Dominons 5 is a 4x game with amazing complexity and pretty awful graphics.
If you are new or casual to 4x then play Endless Legend instead which also has deep complexity but is more friendly with its excellent UI, wonderful look and story and easy to learn hard to master complexity. Civ VI is another good choice but more expensive than Endless Legend which released in 2014. Endless Space 2 is a space version of Endless Legend and another great option.
If you're kind of played out on those other games and want something new to get your head round then holy moly is Dominions 5 the perfect answer. It's so big that I've restricted myself to just exploring and figuring out the Ancient era, treating the Middle ages and Late Middle ages parts of the games basically as unopened expansions I'm saving for a later date. Even doing this there are still 31 Early Era civilisations to figure out, they all play very differently, and they're each very complex to figure out. I love it!
Here's DasTactic's excellent Primer, so if you're interested in this game take a look. He also has a series of beginner's guides that will help you if you get it as the game does throw you in at the deep end.
If you find yourself enjoying it then I'd recommend the following resources:
Dom5 Mod Inspector. I always have this open when playing this game and alt tab to it all the time. Much of the information you will need to make your decisions is not available in game or is in an awkward format.
Dominions 4 wiki. Use with caution as this is for the wrong game! It's 95% correct for Dominions 5 though and certainly better than nothing.
Youtubers:
DasTactic
Especially useful for newbies.
MarcusAureliusLP
Deep high level insightful analysis. Also features excellent homemade skits and fan contributions making it quite deep in roleplay and immersion.
Waervyn's World tips for new players
Yakri
Less accessible than the others but has enormous knowledge and does subject videos explaining a game mechanic not found elsewhere.
Friday, 12 January 2018
Sunday, 7 January 2018
Looking ahead to gaming in 2018
Happy New Year everyone, I hope you're all suitably recharged.
Here's a look at what's coming up that I'm interested in this year.
I've become a little burned out in Eve and am interested in 4x strategy games and online Magic the Gathering. I'll definitely get busy in Eve in a couple of months, most longtime players experience fallow periods.
Dominions 5
This is what I'm playing now. It's a very deep, gameplay-oriented strategy game which disdains modern graphics and has a novel NPE approach. Instead of a tutorial they've just adapted to the shifts in gamer mentality and got a popular Youtuber to do an introductory series for them. It's kind of brilliant because it's what most gamers do anyway. So I started the game, futzed around a bit until I got stuck, watched Youtube, came back to it later (oh! it's doubleclick to select all units of a type) when I'd picked something up from watching another player. It's no doubt far cheaper for the games company to let an enthusiastic fan do the work and he comes with a pre-existing audience of players. I expect they paid him a little money but it compares pretty favourably with the vast amounts of time and energy CCP have spent on Eve's New Player Experience.
By the second day there weren't really outstanding UI confusions and I was happily designing fantasy religions and trying to conquer maps with them. There's a massive amount of different religions to explore and I've been tending to give up games half done because I want to try the Cthulhu mythos or Vampires or some such.
There's a very good magic item creator which I really like. I'll write an intro and some links in a follow-up post soon.
Magic the Gathering Online, Rise of Ixalan.
I've written about Magic before. There's a brief window after every 3 monthly expansion releases where the players are rather clueless, lots of people who don't normally play Limited are fumbling their way around and the cards are high price as people build their constructed decks. It never lasts too long, probably 4-6 weeks is where the format is mature enough that the people left to play are nearly all experts who know what they're doing.
Prerelease is next weekend, the online feeding frenzy starts the Monday after and there's already some expert set analysis on youtube from some of my favourite players including The Mana Leek and Nizzahon.
Civilizations VI: Rise and Fall
A new Civ expansion is due out on 8th February. I might not get it right away, perhaps staying on Magic but I'm definitely going to buy this dlc as it introduces some very interesting new features. I particularly like the notion of Golden Ages and Dark Ages, where you can play yourself into these ages by doing various things to score points. The points are summarised in a beautiful looking new report screen that tells an illustrated story of your game empire. Shades of the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer from Diamond Age.
Eve Online
I've certainly not given up on Eve. I still turn my PI harvesters on daily although I'll admit the immersiveness of these 4x games has played havoc with my schedule. PI is very high isk per click with the right set up and can be done in a very relaxed way while watching Netflix.
However just doing that and not playing much has left me with rather a surplus of isk so I may start looking for trouble in bigger ships than I usually use. I think a Dominix might be fun. I'll probably be somewhere around Oullietta where Stay Frosty hang out as Rix and his friends have been kind enough to take me in.
I'm missing not being able to train with a tournament team. ABA practice on Thunderdome and CCP haven't sorted anything out for that server since sacking Logibro.
The Alliance Tournament will be happening around August and I want to get a long run of training in in the lead-up to that. I don't know who I'll be flying with yet but I've got some training ideas that I'm very keen to try.
