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Just won an improbable World Cup with Neloxia over Brazil. We tied 2-2 and the penalty shootout went 16-15. I was on pins and needles. I've never seen anything like it.
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Burrel of Turia
I've been on-and-off hooked on Banished (the medieval town builder/resource manager/trading/survival type game) since it was released, I'd recommend it highly to anybody who's into the whole town builder vibe. Now it's been out for a good amount of time I'm a veteran of a couple of successful-ish towns, so I'm now looking to the Steam Achievements for ideas for challenges. The town of Turia was my attempt at "Mountain Men - Using a harsh climate and a small mountainous map, maintain a population of 50 people for 20 years". It's really not an overly difficult challenge so long as you can get through the first winter without your people starving/freezing, and then get a blacksmith up and running before the reserves of tools run out some time in year two. Harsh weather means no crop farming (I think) but with forest gatherers, a hunting lodge and some fishermen it should be easy enough to keep a smallish town ticking over for 20 years. Further into the game there will be a couple of years where the original settlers get old and do annoying old people things (take up housing, eat food, and not breed) but it should mainly be a case of setting the town up and letting it run. At the end of Year 7, Turia was set to go and running along on its own. Population was in the mid 60s, the town was self-sufficient on food, and there was some sheep farming going on to provide wool for nice toasty clothing (and some delicious mutton!). There was also a trading post sending out surplus firewood for strange exotic foods like apples and beans to keep the Turian diet varied. It was at this point I realized I now had 20 years (game time) of a fairly boring game. Few changes, no building, just waiting and hoping we don’t get hit by a tornado to dip the population below 50. I never play at more than x1 speed as I like to watch my little towns, so it wouldn’t be quick. That's when I had the idea of a dynasty to follow one family through the 20 years. The plan was to pick the first baby born and stick with him/her through the ups and downs of Turia. People age at approximately 5 years for every game year, so the 20 years town time would be about 100 years people time so there would be a few generations to follow, we'd be onto great-grandchildren before the challenge ended. Burrel was born in late winter at the start of Year 10, the only son of Yosseler the Gatherer and Eldridger the Woodcutter. If it's not obvious from the names, Yosseler was the mother. He was a normal Turia kid, played in the graveyard and learned his alphabet, numbers and how to use leeches in the local schoolhouse. Things can go badly wrong without education, so a schoolhouse is always one of the first buildings a town needs. It wasn’t until he was in his early 20s that it became apparent he wasn’t a good pick for a family dynasty. While his schoolmates were moving out, cohabiting and breeding by 14, Burrel was still at home with the parents. Burrel bounced from job to job, one season he was a Forester, next an Herbalist, next a Vendor at the market. To be fair I don’t know if this is the normal way jobs work in Banished, but I'm sticking with the idea than Burrel was a waster who couldnt hold down a job. Eldridger died when Burrel was in his mid-20s, Burrel carried on living at home with his mom. By 28 it was obvious Burrel would never find love and would never provide the family tree my dynasty was going to follow. Sure, Javie the Woodcutter was 27 when he found true love and shacked up with a 12 year old girl, but he was lucky. Burrel's chance was gone; there were now a group of eligible teenage boys hanging around to snatch up the Turia prime schoolgirls when they reached marrying age (12 to 14, things were different back then I guess). The only single females in town for Burrel to chase were Thuraminder the Fisherwomen (a 77 year old widow) and his mom. And Thuraminder smelled of fish. In different times Burrel would have turned to alcohol and joined an online OOTP league, but Turia didn’t have a brewery and even OOTP 1 was hundreds of years in the future. When the message popped up in the summer of Year 16 that "Burrel the Woodcutter has died in an accident with an axe" it was probably a blessed release for him. His stats say he was happy and healthy right up until the moment of his accident, juggling axes to impress passing schoolgirls probably, but deep down he must have welcomed death's calming embrace. He was 33 years old, I think. And with that I got bored of Turia and the 20 years wait and moved onto the town of Bennebunk and the "Isolationist - Reach 300 citizens without building a trading post" challenge.  Downtown Turia. Burrel's former house is at the North East corner beside the graveyard. |
Oh that looks super interesting!
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Wasn't sure where to put this, but found this guy to be interesting. I don't think I have ever seen a recruit score this much in the game ever.
