Dr. Standoff or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Orbital Bombardment

*** WARNING: This post contains extensive gaming content with a smidgen of feminism and may not be suitable for all audiences ***

I have started playing Sins of a Solar Empire once more after a very long hiatus. When things get a little too tactical at work, I normally realign my headspace by playing games in my spare time. For many years, it used to be chess. Don't get me wrong, I still love chess. However, I'm not the person I used to be and I find chess to be a little too dry these days. Mind you, I'd play this version.

I know a lot of people who play first-person shooters for relaxation. I used to play those a little bit but never really got into the whole chainsaw-is-the-best-weapon mindset. I just didn't find them fun enough to hold my interest. However, I did get quite a kick from first-person sneakers but I suspect that's probably because it takes a lot more planning and strategy to avoid guards and whatnot as opposed to running into a room with guns blazing. Friends will remember my glee with the Thief series, giggling madly as I struggled to find dark corners to hide the guards that I've blackjacked into sleepyland. Even so, it got monotonous after a while which is why my primary love has been and always will be space-themed or fleet-based wargaming.

There was a time when I forswore all but non-violent gaming. After being bored out of my mind by Tetris and its ilk, I came to the realization that simple games aren't challenging enough for me. I don't play wargames because I like war - quite the contrary, actually. I am a wargamer because they are the most complex form of gaming out there. You don't see shooting games nor casual games coming with a thick manual, do you? I happen to like complex problems in complex environments.

*** Feminist content begins ***
I understand that I am part of a very very tiny minority of women wargamers which makes me sad in the same way that I'm disappointed that there aren't more young women choosing science as their career. Ladies, wargaming isn't hard - if you've survived the Byzantine politics of high school you can probably handle a wargame or two. On the flipside if you're one of those who believe that women just can't handle strategy, please remember that thought when my warfleet of Barbie-pink dreadnoughts are paying a visit to your homeworld to do some radical landscaping?
*** Feminist content ends ***

I have noticed a subtle change however. I used to be focused on hardware (i.e. bigger, faster, nastier ships) whereas I prefer the diplomatic solution these days. Some of you may recall my earlier attempts at diplomacy. I always pursue the diplomatic solution first now. We'll see how this one goes.

What? Oh yes - Sins of a Solar Empire is a great game. It's not too graphically taxing but gods is it ever pretty! My aversion to melee combat has carried over to the game as well because you can take over enemy and unaligned planets without ever firing a shot if you do it right. In the game, you can influence the planet's population to revolt against their present regime if you successfully influence their culture. This generally means that you end up beaming propaganda broadcasts at those planets to slant popular opinion to your side.

Did I mention I used to love my marketing job before I had to return to being a techie?

What's funny is that once you've got a toehold, it's pretty much impossible to reverse so planets will revolt and switch allegiance to you. If you've got a treaty with someone whose planets are defecting to you, it's still well within the terms of the treaty and they can't do anything to you. Well, they get really upset with you and end up attacking you eventually. Of course, then you can play the oh-gods-they-attacked-us-first righteous anger card...and brutally crush them.

Did I mention I used to love orbital bombardment of planets I don't own? As it turns out, I still do...

Anyway, I've sprung for all the micro-expansions for the game, especially the one that boosts diplomatic options. I'm trying quite hard not to bomb anyone back to the Stone Age. No, I merely want their hearts and minds and eventually, their souls. See? You can't do that with first-person shooters. Well okay, perhaps you can get their hearts and minds - literally, if the game engine allowed you to but definitely not ephemeral things like their souls.

p.s. In case you're the curious type: souls taste like grape jello. Mmm...jello!
p.p.s. You get 50 bonus geek-cred points if you know what the title of this entry is spoofing. Be the first to post the correct answer in the Comments to receive said points. :)

The company we keep

I am really enjoying my D&D sessions twice a month. I have a pair of wonderful DMs and a good core group in my campaign. It's elicited quite a few good laughs with comments ranging from "Yay! He *finally* figured out which end is the sharp end!" (when one of the players manage to score a hit after an unusually long stint of misses) to "Uh Mom, can't talk gotta run I'm killing zombies now, bye!" (when one of the teenagers got interrupted by a phone call from his Mom mid-swing at a zombie). Ah...good times. :)

I've wanted to write this posting for some time now and what eventually motivated me to finally do so was because a good friend from my support group was asking if D&D players were people I really want to be keeping company with. Let's face it, I'm middle-aged and is it really "appropriate" for middle-aged folks to associate with a stigmatized group of guys who are apparently still living with their parents?

