2 October 2024
World of Warships
Same old routine. In-and-out is the best way to describe this morning's session.
Terraformers
Afterwards, the fun level returned as I logged in for this new game. Enjoyed learning how to play this simple and engaging game. Terraforming is quite involved, so I am learning, and the key seems to be keeping the colonists happy and supporting if you want to succeed. As a psuedo-explorer, such details don't interest me however as much as finding new resources so I lucked out once I reached a certain Mastery level. Will try again tomorrow.
Sam Mustafa
The new wargame rules Eisenhower is now available through online or hard copy. Received notification today. Print-on-demand available through Amazon and not through the Honour website. Sam's stuff is fair dinkum from a tabletop wargames rules perspective so I will be purchasing a PDF copy as soon as I can. It's promoting itself as fast-playing corps level, and covers the whole Second World War timeline. Room to create your own ficitional campaign if historical reenactment is not your thing or if you're looking for something different. Can start 1-v-1 and expand up to club (multiplayer) extravaganzas.
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3 October 2024
World of Warships
New Event Pass began today. It features a ship reward alright but it's at the start of the second access level (paywall) rather than situated as the end reward as in previous iterations of Battle Pass events. I was just going to play the first (free) level only but then I had the dubs to spare so paid for the second access level. Already have the K. Schonberg which meant I received the credit for the ship instead which is standard practice in this game. It's also the same situation with the various emblems/patches you receive at random from the daily loot boxes. You get 15,000 (or is it 1,500?) credits per emblem/patch. I cannot recall what the compensation is for a ship already in your port. Something like a few million credits; I will have to check.
Several new event releases in the Armoury as well. The new (OP and gimmicky) Tier X German hybrid cruiser/carrier Hildebrand is part of this month's theme celebrating both German and Soviet naval power. As I've never heard of the new carrier historically-speaking, I thought to investigate just what it costs to obtain her. As with previous ships, WG offers the prize on offer for some paltry sum - in this instance, it's 1 in-game credit - but you first have to pay your way through several levels of access. These differ from ship to ship and depends on the ship itself or how much WG are promoting this particular vessel. With the Hildebrand, you have to pass through ten (10) pay levels: first one starts at 250 dubs (or AUD1.50) and each pay level increments until you reach the penultimate level which costs 10,125 dubs (or AUD60.75). Then, you get to spend you pfennig. In total, you end up spending 19,125 doubloons or AUD114.75 for the privilege of then spending one credit to obtain the ship.
Hard pass for me. And it's been that way for a while now. I'd rather save my dubs for the Christmas Santa event. I should add that each pay level rewards you with a German crate - standard or premium (depending on what pay level you're at). Opening one offers a chance at the Hildebrand. However the odds are stacked against you: at best 2% chance of a win. Are you prepared to gamble?
Rumour has it the Black Friday list of ships released recently on WG's devblog is not worth participating as there won't be any rare or unobtainable ships. Ships like the original Massachusetts (not the current iteration which had its credit-earning power severely nerfed) or Kamikaze (and all its variants) will never see light of day in Black Friday as someone pointed out recently in review. And neither will the Smolensk B which is earmarked for the auction instead. Really? Who's going to pay multi-millions of credit for...wait, I forgot. Us whales and potatos will fork out however many millions of credits for her. My apologies.
Not really interested in the Smolensk to begin with: I don't always appreciate the hype at times but that's just me I guess. However, if it comes my way come Christmas time then I'm not going to refuse. It can join all the other port princesses like Nevsky and Stalingrad.
The next mission in the Exploration to the North Pole series also kicked off today. Just a few missions saw that target knocked over quickly. Next one in twenty-eight days. The final one won't happen until early December.I should have earned the requisite 10,000 tokens qualifying me for the rewards on offer - one Tier X vessel, one Tier X ship camo, and six Santa Gift crates. Missions aren't too hard to achieve in Co-Op anyway so looking forward to seeing what Tier X ship will be made available. Bet it's one I've already got.
