HAPPY SEMI-EARLY 2005

Crazy times at the Wallace Manse this evening, as I prepare to ring in the New Year in style: On a treadmill. Ready to toast 2005 with a water bottle of icewater.

A few links that caught my eye:

My thoughts exactly, Carson.

Sonja's Linguistic Surrealscape is great reading for anyone intereted in languages at all. I particularly enjoyed Oou.

This may not be for everyone. By which I mean that it has a fair number of bad words in it. But! For all of us who never tire of mocking the excesses of High Fashion, I highly recommend Somethingawful's David Thorpe and Zack Parsons making fun of Etro's "Beards" collection. That's what the collection should be called, anyway. It's actually called Goose Game. Which is, presumably, named after the board game.

Happy New Year, ev'rybody...

YAY FEATURES

Well...I think I have some kind of trackback system up and running, spurred by Iain's comment. I updated the code I got from Haloscan, and it seems to do something. I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to use this yet, but I'm sure it'll come to me.

JEALOUS!

Iain spent an enviable evening the other night, it seems, playing one of my favorite games--Memoir '44--and one of the games I most want to try--Antiquity.

It makes for interesting reading; one thing I would like to meditate on is the notion of "multiplayer solitaire." I don't know whether it applies to Antiquity or not--from reading the rules, it seems like it certainly could--but my general response to that kind of comment is "You make that sound like a bad thing." (This shouldn't be taken as a negative comment on the post, which is quite good. It just got me thinking about this trait in games.)

Part of my fondness for (or perhaps non-antipathy toward) "multiplayer solitaire" games probably comes from my oft-cited background as a solitaire gamer. I often like games as either evocations of history or for the beauty of their systems, so a relative lack of interaction doesn't bother me so much.

Second, I find that many of the Multi-Solo games have more interaction than one might think, although it may be less obvious than in, say, Brawl (to pick the least multi-solo game I can think of).

There are some games where everyone literally has their own board and there's little anyone else can do--directly--to affect what goes on over there. Anno 1503 is one game that leaps to mind. There's a race for resources, but overall there isn't much overt player interaction. (Take It Easy is an extreme case of this; here the players definitely cannot do anything to each other.) What there is, is a competition to see which player can best exploit the resources available to them--gold and ore in Anno's case, hexagons with lines on them in Take It Easy's. I tend to find these games fairly stimulating, intellectually if nothing else.

(It can also be argued that, for colonization games, relatively little player interaction for long stretches is appropriate. The various colonies themselves, in real life, tended to not squabble all that much--generally the outposts were too spread out to encourage much interaction except for brief periods or with intense effort, at least early on.)

So sometimes the "interaction" is pretty abstract. Another kind of Multi-Solo game, however, is what I sometimes call "games of maneuver." These are games where the players circle each other and build up their forces, positioning them for a final confrontation. One of my favorite series of games, the American Revolution games from GMT, are like this. In them, the two armies start fairly far apart and most of the game is spent forming lines and slowly closing, waiting for the optimal moment to strike. One the one hand both players are shuffling counters around; on the other, they're watching each other and reacting to each other's plans. I can't think of a "euro" like this off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are some. A fair number of wargames and abstracts are like this, though.

It's kind of like an open vs. closed game in Chess. Open games are characterized by a lot of piece movement, captures, sacrifices, and quick games. (I'm talking here about games played by mortals.) Closed games--where the center is occupied by immobile pawns--tend to feature a lot of maneuvering behind one's pawns, looking for an opportunity. (If you're playing me, it usually comes around move 17, where I make my first fatal blunder.)

In Antiquity, I don't think there are many chances for offensive action--ever--so I'm not sure that it's a "game of maneuver" precisely. Iain mentions that he eventually came to ignore what his opponents were doing, which suggests a more Take It Easy vibe.

I plunked down for Antiquity, and I don't regret it (...yet, as always). I find Roads and Boats entrancing (and it has a lot of player interaction, I think), and I've found all their games to be at least interesting. (I want to play VOC! sometime just to see how the whole "navigation" mechanic works in practice...get out your blindfolds!) The theme, the looks, a company I trust when it comes to "heavy" games...I couldn't resist. That, plus rather liking many Multiplayer Solitaire games, constitutes a good sign. As Iain mentions, the game's mechanisms could be good "for...those who enjoy playing deep games solitaire." Sold!

DOOM

Doom, the computer game, came out...I guess it was either my junior or senior year of high school. It consumed us pretty thoroughly. I remember long exegetical discussions of the various levels, passing cheat codes around like they were the Eleusinian Mysteries, and trying to figure out the ridiculously primitive and cumbersome early level editors. I remember that it came out the same year my friend Allen got mono. For some reason, during his illness his computer was brought into the school, and for some even more unfathomable reason my friend Tom and I got access to the thing so we could play Doom on it. Until one day when we got kicked out on trumped-up but still accurate charges that we were nosing around the office area too much.

Anyway!

I haven't played any of the various sequels to Doom (although I'll probably get D3 when the Mac version hits the streets), so this is my first Doom fix since high school. Upon reading the rules, one thing became clear: This is one of those very rare board games that is entirely unplayable solitaire. Even to try out the rules--because to do so, you'll have to set up a scenario...and a lot of the fun is in seeing a scenario for the first time.

So all I've done is punch out the pieces (there are a lot of pieces), look everything over, and think about how I'm going to get a game of this together.

I think I'll like it, though. Here's why.

First, it uses one of my very favorite mechanics--I call it the "Scotland Yard" mechanic. In this game, one to three Marines face off against the GM, who controls the Invaders. The Marines--just like in the computer game--are trying to get the hell off their level, by finding the elusive Red Key and opening the escape hatch for that floor. In between: Kick serious alien ass. The GM is trying to thwart them by spawning wave after wave of aliens. (And zombies. Were they in Doom 1? I don't think so.)

It'd be extra neat if there were more competition among the Marines--give a point count to each alien, say, and whoever survives the level (limiting the Marine respawns, obviously) with the most points wins. (One of my favorite wargames, Custer's Luck, uses a similar system. I try to find applications for it everywhere.)

Second, the physical quality is tremendous. You can put together a huge range of levels with the parts included, and you know somebody is going to devise a MegaScenario using multiple sets. The figures are also nice, if a little Technicolor. I may hit 'em with some Dullcote to make them less shiny. That said: Big creatures are big. Little creatures are little. It's all very evocative.

Third, the game includes what I consider to be the twin pillars holding up the Doom franchise. First, the BFG. (Picture, showing it in use, here.) Second: Exploding barrels. I cannot emphasize enough how disappointed I would have been if exploding barrels had not made the game. The first house rule I'm going to work on is, of course, to make it possible to shove the barrels next to each other and setting off a chain reaction. And I haven't even played yet.

Cheat codes are not enabled, so shouting IDKFA! IDKFA! won't get you anywhere.

(I can't believe I still remembered that code...)

COUPLE OF QUICK NOTES

First. Ever wonder what the story is behind those people who show up in dozens of pop-up ads and spam? Now you know. With a great ending!

