Golden Anvil

Did you know that TrackMania supports red/blue 3D glasses? I'd never got the chance to actually try it out, because I never could get my hands on a pair of glasses.

Well, I came home today and found a surprise waiting on my desk. One of MrsKheldar's friends had a pair of SharkBoy/LavaGirl 3D glasses from McDonalds, and seeing that she was planning on throwing them away...

So, I tried it out.

The main menu looked pretty sweet, with the UI hovering in front of a slowly spinning globe. The actual racing though was not overly impressive. There wasn't a great sense of depth (I suspect that too much of what you're looking at is too far away from the camera to get a good sense of depth), and of course the colors were pretty terrible (as expected).

Still, it was fun to try out, and I'll have to show anyone that happens to come over.

On July 1, 1453, King Giorgi VII officially declared war on the Golden Horde. He'd only just arrived in Alania with the army and was still in the process of integrating the new mercenaries with the regular troops when scouts reached him with news that the Golden Horde was raising troops in Astrakhan. With some luck, the king hoped to be able to march in and disrupt the enemy troops before they were fully prepared for battle.

Out of courtesy the king had sent word to Ak Koyunlu and Shirvan who had pledged to join us in any war that might arise. Little help had been expected from them however, and sure enough, they quickly sent replies to the effect that they could not commit to any action at this time.

"Your Majesty, I beg you to reconsider!"

"No time for that now." King Giorgi VII didn't even look back as he strode from the palace.

"But, Your Majesty, the risk! Our lands will be overrun by heathens, our people will be slaughtered! You can not do this!"

Giorgi turned back around on his heel. "You will not tell me what I can and can not do." Giorgi gestured off towards the parade ground where the entire army stood at attention to the sound of a single drummer. "That sound you hear is the sound of destiny, the sound of glory. The sons of the Khan stand alone. None will come to their aid. The time to attack is now. We can not fail."

He stood for one long moment to see if any response would be attempted. Then he turned and strode off towards his waiting men.

~~~~~~~~~~

Having already taken a good look at the external issues facing our country, it's time to peer into the internal status.

Georgia is a Feudal Monarchy ruled by King Giorgi VII. Despite fancying himself a great general, the King has only a little experience in such matters. His talents in administration and diplomacy are not even worth mentioning, except to say that his presence on the throne greatly cheers our enemies. He has ruled since the beginning of 1446, and has accomplished little. His court of advisors contains no one of any note, leaving the King unassisted in matters of state.

First, some technical details about the game. I am playing Europa Universalis 3 Complete, patched up to version 3.2 beta. I'm using Magna Mundi Platinum 1.5. I did play a couple of very short test games to try a couple ideas out and see how plausible it would be for me to play Georgia. In real life, Georgia remained an independant country until 1555 when the Ottomans and the Safavids divided the country between them. My goal for this game will be to at least survive past that year. There are new patches for both the core game and Magna Mundi coming out in the next couple months, so I do not plan for the game to run for too long. Even if I survive past 1555, I will likely not play until the game's end date.

For those of you who aren't familiar with some of the terms in the title, let me give a brief explanation.

AAR - After Action Report - In gaming terms, this is when someone writes up a detailed report covering the events of a particular game. You can actually find quite a lot of these around the internet. Some are extremely well written. Some are presented in a highly fictionalized fashion. Some are pretty focused on the specifics of the gameplay. Some are intended as tutorials. Most are fairly long, as they are usually written about games that take longer to play, and most cover the game in detail. In many cases, an AAR can be interesting to read even if you've never played the game before. AARs are frequently decorated with screenshots taken while playing the game.

So, time for an EVE Online update. I promise that this one will be shorter.

Before I get into what I've been up to, I thought I'd mention something in case I inspire anyone to try the game. First of all, they have both a Windows client and a Mac client (system requirements). Secondly, if you want to try it out, let me know. I can give you a 3 week free trial. It's better for you because you get an extra week over the normal trial, and better for me because if you end up buying the game, I get a free month added to my account!

The other day I picked up Castle Crashers for MrsKheldar and I to play on the XBox together. Yes, I know I just bought a bunch of games recently because of Steam. However... it turns out that when we find a game that my wife wants to play with me, all my resistance to spending money just goes straight out the window!

Well, this morning I beat Portal. Wow! Outstanding game! Technically I still have things to do. Right now I'm going back through it again in developer commentary mode. This basically makes you invulnerable and adds little commentary icons throughout the levels that you can activate to hear the developers tell you things about the game. It's a fun way to learn more about the design and creation of the game. After that, there are advanced and challenge versions of the levels to play through. I'm not sure exactly what those are like, but they're supposedly harder. We'll see.

I do think I'll need to play through the final sequence one more time so that MrsKheldar can get a chance to watch it as well.

All in all, this was (and as I continue to play in the different modes will continue to be) a great game, and well worth the money I spent.

Ok, raise you're hand if you're reading this. I want to know who's out there, but I'm too cheap to offer swag like sareth...

I might try to get back in the habit of posting here again (I did so well for longer than I initially thought I'd last). The event that's triggering this is that I'm planning on participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Is anyone else out there going to give it a shot this year? If so, let me know so I can set you as a friend on that account. I suspect I'll need plenty of encouragement. Anyway, I'm planning on recording my progress here on my blog. Hopefully the public nature of it will help encourage me to stick with it.