I don't mind grinding this kind of event because at least it keeps me engaged and interested (most of the time) enough to bother playing in the first place!
Terraformers
Return to fun time. Play through the "tutorial". Now going through the Mastery levels. Doing the Weekly challenges progress through the levels as you do.
Learning as I go and unlocking new leader characters. Some are real useful like the explorer and miner. The recycler and the nationalist are interesting. The nerdy ones - the IT geek and the technologist (the other nerd) - are also quite handy. But others aren't appealing although I don't really know to how play them yet nor attempted them. And other remain locked (like those shown below).
Each leader brings a specific set of skills with 'perks' as I call them. For example, the female urban planner (whose name I forget) provides three housing structures free of charge per turn. At first I did not realise how to utilise her research "gifts" until I realised you can trade in those three structures (one skyscraper and two space modules) and reclaim their research value (a single blue science beaker symbol per structure). In other words, I found a free way to boost my resource assets courtesy of her "gifts". That applies to every leader although each brings something different and unique to their skills set. In another example, the Asian dude in the smart business suit, brings his industrial lobbying skills to the table by providing you with a small quantity of certain resources.
Any researched structure cannot be activated until you have the required resources to do so. For instances, the basic space module accomodation costs 30 food and 10 water resources. The landing pad which adds a trade route costs four titanium.
In several The Red Planet Awaits scenarios played, there were a few leaders I gravitated towards because of their usefulness - the Asian business dude, the female Urban Planner, the Namibian farmer, the two Foster (explorer grandfather and then miner grandson), the Indian recycler, and a couple of others; all were my go-to at first. But now I am also learning about the other ones like the "pro-lifers" (geneticists, the animal husbandry, the botanists) and figuring out how they work and how to make them work in my game play. No doubt as you continue to advance up the levels you get to unlock even more leaders (as shown above). I s
Sometimes you'll get the Martian Mafia entering the scene. They are simply there to steal your resources. They target two specific resources within a set time (usually eight turns). If you have resources the end of the counts down, they are lost, which can prove demoralising such as the time when I had over fifty-plus quantities of titrium and only eight turns to offload them or lose them all. But you can counter their efforts by building a Secret Service building (which costs 8 Power and 8 Silicates). Doing so stops this particular attempt by the crooks; but don't forget they get four chomps at the cake. Also only one SS building per city/colony is allowed; either you get rid of your resources in time or else found another city/colony quick.
Currently still at the noob (single digit) level. Started playing The Red Planet Awaits scenario. Played it several times managed to advance to Level 6 before switching over to the Per Aspera Ad Astra mode and began playing the Weekly Challenge, also at Level 6. A bit more challenging, and maybe I should have started again at Level 1. At the moment, I think I am nearing Level 9. Each success unlocked new opportunities and leaders. I have not yet tested myself in the other three levels - Red, Green, and Blue.
Expectations by the Mars colonists rise as you advance your colony through resource gathering, building structures, developing technologies and production as well as trading. Keeping them happy is important. But not as important as the mission goal. Keep focused on that goal. Which requires a bit of balancing to get right. Playing Per Aspera Ad Astra I forgot a few times that the main goal is completing Space Projects. Missed out a couple of times because I simply forgot and got too engrossed in exploring or expanding the colony. Achieved success as well but it was more failures than victories.
The terraforming part I am still coming to grips with. For now, I've been focusing and concentrating on other areas of game play to bother with terraforming apart from getting bacteria happening. The plants and animal life I know are there because you sometimes get them crop up whenever a new turn begins. But with each game experience a little bit of knowledge and understanding seeps through. Not too worried yet. I will get there eventually.
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4 October 2024
World of Warships
Usual grind with Yamamoto and Yahagi.
Terraformers
Played some more this evening. Failed to make it to the end of the Red Planet mission. Populace satisfaction rating began to decline and incremented by 8 (played the Difficult level). The goodwill built up took a beating and by around Turn 62, it declined into the negative. Mission over. Nevertheless, I'm loving it. My kind of game is this, more so than the others I've played recently.
