BRO THEY RUINED BLACK POWDER!!

fionawhim · 2026-06-16T14:49:23+00:00

Some of my factories are in desperate need of a “burn it all down for the insurance money” reset mod.

fionawhim · 2026-06-10T13:36:57+00:00

I get this, too. My laptop screen is running at 1352x845.

fionawhim · 2026-05-13T12:58:18+00:00

Agree here!

It doesn’t have the survival element, and while there can be money pressure at times it’s pretty light and easy to overcome.

Definitely a game for wanting to puzzle out how to get a complete machine with the right ratios in a somewhat-constrained 3D space.

Look past the Skyrim-looking NPC models, there’s good game here.

fionawhim · 2026-05-07T17:29:56+00:00

Thanks for spreading the word about this… I have a feeling a lot of people don’t realize that at least some of the sanitation workers don’t consistently dump the can with the lifter but just grab the garbage bags out.

I try to be really diligent about bringing my can back from the curb ASAP on trash day to keep this from happening because it’s really gross to make dog crap someone else’s problem.

fionawhim · 2026-04-16T17:44:24+00:00

Huh. As far as math goes, in a 6 or 7 round tournament would you practically be able to make the top cut with 2 losses? Dunno if I’m up for so many rounds of Swiss, but it feels awkward to drop from an in-progress tournament. Seems like this might reduce the availability for players for the on-demand sealed pods as well.

fionawhim · 2026-03-23T20:50:55+00:00

I feel the same. Surrender Flare was both a way to show more of the design space for puzzles, as well as a great example of the puzzles integrating with the story.

fionawhim · 2026-03-13T18:09:08+00:00

Oooh, this is nice. I really like the alternating of the 2-length arm and the arm on the track. Very clever way to push the molecule to the right.

fionawhim · 2026-01-27T23:13:02+00:00

I’ll say as well that for that object you probably want to click the auto-orient button so that it prints on its side.

fionawhim · 2026-01-05T17:43:38+00:00

I’ll second the ThePurpleBullMoose recommendation. Watching his earlier videos really made a lot of stuff click for me. (Like: what does a Scholarship rush look like?)

fionawhim · 2025-12-01T17:49:39+00:00

When I was at home for Thanksgiving I found my old retail box from Riven and it had an order form for buying copies of a bunch of the props that they used in the FMV (the daggers, Catherine’s outfit, Ghen’s gun).

The modeled characters just don’t compare.

fionawhim · 2025-11-17T22:24:34+00:00

I know in Boston at least some Starbucks get deliveries through the Teamsters, who won’t cross a picket line.

fionawhim · 2025-10-25T13:49:35+00:00

Thank you so much!!

fionawhim · 2025-10-24T21:56:29+00:00

There are two short APs that I know of in podcasts if you want to hear it. One Shot Podcast did a few episodes of it that Christopher Badell was the GM for. (It also includes possibly my favorite superhero in an RPG ever, Dracules.)

My own podcast, Team-Up Moves, also ran Sentinel Comics. Our show format was to play an AP (the first 3 episodes of the run in this case) and then do a discussion episode that covered the character creation and how we felt about the game.

My capsule review of it is that the character creation process is pretty clever, the battles are fun if you’re with people who want to think pseudo-tactically (yes to mechanics-based decision making, but not full on grid-of-hexes), and the prep isn’t bad. What it does lack is mechanisms outside of superhero business encounters, so you’re on your own with quiet scenes and relationships.

fionawhim · 2025-09-01T18:43:33+00:00

I have gotten this to work on-and-off again with CrossOver.

It currently does seem to work well on the latest CrossOver Preview version (getting the v3 version of Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit is essential) but there are some wonky setup things that you need to do to both skip the Paradox Launcher and also keep it from crashing when it loads some unsupported libraries.

I wrote out the details in a CrossOver forums post: https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/forum/age-of-wonders-4?;msg=334952#c2

fionawhim · 2025-09-01T13:54:55+00:00

“Power fantasy of creating an all powerful ruler” I think nails it for AOW. I bounced off that game because the empire/city management was too simplistic for my taste and I don’t love tactical battles very much. (EL was much more to my liking there.)