Here's a look at what's coming up that I'm interested in this year.
I've become a little burned out in Eve and am interested in 4x strategy games and online Magic the Gathering. I'll definitely get busy in Eve in a couple of months, most longtime players experience fallow periods.
Dominions 5
This is what I'm playing now. It's a very deep, gameplay-oriented strategy game which disdains modern graphics and has a novel NPE approach. Instead of a tutorial they've just adapted to the shifts in gamer mentality and got a popular Youtuber to do an introductory series for them. It's kind of brilliant because it's what most gamers do anyway. So I started the game, futzed around a bit until I got stuck, watched Youtube, came back to it later (oh! it's doubleclick to select all units of a type) when I'd picked something up from watching another player. It's no doubt far cheaper for the games company to let an enthusiastic fan do the work and he comes with a pre-existing audience of players. I expect they paid him a little money but it compares pretty favourably with the vast amounts of time and energy CCP have spent on Eve's New Player Experience.
By the second day there weren't really outstanding UI confusions and I was happily designing fantasy religions and trying to conquer maps with them. There's a massive amount of different religions to explore and I've been tending to give up games half done because I want to try the Cthulhu mythos or Vampires or some such.
There's a very good magic item creator which I really like. I'll write an intro and some links in a follow-up post soon.
Magic the Gathering Online, Rise of Ixalan.
I've written about Magic before. There's a brief window after every 3 monthly expansion releases where the players are rather clueless, lots of people who don't normally play Limited are fumbling their way around and the cards are high price as people build their constructed decks. It never lasts too long, probably 4-6 weeks is where the format is mature enough that the people left to play are nearly all experts who know what they're doing.
Prerelease is next weekend, the online feeding frenzy starts the Monday after and there's already some expert set analysis on youtube from some of my favourite players including The Mana Leek and Nizzahon.
Civilizations VI: Rise and Fall
A new Civ expansion is due out on 8th February. I might not get it right away, perhaps staying on Magic but I'm definitely going to buy this dlc as it introduces some very interesting new features. I particularly like the notion of Golden Ages and Dark Ages, where you can play yourself into these ages by doing various things to score points. The points are summarised in a beautiful looking new report screen that tells an illustrated story of your game empire. Shades of the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer from Diamond Age.
Eve Online
I've certainly not given up on Eve. I still turn my PI harvesters on daily although I'll admit the immersiveness of these 4x games has played havoc with my schedule. PI is very high isk per click with the right set up and can be done in a very relaxed way while watching Netflix.
However just doing that and not playing much has left me with rather a surplus of isk so I may start looking for trouble in bigger ships than I usually use. I think a Dominix might be fun. I'll probably be somewhere around Oullietta where Stay Frosty hang out as Rix and his friends have been kind enough to take me in.
I'm missing not being able to train with a tournament team. ABA practice on Thunderdome and CCP haven't sorted anything out for that server since sacking Logibro.
The Alliance Tournament will be happening around August and I want to get a long run of training in in the lead-up to that. I don't know who I'll be flying with yet but I've got some training ideas that I'm very keen to try.
Tuesday, 26 December 2017
Endless Legend: Drakken playthrough. Turns 1-10
So I started a new game just now. I'm playing the Drakken faction, mutated dragonspawn with a wisdom/diplomatic flavour.
I set everything to normal/average except the game difficulty which I set to Serious.
Here's my start:
I'm in the corner of my starting province. No anomalies (moleholls on the map) are available so far in my start province but two are next door and one is excellent: Wizard Stone adds 2 production, 6 science and 10 happiness. The other anom is Escaped Specimens which adds 2 food and 4 dust. So quite nicely rounded as well as being big numbers. It's in an awkward spot in the corner of the region so I'll need to scout it before I decide.
Let's talk about how the tile FIDSI, the resource numbers are calculated. Usually it's 3 per tile with the terrain type determining the type. Eg forest gives food and production. Anomalies usually add 6 on top of that. And certain races get bonuses on certain terrain for the Drakken we get +2 science and +3 influence on terrain that holds a ruin.
This is what it looks like on the map in fidsi view.
Here it is scouted, still in turn 1.
My scout revealed another anomaly 2 hexes to the east of the ones we saw before, making it an even better spot as our first district will add those resources. I'm going to settle the spot with the Escaped Specimens anomaly for 10 food, 10 production, 8 science, 4 dust and 10 happiness. 32 on the 4 basic resources is strong. It will not get there till turn 2 but well worth the sacrifice.
Turn 2.
Here's what it looks like settled:
I have only 5 adjacent hexes in this province which is a shame but I have room to add 4 districts to the south and east which will upgrade the city centre. It's a starting city I'm happy with.
My units have taken a village quest and two ruins. One gave me a quest I won't do the other gave me 30 dust.
