Dreamlords Resurrection: Paradox Interactive’s first FTP online title

Paradox Interactive announces its first Free-to-Play (FtP) title, Dreamlords of Resurrection, a fantasy theme that will, hints the release, include long term strategic planning. (Press release: Paradox Interactive unveils Dreamlords Resurrection – Paradox Interactive.)  This and future FtP titles will be released under the Paradox Connect brand. Dreamlords is an MMORTS game (Massively Multiplayer Online Real-Time Strategy) that has been around for a few years independently.

400-turn Civilization 5 action report

A report of some pre-release play of the new Civilization V. In sum: graphics improved, of course. And a new city growth system exploits the new map hexes nicely, which is good to hear.  Elimination of unit stacks brings the games into the realm of strategic, army-level war games. Long overdue. As the reviewer mentions, encirclement becomes a viable ground strategic goal, instead of the wars of attrition, with single-square stacks of units hammering each other until one or the other is eliminated. Additionally units now have hit points, which will make combat a bit more interesting than the winner-take-all affairs they’ve been up to now. Also discussed are city states, a totally new concept, and a revamped social policy aspect. No mention of the supposed ranged combat feature. Perhaps it was dropped. Archers firing at targets two or three hexes away at this scale would squander all the benefits of what sounds like an improved strategic combat system. Come September! Yes. We have come around.

UPDATE: Article author Stephen Totillo in an e-mail reports that ranged combat is still present, but that it works well. Not a deal breaker. We’ll see.

The Beekeeper – Short Story

Posted on ScriptD:

The Beekeeper is satisfied to tend his hives and live his life after getting bounced by his rival at a high tech mega-corporation until he’s called upon to go back up into Earth orbit. A mysterious unaccounted-for supply pod is returning to intersect the orbit of the new space casino. The Beekeeper is the only one, on the planet or off, who can deal with it.

Wall Street Journal notices wargames

A nice little capsule review of the history of wargames by the Wall Street Journal, Boys, Men and the War-Strategy Game.

Yes the hobby does fill a need but then I heard an ad on the radio today promoting a math-only tutoring franchise. So the schools have a gap there too. Just what is it the public school actually do?

Anyway, my interest started when a high school history teacher used Diplomacy as a class activity so I guess I was lucky.  But toy soldiers and Sgt Rock/Sgt. Fury comics had interests too so I may have been fated to be a grognard.

The article doesn’t dwell too much on any sociological thesis of boys, men, war and wargames (which are often labeled, somewhat prissilly, as “conflict simulations” so as not to offend any nearby peaceniks.)

However playing a wargame doesn’t make you a warmonger. In fact, as any soldier will tell you. Peace is preferred. But if war is the enemy then the first rule of warfare is…know your enemy.

Civ 5 will allow conversion of Civ 4 maps

This new Civilization version 5, due out in the fall,  may be growing on me. I know I mentioned perhaps not even getting it but the self-doubts on that began immediately after writing it in a previous post. I’ll probably end up getting it, since we’ve gotten every version since the original, and Civ 4 with the Warlords and Beyond the Sword add-ons is the best iteration since then.

Not that I have a lot of saved maps  but this conversion feature will please many players, especially modders. The World Builder in 5 will allow conversion of your existing maps.

Still not on board with the ranged attacks. At these scales, archers firing more than one hex away seems to us like being able to shoot arrows from Miami to Havana. But I may be willing to live with that.

Note: I haven’t played Civ 4 in a few weeks, and so no tip posts lately. We have a few things in the works.  More later.

Civ 5 Preview at E3

Gamespot reports on the near complete new  fifth major version of the Civilization franchise at the E3 conference. Hexes, yes! I’m not too sure about the ranged combat at that scale, though.

Due out in September.

Polka Dot Banner Featured Author: Bill Shears

Bill Shears, author of Kite, is currently the featured author at Polka Dot Banner, an online  writers’ community . Here’s the interview: Bill Shears Explains Hard Science Fiction.

