I recently gotten myself copies of Civ IV and its expansion pack Beyond the Sword. I played about three Civ IV games seriously, gave up on the first, the second one I muddle through on victory, and the third one, my French empire was going the way of the Western Roman empire as I was rich conquests but not rich enough to have garrisons everywhere.
Then I got BTS, and so far I been addicted to playing the Final Frontier space mod. Its a pretty interesting and good quality mod that also tells the story of how humanity got to this point. But what I find interesting is the concept that is always seems to be vogue in future history of a period of expansion and technological progress, quickly followed by rapid decline and collapse.
On the mechanics of Final Frontier, you actually feel like you're moving space ships around as oppose to army units in space. My one complaint is that the barbarian err, space pirates keep on ramping up in force till one turn today I was attacked by a space pirate first upgraded battleship. Which was a bit of a odd moment, but luckily my defenses held out.
The game takes a paper rock scissors approach which I think works, its a game where you really want to have balance forces. Already I see, there are mods seeking to build upon this mod to make more classic franchise games, and it shall be interesting to see how well they do that.
In other news despite rereading it several times, the Inspector-General is still hilarious play and it shows that Gogol knew what he was doing. Its a shame he went crazy and starved to death, but it appears that the line between genius creativity and madness is a very thin one indeed.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Anonymous does not forgive.
What I am referring too is not 4chan's Anon which of course never forgives nor forget, but I the debacle that is the PostiveMorris 2's comment section of its only post. What began as a ill thought out diatribes against city government, merged into diatribes against rednecks over a certain incident that supposedly occurred at a McDonald's parking lot.
Though I am bit surprised, that there is that many people who care about Morris politics to post on a blog about it. I do have suspicions that several of the anons are really the same guy posting in response to himself as is something that happens every so often on the internet. The thing that I find interesting is that there is so much anger over the issues and belief that public official A has to be a dirty rotten scoundrel as oppose to being well merely wrong, apparently the old quote about citing malice where stupidity could be the culprit has no place on that comment section.
Now to say that there isn't serious issues affect fair Morris, there is. New capital construction of a City Hall is always going to be a big issue regarding financing of it, then you have District 54 which from what I understand, isn't in the greatest of finical shape, then you have this current rigamarole with the police chief, and not to mention projects like the annexation agreement. In short, sleepy Morris has a lot of issues in front of it, and seeing that we are also entering into a campaign season, tempers are going to flare.
Meanwhile just because I like the picture, here is a pic of my new desktop.
Though I am bit surprised, that there is that many people who care about Morris politics to post on a blog about it. I do have suspicions that several of the anons are really the same guy posting in response to himself as is something that happens every so often on the internet. The thing that I find interesting is that there is so much anger over the issues and belief that public official A has to be a dirty rotten scoundrel as oppose to being well merely wrong, apparently the old quote about citing malice where stupidity could be the culprit has no place on that comment section.
Now to say that there isn't serious issues affect fair Morris, there is. New capital construction of a City Hall is always going to be a big issue regarding financing of it, then you have District 54 which from what I understand, isn't in the greatest of finical shape, then you have this current rigamarole with the police chief, and not to mention projects like the annexation agreement. In short, sleepy Morris has a lot of issues in front of it, and seeing that we are also entering into a campaign season, tempers are going to flare.
Meanwhile just because I like the picture, here is a pic of my new desktop.
Monday, October 8, 2007
A return of sorts
Well after a summer of constant real life events along with my discovery of the Super Robot Wars genre of games, I been considerably busy.
Now as the fall semster is about halfway, before I start writing yet another paper, I decided to announce that henceforth, if I can remember to do so, I shall be blogging again.
But as not to forgot one of the original reasons why I post this blog in the first place, here is a interesting picture that I haven't verified its accuracy yet.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Senate vote on immigration
Well its been two days since the Senate voted to kill the immigration bill. The entire lead up to the bill was something very interesting to watch in that we had a bill that most American didn't want, leading to a revolt of I believe 2/3s of the Republicans in the Senate to vote against it with some Democrats against the Democrats and Bush.
Out of this political egg on the face for those pro-bill side, came up another issues of the role of talk radio and complaints by at least one Senator that there was racism involved in regards to all the people calling up the Senators and complaining about the votes. All sorts of reasons are given why the American people got so upset about the bill, and none of them dealt with the fact that American people are getting tired of dealing with illegal immigrants and all the baggage that they rightly or wrongly believe that they carry with them as they enter the border.
But the true show on Thursday was Robert Byrd and his speech talking about how great he and all the old senators where. Or the battle in the House committee between the Chicago democrat whose name I can never spell off the top of my head and the Dick's Cheney's budget. The Republican response was something like "its dumb to do this, and we'll stick it to you down the line" given in a muttering paused filled low tone from the ranking member of that committee.
Forget the network reality shows, C-Span is where the fun stuff is :) though its prone to make you lose your faith in democracy from time to time, but thankfully we don't have any charismatic military leaders to cut the ever present knot of American politics.
