This preview of the gorgeous Medieval Cards is a bit frustrating, as I was charged for this game (under GMT's P500 scheme) last October and it still hasn't been printed yet.

Battleground God

Can your beliefs about religion make it across our intellectual battleground? In this activity you’ll be asked a series of 17 questions about God and religion. In each case, apart from Question 1, you need to answer True or False. The aim of the activity is not to judge whether these answers are correct or not. Our battleground is that of rational consistency. This means to get across without taking any hits, you’ll need to answer in a way which is rationally consistent. What this means is you need to avoid choosing answers which contradict each other. If you answer in a way which is rationally consistent but which has strange or unpalatable implications, you’ll be forced to bite a bullet.

I didn't do very well at all:

You took 3 direct hits and you have bitten 1 bullet. The average player of this activity to date takes 1.37 hits and bites 1.09 bullets.

(via BurntToast)

Our friend James, who used to be such a nice, sensible lad, has been sucked into one of the strangest little subcultures that hide in the dusty corners of boardgame geekdom - the Advanced Squad Leader hobby. He actually travelled up to Blackpool recently to spend a weekend at an ASL conference called, appropriately, Berserk. Here's a brief post-con report from James:

I loved ASL at Blackpool. This link will take you to the site where I feature in two of the 2003 photos.

It took me six hours to drive up on Thursday afternoon and arrived at 19:00 paid the hotel bill of £20 per night (bargain), found my tutor from Bournemouth, had a drink, started my first game. I felt very welcome from the moment I got there they were a really friendly lot. Played 5 tournament games, won three lost two, so was really pleased. Lots drank eaten and played. Great.

Eric Zimmerman has a cool little website. I'm intrigued by the photos of gallery games, and there are some good essays about game design, games and culture, that sort of thing..

Rules of Play is a book on game design to be published later this year (with a chapter from Reiner Knizia):

Games have become as much a genre of pop culture as film or television, but game design has yet to develop a theoretical framework or critical vocabulary. In Rules of Play Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman offer an impassioned defense and definition of this emerging field. Their goal is to create a unified methodology for looking at all kinds of games and to understand game design as a design practice. The authors, active participants in game culture themselves, intend their book to act as a catalyst--to help game designers explore new ways to create games and develop concepts, design strategies, and methodologies.

(via Terminal City Gamers)

Philip is currently playing Barbarossa to Berlin with me. I am very proud of my son.

A recent email from Phil: And how come you never mention our gaming experiences on Nimrods? You're ashamed of me aren't you?

The irrepressible Kathy Shaidle: And I heard an Iraqi on the news this morning, yelling "Thank you Mr. Bush!" Call me a psychopath, but losing my friends and alienating my co-workers was all worth it just for that.

I'm considering doing the Coast to Coast walk later this year, and this site has an excellent accomodation planner. I've had an ambition to do the Coast to Coast for many years - every year there is some good reason to postpone it, so I think I should just pick up the phone and start booking. No more excuses!

Happy Birthday to Phil - 19 today! I bought him a box set of Beethoven symphonies, a recording by VPO and Karajan. I judged that full-blown emotionalism was more likely to appeal to a teenager than stripped-down period authenticism. Remarkably (considering he spends much of his life watching MTV) Phil seemed very pleased with my gift.

BlogShares - Fantasy Blog Share Market - what a great idea! I remember a game like this that used to be played postally. You traded currencies in parallel with a current Diplomacy game. The prices varied with trades, and you lost your holdings in currencies of countries that were eliminated . I did very very badly the only time I ever played, well below random performance. The experience helped me form a conviction that I should never speculate in real markets like the Stock Exchange - a conviction that has served me well ever since. But I will certainly try playing BlogShares.

William - the king of fluff - alerted me to this stash of free fluffy games from Cheapass Games.

Some clear-sighted comments from John Keegan: Because the war has taken such a strange form, the media, particularly those at home, may be forgiven for their misinterpretation of how it has progressed. Checks have been described as defeats, minor firefights as major battles. In truth, there has been almost no check to the unimpeded onrush of the coalition, particularly the dramatic American advance to Baghdad; nor have there been any major battles. This has been a collapse, not a war.