Book Review: Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell

Finally plowed all the way through Stonehenge, by Bernard Cornwell, for two reasons. One: we wanted to see the darn thing built. No spoiler there. You know the thing does get built.

How they raised the lintels is always a matter of controversy and as a warning for some Chariots of the Gods fans, there are no aliens involved, which is good thing. Give the humans some credit for the emergence of intelligence, and application of brute force which would have been their strength in that era.

It’s a plausible-sounding method I hadn’t heard of as a possibility. It does not involve building earthen ramps as has been proposed, due to — as one of the characters points out — a thin top soil layer over the chalk bedrock of the area; there might not have been enough earth to gather for ramps with reasonable effort. We won’t give the lintel-lifting method away. If it interests you then you are the reader the author is looking for.

The other reason we wanted to see this book through to the end was, without even peeking, we sensed there would be an afterward where the author talks about the research on which the book was based. We were looking forward to that and was not disappointed.

The author’s strength is in the knowledge — no, complete mastery – of the subject exhibited in that Historical Note afterward. He admits at the outset of the Historical Note that nothing of the plot, characters or action are anything but fiction.

Limitation of the narrative, in fact, prevents some of the more interesting findings on the site from being included, such as the fact that there are painted circles in the parking lot at Stonehenge that mark the locations of ancient post holes from 8000 BC, 5000 years prior to the start of the Neolithic Stonehenge construction.

In the story, a political/religious conflict involving early Bronze Age villages is conjured up, and all of it struggles to reach the level of contrivance. At the root of it, you find out early, is gold. In the afterward is a mention that a body had been found that had been buried with gold piece artifacts just like those in the story.

The hero, Saban, is not all that heroic, letting events wash over him pretty much exactly like a hero isn’t supposed to do, and at times, indeed, allowing himself to be pushed around and knocked about. At one point the line “Seize him!” is actually spoken. Enough said.

All in all a run-of-the-mill impetus to a plodding build-up to the construction of one of humankind’s earliest engineering achievements. Read it for the account of the gathering, transportation and placement of the stones, but don’t expect much from the surrounding story.

Kite freebie satellite sites on Wix and Weebly

With both Wix and Weebly you can raise some nifty Flash-based simple webs sites. Be patient and remember to save as you go, especially with Wix. Got pretty far along and the browser crashed and…oops! Luckily I had already been through the head-banging, how-to phase and within a half hour or so had reconstructing it easily enough. With Wix, too, make sure you pick the template you want before doing any any otherr work. It doesn’t seem like it lets you transfer content from one template to another.

Weebly allowed the rotating Earth Flash 8 animation. Wix refused the same files because it was not ActionScript 3-compatible, even though I didn’t write in any ActionsScript.

Weebly also gives you the better URL but is somewhat limited in layout of elements.

They’re both free though so who cares?

Kite Wix Site
Kite Weebly Site

Civ IV Tip #2: Check the Cultural Points on the Victory Screen

From your Medieval period on, be sure to check the Victory Conditions screen often, especially for the cultural point leader among your opponents. Number one reason is that the screen will list the opponent most likely to win a cultural victory over you.

Once a Civ gets three cities with Legendary status (50,000 culture points) the game ends.Whether you are going for a cultural victory yourself or not, while planning your own victory, a secondary task would be to prepare for a war against that cultural leading opponent, perhaps centuries down the line. If they look like they’re getting close to a cultural victory, attack. 

Secondarily, since there are only three cities that count toward a cultural victoy, you can check this list for your own three leading cities. This would be so that you can concentrate your cultural efforts in those cities alone. Build the cultural wonders there. Don’t even bother building culture-contributing improvements in any other cities for the purpose of contributing culture, unless the improvement gives something the city needs to maintain order, productivity or something that contributes to your entire Civ (knowledge or gold.) For instance, a Theatre contributes culture only to the city where it’s built (and one Great Person point .) You ‘ll not want to use resources or time building them in cities that are not candidates for cultural bringing cultural victory. Except you will have to build enough (five) to qualify for the Globe Theatre national wonder.