Second. All stateside residents on the lookout for cheap games should check out their local malls. There are a lot of seasonal game stores this time of year, and they're blowing out their merchandise with sales of 25-50% off. I got Doom at 25% off, and most of these stores have the likes of Villa Paletti, Carcassonne: the Castle, Heroscape, Settlers, Warcraft, and much, much else. Not the top-tier (don't expect to find Roads and Boats or anything), but worth a look.

Haven't gotten much of a look at Doom yet. Heavy box, though.

UNDER THE TREE (WARNING! BASEBALL CONTENT!)

Happy Boxing Day everyone!

As per ancient tradition, and as proof that my parents know me, all I got for Christmas this year were books and games. (Imagine.) They're rarely big surprises; I have so many that I have to make a "short list" of what I want that they can choose from.

On the plus side: I get exactly what I wanted.

For the most part, it was a Civil War Christmas. I got two books on Confederate industry and logistics, and the Big One was the gigantic Official Atlas of the Civil War. If you're a Civil War buff in the US, hie thee down to Barnes and Noble and plunk down $19.98 for this one. Excellent, excellent stuff. It's a reproduction of the atlas that came out in the 1890s to accompany the umpteen-volume Official Records. It's giant-format, full-color, and has maps of virtually every campaign and battle you can think of, and much more besides. It has diagrams of all the forts around Mobile, the official specifications for US Army pontoons, cutaways of all the major ordinance, and on and on. You can spend hours with this one.

I also got the latest Bill James Baseball Handbook. Pure heroin for the baseball fan, and at three cents cheaper than the Atlas you can't go wrong. Among its many features, it informs me--confirming my earlier suspicions--that the Cardinals's newest shortstop has no arm, no range, and no bat. Eckstein's only skills seem to be getting hit by pitches, and intangibles. We got rid of Matheny; now Cardinals Nation has a new player to hang their hopes and dreams on.

(I was actually OK with getting Eckstein...on a one-year deal, and for way the hell less money. And Jocketty was having such a good offseason previous to this...)

One of the odd new features of the book is its projections, both for 2005 and for--incredibly--the careers of most active players. The latter is the most audacious, and Bill James spends the better part of three pages beforehand saying "Not that I think this works, but..." Interesting, though. It has a lot of...daring projections. Such as Barry Bonds's final HR total: 918. Hey, I'm as big a Barry fan as they come, but c'mon. This method isn't allowed to go totally out on a limb; players under 25 are excluded (a shame; I'd have liked to see the final totals for Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols).

Other interesting observations here:

1. Adam Dunn: 682 career HR.
2. Ken Griffey Jr: 620 HR. He's going to have to get a lot healthier real quick...
3. Ray Lankford's going to get another 25 HR. And I hope he does.
4. Eckstein: 45 career HR. That's a lo-o-ong career there.

The book also tries to predict injuries, right down to kind of injury. Most likely to gt a broken finger: Ivan Rodriguez, with 3.1%. Jeffrey Hammonds has a 9% chance of getting a shoulder injury. Pitchers are calculated separately. Pitcher most likely to get a shoulder injury: Joe Kennedy, with almost a 1-in-4 chance.

Now you know. This and the Career Projections features I consider to be pure black magic.

OK, a few more. Next year's HR leader: Albert Pujols, with 47. Adam Dunn and A-Rod come in next with 42. Bonds is slated for 36. Beltran's got a 30-30 year coming to him. JD Drew's going to miss 26 games due to injury. Dan McLaughlin on TV in St. Louis will say "Eckstein may be hitting .220, but lemme tell ya, what a presence in the clubhouse, boy howdy" 92 times. Al Hrabosky will concur with "People talk about a leadoff hitter drawing walks and hitting doubles, but as a pitcher, there's nothing you dread more than the leadoff guy dribbling one weakly to second like that" 90 times, and will miss his cue the other two.

OK, a couple of those I made up. But I have the most faith in them...

THAT'S ARTISTE TO YOU, BUDDY

A new website is born. Feast your eyes, one and all, on the website of St. Louis artist (and good friend) John Nickolai. Check out the comics, especially. I'm particularly fond of The Nerf Hoop and Every Goal I Ever Scored. And, although I have my own scars from this episode, I can't not recommend The Martian Chronicles.

ON THE TABLE

Ahh, winter 2004 in St. Louis. The Rams stink. (And yet are somehow still in the playoff picture.) The Billikens stink. The Blues are still not playing, and may not for some time. Like 2007.

What better way to while away the winter days, then, than with games?

I got in another solo game of my favorite Civil War game, Blue vs. Gray. Not good times for the CSA. The only general they had in the east for a very long time was Hardee. The Union had Meade and Sherman. Hardee got slapped around for a while, lost Richmond, and threw in the towel. I looked at the next card on their deck: Lee. Not that Marse Robert would have immediately equalized the game, but anything's possible with Lee in the mix and the West still intact. Just like in the real war, it's hard for a given battle to be a real crusher; usually most of your organization lives to fight another day, at least until the Confederate infrastructure really starts to deteriorate. If you can get a good draw or two, you can turn things around nicely. The one problem with BvG is that a horrible CSA starting hand can really screw them up; I've never played with the historical set-up but I'd think that would help matters. Of course, the games are so fast to set up--nothing wrong with calling a halt to proceedings after fifteen minutes and trying again.

I've been looking over my expansive collection of strategic-level Civil War games lately. I have a great many of them. Blue vs. Gray remains my favorite: It's simple, small, filled with historical color, and can be played in an evening. There are a few others, though, that hold my interest. Chief among these is the 1983 entrant, The Civil War. This is the first one I ever got. (I subsequently sold it, and then rebought it for a song on eBay.) I played the ink of my original copy; I'm not sure if my new one will get that kind of play or not. This game has one thing that makes it a winner with me: It's the only game I know of that includes the Far West theater.

Another one I've had a soft spot for is For the People. FtP is the Civil War entrant in the "card-driven" wargame series. These games always do a good job of showing the tension between one's political and military objectives: Each card can be used in only one of several ways, either moving and reinforcing units on the map, or changing the political dynamics on the homefront. BvG's cards are generally more straightforward; every card can help you in basically one way. That said, FtP has always struck me as overcomplicated. Lots of special rules in this one, more (I've found) than for the other games in the series.

FtP is a game I often set up, but sometimes can't bring myself to get through the rules to figure out all the wrinkles--particularly now, with the much-changed version 2.6 of the rules. Sometimes I just want to get right into the game, you know? This game is a lot less abstract than BvG, and has more things going on (explicitly), but the result is a lot more rules for what is not obviously always a lot more payoff, either gamewise or historically.

I have the new version of A House Divided, which looks like a good game. Not the most detailed one in the world, but very gamer-friendly and--in the Phalanx version--frickin' gorgeous. I'm not sure about the rules organization though. There are Basic Rules, Optional Basic Rules, Advanced Rules, and Optional Advanced Rules. The latter three modify the first in many ways, which makes it hard to read the rules through and figure out what's really going on. I always liked the way Command Magazine did their rules--they had all the rules out in one booklet, with optional rules starred or footnoted, so there's no going back and forth.