GMT's latest projected game on the P500 list is Downtown. This looks like a new concept - an operational level game about aerial warfare.

Downtown is the first of a new genre of air combat games that model entire air raids in detail. The US player is the raid commander, marshalling packages of 30-70+ Air Force or Navy aircraft, comprising bombers, fighters, defense suppression, jamming and recon ‘planes. The North Vietnamese (DRV) player manages a network of AAA and SAM anti-aircraft defenses supported by a ‘thin red line’ of MiG fighters.

This is an excellent article, that brought nasty flashbacks of my own miserable early teenage years at school - Why Nerds are Unpopular:

I know a lot of people who were nerds in school, and they all tell the same story: there is a strong correlation between being smart and being a nerd, and an even stronger inverse correlation between being a nerd and being popular. Being smart seems to make you unpopular.

New Scientist: Tiny molecular daggers that latch onto fibres stab and destroy microbes have been created, meaning "killer clothes" may soon be available. (via Rebecca's Pocket)

So Gavin's huge pile of unwashed laundry isn't down to laziness at all - he's just prophet ahead of his times. One day we will all live like this.

Another webzine - Pulp.net - this one's about litritcher.

Google Acquisitions Create Movable Bloggerland: Asked whether this was a shot across Microsoft's bow, VP of Microsoft's Platform Group Jim Allnose said "Absolutely not. People are already blogging with Microsoft software. You just download the .NET framework, install some service packs, grab a few things from MSDN, install Sharepoint Team Services, and upgrade everything to Office 2003. Once you do that and upgrade to Windows Server 2003 which ships in the next few weeks, you're ready to go. It's simple, and we think it represents the future of consumer-based blogs."

I'm trying to sell my house at the moment, so that I can move closer to my job in Hook. Farnham seems nice - it's only 10 miles from work and 5 miles from the Game Shop in Aldershot. Here's my house details. Looks good doesn't it? Shame no-one seems to want to buy it....

The Games Journal is a nicely done web magazine. This month has reviews of Sunda to Sahel and The Antoni Gaudi Tile Game amongst other things.

Last Saturday I had a great afternoon playing Nick at The Napoleonic Wars. We played the 1812 scenario, with Nick as the French. I had some lucky rolls, especially on the Spanish partisans, which allowed me to clear most of Spain before Wellington marched over the Pyrenees into France only to get killed in battle. Nick's invasion army only reached Smolensk, severely punished on the journey by the Russian Winter (what a powerful card!), but he did manage to capture St Petersburg. In the end there was a margin of only 2 keys, but I just scraped a victory.

I can't understand why this game didn't get a better reception from the rest of you. With Dave it was "I don't see how the French can win" or "I don't see how the French can lose" depending on which side he was playing. And with John it was "But you can't recreate the movements of the 5th Pomeranian Hussars on 12th October 1813". And it wasn't fluffy enough for William. I think I will take it along to Hay and see if I can convince you lot to give it another chance.....

James sent me a link to this article in the New York Times: As the Battles Heat Up, War Buffs Turn to Maps and Play Board Games

GMT are building up an archive of articles from their C3i magazine (and here). Lots of good stuff here, in PDF format. As most of these magazines are out of print and hard to find, this is a valuable resource for fans of GMT wargames.

Greg Costikyan brings news that Settlers is soon to become an online game on the Sony PS2. What times we live in!

At Piecepack the winner of the "Changing Landscapes" game design contest is "Alien City" by Michael Schoessow. This game uses pieces from two generic game kits - Icehouse and Piecepack! The rules of the competition specified that the game must have a mutable board.

A scary view of the future. "Practice to Deceive" by Joshua Micah Marshall: Ending Saddam Hussein's regime and replacing it with something stable and democratic was always going to be a difficult task, even with the most able leadership and the broadest coalition. But doing it as the Bush administration now intends is something like going outside and giving a few good whacks to a hornets' nest because you want to get them out in the open and have it out with them once and for all. Ridding the world of Islamic terrorism by rooting out its ultimate sources--Muslim fundamentalism and the Arab world's endemic despotism, corruption, and poverty--might work. But the costs will be immense. Whether the danger is sufficient and the costs worth incurring would make for an interesting public debate. The problem is that once it's just us and the hornets, we really won't have any choice. (via Nick Denton)

Chrononauts: Mysteries of the Timeline explores some of the questions prompted by this clever time-travel game, such as "Why Would a Zeppelin Factory Stop the Korean War?" and "Why Would the Titanic Cause the Stock Market Crash?"

