So I've been pronouncing "trough" incorrectly for a long time, apparently.
I just naturally thought it was pronounced "trow" and not the correct "troff".
It's understandable. The "ough" has a similar sound in "dough" and "furlough" and "though".
I can't think of any other words that end in "ough" and have that 'off sound. Does anyone have other examples, or could explain the different etymologies of the two different pronounciations of the "ough" sound?
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Agricola is almost perfect
I finally busted open my copy of Agricola the other day. There was just one problem with it: no blue player family members! I e-mailed Z man games to see if I can get a replacement.
I played a five-player game with some new players (family version). I went the meat route with an early Hearth, which ironically I didn't really use till phase three abouts. Guess that turn could've been spent doing something more useful. I ended that one with 35 points.
Then I played a solo game, which I found is much harder. I never got past three family members (but did have a stone house), and never even played an occupation. There always seemed like there was a better option on the board. I think I ended that game with 28 or so points. I must play more solo games until I don't suck any more.
I played a five-player game with some new players (family version). I went the meat route with an early Hearth, which ironically I didn't really use till phase three abouts. Guess that turn could've been spent doing something more useful. I ended that one with 35 points.
Then I played a solo game, which I found is much harder. I never got past three family members (but did have a stone house), and never even played an occupation. There always seemed like there was a better option on the board. I think I ended that game with 28 or so points. I must play more solo games until I don't suck any more.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Binary Code
Hey everyone, pass this on and help me solve this Binary code/riddle:
01000001 00100000 01001101 01110101 01110100 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01010100 01101111 01110101 01110010 01101110 01100101 01111001 01001001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01001000 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01000110 01100001 01101110 01100110 01100001 01110010 01100101 01000011 01101000 01100001 01110100 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01010000 01110010 01100101 01100110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01000111 01100101 01101110 01110100 01110011
It translates to:
A Mutter
Tourney
Ill Hove
Fanfare
Chatter P
refer Gen
ts
With spaces and capitals as they are.
01000001 00100000 01001101 01110101 01110100 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01010100 01101111 01110101 01110010 01101110 01100101 01111001 01001001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01001000 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01000110 01100001 01101110 01100110 01100001 01110010 01100101 01000011 01101000 01100001 01110100 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01010000 01110010 01100101 01100110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01000111 01100101 01101110 01110100 01110011
It translates to:
A Mutter
Tourney
Ill Hove
Fanfare
Chatter P
refer Gen
ts
With spaces and capitals as they are.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Evolution of side-characters in a sandbox
Can one have a good recurring villain in a sandbox campaign?
I would like to make one...but one that doesn't start out as villainous. Maybe he would start out as a weakling. Someone the party jipped out of a treasure somewhere along the way. But that would make him angry, and begin plotting...building a stronghold, raising an army. Suddenly that wimpy, toothpick-wristed, limp-haired wizard in training is a little more fearsome. And he's out for revenge!
Alternate ideal: wouldn't it be awesome if in a sandbox campaign there was a foil for the party? Not an enemy, more like a rival. You're on the trail of a priceless artifact and whoops! Someone beat you to it! Better work faster next time! Each adventure I could make a roll every day to evaluate the progress of the rival person/party. It might set a nice sense of urgency for the mini-adventures. But whats this? An evil warlord is threatening the country side and he's too powerful to take alone? You might have to grit your teeth and team up with those smarmy folk who always seem to be dogging your footsteps.
I would like to make one...but one that doesn't start out as villainous. Maybe he would start out as a weakling. Someone the party jipped out of a treasure somewhere along the way. But that would make him angry, and begin plotting...building a stronghold, raising an army. Suddenly that wimpy, toothpick-wristed, limp-haired wizard in training is a little more fearsome. And he's out for revenge!
Alternate ideal: wouldn't it be awesome if in a sandbox campaign there was a foil for the party? Not an enemy, more like a rival. You're on the trail of a priceless artifact and whoops! Someone beat you to it! Better work faster next time! Each adventure I could make a roll every day to evaluate the progress of the rival person/party. It might set a nice sense of urgency for the mini-adventures. But whats this? An evil warlord is threatening the country side and he's too powerful to take alone? You might have to grit your teeth and team up with those smarmy folk who always seem to be dogging your footsteps.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Flavor Powers
I found Mike Mearls' recent blog post interesting. In it, he introduced the concept of just giving the players the flavor text of powers and abilities, and keeping the mechanics of the powers behind the DM screen. So for a Fireball spell, a player might just have "Shoot a fireball that explodes on contact, damaging anyone caught in the blast." But behind the DM screen, you'd have the range, radius, and damage.
