Everlasting Trains

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It's now been 12 years since it was unleashed on the world, and it's still popular enough that there are still a handful of internet places you can go and get your computer-railroading urges satisfied. I'm talking about the best of the railroading games, Railroad Tycoon II.

Not only do I continue to make updates to my own strategy guide now and then, but there are others who keep the flame alive in their own special way.

You may not think 12 years is an especially long time, but computers age even more rapidly than dogs, and computer games age more rapidly still. In computer game years, Railroad Tycoon II is nearing 150 and still kicking, which is quite remarkable when you consider the incredibly high infant mortality rate; few computer games are on the shelves longer than two or three months, and even fewer survive their first calendar year, but Railroad Tycoon 2 is still selling just fine, despite being superceded at least twice. Off the top of my head, the only other game I can think of which has equivalent staying power is Diablo 2, which I'll talk about some other time.

Allow me to introduce you to some of the resources still at your disposal:

Hawk and Badger Railroad: Hawk has a considerable archive of maps and scenarios (which are pretty much synomymous with RT2), plus he has guides! How to play, how to make maps, how to create scenario events, and even a massive RT2 strategy guide, donated by yours truly. Hawk also has stuff for other railroading games.

The Terminal: This is a discussion forum, run by Gwizz, discussing strategies and tips to be a better player. Some of the tips in my strategy guide were gleaned from here. He also has a section about map help. AND, he's also got a butt-ton of maps!! This includes some map fixes.


And, of course, there is as ever my strategy guide, filled with information you won't find in anyone else's. I've got a few other tidbits I use, such as a spreadsheet and a couple scenarios I've tinkered with off and on but haven't released to the general public yet. Maybe some day when I can sit down and polish them up so they look pretty?

While my strategy guide was temporarily down earlier this month, I received a few messages from people trying to reach it, one of which came from a guy who has his own guide on how to make maps! Where was he when I was building my Alaska map from scratch? Well, I took a look at his guide today and made a few suggestions on how to improve it, and hopefully he'll come back with a bang-up document that'll really wow you. When he does, I'll link it up here.

So there's plenty of stuff out there for your Railroad Tycoon addiction.

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Other articles which may interest or entertain you:
Railroad Tycoon 2 Untold Strategies
Games I Play - Civilization 4
Good Thing these People aren't in Charge of our Economy

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You are What you Consume

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Over on Arstechica, where I used to hang out quite a bit, they have an article about how the California Supreme Court was hearing  Oral arguments in violent game case focus on nature of violence. (Okay, yucky English skills; I blame them for making the headline so poorly.) The thing is, states keep trying to single out video games as the root of all evil and that they must be legislated against. This is California's laughable attempt. Why laughable?

Because like every other state that's tried to impinge on Free Speech so far, they haven't done anything remotely in the public's interest, unless you count spending millions of taxpayer dollars to draft such poorly defined garbage, or PROPOSING to spend many MORE millions of taxpayer dollars to conduct kangaroo court cases. Really, guys, it's not that hard to define exactly what you want and then draft a law that says just that, and is still fair. A law that's unclear isn't a law.

The problem, of course, is that it's illegal to do what they're trying to do because some stupid piece of paper called the Constitution is in the way. Nuts!

All right, let me dial down the rhetoric-o-meter a little bit and give you the straight dope before you mistakenly believe my particular stance is what you think it is.

For some time, there has been a fervor about exposing kids to sex and violence. (And child labor. And personal responsibility. But we won't get into those right now.) The Nanny State is being created to protect us from everything except itself. It's the modern equivalent to the Bread and Circuses that killed off Rome. And right now there are a lot of people wanting the State to protect their kids from violent or sexual material. Hence, we have ratings on movies and music and video games. However, it's not ILLEGAL for kids to have access to those things. Because there have been a handful of high-profile cases lately about sex and/or violence in video games, a number of states have tried passing laws against them, and every single time, the Constitution protects Free Speech, and every single time, the people who wasted all that money to make a law they knew wouldn't pass muster aren't held accountable for the money they just wasted trying to break the law.

There are some heated passions on either side of the debate, and you'll see a handful of them if you check out the comments on the Ars article. Some say all this has no deleterious effect, some say "it didn't hurt us" (usually angrily and with insults, HA!), and some say it's worse than child rape. We went through all this with movies, do we really have to go through it again with video games?