Don't miss David Warren's latest essay roundly criticizing much of the media coverage of the war so far: On the large scale, we have the persistent display of doubts about tactics and strategy from journalists without any qualifications to judge them: who know no military history, indeed hardly any history at all; nor are they in possession of many current facts.

A long and fascinating Interview with Reiner Knizia on Funagain Games:

SG: How did it feel the first time you held a boxed game with your name on it?

RK: Absolutely marvelous. Overwhelming. That's what you're aiming for. You see all these games in the shops and you hear about these great publishers and suddenly you're part of that world -- it really fascinates me. There's always a celebration when I publish a game or a book, but now that I have 150 boxes it fades away a little bit. I still look forward to every new game because they are all my children and I put a lot of my heart into these games. I'm always anxious about the final product -- What does it look like? Will it all be nice? Is there anything which I don't like? And so on....

I had a pretty tiring but very stimulating and interesting weekend at Workshop in Clapham. A really good sequence of lectures, as well as an Open Book Reflection - which was basically writing an essay under exam conditions. I was getting nasty flashbacks to A-levels. As Phil said: "Why are you paying money to take exams Dad?"

Nevertheless it was a good weekend, and especially good to get away from the newsfeeds and forget the war for a few hours.

Excellent! - GMT have finally posted a new version of the Living Rules for Barbarossa to Berlin.

You have to feel sorry for someone who ended up at nimrods after typing "stupid celebrity antiwar protesters" into Google. Hopefully I match none of those 4 keywords....

Take a deep breath - Steven den Beste recommends a philosophical approach to breaking news:

For any of the following reports, allow at least six hours before you even begin to take them seriously:

Any report of a Scud
The first three reports of mass casualties by anyone

For these, wait 12 hours:

Any report of an attack against a city outside of Iraq
Any report of use of chemical weapons
The first two reports of mass surrenders
The first two reports of use by the US of "wizard weapons"

For these, wait 24 hours if not even more:

Any report that a "name" in Iraq has been killed, captured or has defected
Any claim by the government of Iraq which looks good for them or bad for us
Any report of atrocities
Any report of Iraqi "scorched earth" destruction, especially oil well fires
Any report of mass Iraqi civilian casualties

For all of these, the proper response is to go take a nap. I know it's tough, but that's the best thing you can do.

Via Chris Brooks' review of Laser Squad Nemesis - the Grenadier's Bible: Crank's brilliant masterpiece of strategy and tactics. In depth advice for Marines and Grenadiers in particular, but spilling over into all areas of the game. Warning: This is not a beginner’s guide! It is a technical resource for players who are already familiar with the game and who are interested in improving their level of play.

I'm not alone! BoardGameWiki - Blogs About Games

In today's Guardian Bill Clinton: Trust Tony's judgment:

In the post-cold war world, America and Britain have been in tough positions before: in 1998, when others wanted to lift sanctions on Iraq and we said no; in 1999 when we went into Kosovo to stop ethnic cleansing. In each case, there were voices of dissent. But the British-American partnership and the progress of the world were preserved. Now in another difficult spot, Blair will have to do what he believes to be right. I trust him to do that and hope the British people will too. (via Andrew Sullivan)

Dave brought over his new copy of Victory: Blocks of War last night. It was great fun - especially as I won every battle - and ideally suited for a weekday evening, being rules-light and fun. It brought back long-dormant childhood memories of Blitzkrieg - possibly the first Avalon Hill game I ever played - which is similarly a WW2-style battle fought over an imaginary landscape. Victory, with all it's expansion sets, seems to generate a lot of fannish enthusiasm. Here are a few websites I dug up this morning:

Lutz Pietschker

Jim's VICTORY website which includes a Settlers crossover!