My next decision making concerns my hero. With my starting hero I usually go either general (focus on combat stats) or scout (focus on ruin exploring, speed and vision). I'm going general with this guy as his class skill tree supports that better. Occasionally it's worth going for city governor with your start hero but not in this case.
Next I want to plan out my deed strategy.
Visionary leader: pacify 8 villages. I probably won't do it with this guy. If I were to go all in for this I'd build an early unit or two so I could win fights without needing to pause for healing and I don't want to focus my city on that early, I'd rather build it up.
Wealth Harvester: be the first to gather 30 units of a luxury resource. Another one I'm not going to beeline for but I'll happily accept if I get there. This might have suited me if I'd set up my city in my start location as there was a wine resource nearby. The reward for this is not fantastic.
Civilisation Builder: Be the first to build the Museum of Auriga. This I am all-in on. Many times the AI doesn't go for this, either because it lacks resources or because it does something else with them. It's not easy to get 5 titanium and 5 glasssteel early on so that's now my main job. I may be able to get them from village quests or ruins.
Turn 3:
I move my hero to a village, check its quest no way I'm paying them 8 titanium, so I enter combat. To maximise the amount of stuff my starter army can get done I hide my proper units at the back on hold position and let the nearby militia reinforce in and get hammered.
My militia took a bit of a battering but my roving army finished just fine.
I realised in the fight that I'd forgotten to give my infantry units armour so I'll grab a couple of ruins then head back to my province to retrofit them. It will also let me use the militia for a couple more fights (they'll reinforce into any fight within 4 (or is it 5?) hexes of the city.
My hero levels and I start working up his class tree, Tactician.
Turn 5
I hit a ruins and get 10 Emeralds. I'll hold them for now because the Drakken version of the deed requires you to stockpile 30. It would be a shame if I used these ones then later got 20 from somewhere.
Turn 6.
My city finishes its Founder's Memorial and my population rises to 2. This is pretty slow, the price of missing a turn then settling a food 10 industry 10 city spot. The spot had other things going for it but the price is this slow start. I queue a Mill, then should have Seed storage ready for when the Mill is done.
I check a ruin and it gives me a quest. The quest is to colonise a region and the reward is 15 glassteel. I like the sound of that. I decide to build a Settler before I build my Seed storage. The Settler turns off food generation while you build it so the seeds wouldn't do anything so I may as well build him first. Also Settlers built in the first era are cheaper. I edit my Settler design to give him a movement trinket.
I now just need to source some Titanium to start building the Museum of Auriga. I've discovered a region that has a desposit so I could make a second settler to settle that but that's my worst option. I have an undiscovered resource in the province I made my first city in so I will go and explore to see what that is (please be Titanium). Failing that hopefully I'll get lucky with a quest or parlay.
Turn 7. Walking through forests. Urggh. I upgrade my units but don't have enough money to buy them all movement trinkets.
Turn 8. Hit a ruin. 30 dust. Just enough to outfit my infantry with movement speed. I discover the region's resource. It's not Titanium, boo! It's Gold, a luxury which is ok but not impactful now. I queue the specialised harvesters in the Research window.
Turn 9. Main stack still struggling through forest. 2 movement points per tile means my speed 5 stack moves 2 hexes. Blerggh. A skyfin scout from a nearby NPC empire checks out my capital.
I visit a village and check its Parlay offer. No I don't want to pay you Glassteel. I'll happily accept 4 xp though. I then fight them. Yuck, it's tanks v tanks in forest (which gives a defence bonus). After 6 rounds I've battered one of them to death the other is still there and I'll have to go again next turn. That will be my second village pacified, somehow I don't think I'll get the deed for being the first to do 8.
Turn 10.
The city finishes its Mill. Up to 33 production now which is respectable. Excellent science and dust even without the buildings that help.
I attack the minotaur again. I decide to place my units back on high ground in forest so they'll get a terrain bonus and set my hero to healing a unit. On turn 5 I realise I may not get the kill. I frantically change orders to allout assault for the last turn but dammit, the minotaur survives with about 10 hit points. I'm an idiot, I had one job. Looks like my hero stack will be stuck there another turn.
After that he will head towards the village which is right next door to my city, clear that with the help of the city militia and pick up the first Settler. I think I shall settle the province with the Titanium in it first as I urgently need to get that tap turned on. It feels quite chancy whether I'll win the deed race. (After that deed I'll be going straight into a Second Age deed that requires 15 glassteel and 15 titanium).
I set everything to normal/average except the game difficulty which I set to Serious.
Here's my start:
I'm in the corner of my starting province. No anomalies (moleholls on the map) are available so far in my start province but two are next door and one is excellent: Wizard Stone adds 2 production, 6 science and 10 happiness. The other anom is Escaped Specimens which adds 2 food and 4 dust. So quite nicely rounded as well as being big numbers. It's in an awkward spot in the corner of the region so I'll need to scout it before I decide.
Let's talk about how the tile FIDSI, the resource numbers are calculated. Usually it's 3 per tile with the terrain type determining the type. Eg forest gives food and production. Anomalies usually add 6 on top of that. And certain races get bonuses on certain terrain for the Drakken we get +2 science and +3 influence on terrain that holds a ruin.
This is what it looks like on the map in fidsi view.
Here it is scouted, still in turn 1.
My scout revealed another anomaly 2 hexes to the east of the ones we saw before, making it an even better spot as our first district will add those resources. I'm going to settle the spot with the Escaped Specimens anomaly for 10 food, 10 production, 8 science, 4 dust and 10 happiness. 32 on the 4 basic resources is strong. It will not get there till turn 2 but well worth the sacrifice.
Turn 2.
Here's what it looks like settled:
I have only 5 adjacent hexes in this province which is a shame but I have room to add 4 districts to the south and east which will upgrade the city centre. It's a starting city I'm happy with.
My units have taken a village quest and two ruins. One gave me a quest I won't do the other gave me 30 dust.
My next decision making concerns my hero. With my starting hero I usually go either general (focus on combat stats) or scout (focus on ruin exploring, speed and vision). I'm going general with this guy as his class skill tree supports that better. Occasionally it's worth going for city governor with your start hero but not in this case.
Next I want to plan out my deed strategy.
Visionary leader: pacify 8 villages. I probably won't do it with this guy. If I were to go all in for this I'd build an early unit or two so I could win fights without needing to pause for healing and I don't want to focus my city on that early, I'd rather build it up.
Wealth Harvester: be the first to gather 30 units of a luxury resource. Another one I'm not going to beeline for but I'll happily accept if I get there. This might have suited me if I'd set up my city in my start location as there was a wine resource nearby. The reward for this is not fantastic.
Civilisation Builder: Be the first to build the Museum of Auriga. This I am all-in on. Many times the AI doesn't go for this, either because it lacks resources or because it does something else with them. It's not easy to get 5 titanium and 5 glasssteel early on so that's now my main job. I may be able to get them from village quests or ruins.
Turn 3:
I move my hero to a village, check its quest no way I'm paying them 8 titanium, so I enter combat. To maximise the amount of stuff my starter army can get done I hide my proper units at the back on hold position and let the nearby militia reinforce in and get hammered.
My militia took a bit of a battering but my roving army finished just fine.
I realised in the fight that I'd forgotten to give my infantry units armour so I'll grab a couple of ruins then head back to my province to retrofit them. It will also let me use the militia for a couple more fights (they'll reinforce into any fight within 4 (or is it 5?) hexes of the city.
My hero levels and I start working up his class tree, Tactician.
Turn 5
I hit a ruins and get 10 Emeralds. I'll hold them for now because the Drakken version of the deed requires you to stockpile 30. It would be a shame if I used these ones then later got 20 from somewhere.
Turn 6.
My city finishes its Founder's Memorial and my population rises to 2. This is pretty slow, the price of missing a turn then settling a food 10 industry 10 city spot. The spot had other things going for it but the price is this slow start. I queue a Mill, then should have Seed storage ready for when the Mill is done.
I check a ruin and it gives me a quest. The quest is to colonise a region and the reward is 15 glassteel. I like the sound of that. I decide to build a Settler before I build my Seed storage. The Settler turns off food generation while you build it so the seeds wouldn't do anything so I may as well build him first. Also Settlers built in the first era are cheaper. I edit my Settler design to give him a movement trinket.
I now just need to source some Titanium to start building the Museum of Auriga. I've discovered a region that has a desposit so I could make a second settler to settle that but that's my worst option. I have an undiscovered resource in the province I made my first city in so I will go and explore to see what that is (please be Titanium). Failing that hopefully I'll get lucky with a quest or parlay.
Turn 7. Walking through forests. Urggh. I upgrade my units but don't have enough money to buy them all movement trinkets.
Turn 8. Hit a ruin. 30 dust. Just enough to outfit my infantry with movement speed. I discover the region's resource. It's not Titanium, boo! It's Gold, a luxury which is ok but not impactful now. I queue the specialised harvesters in the Research window.
Turn 9. Main stack still struggling through forest. 2 movement points per tile means my speed 5 stack moves 2 hexes. Blerggh. A skyfin scout from a nearby NPC empire checks out my capital.
I visit a village and check its Parlay offer. No I don't want to pay you Glassteel. I'll happily accept 4 xp though. I then fight them. Yuck, it's tanks v tanks in forest (which gives a defence bonus). After 6 rounds I've battered one of them to death the other is still there and I'll have to go again next turn. That will be my second village pacified, somehow I don't think I'll get the deed for being the first to do 8.
Turn 10.
The city finishes its Mill. Up to 33 production now which is respectable. Excellent science and dust even without the buildings that help.
I attack the minotaur again. I decide to place my units back on high ground in forest so they'll get a terrain bonus and set my hero to healing a unit. On turn 5 I realise I may not get the kill. I frantically change orders to allout assault for the last turn but dammit, the minotaur survives with about 10 hit points. I'm an idiot, I had one job. Looks like my hero stack will be stuck there another turn.
After that he will head towards the village which is right next door to my city, clear that with the help of the city militia and pick up the first Settler. I think I shall settle the province with the Titanium in it first as I urgently need to get that tap turned on. It feels quite chancy whether I'll win the deed race. (After that deed I'll be going straight into a Second Age deed that requires 15 glassteel and 15 titanium).
Thursday, 21 December 2017
Endless Legend: city tile progression
I've been playing some 4X games recently and my current favourite is Endless Legend. This came out in 2014 and at the time I didn't get too immersed as it was rather prone to crash on my elderly computer. 3 years of polish at their end and a couple of new computers at mine and it plays like a dream.
It's a very fun, very immersive, fantasy conquest game with a strong narrative quest driven story arc for each race that adds to the immersion.
There's several pieces of downloadable extra content but I've decided that can be my Christmas present to myself and I'll d/l them on Christmas morning.
This blog piece is looking at an aspect of the game that isn't very well explained and that I've put some thought into figuring out: city development.
Cities grow outwards as you play one tile at a time. Once a tile or the city centre becomes adjacent to 4 other tiles it becomes a level 2 district and gets significant bonuses. So there are a lot of concepts intertwined here and a geometric mini-game on top. It's at this point you should mentally review whether you want to continue reading?
Still here? Hi 5 my felllow nerd.
Here's a strategic view of an unsettled region called Hawyrd:
In this view we can see very clearly the little molehills that signify bonus resource tiles. There are only three in this province and they're all near the watchtower in the North West. Also of note are the ruins which can't be built on. Other terrain features like resources and villages are fine to incorporate into your city. In fact placing your city on top of a resource is a good move as it will operate as an extractor. The same is true of placing a district on it. This saves you having to build an extractor separately and will often start the resource trickling in many turns before you would otherwise have been able to.
Now let's close in:
Pretty eh? My mouse is over the tile to the right with the light blue stalks on it, geysers. In the game they play a lovely animation of water continually spouting up then collapsing again. Also of note is the river to the south of us, a feature I'd missed on the strategic view. Rivers are pretty useful, they give extra food and certain resource producing buildings give more or require rivers.
Let's turn the resource (fidsi) numbers on:
Our anomalies (the three little molehills we saw on the strategic map) give us lots of science. I'm quite liking the hex that has the red spices on it. Taking it would turn spice production on and is adjacent to the Moss Pearls anomaly. Our first expansion can go north east and get us the right Geysers anomaly. Then south west gets us the two river tiles. After that we'd expand north west towards the final anomaly.
There's some discussion of what the optimal shape for a city is. I've heard people say triangles or tramlines but I don't think either is quite true.
Try not to laugh at my amateurish rendition of a hex map in paint:
1 = city centre.
2 = next 4 districts. Placing the 4th one levels your city centre to level 2.
3= levels 2 districts to level 2
4 = expands in a not-quite-triangular clump, It's not a triangle because the bottom corners would do nothing, They will not be enclosed to make a level 2 district nor will they enclose anything else. Starting from the bottom left placing the 4s gives us the following amount of level ups: 0, 0, 2, 0, 1, 2, 1 for 6 level ups from 7 districts placed. I think this is optimal.
What does that mean for our settlement of Hawyrd? Well, fast forward a few turns and I have a coloniser ready. Here's her view of the tile we're thinking about:
10+7+10+4 = 31. 31 resources plus a spice mine is a very respectable tile. I can mouseover the other tiles with the Build City button selected and compare but there's nothing better.
Plopping the city down there gives me this pop-up, basically telling me I got a free building.
Here's a city management view of our brand new city:
So the 7 hexes exploited produce 1+1+4+0+1+2 = 9 food. Our first expansion target is to the north west which will get us that rather nice 5 science 5 industry tile as well as the plateau tile with 1 food, 2 science 2 industry plus another tile left of that one.
And here it is:
Here's a close up of the city with 4 tiles built.
We're expanding to the west leaving the two eastern tiles blank. Behind the city you can see the geyser tile we're building out towards. On my Paint map this corresponds to having parts 1 and 2 of the city development complete.
I now plan my next expand. I have two good options. I can expand northwest and get the geyser tile which itself is worth 5 science and 6 industry or i can top the triangle which will give me 2 districts levelling up to level 2. Mouse over the Borough Streets building and the "extra level" part of the tooltip will show a level up gives 2 dust 2 science 2 influence and some fortification and happiness. It's at this point I compare the geyser tile with the alternative tile that would be picked up and discover that I'd missed an anomaly. Topping the triangle actually gives me an anomaly I hadn't noticed before, another Moss Pearls in addition to 2 level 2 districts. It's also a Watchtower hex so I'll get that for free too. That's a big play!
