Friday thoughts & links:
- I spent a chunk of time reading this AAR for Grand Tactician: The Civil War.
My concern with that AAR, and some others I've seen, is that the AI is:
- strategically aggressive
- tactically stupid
- and quickly and decisively focused entirely on maximizing its military strength at all costs
The three means the Confederacy launches endless attacks into the Union right from the word go, ready or not. But it's not hard to defeat it on the battle map because it makes a lot of basic mistakes (piecemeal attacks, unsupported artillery, ignoring supply concerns.) And that the game turns quickly - immediately, even - into 1863-4 style battles between large armies enabled by a rapid rush to conscription.
Historically, it would be more like:
- strategically concerned with defense more than offense
- tactically brilliant
- unable to focus too much on conscription or large army size due to political weakness by the central government and a weakness in access to arms.
The second is what I'd like to play, the first seems to be what I'll get. But finding very recent AARs and videos has been tricky - perhaps these have been ironed out in the latest patches. It's such a tempting game . . . but if I'll have to play the South to even have a fun game of it and even then the enemy will just march into my guns to die nonstop from the first day of the war until the last . . . I'm not sure I'm up for that. I don't mind a total war grind in 1864-5 but in 1861? Everyone still thought they'd be the next Napoleon and win a field victory and send their 90-day volunteers home.
So I'm undecided. I'd love to hear more about any AI updates that have come along.
- SJG has a kickstarter for POD GURPS books. $1 to get in, pick the books you want to POD in the add-ons, POD through DriveThruRPG.
- FASA's Doctor Who adventures. I owned none of them.
- DIY Bamboo Men minis! Be thankful I didn't have minis like these during the Forest Gate episodes! Just saying, it would have gotten uglier.
- Next Felltower game is 5/21 as far as I know.
- More work done on the secret writing project, but this time by my co-author.
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