ConsimWorld links

Matt Geisler?

Ix

And Columbia Games of course.

Against my better judgement I have been making more use of my Playstation 2. I recently acquired Final Fantasy X and have been gently sucked in by the amazing beauty of the imaginary gameworld, as well as the interesting turn-based combat. But it is very Japanese, even though the characters have vaguely Western looking faces and American voices. And the scriptwriting is weird.

A Typical FF dialogue

Guy: Huh?

(Long pause)

Girl: I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have said tha.....

(Long pause)

Guy: Huh?

I visited my lovely parents at the weekend. My Dad has been making lots of architectural models downloaded from PaperToys.com, including a model of the twin towers in New York that Dad assembled a few years ago.

Starships Unlimited is a shareware game of the "Masters of Orion" kind. Developed by one man - not a multi-million dollar development team - apparently it's a cult classic.

Caring for Your Introvert: The worst of it is that extroverts have no idea of the torment they put us through. Sometimes, as we gasp for air amid the fog of their 98-percent-content-free talk, we wonder if extroverts even bother to listen to themselves. Still, we endure stoically, because the etiquette books—written, no doubt, by extroverts—regard declining to banter as rude and gaps in conversation as awkward. We can only dream that someday, when our condition is more widely understood, when perhaps an Introverts' Rights movement has blossomed and borne fruit, it will not be impolite to say "I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush." (via Wunderland)

I'm researching geek culture for a piece of coursework I am doing for Workshop. Here are some links I have come up with:

Websters dictionary definition Old German for "fool" comes to us via the fairground.
What is a Geek? An alternative definition.
Female Geeks Article about an endangered species.
Lord of the Geeks Tracing the roots of geek culture in Tolkien, of all places.
The Code of the Geeks How to encode your own particular flavour of geekiness.
Triumph of the Nerds (DVD) Memorable TV series about the PC revolution.
New Hacker's Dictionary The mother-lode. This exhaustively documents every aspect of computer geek culture.

William has provided this list of typical excuses for stabbing an opponent in a multiplayer game:

Dave 'No it is a good thing, it is in your back to fix an itch you thought you had'
John 'I added it up and it was the only way I could win, sorry'
Wayne 'Hey, it was you or me pal'
Peter 'Sorry, but I thought it might help us both out, am I still losing?'
Steve 'Sorry, what am I meant to be doing with this knife'
Nick: evil grin, failed attempt at innocent look.
William 'I know I stabbed you but John's still the bigger threat'

I always still look at Nimrods and was concerned when you stopped posting for a while. Your quotes from the WWW and your observations give me something to look forward to at the end of the day, said James in an email yesterday. You have to feel sorry for him, if nimrods is all he's got to look forward to....

Dismal thoughts today from Andrew Sullivan: I'm left with the conclusion that we will only get such a consensus in favor of pre-emption after the destruction of a major Western city, or a chemical or biological catastrophe. In this sense, Blair and Bush may simply be ahead of their time. And what they see as the potential threat is so depressing and terrifying that it's perhaps only understandable that the world for a while will wish to look the other way.

Chris Farrell's Ranking of Strategy Card-based Wargames - lots of interesting comment. He pans Thirty Years War and The Napoleonic Wars.

A powerful piece from Greg Costikyan about the malaise in the computer games industry: The mood at the Game Designers Conference this year was, fundamentally, one of despair. To even the blindest apologist for the silly, if monstrous, construct the game industry has become, the handwriting on the wall was clear.

What's on the Stove? at Looney Labs, including news of a popular Icehouse game Zendo packaged up and sold as a stand-alone package.

Britannia In Scale using 15mm figures: I figure 4.6 km (2.8 mi.) by 8.1 km (4.9 mi.) is about enough for a properly sized map. This is just 37 sq. km (12.8 sq. mi.) or about 8,800 acres. A map of this scale would give you a good feel for what it takes to march an ancient an army to battle. I figure the plains near Fargo, North Dakota or Winnipeg, Canada would be an ideal site for the board. Depending on the lay of the land, we could use Jeeps or quadra-track cycles to find and move our pieces around the board. We would also need some room around the edges for our chairs and snacks.