I'm going to take a different route here.

We've all heard, "You are what you eat," right? It means that if you eat the right stuff, your body will be strong and healthy and able to fight off diseases, but if you put junk food in your body, your body will become all mushy and tired and ugly. When you eat right, you feel good. When you eat crap, you feel bad. I'm going to extend this idea a little bit to say, "You are what you CONSUME."

When you sit in front of a brain-deadening TV show, your brain turns to mush. One need only watch an installment of "Jaywalking" to find out we're getting dumber by the second. When you're exposed to lots of inappropriate behavior, without proper supervision, you never learn that those are BAD things.

For instance, watch the movie Unforgiven. Early in it, Clint Eastwood's character leaves his two kids, who are not even 10 years old, in charge of the farm while he goes out for a few weeks. Those kids were allowed to kill a few chickens if they needed to. Nowadays, if you leave your kid alone in a car for 2 minutes, you'll get arrested! What changed between back then and now? Parental supervision. As in, there's none of it now, and so kids have no idea what good behavior is.

If you're a parent, you have to raise your kids, right? That means spending time with them, teaching them right from wrong. That means spending their formative years being sure they are kept away from things they shouldn't be exposed to, like violence and sex and alcohol and foul language and all that other garbage. But when they ARE exposed to it, which they will inevitably be, you don't terrorize them with it. Explain to your kids, without scandalizing things, what's going on, why something is bad, and why you're not going to let them do that.

What damages kids is not sex and violence, what damages them is the way you react to those things and the way you raise them to treat them. Sex and violence are a part of who we are; applying them in a proper way accomplishes important, constructive goals, while applying them in the wrong way creates adults who have no idea why they can't get a date.

The most important thing you can have as a parent is the trust of your child, and when you tell that child something that turns out not to be true, they question everything else you tell them. Eventually kids look for their own answers, and when they do, if they find out you've been lying to them or overreacting to something, you've just driven them to seek more forbidden fruit.

I've got one more point to make: Just as you are what you consume, so too are you what you expose yourself to and spend your time thinking about. These are simply different types of mental consumption. If you're worried about losing your job, you're going to get nervous around the boss, act suspiciously, and then the boss if going to look at you when something goes wrong and think you did it and fire you. And if you spend all your time fighting monsters, eventually you become one. It's well known.

You remember those Chilean miners who were trapped for a few months? Imagine being one of them. Imagine having no way to see your family, no way to spend the day at the park, no way to enjoy the sunshine, no way to tuck your kids in at night, no way to hang out with your friends. All the little things that aggravated them - paying bills, taking baths, dodging political phone calls, walking the dog, taking out the trash - when they got out of that mine, I bet they were really glad to be able to do those things again.

If you instead focus on the good things in your life, how great it is to be alive, and how much freedom and control you have over your destiny, things will come together for you and opportunity will lean on your doorbell the same way temptation does now. Clear out the garbage, and fill your life with good. And teach your kids the same, and they won't even be interested in dangerous and destructive things because those won't be as fulfilling as the lives they can create for themselves.

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Other articles you'll find interesting or amusing:
The War on Cleanliness and Privacy 
Holiday greetings
Solar System - Mars 

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Civilization 5 Got Blasted

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Over on CivFanatics, they linked up a review of Civ 5 done by a guy named Sulla, who is known for his unbiased reporting and for giving very good walk-throughs for the Civilization series. Unlike the big-name magazines and websites, Sulla doesn't have a personal stake in deceiving anyone to buy a bug-ridden, poorly made game, so he doesn't have an obligation to hand out high ratings. He doesn't get insider information or kickbacks, which means he doesn't have previews and giveaways and such, but then if you guys had an iota of patience and waited for the honest reviewers to have their say, you wouldn't be pre-ordering a game and then feeling ripped off by it.

Things aren't always what they appear, you know. Just because a bunch of people tell you something is good, that doesn't mean it's actually good. If you stop and consider that all these sources of information have a vested interest in lying to you to get you to spend money, you'd realize you're being played for a fool. Kind of like how a friend got played when a girl he met once had been preceded with raving compliments, but when he met her, he found out she was just a phony. It works the other way, too; a guy I know was constantly being bad-mouthed something horrible, and then when I met him, I found out he was actually quite a decent fellow. When someone sees themselves as your master, they lie to you to get you to do something you otherwise wouldn't.

