A Long Awaited Update

So, for anyone who still visits here, I know there hasn't been much activity lately. I was unable to get guest bloggers as I'd hoped, and I let my posts slip to the wayside because of my increasing urgency to find work. I've been hunting for jobs up and down with little luck so far, and that seemed like a bigger priority. I'm declaring post 4 of the Tale of Five Empires series to be the last of that story, as it ends the reign of Emperor Svend, the main character up until now. It was fun and I'm glad quite a few people (over 1,000 per post!) enjoyed my storytelling. Someday I may continue with the epic Old Gods tale I promised, but I have other things on my plate right now.

Thank you to everyone who has visited this blog over the past few months. I hope you all found something you enjoyed. I'm not quitting yet, as I plan to make updates every now and again if I can, but they will be on a much less frequent basis. So keep me in your bookmarks and feeds, check every month or so, and maybe I'll have something you enjoy. Thanks for reading this summer, and if you're new, I encourage you to take a moment and look through what I've posted before.

Until next time,
-Arcthos

Failure can be Fun

So the great Steam Summer Sale has come and gone for this year, with its slew of discounts and marketable trading cards. I bought a couple of things I'd had my eye on for a while, but one of my best purchases was a new game one of my friends recommended to me. It's called Rogue Legacy, and the basic idea is that you are playing a dynasty of adventurers trying to uncover the secrets of this one castle. Your character can actually die on their adventure, but that's where your offspring come in. Every time you die you get a choice from one of three possible children to avenge you. The only catch is their class is randomly chosen and they may come with a few...interesting genetic traits. For example, I was recently Lady Henrietta III, a gay paladin with ADHD (which makes you move really fast). You can also be colorblind or near-sighted, among many other traits.

The fun doesn't stop there, however. The castle itself is randomly generated each time a new adventurer enters it, which means your descendants won't be able to rely on your prior knowledge of the castle's layout. And speaking of entering, be prepared to give your friendly local gatekeeper Charon all of the gold you currently have as a toll. He never charges more or less; the price is always however much happens to be on your person at the time. Because of this it's best to spend as much as possible of your hard-earned wealth on equipment, runes, and improvements to your family's ancestral manor, which is how you raise stats and unlock new classes. Every time you buy an improvement in a new area, it unlocks more of the manor with further upgrades. Tip: Health and Carry Weight are pretty important. Some of the items weigh a surprising amount.

All in all, a very solid, challenging game that's already provided me with several hours of entertainment. I defeated the first boss at about 3.5 hours of gameplay in a fight that cost me eight generations of champions, giving a very rewarding feeling when he at last succumbed to Sir Harold, a giant shinobi. Point of frustration: Dying several times without getting enough gold to buy anything. Usually this works itself out after a few heroes, but it really made me hate Charon's toll even more. On a scale of ten, I give Rogue Legacy a 9 for taking a simple concept and convincing me to come back for more. Check it out on Steam if you haven't already.

-Arcthos

News Update 7/19/13

Hey everyone, I'm back! When I got back from vacation I had some computer issues and wasn't able to prepare much in the way of posts. I think I've found a reliable workaround for now, at least until I build a new desktop PC. Here's a look at what you can likely expect over the next few weeks:

Completion of the Tale of Five Empire series
Various game reviews/anticipated upcoming titles
Possible news of an Indiegogo/Kickstarter Project I may be starting soon
Any other topics I find interesting

I will also be posting my desktop build here once it's finished, for all of you hardware enthusiasts out there. Thank you to all of my readers, however many or few, who are staying with me. I am thinking of looking for guest posters to fill in from time to time, especially in case I run into an issue like this again.

-Arcthos

A Tale of Five Empires, Part 4

The Old Man of Europe

Advanced age has finally set in for Emperor Svend the Great, once known as the Boy Sovereign when he took the throne at the age of 6. He aches, creaks, and groans, but is determined to remain strong in the eyes of his loyal vassals. He did not lead Europe through one of its periods of greatest turmoil only to quietly recede into the distance now. As a positive sign of things to come, the wound Svend received while fighting rebels after the ill-fated Syrian jihad has begun to heal, leaving behind a scar to mark his valiant efforts.

News Update 6/20/13

This is just a quick update, mostly for those who are following the Tale of Five Empires series. I plan to post part 4 either tomorrow or over the weekend. It's taking a little longer than I anticipated (I was busier than usual this past week), but I should be able to make that deadline. There will be a part 5 due to having a lot of content I want to write about (such as the Pope declaring a Crusade). I would say that will be the last part, but every time I've said that so far I've been proven wrong, so if you're having fun just sit back and enjoy the show for as long as it keeps going.

Also, the Norse faith has officially been confirmed for my next playthrough. Blood for the All-Father!

