Final Beyond Earth

OK, it's time. The fact that I haven't written about Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth has bugged me for some time now.

I wanted to play some more before before critiquing it, but other things have come up. And that's a tell. Although I really like Beyond Earth, I haven't had the urge, no, the need to play it like I've played Civ 5.

The reason for this isn't just real life getting in the way, or other games being more alluring. No, it's that Beyond Earth is missing something. I have no idea what it's missing though. When I started playing Civ 5 it was bundled with the Gods & Kings DLC, so I've never played vanilla Civ 5. My version of Civ 5 is now complete with all DLCs, but I get what others have told me about the base game being good but incomplete. This is how I feel about Beyond Earth.

Maybe it's the AI, I'm not sure. I do think the diplomacy system is weak, including the trade. Usually when an AI faction wants to trade, they offer one favor (generic payment) for X resources for thirty turns, but they refuse to return the favor, even if they like you.

I haven't as yet had a war with the AI, so no comments about that, but one thing that bugs me is that all factions start whining if you start killing aliens. Even the factions that don't like aliens, i.e. Purity factions. Seems they should be on your side, after all. (Purity = Humanity is best, screw the rest).

Also, since you can research everything you want, the choices of which paradigm you want to go for becomes somehow lessened. There's just not much of a sacrifice to make.

Otherwise this is a really fun game to play. The overall feel is great, and I love the fact that the first time you build something, you have to make a choice. So when you build, say a laboratory you get to choose if all your labs produce more health for your people or more energy. This allows you to fine tune your needs as you go.

The tech system is also good, and I like the units and the graphics, the music etc. All in all Beyond Earth is a very robust game, that can in time turn into a real classic.

And speaking of classics, I never played Alpha Centauri. The game that was lauded as civilization in space. It always bothered me that I missed such a classic. But now, I see lots of people online complaining that Beyond Earth isn't more like Alpha Centauri, and I think that's a shame. It is after all NOT Alpha Centauri, and it was never meant to be. I of course can't even make such a comparison, and I'm grateful for that.

Actually, come to think of it, one of the somethings that bothers me, is that the factions, led by their distinct leaders lack the personalities that their Civ 5 counterparts have. Sure, this makes them less hemmed in and predictable, but it also means that I can't get a grip on them as easily. I can't really relate to them, I suppose.

Final verdict time. If you like sci-fi and building civ's this is a game for you. To be honest I hope they release a DLC for it soon, but I'm not going to stop playing it either way. And it's actually refreshing to play a sci-fi builder that's not set to an empire scale, and “just” build a large thriving colony.

So, there we are. Job done. Come back next week, and we'll see what I can cook up. Have a great week!

Howling on Wall Street

Last Friday I finally got around to watching The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese's three hour long movie about Jordan Belfort, starring the ever great Leonardo DiCaprio in the main role.

It's worth noting that this film is based on true events, though some things have been altered as well as some characters that have been melded into one, etc. As an example, the scene where Jordan is so stoned he can't even stand, let alone walk (yet he desperately needs to drive home) was pretty much improvised by DiCaprio.

The fact that this is a real story about real people, is one reason why it's so good. If this had been the pure fantasies of some screen writer, it would have seemed pretty fake.

In case you don't know what this movie is about, by the way, here's a link to the summary on IMDB.

So is this a good movie? Yes. Yes, it really is. My biggest, well only complaint is the length. Three hours is too long, and I don't think it would have suffered by cutting it down by, say half an hour. That said, I enjoyed it thoroughly, even though I would have hated sitting through it in a theater.

One thing that struck me as I was watching, and it's something others have noticed as well, is how similar Wolf is to one of Scorsese's other crime dramas, namely Goodfellas. One of my all time favorite movies BTW. If the first line in Wolf had been “Ever since I could remember, I've always wanted to be a stockbroker” I would not have been the least bit surprised. If you made two lists, one with Jordan's name at the top, and one with Henry Hill's name, and started listing their actions, you would end up with two pretty similar lists. Without spoiling anything major, I'll just say that doing copious amounts of drugs, committing crimes daily and cheating on your wife will have fairly obvious consequences whether you're a stockbroker or a gangster.

