Bay 12 Games Forum

Due to a fine motor skill deficiency (nothing big, I'm happy to report- my handwriting's not that pretty and I'm a klutz but that's about it), I've been writing my school assignments on some variety of electronic device since sixth grade at the age of nine. At first it was an Alphasmart, which was sort of a mini-laptop that could only do word processing and had an amazingly shitty screen. In ninth grade I updated to a really old laptop which took ten minutes to boot, so it was quickly replaced by a netbook. The netbook did what it needed to do- writing my papers and playing some not very computer-intensive games- pretty well. I had two of the same model (man, I was hard on my gadgets) before my parents got me a $450 Toshiba PSC08U-06P038 model, which is what I'm typing this on.

It's been a faithful laptop, surviving one time where the hinges got shot to hell (my fault- I take better care of it now). In the past few weeks, though, it's started to decay. In September, for example, it could play Dwarf Fortress fine. Now FPS is extremely jumpy, and the game's unplayable. iTunes takes a while to find songs. Chrome crashes every couple of hours. Luckily I don't have any word processing that I need to do, since I'm not at school and don't have a job, but it's starting to get kind of obnoxious. My estimate is that it might last another few months before finally succumbing to something.

Luckily, fate has provided. As I believe I've mentioned, in just over a week I'm flying to Brazil to spend the rest of an aborted gap year, and I'll not be taking my laptop with me. Firstly, it'll get in the way of my social life (or could), my family will have a computer I can use, and- this was the condition I set out to my mother when she suggested this- I'll be getting an external before I go so I can save all my games, anime and music.

When I come back, I'll be starting college at the University of Oklahoma. In a successful bid to attract National Merit Scholars, OU has provided them with a very generous scholarship package, and I will therefore be one of over six hundred. Among the many, many benefits of this scholarship package is a $1500 laptop allowance.

So, basically, this laptop is dying, but at just the right time since I'll be kissing goodbye to it this week. This means that I need to start looking at laptops. Since the allowance is just for laptops, there's no point in spending a penny less than $1500. On the other hand, I can only subsidize something slightly better up to the tune of, let's say, an extra $250. So whatever I buy should be at or above $1500 and certainly less than $1750.

What do I need? Well, any laptop worth its salt will be able to write my papers, so as long as I can install OpenOffice on it. Otherwise:

-I am a gamer, but I am not a graphics snob. I'm unlikely to be playing anything more advanced than 2008-2009, so the card should play games that came out then. A good graphics card is of course useful, but it can get away with being one or two notches below top-of-the-line.
-On the other hand, a good processor is paramount. Mostly for Dwarf Fortress, although a good processor pays off all sorts of places.
-It needs to have a relatively spacious hard drive. My current is 285 gigs big, but my new laptop should have AT MINIMUM five hundred gigs available and ideally a terabyte. I can't see myself using more than one terabyte, but it's always good to have.
-It must have a numpad for gaming.
-It doesn't need to be made of steel, because I've learned a thing or two about taking care of laptops (carry it in a sleeve!), but it shouldn't fall apart at the drop of a hat because Accidents Happen.
-It should not be butt-ugly (but doesn't need to look any better than average either), it can get away with being a little bit heavy but can't be a brick, and it needs to be fairly long-lived.

So I'm looking for suggestions. I have no brand loyalties. My Toshiba has served me well, but one of my meatspace friends who is more informed in these matters than I warns me that Toshibas generally have lifespan problems. I'm open to anything, really (though this is an all-purpose laptop, and I don't want a laptop that is Just for Gamers).

EDIT: Another, smaller question: the processor on this laptop is a Pentium Dual-Core CPU T4500. How much better would a 3rd generation Intel i7 be?

It has, to make an understatement, come to my attention that I am in large part responsible, or originally responsible, for what will I have no doubt be come to be known as the Great Shipping Disaster of 2012. Although I wasn't responsible for sending it out en masse or describing it in-thread, I am certainly responsible for exceedingly poor judgement in choosing whom to ship, and, furthermore, for standing by as it unfolded when it was probably early enough to fix. I apologize to GlyphGryph, Janet, RedKing, Toady One, and whomever else was squicked out by it.