You know what I think?

I think you should do your own thinking.

You won't, of course, because you don't know what it really means to do your own thinking, and you've got so little practice at it, but you really should learn how to do it, so that when someone tells you something about someone or something else, you can reserve judgment for YOUR encounter, and experience him/her/it for yourself. Instead of believing people who want either your money or your misery, stop for a second, throw off the shackles they're putting on you with the information they're feeding you, and THINK!

"If I believe what that person is saying, what do they gain from me?"

The answer is usually power. Power to get you to buy a game you won't like, or a car you don't need, or watch a movie that sucks. Power to deny you the company of a true friend. Like when the beauty magazines try to tell you that you're not pretty enough, and you have to buy their makeup or clothes or read their articles to find out what men think. Like when the calendar tells you it's some made up holiday whose only intent is to toy with your emotions and make you buy something to "prove" your love. Like when the whole of Western Civilization is telling you that the only way to show your fiancee you love her is to buy her an expensive diamond. Like when your jealous boyfriend convinces you that everyone is out to get you, which stifles your career in public speaking. Those people are stealing your personal power from you. They think they own you. And when you believe them without finding out for yourself, then they DO own you. They ARE controlling you.

You'll find that everywhere. Not just product reviews and advertising (which are just about the same now), not just "friends" trying to control you, but you also find it in government and religion. Politicians lie to get your vote so they can get their hands in the till and steal the big bucks. You don't think a country that built as much as we have could possibly go broke without at least 535 leeches bleeding it dry, do you? When some religious figure tells you what God wants you to do, how do you know that's actually true? Does your holy book say it, or did someone only TELL YOU that it says it?

Look, guys, even the most trusted person you know will lie to you under the right circumstances, ESPECIALLY people who have promised they'll NEVER lie to you. I know we don't have time to verify absolutely everything, but when someone has an awful lot of say over what you do or what you think, it's time to start questioning their motives and look for the real truth. Is that the best product for me or could it be garbage? Is that person really trying to hurt me or am I believing someone who thinks they own me? Can that politician be trusted, or should I check the public record? Is that religious leader saving my soul, or is he just asking me to die to fulfill his own sexual ambitions?

Stop being used. Start taking control of your own life and make your own decisions.

Here's a couple clues. The more something is hyped, the worse it usually is. I initially found this to be true with movies, but it also seems to work well with games and even with people in general. And the other is, the person who has the most to gain or the most to lose from your decision is almost always lying to you.

For the last several months, we've all been told how wonderful Civ5 was going to be. There were HUGE fights over it being a Steam exclusive, a few disagreements about hexes being used (which were easily defeated), some commentary about how cartoony and hard to see the game looks (which it still does), and lots of people saying, "Just wait 'til it comes out to judge it." And a handful of us also said, "Wait 'til it gets released and reviewed by an independent before you buy it." Oh, you scoffed, decided you had to have it immediately or sooner, spent all that money and chomped at the bit, thinking anything with Sid Meier's name on it had to be good, ignoring the recent flops, some of which even had his paw prints on them! (Sid had little to do with Civ5.) And now what've you got? Another MoO3 disaster, that's what. You spent all that money, and the only reason you're playing it is because you're determined to like it when really you should be demanding a paycheck for being their playtester.

Civ5 is HARDLY the only game with such issues, I'm sorry to say, and yet, you guys just keep right on buying shoddily made games. Some people only have to be burned once, but enough can't seem to get enough char-broiling, and so we all suffer.

If you want to buy something without thinking about it, buy something from Amazon through one of my links. You'll get better value for your money, and chances are you'll learn something important that'll save you money.




















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Other articles you'll find interesting or helpful:
Writing is Easy
Nelson Mandela isn't THAT good
Curse cookies!

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Polycast 100 was quite awesome

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I thought it was going to be run a little differently, including the introduction I got. I was a "mystery guest", and I thought everyone would be trying to guess who I was, so I had a few lines ready to go. But, most likely thanks to technical difficulties in getting connected to the call, Dan gave away who I was before I could get on, so I tossed out the silly voice and impersonations and just did a few gags I'd prepared in advance, riffing on Phil (The MEAT in Team) and Maki, our Nikki Reed impersonator. (This one, not that one.) Or would that be impersonatrix? I don't know that works. And I got one on KMad. I just thought of another one, but it's too late now. Maybe if we're ever on a show together I'll remember it and hit her with it.