RECRUIT DETAILS #0 SG Ross Deaton -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Height: 6-3 Weight: 192 High School: Pilgrim High School Hometown: Warwick, RI GPA: 2.29 Test Score: 970 Rating: *** Attributes: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Type INS JPS FTS 3PS HND PAS ORB DRB PSD PRD STL BLK QKN STR JMP STA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Player hasn't been evaluated ***** Season Stats: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PTS OREB REB AST TOS A/T STL BLK PFS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 47.4 1.8 4.0 3.0 2.5 1.20 0.8 0.6 3.0 Shooting Averages: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FGM FGA FG% FTM FTA FT% 3PM 3PA 3P% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19.2 35.7 .536 3.6 5.8 .621 5.5 11.4 .482 Recruiting Notes: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Qualified: Yes Current interest in Iowa: Low Rankings: East Region #67 Overall, East Region #17 SG High School Awards: All-State, Mr. Basketball (Rhode Island) Top 5 Schools: Providence, Connecticut, Brown, Rhode Island, Boston University |
Playing FM14, I take over at Dartford as they're being demoted from Conference Premier to Conference South, but before July 1. I spend June putting a staff together and trying to get good players on expiring contracts to re-sign, to no avail. Worse still, three first-teamers whose contracts run through the upcoming season have been transfer listed by request, including club icon Ryan Hayes (M/AM RLC), who has spent his entire 10-year career with Dartford, playing his way up from the 9th tier to the 5th tier.
I sign intended replacements for all three guys (a GK and a M/AM L are the others). As the season begins, Hayes is the only one whose skill is bested by his replacement's, so GK Locke and ML Swallow remain on the first team as the resident malcontents. They drag the team down to the point that I have a win-or-get-fired game at the first of October--we're sitting 16th with 11 points from 10 games in a very congested Conference South, while the Board has imposed playoff expectations. Luckily for me, my strikers (all 3 on my 19-man roster) decide to go off in October, to the tune of 11 goals in 4 matches. We go 3-1-0 and I win Coach of the Month. In the meantime, a league rival, Chelmsford, has fired its coach as it sinks in the league table and approaches us about Hayes. We strike a deal to get this unhappy guy out of the dead-weight category. (He had been skipping training, and never understood why I would d fine him a week's salary for every other miss and had limited him to 1 appearance on the season.) Fans are rightly ticked, as he was a club icon, but he wouldn't come around even as we shot up into the playoff places. Immediately after the sale is finalized, Locke and Swallow tiptoe up to me, with their hats in their hands, and ask to be removed from the transfer list. (read: holy shit, he'll actually stand up to an icon and ship him out.) At the same time, Chelmsford releases a D/M/AML that they presumably signed Hayes to replace. This guy, Redwood, is more talented than Swallow and has League Two potential to boot. ...I'd have to say this long, annoying process of tolerating these three disgruntled veterans has taken a turn in my favor in the last few days. :) |
Oh, and by the way... we host Chelmsford next week. :D
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Hubris! We beat #1 Whitehawk on the road, then come back for a midweek match against budding rival and league doormat Chelmsford...
Redwood starts at DL in our 4-1-2-1-2, with Locke in goal and Swallow on the bench. Hayes is on the bench for Chelmsford. Things are proceeding fine for 25 minutes, until our standout enganche AMC is hurt. We have to switch to a 4-4-2 and insert Swallow at ML. Minutes later, new Chelmsford AMR Mekki beats Swallow and shakes Redwood on the right wing, receives the ball, and beats Locke to put us down 0-1 30 minutes in. Sigh. Minutes later, I think I'm seeing a replay of Mekki beating Swallow, Redwood, and Locke, except this time Mekki scores on the volley. 0-2 and I'm incensed. For the first time in several weeks, our strikers go quiet in the scorebook, although a few chances are left on the goalie's hands or the crossbar. At 75 minutes, I remove Redwood to scold him. Then comes the cruelest part--Hayes has come on as a substitute AML for Chelmsford. In the last 15 minutes, he gets 2 good shots at Locke; the second one, Locke parries to another Chelmsford forward who strikes home the last nail in an 0-3 embarrassment. ...Looking forward to rectifying this injustice in our rematch. |
 I am damn proud of this one. Albania starts off with one province and Venice, Ottomans and others are hostile to them. |
What game is that?
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Europa Universalis 4
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Just picked up the Strato-Matic windows game at the companies cyber Monday sale. It has been years since I played the board game, but I was quickly reminded of why I used to love this game so much.
Seeing the cards on the computer screen as the dice tumble brought back all those good memories. Started a Yankees season replay with the 2014 cards to enjoy Jeters last season and opened up against the Astros. Won the opener, then in game 2 of the series George F'n Springer, whose card is harmless against righties, unless you roll in column 2, singlehandedly crushes me. I roll a 2 with the white die his first three at bats and all three leave the yard as he finishes 4 for 4 with 6 RBI on the day in an 8-2 loss. I roll out Hiroki Kuroda in the finale and he pitches (rolls) masterfully going 8 innings, giving up 2 hits and fanning 10 (including Springer twice) as we get the 1-0 victory on a Mark Teixeira HR. The Yanks only manage 2 hits as well, but one was enough. Actually thinking about getting the board game again now, can't believe I have gone so long without playing, still as fun as ever. |
78 games into my Yankee Franchise with MLB The Show 17
39-39 and in 5th place in a very loaded AL east, but only 7 games out of 1st. Team rankings Hitting: Average .254 (17th) Runs 327 (14th) 2B 112 (28th) 3B 11 (23rd) HR 105 (4th) 1.3 per game SB 23 (24th) BB 186 (30th) K 486 (2nd) Pitching: ERA 3.85 (14) Shutouts 5 (16th) Hits allowed 588 (1st) Runs allowed 318 (13th) HR allowed 86 (16th) 1.1 per game BB allowed 282 (24th) this is killing me K 663 (7th) Lineup 1B - Bird .307-16-39 2B - Castro .267-9-28 3B - Headley .213-8-26 SS - Gregorious .269-3-26 C - Romine .214-3-13 (Sanchez is on the DL .323-14-37 before he got hurt) RF - Judge .226-13-33 CF - Ellsbury .286-13-32 LF - Gardner .247-6-26 DH - Holliday .257-11-35 Pitching Tanaka 6-7, 4.40 Pineda 5-5, 3.42 Sabathia 3-8, 6.01 Kaprielian 1-0, 4.58 (Severino on the DL 6-3, 2.92) Otani 2-1, 3.79 (Mitchell also on the DL) |
114 games into my Yankees franchise with MLB 17 the show
Had lost 4 of 5 and in danger of being swept by Toronto after losing the first two of the series 10-9 and 6-3, blowing early leads in both. We welcome Gary Sanchez back to the starting lineup for the finale and he doesn't disappoint, slugging a 2 run HR in his first at bat and adding a double later. We jump out 6-0, the Jays cut it to 6-5 with Otani on the hill for us, but we manage to stop them there and get some insurance as our bats come alive. New York 9-17-1 (2B-5, HR-3, BB-1, K-9) Toronto 5-7-0 (2B-1, HR-1, BB-2, K-10) Record 55-59, 5th place but only 7.5 back still Team rankings Avg: .250 (19th) Runs: 466 (15th) 2B: 190 (15th) 3B: 14 (27th) HR: 147 (3rd) - 1.28 per game BB: 289 (30th) K: 757 (3rd) Slug pct: .417 (7th) OBP: .303 (27th) ERA: 3.78 (12th) Shutouts: 10 (9th) Hits: 863 (1st) Barely Runs: 454 (12th) HR allowed: 126 (18th) - 1.11 per game BB: 425 (24th) K: 975 (5th) Individual Stats 1B/DH - Bird .277-22-52, 51 runs 1B/DH/Of - Carter .254-18-37, .341 OBP 2B - Castro .274-13-42, 43 runs, 28 2B 3B - Headley .240-10-30, 38 runs, 27 2B SS - Gregorious .261-4-34, 39 runs, .331 OBP RF - Judge .225-18-45, 107 strikeouts CF - Ellsbury .264-15-48, 55 runs, 18 SB LF - Gardner .233-7-34, 49 runs, 11 SB (going to try and move him) OF/DH - Holliday .249-15-44 C - Sanchez .328-15-40, 34 runs, .392 OBP in 53 games (compare this to RL last year in 53 games .299-20-42, 34 runs, .376 OBP) - Pretty close! |
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Got OOTP18 for super cheap, upgraded my longtime league (300+ seasons) and have been resimming. With the exception of a huge juiced ball period in the 1990s (we're currently in 2143 for context) I try to keep stats in this league relatively consistent. So that means ERAs somewhere below 4.5 and batting average for the league somewhere around .260-.280
Anyway, Henry Bishop left the San Francisco Peanuts for the Jackson Cottons and had a monster season where he hit 72 home runs. In over 300 seasons, only 38 times has someone hit 60 or more home runs ever. Only 8 guys in history have hit 70 or more in a season (Buck Parker is the only guy to do it twice. TL;DR: It was a hell of a season. He led the league in HRs again this year, but he came back down to Earth a bit.  |
Joey Power seems appropriately named.
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Actually played FM16 with a real team for once rather than one of my made up leagues. Decided to try to get Kickers Offenbach back to the Bundesliga who haven't been there since the 70s and tumbled down below the 3rd division in Germany. In my game, they were in the 3rd Bundesliga, so I took them over and after finishing 15th, won the 3.Bundesliga, then came 2nd in the 2.Bundesliga to make it back to the top division.