I briefly considered gracefully leaving the board, but upon reflection, I decided an apology would be better suited. Should the justice of the Toad come upon me and choose to evict me with the banhammer, however, I shall not complain.

FALL 1902 ORDERS DUE 3:30 PM GST, DECEMBER 6TH

It would seem that if you just click reply to my reminders to everyone to send your orders in, everyone can see them. Fix this by sending a separate private message to me containing your orders. I believe that fixes it.

Current map:


I've been itching to get a game of Diplomacy started here for a while. We'll want seven players, including me, I suppose, since we can have an electronic game-master. Who'd be up for it?

I will assign countries randomly.

EDIT: Alright, we've got players! It looks like I'm going to have to be the GM, here, and therefore not play. That's fine; if this goes well then we can always play another game with another one of us as game-masters.

1. GreatWyrmGold
2. javierpwn
3. mcclay
4. misko27
5. Gamerlord
6. scapheap
7. Reelya

Here's how I'm going to have it set up, if y'all don't mind. Here are the turns in each year:

1. Spring orders; you will all have 36 hours to send these in.
2. Spring retreats; 18 hours.
3. Fall orders; another 36 hours.
4. Fall retreats and builds; 18 hours.

If that doesn't sound like enough time, let me know and I'll beef it up to 48-24-48-24. Please note that as soon as I have everyone's orders for each step I will send out a private message and the clock will reset, so although I will allow up to 36 hours, if everyone finishes their diplomatizing and sends in their orders within 12 hours, I will send out a PM saying "thank you, please send in your retreats in [18 hours from now]." I will then post a map with the results, plus a list of orders, on this topic.

As the GM, I would like to note that I'm really just a secretary. Any means, fair or foul, other than hacking another player's account (you know, don't awaken the mighty Toad), are valid. The ability to form temporary alliances to a common end is essential. So is backstabbing your partner when they have outlived their usefulness. We have a saying in this game: there are two bywords for losing. The first is complete honesty, and the second is complete dishonesty. And believe me, it is hilarious when (as has happened to me) a complicated plot stretching across half the board and centered on Turkey's taking Rumania falls into chaos because Germany decided to be a backstabbing twat and cut Austrian support from Galicia. (I was Germany. Two years later, I'd lost all my home bases and was reduced to a puppet state in Warsaw and Moscow. It was hilarious, but it doesn't always pay off- although in this case, it had more to do with British expansion than anything else.)

Because most of y'all are new, I'll go into more detail on orders. Firstly, ORDERS NEED TO BE UNAMBIGUOUS. Because of this, and because there are greenhorns here, I am going to say that players are not allowed to use abbreviations. Seasoned veterans can and usually do write orders like F EDI -> NTH, and are good enough that they know they're sending their fleet in Edinburgh to the North Sea, but the problem with abbreviations is that, well, sometimes people mix them up, and if I got an absurdity like F NOR -> NOR I will just ignore it; I'm not going to play the clairvoyant and move your fleet in Norway to the North Sea. Therefore, PLEASE WRITE YOUR ORDERS OUT MORE OR LESS IN FULL. What I want is something like:

A Edinburgh TO North Sea
F Kiel SUPPORTS [F North Sea TO Holland] (strictly speaking the brackets are not needed, but they're good book-keeping).

There are a couple quirks that need to be understood about orders and supports. Firstly, there are three coastal provinces on the map that have split coasts: Spain, St. Petersburg and Bulgaria. Spain and St. Petersburg have a south and a north coast; Bulgaria has a south and an east coast. Basically, these arise when the coastline is not entirely contiguous. When moving into them with a fleet (and with a fleet only- armies don't care), please- for good book-keeping- specify which coast you're moving them into, like so: F Portugal TO Spain [sc]: move my fleet in Portugal to the south coast of Spain. If you write F Portugal TO Spain, I won't know which coast you mean, and make you hold in Portugal.

