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Mike Ricotta
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Well I turned 32 on Sunday. Having a birthday on Father’s day (we have a 20 month old son) isn’t the best setup in the world (as now I only get one holiday!) but it’s fun that I also share my birthday with my father (and Garfield the fictional cat).
My mother-in-law took the family out for a fancy Chinese meal, my wife and I had a scorpion for two (which is a giant drink in a fish bowl). But we aren’t here to talk about fancy food and giant drinks so we shall press on.
Of course there are presents involved! Who doesn’t love presents? I got a new cordless drill and bits. Super fun. A book on making my own sausage at home (YUM!) and another grilling cookbook. Perhaps my wife is hungry? Again, good stuff, some day I’ll get on topic around here…
I told my wife that I’d like to pre-order Space Empires 4x. I’m really very excited about this game. It looks great. Now that the rules, scenario book, and some session reports from the designer are out I am even more excited!!! I feel like a 4x fanboy and I haven’t even seen the dang box.
I asked for a copy of Barons but it got all sold out before anyone could order it. Perhaps another time. I did get Ascending Empires though. Hoorraayy! Little flicking ships! More on tiny wooden ships later I think.
So I was perusing Steam looking to buy myself something for my birthday. So I stumbled across the new release called Pride of Nations (PON). PON is a simulation of 1850 to 1920. PON comes from the same people who put out one of my other favor games, Europa Universals III (with Heir to the Throne). Plus PON is turn based! Awesome! So I downloaded the demo. Cause I like to try things out first. I went through the tutorials, learned about combat, trade, economics, and so on. All well and good. Some really cool ideas actually. I like the idea that the trade fleets are just placed in zones (so you don’t have to manage them independently) and you can apply convoy raiders to these boxes. Nice and easy. Also the idea of the nation’s income being divided in private and public is cool as well. Anyway, I went through all the learning and such and started up the Grand Campaign (the only thing in the demo)picked England (I want to rule the waves dang nab it). Took a look at the map and went ugh. Now there almost to much going on. Colonial issues, infrastructure, buildings, armies, and so on. Where to start? I don’t know. It’s like I don’t have time for this anymore! Am I getting to old for this? All the map filters, all the options. Where do I apply my might? It’s almost like I needed some direction. Perhaps I’ll give it another try….but…
I did play two games of Ascending Empires on Sunday. Both two players against the wife. Of course the first is a learning game, doesn’t count in the league standings. SO I went in thinking I know what to expect. I was very surprised. First off I thought you would be able to develop the tech tree a lot farther then you can. You are limited by the availability of planets and the limited number of research stations you can build. It actually forces you into an interesting decision fairly early. There are only enough stations to build every tech to lvl 2 (of 4). If you want to go higher you have to limit something else. The downside of this is that once you get everything to lvl 2 you get a bonus! So do you turn down the bonus to pursue a track farther? Remember being the first to research a tech gives you victory points! The second surprise was how well the game feels like you are building an empire. The idea is that not everything is available to you at the start. In fact you only have 2 ships and 6 guys. As the empire expands more ships and guys go into your supply. It works really well. So in the beginning you have some choices. Do you build undefended research stations to get the early research VPs and risk the wraith of your enemies? Do you build more defendable colonies and cities and risk losing the tech race? Do you want a bigger army or a bigger fleet? Both have uses!
The first game I tried to go more ship based. I worked to get three orange planets so I could get the lvl 3 orange tech and build the battleship. Who wouldn’t want a battleship! (Also interesting to note that the battleship isn’t readily available to everyone, it takes work!) I got one and it did fairly well, until I rammed it into an enemy fighter. Sadly killing them both and earning my wife two victory points (a tech gives you VP if you get rammed). I won but it was a very close game.
The second game was much different. I found some brown planets early so I decided to see how far I could go up that track. Brown tech helps build your army of dudes bigger and deploy them easier. It was odd that in this game I did very little ship flicking until the end. My massive army just swarmed over the planets and with all the dudes it was easy to hold on to what I had. I won easily. A very different game then the first!
So overall it was a good holiday! Better when I get 4x I would wager! Now I need to find a meat grinder so I can make me some sausage! (and casings, where do you buy sausage casings?)
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