The Ten Commandments of Board Gaming For example the 6th commandment decrees: Thou shalt be mindful of game owner's concerns and consume thy libations accordingly.

I've just booked accomodation in Hay-on-Wye for the first ever Nimrods Books, Beer and Boardgames weekend. We are staying at a big old place called Celtic Lodge, near the centre of the town, from Friday 9th - Monday 12th May. So far Nick and Ann, Dave, Simon, John and myself have committed, while Steve, William and Robin are thinking about it. I have not had any luck contacting James - if you still read this drivel James, and you fancy coming along, get in touch.

It should be fun - mooching around the second-hand bookshops, checking out the local pubs, walking in the Black Mountains, and of course, playing lots of games. Lets hope we get through the weekend without murdering each other.......

Humph.

I got beaten at Hammer of the Scots again by Dave last night. Last time we played it I was the Scots, and got beaten. Thought maybe the game was unbalanced. So this time I took the English. Made no difference - I still lost. This game is all luck.

Only kidding - it's a fantastic game actually. Great fun, fast, easy to learn, loads of historical flavour, lots of strategic options to puzzle over. A classic.

Thanks to Amy Welborn for her refreshing think-aloud on the rights and wrongs of attacking Iraq (entry for 26 Feb - no permalink):

The longer this goes on, the weaker the case for a war with Iraq gets, it seems to me, at least based on what we’ve been told so far. It also seems to me that the antiwar protesters are mostly mindless robots, a quarter of whom are probably motivated by anti-Semitism, the rest of whom are just plain stupid, dumb as bricks. But the defenders, while not stupid, and considerably more reasoned that the antiwar protesters, are starting to sound a little robotic – and strained - as well.

I cannot stop asking myself: Why Hussein? Why now?

Gaudi's NYC Vision: Can Antonio Gaudi's Grand Hotel replace the Twin Towers?

Why is late-night radio hundreds of percent better than drive-time radio?

In drive-time you've got Wogan's grating morning silliness, Shaun Rafferty creeping up to random classical musicians, or Johnny Walker, who tries hard but is really hampered by all the traffic news, business news, celebrity guests and guessing games he has to accomodate. But late at night you've got glorious stuff like Late Junction, or Bob Harris on Saturday night. Even the annoying Janice Long was cranking out one belting song after another at 12:30 this morning. My guess is that the corporate reins are slackened for late-night radio - "Play what you like, no-one's listening anyway." So under cover of darkness the enthusiasts take over the airwaves, playing the music they actually love, rather than what's on the BBC playlist.

Rebecca Blood's reasons why she marched for peace actually make some sense to me - first time for a while the peaceniks have got under my guard.

A gene for language?: A study last year indicated that FOXP2 evolved “some time between last Tuesday and 200,000 years ago”, Professor Klein said...

Er, could you be a little more precise on that?

Dave Winer comments on the Google-Blogger deal, asking: What did Google buy?

An angry letter in the Guardian from an Iraqi emigre: I am so frustrated by the appalling views of most of the British people, media and politicians. I want to say to all these people who are against the possible war, that if you think by doing so you are serving the interests of Iraqi people or saving them, you are not. You are effectively saving Saddam. You are depriving the Iraqi people of probably their last real chance get rid of him and to get out of this dark era in their history.

I've got very sore feet today. I went to visit Gavin in London at the weekend. On Saturday evening he said that he was tired and wanted a quiet evening and an early night. That's great, I thought. I didn't realize that "a quiet evening and an early night" involves visiting 3 or 4 pubs, a jazz bar, and a restaurant, and walking about 300 miles around Southwark and Soho, before crawling into bed at 1am. I just can't keep up with the youngsters any more.....

Gavin is back on the weblog scene. But this time he has written his own blogging engine. That's right, no Blogger or Moveable Type. It's a bit clunky, but it works, and I expect he will polish it up over the next few days.

Bible Is Getting Even Friendlier to Programmers

Christian website designers are currently testing an online application of Scripture that they say can change the way church sites, pastors, and even novice programmers use the Bible online.

Next week, Crossway's English Standard Version (ESV) will become the first Bible to allow web programmers to use its text on their own websites.