Out of this political egg on the face for those pro-bill side, came up another issues of the role of talk radio and complaints by at least one Senator that there was racism involved in regards to all the people calling up the Senators and complaining about the votes. All sorts of reasons are given why the American people got so upset about the bill, and none of them dealt with the fact that American people are getting tired of dealing with illegal immigrants and all the baggage that they rightly or wrongly believe that they carry with them as they enter the border.
But the true show on Thursday was Robert Byrd and his speech talking about how great he and all the old senators where. Or the battle in the House committee between the Chicago democrat whose name I can never spell off the top of my head and the Dick's Cheney's budget. The Republican response was something like "its dumb to do this, and we'll stick it to you down the line" given in a muttering paused filled low tone from the ranking member of that committee.
Forget the network reality shows, C-Span is where the fun stuff is :) though its prone to make you lose your faith in democracy from time to time, but thankfully we don't have any charismatic military leaders to cut the ever present knot of American politics.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Ships of the Line: Amlizter
Well this won't have all the screenshots I have, but I am going to start with some at a time taken from the Battle of Amlizter.
Now Amlizter in Legend of the Galactic Heroes is probably the moment that marked the death knell of the Free Planets Alliance. It was a battle that was basically the Alliance giving Reinhard a victory due to their sheer stupidity on their part.
Some background for those who are new to LOGH storyline. After dealing with like 150 years of non-stop Imperial invasion after invasion while bleeding themselves dry on Iserlohn Fortress, the FPA gets lucky and captures the fort and thus gains the strategic momentum. At this point there is a decision to be made, to try and sue for peace (which while the story makes the pro-peace party to be pretty much good people and the pro-war party but of a warmongering militarists concern for their only power, considering the fact that the Empire never officially recognized the FPA considered them rebels and such was about as friendly to the idea of a democratic republic as bugs are friendly to insecticide peace probably wasn't an option) or take the fight to the Empire itself.
They (the High Council) decided to take the fight on the idea that their massive fleet would be able to overwhelm the Empire and destroy it and thus securing their power in the next election cycle (which they were in danger of losing)
So they launch with like 200,000 ships in I believe 8 fleets and randomly take systems that the Imperials give up without fighting for. The problem which becomes quite apparent is that somehow the Imperials took all the food from the 200 systems that FPA "liberated" and the FPA was tied down in feeding the people, while at the same time their strategic planner was a dunce and their supply lines were open to attack.
After suffering from lack of supplies, the Empire launches an counter-offensive against all the weaken FPA fleets and they retreat. Now you think that the FPA which has a vested interest in not wanting to see its fleets get destroyed would have them go back to their GIANT INVINCIBLE DEATHSTAR of a fortress, but they instead meet up at Amlitzer Starzone. Where they proceeded to get crushed except for the fleets lead by Admiral Bucock (who is the awesome old admiral) and of course the 13th Fleet lead by Yang Wengli.
The sad thing was that all the Alliance Admirals could see the plan for what it was, and it was due to the orders from the High Council who were more concerned about winning the election then winning the war that screwed them over and devastated the FPA fleet. Only two fleets came back home leaving three fleets to guard the FPA in the meantime. A while later, that number is reduced by a fleet during the abortive military coup that is put down by Yang. And thus when the Imperials come a knocking the FPA just simply doesn't have the numbers to fight off like a hundred thousand ships coming all at them.
But enough about this. Lets get to the screen shots!
The Hyperion which is like the only non-standard color flagship of the FPA fleet that I can see or remember off. Its Yang Wengli's flagship that he receives when he takes command of the 13th fleet. However, due interesting situation it becomes the flagship of the exiled Imperial admiral Merkatz in the later part of the series. Its a pretty sweet looking ship with decent firepower for a battleship.
The Barbarossa, Siegfried's Kircheis's ship. Sieg is the childhood friend of Reinhard and a brilliant tactician and admiral in his own right. While Reinhard is called the blond hair brat by his own side, they call his ever present shadow of Sieg the red hair one for the obvious reason he has very red hair.
I'll talk more about Sieg and Reinhard later. But I think its appropriate that he gets a red color sleek battleship which sort of follows (thought you can't see it well in this picture) the same under engine thing that the Brunhilde has.
Konigs Tiger this is the flagship of the Black Lancers, which under the command of the aggressive Admiral Bittenfield serves as like calvary or shock troops. They excel at charging recklessly into the enemy line and sowing confusion. However, they don't do to well when confronted by Yang and his group, but in the scenes where they are not fighting Yang, they are fearsome enemies. Bittenfield's main fault and virtue is that he when he commits to something he does it all the way damn hell or high water, which made him not like him at first, but as time goes on he grew on me.
His flagship looks like like an overgrown cruiser in terms of shape then most of the Imperial flagships tend to look like. Which makes sense since he is leading a fast offensive unit.
These are the FPA space fighters launched for air defense and attack. They are probably some of the most "realistic" space fighters that Sci-fi has put out. For one they have turrets instead of fixed guns mounts and thus are capable of shooting at pretty much any angle and thus running up a ship's hull and firing means that they don't have to oriented at the ship, but parallel.
Now Amlizter in Legend of the Galactic Heroes is probably the moment that marked the death knell of the Free Planets Alliance. It was a battle that was basically the Alliance giving Reinhard a victory due to their sheer stupidity on their part.