One thing I prize in any Civil War game is leadership uncertainty. When Davis and Lincoln shook their respective General Trees, they had no real idea what was going to come out, or when, or how good they'd be. Davis had Lee puttering around in ineffectual commands and advising roles until the Seven Days, for example. If Davis was sure that Lee would be, you know, Lee, then that might have been sped up substantially. Lincoln couldn't "draw" a useful general for several "turns."

In most Civil War games, you know when you're going to get Grant, Sherman, and Lee. Yeah, you have to put up with McClellan and Bragg for a while, but not too long--just hold on and keep them out of trouble as best you can.

That's not a luxury your real-life counterparts had. I think this is where BvG really scores its History points with me. In this game, you have no clue when your next good general or powerful unit is going to appear, or when fortune will smile on you again with a beneficial event. You have to judge your odds and take your chances as best you can. There's no reinforcement schedule you can look at on the side of the map. "I'll wait 'til next turn, when I get Sheridan" is replaced with "Am I going to get a useful cavalry unit any time soon? Or should I take my chances now?"

In fact, to even increase the uncertainty, I have a house rule I've toyed with for BvG where, before the game, each player pitches two cards from their deck. Now there's that little chance that Grant and Lee will never appear.

The trouble, again, is that some games may not be so well-balanced--but in BvG, there's some balancing options one can use if one so desires. I generally wouldn't, except maybe in some sort of tournament setting. I play wargames for the story, and I can usually "get" what's going on. Even tonight's Confederate debacle. It wasn't clear from the get-go that all the southern-born generals would resign their commissions, after all, or that the state governors would willingly send so many of their militia and volunteer units out of their home states. In this game, Hardee was the only general of note to "declare" early, and it took until a major crisis was brewing for the governors to release their units. In the meantime, Lincoln managed to get a huge number of ninety-day units together on short notice from a galvanized population and managed to find talented and loyal officers to lead them. That's not so unreasonable; after all, that's precisely what the Union hoped and the CSA feared at the beginning. BvG isn't a game of what did happen, it's a game of what could have happened. And that's what I love about it.

(The designer of the game, by the way, is now a grad student himself, at the University of Virginia. He has an article in one of the current Civil War magazines...of course, I forget which one, now...)

MORE HIGH-END GAMING

I like Icehouse as much as the next guy, but holy cow. A full set would cost $480. I'm not sure that Icehouse is quite up to that standard yet...

ON THE NIGHTSTAND

I work at a university bookstore, and this is one of the busier times of the year--the time when we buy books back. We make more money from books we buy from students and then sell again than any other kind of book, which means we try to do it as much as we can. Books we turn around and sell to a wholesaler we make nothing on, and then there are the books that neither we nor the wholesaler want. When a student is informed that their book is of no monetary use to them, students adopt several different strategies.

Some try to sell their books to someone else. This often doesn't work so well. If a textbook is out of print, or gone into a new edition, no other student wants it since classes aren't going to use it. Usually books after a student's had them have a lot of highlighting, which means that the "normal" used bookstores don't want them. Putting an ad on the bulletin board works...not so often. If you have a friend who wants to buy the book, that's your best shot.

Some students, obviously, just keep them, either to treasure for the rest of their lives or--in the other 99.999% of cases--to try to sell back later.

A surprising number, though, just abandon their books. They leave them in little piles in the store, dump them outside on a bench, or simply walk away from our Buyback desk without their books and refuse to pick them back up.

Naturally, for bookstore employees this is a bonanza. (It's also a bonanza for a local book fair, which gets the rest of them.) We like books so hey: Free books.

Inspired by reading a couple of posts on About Last Night, I picked up from one of the piles The Gastronomical Me by MFK Fisher.

Something I like to do when I pick up a book for the first time is open it to a random page and read the first sentence I lay my eyes on. It's often a good gauge of the book's style and tone, if a voice is coming through or not. Anyway, this is the first sentence I ever read of MFK Fisher:

I felt a secret justification swell in me, a pride such as I've seldom known since, because all my life, it seemed, I had been wondering rebelliously about potatoes.

How can you not like that?

More precisely, how can you not wonder what it means to think rebelliously about potatoes, and what sort of person thinks rebelliously about potatoes? The rest of the book answers those two questions, spending most of its energies on the latter.

The Gastronomical Me is, we are assured, an autobiography of a sort. As always, there's a danger in conflating the author of an autobiography with the autobiography's subject, but the major character of this book is almost certainly Food. Food plays an enormous role in our lives, but it's so often overlooked; how many meals can any of us clearly remember? MFK Fisher, it seems, remembered virtually every meal she ever had. These were meals, moreover, which informed and were informed by everything else around them. The atmosphere, the sights and sounds around the meal, and most especially the company that sat around the table are all a part of the meal, which Fisher shows to be far beyond merely eating, or merely being with people. It's a complex social and cultural function, which is itself part of even larger and more complex functions.

It's this feature of eating that MFK Fisher seems to be trying to get us to realize, even more than trying to awaken us to the pure pleasures of good gourmet food. Food as a part of love and war, as an isight into family and social life as revealing as anything anyone could say or write. The chapter "The First Oyster" is about many things, but the actual oyster itself does not loom nearly as large as the title might indicate.

The book this reminds me most of is The Periodic Table by Primo Levi. In that book, Levi (a chemist) gives a great many autobiographical (usually) vignettes where his life has unexpectedly been changed by a particular chemical element. For Levi, though, chemical elements aren't all-pervasive, but catalysts for other things.

I'm an aspirant foodie, but in the same sort of way I'm an aspirant novelist. I love good food, but can barely prepare cold cereal without major incident. (With any luck my skills will improve in the next few years, when I have to start making basically all my meals myself.) I read it not for the food, but for how our lives tend to revolve around things that we sometimes take for granted. The prose is also interesting, if a tad purple and periodic at times. It has a real voice, though, and a good one, one you want to listen to.

Highly recommended...

REVIEWING

Tom Vasel on Saturday posted an essay where, among other things, he discusses game reviewing and the perils thereof. It seems to be normal in the game business for game companies to send reviewers complimentary copies of their games to various internet gaming personalities to be reviewed. (Ahem, I say, ahem.) It is sometimes suggested, by the consumers of these reviews if no one else, that the review is compromised; that one will not give a bad review to a free game--either out of gratitude, or the fear of no longer getting free games.

I can kind of understand this, but I think these fears are misplaced. Tom Vasel (and I) are optimists when it comes time to sit in front of a game. We look for reasons to like it, justifications for the game, reasons why someone should play or own a particular game. Sometimes these efforts fail; I haven't hit a real stinker yet since I've started the blog, but man: If I was blogging when I got "Lord of the Rings: The Search," the gloves would have come off. Tom Vasel threw a brick at Crocodile Pool Party in one memorable review.

Of course, it's easy for me to be positive: I only play or buy games that I think I'll like, and I'm at the point where I'm usually at least partially right.

(Behold the mighty march of qualifiers there. "Usually at least partially." One of my best efforts!)

But let's say I reviewed a game every month chosen at random from the BGG database. Presumably I'd be reviewing a lot more stinkers that way.

I think that merely receiving a free game doesn't impair the ability or desire of a concientious reviewer--like Tom Vasel--of giving a fair review. It's like academic books. Academics review books for journals all the time, and they get the books for free (except at a few journals). And mercy sakes you haven't seen skewerings until you've read some of the reviews out there...

