clyde

Pro-tip: If Poland is bombing your troops with 16 planes stationed at one city, go into the options menu and turn on "quick combat (singleplayer)".

I love the World Congress. I don't have much control over it, but just seeing what proposals the other civs want, gives them so much more character to me. Watching Poland try to establish Hinduism as a world religion after we all decided to embargo Poland was so awkward and pitiful looking. Watching the most powerful military propose something so self-indulgent, and then seeing that they were the only ones who voted for it, really affected how I view them. I haven't had all that much experience with it yet, but I haven't seen any interesting vote trading going on. Maybe it is happening and I don't realize it, but thus far, everyone's vote for host of the World Congress has been for themselves. When it's near equal, I decide the winner by just voting for someone besides myself. I want to see civs vote for someone who can win, but likely will propose things in their interest. It could be measured with similarities in luxury resources, ideologies, religion, science, culture, military, number of city-state alliances, friendships, denouncements, and overall score.

Red Bison makes a good ginger-bread beer seasonally, or at least they did. It's good stuff.

I find myself putting what I'm hearing about the current-events in Syria into Civ 5 terms. I fail to see how shooting a couple of guided-missles from some missle-cruisers is going to stop a civ from nuking again, while another civ is trying to take its capital. The losing/nuking civ is desparate. Making them more desparate is just going to encourage them to nuke again. The circumstances are dire. Is there anything a civ would be willing to trade for their last city? I apoligize if this offends anyone. I don't intend to belittle the suffering of thousands (possibly millions) by comparing it to a game. I'm just concerned and this seems like a way for me to deal with my thoughts and worries. Games are my way of praying, I guess.

This episode has significantly excited me. Instead of satisfying thirst for info about dissent and rebellion in strategy-games, it has created a withdrawal; I just want more. When Troy says he has spoken before about counter-insurgency in games is he referring to episode 23? Victoria II sounds incredible from the way you talk about it in this episode. Now I'm curious. I love the term "moral-calculus" for player-decision in quantitative ethic-systems in games. I'm having difficulty expressing how much value I get out of this discussion. Both the specific subject the two of you address here and the knowledge-base prerequisite is either unique or rare. I appreciate it. Keep up the good work. Sugo Haseyo.

I love how playful it is, they even have the orange cap on the gun that lets you know it's a toy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R4JmzxSTHw I love Ali Sufi's early stuff.

There used to be a National Pinball in Baltimore, that was cool. I also went to the White Rose expo in Pennsylvania, that was cool. I'm not sure what machine I would want. I know I wouldn't want Mel Gibson's face in my living room, so that eliminates a lot of pinball machines.

I can't really use the nudge on the tablet. If you could have any physical machine in your house, cost not being an issue, which one would you choose?

John Carmack just tweeted this (sorry, the special code stuff is a little too much for my one time use of Twitter): "Augmenting panoramic photos with crude depth geometry, even by hand, will add a lot to the viewing experience in a Rift." It hadn't occurred to me that people might make static art for this platform until I read this tweet.

Dismissing video pinball because it isn't physical pinball is like dismissing racing games because they aren't cars. The tendency of people to expect such a high standard from video pinball, makes me think that it is much closer to it's physical counterpart than most activities represented in video games. It does take a little while to accept that video pinball lacks some of the best parts of the game, but at some point, it is nice to accept the limitations of video pinball and enjoy what it has to offer. Nudging without tilting is a big part of the game, especially on machines made in the 1970's and before. As far as video game simulations go, Pinball Arcade has my favorite nudging mechanic (on the xbox 360) where you use the thumbstick to give a solid bump. Pinball FX2 and Zen Pinball 2 have a very different take on nudging than real pinball. You get three nudges before a tilt within 15 seconds. Because of that, nudging is only used as a save; whereas in Pinball Arcade and real pinball, it's used for finesse. A good example of nudging I like, is on that machine I mentioned in the original post. To start multiball, you have to shoot the ball through the lane in the center top which is really high on the playfield. A lot of tables don't have a ton of strength in their flippers so you have to actually push the table forward with your body while hitting the flipper to give it enough force to make that kind of shot. I love doing that. I played a lot of Black Hole on Pinball Arcade before getting a chance to play the real machine. It was so funny when I tried to nudge that machine the way I was used to doing it on the video version. Black Hole is an especially heavy machine and I could budge it about an 1/8 if an inch if I could get in a position with leverage in time, but in the Pinball Arcade version, I could nudge it 1/2 of an inch to the right within a second of nudging it to the left. But my brain was so used to being able to do it that ai would unconsciously try the entire time. I felt as if i had just been skiing or something afterward. I would love to have access to 50 machines nearby, but for now, 50 video pinball machines on my computer and consoles, and two real machines 20 miles away is alright.