This past season won our last two games to finish 6th and qualify for the Europa League. So that's been cool.  |
It happens to me every so often... I get just interested enough in some real sports that it pushes me to re-open an old sim of that sport. Thus, a quiet and quick little TCY dynasty (no phone calls, that's the house rule, it works really well for me), absolutely unworthy of documenting beyond this tidbit.
My Rice team just reached that inevitable tipping point of "about to get good." We pretty quickly got out of the WAC basement, but languished in the usual ways as a so-so team around .500 each season. But we got ourselves a top-tier QB, launched a more pass-friendly offense, and then in his senior season we just won the WAC and vaulted forward in credibility. So, we'll backslide as our QB drops off this next season, but it's clear this program has arrived. We will probably spend a few years as a top-tier WAC team, and then in theory turn it up the next notch to becoming a national power. And somewhere along that string, I will simply lose interest, as per usual. Still a fun game. I guess I'd be happy if TCY2 were to pop up, to include some of the gameplanning and other features that he has built out in the pro game. |
Somehow, 16-seed Bryant knocks off top-seed (and previously undefeated) defending national champions VMI in an ugly game.
I have no idea what really happened. Usually, when a 16-seed beats a #1 it's a year where an abnormal number of losing teams make the tournament, leaving a 16-seed to be unusually underseeded. In this case, we're talking about a team that had to win a play-in game to get here, and it wasn't even an otherworldly performance by anybody. I'm happy about it, I can't quite figure out why VMI got so good. Code:
Bryant 62, VMI 60 |
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I wanna correct my small misrememberance there: 91-37 was the actual final. The other four title games in that same career? margins were 7, 1, 8, and 9. NIT finals have been far wider margins, which I think (anecdotally) is pretty common with the game 12, 32, 26, 12, and 28 |
Whoa that is a crazy score!
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After 20 years of playing FPS FBPro98, this game still surprises the hell out of me at times. Playing a solitaire league where the NFL and AFL merges in 1968 instead of 1970 (I did a dispersal draft so players may not be playing on the actual teams they did in real life). The 1968 New York Jets are playing the 1968 Miami Dolphins in Miami. Jets are down 26-20 late in the 4th. The Jets start on their own 22 yard line.
After being sacked by DE3 Ike Lassiter for a 7 yard loss on 1st down, QB Joe Namath goes 8/10 for 79 yards on the final drive to miraculously get the Jets down to Miami's 1 yard line with 30 second left in the game. Now the weather has been rainy and horrible all game, so the two teams combined have fumbled the ball 8 times prior to the final drive. QB Namath takes the snap and hands the ball off to HB1 Sammy Price. G1 Blaine Nye seals DT2 Rex Mirich while TE2 Carmine Wray pancakes stud DE1 Doug Atkins to create a huge hole on the left side of the line. Walk in touchdown, right? Right as HB Price waltzes into the end zone for the game tying and potentially game winning touchdown after the XP, LB2 Jim Flanigan fills the hole and lays a big lick on HB Price, jarring the ball loose into the end zone! There is a scrum in the endzone with DT1 Jimmy Jordan falling on the ball for a touchback. Game over! Miami wins 26-20, Crushing for the Jets. In my 20 years of playing this game, I do not think I have ever seen an ending like that. Amazing ending and this game is still the best graphical PC football simulator on the market. |
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Love that you're still getting use out of this game after those years. Absolutely one of my favorites. |
 What an insane first day in the NCAA tournament. I am mystified. |
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Serious bracket busters. |
This is an absurd upset, but I suspect that it's also that Clemson was an unusually weak #1 seed:
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High Point 82, Clemson 79 |
Another day, another crazy ending (and one I have never seen before in 20 years of playing this game) in my FBPro98 solitaire 1968 dynasty. The teams are the New Orleans Saints on the road against the New York Giants. With :06 left in the 4th quarter, New Orleans K Pete Gogolak nails a 35 yard FG to put the Saints ahead 20-18. A quick squib kick and the game is over, right?
For some weird, strange, ungodly and unfathomable reason, New Orleans chooses to kick it deep to Giants KR Aaron Brouhard and........................................................................93 freaking yards later, Brouhard scores the game winning touchdown to end the game 24-20. Walk off kickoff return FTW. Crazy. |
Walk off kick return we don't see those often.