Now, onto supports. You need a numerical advantage to take a province, so first let me explain bounces. If one unit opposes one unit, they will bounce. For example, if you had an army in Prussia that you tried to move to Warsaw, and there was a Russian army holding in Warsaw, they will just both hold, because neither has the advantage. This is also true when two units try to move into the same province. Let's say Galicia is unoccupied; Russia orders A Warsaw TO Galicia and Austria orders A Budapest TO Galicia. Because neither can get into the province without being bothered, and the province can only hold one unit at a time, they will hold in Budapest and Warsaw, and Galicia will remain unoccupied. You can only support movement into an adjacent province.

So how do you take a province? Through support. Any unit can support any attack on an adjacent province to it. For example, if Germany had an army in Prussia and one in Silesia, it could move A Prussia TO Warsaw and A Silesia SUPPORTS [A Prussia TO Warsaw]; then the forces are 2 vs. 1. Prussia will successfully move to Warsaw, and the army in Warsaw will be dislodged. It will have to move to an adjacent unoccupied province that it could have moved into at the start of the turn- so not the newly unoccupied Prussia, and also, by the way, not any province that is vacant but only because of a standoff. However, if Warsaw were supported to hold from A Moscow, then it would be 2 vs. 2, and everyone would hold.

There's also the matter of cutting support. Let's say Russia had an alliance with Austria, and Austria had an army in Galicia. Russia is going to lose Warsaw from Prussia and Silesia, but Austria moves A Galicia TO Silesia. It doesn't actually matter if Silesia is the army supporting or attacking. In either case, in the course of defending itself, it can no longer support or attack; then it's simply a matter of 1 vs. 1 on Warsaw; everyone holds. This can lead to some fun domino situations where half the map is tied up in a convoluted plot for someone to take just one province, which then fall apart hilariously when someone decides to be a backstabbing twat and cut one piece of vital support. (I did that once when playing Germany...two years later, I was reduced to a rump state in Russia and had lost all my home provinces).

There are a few quirks in support. Firstly, if you're being attacked, you can't cut support to that attack on you. Warsaw cannot move into Silesia to cut the support and then expect to be in a 1 on 1 standoff with Prussia and hold.

In addition, fleets can move only into adjacent coastal provinces and sea provinces. Landlocked provinces are a no-no. They can also support an attack on an adjacent coastal province, but not an adjacent landlocked one. For example, if Germany had a fleet in Prussia instead of an army, it could support an attack on Berlin, but not on Warsaw. Strangely, this holds even if it's a move into another coast. For example, if Britain and Germany were in a marriage of convenience against Russia, and Britain had a fleet in Norway, while Germany had a fleet in the Gulf of Bothnia, then Britain could order F Norway TO St. Petersburg [nc] and Germany write F Gulf of Bothnia SUPPORTS [F Norway TO St. Petersburg [nc]], even though the Gulf of Bothnia is only adjacent to the south coast.

The last thing to talk about is convoys. Let's suppose Britain has an army in London, and a fleet in the North Sea, and Norway is unoccupied. It can write A London TO Norway and F North Sea CONVOYS [A London TO Norway]. If you're trying to dislodge someone, note that the fleet doesn't enter the calculations, just the army. If there's a Russian army in Norway at the time, then everyone bounces and everyone holds. But you can support: if Britain also has a fleet in the Norwegian Sea, it can F Norwegian Sea SUPPORTS [A London TO Norway], and dislodge Russia.

Finally, be very wary about losing supply centers. After the Fall turn, during the retreats stage, you also take stock of how many new supply centers you've gained: that's how many you hold at the end of Fall, plus any that you don't have occupied at the time, but that nobody else has moved into. Then, if you have
-as many units as supply centers, nothing happens.
-more supply centers than you do units, you may order the difference to be built, but only in an unoccupied home supply center (one you owned at the start of the game) that you still occupy. For example, if Germany has 4 units out but owns 6 supply centers, he may build (for example) a fleet in Berlin and an army in Kiel, if he doesn't have any units in those provinces already.
-more units then you have supply centers, OUCH! You must disband units until they are equal. You get to choose which units to disband, though.

