Thursday, May 20, 2004
iSketching my way to victory with Development Cards
(4:21 - listening to various songs, while Duy's playing Princess Maker 2)
It's Thursday afternoon, haven't updated since Tuesday night. I also didn't post a settlers of catan picture, and we played a game of Settlers yesterday, although I don't remember too much about it. Duy had a lot of stuff on the board... ahh, just a sec...
okay, here are the pictures.
http://www.baomon.com/catan/set-may15.jpg - Saturday May 15th - 6 player game
http://www.baomon.com/catan/set-may19.jpg - Wednesday May 19th - 3 player game, Bao, Duy, Alan
Okay, I guess I already explained the 6 player game - or at least, anybody who would care about the catan games analysis, well... they were there, other than 'Brose. As for yesterday's game, Duy was green, I was blue, Alan was red. You can probably tell what happened, or not... I had a lot of development cards throughout and thus had largest army. On the last turn, Duy rolled an 11, thus getting 3 lumber - and thus he was able to build 2 roads, use a road building card (so 4 roads, thus stealing longest road from Alan), build a settlement, and play a victory point card for the win. I don't remember what the common rolls were, so... I dunno. The game took about 55 minutes to play.
Anyway, this morning, Duy and I had a short, 28 minute game. We took a few pictures throughout the game, but only the last picture is really important, so here it is:
I was blue, Duy was green. Common rolls were 8, 10 (yay for me), sometimes 4 (yay for me too), and 5 (yay for Duy). 6's sometimes, not a lot of 9's. Duy had brick problems at the beginning, and I was winning, but eventually he started catching up. I had 8/10 sheep source, so it was natural for me to head toward the sheep harbour, although I think I've only used it once at most. Like yesterday, I decided to horde development cards, so robbers didn't spend a lot of time on my 8/10's.
Strategically, I went with the 'shotgun' approach - at the start, both 8 and 10 would get me 2 resources each, and eventually 4 would too. Only I would benefit from 8 and 10 at the beginning, so that was fortunate for me. My strategy was to use omni sheep to get omni whatever I wanted, and to make use of good development cards. It was incredibly fortunate that within the first few development cards I got, I got 2 year of plenty's and road building, which let me expand pretty quickly.
--------------
(I guess I should explain what I mean between 'shotgun' approach and 'machinegun' approach. I've used these terms since playing Duke Nukem 3D. There's the shotgun and the machinegun. Let's say over a period of 5 seconds of constant fire, they both deal the same amount of damage. Shotgun fires 1 shot per second, which deals 20 damage. Machinegun fires 20 shots per second, each dealing 1 damage. So with the machinegun, if there's a target running around, chances are you'll be firing constantly, and hitting him sometimes and missing when he changes direction or runs in silly ways. With the shotgun, if you fire and hit, that's great - you'll hurt him for lots. If you miss, that's bad. You won't hit him at all, and you have to wait a whole second before firing again.
So in the case of settlers, it's the difference between having a settlement around 10/9/8 and 10/9/8 (shotgun), or having a settlement around 10/9/8 and 6/5/4 (machinegun). You'll hit more often with the machinegun, just for less - and you'll hit less often with the shotgun, but each time you do hit, you'll get more. So that's that.)
----------------
Anyway, before the last turn, we were both tied at 6 points. Then it was my turn, where I placed a soldier, giving me largest army - I had 4 lumber and 3 brick in my hand, so I built 3 roads giving me longest road - and then I smacked down 2 victory point cards, finishing me with 12 points.
So that concludes today's Catan experience. Maybe we should play again now... if it only takes half an hour..
We added another SSBM special death-match thing. Check out Duy's SSBM list, and scroll to the bottom.
So anyway, I guess you figured out that Alan came over yesterday, to help me with the d20 campaign. It's not entirely ready yet, but most of it is. Gotta refine a few things, maps, things like that, etc etc.. maybe think of some contingency plans... but most of it is ready. Saturday looks like it'll be a fun day. David said he'll join in on the mission to see if he should continue staying in the game or not - it should be a fun mission. Hopefully it'll be long enough.
I figured out yesterday, why it is that I like certain songs. I'm not sure if it's true for most songs, but it miiight be... and it is that I like a secondary song that I can sing with, or hum with. Like, usually in a popsong, during the last chorus, they sing the chorus, and have a guy/girl in the background saying the same words but in a different melody or speed, or just saying "yeah yeah yeah"... I'm not sure if that makes any sense. Maybe like a piano song that has certain parts where you can freestyle your right hand and it'll still sound interesting. What is it about different songs that make you like it or not?
Back to that four 5's game - we bought an expansion pack! And by bought, I mean, made up, and by expansion pack, I mean, we started trying to get numbers between 51 and 125, and then I expanded it to 150. Well, it's pretty hard (and somewhat pointless) - but it's kinda interesting. I haven't yet used the "weird" method yet, I'm still sticking to simple arithmetic. Anyway, since nobody really cares... onto the next topic!
