Human BSOD and a personal reboot

 There is a interesting concept called Post Traumatic Survival.  I first heard of it in a TEDTalk by Jane McGonigal.  My last blog post was over 4 years ago.  I survived and did not expect to.  I have some of the resilience ability she talks about but I don't feel like someone who jumps back after a set of disasters quickly.  Otoh, I am still here and still an active concern in some small communities online.

I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in May 2017 and had surgery 2 weeks later.  As a pocket scientist, I did a lot of research, talked with my surgeon and doctor, and made plans to do end of life care within the next year or two.  I looked at my palliative options, got information on personal directives, and told my two kids the truth.  The statistics are quite nightmarish.  It's an extremely lethal form of cancer.  Then the strangest thing happened.  My scans came back clean 8 months later.  There's a strange thing involved there.  I accepted and came to terms with my death coming soon but it didn't.  I've been somewhat parked both intellectually and emotionally since then.  The hardest thing after that has been to define a future for myself.  Restarting this blog is one of those steps.  I dreamed of doing more writing as far back as some stories I wrote back on Compuserve in the 90's with a semi pro online writing club.  Here is to more of that.

With the motivation of some online friends, I plan to write some more on gaming, gamer culture and specifically how to play hard core strategy games.  Come on back and see what comes next.

Guts

Hip Bone to hip bone

my betrayal spills out the gash

         viscera tangling at my feet.

I try to stride to the judge

          trip over my guts

fall.

Knee in the crimson puddle I stuff myself

          back in my belly

wrap my poncho about my waist

          knot it square

and press on.

Temple to temple

my anguish clouts my forehead

          the killing floor greets my face.

I hang by my heels above,

          my carotid not yet slit,

stunned.

A slab of beef, I awaken to horror

          quarters surround me

I reach up and pull out the hooks

          drop on the glutinous concrete

stand, press on.

Buttress to buttress

          my acceptance spans the gorge

between agony and growth.

I step onto the weathered planks

creaking and groaning

         I balk.

Winds of denial buffet me

          yet I receive the benediction

and grace to continue

          below lies doubt in ambush

I engage.

Aspen to willow

          my rebirth blooms by sagebrush

a new crocus amongst the dun timothy.

I swish through the crisp dry hay

          tenderly miss petals

breathe.

The crotch of an ancient ponderosa pine

          invites my seat

I gaze at the far horizon

          smog covered peaks entice me

I am born!

For Marlise

The Gorge

The precipice beckons
Behind, terror stalks
        And malice waits
Squeezed
         Between expectation and responsibility .

I raise my beacon,
          Flames flicker on myriad eyes.
Shredded thoughts lay around my feet.

I stretch my other arm across the gorge
And grasp a calloused hand.
           "Jump brother. You are not heavy."
I stand streadfast.

For Cecil

The future of Maerlande on the interweb

Yesterday was a red letter day.  I emailed Elizabeth Vonarburg to request permission to use Maerlande, my online persona for almost 20 years, in my new business ventures.  She responded within a few hours with YES based on my plans for the business designing and selling garden and yard thingies.

This is very brilliant.  So for anyone reading, here is her book that started my online life as Maerlande: The Maerlande Chronicles

Rhubarb Soup

I was sharing this idea to use rhubarb early in spring since it's the first local "fruit" available and I learned to make this one year when wanting to eat something fresh from our yard and nothing else was ready.  It's a great meal soup and not at all what you might expect.

Credit is from: Grandma's Touch Hrechuk and Zasada, 1990, Centex Books, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

5 cups/1.25 L          chopped rhubarb
5 cups/1/25 L          chicken or vege stock
2 tbsp/30 mL          chopped fresh parsley
2 tbsp/30 mL          chopped fresh dill
1                             medium potato, finely chopped
1                             large carrot, finely chopped
1                             stalk celery, finely chopped
1                             medium onion, finely chopped
1 cup/250 mL         chopped ham
2/4 cup/175 mL      half and half cream (10% MF)
2 tbsp/30 mL          instant blending flour
1/2 tsp/2 mL           freshly ground black pepper

• In a soup kettle, cook rhubarb in just enough water to cover.  Bring to a boil.  Drain this first water off rhubarb, then add chicken stock.
• Add the remaining ingredients, except the cream, flour and pepper.  Boil slowly for approximately 1 hour or until the vegetables are tender.
• Add cream, flour and pepper.  Bring just to boiling point.  Serve

Yield: 6-8 servings.

Dominions 4: Pretender Design and Analysis Step 4

The Wrap Up

Now you have gone over in great detail the nation you plan to use.  To put it all together, put on that thinking cap, and make a wicked cool pretender.  Or at least a useful one.

The Pretender Archtypes

I use these archtypes to guide my pretender design.  You can clearly hybridize but you may weaken the functionality.

1. The awake expander (Design to fight from turn 1 or 2. A variation is to need one or two forged trinkets and roll out turn 3 or 4.)
2. The awake high bless (I separate this one from above.  I have used it to great effect with dragons for Water 9, Fire 9 or Nature 9 bless and an excellent expander.  You take a pretty hard hit on scales).
3. The bless chassis (Design is all about the bless you need and it is commonly imprisoned for the best scales.)
4. The site searching rainbow (basically 2 in every path)
5. The artifact forging rainbow (The Magic Booster guide explains this one quite well)
6. The research rainbow (This is normally the great sage and awake.)
7. The key spell pretender (Design for something like early Burden of Time or other game changing globals.)
8. The all scales pretender. (Take the cheapest chassis available, splash on a bit of cheap magic, and buy the best scales.)
9. The diversity pretender.  (I tend to consider this one very close to the all scales.  The plan is to fill missing magic paths from your nation and is best used with a plan to summon more magi of those paths.)