Well I've played a couple of missions over Central America with my new copy of Hornet Leader (purchased on eBay). Excellent fun - this game lived up to all my expectations and more. It did seem fairly easy to notch up a Success on both missions. The Migs weren't a serious threat, and although I had a couple of close things with SAM defences we all got home safely. I had one confusion with the rules - I wasn't sure if POD effects just apply to the plane, or to the group. I gave myself the benefit of the doubt, but on reflection think I was mistaken about this. So this probably gave me an unfair advantage. Anyway, I'm delighted with this game. It's right up there with other solitaire classics like "RAF" and "Blackbeard"!

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Viewpoint: Help us get our country back: Some commentators warn that a US backed war in Iraq will cause the Arab street to rise up in anger. But this much vaunted 'Arab street' is a fiction - it doesn't exist. It is a creation of nationalist intellectuals of my generation, who lived through war in the Arab world and never learned from the mistakes of the past.
During the Gulf War and, more recently, the Afghan war nothing came of the fears of the Arab world.

All we saw in Afghanistan were people cheering in the streets. I expect Iraqis to do the same - to throw sweets and flowers at the American troops as they enter our towns and cities.

In the long run, however, how the US handles itself will determine the success of this liberation. Much depends on how willing Washington is to follow through with nation building.

We want to see America involved in Iraq for a very long time but I do not support the idea of an American military government, even for a short time. We Iraqis must take the responsibilities of our future into our own hands.

Old C3i articles as PDFs, including some Down in Flames scenarios.

I went over to the gaming session at Scott's home last night. We played Evo. What a great little game! Everyone was telling me how difficult my first game was going to be and how likely I was to lose - but I won! I went for an egg-laying strategy, in spite of contrary advice from wiser heads, and although I had a few setbacks it worked - just. I have to admit I had a crucial bit of advice from John on my last movement phase, which made all the difference. To finish up we played Corruption - a short card game about bribing your way into various ganster rackets. Perhaps it suffered by comparison with Evo, but it seemed very dry and abstract to me.

How am I doing so far with my New Year resolutions?

1) Eat breakfast
Yes, haven't missed a day yet.

2) Play wargames
Not so good. This year I've only played Hammer of the Scots and Hornet Leader that I can remember. And the latter is a solitaire game.

3) Go skiing
Ticked off. A great week in Saas Fe with Phil in January.

4) Drink wine
Doing OK. About 3 bottles so far.

5) Don't smoke
No primary smoking. But a very heavy evening of secondary smoking in the Wyndham Arms last Friday.

6) Go Ceroc dancing
Most weeks at least one visit, except when I was skiing. Still struggling to build a decent repertoire of intermediate moves.

Six out of six. Not bad eh? Shows the benefits of setting low expectations.

Massive sale at GMT games, ends 15 April. 25% off everything, 50% if you were a P500 customer last year (I was!), plus a big postage discount. Tempting opportunity to acquire Wilderness War, von Manstein's Backhand Blow, Reds! etc etc. Yes, just what I need - more games!

Laser Squad Nemesis - Tactical Email Warfare The Gollop Brothers, creators of X-Com, are back with the critically acclaimed, next generation sequel to the classic Laser Squad. (via Greg C)

Samarkand is the professional source for Go books, equipment and software. We offer a range of fine products for Go enthusiasts of every caliber and taste.

Useful listing of British Role-Playing-Related Conventions which is up-to-date and includes some boardgaming events.

(Wait a minute, I said I wasn't posting any more!)

Perhaps you've noticed that I am no longer posting regularly to nimrods. I suppose I've just lost the blogging urge for now - the urge to link to, comment on, enthuse about, recommend, criticize, record, journal. Speaking to this general, anonymous, largely unresponding audience doesn't appeal at the moment. Maybe it will later.

Come back in a month or two.

You must have heard of Greg Costikyan - he designed Pax Britannica, The Creature That Ate Sheboygan, and much much else. Check out his new weblog: Games * Design * Art * Culture.

And how's this for a manifesto?