I could rant on and on about the gorgeous visuals, the soundtrack, the sterling acting etc etc, but I really think you should just watch The Wolf of Wall Street yourself. Fair warning though, this movie is dripping with sex, naked women and graphic drug use, so be careful who you watch this with. It may not be the ideal film to enjoy with your grandmother. Unless she's cool...

Also, fans of Absolutely Fabulous should watch out for Joanna Lumley's role, since it could well be Patsy Stone if she ever grew up.

Final summary: great movie!

Until next week, stay safe!

Broken Arrows

Last week I planned on doing a proper review of Civilization: Beyond Earth this week, but as it happens, the flu that struck me down did it's job properly. As a result, I've not had the energy to play. Thus I'm postponing the review until a later date.

Instead we're going to take a look at Broken Arrow. No, not the 1996 action movie in which John Travolta plays a villain with a passion for Volvo’s and Christian Slater fumbles around as an unlikely hero. Instead we're going to take a look at the real life phenomenon of Broken Arrow, in which the United States have managed to accidentally drop actual nuclear weapons. Today's post will only concern U.S. nukes, partially because it's their terminology but also because other nations with nuclear armaments seem to be better at keeping it a secret when they loose them. If they lose them. They probably do.

All in all, you would think that one would take a certain amount of care with any device that can level most of a city in one godlike eruption of primal energy, but the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) freely admits that they've had thirty-two Broken Arrow incidents. Sure, a couple of them have been Bent Spear incidents, meaning that the weapons weren't actually dropped or lost, they've just been temporarily misplaced or transported without any of the care with which you really aught to take. But 32 times is pretty irresponsible. Like mothers the world over have said: “if you can't play properly, you can't have any nukes at all”.

One day in 1958, March 11th to be precise, a Boeing B-47E-LM Stratojet flew over the sleepy farming community of Mars Bluff, South Carolina on it's way to an exercise in England. The Captain was doing some routine check-ups when he accidentally managed to drop his payload. Said payload was a Mark VI nuke that landed right on Walter Gregg's house. Now luckily the bomb was not armed for it's nuclear role, but it still contained thousands of pounds of regular explosives (required to set off the nuclear chain-reaction). No one was hurt amazingly enough, and Mr. Gregg got to sue the Air Force for $54.000. ($500.000 in today's money)

The bombing may have been an accident, but since the mission was an accuracy test, it can perhaps be seen as a success?

Also in 1958, a B-47 bomber collided with an F-86 fighter over Georgia. Damaged, the crew had to dump the bomb in order to land safely. But when they went out to find their 3500 kg nuke, they couldn't find it. In fact, no one has ever found it. It rests somewhere in the Georgia swamps just waiting for someone to snag it with a fishing line. It was thiiiiiis big...

In San Antonio, Texas you can find the Medina Base, a lovely little place where they used to disarm obsolete nukes. Can't just leave them laying about, right?

Anyway, in 1963, the stockpile blew up, all 56.000 kg of it. Not as it happens the nukey bits, as they were kept elsewhere, but all the conventional materials. The kicker? Three men were hurt a little bit, and that's it! All that bang and no injuries worth talking about.

In 1966 a B-52G bomber was attempting to refuel in midair. Midair above Spain as it happened, when the two planes collided and were annihilated. This caused the B-52's four H-bombs to, you know, fall out of the sky. Two were fine, they recovered them with no problem. What of the other other two? They went kaboom, but not as actual mushroom clouds. The bombs did irradiated a 2.5 square kilometer area near Palomares, but no one was killed or even hurt. Again!

One of the bombs that were intact fell into the Mediterranean Sea and was found by a local fisherman, Francisco Simo Ortis. This was a lucky day for Mr. Ortis, since maritime law states that the finder of salvage is entitled to 1% of the total value of the find. An MK28 bomb was worth $2 billion back in '66 so he asked for a cool $20 million. He settled for an unknown sum. Not a bad catch either way.

There have been many other Broken Arrows, including one on Greenland of all places, but I think these are enough for today.

Until next time, have a kick-ass week!

Beyond Earth

OK, so I had this whole thing planned out concerning today's post.

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth came out last Friday, and this was going to be a grand review of this game. An intelligent and sophisticated analysis.

But, last night I started getting a fever, and with perhaps four tormented hours of sleep, I crawled out of bed with even more fever.

So, no grand magnum opus today.