-Arcthos

The Wizard of Kraj

Once again, I think I'm far wittier than I actually am when making titles for these posts. And depending on your pronunciation of Kraj, the pun might not even present itself clearly. But enough of that. I came here today to write of another Magic EDH deck that I recently made. This one, as you might expect, involves Experiment Kraj, but its concept began when I looked at two different cards: Vorel of the Hull Clade and Djinn of Wishes. Vorel I already had, but the Djinn I came across online. The combo potential was immediately obvious, and I wondered what other sorts of unique counters I could manipulate to staggering amounts for otherwise unobtainable effects. I didn't open a lot of Simic cards from the latest block, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I've always wanted to use Kraj in EDH, and so in place of multi-colored cards I mixed in blue wizards and green shamans and druids, or just cards with abilities that I felt had a Simic flavor, which of course can then be stacked on Kraj. Equip a pair of Illusionist's Bracers for extra fun.

News Update 6/17/13

Hey everyone, just dropping in to say hello and give an update. First of all, you'll see the site has a new banner. This is an upgraded version of the one I've had up for the past week. Due to my own lack of skill in the ways of artistry ( I can make even simple clip art into a Lovecraftian horror), I commissioned a friend to design the banner and simple logo. I think she did a great job, and hopefully all of you like it too. Or at the very least it doesn't make your eyes bleed. Hopefully. I can only handle so many insurance claims.

Second, I attended a wedding this weekend and just returned home today, which is why you haven't seen much from me lately. I'll also be leaving again this Thursday for a more lengthy trip. My current plan is to finish up my Tale of Five Empires series by Wednesday, and likely put out another post (subject yet to be decided) by tomorrow. Once I leave on Thursday, I should have access to an internet connection and my laptop the majority of the time, but there will be a period of about 5-6 days starting around July 3rd where I will have no internet access at all. Hopefully during that time I'll still be able to gather material to write 2-3 posts that I can put up when I get back, but we'll see how it goes.

-Arcthos

A Tale of Five Empires, Part 3

I would first like to say thank you to everyone who has waited patiently for the third installment. This one will be shorter (in span of years, anyway) than the other two, but I wanted to highlight my war with the Timurids and the immediate aftereffects. As a result, this series will continue on to a fourth part, where I wrap up the final thirty years (assuming nothing EXTREMELY huge happens).

The Great Syrian Jihad

A Journey of a Thousand Miles...

So as I was checking the Steam store the other night, I noticed a new casual indie game had been published. Having had a lot of good experiences with indie games throughout the past two years, I decided to check out its page. The game is called 7 Grand Steps, and I was immediately intrigued by its unique atmosphere. After watching the trailer and reading through the description, my interest only grew, and for $13.49 (normally $15, but it was on sale for 10% off) I decided it was worth looking into more.

The game is set up in the style of a board game. The board is circular, and you only ever see a quarter of it at a time. You control up to two pawns at a time, a husband and wife that you can spend tokens to move around. Each token has a symbol on it and moves the chosen pawn to the next available tile with that symbol when you put it in the slot below the pawn's picture. If you ever need more tokens, you can take the ingot located at the top of the sidebar and place it in either of your pawns' slots. Depending on their skills, they will have a higher or lower chance to make a given token. And it's important to keep a healthy stock of tokens, as at the other end of the board wait four hungry crocodiles determined to put a quick end to your family's history. Every time you complete a turn (when all of your pawns have used up their action), the entire board rotates, usually by one tile, though  I've seen it do two or three towards the end of a "round", bringing you closer to their snapping jaws of death.

A Tale of Five Empires, Part 2

Wow! I've had quite a few good responses from my last post, and judging by the number of views it was fairly popular. As such, I'm going to continue on with finishing the Tale of Five Empires series (shouldn't be more than three parts in total) before moving on to my next installment. Thank you to everyone who has voted in the Choose a Faith poll, and for those who haven't, it will be left up for another day. And now, for our feature presentation...

Peasants, Revolts, and Adventurers:

A Tale of Five Empires

I bring to you today one of the final chapters of the tale of House Estrid (formerly House Ylving), who start in 1066 as the rulers of Denmark. This is actually the first game I started of Crusader Kings II, before all of the expansions (except Sword of Islam) and patches. I've started a few others, but I always come back to this one, and thankfully the save has had enough integrity not to explode after each major update. This being my first game, I didn't really know what I was doing initially, which led to some interesting situations (such as having a Danish Catholic rule the Byzantine Empire for about 5 minutes before it turned on him). Since I've only recently developed an interest in doing AARs, I don't have any screenshots chronicling the previous 300+ years of history, so instead I'll give a very brief background and then show a few of the recent highlights.

Brief History:

The noble House of Estrid starts in 1066 with King Svend II of Denmark (quickly known as "the Old") and his many illegitimate children. However, the old king manages to have a single trueborn son before his death, young Prince Wulfgar. Due to the elective succession rules in the kingdom at the time, one of Svend's older bastard sons takes the throne, but he turns out to be little more than a regent for the youngest of King Svend's sons, for he dies shortly after Wulgar comes of age. The nobles wisely decide that only Wulfgar can be the true king of Denmark, and since that day a bastard has never again sat on the throne.