I guess I should be more specific: I think that the relationship between strategy-gamers and strategy-games has the potential to envision a relevant method of creating a sustainable and fair peace. Thus far, the broad public has only been exposed to social problems and systemic violence with anecdotes and opinion-pieces. Strategy-games are a way for the complexities of interrelated systems within systemic violence to be partially simulated enough for the broad public to begin to visualize the causal complexities in motion, rather than viewing examples of the symptoms as an unfortunate history. Games imply agency. There is the danger of inflating this sense of agency when Middle-Eastern political ecosystems are reduced to an enjoyable video game, but we will cross that bridge when we get to it. Strategy-games can provide the impetus to begin thinking of world-conflict and human-rights issues as puzzles; people love solving puzzles. As you hear my perspective, make sure to consider the current situation (or at least my perspective of it), that the public already thinks about these issues, just not critically. I'm arguing that as the medium of strategy-games becomes more popular, the public will increasingly think of world-affairs as a simulation that can be played, rather than as a history.

I just bought the Red Dead Redemption DLC for a rockstar-fix til Sept 17th. Psyched.

Air-lift? I just got triplanes and bombers. This is my first match with Brave New World. Do I get to look forward to air-lifts? What's it do?

I use tumblr.

I've found that the games I play on the iphone are largely determined by the activity I'm currently engaged in where I am playing an iphone game. One of the reasons I really enjoy Backflip Madness is that I can do something rewarding, very quickly. This way I can still pay attention to my surroundings.

I suppose Watch Dogs will be exploring the technical side of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ckIGhwQtd-c

It looks like a portion of it was filmed in Edward James's garden, Las Pozas. I'd love to go there some day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-EWbpOltBHU

You know how in movies and stuff some psychic characters can pick up an object and absorb knowledge of its history? If a device that does that is invented, it would have some interesting implications for society as a whole. Something like a barcode-scanner that tells you where it was made, how it was made, how it got here, who made it, and why. That's what I would call "surveillance"!

I don't have or desire the self-discipline to wait months for a pc release, though I respect it. I tried waiting a while on Red Dead Redemption. I ended up at Walmart three days after release going "Man, I could've been playing the last three days instead of obsessing over every detail I get while trying to avoid spoilers in this perverse dance of wanting to know, but having to avoid." I know my limits.

I am having so much fun in my game. I think that I finally have a handle on how to manage my relationships with the other civs and it adds the coolest layer to the game. I've been bribing Germany, France, and Poland to go to war with each other for the entire match. England and Persia create good buffers between these three military power-houses. I've been maintaining good relationships with everyone through trade and friendships and timely denounciations. When Poland won it's war with France, I bribed Germany to attack Poland. When Poland and Germany reached a peace-agreement, Poland asked if I wanted to go to war with Persia with them. I was like "First of all, don't do that. Second, that would make you as asshole." I tried to create a defensive-pact with Persia before Poland declared war, but no dice. So I bribed Napolean to start a war with Poland, oddly, they agreed to it. So that bought me some time (which I needed because Germany had a 10 turn peace-treaty and I needed them to attack Poland during this war with France. Then, in one turn, Persia, England, and Germany asked me to join them in declaring war with Poland. Everytime of them popped up on the discuss-screen I shouted "Yes!" it was awesome. In ten turns I need to build an army that can take back polish-controlled London. Casmir III is going to get nerfed. This game is so much fun. Is there a way to support a rebellion or revolt or whatever in an occupied city?

I don't know either, but it sure is interesting.

It seems that in both dreams, the person who wronged you was in an accident (for which you could not be considered accountable) after the conflict between you and the person had been resolved. Then in both dreams, you seem to be dealing with a sense of responsibility for the antagonist's punishment even though you yourself and others around you believe that you can't be blamed for that punishment. But it's obvious (to me, in my inference) that you do feel a sense of accountability for their suffering because those around you feel the need to reassure you that you shouldn't concern yourself with the ethics of fate.

I infer some interesting perspectives on karma from your dreams Twig.

If Candy Crush Saga had all the candies be in the same place when you restart a level, rather than being randomly generated, I would think it was a really good game. As it is now, the starting board they give you is a crap-shoot that can completely ruin any chance to win without paying money or restarting many times. I don't mind the timed extra-lives, it puts some emphasis on each attempt, but the random candy placement says to me "This may not be possible with skill alone".