It was a lot of fun, and when he releases the final version, I hope he keeps most of it in. Once again, I want to applaud Dan for his technical achievements, and this time I also want to applaud his assistant, MLS (sorry, I'm terrible with names) for keeping the show going so smoothly.

When it comes out, I'll be sure to let you guys know.



There were a few good gags in the chat window, but because of my computer set up, I had to close the chat window while I was on the Skype call, and then when I left the call, had to bring the chat window back up, which took a few mins, so I missed out on some good chat. I also had about 10 minutes where I was completely off-line due to my internet connection going down, but thankfully not during my appearances.

One thing I did catch right after my scheduled appearance was over and I got the chat running again, though, was that one of the guys who'd been on before me gave me a really cool compliment, but he was kind of chastising himself at the same time. He said, "I wish I could've been that funny and interesting."

Thanks! I appreciate the vote of confidence.

If I may, I'd like to suggest that you don't need to lower yourself to praise me. One of the many things I've been doing with my life lately is finding out where I'm sabotaging myself. If I had given a compliment like that in the past, it would have been meant as sincere flattery, but at the same time, it would have been a put-down for myself. I've spent quite enough time putting myself down and ignoring people who tell me how great they think I am. I was afraid to be "full of myself" or something like that, but I know now that such talk, when done over the course of years, especially one's formative years, robs us of our self-confidence and our ability to realize that we DO deserve to be on the Earth.

There are plenty of people who don't think the rest of us belong, and most of us just go along with it, wanting to get along and not make any waves and avoid getting beaten up. I don't worry about that so much any more; I don't keep my opinions to myself as much as I used to. I don't mean that in a brash way, I mean it in an assertive way. I have a right to be here and take up as much space as I take up, and if you can't deal with that, that's your problem, not mine.

So what I want to say is, when offering thanks, you can offer them from a place of strength and self-worth. You can say, "you were very funny and interesting," without having to demean yourself. Your praise was intended as a gift, and I thank you for it in the spirit in which it was intended, and I hope in the future, when you offer such a gift to others, it will be a much better one that comes from someone who is confident, instead of someone who feels like they need to treat themselves like dirt to fully appreciate me. Would you rather have the thanks of a man who is at least your equal, or would you rather they come from someone who isn't even that much? I'll take either, of course, but I'd prefer it from my equals and betters, and I'd prefer it if you allowed yourself to be my equal or better.

(For those of you wondering, one of my friend is the world-renowned Savvi, a thought adjuster, and I'm trying to put some of her teachings into use and share them with others so we can all say more positive things about ourselves to ourselves.)

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Today is Polycast Day

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Greetings, y'all! And welcome all you dang foreigners from other countries. Dear Lord, be with our guests and prepare them for the butt-whoopin' they are about to receive! - Jeff Foxworthy, Intro to the Redneck Games.

I'm so excited! Today is Polycast Day, and I'll tell you more about it in a minute.

I should be congratulated because I'm finally caught up on the ebay shipping debacle! Last weekend I sent three boxes of goodies to paying customers, and somehow the post office managed to undercharge me, so instead of just sending the boxes on, they spent more than the difference to send them back, which, of course, cuts into MY costs and credibility too. And since I was out all weekend, I didn't have any way to take care of it until Wednesday. But I did manage to get them in the post, with the proper postage this time, and thsoe of you who bought box-games from me will be getting them soon. (They have NOT come back here, so they must be getting shipped.)

Also, I may have found a replacement to get the rest of my stuff listed. I was hoping she'd be coming over this morning, but I haven't heard back from her yet. She came over yesterday to check out the size of the job, then provided a BRILLIANT solution to the problem.


The problem with having someone else do the listings is that either they have to come here and spend all day doing the job at my place, which is a distraction for me, or they have to take the books to their place, which opens me up to the possibility of having them stolen. One possible solution I came across was to get a deposit, but it feels a little silly to ask for $200 from someone I'm hiring.

What she came up with was to just take pictures of everything while she was here, and then take them to her place and do the listings there.

PICTURES!!!! YAY!!!

So even if she ends up flaking out on me today, I'll have a much more attractive solution to the problem for the next person who responds to the ad.

