Monday, June 24, 2013

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.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

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

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

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.

Monday, June 17, 2013

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

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

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

Monday, June 10, 2013

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.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

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:

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

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...

Sunday, June 2, 2013

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: