Different Experience Tables

After dinner with a friend's parents, we returned to my place and pulled Iron Dragon off the shelf. It's basically Empire Builder with a fantasy coat of paint. Two of us had played it a couple times, the third was new to the game.

The game is a newbie trap waiting to happen. At the start, everyone has 60 GP to build with, and spends it over three turns before any train movement happens. You need to pay attention to your delivery cards to be sure you have connected cities that will allow you to make deliveries, earning more gold to continue building. Every game, someone overreaches and ends up behind. Our first time player seemed to have the idea of things, but it was after the building was done and movement had started that he revealed his plan was to ride another player's rails- at a cost of 4 GP a turn, which he didn't have. He spent 2-3 turns discarding until he came up with deliveries he could do. He did manage to recover, but not enough to catch up.

I pursued an underground strategy, linking it with the north, then the central area, and finally the west. I gambled on a long ship voyage which paid off, and gave me a chance to pick up some dragons, which I carried around most of the game. I fell behind the other player, who linked up the 7 required cities and started earning money. I was saved by a lucky draw- a 69 GP request for dragons that was pretty close to where I was. That covered the spread between me and the leader, and I was closer to my final destination than he was. It looked bad for a while though, as his stack of 50 GP bank notes continued to grow.

Tomorrow, I'll cook a turkey as we play Battletech- digging out Sword and Dragon for the first time in two years after the abortive start we gave the campaign. And Risk Legacy is on the truck, so we should get to give that a try next weekend.

Set aside D&D this Saturday to give Axis & Allies: Europe 1940 a try. I'll had the Pacific 1940 game for a while now, and since the latest version of the Global rules are up, we could have tried that (if we found enough table space...) but we decided to try it with the Out of the Box rules first.

I did have to brave the 6-12 inches of snow that had piled up (plowing happened some time after I arrived), but the promise of chili and A&A was enough to lure me out of the house. Military Channel was on when I arrived, setting the mood.

We did a random draw for sides, placing one player as Russia/France (with the idea that he'd have something to do while Russia waited to enter the war), the second as USA/UK, and I drew Germany/Italy. Probably fair, as I'd spent the most time reading up on the game and had time to think up strategies.

My first turn went great. I invaded Yugoslavia, weakening the defenders for Italy to mop up. I destroyed Britain's fleet, losing all but 1 sub, but keeping my air force intact. Normandy fell easily. I had transports in production to threaten a Sea Lion, hopefully pulling British attenion away from the Mediterranean. Then... my dice started sucking, and would continue throughout the day. Southern France was an attack of greed, and limited on what I could send. The tank and mech infantry scored no hits and were wiped out by the two defenders. Then France itself resisted my attack- don't think I hit a single unit in the first round of combat. I bled them down, but could not take the territory.

British forces in France were then able to seize Normandy. His fighters destroyed my cruiser and battleship, protecting his home island, but leaving France twisting in the wind. Italy was supposed to take France, but also failed. This meant a lone French fighter was still alive and able to destroy my undefended transports and land safely in the UK.

I don't think I ever found my footing after that. The next round, I savagely conquered the French territories and rebuilt the transports. But, the moment was lost. In round 3, I used the transports in my attack on Russia, unwilling to allow them to reinforce for another round. My initial attack was successful against all the border territories, left lightly defended. But, my charade in the water and my delays with France, along with some poor choices in positioning, had left my units out of position to easily follow up. Russia turned into a seesaw, each turn I'd take territory, and each turn he'd take it back. I ran into trouble when he pushed in Finland and Norway, which I couldn't reinforce.

Turn 5 saw the US arriving in Europe, taking Normandy and Holland.

Italy was having great success. The defenders of Egypt had smashed themselves against the incoming Italians and lost everything. UK pretty much ceded Africa to the Italians after turn three. But, there was just too much to cover all at once. I also needed them to defend France. One more turn of build up, and I think they would have been producing enough to secure Fortress Europe (they had the third highest income, switching off some with Russia, trailing Germany, and far behind the US), and there wasn't much the allies could do to stop them in Africa.

I surrendered after Russia's turn in round 6. If I could have held onto my gains that round, the Italian garrisons could have helped secure Germany, giving me a chance to turn back the US invasion. Well, maybe- the US might have been able to drop troops into a lightly defended, Germany.

Despite some bad moves, and some very bad dice, I had a lot of fun. We'll play again in three weeks- if we can get our fourth player in, we'll try the global rules, else we'll slide positions, US/UK taking Germany and me moving into Russia.

Having enjoyed The Magicians and The Magician King, I decided to give Lev Grossman's earlier novel, Codex, a try. It starts off a little odd and I was reluctant to read. Then on page 30, a character is playing Adventure, from the Atari 2600.

Never owned it, but played a friend's copy, and loved it. My interest in Codex has increased considerably.