And here is the triangle (on the Paint sketch that's parts 1,2 and 3). As you see from the tooltip my city has some pretty nice tiles in it.
It's a very fun, very immersive, fantasy conquest game with a strong narrative quest driven story arc for each race that adds to the immersion.
There's several pieces of downloadable extra content but I've decided that can be my Christmas present to myself and I'll d/l them on Christmas morning.
This blog piece is looking at an aspect of the game that isn't very well explained and that I've put some thought into figuring out: city development.
Cities grow outwards as you play one tile at a time. Once a tile or the city centre becomes adjacent to 4 other tiles it becomes a level 2 district and gets significant bonuses. So there are a lot of concepts intertwined here and a geometric mini-game on top. It's at this point you should mentally review whether you want to continue reading?
Still here? Hi 5 my felllow nerd.
Here's a strategic view of an unsettled region called Hawyrd:
In this view we can see very clearly the little molehills that signify bonus resource tiles. There are only three in this province and they're all near the watchtower in the North West. Also of note are the ruins which can't be built on. Other terrain features like resources and villages are fine to incorporate into your city. In fact placing your city on top of a resource is a good move as it will operate as an extractor. The same is true of placing a district on it. This saves you having to build an extractor separately and will often start the resource trickling in many turns before you would otherwise have been able to.
Now let's close in:
Pretty eh? My mouse is over the tile to the right with the light blue stalks on it, geysers. In the game they play a lovely animation of water continually spouting up then collapsing again. Also of note is the river to the south of us, a feature I'd missed on the strategic view. Rivers are pretty useful, they give extra food and certain resource producing buildings give more or require rivers.
Let's turn the resource (fidsi) numbers on:
Our anomalies (the three little molehills we saw on the strategic map) give us lots of science. I'm quite liking the hex that has the red spices on it. Taking it would turn spice production on and is adjacent to the Moss Pearls anomaly. Our first expansion can go north east and get us the right Geysers anomaly. Then south west gets us the two river tiles. After that we'd expand north west towards the final anomaly.
There's some discussion of what the optimal shape for a city is. I've heard people say triangles or tramlines but I don't think either is quite true.
Try not to laugh at my amateurish rendition of a hex map in paint:
1 = city centre.
2 = next 4 districts. Placing the 4th one levels your city centre to level 2.
3= levels 2 districts to level 2
4 = expands in a not-quite-triangular clump, It's not a triangle because the bottom corners would do nothing, They will not be enclosed to make a level 2 district nor will they enclose anything else. Starting from the bottom left placing the 4s gives us the following amount of level ups: 0, 0, 2, 0, 1, 2, 1 for 6 level ups from 7 districts placed. I think this is optimal.
What does that mean for our settlement of Hawyrd? Well, fast forward a few turns and I have a coloniser ready. Here's her view of the tile we're thinking about:
10+7+10+4 = 31. 31 resources plus a spice mine is a very respectable tile. I can mouseover the other tiles with the Build City button selected and compare but there's nothing better.
Plopping the city down there gives me this pop-up, basically telling me I got a free building.
Here's a city management view of our brand new city:
So the 7 hexes exploited produce 1+1+4+0+1+2 = 9 food. Our first expansion target is to the north west which will get us that rather nice 5 science 5 industry tile as well as the plateau tile with 1 food, 2 science 2 industry plus another tile left of that one.
And here it is:
Here's a close up of the city with 4 tiles built.
We're expanding to the west leaving the two eastern tiles blank. Behind the city you can see the geyser tile we're building out towards. On my Paint map this corresponds to having parts 1 and 2 of the city development complete.
I now plan my next expand. I have two good options. I can expand northwest and get the geyser tile which itself is worth 5 science and 6 industry or i can top the triangle which will give me 2 districts levelling up to level 2. Mouse over the Borough Streets building and the "extra level" part of the tooltip will show a level up gives 2 dust 2 science 2 influence and some fortification and happiness. It's at this point I compare the geyser tile with the alternative tile that would be picked up and discover that I'd missed an anomaly. Topping the triangle actually gives me an anomaly I hadn't noticed before, another Moss Pearls in addition to 2 level 2 districts. It's also a Watchtower hex so I'll get that for free too. That's a big play!
And here is the triangle (on the Paint sketch that's parts 1,2 and 3). As you see from the tooltip my city has some pretty nice tiles in it.
Wednesday, 22 November 2017
Thunderdome - the tournament practice test server
The news that several community CCP staff would be leaving CCP hit the tournament community hard because of the exceptional work that CCP Logibro had been doing on our behalf. Not least was the Thunderdome server - a test server with special features designed to support the special needs of tournament players. These are:
- protection from spies. Practices take place in a special arena that can't be accessed by third parties. Spying is still possible if you can get a character into an opponent's tournament practice squad but you can't simply take a cov ops and watch other teams practice.