It was meant to be a concept for 4th edition games played without minis, but I think it could be applied to any edition, with or without minis. I sort of like the concept, but I think it'd be too much work for the DM, except for the simplest of games, like OD&D. But in OD&D, the powers are pretty much flavor based anyways.
It was meant to be a concept for 4th edition games played without minis, but I think it could be applied to any edition, with or without minis. I sort of like the concept, but I think it'd be too much work for the DM, except for the simplest of games, like OD&D. But in OD&D, the powers are pretty much flavor based anyways.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Yet another BSG Post (shorter, I promise)
6 games in and it is still impossible for me to be a cylon.
This last game I played had a complete Cylon come from behind and win scenario.
Up until the sleeper phase, things were going swimmingly for the humans. No cylons were revealed, and not only were all resources in the blue, but thanks to my inspirational speeches and food rationing as president, some resources were actually higher than normal.
Sleeper phase hits and one of our brood gets turned into a cylon. The other reveals quickly thereafter. Thats when things start to go downhill.
The two cylons recognized something right off the bat: they were both our engineers (Tyrol and Boomer). So they set about the ingenious strategy of activating the Human Fleet location to damage Galactica turn after turn. Now, this would've been hard to repair even if we had engineers in the party. But we were reduced to Tigh standing on the research lab, and me executive ordering him to get engineering cards.
But it gets more ingenious. For each of their two card draws, they drew engineering cards, and kept the repair cards. Not only that, but the Human Fleet location lets the cylons choose a player and take one of their cards. So we were effectively denied engineering cards completely.
I'll need to remember that strategy.
This last game I played had a complete Cylon come from behind and win scenario.
Up until the sleeper phase, things were going swimmingly for the humans. No cylons were revealed, and not only were all resources in the blue, but thanks to my inspirational speeches and food rationing as president, some resources were actually higher than normal.
Sleeper phase hits and one of our brood gets turned into a cylon. The other reveals quickly thereafter. Thats when things start to go downhill.
The two cylons recognized something right off the bat: they were both our engineers (Tyrol and Boomer). So they set about the ingenious strategy of activating the Human Fleet location to damage Galactica turn after turn. Now, this would've been hard to repair even if we had engineers in the party. But we were reduced to Tigh standing on the research lab, and me executive ordering him to get engineering cards.
But it gets more ingenious. For each of their two card draws, they drew engineering cards, and kept the repair cards. Not only that, but the Human Fleet location lets the cylons choose a player and take one of their cards. So we were effectively denied engineering cards completely.
I'll need to remember that strategy.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Shogun: A review
I played Shogun this Tuesday, and I have to say I enjoyed it.
It's part wargame, part resource management. The board is a map of Japan divided into regions. Each region has an associated card with it, and you hold that card if you control the region. There are ten actions you can take a turn, and you get to take all of them. You can take one of the ten actions in one of the regions you control, by placing the corresponding card by the corresponding action. Herein lies the bulk of the strategy of the game. Which region to harvest rice, which to tax for money, which to build a building in, which to reinforce with troops, etc.
You can also attack and try to gain control of your opponents territories, so in that respect there is direct conflict in the game. That's nice, because often in eurogames what you do has little to no impact on your opponents, and it removes some interaction. "But Tommy," I hear you cry, "that makes this a wargame! I hate wargames! With their combat tables and their excess of dice rolling and they drag on and on and on." All is not lost, my friend. For one, the troop mechanic is not the main focus of the game. Controling territories nets you little points in comparison with developing your territories. Combat is merely a way to supplement your score, rather than define it. If you focus too much on combat, you will lose. Second, and perhaps the most notorious aspect of Shogun, is the battle tower.
The battle tower is a tower you throw your armies in, and they come out the bottom. But the interior of the tower has many nooks and crannies, such that some armies get stuck, and some emerge at the bottom. Any armies that get stuck in the tower you leave there, with the chance of them emerging in a future battle to help out. So, you throw in your armies, and whoever has more pop out the bottom wins. Troops kill each other, and you put the remaining troops back on the battlefield. Simple, elegant. No dice, no tables. Fast and easy.