Low art is what's fundamentally important. Low art reflects what's actually going on in our culture today. Low art expands the boundaries of the possible. Low art is vital, exciting, vibrant, disturbing, cool--and, generally, fun. Popular music, genre fiction, comics, independent film, weird shit on the Internet--and games.

That's where it's at, man.

Grand Theft Auto isn't art? Then I guess neither is Fatboy Slim, Sandman, or King Rat.

This is a dumb argument. Games are art. Most of them are bad art, to be sure.

You don't have to agree with me... But this argument is fundamental to everything else that's going to appear here. This blog is going to treat games as art. Everything else follows.

My New Year resolutions:

1) Eat breakfast
2) Play wargames
3) Go skiing
4) Drink wine
5) Don't smoke
6) Go Ceroc dancing

Notice I've set the bar very low. I'm going for 100% this year, so I'm only resolving to do things that I already do. That way my self-esteem is boosted without me having to adjust my behaviour.

Here's the webcam at Saas-Fe Bergbahnen in Switzerland, where Phil and I will be skiing next week. It looks blooming cold to me!

NimrodCon went off pleasantly last Saturday. We had 9 people all together, with Advanced Civilization on one table and 1830 on the other. So no room for lightweights after all! John triumphed in Civilization, which was wrapped up at about 11:30 after 9 hours of play. I felt confident of victory most of the way through 1830, but I was deluded - Dave beat me by only $300 or so. It was a great game, quite intense and competitive (although it was threatened several times, no companies were "dumped" on other players) and we got it finished in 6 1/2 hrs - very good time for us.

It was good to see some less familiar faces turn out, such as Scott who escaped from family commitments for a few hours, Gavin who was taking a break from the bright lights of Bermondsey, and William who made the journey from Portsmouth specially. Thanks for a great session everybody - we must do it again soon.

Here's wishing a very happy Christmas to all my readers (all 3 of you). I hope that tomorrow morning you get to unwrap some brightly coloured boxes with Medium Complexity or 3-5 players written on the side. But don't get too excited so that you can't sleep tonight.... In the meantime you can read Steffan O'Sullivan's lovingly done tribute to Columbia Wooden Block Games including Hammer of the Scots, which I'm expecting from Santa tomorrow!

Terminal City Gamers has a preview of Mare Nostrum:

This game is a direct heir to the "Mammoth" civilization games of yesteryear that mixed military strategy, economic management and diplomacy. Its theme is the study of the first civilizations that spawned around the Mediterranean Sea, the roman's famous "Mare Nostrum". The game's main departure from its ancestors lies in the rules' relative lightness and simplicity, and the significantly shorter amount of time required to play it through.

If it lives up to its promise I could get very excited about this one. Civilization is one of my all-time favourites.

Why does Christmas suddenly turn us into Catholics?

My church is normally so "low" that we won't even display a bare cross at the front for fear of provoking idolatrous thoughts. But yesterday the church was ablaze with candles. At the front were painted plaster images of the Holy Family, a huge crib with a plastic Baby Jesus, the glittering pagan totem known as the Christmas Tree, and a winter flower arrangement festooned with the sacred plants of the Druids.

Simon Szykman is a serious collector of one boardgame - Diplomacy. His website lists over 60 variations of over 35 different editions of the Diplomacy boardgame, 14 editions of Diplomacy variants and 9 versions of commercial Diplomacy software, 7 editions of books on Diplomacy, and over a dozen Diplomacy-related items produced by the amateur Diplomacy hobby.

This is unusual! Rio Grande games has released an official expansion to Puerto Rico as a free download! Terminal City Gamers provide the details.

Well I negotiated the Inland Revenue down from £20,201. "Send us £110 and we'll call it quits," they said. "Done!" I said.

Don't miss this. If you're a gamer you've been there. Dan Bosley's hilarious account of his attempt to get some friends to play Trans America:

“So let me explain how we play....”

“Is this going to take long? Do you have Pictionary?”

“No,” I reply. “This won’t take long. This game is quite easy. And I do have Pictionary. And we could play Pictionary after this game if you like.”

“Pictionary’s a great game. It’s fun to play.”

“Yes,” I say, “Pictionary is fun. Would you rather play that instead?”