- refereeing tool. The captain of a side has access to a special tool that allows him to teleport teams to the arena and which checks that fits are legal.
- restricted entry. Only people designated by their team captains have access, usually a tournament squad of around 15-50 people. This is reset from time to time. It was last reset after AT XV.
- all skills at V.
- all ships and modules available at nomimal costs (except titans I believe).
With the loss of Logibro it's been a bit up in the air what the future of this server is. Few tournament players want to go back to practicing on sisi. The loss of Thunderdome has also hurt player-run tournaments with the Anger Games being cancelled recently for this reason disappointing everyone involved.
I asked for access so that I can play with my new alliance (A Band Apart) and received some quite positive news from CCP Falcon.
- protection from spies. Practices take place in a special arena that can't be accessed by third parties. Spying is still possible if you can get a character into an opponent's tournament practice squad but you can't simply take a cov ops and watch other teams practice.
- refereeing tool. The captain of a side has access to a special tool that allows him to teleport teams to the arena and which checks that fits are legal.
- restricted entry. Only people designated by their team captains have access, usually a tournament squad of around 15-50 people. This is reset from time to time. It was last reset after AT XV.
- all skills at V.
- all ships and modules available at nomimal costs (except titans I believe).
With the loss of Logibro it's been a bit up in the air what the future of this server is. Few tournament players want to go back to practicing on sisi. The loss of Thunderdome has also hurt player-run tournaments with the Anger Games being cancelled recently for this reason disappointing everyone involved.
I asked for access so that I can play with my new alliance (A Band Apart) and received some quite positive news from CCP Falcon.
Sunday, 5 November 2017
MTGO: Planning for the next release.
The release schedule for Magic is given here.
Rivals of Ixalan comes out January 19th 2018. We'll call that T.
T - 40 Leaked cards start to come out. In fact one card has already been leaked. This stage isn't really part of a systematic approach.
Approx T-21. Set is officially spoilered. We find out every card in the set. At this stage it's worth listing the Flash and Instant cards in a spreadsheet by colour and trying to learn them. You're a much more effective player if you know the implications of your opponent having one black mana open.
T-20 to T-14 Youtubers like Nizzahon and The Mana Leak evaluate the cards. I make a spreadsheet just listing the As and Bs as they evaluate the cards. My process when building a sealed deck is to pull all the As out then craft a strategy around playing them. These are likely to be the bombs. I won't always get them all to work, some cards don't splash well but I think this is a good place to start. Note these sites and the later Limited Resources are evaluating for draft, a faster format. So for Sealed I need to overrule their verdicts from time to time.
T-14 to T-6 Limited Resources release their set evaluation. I check if there are any more As and Bs that I don't have yet in my list from the other guys.
approx T-14 Loading Ready Run do their pre-pre-release show which is a good opportunity to see people play with the cards.
T-6 : the set launches. I think about whether I want to go to a shop and play MtG physically. Usually I don't go but I did enjoy the Hour of Devastation prerelease I went to at Dark Sphere in June.
T-4 MTGO prerelease. This is the opening of the gold mine. Right at the start the value of the cards one opens probably covers the cost of entrance so basically you're playing for free with all prizes as pure profit. Also many opponents are new to the format or rusty at Magic and make mistakes.
T-4 to approx T+30. Playing these games is amazingly effective and powerful tapering off over time. Each day the value of the cards opened decreases, the expertise of average opponents increases and the chances of getting a newbie opponent go down.
I think I didn't do enough Sealed this expansion and plan to really hammer the game in late January.
Rivals of Ixalan comes out January 19th 2018. We'll call that T.
T - 40 Leaked cards start to come out. In fact one card has already been leaked. This stage isn't really part of a systematic approach.
Approx T-21. Set is officially spoilered. We find out every card in the set. At this stage it's worth listing the Flash and Instant cards in a spreadsheet by colour and trying to learn them. You're a much more effective player if you know the implications of your opponent having one black mana open.
T-20 to T-14 Youtubers like Nizzahon and The Mana Leak evaluate the cards. I make a spreadsheet just listing the As and Bs as they evaluate the cards. My process when building a sealed deck is to pull all the As out then craft a strategy around playing them. These are likely to be the bombs. I won't always get them all to work, some cards don't splash well but I think this is a good place to start. Note these sites and the later Limited Resources are evaluating for draft, a faster format. So for Sealed I need to overrule their verdicts from time to time.
T-14 to T-6 Limited Resources release their set evaluation. I check if there are any more As and Bs that I don't have yet in my list from the other guys.
approx T-14 Loading Ready Run do their pre-pre-release show which is a good opportunity to see people play with the cards.
