Shopping

I stopped by Milsims this morning. Officially I was dropping in to pick up some new paints, but I also wanted to take a look at their sale stuff.

There was a lot of stuff I wanted to get (for example, BattleStar Galactica and BattleLore: Heroes), but in the end I restrained myself.

I did spot something I couldn't walk past though: Promethean: the Created for AU$20. I'd walked away from a copy marked down to the same price a while ago, and regretted. So I wasn't going to make that mistake again! It's the first physical RPG I've picked up in a long time - possibly since I moved.

And I've just discovered that the Milsims sale has been extended until next weekend, so maybe I'll be going back...

Sins of a Solar Empire Multiplayer

I got a chance to play a multiplayer game of Sins with Shaz. It took us a little while to work out how to actually start an online multiplayer game, but once we'd sorted that the setup process was pretty simple.

We played on a random medium-sized map with two computer players. Ultimately it was a bit of a strange multiplayer experience since we went the whole time without really having any contact with each other. But that was just the luck of the map we had - we were both on opposite side with the two computer players in between.

I was really pleased with the multiplayer experience. The game works almost identically to the single player version. If there's lag, then the game acts like it's been paused (which means you can still give orders to ships, queue research and construction and generally look around). Each player has a limited number of pauses they can use, which is a pretty good idea. You can also save multiplayer games (and the game still does it's autosaves periodically), so if something happens you can always pick it back up again.

I was pretty pleased with how the game progressed - I pushed to build up my economy and claim some nearby systems. I stopped expanding once I'd secured a few natural bottlenecks, and concentrated on pushing up my research.

I got a few missions from the computer players, but I tended to target the red computer team. This turned out to be what Shaz was doing too, because ultimately the red team was wiped off the map.

We didn't have time to finish the game, but hopefully we'll be able to pick it up again soon!

News: A Game of Thrones BattleLore Game

I've been a fan of BattleLore since it was first released, and I love George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. So I was very excited when I heard that Fanasty Flight were getting ready to release Battles of Westeros: A BattleLore Game.

It turns out that beyond the name it doesn't really have anything to do with the BattleLore game. I'm still almost certainly going to buy it, but I'm not quite as thrilled as I was initially.

But it did get me thinking about how could you do a Game of Thrones expansion to BattleLore. What elements of the books would you need to recreate in the game to make it not just a generic fantasy wargame?

Sins of a Solar Empire: Initial Tips

I've been playing a bit of Sins lately - I had a few nights away for work, so my netbook got a big workout in the evenings.

One of the initial small maps is called "Point Blank", simply because there are only a few systems, and you start right next door to the computer player. So I've been playing that map over and over as a way of learning how to quickly get a milatry force up and running.

The first thing to do is to pause the game. It probably doesn't make that much difference, but I figure the computer can issue instant orders, so it can't hurt if I do too.

The first thing I build is a captial ship factory - since your first capital ship is free, there's no reason not to get one as soon as possible. The second thing to do is build a milatry research base.

Another good tip I worked out is try and place both structures near your frigate factory. That way the construction ships have less distance to travel and can start building faster.

Set your frigate factory to pump out a few light frigates, and the start the game running again. You can also queue up the mining facilities and any research abilities you want.

As soon as you've got your capital ship and some light frigates together, join them into a fleet and send them over the computer's system. Let them do their thing, but try and queue up as many other ships as you can to join them during the battle.

Once all the computer's ships are destroyed, order your fleet to attach the computer's frigate factory. Once that's destroy, wipe out its' capital ship factory. With no ships and no way of getting more (easily), you can then wipe them out with ease!

Initial Thoughts: Card Ships

I've been knocking around this idea in my head for a couple of months now. The basic idea is a 4x-style card game in the style of Escape Velocity, Privateer or Freelancer - you fly your spaceship around the galaxy, finding planets, doing trade runs and missions and upgrading your ship. The interesting bit is that you play with a standard deck of cards. So it's basically just a solitaire variation.

I've been thinking of ways to draw as much information out of a set of cards as possible, so things may be a bit complex. Here are my initial thoughts:

Ships have four categories - Life, Money, Fight and Tech. They correspond to the four suits - Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs and Spades respectively. Life covers things like life support, crew and sick bay facilities. Money represents things like cargo, upgrades and raw cash. Fight is the ship's weapons, armour, shields, tactical skill, etc. And Tech covers things like engines, sensors, and repairs.

The player draws five cards as his ship. He allocates one card each to four categories and the fifth becomes a bonus card. The number of each card is that categories score (picture cards are 10). The card's suit determines any special abilities or bonuses the ship has. And the number of pips of each suit across the ship are like consumable points. So a ship with a 4 of Clubs allocated to Fight will be different from a ship with the 4 of Clubs allocated to Life.

Once the player's starting ship has been built, the rest of the deck is shuffled and drawn for various things - planets, systems, other ships, cargo, upgrades, whatever. When the deck runs out, the discards are reshuffled.

I'm thinking to upgrade your ship you do something like in Poker. Pick the cards you want to discard, then draw some replacements. All cards can then be reallocated to different slots.

I'm also thinking that maybe Poker hands should have extra bonuses. So a ship that has lower scores across the board but is made up of a full house would have something else going for it.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Initial Impressions

I played the Sins of a Solar Empire demo a little bit last year, but recently had a hankering for a 4x game so started it up again. And then realised what a lot of people already knew - that it was awesome. So I decided to buy myself a copy. Buying a computer game is a pretty rare event for me - the last one I got was Torchlight, and I can't think what I got before that - Mass Effect 1 possibly?

I had intended to just get the core game, and maybe pick up the two expansion packs later. But the day I actually got around to buying it, they'd removed the core game from the shop and only have the bundle available (Sins + the two expansion packs, even though the latest one wasn't being released for another couple of days). That actually turned out to be quite fortunate - the bundle also included Trinity, which is the revamped original Sins of a Solar Empire.

One of the reason I decided to buy Sins was that it runs well on a netbook. The only problem is that the standard netbook resolution isn't supported - meaning you have to do some annoying scrolling to see the controls at the top or bottom of the screen. There is an interface mod that fixes it, but it doesn't (yet) support Trinity. Fortunately, Stardock decided to allow you to opt to play the original Sins or Trinity, so problem solved!

The core Sins doesn't really change much from the demo, except adding more (and bigger) maps - and of course not limiting the length of your game! Oh, and the ability to play as other races with have different technology. But I haven't bothered trying that yet. Trinity however changes a lot of stuff. There are new technology research trees (Diplomacy and Defense), and even the ability to build starbases.

I'm painfully aware that I've barely touched the surface yet, but I'm having so much fun I don't really care. This was definitely the game I wanted to be playing right now.