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Yet another crazy FBPro98 crazy ending I have yet to see in 20 years. Playing a USFL league in 1984. The New Orleans Breakers score a late TD to go-ahead 26-24 (missed 2pt conversion). The New Jersey Generals have the ball on their 23 yard line with :27 left in the game. Here are how the plays broke down:
1st and 10 from the NJ 23 yard line (:27 left) - New Jersey QB Vince Evans takes the snap and rolls right. Has all day to throw. He fires a bullet pass to New Jersey WR1 John Hill that New Orleans S2 Gary Barbaro knocks away from the receiver at the last second. 2nd and 10 from the NJ 23 yard line(:14 left) - New Jersey QB Vince Evans takes the snap and rolls left, right into the arms of New Orleans LB1 John Barefield for an 8-yard sack. New Jersey calls their final timeout. 3rd and 18 from the NJ 15 yard line (:10 left) - New Jersey QB Vince Evans takes the snap and rolls right. New Orleans S2 Gary Barbaro is bearing down on Evans, but QB Vince Evans evades the pressure. New Jersey HB3 back Bryan Trout has leaked into the left flat all alone. QB Evans, from the right hash, rifles the ball to the left sideline (heck of a throw), to HB3 Trout to about the New Jersey 23 yard line. New Orleans CB1 Rickey Ray takes a horrible angle for the tackle and we are off to the races down the left sideline. To the 45. To the 40. To the 35. To the 30. 25. 20. 15. 10. To the 5! To the 3 yard line......................................................where CB1 Rickey Ray dives and makes a shoestring tackle, just short of the goal line. Game. Over. A 85 yard race to the goal line for the win thwarted by a last second shoestring tackle? :eek: Crazy ending. |
Wow.
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Yeah, that's one for the highlight reel of all time greats (if you're a Breakers fan), no question.
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I've had Stellaris since it came out, and I've kept up with all the many paid DLC packs, but it's never really caught me. I'd start games, last somewhere between 10 and 60 years, and then get distracted and wander off to something new. I'd never seen a "mid-game crisis" never mind an "end-game crisis". With the latest patch I thought I'd start again and after one abortive start (my empire was trapped between two seriously over-powered Marauder Empires) I finally got into the game.
I started off by picking a cute portrait for my species, a little furry rodent-y guy with floppy ears from the Mammalian group. I then went for a race set-up that fitted in with a rodent motif: positive traits were adaptive and rapid-breeding, negatives were weak, short life-span, and slow learners. I chose Egalitarian (mice don’t have kings) and Fanatically Pacifist (a bad mistake it turned out), and my Space-Mouse empire was ready to scurry and squeak all over the galaxy. The galaxy was the largest available, 1600 systems in a 4-armed spiral. My rodent empire, The Eeeep Mandate popped up in the south of the galaxy about midway between the center and the edge, but with adaptive and rapid-breeding traits they were soon colonizing/infesting almost every planet they found in the search for minerals. Before long they bumped into neighbors, Honorbound Warriors (who hated the Eeeep for being pacifist cowards), Authoritarian Fungoid people (who hated the Eeeep for being an Egalitarian rabble), and the Ancient Caretakers Fallen Empire (who were too powerful to care much about the new space-faring species). Roll forward 200+ years and The Eeeep Mandate had spread all over the south of the galaxy, everywhere south of the starting spot to the galaxy's edge was part of the empire from the border with the Honorbound Warriors in the east to an Authoritarian Kingdom in the West, the Eeeep had 30+ colonies and 14 habitats spread over 200 systems. The Authoritarian Fungoid people were still there, but they liked the Eeeep now as they had been kicked around by everybody until the Eeeep guaranteed their independence to save them and keep them as an indebted buffer-zone. The powerful Ancient Caretakers were still in their original spot, but now completely surrounded by Eeeep territory, and they still didn't care. Thanks to an alliance with a Curator Enclave bringing research bonuses, the Eeeep had technology and military that were far stronger than all but the Fallen Empires. While the north and center of the galaxy had been in constant turmoil, Eeeep and the neighbors had enjoyed constant boring peace. Our neighbors hated us but weren't powerful enough to do anything about it with the Eeeep couldn’t take advantage of their might as being Fanatical Pacifists they couldn’t be involved in anything but defensive wars. So, years of dull standoff. Even when the Honorbound Warrior Kingdom fell apart in civil wars ending up as 4 different factions, the Eeeep couldn't get themselves involved in the fun. While the rest of the galaxy burned in a "War in Heaven" between Fallen Empires and their allies, the Eeeep Mandate sat on the sidelines in peace. And then a bad thing happened, the Synthetic Dawn End Crisis. I didn’t read about the End Crises to avoid spoilers (warning - don’t read the rest of this paragraph if you're avoiding End Crisis spoilers) so I wasn’t sure what to expect from a robotic rebellion but to be on the safe side the Eeeep dismantled all their robotic populations (no great hardship, less than 1% of the empire) and waited. Unfortunately, one of the Contingency (the synthetics rebellion) bases popped up in the middle of Eeeep territory and churned out multiple powerful fleets. the Eeeep might have been able to fight that off but the Ancient