In the various things I've been doing that didn't include updating this LJ, I've been reading a lot. And despite coming away from Borders' closing with around a dozen books (including Smallville, despite never having watched the show and being doubtful I'll ever actually use it, it was staring at me on every visit, and at 80% off, that fell into my impulse buy category), I've been doing most of my reading from the library.

I've been following John Scalzi on twitter for a while, and occasionally check out his blog. I ended up reading "You're not fooling anyone when you take your laptop to the coffee shop" because the title was interesting. He mentioned his Old Man's War several times in it, so I decided to check it out- although my tastes usually go fantasy and urban fantasy. And it was good. Really good. I sped through it, devoured Ghost Brigade, and now have The Last Colony out from the library. Once I finish those out, I may have to look at what else he wrote (not always a guarantee I'll like it- I love Glen Cook's Black Company but haven't been able to finish any of this other books I've tried).

I'm also reading Lev Grossman's The Magicians, which I think I saw a side mention of on RPG.net. I read his brother's Soon I Will Be Invincible and thought it was mostly good. Having little idea of what I was getting into, I started reading and got swept up in it. 17 year old American gets invited to a magical academy, something like a mature Harry Potter with a Narnia series in the background. And he's written a sequel I'll be able to pick up once I finish this.

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As background, my brother works for Microsoft.

Among the presents my niece opens, she rips the wrapping from one small present. "What is it? IT'S AN IPOD!!!"
"No, it's  a Zune," corrects my brother.
"Oh." And the joy flees her face.

It became a better present after a few moments when it sunk in that the zune would do basically what the ipod would.

Not quite 2am Christmas morning- local time, eastern, as I'm at my brother and sister-in-law's in Florida. It's a little odd not being in South Dakota- up until last year, every Christmas since I was 10 was celebrated in SD. Now, rather than being in my own bed, I'm on a fold out couch, tree to the left of me, stockings to the right.

I'm not sure what Christmas is to me. My stocking isn't here- this is Christmas part 1 for me, with some additional gifts and stocking stuffers back at my parents' house- don't really need to pack it all up, fly it down to FL, then back up to SD. The tree... some of the ornaments I recognize, stuff my mom gave to my brother. Others are new and different (I'm pretty sure we never had a Dora the Explorer hanging off a branch)

I hadn't realized how much interest I'd lost in Christmas cookies. Traditionally, we'd make sugar cookies, cutting out various Christmas icons from rolled dough, then painting over them with water so various sprinkles would stick. The cookies were okay, never great, but the dough was the most delicious stuff ever. As cookies were pressed out, me and my brothers would grab scraps to eat up. We made cookies here, and I helped with the rolling and the cutting (not the decorating- not enough interest combined with my SiL not having mom's assortment of sprinkles). I was not tempted by the dough. I did have a little nibble, okayed by my Mom after I pointed out I hadn't been snatching bits through the process, and it just didn't taste that good. SiL was using Mom's recipe, so I don't know what it was, but I didn't have a desire for more.

There is getting to see Christmas morning through the eyes of a 7 year old, but that's dimmed by dealing with the 7 year old for the last week. She's not a bad kid, and my bro and SiL are doing a great job of raising her, but there's the little things that keep popping up, the food pickiness, the attitude, trying to negotiate when told to do something... I wonder how far I went/could go with that when I was that age (I'm pretty sure the eye-roll she's picked up would not have survived a first encounter with my dad); I wonder how much is because she thinks she can get away with more around Grandma and Grandpa and the uncles; I wonder if maybe my patience gets frayed because I don't have kids. 95% of the time, she's a great kid, but that remainder...

I also think of my ex-wife, spending Christmas together because we couldn't coordinate with the trips to Florida my parents were taking. Two years ago, I was waiting for mail to cool down before I started sending the first of the divorce stuff. I still chat with her, and we've exchanged good wishes for the holiday, but I can't help but remember when.

But, maybe I'm giving the impression that things are worse than they are. Although my sleeping quarters don't allow the amount of rest I'd like on a vacation, I have been getting some great food. With my hand-me-down laptop, I've hit up GOG.com for some classic games to keep me occupied. The tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve has added Looking for Calvin and Hobbes to my shelf. I even had some ideas come together for a new Jane Monologue, probably to be posted in the next few days, so i feel productive. And I've got some good feelings about some possibilities, and maybe next year I'll be with someone.

Before I turned out the lights, I sat down in front of the tree and looked at the gifts (look, not touch- touch a present lose a present). Most of them aren't for me, but I've found as I got older, it's seeing the presents on Christmas morning, piled up, stockings overflowing, the tree lit up, that I love to see most. No "bah humbug" for me. So, in 5 hours, I'll be waking up, and while I may insist on a shower beforehand instead of rushing people to the tree, I'll be there with my family and soak in the beauty and the joy.