So yes, folks, the rest of my stuff WILL be going up soon, probably with pictures. There's only a couple things up right now, but that WILL change SOON. Stay tuned to my auction listing page!

Next up, I finally have a business card! Email me and maybe I'll send you one. Then you too will be able to find out what I'm doing for a living that's convinced me I no longer need to hold on to a bunch of games I haven't been able to play in over 6 years and is helping me to change my life even more.

And finally, what you've been dying to hear, today, one of my Canadian buddies, Daniel "DanQ" Quick, is doing a LIVE Polycast show. Why live? Because it's the 100th episode! Join the celebration of this major landmark, and bear witness to some exciting special events, most of which he's not telling anyone about until the show starts.

Dan does a bi-weekly podcast in support of his favorite computer game, Civilization 4, and he calls the show Polycast. I've appeared on 3 shows already - the third one is due for release any day now - and it's a blast to be a part of it, plus it's really interesting to see how good he is at editing. If you listen in to the show today, you'll get a sense of what it's like to record one of these shows, and then if you listen to an episode - I think he intends to do an editing job on this one and release it, just like any other - you'll notice that he does an AMAZING job. Dan really should do this professionally, he's that good at it. Please join me in doing everything possible to encourage and support him in this.

Dan also produces TWO other podcasts, also related to Civ4. I'm not 100% sure he does the editing for them, as he's not a regular on them, but he probably does.

Click here to attend today's LIVE 100th episode extravaganza, which will run from 1:00 pm EDT to 3:00, and may run a little long since he's never done a live show before.

Click here to see his list of episodes. Even if you have no interest in Civ4, the first 5-10 minutes and the last 5 minutes or so are usually pretty funny. Intros are everyone's chance to (try to) be funny, and he tacks bloopers and stuff on the end.

Click here to see the official announcement he made on CivFanatics and a few of the responses. (He's got another announcement page somewhere with a lot more traffic on it, but I don't know where it is off hand.)

Thanks for stopping by! I'll see you later.

More RPG books went up

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Here's the list of items available.

A lot more will be going up. I'm working hard to find someone to get this taken care of in the way I expected it to be taken care of in the first place.

With the way I just slammed Asus, I wouldn't be surprised if they declare war on me and start slamming me back, so to head off any of that, you can check my feedback, ask any of my customers or regular readers anything you want about me, and of course google for me and find out what kind of person I really am. (Hint: I used Sidewiki on their site after posting the flame directly below this post.)

I don't usually take stands like that, or even flame others, but really, charging my shop guy for something that's still in warranty, and not even sending me the computer I asked for, is pretty freakin' low, even for a faceless corporation. After all the garbage I've dealt with from them for the past 4+ years, I doubt I'll ever buy another Asus product again.
But anyway, there's a lot more that's going to go up in the coming days, both here and in my list of auctions, so keep an eye out. I've got a guest writer promising to start posting, among other things.

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It's not over yet

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The fire sale on my gaming collection is still going. We've gotten about 1/3 of all the books put on Ebay over the past couple weeks. Some sweet stuff went for some really low prices, and the rest of it is lined up to go. I'm heart-broken that no one wanted a Star Wars movie poster puzzle, but eventually I'll relist it and be sure it's got a picture with it. My helper has promised to put more items up tonight and tomorrow while I'm at my business meeting, so we'll see if she really does.

I just sent off several packages to the winners from last week. Sorry it took a little longer to get them sent than I thought they would, but they're in the mail as of a few hours ago. Then I had to go and mark all those items as shipped, leave feedback, and of course, thank each person for their help in getting my teetering bookshelves cleared. One day soon, it may be possible to dust!

All the boxed games I intend to sell are gone. I'm holding on to Munchkin 1-5 sets and my recent-edition Axis and Allies game for now. I have dreams of playing it! We play Munchkin now and then. But I've still got a ton of Traveller stuff, GURPS stuff, some Challenge magazines, and a few Battletech items. And after that, I've got a few other treats in store for you, so keep on checking out my list of stuff, right here!

Thanks!

I'll be posting some other stuff soon too; I'm way overdue for something not related to getting rid of my gaming stuff. Frex, I redid the TrueFacts because apparently WYSIWYG doesn't strictly apply to internet applications. When I added a few new truths, I also needed to add another picture to balance them out. Somehow, it broke the page! Shame on you, Lacey! The only way to fix what broke was to change the way it looks, but at least now I won't have that problem again, AND different screen resolutions no longer see something totally different.