After watching Family Feud on TV, I started channel surfing and at 1:00, on ESPN or whatever channel 30 is, was Pool - or female 9'ball championships. Rogers Cable guide says it's bowling, but it's pool. Anyway, one of the top players is Jeanette Lee, and she's pretty hot ;) well, she's not bad, and she looks like a fun gal. So I checked to see if she was famous, and apparently she is, and she has her own website (just google it). Anyway, so I watched it again today, and I'll watch it again tomorrow - she's heading into the finals and she's gonna beat that Alison Fisher and take first place... ^_^
Going back to google, I finally found a site that I've been looking for - http://www.try2hack.nl. It used to be dot com, but apparently it changed. Basically, it's a site (just for fun) which you can practice hacking - well, kinda. So for example, for Level 1, you can right-click, viewsource the page and there'll be a javascript function that says "password = hamburger", so then you put in hamburger and you'll get to level 2. It's pretty fun. My favourite level by far is level 3... then again, I've only gotten up to level 4 and I can't do it yet... maybe if I had certain programs.. but try it :) Try level 3! Do it!!!
I haven't written about Cindy, our new trainer yet. Well, she's not what I expected... well, I thought she would be one of the younger cuter chicks ;) But nope, she's a woman, probably late 30's or so. But she's educated and she's nice and informative and all that, so she'll probably be a good trainer. So we'll have her 8:00 am every MWF for the next few weeks, and then we'll be back to just MW... except tomorrow, that's our fitness assessment test day, so we'll just skip the session that day.
Last but not least - isketch. Or more specifically, http://www.isketch.net. Pictionary, Yahoo Grafitti, whatever you want to compare it to - it's like that. Duy plays it with his friends sometimes, and sometimes if I go to his screen and see him playing that, I ask him if I could play and then I join his game. So it's mostly Duy's message-board-FFXI-etc friends, which I don't really know but it's still a fun game. David joined in the game yesterday, that was fun, was it not?
Anyway, I propose we all play this game. It's less work than yahoo grafitti, all with the yahoo signing up and yahoo java certificates you have to run and all that.. so how'bout a game of isketch tonight? As long as it doesn't interfere with CSI:LV ;)
5:02 now. Ooh, maybe I should do a melee tip of the day too... umm...
Melee tip of the day: "If you're over 60% and Roy has just died and is coming back.. RUN!"
^_^
5:13. end post.
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It's Thursday afternoon, haven't updated since Tuesday night. I also didn't post a settlers of catan picture, and we played a game of Settlers yesterday, although I don't remember too much about it. Duy had a lot of stuff on the board... ahh, just a sec...
okay, here are the pictures.
http://www.baomon.com/catan/set-may15.jpg - Saturday May 15th - 6 player game
http://www.baomon.com/catan/set-may19.jpg - Wednesday May 19th - 3 player game, Bao, Duy, Alan
Okay, I guess I already explained the 6 player game - or at least, anybody who would care about the catan games analysis, well... they were there, other than 'Brose. As for yesterday's game, Duy was green, I was blue, Alan was red. You can probably tell what happened, or not... I had a lot of development cards throughout and thus had largest army. On the last turn, Duy rolled an 11, thus getting 3 lumber - and thus he was able to build 2 roads, use a road building card (so 4 roads, thus stealing longest road from Alan), build a settlement, and play a victory point card for the win. I don't remember what the common rolls were, so... I dunno. The game took about 55 minutes to play.
Anyway, this morning, Duy and I had a short, 28 minute game. We took a few pictures throughout the game, but only the last picture is really important, so here it is:
I was blue, Duy was green. Common rolls were 8, 10 (yay for me), sometimes 4 (yay for me too), and 5 (yay for Duy). 6's sometimes, not a lot of 9's. Duy had brick problems at the beginning, and I was winning, but eventually he started catching up. I had 8/10 sheep source, so it was natural for me to head toward the sheep harbour, although I think I've only used it once at most. Like yesterday, I decided to horde development cards, so robbers didn't spend a lot of time on my 8/10's.
Strategically, I went with the 'shotgun' approach - at the start, both 8 and 10 would get me 2 resources each, and eventually 4 would too. Only I would benefit from 8 and 10 at the beginning, so that was fortunate for me. My strategy was to use omni sheep to get omni whatever I wanted, and to make use of good development cards. It was incredibly fortunate that within the first few development cards I got, I got 2 year of plenty's and road building, which let me expand pretty quickly.