T-6 : the set launches. I think about whether I want to go to a shop and play MtG physically. Usually I don't go but I did enjoy the Hour of Devastation prerelease I went to at Dark Sphere in June.
T-4 MTGO prerelease. This is the opening of the gold mine. Right at the start the value of the cards one opens probably covers the cost of entrance so basically you're playing for free with all prizes as pure profit. Also many opponents are new to the format or rusty at Magic and make mistakes.
T-4 to approx T+30. Playing these games is amazingly effective and powerful tapering off over time. Each day the value of the cards opened decreases, the expertise of average opponents increases and the chances of getting a newbie opponent go down.
I think I didn't do enough Sealed this expansion and plan to really hammer the game in late January.
Monday, 16 October 2017
MTGO: close season
As I explained in my last post, Magic Online is seasonal. I finished a league today and as I found that the entirety of the cards I opened, 6 packs worth 24 tickets unopened, sold for less than a ticket to the tradebots it's time to stop playing as the game is now uneconomic.
I could play on if I wanted to but with the opened cards being miniscule in value I'd need 6 wins per league consistently. I've gone 5-4 in my last game and 6-3 the one before that so I can't expect to do so. Without card sales propping up the prize value a 5-4 would cost about $5 and 4-5 would cost over $10 with 6-3 about break even. I've never gone 7-2.
I did 5 leagues of 9 games each this season all in the Friendly Sealed format. I never opted to pay for more cards to strengthen my deck. I went 6-3 or 5-4 every time making a substantial profit particularly on the early games when the cards were new.
I had a ton of fun, I really do like MTG as a game, but I'm quite happy to wait 3 months now till the next release then splurge again. Next time I'd like to get more leagues done in the first couple of weeks, it really does feel like collecting free money.
I'm becoming a lot better at baiting out the opponent's killer move and trumping it. I deliberately set up situations that might tempt him/her to use their best removal spell or combat trick when I have open mana and a counter card in my hand that will result in a 2 for 1 play. That's very satisfying.
Being self-analytical my psychology is quite weird. I have about 700 tickets, worth about $700. I only play when I think I'll come out ahead and I'm usually correct on that. So each season I end up richer. I can afford to play now and lose money simply because I've such a great stack of tickets. However I don't want to and it's hard to explain why. I really like the game, it makes no sense to have more tickets in the system than I will ever use. Logically I should just play on, losing about $5 per league (about 50c per match) because this wealth is useless unless I spend it. I have the unspent wealth to lose about 100 leagues even in the dry season. However I'm averse to. Loss aversion? Is this why real world billionaires keep piling up the billions when there's no longer anything left to buy? I just don't fancy the idea of playing what is essentially a gambling game now the odds are no longer in my favour even though I'm only risking meaningless game money. I believe Dan Ariely would consider me predictably irrational.
Well it is what it is. I have a new corp and a new adventure starting in Eve Online, time to shelve MtGO for the season.
I could play on if I wanted to but with the opened cards being miniscule in value I'd need 6 wins per league consistently. I've gone 5-4 in my last game and 6-3 the one before that so I can't expect to do so. Without card sales propping up the prize value a 5-4 would cost about $5 and 4-5 would cost over $10 with 6-3 about break even. I've never gone 7-2.
I did 5 leagues of 9 games each this season all in the Friendly Sealed format. I never opted to pay for more cards to strengthen my deck. I went 6-3 or 5-4 every time making a substantial profit particularly on the early games when the cards were new.
I had a ton of fun, I really do like MTG as a game, but I'm quite happy to wait 3 months now till the next release then splurge again. Next time I'd like to get more leagues done in the first couple of weeks, it really does feel like collecting free money.
I'm becoming a lot better at baiting out the opponent's killer move and trumping it. I deliberately set up situations that might tempt him/her to use their best removal spell or combat trick when I have open mana and a counter card in my hand that will result in a 2 for 1 play. That's very satisfying.
Being self-analytical my psychology is quite weird. I have about 700 tickets, worth about $700. I only play when I think I'll come out ahead and I'm usually correct on that. So each season I end up richer. I can afford to play now and lose money simply because I've such a great stack of tickets. However I don't want to and it's hard to explain why. I really like the game, it makes no sense to have more tickets in the system than I will ever use. Logically I should just play on, losing about $5 per league (about 50c per match) because this wealth is useless unless I spend it. I have the unspent wealth to lose about 100 leagues even in the dry season. However I'm averse to. Loss aversion? Is this why real world billionaires keep piling up the billions when there's no longer anything left to buy? I just don't fancy the idea of playing what is essentially a gambling game now the odds are no longer in my favour even though I'm only risking meaningless game money. I believe Dan Ariely would consider me predictably irrational.
Well it is what it is. I have a new corp and a new adventure starting in Eve Online, time to shelve MtGO for the season.
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