I also created a whole page for my Civilization 4 contributions, now that Blogger supports that. Check it out! There's a list of pages toward the upper-left corner. Right now there's only the two: my Civ contributions and the main site.

Be your best!

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The Beat Goes On

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And so does the fire sale!

I hired on someone to help me list my items while Ebay was having their free-listing sale. I was expecting to get everything listed over the course of last week, but apparently she's not swimming in as much free time as I was lead to believe, so things are taking longer than I thought they would.

Rest assured, the items that were listed are only a fraction of all that's going to be available once it's all listed.

Here's the list of items still available.

A lot of good stuff has gone for cheap already, and more is to come.

We're combining shipping however you'd like and shipping via USPS. If you want it different, just say so.

Thank you all for your effort, and I'll let you know how it goes.

Putting my gaming stuff up for auction on E-bay

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Hey everyone! A few days ago, I decided it was time to cut the cord. Over the past 15 years or so, I've been collecting all kinds of cool gaming goodness and books and other stuff. When I moved down here to Florida almost six years ago, I had to part with a lot of my stuff, primarily my Amiga and Commodore stuff, plus my model railroading stuff. We had a big house auction, at which I got rid of some of that stuff, including a TON of very valuable computer magazines and software, not to mention the computers themselves.

I took it like a man, but man did I hate to throw that stuff out. At the time, I didn't have the resources to find good homes for it all.

This time, things are different. This time, I've got the power of the internet behind me, plus a friend is helping me out. This time, my pride and joy will go to good homes like yours.

Up for sale we have things like:

Megatraveller - nearly complete collection from GDW
Traveller The New Era - damn-near complete collection, I think maybe it IS complete
Marc Miller's Traveller (T4) - most of the books
GURPS Traveller 3e - so very close to complete it's not even funny, some of them quite rare
GURPS 3e - assorted books, I don't even remember which ones, but lots of them
Traveller Novels - I think I have all 3 of them
Battletech - All kinds of stuff for Battletech!
Robotech - All kinds of Robotech stuff too!
And a few other tidbits. But that's not all!

I was a big-time playtester at Eagle Games back when it was run by Glenn Drover, and I've got most of their early games, like the Civilization Boardgame my group used extensively and with which I created my legendary ACR3 (Alternate Combat Rules), which are still available over at Boardgamegeek.com. My Age of Mythology set is a customized set in that it's got all the components needed to play a NINE PLAYER GAME. Better, my Attack! and Attack! Expansion game is also customized and you can play with up to TEN PLAYERS! Use it for those big gatherings at the game store.

All of these boxed games were personally handed to me by Glenn Drover himself, so there may still be some DNA samples of him if you want to try to clone him and play the games with him. Also, I'm pretty sure Sid Meier breathed on my copy of Civ at least once.

EVERYTHING up for sale is in EXCELLENT condition, LIKE NEW, unless it says otherwise. There are a few books I got from other people, primarily in the Megatraveller range, which weren't in good condition when I got them because they were used heavily. One book was de-spined and put into a binder, but I've thrown in some free campaign notes and blank world sheets and stuff. The boxed games might have one or two pieces missing or damaged; as I recall, a Spearman took a bullet for me.

This is virtually my entire collection of gaming material, in outstanding condition, now available to you because I need the room to hide bodies, I mean, my bookshelf was about to break.

I'd like to thank you all very much for so many years of gaming goodness. If anyone wants mbe to autograph something while I'm only a few days away from becoming famous and my autograph becomes worth millions of dollars, I might be willing to do that if you ask nicely and get my PA to pass along the request. She will of course do her best to combine shipping to save you as much as possible.

Thank you, bid early, bid often. Here's the list of what I'm selling, check back often, as my PA is adding to it as she gets the chance.

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You Say Piracy Like It’s a Bad Thing

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In my occasional wandering around the publishing blogosphere, I encountered this post:

You Say Piracy Like It’s a Bad Thing

And I commented on it. Should be obvious which one is me. What's your opinion? Add it here, I could use a good debate. Unless you're chicken. Don't worry, you can post anonymously.