Of course, in this case the reviewers aren't getting books directly from the publisher--they're coming from the journal, which asks for reviewers for books and then assigns them as they deem appropriate. This would, I think, be a good and reasonable practice for game reviews.

All the major online game stores have a need for good reviews, reviews that are well-written and informative. The usual method now is to just solicit reviews from users, but why not do something a little grander? Gamefest, say, could solicit review copies of games from all the major publishers, and make it possible for a small publisher to submit games of their own. Gamefest then puts out a call for reviewers--people who have some sort of expertise, say, or have otherwise shown that they're good and reliable reviewers. (This may take some trial and error early on.) Then Gamefest, without the input of the game companies, distributes review copies to their staff of gamer-reviewers across the globe. (Or at least in the US, Canada, and South Korea...)

Games, too, could be matched with reviewers who have adopted a particular style. Some reviewers are more familiar with party games, say, or two-player abstracts. There could be a few wargamers to cover those, some folks fluent in various foreign languages who could do first reports on new games from across the pond.

I think this would tend to increase the quality of game reviews, as more people would be competing to become reviewers. It would also help get out the word on games, as the smaller games could find themselves reviewed on a large stage. It could increase sales, as people come to Gamefest (or whoever) for game knowledge.

As it is, I'm impressed by the quality of game reviews I can find on BGG, Gamefest, and other places. I think everyone's trying to do a good job; I just think that with a little more organization it could be even better.

A "MASTERSTROKE"?

This is mostly baseball, again.

The Cardinals finally pulled off a big trade this offseason, sending three of their more promising youngsters--Danny Haren, Kiko Calero, and Daric Barton (one of the few ballplayers named after an ancient form of currency)--off to Oakland to get Mark Mulder, who has won a bunch of games for Oakland and is coming off a fairly subpar year.

This is, I think, a very good deal for Oakland. Mulder was making $$$ and wasn't going to be around forever; in exchange they upgrade their bullpen--which is starting to look very excellent for 2005, and I have half a mind to get a Huston Street jersey--get a good pitcher for the back of the rotation, and an exciting catching prospect (Barton got on base at a .450 clip or thereabouts last year, albeit in the low minors). Beane made his team younger and cheaper--and, if not better immediately, it makes 2007 look a lot more promising than it just did.

How about the Cardinals? The Cards are in a slightly different position. The offensive core, even without Renteria, still looks pretty darned good, it's the pitching that's suspect. Last year showed what a team could do with a terrific lineup and an average staff; this year should see a worse lineup (but not as much worse as St. Louisans fear) and an improved rotation (but probably not as much as St. Louisans hope). Mulder didn't have a great season last year, but he'll be fine as long as he bounces back a little, which he should--he's 27, and last year was out of step with the previous seasons. I don't recall any major injuries offhand. What I can't find is what kind of contract he has; does Mulder come off contract after next year, or is he on for a few more?

I'm coming around to the idea that the Cardinals shouldn't have offered Renteria as much money as they did, but that Boston did OK by offering the money they did. There's a chance that Renteria will decline fairly steadily over the next four years; he may also keep soldiering on with four straight good-to-great years. Buying that lottery ticket, it seems, cost $10 million a year. That's a lottery ticket that Boston can afford much better than can the Cardinals; the Sox just have that much more flexibility.

In the same way, keeping Mulder wasn't in Oakland's best interests, but getting him should work for the Cardinals. Oakland needs as few $5 million players as possible; Oakland succeeds by bringing along promising young, cheap players and turning them into more promising young, cheap players once they start getting expensive. There are risks involved, of course--none of the draftees in the "Moneyball" class have panned out--but you don't need to get too many "hits" to make up for the misses. Daric Barton is a great prospect at a position (catcher) without much hitting; Haren and Calero are fine cheap talent; not all-stars, but pretty good. Billy Beane has been winning a lot of games with this; it's hard for me to criticize it.

The Cardinals have been winning a fair number of games, too, thanks to some timely trades. Jocketty hasn't been too good with the free-agent signings--at least the flashier ones--but he's made some nice trades over the years. I tentatively like this one. Mulder may or may not win twenty games in 2005, but LaRussa made it very clear that Haren wasn't going to start, and Jocketty was right to try to find another Kiko Calero. Daric Barton was the biggest risk, but he's still just a year or two into his professional career. Minor leaguers are less important to the Cardinals, particularly when you can get an established, good player in return.

What I love about baseball signings is that every team has its own constraints and styles of bringing players along and managing talent. The Yankees can buy anyone they want, and have virtually no prospects of note. Oakland has to continually cycle young, cheap players through. The Cardinals have a higher payroll but still have to shepherd their money and young talent. If everyone had the same amount of money to spend, I wouldn't get to watch this, and I'd lose this source of excitement. Sometimes I complain about roster imbalances, but I don't want it to be totally equal, either.

PIZZA TIME!

Who in their right mind would eat this? Even with the guarantee? And do you eat the whole thing at once, or do you space it out over, I dunno, a couple of days?

(For background, kind of, go here.)

FOR THE GAMER WHO HAS EVERYTHING

When a notebook just won't cut it, there's the Game Journal for $13.50. They look really nice, but are they fourteen times better than a notebook from Target? Only time will tell.

ON THE NIGHTSTAND

...in this case, this book is actually on the floor next to the nightstand, since it's fairly huge.

I was in Borders the other day, checking out the remainder section, and came across a book called The Civil War: a Complete Photographic History. It's a great big ol' thing, with 900 coffee-table sized pages. Twenty bucks, I had a 25%-off coupon, sold.

Describing the book, there seems to be no way it can fail. There are nearly 4000 photos in this book, for one thing. I love early photography, and the Civil War was one of the first large-scale photographic efforts in the US (Matthew Brady was one of several). Some of these are familiar, but most of them I've never seen before, and have a power coming, often, from their ordinary quality: Men sitting around, a bridge after the battle, camp life. Complementing this are a great many articles from prominent Civil War scholars, each dealing with a battle, campaign, or some other military or social feature of the war (like ironclads, or the Southern home front).

I haven't put it down for long ever since I got it. The articles are excellent (if a bit superficial--this isn't scholarly-scholarly), the photos sublime. There is one flaw in this book, though: The copyediting is a disaster. Probably the worst I've seen in a serious publication. There isn't a problem on every page, but it's pretty bad. Captions are mixed up, and the text (captions and articles) has clearly been scanned and OCR'd in with only the most minimal effort made to check the transmission. "Howell Cobb" becomes "Ilowell Cobb," "NYHS" (New York Historical Society) becomes "l\'YH S", commas become periods all over the place. One caption, as printed: "Of all the men ever to hold presidential office, tile people chose the one least suited. .james Buchanan lacked almost everything, necessary in a President, most of all a firm will and resolution." I just expect better from a serious book; typos are acceptable in a draft or casual writing, but for major publication?

I did mention that I can't put it down though, right? Just like that caption, the text is fluent enough despite the typos, and the caption mixups are handled easily, since it's usually obvious what everything's pointing to. (Except once where they used the same photo twice.) I've rarely gotten as much out of $15, book-wise. It's worth it for the pictures alone. Civil War buffs and scholars--and fans of serious facial hair--would do well to get this book. This shouldn't be your One Book on the Civil War (that should be Battle Cry of Freedom), but it's a great visual resource.

MY ABSOLUTELY-POSITIVELY-BY-GOD LAST BASEBALL POST (TONIGHT)

At least none of the Cardinals's deals thus far have made me do this.

EARL WEAVER ON "HANDLING PITCHERS"

With his usual dose of good sense, here's Earl Weaver on the role of the catcher in calling the game:

...[I]t helps if the pitcher and catcher are of the same mind and can work together when calling a game. It's a great situation when the pitcher is thinking that he wants to throw a curve and the catcher puts down two fingers. But it's up to the catcher to call his own game. When a catcher calls for a pitch, it's just a suggestion. The pitcher makes the final decision, since he's the one who is throwing the ball and it's his game. I don't believe a catcher must be able to "call a good game." It's a plus but not a necessity.

Excellent stuff, as always. It's not that the catcher makes no difference, just far less of a difference than most announcers, fans, and catchers believe.

MORE ME ABOUT BASEBALL

First off, I could not possibly be happier that the MLB's most flagrant hard-sell mugging of the public coffers is coming up empty. I'm disappointed it got this far. MLB went up to City Hall and demanded a blank check, and is now mad that it didn't get one. With any luck at all this will be a wake-up call to other cities interested in having a ballclub, so that they don't get scammed.

Actually, I could be happier. I keep forgetting in all this that the Nats had to give ten thousand season ticket-holders back their money--that's ten thousand fans that won't see ballgames next year. It's usually a cliche that fans get hurt the most by whatever bad thing happens in sports, and it's usually hyperbole, but in this kind of money game it's actually true. Montreal's fans--and it had plenty of them as little as ten years ago--got screwed by MLB-manufactured sales of their team to increasingly incompetent owners, culminating in losing the team altogether. Now Washington's fans of National League ball are getting screwed. And if you're a fan in a town or state with a publicly-financed stadium, you're getting screwed since your tax dollars are going to build stadiums that could be built perfectly well with private money. See: Pac Bell Park (or whatever it's called now) in San Francisco.

And if you're not a fan, and you see your tax money go to giving billionaires stadiums, well!

In other (Cardinals) news.

When I saw that the San Francisco Giants gave Mike Matheny 10.5 million dollars over three years, with a $4 million option for 2008, my initial reaction was "Brian Sabean has lost his mind." It's insane. Matheny is going to be 35 next September, for crying out loud. The man labors mightily to hit his weight. He's never hit more than eight homers in a season. His arm has lost something, he can't run, he can't hit; about all he can do is be a backstop (which he does well, for a thirtysomething catcher). This is the craziest contract yet of the offseason.

So I go to the Store where I work, which is a hotbed of Cardinals fans, and they're in deep mourning. Everybody thinks the Cardinals should have matched the offer. Why? He's a "team leader," "the heart of the team," "he handles the pitchers well," and on and on.

Going from person to person, I felt like the man who escaped from Plato's cave. He can't hit! He's 34! He'd have cost almost eleven million dollars! He can barely catch now! One soul explained that we should have given Matheny a big contract to "make up" for the paltry contracts he had been given before. The man made four million dollars last year slugging .348. He's been one of the most ridiculously overpaid members of the team virtually since he got here. (Excepting the Tino Martinez Era. Gah.) Over the years, the Cardinals have given him well over eleven million dollars, or $95,000 per extra-base hit. (Last year, he made $142,857.14 per EBH. Unless you're Ichiro Suzuki, that's too damn much money.)

As far as handling the pitchers...hell, why not, I'd make him pitching coach over Dave Duncan. Sure. But just how good is he at handling pitchers behind the plate? In 2003, the ERA of pitchers when he caught them was 4.60. Which was exactly the same ERA the pitchers had the other third of the season. (He also only threw out 23% of baserunners, which is Not Helping The Ballclub. That number needs to be over 25%.) I haven't seen the 2004 stats yet, but I'd be surprised if the difference in ERA was significant.

(UPDATE: Found the numbers. Last year, he threw out about 30% of baserunners and had a pitchers' ERA of 3.89. Better than 2003, certainly. His replacement, Yadier Molina, caught a lot last year too, though, and threw out baserunners at a 47% clip and had a pitchers' ERA of 3.64. Make of that what you will.)

On the other hand, the Giants are kicking butt in Clubhouse Leadership.

Lost in our mourning over Matheny, Edgar Renteria signed a four-year, $40 million deal with the Red Sox. I'm willing to believe Edgar could actually be worth that, but it's close. It's the kind of gamble that the Sox can make more easily than the Cardinals can. I'd have been more comfortable with a shorter deal, myself. For me, when I saw the numbers, I had the feeling I have in bidding games where the guy to my right bids the precise amount I was looking to bid. I have a feeling Jocketty felt similarly, even though I don't think he's ever played Medici.

DRY QUICKSAND

Some of the freakiest stuff I've ever seen. You can read an article about it here.

TAJMAHALFRED GETS RESULTS--FOR YOU

A little while ago I posted some news on the Heroscape Expansions, and mentioned that the IX Roman Legion was an odd choice given its decidely spotty war record. Earlier today, Rob Daviau from Hasbro looked in on this very blog and pointed out (in the comments) that the IX Legion is actually a fine choice, as they disappeared. Why should they not have disappeared to Valhalla? Why not indeed, I say, and stand happily corrected.

(A fine bit of customer service, too.)

A tip of the hat is in order to Hasbro, by the way, for having improved the lot of mass-market games in the past few years. Between Heroscape, LOTR Risk and Battleball, and re-releasing the Mission Command games, the shelves at the big chain stores have been looking a lot better. These are all games that are a lot better than most of us cynical gamers expected.

INTERESTING BLOG

You don't have to be an Austinite to create a blog devoted to the creation of new Zen koans, but I think it'd help.

I have a tendency to prattle when Zen comes up, which I think says all that needs to be said about my depth in that area, so I'll withold further comment. Except that everyone with an interest in Zen, or good comic books on serious topics, should check out this book.

ON THE TABLE

I've been looking over a game I've had for a little while, but never got around to investigating, The Bridges of Shangri-La. I like what I've seen thus far. It's that rareish beast, the multiplayer game of complete information and no luck. My only problem with it is the theme. I mean, it's OK, but it's kind of...odd. I mean, I like the idea of Yeti-Whispering, which is one of the things you become a master in in the game, but it doesn't seem to be an integral part of the theme. And if you have the blue pieces, you're supposed to call your side "Ba-Lao." Does anybody do this? No. No they don't. (Yes, it's a German pun--blau. All the color-names are like that.)

So, for the rest of this discussion, I'm going to pretend it uses a completely different theme, one which I think works much better. Why? Because it amuses me. I'm only ("only") going to change the names of things for this review, not the mechanics. You will get an idea of how the game works from this, but if you actually sit down and play it you might have a bit of a learning curve. Hey, if you want a real review, go read Greg Schloesser or something.

Anyway.

This is a game about the balkanization of the Liberal Arts in contemporary Academe. (Shangri-La = Academia. Not a stretch.) Each player represents one of the so-called "dominant paradigms," all-encompassing ways of filtering one's experience, the grand unifying Theories of Everything that seek to dominate academia: Postmodernism, Marxism, Gender Studies, and Postcolonialism. The board has thirteen universities on it, each of which has seven liberal arts departments: History, Philosophy, English Lit, Classics, Comparative Lit, Anthropology and Sociology. Each department at each university can only hold one worldview, mostly because of interpersonal issues that rarely involve research per se.

Each university has three or four links to other universities, which--again--are mostly personal rather than institutional, and are easily broken, as we shall see. At the beginning of the game, these intact links are represented by neat little wooden bridges. Each player takes a color, which has six counters (representing professors) for each of the seven liberal arts.

The board starts empty. The beginning of the game sees each paradigm inserting its first professors into the various universities. (This represents the early sixties.) Each player takes one counter of their color for each of the liberal arts, and in turn they place them on the board in the appropriate department. Each university may not start with more than three counters, no two of which belong to the same player. (Thus, at the beginning of the game, in a certain university--let's call it "Duke"--the Postmodernists could have professors in the English Lit and Comparative Lit departments, while the Marxists dominate Anthropology. No player can now put pieces in here during the beginning phase.)

After each player has placed their starting counters, the real game begins.

On your turn, you may take one of three actions:

1. Place a Professor tile, or
2. Recruit grad students, or
3. Send your grad students into the job market.

Placing professors is one way of having your faction infiltrate other departments. If you already have a professor in one department at a university, that professor uses his or her influence to get their buddies into another department. If there is an empty slot at a university, you may place one of your counters in there. You may not displace another faction using this type of action.

Note that this only works if you already have professors in there. You get your professors into new universities by training and placing grad students.

To recruit grad students, you take any two counters from your supply and place them atop professors you already have on the board. Professors are very self-absorbed, and thus may only train one grad student at a time. These two grad students don't have to be placed in the same university. (Grad students also--very realistically--don't have to leave by a certain time; they can take incompletes and stay ABD indefinitely.)

Eventually, though, you'll probably want to approve some theses and kick them out into the job market. To do so, you take all the grad students at one university--your students and those of others--and hike them over to a new university to try to get jobs. You do this by moving them over one of the bridges, which gets burned behind you (taken off the board), as the universities rift over the poor quality of new professors sent across.

Each new-minted PhD tries to get a position at the new university. If the department position is open, with no counter, then the new guy gets in automatically. If the department is already occupied, however, it gets tricky.

Universities are very status-conscious, and each university knows if it is more or less prestigious than its neighbors. Prestige is measured in how many professors and grad students it has: A university with four professors, each with a grad student (eight points), is more prestigious than one with five professors, but only two grad students (seven points). (My new theme doesn't work so hot here.) If that's tied, then the university with the most professors is more prestigious; if that's tied, then whatever university is being moved to is more prestigious. You count the tiles in the university before you start moving (thus, if you move the students from the 4 profs/4 grad students university, that counts as eight, not four).

If you're moving a student to a department that your faction already controls, then your PhD gets a mere post-doc and remains a "student," and can be moved later. (You put the counter on top of his "new" professor.) If you're moving a student onto someone else's counter (or counters), if you're moving from a more prestigious university, that new prof overthrows his opponent's domination of the department and begin his own regime. If you're moving from a less prestigious university, that student goes into retail (i.e., goes back in your supply).

If all the bridges to a university are burned, then that university is frozen, and no new professors can be placed or students recruited or moved. Once all but two universities are frozen, the game ends. The player who dominates the most departments wins; if there's a tie, then it's whoever controls departments in the most different universities.

It's a neat idea. The nub of the game seems to be the timely recruitment and graduation of grad students, as that's how you really spread your gospel around. Placing professors seems like more of an endgame sort of thing to me. Not that I'd know.

I like Colovini's work; his stuff is pretty abstract but usually I find it pretty fun (Cartagena, Magna Grecia, Carolus Magnus...). I'm eager to give this one a try, especially if I can manage to get my "theme" in wider acceptance.

(Apologies to most of my regular readers, who are techies and thus not too exposed to the vagaries of the liberal arts departments and their politics. (At least I hope you're not.) Like I said, hit Greg Schloesser's review for a straight-up version. He does this sort of thing better than I anyway...)

ON THE TABLE

Man, am I ever feeling terrible this weekend. A virus has been spreading around the Store, and it finally caught up with me. Good thing it waited until the weekend to strike, eh?

What better way, I thought, to sit out the "bug" than with games? For a while I took down my One Book On Bridge, in my biennial attempt to figure that game out, but conventions look even more impenetrable than usual when you have a lot of cough syrup in you. My hat is off to all those who have managed to keep all these things straight.

So then I decided to look into simpler fare, something small I could set up in the little table in my room so I could just keel over into bed whenever the mood struck. What I settled on was Napoleon in the Desert.

I'm a big fan of this series for Napoleonic battles. The rules are simple, the games are fast, the maps are small. Maybe not the most in-depth study ever made on the subject, but it imparts the whiff of grapeshot nicely.

The only trouble with Napoleon in the Desert is the maps. This comes from a time in the history of Avalanche Press, beginning about three years ago, when all their maps started looking about like I feel right now. All the NitD maps are sepia-toned, and look like they were drawn with crayons. They're terrible, which is odd since their previous efforts were at least acceptable, if not eye-popping. And the counters are still good. I'm not sure what happened here.

Forgot a trouble. The other trouble with NitD is that the battles are, well, pretty lopsided affairs, which is only reasonable given their subject--Napoleon's smackdown of the Turks and Mamelukes early in his career. The old Borodino game is, naturally, substantially closer. Still, the battles are at least interesting for one reason or another. Mount Tabor has the French holding off their enemies outnumbered umpteen-to-one. I played Aboukir, where Napoleon, with a small army, has to somehow bust through some Turkish entrenchments and a fortress. He's helped by the Turkish commander-in-chief, who is beyond terrible. Each general has an initiative rating; during your turn, you roll a die and subtract the DR from your CiC's initiative to find out how many formations you can activate. Napoleon is a five, and gets to activate somebody five out of six turns (if you roll equal to your initiative, you get one activation). Mustafa is a two, which means that for a few turns in a row there he couldn't/wouldn't do anything. Which is actually a fair representation of what happened...

Combat is done by adding up the traditional combat factors, adding the tactical rating of a general (if present), tossing in some modifiers, and rolling that many dice and looking for sixes. Maybe not the most elegant way to do things, but I like it. A lot of wargamers don't, because it's faster to roll on a combat results table, but I'm partial to the more tactile feel of rolling a fistful of dice...that, and I have an irrational hatred of look-up tables. The fewer the better, I say. I think that's why I like the Columbia Games products so much--they keep the looking-stuff-up to a bare minimum.

In Aboukir, the French have better generals and higher-morale troops than the Turks, whose advantages lie in their trenches and their firepower (they have more men on the ground). There wasn't a whole lot of room for tactics here; the French didn't have enough artillery to make any kind of effect on the Turks, so they just had to blow the trumpets and charge. The Turks swatted away two of the attacking divisions, but cracked on the other two--and the French poured through the breach and the rout was on. A few Janissaries managed to make it into the fortress, but too few to withstand an attack from Napoleon with a mostly-intact elite French division with attached artillery. French losses were heavier than historically; mostly they lost some native guides and the band (which gives a nice morale bonus to the unit it's stacked with).

Over time, I've found that my tastes in wargames have changed. I just don't have all that much desire to look a bunch of stuff up, to go into a game knowing a quarter of the rules, and having twelve or more square feet of map set up. I used to; I used to really like games like Empires in Arms and other monsters, but I've been losing that touch. Most of my wargame purchases and playings lately have had manageable maps, relatively few counters, and short rules. Part of that's from my increased exposure to Eurogames, but I don't think that's all of it. Part of it's an increased appreciation for minimialism in games generally, of not having more than you need in a game. Say there are two games that each do an equally fine (if different) job of imparting the historical flavor and lessons of their theme, but one does it in two weeks' playing time with three maps and two thousand counters, and another does it with twenty counters and two decks of cards. The first takes two weeks to play, the other takes three hours. The latter is just more impressive to me.

My "hypothetical" games, above, are War Between the States and Blue vs. Gray, but it holds for all kinds of topics. ASL vs Up Front, La Grande Guerre vs Paths of Glory...I can admire the monsters, but I keep actually playing the tighter ones, and when I daydream of designing a game it's the latter I look to for inspiration. (Of course, when I sit down with a notebook and pencil to start thinking a game up, I start throwing in the kitchen sink. It's very tempting.)

Not that I'm getting rid of Europa Universalis anytime soon.

BEISBOLAS

So, this post is basically all-baseball. The first part is me talking to myself about the Cardinals's moves thus far in the offseason, the rest is more generally-directed. You've been warned.

I've been surprised and disappointed by the media, and popular, attitude towards the Cardinals not resigning Tony Womack, and his subsequent two-year, $2-million-per deal with the Yankees. This line from today's paper is typical: "How can Jocketty [the Cards's GM] chase a Randy Johnson deal when he can't even afford Tony Womack?" Obviously the Cardinals could have afforded Tony Womack. It's just that giving Womack four million dollars is insane. The main local news station approached this non-signing as though the Cardinals would be lucky to win fifty games next season without our "top leadoff man" in tow. Look: The man has a career on-base percentage of .319. That's really not good. Last year was his career high, .349, which is just about the league average. Last year was, by a very large margin, his career year. And next year he'll be 35. You just don't pay players who are league-average in their fluke year four million dollars. Well, unless you're the Yankees, I guess. They're a good enough team that they can have a sub-average position player or two, and have enough money to piss it away on the likes of Tony Womack. I second the thoughts of USS Mariner on this topic.

I do, however, don't see much wrong with giving Matt Morris that one-year, incentive-laden contract. Why not? He'll be about as good as Eric Milton and most of the rest of the middle-tier pitching free agents, and he has upside assuming he makes a full recovery from this latest surgery, and it fixes what ailed him last year. Granted, these are big "ifs," but this is a reasonably inexpensive gamble. I boldly predict that Morris will give the Cardinals more for their $2.5 mil than the Yankees will get out of Womack for two million.

What I don't like is the Cardinals offering Matheny arbitration. It's time to end the Mike Matheny era before it gets seriously sad out there. Yadier Molina isn't going to make anyone forget about Ted Simmons, but he's better than Matheny and he's working for the league minimum. I say spend money on superstars and fill the rest of the lineup with useful cheap players and near-rookies--which, by and large, is exactly what Jocketty has done.

I'm not at all sure what to do about Renteria. He's a good player, no doubt, but he wants a lot of money for a lot of years, and I'm uncomfortable doing that for anybody but borderline Hall of Famers and above. I'm not sure that Renteria's past his peak...but if he wants five or seven years, I think that'll mean paying for three to five non-peak years there, which is a bad investment for teams other than the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers. Two years, sure. Three years, sure. Five...not so much. That said, if Edgar's wearing the birds on the bat next year, I'll still find a way to be pleased with the situation.

(Here's the more general part.)

To gear up for the busy part of the offseason and the season to come, I've been reading some baseball books. One I just picked up for three bucks was an old copy of Weaver on Strategy, Earl Weaver's post-retirement summary of the strategies and tactics of baseball, everything from how to handle pitchers, to setting a lineup, when to bunt, how to argue with umpires, how to scout...it's all here. If you've ever wondered what a manager does all day, this is the book to get.

You'd think Earl Weaver would have a better reputation than he does (and he has a good one). I mean, the man had a career winning percentage of .583, which is pretty luminous, and only had one sub-.500 season. It seems, though, that he's destined to be most famous for screaming at people, rather than winning ballgames by the bushel basket.

Earl Weaver's reputation is highest among the serious statheads, the so-called "Sabrmetricians" (after SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research). Bill James started this trend in the early eighties, right about when Weaver retired for the first time. Ever since, it seems like the statheads have been doing nothing but confirming what Earl Weaver deduced in the late sixties and won pennants with.

Earl Weaver laid down (in the book and elsewhere) several Laws of Baseball that managers disobey at their team's peril. For the most part, they track closely with what statistical analysis has confirmed. You shouldn't steal a base unless you have a 75% chance of success, for instance, and that the sacrifice bunt is a poor play. That the game is measured in outs, and the 27 outs a team starts with at the beginning of a game is the team's most precious commodity, and should be prized. That drawing walks and getting on base--thus preserving outs--is the game's central offensive skill. That hitting for power is the second-most important skill. That your best clutch hitters tend--glory be!--to be your best players, period. And, of course, "If you play for one run, that's all you'll get."

His advocacy for the four-man rotation has been getting a lot of attention from the sabrmetric community, and teams have toyed with it. Think about it: If you have a fifth starter, that starter's worse than your other starters. Why have him pitch so often? "It's easier," Weaver says, "to get four good pitchers than five." It'll save a team money, too. Weaver was also good at identifying talent lurking within marginal players, and using them so their weaknesses weren't so pronounced--he loved platooning players and used pinch-hitters liberally. He played for every angle he could, refusing to give up the slightest advantage.

What you get out of Weaver's managerial style is a striving for efficiency, refusing to waste anything. He wouldn't waste outs, he wouldn't waste a roster spot, he wouldn't waste a player's talent. I can't imagine Weaver, like LaRussa, having three catchers on the roster at any point in the season. Or using a one-out reliever. Or bothering with a "closer," your theoretically-best reliever you use almost only in low-pressure situations (ninth inning with a lead). Even arguing with the umpires, Weaver says, is good because if there's going to be an argument with an umpire--shouldn't it be the manager? After all, a manager can't hit or pitch. Why waste a player so you don't get kicked out of a game?

Weaver was also quite the stathead, and would pore over every stat he could find before each game. I can imagine him as a SABR member (although, to my knowledge, the only current or former manager in SABR is Davey Johnson--a Weaver protègé with a career winnning percentage of .564).

Weaver on Strategy is highly recommended reading for any baseball fan, casual or fanatic, who wants to learn more about the art and craft of managing. It'll change the way you watch the game--you might cringe a lot more, for one thing (but we longtime LaRussa-watchers are used to this).

LARGE COLLECTIONS

In yesterday's Gamefest Blog entry, Tom Vasel discusses a topic near and dear to my heart: The joys of having a large collection. I'm closing in on 900 entries on BGG myself, so I thought I'd weigh in.

Tom Vasel is quite right that a large collection is an attention-grabber, and there's something to be said for that. It's good for starting conversations, about games and much else (particularly the historical titles). I also appreciate (sympathize with?) his "variety" and "perfect game" rationales/rationalizations. It's good to have a game at hand that can be "exactly what you need." Of course, there's a flip side to this: An overwhelming number of choices. Not that I'm willing to declare this worse than having too few choices, mind you.

I suppose, as the St. Louisan with almost certainly the largest collection of Euro-games in the area, that I should be taking a more proactive role in promoting the hobby, but I've never seemed to do much along those lines. I've tried a few things in fits and starts, but with singularly little success. Most of the gamers I'm acquainted with are quite happy with Munchkin, thank you. (And then there are the various "cults" in the area, that only play one game.)

Probably the reason I most identify with on Tom Vasel's list is "brain activity." I just find games intrinsically fascinating on a few different levels, even the ones I don't play that often.

There's often a dichotomy set up between "wargames" and "eurogames," but I think that's slightly off. Instead, I often think of a difference between "simulation" and "mechanics" games. A "simulation" game tries to create a game that, first and foremost, recreates something. Wargames, typically, are in this category. Obviously they have mechanics--often extremely clever and elegant mechanics--but the mechanics are there in order to serve a simulative purpose; mechanics are subordinated to theme. Along with wargames, other examples of these kinds of games are the various sports-replay games, and some of the more strenuous attempts to simulate business activity or the stock market.

"Mechanics" games try to create elegant mechanics from the start, and theme is thick or thin on the bones as may be. Knizia's games are the poster children for this kind of game--the themes for his games can usually be almost anything.

(There are some hard cases, as always--Knizia's Lord of the Rings springs to mind--but this is often a good way to look at how games get designed--theme down, or mechanics up.)

The "Mechanics" games fascinate me for how they work as elegant systems. There's a beauty in creating a neat, self-contained universe of interacting structures. I like appreciating these when they occur, and tinkering with creating my own. (To no good end, thus far.)

By the same token, I like seeing how different designers approach the problems that the "Simulations" provide. They're kind of like writing a book on a historical subject: What do you focus on? What do you leave out? How do you think certain things worked--and, finally, how do you make it all work out so people can play it? Then, after you do that, you have to figure out some way to make it competitive.

(Sometimes this is kind of disappointing. Games on the battle of Cannae, for example, generally award "victory" to the Roman player if he can get basically anybody at all to survive and flee off the board, or not have everybody die by turn t.)

When the history and mechanics really work well together, a "simulation" game can really be a thing of beauty.

So, my primary rationalization for the Collection is that each and every game has given me some kind of pleasure, even if it hasn't always been from playing it.

I've been lucky, though, in that I haven't had many "real life" expenses to cut into my game budget. Those times are coming to a swift end, though, and the growth of the collection is going to slow (or maybe even contract) as (if) I begin to wind my way through graduate school. There are opportunity costs to having a lot of games--if only not having a lot of books! (Of course, some of us manage even that.)

OUT OF THE BOX

In what may be my last major game purchase for some time, I came back from an errand this evening to find Antiquity on the doorstep.

I haven't had a chance to play through it yet, but it looks intriguing. A few fast comments:

• This game has nearly 1400 cardboard counters--more than 95% of my wargames, which get sneered at all the time by some eurogame snobs for having too many pieces. Roads and Boats had a...well...boatload of counters too. It's not about how many pieces there are, it's about how you use them...
• Reading through the rules (which are on BGG), this game appears to be more complicated than Roads and Boats. This is not necessarily bad.
• On the other hand, this game is a much nicer physical specimen than is R&B. R&B was kind of primitive, this is very nice. The game is supposed to evoke oldness, right down to the box, which is mocked up to look like an acquisition in some historical archive. As a lover of old maps, the visual style is a major plus.
• This game just about has it all: Trading resources, empire building, resource management, advances, variable powers and victory conditions, and on and on. It seems like every rule and feature affects five or six other things, which is what makes this game complicated. I'm not positive that it all hangs together...but if it does, then this is a game for the ages.
• The biggest difference from R&B is the whole nature of the game: You own things. In Roads and Boats just about everything could be used by any player; in this one you're working up your own little empire. I think that's an appropriate choice, but a lot of the smaller differences step from this one.
• The most common counters are for pollution. I don't think medieval cities polluted nearly at the level the game depicts, but that doesn't make it a bad game mechanic.

Again, I'm going to have to test-play this one a few times before I can make more pronounced pronouncements, but early returns are very positive.

HEROSCAPE EXPANSIONS

For all of you out there eager for new Heroscape figures--and Lord knows I am--Hasbro claims that the first four boosters are coming out this month. Better pictures are available here. Highlights: The Romans, of course, and you get a new Guy on a Dinosaur. And you just can't put a price on that sort of thing.

The booster set is called "Malliddon's Prophecy," complete with an unnecessary double-d, and doubtless there's a brand new crazy-insane backstory to further push the whole affair into the realm of the absurd.

(It occurs to me, now, that Malliddon could be Welsh--why not, right?--in which case the "DD" is really an eth, and thus perfectly acceptable.)

The Romans, by the way, are listed as being from IX Legion, which is one of the less-auspicious ones. It got its butt kicked by Boudicca (but not as bad as some), and after puttering around northern England in a reduced state fell out of the history books, probably sent back to the mainland and frittered away against the Parthians or somesuch. I do not have high hopes for these guys holding off a hideous monster riding a T-Rex or a Giant Death Robot.

VARIA

Some good links I've found...

The Ten Least-Successful Christmas Specials of All Time. I'm particularly fond of "Ayn Rand's A Selfish Christmas" and The Village People in Can't Stop the Christmas Music -- On Ice!

On ESPN, Jim Caple has a good article about the BS surrounding the Washington Nationals. He also reports that the first publicly-funded/subsidized stadium was Milwaukee's County Stadium, but I don't think that's right: Cleveland's Municipal Stadium was about twenty years older. I've seen County Stadium proposed as the first public-funds stadium for a while, though, and in many places. My sense is that this only became current after Bud Selig--who owned the Milwaukee franchise for many years--started pushing hard for other cities and states to fund stadiums.

It's gratifying to see that The Games Journal takes the same approach I recommended concerning games for non-gamers. Attika does have a lot to recommend it, as does Blokus. I never have played Ticket to Ride, but it's interesting that Greg Aleknevicus brought up the same problem Jeff did in a comment months ago (i.e., that you need a good card draw to win). If so, it's hard to imagine a backlash not coming about...or some kind of fix.

Hm...Einfach Genial isn't coming out from Fantasy Flight for at least a year. I may have to find a German copy somehow...