The Pretender Plan: Bandar Log

From early in this discussion, I have moved towards a plan to go with a major bless.  I felt that given the very high gold and resource settings of 200% gold, 200% resources, and 75% magic I could afford to trash my scales for an amazing major bless.  Tiger Riders have one major weakness.  Their shields are only bucklers making them vulnerable to massed archers.  There are a few ways to mitigate the problem such as using archer screens in front.  However, there are also some bless solutions.  Tigers move only moderately fast for cavalry at 15 action points.  So they can take some time to close with archers.  Regeneration from Nature 9 bless can help a lot.  Air shield is an option but precision boost from major air bless does nothing for the tigers and isn't terribly helpful for astral magi since most astral spells are precision 100.  This leaves Astral 9 as an option to manage attrition from archers.  Astral 9 is not the strongest bless but an astral 9 pretender opens up amazing options in late game.

Let's look at pretender chassis for N9 or S9 bless.  Also, if I go with a dual 9 bless, earth is the best second option for all my units.  Bandar has a choice of a lot of chassis with astral and a cross path.  But very early in my look at chassis I got very excited by the Nataraja.  It's always fun in late game to have a 4 armed pretender and well it's just plain cool.  I know that I am sort of failing to apply the analysis fully, but sometimes I get fired up by a cool chassis.  And can I possibly make a triple 9 bless fly?  F9E9S9 is just such a monster of a bless I went for it.  I had to trash my scales pretty badly.

Here is my design.  It follows the plan I listed but I went a little over the top.

Imprisoned Nataraja 100 points base.
Dominion 7
Turmoil 3
Sloth 3
Cold 1
Death 2
Luck 3
Drain 3

Fire 9
Earth 9
Astral 9

The Sacrifices

1. My scales are awful.  If the game goes on a long time, I'll be very hard pressed to remain competitive.  However, one compensation is I can summon sacred troops and with 75% gems I should have a lot of gems.
2. I am betting a lot of good luck.  And that means I need to push my dominion as hard as possible but that's tough with crappy priests and a gold shortage for temples.
3. My research will be poor.  I'll have to focus research very carefully.

The Power

My sacreds are truly beasts.  And as it played, I scared the willies out of most of my opponents who wisely chose not to test them.  However, I did not have a great game.  It wasn't about my design.  My diplomacy failed.  I allied with Ashdod early and it made good sense at the time but Ashdod disintegrated under attack from two opponents and the geography was such that I could do nothing to help.  Unlike Kailasa and Patala, Bandar Log has a very difficult time entering the water and that would have been my only realistic way to help my ally.  It was still a very fun game and with the unique chassis of the Nataraja and 3 very good blesses that work together I would try triple 9 Bandar Log again.

Dominions 4: Pretender Design and Analysis Step 3

Step 3: Analyzing your opponents

You have chosen or been given your nation.  You've clearly looked over your options and have a pretender concept in mind and some tactics for the different activities.  What about those wankers who are ALSO in the game?  What a pain in the ass.  If single player was at least a competent challenge I could avoid the agony of getting beat by other players.  And let's face, even the best player loses about 5/6 games or 9/10 depending on their preferred game size.

What are we looking for?  Let's go over some obvious major issues.

• Nasty dominions.
• Dangerous sacreds.
• Powerhouse blood.
• Blood sacrifice.
• Stealthy thugs.
• Recruitable SC's

You can't predict all the things that your opponents will do.  You can make general predictions.  Is EA Niefelhiem in the game?  They will probably base their strategy on Jarls and a monster bless.  What do you do?  I don't have all the answers and it's a tough thing to measure.  But you will have a rough time if you do not consider your opponents fundamental goals.

Let's break it down.  You have say 9 opponents.  Look at their nations.  What will they likely do?  Try to have a plan for the most obvious actions.  Sure it's hopeless to plan for everything but the key is to keep in mind the obvious actions.  This section of my guide is in some ways the weakest but in others the most critical.  I can't hold your hand through every situation you might encounter but the point is to keep things in your plan.  Look over who you have to face.  What might they do and most importantly what things they might do that are most dangerous to you.

Bandar Log Example:

My opponents and their most likely strategies are:

• Vanheim - Vanheim is very likely to use stealthy thugs with a bless.  Air drop by cloud trapeze and sudden raiding is the biggest expected threat.  The best counter is to be strong enough to be too threatening to attack.  And small squads of sacreds with a mage or two can be placed in the path of potential attacks to stop thugs
• Abysia - Hard hitting fire immune troops backed by fire evocations is the most likely.  Minor blood hunting with summons like devils is also a serious potential.  Water magic can be used to get fire resistance which supports summoning a few Yakshini.  The spell Rain is a powerful counter.
• Mictlan - Major bless with eagle warriors is the most likely plan.  Early game my plan is to have bigger and tougher sacreds.  For mid game, hopefully I can put up storms to stop the eagles from flying in to my melee troops or back line.
• Man - Man has great potential for a scales diversity design backed by solid magi and hordes of dangerous archers.  A plan to keep sacreds alive against archers is important.
• Ulm - MA Ulm is quite a different nation in Dominions 4.  I would expect a focus on quality troops, the very dangerous evocations Iron Darts and Iron Blizzard and lots of forging.
• T'ien Ch'i - Another case of major archer armies and tough troops.  I would be out shot if I tried to go archer versus archer.
• Ashdod - Big nasty sacreds with a big bless.  This is an opponent unlikely to be a concern.  Attacking an astral nation with giant sacreds can be extremely painful.

I believe all of these can be handled with the right major bless and tigers with white ones.  I don't anticipate problems with very dangerous things like dying dominion or early globals like Burden of Time.  Therefore, my core plan of elite squads with great bless is solid.