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Flash Fiction is all the Rage

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In my quest to become a writer, I've discovered a lot of interesting things about the industry. One of the avenues of learning I've come across is something known as a writer's group, or a critique group. The one I discovered today introduced me to something really interesting called Flash Fiction. Essentially, you're given 10 random words and 15 minutes in which to write a coherent story that incorporates as many of those words as possible. I thought it was a pretty interesting exercise, and it got my creative juices flowing immediately.

Want to participate?

Here are the 10 words I was given:


sterling
bill
hang
protest
assert
innovation
picky
meet
flamboyant
waggle

Now take 15 minutes to write out a short story that incorporates as many of those words as possible. Then post it in the comments! Best story will win a fabulous no-prize, the kind which Stan Lee used to award.

I'll post my entry in the comments, so you can write your own without being unduly influenced.

GO!

P.S. To help me pay the bills, after you've posted your story, click on one of these links and buy something from Amazon. It doesn't have to be what you clicked on as long as you click one of these links. Thanks!



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Maps Maps Everywhere!!

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I've had a love-affair with maps for pretty much all my life. I've been able to read road maps since before I could read. (To give you an idea, my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Mays, gave me a book because I was the best reader in her class at age 5. I still have it somewhere.) I've spent many an hour poring over them. So you could say I like maps.

As most of you know, the more of the world that a map shows, the more distorted it becomes. The only way to show an accurate representation of a sphere is to use a sphere! Not much help when you're on a computer screen.

Several years back, when I was a regular player of the RPG Traveller, I had need to draw maps of entire planets, yet I didn't like all the available projections. None of them did a good job of showing the world I was creating. Then I discovered a wonderful little tool called an icosahedral map. It was awesome! It allowed me to make whole maps with a minimum of distortion, and as a bonus, I could print it out, cut up the page, and fold it into a sphere-like object (an icosahedron) and see what the whole planet looked like! Miraculous!

A few years back, while I was still playing GURPS, I discovered someone had created an icosahedral projection of the Earth! I quickly made use of it, turning it into a hexmap that could be used in a boardgame.

Unfortunately, the results were a bit mixed. I redid it and got much better results, but still, I wasn't all that happy with it. Then, last month, during one of my few breaks, I decided to see if it was possible to make my own ico-earth projection from scratch so the landforms wouldn't be all broken up, and low and behold, I found that someone had already done it! Created by no less than Buckminster Fuller! He calls it the Dymaxion projection, and it's pretty cool.


So here is a site that has scads of earth projections in almost every conceivable projection you can think of. And here's another site that has some blank maps for you to use. I made my own from scratch, and these maps should give you an idea how to do that. Have a good time! I know I did.

For those of you wanting my icoearth maps, I can't post them at this time because they're too big - blogger automatically reduces the size to 1600 pixels maximum dimension, so the above maps will not look right, nor will the maps I made for playing games. Sure, I could break them up, but I don't have time for that kind of work. If you write me, I'll see if I can email them to you. At some point in the future, I want to make an equivalent using the Dymaxion projection, and then use that for the game I'm making from it.

Below, I've found a few interesting maps for sale over at Amazon, plus a cheap one. Buy anything through one of those links to help me keep this site up and always improving; and you don't even have to buy what I linked for you!

Railroad Tycoon 2 Untold Strategies

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There are a lot of strategy guides for Railroad Tycoon II out there. For those of you who still play Pop Top’s “Railroad Tycoon 2” game, and want to know how to be a better player, and don’t want to read rehashes the same old strategies repeated endlessly in everyone else's guides, I created my own huge personal strategy guide for Railroad Tycoon II and jam-packed it with tons of gamer-goodness!

I originally wrote it not long after getting out of the Navy, in 2001, and have added to it and updated it several times over the years because I still play it. As a result, it is probably the biggest, bestest game guide for Railroad Tycoon 2 anyone’s ever made. On top of giving you the best strategies for whipping up on Railroad Tycoon 2's butt, I've also cleared up a lot of misconceptions about the game, and even offer a few suggestions on how to perfect the game, just in case someone were to decide to try to turn the best railroading game ever made into an even better one. (That’s right, I consider RT3 and Sid’s Railroads to be steps backward.)

Want to build track efficiently? Want to operate your railroad efficiently? Want to break the other players and keep your railroading dream financed all the way to the Gold Medal? This is the guide for you!