You are eliminated when you have no units left, of course.

I forgot this, so I'll just stick this in here: Kiel and Constantinople are canals. That means that if there are no units in those provinces, then a fleet in the Helgoland Bight can move straight to the Baltic Sea (if Kiel is unoccupied), or vice versa, and a fleet in the Black Sea can move to the Aegean (if Constantinople is unoccupied), or vice versa. It doesn't matter whether the unit occupying the province is of the same or a different nation as the fleet trying to get through; if it's occupied it can't get through.

And now, THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR.

GreatWyrmGold is playing Russia.

javierpwn is playing Italy.

mcclay is playing Britain.

Misko27 is playing Turkey.

Gamerlord is playing Austria.

scapheap is playing France.

And that means that:

Reelya is playing Germany.

I just finished a Diplomacy map variant. It's an edit of a previously available 13-player variant with the entire world that someone made. Here's the original:


And here's my version:


Highlights: I decided Britain was too powerful in the original, which was based pretty faithfully on the world as it looked in 1861. This sort of killed that; I added a number of territorial anachronisms ranging from the 17th century to the period just before World War One. It's still recognizable the same world, but with some major edits, achieved almost entirely through the inclusion of both obsolete and futuristic territorial anachronisms. Specifically, Britain has been nerfed a bit; the Union and Confederacy are a bit more powerful (I'm still having doubts about giving Hawai'i to the Union), Mexico and Brazil have both received portions of their former masters' overseas possessions (although neither Spain nor Portugal are around anymore), and the Dutch have gotten back Dutch Brazil, which they hadn't previously owned since the mid 17th century. Also, upon recognizing that both Prussia and Austria are basically screwed six ways from Sunday in the original map, they've been beefed up a bit (Prussia gets some of Germany's former empire; Turkey has been kicked out of the Balkans and gotten Libya back in recompense so the Austrians have more expanding room). There has also been some just plain geographic revisionism (Newfoundland has gotten its own little Helgoland Bight to make transatlantic crossings slower and less Britain-oriented; Victoria is no longer a first-term certainty for Vancouver; the Kalahari Desert has been introduced as an impassable zone so the Dutch have a better shot at duking it out with the Portuguese in southern Africa).

There have been three major rule changes to add some realism. Firstly, the calendar. Although territory consolidation and rebuilding still occur every two turns, the turns are now Northern Hemisphere Spring, Fall and Winter. This is to allow the ice to do its magic. In Winter, the Barents and Bering Seas, plus Hudson Bay, freeze over. This means you cannot move a fleet into them, and any fleets that were unfortunate enough to be stationed in them when Fall turn ended will be destroyed (along with any armies they were convoying). You also cannot move a fleet stationed on a shoreline to an adjacent coastal province if it's clear the fleet would have to go through that sea; however, any fleets stationed on shore, even if that shore is entirely iced over, will not die (they're just stuck until spring). For example, if you have a fleet stationed in Norway, you would be allowed to order F Norway -> Sweden, since it would be going along Skaggerak, but F Norway -> NC of Finland would be a no-no (until Spring). Greenland does something similar: if you have a fleet or army in it it's not allowed to move in Winter, and you cannot move into it, although luckily anything wintering over in Greenland will survive. (Since during winter the only approach to Greenland is via the North Passage, what this in effect means is that you cannot move between the two, or support one from the other.)

In Fall, it swaps, and it's the Southern Hemisphere's turn. You get basically the same thing: the Drake Passage ices over, and the Falklands and South Georgia both act like Greenland. This is also a check on England's fleet in the Falklands: if it moves into the Drake Passage first turn (Spring, year 1), the next turn is Fall, and it will die. It also can't take South Georgia in time for the first building phase.