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5 October 2024
World of Warships
Spent about an hour playing and checking things. The reward for this Update's Event Pass is Permanent Camo (red, gold, black) for the Schlieffen. WG is being miserly with its rewards this time round. Still, the phases leading up to the final reward offer worthwhile assets - free XP, steel, coal, etc.
Update 13.9 is coming soon. Return of Shuflle mode with various playerbase favourites - Airship Escort for one - will likely enjoy large participation. I think WG have not yet figured how to put such popular mode behind paywall yet without further alienating its more experienced playerbase. Game's already dead anyway.
English Civil War
Finished painting properly all the bases of those units assembled. Doing this means I can begin the final detailing and go over mistakes or any changes made.
The unit to the right of Fairfax's Foote in the photo below are dismounted dragoons. They can double up as firelocks if needed. A garage gaming group who uses VwQ rules deploys its dismounted dragoons to represent BOTH mounted and dismounted which I found an odd house rule. Perhaps they lacked both mounted and dismouted figures to properly simulate the various actions of a dragoon unit. Or they were simply streamlining the process. Who knows?
Just the remaining outstanding cavalry (mentioned in previous posts) left to complete; and unlikely to finish soon until I post a makeup order to the UK retailer.
Misplaced the artillery guns. Put them somewhere and now I can't find them.
Even though Skippon's regiment (facing Fairfax's Foote) are known and shown to have carried green standards with yellow discs, I've gone instead with an alternate version that uses red as the field colour. Reason? To better able - for me personally - to distinguish tabletop units by showing each unit with a distinctive colour. A little aid with identifying alongside the names.
Fairfax (above photo) rides the white/grey horse. I've simply employed personalities (described in a much earlier post) as representing the various wings of the New Model. And drafted in a spare Parliament general as a third wing commander as well as spare commander in case someone karks it in-game.
Just for a change I've gone with raw umber for the bases instead of the common grass green. I can add lighter colours - greens and beige - as seen on one of the wing commanders (test piece).
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6 October 2024
World of Warships
Sorely tempted to start my own WOWS clan. Already have the name for the tag should I proceed. But then the only benefit for me would be access to clan bonuses on resources like coal and steel. Oil is a commodity only ever useful for building clan base assets. Apart from that, there is no other benefit as I prefer to play casual and solo: competitive play is not my thing. Therefore I would be wasting 1,000 doubloons for nothing apart from a few minor benefits and ease the grind.
English Civil War
Warm day meant not able to do any painting in the new workshop because of the heat; ended up waiting until early evening. Chose Pilkington's Foote unit as it's the closest unit to completion. Started with the pikemen. Photo below is a before-and-after presentation.
Some layering and adding some detail - ribbons on socks. Needing wash and then flocking but this will be done last of all. For tomorrow it's the turn of the musketeers where I'll be correcting the awful looking trouser colours and adding buff coats for all of them. I have painted the Apostles on the shooting figures blue as was commonly understood. May vary the colouring with the musketeers from the other Foote units. Cheers.
Scourge of War: Gettysburg
Latest iteration was released last month and made available through Steam. Paid for it because I do love my American Civil War, and Gettysburg is one battle I would really love to play through from whoa to go! And keen to give it a try even though I think this is different from the usual download-and-play game.
Much like SoW Remastered (the Waterloo edition). Game is more a mod, so the developer stated in the Manual. Spent the few minutes familiarising myself with the tutorial before logging out. Game deserves full attention which I'm not prepared to give it right now.
Space Marines 2
So, jumped back into the fray after trying out SoW: Gettysburg. Tried first mission in solo Ops this time round. Previously I had played mission 3. Came close to successfully completing the mission, but no prizes as I got confused during gameplay while searching for an alternate power source from the deceased servitors. Found one in one circular space but got caught up fighting the hordes of minions and Thousand Sons marines (including the powerful Terminators) that I forgot to return to the station next level up. From whence I'd originally came. Best combination too in this failure - me, a Bulwark marine, and an Assault marine with my favourite close quarter combat weapon, the Storm hammer.
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