Linkblog - 22.7.2014 - 31.1.2015

Waggle Dance. The more I play, the more fun I have. Today I largely ignored the queen cards, focused more on honeycombs and nectar. In the short game, Juliana was more focused on the 5 honey, but as we continued playing, I was first at 7 and then at 9. You don't need that many bees, I only had 7 - although more would have allowed several honey actions. There's a lot of tactics and strategy in this game.

Custom COG Pack 1 and Custom COG Pack 2: Fan-made COGs for Gears of War. Something for my next crafting session. Naturally, the minis for these COGs are missing, but you can improvise.

Sentinels of the Multiverse. Omnitron appeared in Megapolis and Legacy, Wraith, Ra, and Tempest took care of the problem. Although Omnitron initially put up a strong fight, destroying equipment and blocking abilities, annoying paparazzi and hostage situations hindered the heroes, the quartet ultimately got the job done with ease. Omnitron will be sent to the scrap metal recycling.

One Zero One. Played a test game at the regulars' table. Nice, small, fast card game. Easy to learn, but enough content to make you think sometimes.

Merkel's statement "Islam belongs to Germany": De Maizière emphasizes duties for Islam. Freely interpreted according to Saxony's Prime Minister: "Saxony is welcome as part of the Federal Republic. This does not mean, however, that Saxony belongs to Germany." - you can see that in the mental outpourings of those politicians. And in the language.

One could also apply De Maiziere to Saxony and remind it of a few duties. For example, the Basic Law. And yes, De Maiziere is right, but perhaps he should also direct his statements towards the Christianists, who are also quite annoying to atheists with their moral claim to exclusivity - I don't care which mythical beard is held up to me with an raised index finger to tell me what I may or may not do.

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Celeborn is slowly getting frustrated - Galadriel and Elrond are taking care of Celebrimbor's Secret, so he looked into what the antlered crown is all about with the Dunlanders - he took Legolas with him, always good to have an archer and weapon enthusiast around. A disaster. A total disaster - the Dunlanders simply drove his Elves before them, they got lost and generally behaved very stupidly. He is now planning a relaxing vacation on the Anduin. And I have rebuilt the Woodland Realm deck back to Leadership-Lore with Milronde and an Ent package, tri-sphere just isn't stable enough with the Elves. Celeborn is no Dain, I'm not even sure if he's really worth his 11 threat. The Ringmaker Adventures are brutally difficult and very fiddly due to the time mechanic.

Elder Sign. The researcher (Juliana) and the private detective (me) managed to push Glaaki or whatever the sausage head was called back into his silly portal. Although the detective klutz early on caught a curse and couldn't get rid of it and threw himself into suicide commands on monsters, Arkham was actually never in great danger. Even after many games, I still find it one of the nicer dice games - Juliana has no idea about the stories behind it and just plays for the dice combinations, but for me there's a bit of theme painted on, and it's also entertaining. But don't expect deeper strategy (apart from "grab as many clue markers as possible").

Forbidden Desert. The mountaineer (me) and the meteorologist (Juliana) turned out to be the absolute dream team and dug out all the parts of the airplane in no time and flew back to civilization sovereignly, not even a breeze or thirst came up. The game is really fun, but I think we can soon leave the beginner mode - otherwise it is too easy. But that it went so quickly today I owe to the really perfectly running combination.

Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:

San Juan. Still a nice filler, but I don't know if it doesn't become frustrating in real play against other players (instead of in the app against AIs) - the player with the guild hall and production focus is hard to catch up with, the difference in points is enormous. If one of the end evaluation buildings comes up, the corresponding player makes a huge leap, there are no useful catch-up mechanisms, except to have luck as well. In the second game of the evening I noticed this myself - no end evaluation standing except the triumphal arch for me and no monuments that I could have built. It can quickly become frustrating when opponents already have an evaluation building out early.

January 19, 2015, Banned and Restricted Announcement | MAGIC: THE GATHERING. Ouch. I really feel sorry for Pod players - their investments in Modern decks are now completely down the drain. And Treasure Cruise is making a banning sweep all the way down to Vintage - when was the last time a card was restricted in Vintage? Intense.

Update on OS Support for Next Version of Lightroom. Hmm, I think this is where I'm out of the Lightroom update cycle for now. I'm absolutely not sure that upgrading to 10.8 on my MacBook Air is a good idea, and I don't feel like messing up my system with updates. Frankly, I don't quite see the point in absolutely needing 10.8. And no, system updates are never "free". Maybe free of charge, but the time you invest has value. And the loss of performance and potential new hardware purchase are also factors to consider. I don't even think I need more than what LR5 already offers me right now.

COLOR AND LIGHT IN NATURE Homepage: Rainbows, haloes, mirages, colors in the sky & water and more!. Sounds very interesting, I already have Color and Light in the Outdoors, which also deals a lot with the physical basics of effects, but this one seems to focus even more on the actual visual aspects.

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Celeborn sent Aragorn into the woods after the last failures and set out with Haldir and Beravor to uncover Celebrimbor's secret. Unfortunately, another failure, the threat was too great and forced them to retreat. But it went better than with the woodlander klutz who is so smitten with Celeborn's granddaughter. No idea what the girl sees in him, nothing will ever come of it.

Super Fantasy - Attack of the Ugly Snouts. Just blogmarked because I generally like such games - and it is playable in Coop, Solo and also competitively. And not as expensive as the miniature-based Big-Box games. And already in German, which makes it easier to invite others.

Waggle Dance. Wow, so much fun for more. We played again as two players, it really works well. However, it's still quite difficult to assess the tactical potential of the queen cards. And somehow I also need to pay more attention to my own strategy so that I can win sometimes.

Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:

Sentinels of the Multiverse. This time, Legacy, Wraith, Ra and Tempest faced off against Baron Blade and although he really gave it his all, he didn't stand a chance. Insula Primalis was particularly annoying this time, but the superheroes were not impressed by either thieving Pterodactyls or lava flows. Epic!

Waggle Dance. Today's first game with Juliana, and it really worked well - definitely a good gateway, but also interesting strategies. The exchange actions, for example, were my saviors, even though I initially rated them as rather weak. And the victory scoring - great. Efficiency is so much cooler than just victory points in a field. Both of us had 5 honey (here the leader would have won), both 9 bees (here the lower one would have been the winner), but Juliana had more nectar and was thus the winner. Very friendly, visually beautiful and elegant worker placement game system.

Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients. Distributed in this country by Heidelberger and the German versions of the two base boxes have already been threatened. Weird West at its ameritrashiest.

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Twice, Aragorn, Celeborn, and Beravor attempted to find the secret of Celebrimbor from the Orc troops of Bolg, but both times they failed, despite support from the Ents. On the second attempt, they already had the mold, but were then overrun by the Orcs.

After attacks in Paris: Premier Cameron wants to ban effective encryption. And so begins the madness of attacks on civil rights with flimsy pseudo-arguments and ineffective - but certainly very convenient for the intelligence services - requirements. Who gets left behind? The citizen, who just wants to live. The citizen, who is still in the majority, who does not question the liberal democratic basic order, as extremist fringe groups like terrorists and politicians do.

Waggle Dance. Just a test flight of the busy bees to get a feel for it, but I like the game! Pretty colorful and a simple, catchy worker placement with enough tactical options. Definitely a good decision to join the Kickstarter. Nice gateway game that even advanced players can have fun with.

What is this all about? | Space Empires 4X - a board game by Jim Krohn. Another program to automate the alien players in Space Empires 4X. This time in Java.

Space Empires: 4X - Alien Players Tool. Bookmarked for later - simulates the Alien Player in Space Empires 4X when playing solo and not wanting to face the Doomsday Machine.

Gears of War: The Board Game. On the day of his arrival at his new post, Markus Fenix made a truly pitiful figure - Dom would laugh at him. But it was only flesh wounds, quickly patched up by the medic and right back in, that damned hole must be plugged. And this time it worked. The grenade launcher that the Boomer lost, which suddenly appeared in front of his Lancer - where do these big guys always hide? - and which he couldn't grab, did bother him a bit.

Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:

Forbidden Desert. Navigator and water carrier had no major problems finding their way out of the desert, despite the storm picking up and the scorching sun. The game is really nice, relaxing, and fluid to play, even for the first game - although I had of course read the instructions and watched the game on Tabletop. Can definitely become a regular guest with us, and offers space for 2-5.

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Aragorn and Frodo visited Celeborn and helped him get a captured Orc through Fangorn. The Huorns were a nuisance but could be kept under control and the group made it through with a few scratches. The deck isn't running really smoothly yet, I still need to optimize, even though it achieved its goal here.

xslt workbench. Please don't ask why I need something like this. The pain is already great enough.

sharplispers/cormanlisp. Haven't lisped in a long time. Corman Lisp - one of the coolest implementations of Common Lisp on Windows at the time - is now open source and on GitHub. However, it probably still needs a lot of work before it runs smoothly on modern Windows versions. But the first step has been taken with the source release.

Galaxy Defenders - blocked for later, so around May 2015 - with the Windows program you can create your own missions. And with the tracker you can keep track of the current status in a campaign, so you know how it ended the next time.

We spent the New Year's change in 2014 on Gran Canaria and of course produced a lot of vacation photos again.

Sentinels of the Multiverse. Baron Blade destroyed Legacy, Ra and Fanatic on Insula Primalis. I guess I need to get better.

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer. And another time killer on the plane. Offline against the AI.

San Juan. On the return flight from Gran Canaria, this was the perfect relaxation in the plane, even if only against the simple AIs.

Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:

Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:

Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:

Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:

Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:

What I considered worth reading during the week and did not want to link separately, collected here and uncommented.

What I considered worth reading during the week and did not want to link separately, collected here and uncommented.

magefree/mage. Keep an eye on it - client and server in Java and cross-platform, AI integrated in the server and rule control with the cards (though not all cards, so potentially a problem with EDH). Oh, it's about Magic the Gathering.

Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:

A Brief History of Wiz-War - Interesting history of the inspiration for Magic: The Gathering. The game itself is also very interesting, albeit somewhat random. It's really good, solid Ameritrash. And wild spell-slinging and wild brawling. It's a lot of fun, but it is quite text-heavy due to the cards. The design is really very similar to M:TG, the cards simply convey their effects through text that you have to understand and execute (and not, for example, like in classic Eurogames through symbols and clear rules).

Here's what I considered worth reading during the week and didn't want to link separately, collected and uncommented.

Alderac Entertainment Group • View topic - Thunderstone Variant - Cutthroats & Sellswords. Fascinating game variant - fan-created and brings Thunderstone more into an interactive RPG direction. Always amazing what fans come up with as their own rule sets for games.

Deckmaster: A MTG Variant Format by Jim Bowie. Interesting Magic variant that turns the cards into a deckbuilder similar to Star Realms, but still allows the use of the very interesting Magic card pool. Build your own Deckbuilder. I could have thought of that myself, given my preference for deckbuilders and Magic.

Those who have wondered why it has been so quiet here in the blog (quieter than usual anyway), here is the answer: Roadtrip through Slovenia. Vacation. With lots of photos. Simply click on the changing images to go to the respective album, click on a picture there and a comfortable slideshow will start.