Caretakers (who were also synthetic AIs) joined the Synthetic Dawn uprising and churned out multiple powerful fleets too. While the Eeeep Mandate fleets had a total power of about 140k split into 5 fleets, the Synthetic side had a single fleet of 140k plus 9 other fleets ranging from 60k to 90k. It was quick and one-sided (not helped by me messing up the Eeeep counter-attack and losing fleets), and within months the Synthetics were rolling around the defenseless Eeeep colonies like a huge empire-wide pest exterminator. The Eeeep surrendered, a popup "game over" message and a great space-faring empire came to an end. Reading up on Synthetic Dawn afterwards, the Ancient Caretakers normally fight against the uprising, so them joining the rebellion was bad luck. So back to the beginning. Now I'm an Authoritarian Militarist Kitteh-cat Kingdom ready to kick ass and not make the mistakes the cowardly mice made. |
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Effin' Duke always gets the easy path... |
I've been playing a sim only career of Football, Tactics, and Glory while following larry's excellent dynasty thread. I won the premier league in 2032/2033. Also won the national cup, and made the semis of the Americas cup in my first attempt there. It was fun getting here but I feel like we're quickly going to win every year. I've got 80,000 fans (but a 20,000 seat stadium, about to upgrade to 30,000). For having players load up the stat lines across three competitions I got 764 glory after my most recent season, and only lost two league matches.
Once I started making a big enough profit in the premier league it has become a little too easy, management wise. I feel like its too easy to buy a new 23'ish year old star (with key rating already 90+) while selling the 28 year old he's going to replace and only spending ~$2 million overall. If I want to quick sim another career I'll probably need some house rules.  Here's the team going into the start of the next season after the 1st place finish. So far I've only simmed games in this career. Once this gets boring I'll definitely restart and play out all my matches and see how that goes, but I've really enjoyed this one run doing only management tasks. Lately when I've wanted something with more depth I've gone to other games and just used this for quick sim style play. This post ended up too long to dump in larry's dynasty on the game, decided to use this one again.  I'm not sure if the sim engine is a little too forgiving or the star ratings are useless. |
Great post! A few comments/questions...
1) I think star ratings matter, but that chart is misleading by suggesting 5* is similar to top of the premier league. Right now in my dynasty, the top teams only have 4 *,so a 3.5* winning doesn't seem too crazy. 2) I don't think the sim engine is any different than the normal engine. It's just that you're using an AI, which will maximize the use of your players. It knows how to use your players best and how to defend against what the opponent is going to do. I often leave gaps or make mistakes that an AI would never do. 3) Why do you have two Sweepers? They don't function properly that way. I mean, obviously it's worked out for you, but you'd probably do even better with a CD or DF in that spot. 4) Can I borrow your right winger with lvl 3 Slide Tackle and 86 control? |
My first season with Tipperary in Ireland went this way and I stopped playing when I won the Premier League and their version of the Champions League in the same season. I've been playing a season in France where I don't allow myself any transfers in. Only my initial players and then Youth Pulls and I have to sell players when they reach 32 years old. I think I spent Season's 3-14 back in the Amateur league once my older players aged out or were sold. It's been a struggle but I'm on the verge of getting to the Premier League in season 23. Eventually I'll have good enough pulls and enough money that it'll be a self perpetuating machine but it's been harder thats for sure.
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That actually looks right to me too. New York, Dallas and Kansas City are 4*, everyone else in the Premier League are 3 or 3 1/2. In the Continental Cup I beat a couple 4 1/2 * teams to advance out of the groups. Quote:
So, I'm actually an idiot. I bought Maynard as a SW but I already had a great one, so I spent a season forcing Maynard into the CD role and have specialized as a utility player who can also play CD... but until I read your comment, I didn't realize that on the lineup screen I can actually click on him and change his position to CD. Have I been playing Maynard out of position for the last 3 years technically then? I suppose so. My LM on the bench, Lyon, I've been grooming to replace RM Honeycutt, so he's also specialized to be able to play on the right side, but I've never changed his position when I put him there either. Quote:
I was thinking about selling him since he's 33, but he's actually only valued at $2.5 mil. Maybe he'll be the first starter (aside from a stray backup GK) that I just keep til he retires. 360 matches, 93 assists, 201 tackles. Career highs with 19 assists/37 tackles in my most recent season. |
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I like this idea a lot. |
It's season 24 and I just made the Premier league for the first time and while I'm toward the bottom of the table I'm hanging just above the drop zone at the Winter Break. It's been hard to dump my highest rated players but it certainly gets me to play young guys more to get them experience and I couldn't have done it without maxing my bench coach as the first thing i did.