I gave it some thought. For all of 2 seconds. The answer is Yes.

I go to D&D to play, to have fun. Yes, we're a misunderstood group and get laughed at a lot. But you know what? My fondest memories of my university days was when my friends and I gathered together to play Magic: the Gathering in MacHall. My Condition has forced me to restart some aspects of my life from pretty much the beginning and I could definitely view it negatively that way. However, my oldest and very dear friend calls it an "opportunity for complete reinvention of self" which I think is a *beautiful* way of looking at it. So I am. Another dear, dear friend who won't hazard a trip to the Frozen North was kind enough to send me some words of encouragement some time back and he quoted, "we don't grow and stop playing games, we stop playing games and grow old". He's absolutely right. To get off-topic and mushy here, I am truly blessed to have a such a group of wonderful friends standing by me through these trying times. You know who you are - thank you (and yes, I mean you too, sis!)

If having good times at D&D means that I get teased, taunted or looked down upon because I still play games in my middle age, then so be it. Certain unkind people may laugh but I will have new fond memories of good times and happiness like that is rarer than astatine. And if you laugh within earshot of me, don't be surprised if a new very heavy dice bag filled with pointy dice comes hurtling unerringly at your head in a flattened parabolic arc. Remember, I'm an overachiever; I don't just roll a d20 to sling a rock in D&D, I also know the math behind its trajectory too. You have been warned. :)

Playing with people

I joined a local Dungeons and Dragons group and had my first game today. I was fortunate enough to join the start of a campaign so everyone's at my level. We had a hoot - I play a lawful neutral paranoid elven mage. I did rather well too - around 5 unassisted kills or so (Wand of Magic Missile was definitely a good buy!). Not bad for a caster who's just starting off. :)

I haven't played D&D since I was still in school. That would have been a minimum of 15+ years ago. I feel old now. :( I used to play a lot of tabletop/pen-and-paper social gaming when I was a student. Some of my happiest memories are of Magic:the Gathering games with my friends in MacEwan Hall. As my career progressed, that all stopped and I moved to solitary gaming on computers. Oh, I did the MMORPG thing for a while and it was fun but it never did quite have the sparkle when friends come together to spend face-to-face time with one another. I place social gaming between face-to-face chats and movies; it doesn't have the awkward silences that regular face-to-face chats end up having after a while because you run out of things to talk about nor does it have the non-interactivity that going to see a movie in a darkened room imposes. In social face-to-face gaming, you interact with one another; fun happens naturally.

Yes, I know I'm way older than the standard demographic when it comes to social gaming. However, I am in the process of rebuilding my life from scratch and yes, I also know you all are really sick of hearing that. ;) I had been going through my past history and reviewing it, trying to avoid the same mistakes I made in the past. And that happy period in my life when I was playing M:tG jumped out at me. I'm a game-player and I always will be. So, I'm parlaying that into something I can use to rebuild. D&D satisfies my desire to play games and it also gives me an opportunity to meet large numbers of people out of which I can rebuild my social life. Granted, I'm choosing a segment of society that is quite peculiar and I don't seriously expect that I'll meet my insanely rich future husband there ;)

But I'm starting a new paragraph in my life. One that I hope will bring me the same fond memories in the decades to come as I view those precious M:tG games long ago.

BTW, if your first impressions of the title for this post didn't match what I've written, just bear in mind I'm all Sweetness and Light now. :)

Play (Part 2)

I'm a trifle unhappy right now.

