Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:
Archive March 2015
Why Go’s design is a disservice to intelligent programmers | Nomad Software. Some of the points addressed there also irritate me a bit about Go. By now, I have the feeling of being strongly reminded of Niklaus Wirth (keyword: Oberon). Yes, you can certainly design simple languages, but dumbing down is not the right approach for that. As much as some of the concepts for asynchrony in Go excite me, the base language irritates me.
What I considered worth reading during the week and did not want to link separately, collected here and uncommented.
Paperback. Yesterday I received my German PnP edition of Paperback. Unfortunately, I didn't prepare the card for Printstudio optimally, now they have some awkward edges on the front, but who cares, they are playable anyway. And the game is really fun, I played semi-coop with Juliana, so both of us pondered for both players and afterwards we looked who had more victory points. At the real end probably Juliana, but we somehow messed up and cleared an additional victory card stack and there I was with a mega move that brought me flat 20 additional victory points right away.
Sentinels of the Multiverse. Legacy heard that Ambuscade was causing trouble in Atlantis - and that he was grabbing their technology, which is not okay. So Wraith, Tempest, and Unity joined in and gave Ambuscade a good beating. Not even Kraken and a Cloaking Device could help him.
Waggle Dance. Another round of beehive. Played up to 9 honey, but my lead was not catchable for Juliana, even though she made a few really clever moves and I almost destroyed my lead - but only almost. So it ended 9 to 7 honey.
Mental Meta 2: Every Day I’m Shuffling | Dojo Of Lies. Interesting article about the effectiveness of various card shuffling methods. Particularly interesting for me is that the "Ripple-Shuffle" and "Mash-Shuffle" don't fare so well compared to a randomized "Pile-Shuffle". In MTG circles, the Riffle-Shuffle is often considered the gold standard - but it seems that a mixed method is actually more correct (which I probably also achieve with my Overhand-Shuffle and Mash-Shuffle).
San Juan. Another practice game with Juliana, this time with her using a purple building strategy (including the palace), while I gambled on a production building strategy - the guild hall came very late, but it came. And Juliana's chapel came late, so she couldn't really use it. 36 to 35 for me in the end. Two more cards under the chapel or a 4-building instead of a 2-building for Juliana would have been enough to beat me.
Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:
Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin. Still one of my favorites for solo play, because you can either face a random challenge or a selected adventure, making the game exciting but frustration-free. This round, water mages and Bhoidwood showed what they can do, supported by Glamercast and a stack of pikes. 66 to 52 may sound solid, but it didn't feel that safe during the game because I didn't have the level 3 heroes in sight, without whom it would have been much closer (59 to 52 - Bhoidwood only brings 1 victory point).
Race for the Galaxy. I'm still having major problems against the bot, just can't find a good way to tackle it. However, this is probably still strongly due to my limited knowledge of the strategy in this game, which is far more complex than in San Juan.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Celeborn and Galadriel have had some very strange company lately: Grima Wormtongue was hanging around with the Wood Elves. Well, he probably told them about the Forest of Druadan, and they went to check it out, the Wargs sounded very interesting. After several skirmishes with these Wargs, they surprisingly came out of the forest alive, but only just and I think they cheated massively. But I was more interested in seeing if Grima works as a good cost reduction and resource machine - together with Galadriel it works great. However, I do need more card advantage to get to what I want, I will give Galadriel her mirror. The forest, however, I find quite stupid - something like an event that removes every hero without resources from the game just isn't fun. Combined with the many archers that attack you from the staging area and the many actions that remove resources, you just can't build a good position, unless you have massive luck with the encounter deck. Sneak as a keyword also prevents a strategy where you start late and save resources. The whole thing just leads to frustration in the game.
Race for the Galaxy. Again against the bot from Gathering Storm, lost 36 to 47. I had Epsilon Eridiani, he had Ancient Race. Although I had two harmonizing 6 Developments - Galactic Imperium and New Galactic Order, both of which like military strategies - I just couldn't find enough high-quality military planets and especially rebel planets, despite explore+5. Several late Consume phases made all VPs disappear in the bot's account.
Race for the Galaxy. The first time against the Gathering Storm AI - wow. Completely crushed - 32 to something around 50. Even though I had two 6-point Developments out - but my worlds were relatively small, so not many points, and the robot had 18 VP chips and 3 6-point Developments and another stack of worlds and Developments. No chance for me. But after some initial stuttering in the game, it ran quite smoothly afterwards - definitely fun on paper.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Aragorn found the Elves' whining about the Ford of Isen quite silly and set off again. He met Hirluin, Theodred, and a whole group of men from the Outer Fords and a few Gondor guards and Rohan. Off we went and a massacre with the Dunlanders - and they had no serious chance. An Outer Fords deck really makes a good impression, even if a mono-Leadership deck doesn't have the necessary pulling power to quickly reach all relevant allies - especially the attack boosts were missing. But boosts via the Broken Sword and later Faramir made questing easy and a suitable event and the Leadership book at least provided short-term boosts. Nevertheless, I should consider whether Lore-Aragorn or perhaps even Beravor would offer better help. Boosts should actually be provided by the Outer Fords themselves, but Card Advantage only delivers Lore in a serious way. Okay, a good story also works, but I don't have that.
Race for the Galaxy. At the moment only against the Keldon AI on the computer, which is already a lot of fun, soon also against the Gathering Storm Bot. Very interesting game, San Juan on steroids, and of course interesting for me because of the SciFi theme. With Juliana, however, we'll stick with San Juan, it's more accessible for her.
San Juan. Played for the first time with Juliana, so just a practice game, but still a lot of fun. Juliana had a production strategy with a guild hall running, I hesitated for a long time until a purple building strategy with a very late town hall emerged. I won with 33 to 32 and that only thanks to an early chapel and a few monuments.
What I considered worth reading during the week and did not want to link separately, collected here and uncommented.