Some background for those who are new to LOGH storyline. After dealing with like 150 years of non-stop Imperial invasion after invasion while bleeding themselves dry on Iserlohn Fortress, the FPA gets lucky and captures the fort and thus gains the strategic momentum. At this point there is a decision to be made, to try and sue for peace (which while the story makes the pro-peace party to be pretty much good people and the pro-war party but of a warmongering militarists concern for their only power, considering the fact that the Empire never officially recognized the FPA considered them rebels and such was about as friendly to the idea of a democratic republic as bugs are friendly to insecticide peace probably wasn't an option) or take the fight to the Empire itself.
They (the High Council) decided to take the fight on the idea that their massive fleet would be able to overwhelm the Empire and destroy it and thus securing their power in the next election cycle (which they were in danger of losing)
So they launch with like 200,000 ships in I believe 8 fleets and randomly take systems that the Imperials give up without fighting for. The problem which becomes quite apparent is that somehow the Imperials took all the food from the 200 systems that FPA "liberated" and the FPA was tied down in feeding the people, while at the same time their strategic planner was a dunce and their supply lines were open to attack.
After suffering from lack of supplies, the Empire launches an counter-offensive against all the weaken FPA fleets and they retreat. Now you think that the FPA which has a vested interest in not wanting to see its fleets get destroyed would have them go back to their GIANT INVINCIBLE DEATHSTAR of a fortress, but they instead meet up at Amlitzer Starzone. Where they proceeded to get crushed except for the fleets lead by Admiral Bucock (who is the awesome old admiral) and of course the 13th Fleet lead by Yang Wengli.
The sad thing was that all the Alliance Admirals could see the plan for what it was, and it was due to the orders from the High Council who were more concerned about winning the election then winning the war that screwed them over and devastated the FPA fleet. Only two fleets came back home leaving three fleets to guard the FPA in the meantime. A while later, that number is reduced by a fleet during the abortive military coup that is put down by Yang. And thus when the Imperials come a knocking the FPA just simply doesn't have the numbers to fight off like a hundred thousand ships coming all at them.
But enough about this. Lets get to the screen shots!
The Hyperion which is like the only non-standard color flagship of the FPA fleet that I can see or remember off. Its Yang Wengli's flagship that he receives when he takes command of the 13th fleet. However, due interesting situation it becomes the flagship of the exiled Imperial admiral Merkatz in the later part of the series. Its a pretty sweet looking ship with decent firepower for a battleship.
The Barbarossa, Siegfried's Kircheis's ship. Sieg is the childhood friend of Reinhard and a brilliant tactician and admiral in his own right. While Reinhard is called the blond hair brat by his own side, they call his ever present shadow of Sieg the red hair one for the obvious reason he has very red hair.
I'll talk more about Sieg and Reinhard later. But I think its appropriate that he gets a red color sleek battleship which sort of follows (thought you can't see it well in this picture) the same under engine thing that the Brunhilde has.
Konigs Tiger this is the flagship of the Black Lancers, which under the command of the aggressive Admiral Bittenfield serves as like calvary or shock troops. They excel at charging recklessly into the enemy line and sowing confusion. However, they don't do to well when confronted by Yang and his group, but in the scenes where they are not fighting Yang, they are fearsome enemies. Bittenfield's main fault and virtue is that he when he commits to something he does it all the way damn hell or high water, which made him not like him at first, but as time goes on he grew on me.
His flagship looks like like an overgrown cruiser in terms of shape then most of the Imperial flagships tend to look like. Which makes sense since he is leading a fast offensive unit.
These are the FPA space fighters launched for air defense and attack. They are probably some of the most "realistic" space fighters that Sci-fi has put out. For one they have turrets instead of fixed guns mounts and thus are capable of shooting at pretty much any angle and thus running up a ship's hull and firing means that they don't have to oriented at the ship, but parallel.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Fortress Iserlohn!
Fortress Iserlohn firing its main cannon at some hapless Alliance fleet.
Fortress Iserlohn!
For those of you who have never seen Legend of the Galactic Heroes, this is the death star fortress that serves as a critical plot mcguffin to series as well as the inspiration for the name of my blog.
Some fun facts about this fort.
1. Its 60 kilometer sphere
2. Its has a liquid armor surface that weapons platforms can float on, and ships need to sink through to get into the interior of it
3. It has a city in it as well as a full fleet dock for at least 15,000 ships
4. It has tons of guns
5. It has a big cannon call "Thor's Hammer" which can wipe out a 1000 ships at time if it hits a fleet.
6. The interior part of it is decorate in Imperial Gaudy. The art style that afflicts the Empire, and at times seems more like a giant art museum gone wrong then an invincible space fortress.
7. It gets captured by Yang Wengli twice :p
8. It has a pretty nice park and civilian areas
9. Its located on the Iserlohn Corridor and serves as the choke point on that route, thus whoever controls the fort for the most part of the war was the power that launched offensives.
10. It was built as a symbol of imperial rule, yet ironically it becomes one of the most hallowed sites of the forces of democracy and republicanism for that universe as the series progresses.
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