After playing Civ 4 through a single game for 4 hours straight, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that playing nice really doesn't work too well. Yes, Jeannie - I know you could have told me that outright but there are some things I need to relearn for myself. I'm sure someone has managed to win playing nice but it appears to be beyond my ken right now. In the game, war is oftentimes the easiest course of action when you're a superpower; I find it sad and terrifying that this sometimes translates over to Real Life too, as we've all seen in the past few years. :-(

I don't usually recount the games I play - whenever someone does it, it's always sounded mildly hokey to me. Having said that, I can't really justify my previous paragraph without recounting one and besides, it's funny. Of course, I'm sleep-deprived and starving (I have a fasting blood test this morning) so it might be that it's funny to just me alone - your mileage will vary. I do promise it'll be the first and last Civ 4 game I recount though, so you're safe either way.

So I'm happily building my little English civilization, minding my own business when the Americans (the game picked that culture, so don't blame me!) showed up, traded for a few turns and then attempted to attack one of my new smaller cities. Not exactly the smartest thing to do when all you have are bowmen vs. my musketeers. who are fortified in the city to boot. So I had to stop building beautiful things like the Globe Theatre and ramp up my troop production. Fast forward a few turns and they lose Washington to me. It's all fun and games until someone loses their capital city, so they sue for peace. I accept.

Next thing I knew, the Romans had landed on my opposite shoreline and proceeded to attack my main port city there. I repel them with my Redcoats and destroy their transports with my frigates. I'm glad I got a little paranoid after the first attack and had increased my military presence there too. I mobilize troops from my eastern cities and ferry them across to where the Romans were, on an island. Whoo! I get to use terms like "military presence" and "mobilize" and sound just as goofy as the government-types on TV - see how personally enriching computer games can be? ;-) Again, after losing Rome they sue for peace. Pax Katherina reigns.

For a fair number of turns anyway. The Romans break their peace treaty shortly after the 10-turn agreement ends. I was expecting that and was trying to build the United Nations wonder before it happened, so that I could at least try for something other than a Conquest or Domination victory. Just as the last Roman city falls, the Americans attack my western borders without warning. It didn't last long though. I brought my carrier and transports out from where they were hiding offshore and ended the game rather swiftly. Mounted knights don't do very well against fighters and tanks.

*sigh* Why can't we all just get along?

Play

I'm tired, so this is going to be a short post.

I've stopped playing computer games for several years now. I used to be an avid gamer during my younger days, when I had more time. I figured out that gaming was ultimately unproductive as they were addictive, chewed up large amounts of my time and at the end of it, nothing tangible was achieved.

Or is it?

I recently purchased Civilization IV and I received it a couple of days ago. Since then, I've been playing it off and on. It's as fun as I remembered it. Due to some recent Epiphanies, I'm no longer going straight for the Conquest endgame where my hobnailed, jackbooted troops march across the map and trample all opposition. No, I'm trying to play *nice*.

I'm getting killed. The computer players now have their hobnailed, jackbooted troops at the gates of my capital. *sigh* I guess playing nice is a lot harder than I thought.

What? Oh right, tangible results from game-playing. Well, it's a subtle result, actually. I'm more alert, mentally sharper and significantly faster in problem-solving if I played computer games, even though I only started playing a couple of days ago. I guess I shouldn't be totally surprised since I vaguely remember reading about a study that gaming (or other such mental activity) helped stave away the effects of senility in older people.

Don't get me started about the whole "girls don't normally play computer games" bit. Given my history, I know I'm a bit of a special case but regardless, we do play and play quite well at that, thankyouverymuch.

I'm going to keep playing interesting games, I think. I've a little more self-control now so I shan't be playing to the wee hours of the night like before, not all the time at least. I've also got kids to feed, so that places a natural limit on how many games I can buy. All in all, as a mature gamer, I think I'm in a pretty good spot.

Now if you excuse me, I'm going to wipe Napoleon's smile off his face with a little help from my Redcoat units. Even if they lose, I still think they show better fashion sense in their uniform colours than the French units, which is ultimately what matters since it affects what makes it into the history books. Bet you can't remember what the French soldiers wore back then. I rest my case. So there.