Week 7: Single-celled Introvert
Microbial Cold-callers
So apparently I am not immune to that cold that’s been going around. I guess it just needed to use all those other people’s cell nuclei to mutate just enough that it could infect me. Or maybe I have a super immune system that was fighting it off this whole time, and only now has given up and gone to watch TV…
Immune system: “Stop knocking on my door, you loser! I told you last time - I don’t want any of your scam cable TV insurance policies! Even the one with the 0% credit card! ESPECIALLY the one with the 0% credit card!”
Virus: “But this deal’s made just for you! We change all your sinus control over to our new supercharged maximum production plan, and in exchange you get to sit around and not talk because your throat is made of ignited razor blades!”
Immune system: “You know, that does sound kinda good. No, it’s fine - I think I like the-”
Virus: “But don’t decide right away! You can think about it for the next 10 seconds, and if you decide to take up the offer before then, you’ll get a free set of me growing in a whole bunch of cells all through your body!”
Immune system: “Okay fine.” [Starts to sign dotted line on clipboard in own blood] “I’ll take a set, but I better not regret-”
Virus-devil: “All your base are belong to us. Make your time.”
Random Thoughts: Own Worst Enemy
Often I find that I’m my own worst enemy, and I can’t help but visualise how things would be if the tables were turned. For some reason they always seem to be exactly the same.
This week in The Last Journey of the Eye of Odin
The Oscar was a search-and-rescue Courier-class ship, equipped with grappler cables for towing and scrap recovery as well. It could be operated by as little as two crew, but optimally by at least six, and had enough cargo hold area to hold many more people if the need arose.
Juno was manning the sensor console. The communication array had a lock on the distress signal, but all the other sensor systems were currently dark – they were still a few minutes out of range of the distress signal's coordinates, so no silhouette could be seen yet. Then something blinked on the console.
“What was that?” Juno pushed a few buttons to try to recalibrate the array.
“What was what?” Chen looked over. “I thought we weren't close enough yet.”
“We're not,” Juno replied. “But I saw something blink on here for a split second.”
“Probably just a glitch. This bucket is probably due for a service.” He looked back at his own console. “Mention it when we get back.”
Juno wasn't convinced. She widened the array search area as large as it would allow, but the re-scan results didn't show anything. Maybe it was just moving really fast? She checked to make sure there was a sensor log being kept, and there was. “Yeah.” I'll take the sensor log up to the SSD geeks when this mission is over, Juno thought to herself as she set the sensor area back to no bigger than the distance from the Oscar to the distress signal.
A few minutes later, a ping from the forward sensors sounded and Juno threw one of the more powerful bow camera feeds up on to the main display. “Target silhouette should be visible now.”
“All right, so where is it?” Connors asked, squinting at the feed.
Juno had to zoom in a fair way, but finally a pixelated grey smudge became visible against the dark starry backdrop. “There.”
“I think 'visible' was an overstatement,” Connors commented. “Can the computer even determine what that is?”
“I'm right here, Lieutenant,” the ship's computer spoke from the grappler console next to Connors.
Connors jumped, and Peters chuckled from his position at the weapons console and winked at Juno.
“Gary, can you nail down what we're looking at here?” Juno asked the air in front of her.
“There is a good probability that I can, Juno,” the jovial disembodied voice replied as a rapidly changing silhouette comparison began flickering next to the grey smudge.
The crew knew that the ship's databanks stored virtual silhouette frames from every registered shipyard in the solar system, and even a few of the 'yards in the Far Colonies. By the time Gary had compared the smudge against the virtuals, the smudge will likely be close enough that they could just look at it through a viewport.
Peters groaned and Juno imagined him as a bored child in the back of his parent's stationwagon. She laughed and the other crewmembers looked at her. “Sorry. Just remembered a funny conversation – I guess you had to be there.”
Fantasy Tabletop Strategy Game - continued
Today, we’re continuing with the unit topic from last time, and looking at the specific types of units available. These are available to all sides, regardless of racial options available to their cities, or the unit origins sides are using to recruit their armies.
Unit Types
Infantry
Infantry are the most basic unit type, and training this unit type usually does not require anything beyond a barracks. They are usually only capable of moving one hex per turn but not as terrain restricted as siege units are (see below). Infantry can move through forests and hills without the need of roads to be constructed. Infantry can be given mounts to increase their movement speed as well, whereas siege units cannot.
Cavalry can only be produced in cities with stables. If the city has a supply of some kind of mount in a hex within its influence, and has constructed a stable, it can spend one production point to produce a saddle and an infantry unit in the city can then spend one movement to use the saddle and mount one of the available mount creatures. While on the mount, the unit is now classed as cavalry. At any point during its following turns, it can spend one movement to dismount and become infantry once more. The saddle is recovered at that location and carried by the unit until it passes it to another unit, or uses it again, or returns it to a city.
Cavalry are generally the fastest land-based unit type, and usually have three times their standard movement rate on roads instead of two. When they enter rough terrain however, such as forests, their movement is reduced to one. There are exceptions to this, indicated on the relevant units, such as giant spider cavalry which can quickly move through forest hexes as if they are moving across gentle grasslands, and climb otherwise impassable mountains as if they are standard rough terrain, at a movement speed of one.
Mount sources act like native camps, and as long as the hex containing the mount creature ‘herd’ isn’t pillaged, then any city controlling the hex can use the creatures as mounts. Cities can even control multiple mount sources, to allow different types of cavalry, such as giant eagles and giant spiders, to allow for a multiple-pronged military tactic involving a rush through forests and over mountains to an enemy city that would otherwise be too far out of reach.
Siege Units usually have little or no close range defensive abilities and are primarily used to assault enemy troops and cities from afar with great damage. For the most part, these specialised devices require a siege workshop to produce, and all land-based siege units are too large to move by any means other than road. This means that roads must be constructed ahead of your siege column so that you can get it close enough to the target to fire. An example tactic would be a scouting party moving several turns ahead of your main army, and keeping a perimeter around a group of workers spending their time building roads around the roughest terrain. Another example of a siege unit is the siege ladder, which provides access for infantry in the same stack to directly attack a city. Without the siege ladder, non-ranged ground units like basic infantry are at the mercy of any ranged units within the city.
Warlords and Chief Warlords
Warlords are special units, created by promoting another unit already in your army. By becoming warlords, a unit gains a leadership statistic which is added as a bonus on to all unit rolls in the same stack as the warlord. So warlords can be assigned to important unit stacks and sent in to battle to increase the odds of success by those units under them. The leadership score assigned to each warlord is rolled for, so warlords are not all equal, although having a warlord in a stack will always be better than not having one – as any bonus is better than none.
Chief warlords are even rarer than standard warlords, as each side can only have one. Like warlords, chief warlords must be promoted from an already present unit, and they are assigned a leadership statistic in the same way. However, the leadership of a chief warlord is a bonus not only to the stack it is in, but to every stack the side has, everywhere on the map. To clarify, the presence of a chief warlord in the capital city of a side increases the effectiveness of the side’s troop actions in every battle across the map for the remainder of the game, or at least until the chief warlord is replaced by the side, or forcibly removed by an enemy side, or is in transit to a new capital city.
I did have a fairly productive couple of editing sessions, and got a bunch more Crash Landing videos ready to go, but I haven’t uploaded them yet (it’s happening as I type this). So, again - I’ll have to get back to you with the video links down the track. You should also see them pop up in the playlist as they become available.
That’s it for this week. I’m going to bed before this head cold explodes my face. Because I’d rather be asleep if that happens. ;)
-Ix.