However, I will write a good review of SMC: Beyond Earth, probably next week.

Until then, you must content yourself with this:

Beyond Earth is a fantastic game! Built on the Civ V engine, you colonize a planet in outer space. You have lots of options, many grand strategies and on top of that, the game looks frikkin' sweet!

And since you came all this way, and you might want to know more, I'll direct your attention to this Let's Play by my favorite LP'er Quill18. 

Until next week, take it easy.

Lost at sea

Hello friends, and welcome to another thrilling installment of Eccentric Spheres!

Today we'll be talking about one of the most legendary places on earth: The Bermuda Triangle.

One could if one was so inclined, spend the rest of ones life talking about the triangle, which I won't. So I'll skip all conspiracies and stick to what's known.

First off, it's been proven that compasses act erratically in the triangle, which makes navigation difficult. Now, a compass can act strangely anywhere on earth, but it does genuinely seem to occur more frequently there.

Secondly, a part of the Gulf Stream flows through the area. As you may know, the Gulf Stream is an underwater river that is immensely powerful. Ships and planes that have crashed here and are caught in the Stream are pushed, slowly but surely hundreds of miles from the site of the accident. This explains in no small part the difficulty in finding wrecks and contributes greatly to the mystery. In fact, a crew who went searching for the USS Cyclops, who went down in the triangle, found by accident another ship that sank no where close to their location. This was the first clue to the disappearances.

Finally, the area is famous for the sudden appearance of lousy weather. And not just brutal tropical storms either. Fog banks can catch you in minutes, just when you were enjoying sunny and clear weather. Suddenly it doesn't seem quite so strange that ships and planes go down, does it?

Now, there are lots of other (plausible) explanations, from giant methane pockets destroying the waters buoyancy to simple human error that we don't really need Atlantis or Aliens, but there have been many odd occurrences that aren't that easy to explain away.

But without these mysteries life would be much duller, don't you agree?

Here's a Wikipedia list of the most famous disappearances if you're curious.

Until next week, stay safe!

When you've had a long day

One of the great things about boardgames is the ability to have fun with family and friends even if you're really tired.
Like I am today. Thus I'm keeping today's post short.
Last week I wrote about Letters from Whitechapel, but before I bought it, I researched it thoroughly online.

If you're looking for a new game you really are spoiled for choice. There are so many games out there in so many categories. But which game to choose? You can (and probably should) go to boardgamegeek.com and look around, but the sheer mass of games is hard to sift through.

A long time ago, I mentioned Beer and Boardgames on Youtube, but they don't always give the best impressions of a game, however entertaining their antics are.
But Wil Wheaton's webseries Tabletop really does a great job of demonstrating how a game works. It's pretty funny as well.
So without further ado, here are a couple of sample episodes for your enjoyment.

Until next week, take it easy.

Letters from Whitechapel

Last week I sauntered over to my local board game shop and purchased their last copy of Letters from Whitechapel.

LfW is a hidden movement game a la Scotland Yard and Fury of Dracula. The idea here is that Jack the Ripper moves in secret through the streets of Whitechapel, murdering his victims, and the other players as the police do their best to figure out where he is and arrest him. There's more to it than this, but that's the gist of it.

I've played it twice now, both times as Jack, and boy oh boy is it ever good. First game out, I was arrested on the third night (out of four), and in the second game, I barely scraped through and won.

This game is a complete nail-biter as you watch the police (i.e. the other players) walk around right next to you, and they don't even know it!

It's a roller coaster of emotion ranging from smug glee to spine-chilling terror and finally elation as you watch the police hunt you down.

The mechanics are super simple, with minimal set up time, but the game can run pretty long.

The board is an accurate map of Whitechapel in 1888, which is in itself a treasure if you're as crazy about the Victorian era as I am. The pieces are wood instead of plastic, which is nice, and the rule book is really simple to understand.

My copy is the English 2^nd edition, which is printed by Fantasy Flight Games. If you're familiar with their products, you know how fine the quality is.

I'm looking immensely forward to playing as one of the Inspectors, as well as taking Jack out for a spin with a full set up of cops. It's worth pointing out that whether you play against one opponent or five, all police are deployed. But the though process is very different from one person to five. I can't wait!

If you're curious to see more, I'm linking a video I found on Youtube below.

Until next time, have an exciting week!