The second rule change are canals. If you control Cairo or Panama, and have it free during your build units move, and have the ability to build extra units, you can forfeit building one of those units and make the territory a canal. (Useful, to be sure, but it could also become more trouble than it's worth: in addition to losing an extra unit for a turn [since the supply center will count towards unit support next time you're building units], watch as an otherwise safe generic supply center of your empire suddenly becomes the focal point for invasions of all sorts.) Meanwhile, if you have a unit occupying either of these territories, you can order it to "fill in": this is somewhat like holding in that it moves nowhere. If it is not attacked, the canal will be destroyed and will have to be rebuilt again the old way. If it is attacked, it will be distracted holding off the invaders and will not be able to finish filling in the canal (so the canal will still be open).

Thirdly, you may build not just in your home supply centers, but also elsewhere. I'm not sure whether to make that "any unoccupied supply center you currently own" or "any supply center you own that was a home supply center at the beginning of the game" (so that, for example, you could build in Oregon, Perth, Moscow or Angola, but not New Zealand, Denmark, Karachi or Rhodesia.) It strikes  me as a good compromise, but maybe it would have unforeseen consequences...luckily, I think I've scattered enough home centers around the map that it shouldn't be too much of a problem, limiting building a bit while still making it not a problem.

Comments and constructive criticism are welcome...if enough people expressed interest I suppose we could even set up a forum game of it...

Link.

Long story short: the Iranian rial fell 18% against the dollar yesterday, and inflation in the country is running at 24%. One wonders if the regime will be able to hold out much longer...I certainly hope not.

Tarviamme tämä, arvelen. Se olisi paljon huvia.

Sitten, a...mitkä kieliita puhutteko?

(Tiedän että mun Suomi ei oo myös hyvä. Se on miksi olen täällä!)

You can donate here

As many of you might be aware, I'm a total language nut. I own about 10 feet, end to end, of books on languages and linguistics- all sorts of things, from Aleut and Basque to Sanskrit and Welsh, are represented.

Now, on my bookshelf, in the middle, is a pair of rather imposing volumes entitled A Dictionary of Upriver Halkomelem, vols. 1 and 2. You are unlikely to have ever heard of this language, and who can blame you? I acquired them when the Linguistic Society of America convention rolled through town a couple of years ago, I took the time to go bookshopping. Thing is, when you go to a professional conference, the publishers are so desperate to sell their merchandise that you can usually get it at a reasonable price, especially if you play up the I'm-an-impoverished-language-geek-in-high-school puppy-dog eyes. By such means was I able to get the dictionary for a measly $20. Why? One, it was stately and imposing, and two, Upriver Halkomelem is a Salish language, which is a really, really frickin' awesome family that it's hard to find material on. (One of UH's relatives, Bella Coola, is rather famous for having words that can be up to thirteen consonants long without any vowels.)

OK, so what I thought was: can I get the accompanying grammar for it? I wrote into UCPress, which deals with these things, and asked them. They said (I feel really guilty about what happened) that they wanted to get it out as print-on-demand, but there were some maps they weren't sure about; could I review it for them? We'll send you a review copy, you send it back, we'll send you a free replacement.

...well, sure, I said. I don't look gift horses in the map.

So anyway, I held onto it for a few months, gave them a very nice review, and then sent it back. Only problem was this: rather than sending it to Jack Young, who dealt with these things, I sent it to the Books Division, who, as I then learned, deal with thousands of books a day and promptly lost it. It was further noted that that was their only copy, so, basically, I screwed the pooch and it may never be published.

Woops.

So basically, to review, UC Press are wonderful, wonderful people who actually want to put their stuff as print-on-demand, and I fucked them over.

There is, I was delighted to learn, a way around this: there are copies on Amazon that are in great condition, and I could order one and send it to Jack Young. But they were overrun copies from the first print run-in perfectly good condition, but about $170. I don't have that kind of money.

Basically, my proposal is this: I'd like to use IndieGoGo or some similar site to do a 50-50 raffle. Every little bit helps, and then I'll draw a name weighted on the amount of money that was contributed to Paypal that person half the money. Does anyone know of a site that does raffles like this? With a $170 book, I'm really hoping that I could get people to contribute at least $300 total, every little bit helps, and who knows, you might win. And it is for a good cause; these dinky little languages are dying, and documentation is really important.

Thoughts? Anyone know of a raffle site? Otherwise I'll just use IndieGoGo.