And how much will this cost you? A lot less than you'd pay anywhere else. First, go to our More in Sanity Facebook Page and hit the LIKE button. You can read some of the articles the More in Sanity team has linked up for you if you want. Second, Click here to read the best strategy guide ever made for Railroad Tycoon II, or any other topic. Third, leave a comment below to let me know you liked it. And fourth, bookmark http://rt2p.mopjockey.com/ and check back now and then for updates. The best strategy guide does still receive improvements now and then, so kep up with them.

And if you'd be so kind, please ask your friends to LIKE the More in Sanity Facebook Page too. And now that I have Twitter, you can Follow me. And don't forget to visit the Hawk and Badger Railroad for scenarios. Thanks a bunch!

If you don't have Railroad Tycoon 2 yet, I can help you out with that, and it's dirt cheap. The Platinum Edition is the most up-to-date version released, and has has everything you could ever want. I've also linked up a few other such games, including the Eagle Games boardgame, plus a couple other games for comparison if you really want to see why I prefer RT2.

Want to share this great guide with someone? Here's the link: http://rt2p.mopjockey.com/
















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My high-scores are Better than Yours

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I used to play a lot of games; not so much any more, but I've still got a few scores I brag about. A few years back, Text Twist was all the rage, and I did pretty good at it, as you can tell by reading this site. Me and the written word seem to get along pretty well. There was this penguin-batting game I got a great score on too. I've got a few other games you'll find interesting and want to play, so I'll share with you some information and whet your appetite and we'll see how well you can do at them. Read on!


First up is Hearts, which is part of Vista and now Windows 7. As you can see, I got a perfect score. The only way it could've been more perfect is if I had gotten all three computer opponents to exceed 100 on that last hand (probably by shooting the moon again).

TEXT TWIST - (Link)
Next we have Text Twist. The game has two modes: Puzzle Mode, which is untimed, and Action mode, which is timed. Puzzle Mode is good for getting used to the word list without the pressure of a clock, but there's really not a whole lot of skill involved. I got to a million points pretty easily, and gave up because 1,000,000 points was my goal.


The rest of the time, I stuck with having to beat the timer, and it can be pretty tough when they come up with words you've never heard of before. My top score slowly rose over the course of a few months and on a couple different machines.

Text Twist gives you bonus points if you get all the words, and I challenged myself to get them all as fast as possible. Here are a couple of my better times, but these aren't records; I lost those images.

To the left is a pretty fast solution, but there aren't a whole lot of words. To the right is a fast solution with a considerably larger number of words, making it much more difficult. If I remember correctly, 6-letter words give you 120 seconds and 7-letter words give you 150 seconds, so these are fantastic times.

PENGUIN BATTING - (Link)
This is a cute little game that involves a Yeti smacking a penguin with an icicle to see how far he can fly, because apparently, penguins dream of flying and this is the only way they can do it.

There are two versions of the game, one with normal scores and one with amplified scores, and these are my personal records at each. I happen to know it's possible to get over 600 on the amplified-scoring one, but I couldn't do it.

On each page I linked to is a link that takes you to the other version of the game, so you can try your hand at both of them. They require slightly different reaction times, so try them both. Just be careful you don't waste an entire afternoon!


FRACAS - (Link)

Fracas is a cool little game reminiscent of Lords of Conquest (which I found here!) and Risk, but way cooler and faster to play. The object is to grow your country and then wipe out everyone else's capital while protecting your own from conquest. The AI isn't especially difficult for me to beat (though I do get surprised now and then) so I set myself some extra goals.

First, I have to be the one to eliminate all the other players. Second, there has to be at least one territory from each player still on the board somewhere. I achieve this about every 5 games or so, and here are a couple screen shots to prove it.

Smozzie was nice enough to create a map editor too, be sure you get that and some people's custom maps for a few interesting ways to play, and of course, be sure you adjust the options once in a while; it feels like you've got like about 20 different games you can play just by adjusting the options.


RAILS - (Link)
The last game I'm going to mention for now is one called Rails, and it's made by Pluto Scarab. It's based on Mayfair Games' Empire Builder, which is one of those cool crayon games. You run a railroad company and build track around the map and deliver goods all over. It's pretty awesome! When MS got rid of the MSN groups, the support forum disappeared. I created a place for it in my own forum, and also created a location to hold user-made maps and such. Click here to go to the forum post about Rails, and get access to the fan-made maps, including 2 maps I made and 3 others I tweaked. (Yes, that's right, they've got a map editor too!)

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