire's Dad's purpose, seems he might not be all bad...or maybe not! do the ends justify the means?  Hm....

And on a personal note, my Dad's undergoing a pretty serious surgery Wed. morning...he was diagnosed with a mild cancer (non-aggressive) about a week and a half ago. We're all praying for you Dad.  God speed.

13 November 2006

Sagittarius Reborn

It's been overcast and raining a LOT since I got back from Florida.  Had to turn the heat on for the first time this season, just gets too cold at night.  Got to watch how much I use though, the prices always seem to go up this time of year :)

Early EA players will want to check out the new Sagittarius card I've uploaded tonight.  The new stats were presented in S&P Wargamer #38.  Its more like a skirmish ship now (Finally!), but personally I don't feel it should have lost the Anti-Fighter weapons.  Ah well.

11 November 2006

Motherfrakking Insurance

I haven't made an update for a while because I haven't been home.  I had to make an emergency trip back to Florida due to problems with my father's health.  It's pretty serious and when something like that comes up, you drop everything and go.  He had to go from one hospital to another (which was the biggest clusterfrak, frakkin' insurance) and now he's scheduled for an operation next Wed.  We're all praying for a good outcome, and if all goes according to plan I won't need to make another trip home.  I would have stayed longer but Its was becoming prohibitively expensive and things were stacking up here.

I don't really have anything to update at this time, but I thought I owed an explanation for my absence.