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The most amazing inning of baseball.
From my Dodgers Dynasty. I didn't watch the game, but this box score and log. OMG. I was going to post the log, but I think I'll give you the play by play as it happened. July 8, 1989 Kansas City. Royals v. White Sox The game is tied at 2 as the Royals come up to bat. Kevin Teate takes the mound. He worked the last out of the 7th from Sox starter Fernando Valenzuela.
Some highlights in summary: - The Royals sent 21 batters to the plate. - They pounded out 13 hits in total, 10 extra base hit, 4 of them home runs. - Jesse Barfield homered twice for 7 RBI's in 1 inning. - Luis Medina accounted for 2 of the team's 3 outs, and walked in his other plate appearance. - The White Sox used 4 relievers and a catcher to pitch in the inning. - The Royals left 0 men on base. - The White Sox went down on 9 pitches in the top of the 9th to end the game. Final Score White Sox 2, Royals 20. This is the single craziest inning in any inning in any game, ever. |
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Still how cool to finally get there after 24 years! |
Probably not going to start a dynasty on this unless I can figure out what I want to do, but I've been complaining about the Blue Jays decline in real life and it made me want to fire up my fictional MLB league I've been running since 1900 (with the current MLB setup, I've since added 6 teams).
I'm going to take over a team that had a decline but has a history of success and see if I can't undertake a rebuilding project finding guys rather than doing the thing I normally do and hit free agency and build from there. I've taken over the Nats, who had a 10-year playoff streak and have made the post-season in 13 of the last 16 seasons, but last year had a pretty massive dropoff after their core aged and now I'm trying to build what is not a very good farm system (26th out of 36 when I took over) and also find some talent after offloading whatever value is left. I'm not a great rebuilder and it's hard for me to stick with them, but I'm going to see if I can manage this one. |
So, my 18-19-20 year old self was into BASIC programming, using (among other things) my home Atari 800XL system where you could take out the game cartridge and insert a BASIC cartridge. I developed a series of games and so forth, no shock, and tried to dabble into "sims" to some degree.
I created a swords/fencing game - nothing really complicated, but the main engine was putting two swordfighters against one another, low-end graphics, on a two-dimensional forum, and let them hack at each other. It was basically derived from D&D style combat calculations, with some added variables for aggression, healing speed, and so forth. It turned out to be a reliable engine for a larger sim. The first variation was to create an all-history swordsmen sim, where a giant tournament would feature everyone from Achilles (massive defensive ratings, natch) to Sir Gawaine to Raiko to Gilgamesh to Fafhrd and anyone else I could summon from mythology or literature. That was pretty fun, but it was a static game -- I'd just start it up, it would sim out the whole tournament style, and the only dynamic thing about it was a guy's injuries from one round would carry over, to varying degrees, to the next matchup. So, I enjoyed that for a while. Later, I re-opened that game, and used the swordfight subroutine to create my first career style sim. It was a more structured "professional" style league, with a season, win/loss records, standings, and a championship tournament. In that game, I added some math for a "career arc" for each player, so his skills would develop (if he remained active) up to a certain age, and then start to decline. So, a given guy could compete at the top level for maybe 8 years, IIRC. I still remember, some 30 years later, a South American competitor Juarez (each trime the game created a new player, I got a prompt to submit a regionally-appropriate name... I think this guy was from Argentina, drawn from a weighted list of national origins). Juarez was good, but not great. If the contest was 16 competitors at any time, he was annually maybe the 3rd or 4th best among them. For some reason, he didn't suffer the same decline as most players in their early-mid 30s, and he stuck around later than nearly anyone else. At age 37 (I'm 100% sure that was the age, thirty real life years later) Juarez had his best season, entered the championship tournament as the #2 seed (good for him) and won the whole thing for maybe his first time. Than he retired on the spot. Jeez, I created the damned sim myself, and knew every single detail of how it calculated each step along the way, and I was still all in for the narrative behind that. It was awesome. |
Over the last month or so I've really caught the Rimworld bug while waiting for the latest Stellaris patch to arrive. Previously my settlements had fizzled out, ended in mass death, or been deleted when I thought of a new approach and wanted to restart but I've finally got myself a "successful", long-term settlement.