Over 150 years later, in 1237 A.D., King Aleksander II, a man all agree is an attractive genius, hands a bag of gold to a shadowy man outside his door before going to grieve over his mother, the recently deceased Empress of Byzantium. As his mother's firstborn son (and thanks to the fact that Born in the Purple wasn't a trait yet), he inherits the ERE as well as Constantinople itself, a place of power that would only grow into a more potent symbol under the control of House Estrid over the next century. First, however, the Greek lords must be convinced that Basileus Aleksander I "the Wise" is a worthy master, something that over half of them don't agree with and make very apparent with a dozen rebellions erupting all over the empire. Some territory is kept, but much is lost, and the success of the rebels pushes crown authority to an absolute minimum. The Danish usurpers will have their work cut out for them, but true to their Nordic roots they are a hardy, resilient people, and Aleksander is already planning the course for his future descendants to not only retake the ERE, but obtain some other prizes in Europe as well...

Herald of the Machine Age

So, due to the relative popularity of the first deck I posted, I have another, this time for all of you artifact fans out there. Artifacts are one of my favorite card types; their mostly colorless nature means they can be included in just about any deck, whether it be for combos or just fun effects, and I've always had a bit of a soft spot for automatons. So, therefore, the only natural thing for me to do was construct an entire EDH deck based around them. Blue is a color that lends itself easily to this task, but a friend of mine who heard about my plans gave me a Bosh, Iron Golem for free, and I just felt it wouldn't be right not to include him. So, faced with the need for a deck with a blue/red color identity, I turned to the only Dragon Wizard (and only red/blue legendary in my possession at the time) that I knew would be up to the task: Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind. After all, who else would be better suited to lead a mad machine army in the pursuit of science? And so, without further ado, here is the deck list for Niv-Mizzet's Mecha Marvels:

Longships on the Horizon

            As many of you may know, the Old Gods was released for Crusader Kings II yesterday. As an avid fan of CKII, myself and many others have been anticipating this DLC for a while now. A much needed technology system overhaul? I can go raiding and sacrifice people for piety? Sign me up! I’ve been especially eager because it promises a chance to explore some of my own Scandinavian heritage, albeit in one of the alternate histories that arise on any given playthrough. That being said, I haven’t bought it yet and was actually wondering what everyone’s impressions of the new Pagan system are. No matter how excited I am for new features, I never like to make a purchase until I hear some reviews. So tell me: What do you like most about the Old Gods? What do you think Paradox could have done better, if anything? Worth the price to buy now, or should I wait for the inevitable and ever-anticipated Steam sale?

            I’ve been thinking of doing a Crusader Kings AAR, so if I do decide to pick up the DLC, I’ll leave a poll on the main page where you can vote and tell me if you’d like to see one involving a Pagan playthrough or one based in Westeros with the Song of Ice and Fire mod (once it updates for the latest patch). The ASOIAF mod is my favorite (and admittedly only) mod for CKII, and I would be more than happy to share the tale of another adventure in the Sunset Kingdoms or, once the developers add it, Essos. As always, comment below and thanks for reading!

-Arcthos

Madness, You Say?

For this blog's inaugural post, I am going to talk about a subject that has grown on me throughout my years in college: Magic: The Gathering. I was introduced to this game during my sophmore year of college and have been playing ever since. I should follow this statement with a disclaimer; I am no tournament player. I much prefer casual play amongst my friends where cards from many different Magic sets can combine in unique, fun, and sometimes, as I will demonstrate later in this post, ridiculous ways. I am a big fan of EDH, or Commander, since it allows many cards that don't normally see a lot of play their chance to shine, and have created four of my own decks following this format, with a fifth in the works. My latest creation, featuring Melek, Izzet Paragon as its illustrious commander, is the focus of the rest of this post.

While hitting random on the Gatherer website one night (a wonderful way to find interesting cards), I came across a card from the original Ravnica set called Eye of the Storm. For those who aren’t familiar with the blue enchantment, the exact wording of the card is as follows: “Whenever a player plays an instant or sorcery card, remove it from the game. Then that player copies each instant or sorcery card removed from the game with Eye of the Storm. For each copy, the player may play the copy without paying its mana cost”. I had also recently picked up a card called Hive Mind, another blue enchantment that says, “Whenever a player casts an instant or sorcery spell, each other player copies that spell. Each of those players may choose new targets for his or her copy”. Since the Izzet are one of my favorite guilds from Ravnica, I immediately began thinking of a spell-focused blue/red deck where my objective wasn’t necessarily to win, but to give everyone the opportunity to “have fun”. Upon doing an advanced search for cards containing spell randomizing effects, I finally ended up with the following build for my “Chaos Deck”: