SERPENTES ON A SHYPPE!
I will, in all liklihood, never see "Snakes on a Plane." In this, if in no other way, SoaP shares much in common with the likes of Gone with the Wind, The Princess Bride, Citizen Kane, The Graduate, and other great and/or classic movies.
All I know is: If the only legacy of SoaP is this, it will have made no little contribution to western civilization.
SURELY A FIRST
So, I was reading Gregory Daly's (excellent!) book on the battle of Cannae--entitled, curiously enough, Cannae--and got to the chapter discussing the makeup of the Carthaginian army. It's a hard thing to get a handle on, from a scholarly point of view, since the Roman historians didn't devote nearly as much attention to the Carthaginian war machine as they did on the Roman--and there were darn few native Punic historians. (By which I mean there were none, at least that survived.) It's hard to write what you don't know.
Who, then, shall come to the resuce?
The paucity of evidence on Carthage's army has led it to be almost entirely neglected by modern academics. However, enthusiastic wargamers, notably Duncan Head, have gone some way towards filling the gap. Head's research, while admittedly frequently conjectural, is largely based on snippets of information gathered from Polybius and Livy, supported by lengthier passages in the work of later writers such as Strabo, and by what little archaeological evidence is available. It is fairly detailed and emphasises the traditional equipment and combat styles of the various national contingents in Carthage's army. This is probably the best possible approach to the subject, given that Hannibal employed a wide range of foreign troops, such as Lybians, Numidians, Iberians, and Celts. (p. 82. Emphasis added.)
The book of Duncan Head's cited is a miniatures wargames manual, perhaps not surprisingly. I've never seen a wargame, or wargamer, cited in any scholarly literature before. It's reasonable, looking at it in this case. Scholars, when they don't know something, usually try to avoid making conjectures, and prefer a more modest conclusion to one that has too many legs off the ground, as it were. (This can never be avoided entirely, of course. You never know everything.) Wargamers, though, have to put something on the table. You have to give the Carthaginians some kind of organization, equip them with some kind of weapons, and so on. Conjecture is unavoidable, and if someone (like Duncan Head) made a particularly thorough job of it, that person is to be commended.
(I say "not surprisingly" above since I've found that miniatures "army manuals" tend to be a lot more detailed, and sometimes footnoted, whereas boardgame rulebooks and designer's notes tend to hide the research behind the curtain. I don't mind, particularly--I don't want a footnote for every rule, every combat factor, every setup hex--but there's a different style at work.)
I like to give wargames grief about certain fundamental ahistorical features that are intrinsic to the genre--that wargames aren't as "historical" as some people like to claim--but there's no reason that a wargame designer can't do careful and useful background research. At least one has been cited in a scholarly work.
This is a great book, by the way. It's in the "new military history" mold, and focuses on the experience of combat: how ordinary soldiers were armed, organized, fed, etc. (As well as a narrative of the battle writ large.) It also does a fine job of showing how hard it is to pin down exactly what happened in ancient battles--we don't even have a really firm grasp of where the actual battle took place. Daly has a wonderful map of the area around the town of Cannae (we know where that was, at least) with little boxes outlining where all the great modern Cannae historians think the battlefield was. Few of them so much as overlap each other, and taken together they cover a huge area.
Highly recommended for those interested in ancient warfare and military historiography.
I FEEL LIKE THIS COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER
So I got the Perplex City newsletter. I saw the item "COMING SOON: THE PERPLEX CITY BOARDGAME!" My response was something along the lines of "Oh heck yes." Sadly, it looks mostly like a gussied-up answer-questions game, which is less exciting. Could be wrong, though.
Free tip to the Mind Candy folks behind the PXC puzzles: Find a man in the UK named Reiner Knizia. I think there should be only one. Send him a booster box. Two weeks later, ask him if he thinks there could be a game in there somewhere. To thank me, send me a booster box.
I'LL HAVE TO REMEMBER THIS
Before heading into the doctor's, I had to figure out how much I had left on my insurance deductible. I tried the website: Nothing but Java error messages. Whee! So I called the toll-free number: I got lost in a thicket of voice menu options, and had to hang up. Called again: Midway through the thicket, I got frustrated and yelled I want a PERSON!
Next thing I hear: "Please hold for our next available representative." Got through in a minute, had an answer in another thirty seconds.
I KNEW EBAY WAS GOOD FOR SOMETHING
Ahh, a successful eBay campaign for my games. They'll begin winging their way towards new and loving homes later today, hopefully before but possibly after a doctor's appointment. I'd also like to give a shout-out of thanks to Eric, who proved to my satisfaction that I am entirely justified in posting my auctions here...
18XX: BACK AGAIN
Well, I've read what I can, and I've tentatively decided to go with the upcoming 18TN as my first 18XX game. It's in the "short" camp, it seats five, and it's due to be part of some 18Dixie project, the very name of which makes me go atwitter. I will, as I like to say about such things, worry about regretting this later.
It doesn't come out for a few weeks, anyway. Plenty of time left to hem, haw, and dither.
DEAR LORD I WON
Behold! My glorious victory:
It's not exactly Morphy and the Duke of Brunswick, no. Although, oddly enough, one of my other games has been tracking that one through the early moves. Luckily, I'm white (Morphy).
This is kind of a new sensation. Increasing my Games Won total by 50%...yikes.
ALFRED AND CHESS: DAY ONE
Well, the tournament started, and I'm in three games. Only one of them has progressed very far; in one game I made Move One as white, and that's been it. I figure if the other guy forgets to log in for another nine days, I got this one in the bag and I win on time. This is a strategy I need to employ in other games.
Anyway, the game that's been moving along is against the same guy I'm playing a very, very strange go game with. I think our lifetime score will probably be 1-1 after these games complete. We're at move twenty--and I'm only down a pawn! For me, this is doing extraordinarily well. I'm playing black:
If you want to see where we are from the comfort of your living room. The highlight, for me, was when I finally noticed I had a pawn hanging for the past move or two. I then moved it, to what may or may not be a more sensible place. Who knows? I sure don't.
TAKING THE PLUNGE
OK. As I mentioned on BoBG, I think I'm going to get an 18XX game of my very own. (This will, in fact, be the third in my possession, but this time with a little stronger desire to get it to the table.) I'm courting suggestions. I'd like to try one of the Deep Thought line, but I'm not wedded to that.
From an earlier suggestion, 18FL is the frontrunner. The trouble is that 2-4 players is, for the moment, kind of a clumsy number for me. Something that could play up to five or six would be great. (Or seven!) "Long" is OK, as long as it's not one of the ones that seem to get marked "For Experienced Players Only." 1850 is kind of appealing.
Then there are the ones where the theme is particularly attractive--the Isle of Wight one, 1889 (Japan), the upcoming Russia one...
So--are there any "big" 18XX games that could work well for a table of inexperienced 18XXers (but longtime gamers)?
AN EXPERIMENT!
Thinking of chess, and Little Golem, and being terrible--I've signed up for a ratings tournament on LG in chess. If I do not lose every single game, I will be entirely shocked. I will consider it a moral victory if I'm not at least a rook down by move twenty. I have won two chess games in my life, out of hundreds, and one of those was against a cheapo PalmPilot chess program on its lowest setting.
I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU, MIKKO
(...although I am curious when our games will start diverging.)
(I'm also not talking about you, Jonathan.)
As I mentioned, some of my opponents on Little Golem are somewhat inexperienced. The guy who I thought thought was playing Pente is going on, undaunted. (Re that sentence structure: Ew.) He put nine stones across the board, in a neat connected row, and I've been closing in merrily along. Strangest darned game I've ever played. Another guy has a bad tendency to play into atari. Multiple times.
Neither of these are explicitly teaching games. The first of these is a ratings tournament game. At what point may one, electronically speaking, lean over and ask "What exactly are you doing?" Or give advice? I mean, I'm not Shusaku or anything but I feel like I can fruitfully recommend the Graded Go Problems For Beginners books, say, or the early Janice Kim books. I'm not going to be giving out joseki advice...if only because play has yet to enter the corners. (I've forgotten any joseki I ever knew, anyway. I've even forgotten if I ever knew any.)
For the learning process--for games, math, languages, almost anything--I find it helpful to periodically ask the student "What is your plan? What is your goal? How are you looking at the problem?" (There's a great Jeremy Silman book on chess, The Amateur's Mind, where he asks his students (of varying amateur levels) what they're thinking of at the board, and it approaches teaching chess by having students evolve their thought processes. I find this very helpful for tutoring others, and bringing them to insight. It works for history, too, but at a different level--there are "problems" there too, but they're not as on-the-surface as in math, language translation, or go.) I really want to ask some of my opponents what made them choose Move X, but what's the protocol in rated games or semi-casual 19x19 games?
GETTING MY GO FIX
So, I've signed up for a pair of go rating tournaments on Little Golem, and I have a game I started a little while ago, and then there are the two games I challenged Mikko to. I'm up to nine games now. Let me tell you: It's the wild west out there. I have one game where my opponent apparently thinks he's playing Pente...he's going to be very, very disappointed when he puts that fifth stone out there and he hasn't won. He has a nice little line stretching out from the center point. Another guy, who had white, decided for Move 2 to start attacking my first move. He also used Move 4 to attack my Move 1. Well, while he's killing that stone I'll just go grab the other corners. Maybe a side or two.
Needless to say, sometime around move sixty I'll do something drastically hideous and end up losing all of these. That's just the way I roll.
ANYONE NEED SOME WARGAMES?
'Cause I got some for sale. Fill out the holes in your six-year-old S&T collection!
ONLINE GAMING
After over six months, my Spiel-by-Web game of Bus has finally trundled to a conclusion. I lost heavily. When I started the game, I had read the rules but never actually played. The game took forever--I'd go weeks, usually, between having to do something--and in the interim I'd have forgotten (a) the rules and (b) what I was planning to do. I suppose I could have taken notes. In any event, I think I'm through with Bus. I did it, I don't have to do it again. I don't even want to play it in person, now. (Some of the delay was outside our control and had a worthy excuse, but...)
Over on Little Golem, I'm playing a game of go. 19x19, the whole deal. This one I expect to take forever, and I'm OK with that. Well, kind of OK. I'm coming to the conclusion that I prefer playing big, serious abstract games in person. For one thing, if I make a mistake it gets punished a lot quicker--screwing up, and having the punishment drag out over two weeks...gahh. That, and I like the tactile pleasures of go, chess, the GIPF games, et al. They have an elegance in person that somehow doesn't translate to the 2D realm.
Also--and this goes for other games, too--I like to see body language. Is the other guy hesitating? I mean, if he snaps off seven moves in a row and pauses for number eight for ten minutes, does that mean I threw him off? When eight moves takes three days no matter what, it's harder. Obviously, that means I'm not playing the "pure game," but I've never been someone who sees games as puzzles to be solved and then played out to perfection--even in an ideal world. I'm one of those guys who sometimes does something strange just to see what happens.
Not that I despise online games or anything. To that end:
WHERE: Spielbyweb.
WHAT: Amun-Re game "One Week Till School."
PASSWORD: tajmahalfred
See you there. Those who have played before will be sure to endorse me as a softie at online Amun-Re.
BLAST FROM THE PAST
The original "medical marijuana"? From the Chicago Tribune, ca. June 1864:
Seekers after Pleasure and the Marvellous,
TRY IT.
It will do you good. Sold by Druggists everywhere.
13th Wholesale Angency for Chicago and the West,
Price, 50 cents and $1 per box. Send for full descriptive circular.
SOME PEOPLE JUST CAN'T BE HELPED
Scene: The library.
Ring Ring!
"Reference desk, this is Alfred."
"Hi, what are your hours tomorrow?"
"We're open from 8-6 this week."
"OK...where can visitors park?"
"Well, there are parking meters in the parking garages and the main surface lot on--"
"I don't want to park there. Is there anywhere closer?"
"Closer than the campus parking lots?"
"Right."
"Well...you can't just park right next to the library."
"I can't?"
"No. There's no lot there."
"I have to park in a lot?"
"Yes."
(sigh) "Fine, I guess I'll park in a lot."
One of the perks of being a Real Librarian is not having to take the regular Info Line questions.
PXC RIDES AGAIN
So, someone recently found and put up a copy of Card 256 for Perplex City--the last in the set. It's graded Silver, which means it's really difficult. (The card that had you tackle the Riemann Hypothesis was also a silver.) So what's the challenge this time?
Well, it consists of a picture of...a guy. On the left is writing in Japanese, saying "Find Me." It's not somebody famous. Hopefully he's aware that a huge population of puzzle geeks is after his butt, seeking answers. His given name is probably Satoshi. Anyway, here's the website set up to track him down.
This thing is crazy, man...
YET MORE PUZZLES
I just got the first issue of the subscription to GAMES Magazine that I won in their name-that-game contest from a while back. Prominent on the front cover is part of their latest "Wish You Were...Where?" contest--which is one of my favorite puzzles.
There are thirty postcards, dating from the early sixties to the present, showing various cities, universities, parks, counties...anything. The name of the place is photoshopped out, and your task to to find names for them all.
The ones on the front cover don't look too bad--I knew a couple off the top of my head, and found others pretty easily. (Still a couple of mysteries, though.) The ones on the inside are a little harder--the ones looking down Main Street of some small town look intriguing. "Let's see. This town has a baker...a bank...and a drugstore. Can't be too many of those."
I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE
It's time to let certain individuals know that...
...they're On Notice.
Get your own notice board here.
(PS: "ILL"="Interlibrary Loan," for the uninitiated. I'm specificially calling out the folks who wouldn't send me microfilm of the various Wisconsin German newspapers I wanted. Yeah, that's right! I'm talkin' to you!)
I HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE PERPLEX CITY
...because I think it might be getting a lot of posts for a while.
Anyway, I think it's generally acknowledged that this is the hardest puzzle in the set. Like I said, some of them are math problems...and this, again, is one of the more challenging ones.
YET MORE PERPLEX CITY
My fellow-gamers are warmly encouraged to check out Card 042, "Pirates vs. Ninjas."
It's not one of the harder puzzles, but a nice shout-out.
UPDATE
Wow...Perplex City's been around for a couple of years now, at least. Can't believe I just discovered it...
I'VE GOT A NEW DRUG
Wednesday is New Product Day at my local FLGS, MetaGames. I thought I'd drop by, see what's what.
The highlights were Blue Moon City and Tempus. Blue Moon City looked good, but I don't get an awful lot of chances to play four-player games these days. Tempus also looked good, but it also looked like $55, so it stayed there. The store had six copies in--I gotta find more of these gamers.
Anyway, I thought I'd just wander around a while. The manager was doing a little paperwork; it looked odd so I asked what was up. A guy near Springfield had dropped off several hundred games for MetaGames to sell on consignment! Some good stuff too--all wargames, though. I asked about a few of them...also out of my price range. I may have to see about doing some consignment sales of my own through the store, though.
Leaning on the counter, I saw what looked like a bunch of foil CCG booster packs--but they were way bigger. I picked one up.
"What's this?"
"Oh man...you gotta see this stuff. You'd love it."
It was Perplex City cards, one of the greatest things ever and somehow it slipped entirely under my radar. If you tried to tell me about it months ago...I'm sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am.
So yeah, I have a fair number of cards now. So what is it?
Basically, there are 256 cards. Each card has a puzzle, graded for difficulty. Solve the puzzle, you get points. But that's not all!
Each puzzle is part of a group of four; solve all four in a group, and you get bonus points.
So far so good.
Now...there's also a huge metapuzzle...and if you solve it first you get $200,000. (Or vaguely equivalent amounts of other currencies.) See, it's a huge Puzzle Hunt. There's this...thing buried somewhere on Earth. The metapuzzle is supposed to lead you to it. What constitutes the metapuzzle? Virtually anything. Most cards have part of a map of Perplex City on the back; you can assemble those to form the big map. Which will help, we guess. Many cards also have a little "playing card" identification on them...to what purpose I know not. Some have even more bizarre and incomprehensible gobbledygook. If you buy the starter box set--and you should, if you want to play the metapuzzle--there's a music CD, a magazine, some stickers, a little "tour guide"...all manner of things. Who knows what secrets lurk within?
Some cards have extra information encoded. There's a million things going on here.
As I mentioned, every card is graded for difficulty. The first level is, I would say, somewhere around "Find Your Butt" level. (Example: "Name the planets of our solar system.") That said, they have their certain charms--one card has scratch 'n' sniff. Then they get harder and harder...there are eight levels. The first...four or so I can do without a pencil, or just light Googling. Then they start getting pretty hairy. I don't have any Silver cards (the toughest), but the black ones (the second-toughest) are pretty good. What's great is that they test everything--pop culture, general knowledge, logic, lateral thinking...all kinds of stuff.
Some of them are old chestnuts, but none the worse for that. One card presented the Petals Around The Rose puzzle, which I had somehow missed out on, and you had to provide the answer for the last set of five dice. Took me a while; my response upon solving it was something like "_________________________." My understanding is that this is not unusual.
The metapuzzle, where you're trying to figure out what the heck is going on, is vastly beyond my ken right now, of course. The trick, I suppose, is mapping Perplex City's backstory to reality on Earth, which seems...difficult. Luckily (?), there are plenty of "plant" websites describing the Perplexiverse. Here's one example.
There are a couple of slight problems, mostly to do with the mechanics of answering the puzzles. See, you keep track of everything online. Every card has a unique ID code, which you put in. Problem One: Zeros look like Os. Once you straighten that out, you have three chances in a 24-hour period to enter your answer. The thing is, the answer checker is a little finnicky. One card had you translate a Russian phrase, and it was VERY particular about how you translated it--even though there were several plausible word orders. Luckily, most of the worst offenders are logged online--a moment's Googling provides "technical help." (The answers to most of the easy ones are online, in case you're lazy. People have been doing this for a while.)
Anyway...it's great stuff, for the puzzle addicts out there. Anyone have cards they're willing to trade?
WHAT A DEAL!
I like Princes of the Renaissance at least as much as the next guy...but not this much. And that's an expensive box they put it in, too.
Wasn't that outfit, Troll and Toad, the group that was on BGG to hire a "full time game expert" to set prices for them? What happened with that? I mean, a great many of these prices are just nuts; two or three times what they go for in open auctions. And how do you pick out a price like $301.81?
"What do we think of $301.80?"
"We're givin' away the store here! C'mon!"
"OK, how about $301.81?"
"Perfect."
Now, obviously, someone selling something on eBay can slap whatever price they want on something, and if somebody stumbles along and buys it...no skin off my nose, really. (Although I wish whoever's willing to pay $301.80 for Peloponnesian War had been willing to pay me that.) I'm just guessing that these games are going to sit on their virtual shelf for a while. (The in-print games, though, are roughly in line with the rest of the market.)