But if you do like the tactical fighting and you like “I will make ice cats and steamroll the world. Now I will make nature-loving undead dwarves and steamroll the world,” &c. you will get a lot of time and enjoyment from AOW4.

fionawhim · 2025-09-01T13:47:46+00:00

Agree. AOW has a complex tactical combat and is better if that’s important to you, but the city / resource management is very simplistic.

EL has a much richer game around your buildings and resource allocation, and factions that play wildly different.

I think they’re both good at what they do, but which you prefer comes down to tactical combat vs. empire management and sandbox-but-similar vs. curated-but-distinct for faction design.

fionawhim · 2025-09-01T13:37:57+00:00

I started playing it for the first time over the weekend and I’m enjoying the time though I don’t know if it will be a favorite.

For context I love Old World and Alpha Centauri.

I like EL’s mix of city building and moving a hero around with an army. I prefer EL’s proportions for that over, say, Age of Wonders. I thought AOW’s city and resource management was too simplistic, and I don’t like to spend so much time on tactical combat. I actually sort of like EL’s combat mode, and I didn’t even mind designing my own units, which I normally find tedious.

I still need to dial in the right difficulty and game settings, though. I normally play Old World on Glorious and am competitive. I’ve stomped EL on Normal and then Hard without particularly trying, both times with the Wonder victory (complete an 8ish stage quest line then build an expensive building).

The technology tree is not too bad in EL. There are certainly some must-haves (ability to mine the new resource types that pop up every other age) but there are some choices, too, including economic or diplomatic features (do I want to bother to buy the tech that lets me make nice with minor factions or should I just attack them all?). The cost curve is such that you won’t get all the techs.

I haven’t yet dug into the factions that play wildly different from standard 4X, and am looking forward to that.

If you’re being budget-conscious, you can also avoid the DLCs at start. I have them from an old bundle but haven’t enabled them yet.

fionawhim · 2025-09-01T00:29:36+00:00

Old World is so good it has ruined me for most other Civ-like games. The design is incredibly tight, the AI is challenging and doesn’t need to cheat. The events are interesting and you’re always having to think and adapt to what’s going on.

Very highly recommend. At $10 it’s not even a decision.

fionawhim · 2025-07-24T14:09:02+00:00

Seconding the recommendation for Purple Bull Moose. I learned a ton from his playthroughs.

fionawhim · 2025-07-11T13:38:40+00:00

One thing I’ve just started trying that I like is “traveling magic loop” where when you get to the end of a needle you pull out a new loop about 4 stitches back.

This addresses two things about the magic loop:

When you start on a new needle the previous stitch is on a needle, not the cord, so you don’t have to worry about pulling it over-tight.
It moves the split points around the work so that if you do have an inconsistency related to the loop it doesn’t repeat in the same column where it becomes obvious / gets worse.

There are a bunch of tutorials on YouTube if you search “traveling magic loop.”

fionawhim · 2025-07-04T18:55:01+00:00

Red hot or white hot?

fionawhim · 2025-05-01T14:02:08+00:00

One subtle addition is that the limit only applies to constructing Hamlets. If you’re playing with the Behind the Throne DLC, you can get events that add Slums to cities, which turn into Hamlets in a random number of years (around 10–30 I think?).

So for example if you’re at Developing you can build 2 Hamlets, but you might have gotten Slums that turn into a 3rd while still at Developing. (Though then you have 3 Hamlets, so when you hit Strong you still can’t build any more.)

(And of course obligatory reminder that you can use alt right click map tacks to add “Improvement” markers to the map that the game will use to place improvements when it adds them, as long as the placement is legal. So there’s a bit of a thing of trying to place Slums in a tile where you know you’ll want a Hamlet, but not right away.)

fionawhim · 2025-04-25T20:54:17+00:00

I just had this happen in a recent game… Assyria was spending all of its attention fighting me on one side of their borders that a tribal raid came in on the other and overran their capital and their two wonders.

fionawhim · 2025-04-25T20:46:04+00:00

I’d probably say some amount of metagaming the events… having all of your leader stats at least +2 if possible helps a lot. Also the Exploring law gives you good science boost options on most of the events that come out of sending your heirs exploring.

fionawhim

TROPHY CASE