--------------
(I guess I should explain what I mean between 'shotgun' approach and 'machinegun' approach. I've used these terms since playing Duke Nukem 3D. There's the shotgun and the machinegun. Let's say over a period of 5 seconds of constant fire, they both deal the same amount of damage. Shotgun fires 1 shot per second, which deals 20 damage. Machinegun fires 20 shots per second, each dealing 1 damage. So with the machinegun, if there's a target running around, chances are you'll be firing constantly, and hitting him sometimes and missing when he changes direction or runs in silly ways. With the shotgun, if you fire and hit, that's great - you'll hurt him for lots. If you miss, that's bad. You won't hit him at all, and you have to wait a whole second before firing again.
So in the case of settlers, it's the difference between having a settlement around 10/9/8 and 10/9/8 (shotgun), or having a settlement around 10/9/8 and 6/5/4 (machinegun). You'll hit more often with the machinegun, just for less - and you'll hit less often with the shotgun, but each time you do hit, you'll get more. So that's that.)
----------------
Anyway, before the last turn, we were both tied at 6 points. Then it was my turn, where I placed a soldier, giving me largest army - I had 4 lumber and 3 brick in my hand, so I built 3 roads giving me longest road - and then I smacked down 2 victory point cards, finishing me with 12 points.
So that concludes today's Catan experience. Maybe we should play again now... if it only takes half an hour..
We added another SSBM special death-match thing. Check out Duy's SSBM list, and scroll to the bottom.
So anyway, I guess you figured out that Alan came over yesterday, to help me with the d20 campaign. It's not entirely ready yet, but most of it is. Gotta refine a few things, maps, things like that, etc etc.. maybe think of some contingency plans... but most of it is ready. Saturday looks like it'll be a fun day. David said he'll join in on the mission to see if he should continue staying in the game or not - it should be a fun mission. Hopefully it'll be long enough.
I figured out yesterday, why it is that I like certain songs. I'm not sure if it's true for most songs, but it miiight be... and it is that I like a secondary song that I can sing with, or hum with. Like, usually in a popsong, during the last chorus, they sing the chorus, and have a guy/girl in the background saying the same words but in a different melody or speed, or just saying "yeah yeah yeah"... I'm not sure if that makes any sense. Maybe like a piano song that has certain parts where you can freestyle your right hand and it'll still sound interesting. What is it about different songs that make you like it or not?
Back to that four 5's game - we bought an expansion pack! And by bought, I mean, made up, and by expansion pack, I mean, we started trying to get numbers between 51 and 125, and then I expanded it to 150. Well, it's pretty hard (and somewhat pointless) - but it's kinda interesting. I haven't yet used the "weird" method yet, I'm still sticking to simple arithmetic. Anyway, since nobody really cares... onto the next topic!
After watching Family Feud on TV, I started channel surfing and at 1:00, on ESPN or whatever channel 30 is, was Pool - or female 9'ball championships. Rogers Cable guide says it's bowling, but it's pool. Anyway, one of the top players is Jeanette Lee, and she's pretty hot ;) well, she's not bad, and she looks like a fun gal. So I checked to see if she was famous, and apparently she is, and she has her own website (just google it). Anyway, so I watched it again today, and I'll watch it again tomorrow - she's heading into the finals and she's gonna beat that Alison Fisher and take first place... ^_^
Going back to google, I finally found a site that I've been looking for - http://www.try2hack.nl. It used to be dot com, but apparently it changed. Basically, it's a site (just for fun) which you can practice hacking - well, kinda. So for example, for Level 1, you can right-click, viewsource the page and there'll be a javascript function that says "password = hamburger", so then you put in hamburger and you'll get to level 2. It's pretty fun. My favourite level by far is level 3... then again, I've only gotten up to level 4 and I can't do it yet... maybe if I had certain programs.. but try it :) Try level 3! Do it!!!
I haven't written about Cindy, our new trainer yet. Well, she's not what I expected... well, I thought she would be one of the younger cuter chicks ;) But nope, she's a woman, probably late 30's or so. But she's educated and she's nice and informative and all that, so she'll probably be a good trainer. So we'll have her 8:00 am every MWF for the next few weeks, and then we'll be back to just MW... except tomorrow, that's our fitness assessment test day, so we'll just skip the session that day.
Last but not least - isketch. Or more specifically, http://www.isketch.net. Pictionary, Yahoo Grafitti, whatever you want to compare it to - it's like that. Duy plays it with his friends sometimes, and sometimes if I go to his screen and see him playing that, I ask him if I could play and then I join his game. So it's mostly Duy's message-board-FFXI-etc friends, which I don't really know but it's still a fun game. David joined in the game yesterday, that was fun, was it not?
Anyway, I propose we all play this game. It's less work than yahoo grafitti, all with the yahoo signing up and yahoo java certificates you have to run and all that.. so how'bout a game of isketch tonight? As long as it doesn't interfere with CSI:LV ;)
5:02 now. Ooh, maybe I should do a melee tip of the day too... umm...
Melee tip of the day: "If you're over 60% and Roy has just died and is coming back.. RUN!"
^_^
5:13. end post.