Planeton (Planet-on? Plane-ton? Dont know how it's pronounced, it's game-generated) is coming up to its 8th winter, it's heavily defended and it has more than a years’ worth of refrigerated meals stockpiled. All looks good and steady for the moment. Settler turnover has been pretty high, the three original settlers are now all dead (one sliced, one shot, one eaten by a bear) and the town is down to a population of 9 from a high of 15, but things seem as secure as they can be in Rimworld. This is the story of Planeton told through the interlinked lives and deaths of 4 important inhabitants: 1. Pickles - Pickles was one of the original three who founded the settlement, and really the guy who made it successful. In the early years he was the only pawn capable of construction and the only one who could fire a gun. He built the settlement and defended it while the others cooked, farmed and cleaned. Unfortunately, he was ugly and had an annoying voice, so nobody ever liked him. He was beaten up a few times by camp-mates he'd annoyed too much, but he would always bounce back and carry on building and defending with no hard-feelings. His loaner status changed when his sister was rescued and joined the community, finally a trustee and a sidekick. Two days later Pickles mined through a wall he shouldn’t have and got sliced up by a mech-Scyther. I almost rage-quit when my favorite settler got diced, the risk of playing Ironman Mode. His sister collected up the parts and got him back to the infirmary, but it was too late and he died of massive blood loss. Pickles was buried with full honors in Planeton's cemetery. 2. Noriko - Noriko was Pickles sister. A big girl, her pawn was double-wide, she'd been a town sheriff and, once she got over the loss of her brother, she wasn’t a shrinking violet. Toting a minigun and wearing marine armor, she was the Planeton's defender for years and the first name on any rescue/salvage team sent out into the wastelands. On one of those rescue missions she was part of a team sent out to rescue an injured refugee. It turned out the refugee wasn’t badly injured, but was being held captive by a single mechanoid. "Ha, this is going to be easy" thought Noriko, just as the mech jumped up and blew her head clean off with a single shot. The mech was dispatched, the injured refugee treated and welcomed, and Noriko's headless body was loaded onto the pack animal and brought back to be buried with full honors beside her brother in Planeton's cemetery. 3. Svorda - The injured refugee was called Svorda. A Renaissance man, Svorda was an intellectual heavyweight, but a skilled tailor, craftsman and smelter too. He split his time between the research lab and the craft rooms, he made toasty clothing to keep the settlers warm and built the flat screen TV to keep them entertained. Great guy. Unfortunately, not long after this his spine was shattered defending the camp from heavily armed mechanoid grub-things, and he was confined to a hospital bed for about a year, then another year in a cryptosleep chamber before the town got him back on his feet with a home-made bionic spine. He was back on the front-line defending the town from the great Man-eating Rabbit pack attack of 5507, it was quickly dispatched but unfortunately an idiotic new settler was careless with his frag grenades and blew Svorda apart. The parts of Svorda were scraped up, put in a bucket, and buried with full honors in Planeton's rapidly expanding cemetery. 4. Bernie - Bernie was the careless settler who blew up Svorda by throwing a grenade into the town's defenses. He also killed three other Planeton folk who were bravely defending the town from killer rabbits. To pay for his crimes, Bernie was ordered to go outside the towns walls and sit on an exploding frag grenade. There was no full honors burial for him, what was left was scooped up and stuck in the incinerator. F you, Bernie. |
After plugging away on tour for the past couple of years, Kendrick Morgan finally won a golf tournament.
TGCTours.com |
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Thank you for that chuckle today. |
Haven't played a text sim in months because my personal laptop wasn't here and I couldn't install them on my work machine. Anyway, diving back into OOTP19 and FBCB again, without any idea what I want to do, but it'd be fun to get back into an immersive universe again.
I've got an old save of a file I've been using for close to a decade, I come back to it a lot because the established history is familiar and the player names are ones I recognize which is more fun than starting from scratch or playing with IRL players. Or I'll play college, because at least I don't have to feel guilty about not paying fictional players. |
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Got OOTP20, because I wanted to go ahead and see what I could do with Kyler Murray as a baseball player eventually. Maybe a weekend project. Also, rebooted my womens college basketball files for FBCB, and gonna mess around with that again, I haven't had a dynasty as fun since the days I did that one, so maybe that'll be fun to simulate for a while.
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LOL. I started doing my women's college basketball sim and have been importing players to the NBA (instead of the WNBA) with a D-League.
So far, the Spurs have won every championship: Code:
San Antonio Spurs Team Performance |
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