What a month....

The month of October is so frigging a mess.

So many things happened in the space of 4 weeks that some things are a bit hard to digest.
I'm looking forward to the end of October. Hopefully November clears some things up.

Life is a freaking roller-coaster ride. There were so many ups and downs, twists and turns.
Sometimes I am left questioning the meaning of life. Sometimes i am left questioning what's the whole bloody point.

Yet no one is to blame for how the things collide. No one can be blamed for how things turned out. Yet people felt hurt. People felt sadness. People cried.

I felt happiness. I felt sadness. I cried. I felt despondent. I felt uneasy. I felt flabbergasted.
I felt speechless. I felt disappointment. I felt despair. I felt hurt. I felt that there's really no point.
I felt that there's really no hope. I felt happy. I felt sad. I felt 'good riddance!'. I felt lost.
I felt worry. I felt at ease. I felt troubled. I felt shock.

In the very end, perhaps the answer was still...



42.

Civ 5 and others

4 games played on Civ 5.

1 game on easy and 3 on normal. What have I learnt? Cultural difficulty cannot be achieved through keeping ur empire small despite the original game design.

A small empire means a small income. A small income means only a small army can be maintained.

And with only a small army, the bigger fishes want to play rough as the incentive is there for them. They have bigger armies, bigger budget surpluses and more tech points per turn, meaning better types of troops.

Playing aggressively militarily makes life in Civ 5 so much easier.

On to other things.

I am not one who believes in the latest gadgets or expensive wallets as regular gifts. Once in a while, I don't mind, but not too often. The biggest gifts I can think of that I can give, is my heart, and a home to call our own. =P

Ode to Chariot

Speed is thy name,
Aggression is thy game.
Cold is the steel,
Lance that pierces through.

Without further ado...

I think Defu and YC wants to see my new list. So here it is :

Lvl 4 Supreme Sorceress (Shadow)
Dispel Scroll

DE Noble Heavy Armour / Shield / Sea Dragon Cloak / Lance / Cold One
DE Noble Heavy Armour / Shield / Sea Dragon Cloak / Lance / Cold One
De Noble Heavy Armour / Shield / Sea Dragon Cloak / Crimson Death / Dark Pegasus

(Cold One Noble is 1+ AS, 0+ against shooting. DP Noble is 2+ AS, 1+ against shooting)

12 Dark Elf Xbx with Musician (for free reform)
11 Dark Elf Xbx with Musician

5 Dark Riders with Xbx
5 Dark Riders with Xbx
5 Dark Riders with Xbx

5 Cold One Knights Full Command
5 Cold One Knights Full Command
3 Cold One Chariots

2 Hydras


I used to run Lord on Cold One, Death Star CoK, support CoK, 3 Dark Riders and 2 Hydras.
This list is a hark back to that list, but without the Lord and Death Star.

Each Noble is now leading his own CoK unit, providing the threat on 2 sides. Concentrated fire can destroy each CoK unit but it buys time for the other to come up.

The addition of 3 Chariots to the list now that the S7 auto-explode is gone adds so much more tactical flexibility to this list as compared to my old list. I used to run Hydra Banner for its +1 attack to my front rank, which is an extra 5 attacks on S6. Now I trade that for S5 impact hits.

So what if Hydra's breath weapon is a 1-shot only now? I never did use the Hydra for its breath weapon. It's still my combat goddess. 7 S5 Eternal Hatred attacks. It may only be I2 so I smell lots of Purple Suns headed its way.

One of the most interesting part of this list is the Dark Pegasus Noble. He can fulfil many roles and is considered an extra to my army list. If he dies, no big deal. But he provides a very real threat to various people, and this is taught to me by Defu.

Sunglasses anyone?

Another slew of battles

I played 2 games yesterday, 1 against Yanxian's Slann and 1 against Defu's HE.

For the first battle, it roughly went like this, Slann managed to pull DE lvl 4 Supreme Sorc down into the Dwellers Below and nullified DE magic. DE Cold One Knights and 1 Cold One Chariot could only kill the skink priest and some skinks on top of the Stegadon, but could not bring the beast down. Counter charges by the Slann infantry block killed off the left flank. The right flank, the Cold One Chariots and Cold One Knights managed to deal some heavy damage to the Slann infantry block but cold-blooded rules allowed the Slann infantry to stay the fight.

After the Slann Mage-Priest dominated magic, it was game over for the Dark Elf.

What have I learnt from this battle?

Spearelf Infantry Blocks are useless as anything threatening but extra power dice for a Supreme Sorceress with a Sacrifical Dagger. Not enough oomph in them to carry the day against S4T4 Slanns. Perhaps against Goblins or Empire with their equal T3.

Chariots do work. Most of the damage I dealt came from my Chariots and their impact hits that smashed into infantry blocks. Against any other poorer infantry blocks, they would have carried the day. I could have broken the right flank Slann Infantry too if I did not roll double 2s for a 3+ armour save for my Cold One Knights. Those 2 combat res meant that I could not carry the right flank too and could have made the battle closer than it ended. But such are the whims of the dice gods.

I cannot out-magic the Slann Mage-Priest. Not with so many extra abilities and items. Metal hasn't made its impact on the game as I had hoped it would. I won't go so far as condemning the lore itself to the dustheap though. I do believe that it has its uses, just not against someone who outmagicked me.

The 2nd game against Defu proved my original thesis.

CHARIOTS ROCKS. BIG TIME.

He brought 7 Chariots (2 White-lions and 5 Tiranoc) against my 3 Chariots and the results showed.

The game ended fast and the main action occured between the Chariots charging each side wildly. T5 Chariots taking S5 impact hits will also die. When the dust settled and my chariots were left lying crumbled, the infantry blocks were swiftly dealt with.

Book of Hoeth wasn't as much a big threat as those 7 Chariots running wild amongst T3 5+AS infantry blocks.

In the end, massive infantry blocks still wasn't my style. It's probably a call for me to return to my roots. The roots hammered into my playstyle by Daniel, the fast mobile army of multiple Dark Riders and Cold One Knights running wild.

A lvl 4 Supreme Sorceress is still necessary though as her +4 to dispel is necessary to counter an opponent's wizard. But I'm beginning to feel that against races that are better in the magicks than Dark Elf (or possibly just that Book and the oversized toad), I'm better off treating her as a scroll caddy and put my faith in good old steel.

But hey, if YC decides to bring his Skaven or Vampires into the field, she might become important again.

On a sidenote, my new list is out.

To be a better man

I need to be, I have to be.

Layton's EVIL grasp.

That's right, a big bold capital EVIL.

Courtesy of my friend's NDS that I'm helping to increase her collection of games, I've been using it myself to play a few games. The end result is that I'm still aching to buy a console to play with, especially during those long waits in Civ 5 that happens during the late-game. (Yes, it takes more than a min for the AI to play out its moves on those huge maps in the end-game. Too many units to direct I suppose?)

I entered the world of Prof Layton on a whim under heavy recommendation from CM. Truly, the game is good. But it does confirm something that I have subconsciously known. I suck with visual puzzles. Give me a worded puzzle or a logic puzzle anytime, but visual puzzles stump me.

I'm so bad with it that I had to resort to using walkthroughs to get through particular visual puzzles.

Now if Sakura Taisen releases games for the DS soon, I might consider getting a 2nd hand DS. Heh.