So, in the end, you net a few victory points for how many territories you control, and many for how many buildings you have in your territories. The game took three players three hours to play through, including teaching everyone, setting up the game, and pausing for breaks. So I would guess the actual game part took two hours.
However, all is not rosy. First of all, I didn't really like the turn order mechanic. At the beginning of each round, a random bonus is chosen for the first, second, and third player. Each bonus is never strictly better than the other. One might be +1 attack, or +1 rice, or +1 gold, etc. You bid on turn order by secretly paying an amount of gold. Problem is, gold is so scarce in the game, you rarely ever want to bid, and are better off just taking whichever position you're dealt. I never really saw a big advantage in taking my actions before another player, but I'm sure it comes up sometimes.
Second of all, this game is very strategy intensive. There are so many things to keep track of each round. Your rice supply, which province would be best to build in, which produces the most gold, which can support more buildings, which province is vulnerable to attack, which of your enemy provinces you can afford to attack, etc. I would not be exaggerating at all if I said it was like playing Risk and two copies of Puerto Rico at the same time. If you're into that kind of thing, great. But if you're one who likes to try to maximize each turn for maximum benifit, you're in for a headache. The game is most enjoyable, I think, if you spend a little bit of time thinking, and a little bit of time just winging it.
All in all, I'd like to play it again with more people. I'd always have the chance of borrowing it, and I think I might take him up on the offer if I can generate interest.
It's part wargame, part resource management. The board is a map of Japan divided into regions. Each region has an associated card with it, and you hold that card if you control the region. There are ten actions you can take a turn, and you get to take all of them. You can take one of the ten actions in one of the regions you control, by placing the corresponding card by the corresponding action. Herein lies the bulk of the strategy of the game. Which region to harvest rice, which to tax for money, which to build a building in, which to reinforce with troops, etc.
You can also attack and try to gain control of your opponents territories, so in that respect there is direct conflict in the game. That's nice, because often in eurogames what you do has little to no impact on your opponents, and it removes some interaction. "But Tommy," I hear you cry, "that makes this a wargame! I hate wargames! With their combat tables and their excess of dice rolling and they drag on and on and on." All is not lost, my friend. For one, the troop mechanic is not the main focus of the game. Controling territories nets you little points in comparison with developing your territories. Combat is merely a way to supplement your score, rather than define it. If you focus too much on combat, you will lose. Second, and perhaps the most notorious aspect of Shogun, is the battle tower.
The battle tower is a tower you throw your armies in, and they come out the bottom. But the interior of the tower has many nooks and crannies, such that some armies get stuck, and some emerge at the bottom. Any armies that get stuck in the tower you leave there, with the chance of them emerging in a future battle to help out. So, you throw in your armies, and whoever has more pop out the bottom wins. Troops kill each other, and you put the remaining troops back on the battlefield. Simple, elegant. No dice, no tables. Fast and easy.
So, in the end, you net a few victory points for how many territories you control, and many for how many buildings you have in your territories. The game took three players three hours to play through, including teaching everyone, setting up the game, and pausing for breaks. So I would guess the actual game part took two hours.
However, all is not rosy. First of all, I didn't really like the turn order mechanic. At the beginning of each round, a random bonus is chosen for the first, second, and third player. Each bonus is never strictly better than the other. One might be +1 attack, or +1 rice, or +1 gold, etc. You bid on turn order by secretly paying an amount of gold. Problem is, gold is so scarce in the game, you rarely ever want to bid, and are better off just taking whichever position you're dealt. I never really saw a big advantage in taking my actions before another player, but I'm sure it comes up sometimes.
Second of all, this game is very strategy intensive. There are so many things to keep track of each round. Your rice supply, which province would be best to build in, which produces the most gold, which can support more buildings, which province is vulnerable to attack, which of your enemy provinces you can afford to attack, etc. I would not be exaggerating at all if I said it was like playing Risk and two copies of Puerto Rico at the same time. If you're into that kind of thing, great. But if you're one who likes to try to maximize each turn for maximum benifit, you're in for a headache. The game is most enjoyable, I think, if you spend a little bit of time thinking, and a little bit of time just winging it.
All in all, I'd like to play it again with more people. I'd always have the chance of borrowing it, and I think I might take him up on the offer if I can generate interest.
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