“Oh, don’t listen to her. I don’t like Pictionary. I’m no good at drawing. Let’s play this game. You said it’s good. So how do we play?”

“What’s wrong with Pictionary? You don’t have to be a good artist. You just have to be a good guesser. I haven’t played Pictionary in a long time. We should get our own copy of it. We have Monopoly at home, but we don’t have Pictionary.”

“Hey, I really like Monopoly. Maybe we could play that instead. I can’t remember the last time I played Monopoly. But that’s a really good game, and everyone already knows how to play!”

Well, I think to myself, isn’t this peachy?

Yesterday I got a letter from the Inland Revenue demanding £20,201 with menaces. Hmm, must be some mistake, surely? This might put the dampers on Christmas a little!

Phil is back from university for Christmas. I've missed having a resident opponent in the house, so I was pleased when he challenged me to Up Front! last night. We played the City Fight scenario, setting up at Relative Range 2 so that the shooting could start straight away! Almost immediately my squad's MG34 jammed, and then broke on the repair attempt. Phil's Yanks took advantage to rush forwards into buildings. My movement team were taken out by Close Assault. As a last throw I attempted to move my fire team forward but got caught in a hail of fire. Half my squad dead in just a few seconds. Game over.

Phil is disturbingly good at this game. I can't remember ever beating him at it. Still, the Christmas break will soon be over......

Financial advice from Nick Denton: IG Index has introduced a tradeable bet on the average house price in the UK. There was pretty much no way to do this before; I checked. It's particularly useful now, with UK house prices teetering on the edge of an ugly correction. So here's an idea: take out a short -- bet on a decline. That will ease the pain if house prices collapse.

I went to the doctor this morning to get a wart on my finger removed. It was a very "basic" procedure - no anaesthetic. I felt like one of Steven Maturin's patients as the doctor cut away at my finger with a curette, then dabbed acid into the bleeding wound. Ouch, that made my eyes water! Now, instead of an unsightly lump, my finger has an unsightly hole.

Why I Like Zarcana Better - Andrew Looney gives his reasons for preferring his original Icehouse/Tarot game over the redesign:

To judge from reading Jake's essay on the redesign of Zarcana into Gnostica, the newer game is so totally superior to the original that no one would ever wish to play Zarcana again. I went along with this thinking during the decision to include Gnostica, and not Zarcana, in Playing with Pyramids, since it only seemed appropriate to include one tarot card game in the book and I wanted to give Gnostica a chance to find an audience with as little interference from its predecessor as possible. However, after giving the New Kid on the Block ample time to impress me, I have come to the conclusion that I greatly prefer the original game. As a counterpoint to Jake's article, here are my reasons for disliking Gnostica.

It's frustrating - I have still played neither game because of my reluctance to possess a Tarot deck.

How many games is too many? Recently one guy on ConSimWorld owned up to possessing about 2,500 games, mostly wargames! I have about 65 and that is starting to feel like too many. Maybe I've watched too many episodes of "The Life Laundry", but I'm feeling the psychological weight of all these unplayed games bearing down on me. Just too many worthy but complex and time-consuming games waiting in the loft or the spare room. Games like 7th Fleet, Squad Leader, Wooden Ships and Iron Men, ThroneWorld - sitting at the back of my mind like a bad conscience. Maybe it's time to have a little clearout. Maybe I'll get organised and find out how to sell things on EBay. Or maybe I'll just give them to people who help me win in multiplayer games. But yes, time for a nimrod life laundry. Especially as I've just ordered Hammer of the Scots for myself for Christmas.

Another geeklist - Scott's Desert Island Games.

Avalon Hill Games Worthy of Reissue - some strange choices on here, but at least they have included Titan.

William has sent me this link to a website giving details of Portsmouth fortifications - an awful lot of detail, in fact probably more detail than we really want. William seems to be turning into a Portsmouth nimrod.

Welcome to Wincanton twinned with Ankh-Morpork (via Burnt Toast)

Hasbro have posted some great articles (harvested from back issues of the General) about various Avalon Hill classics, including Kingmaker, Diplomacy and Hannibal. I hope this is just the beginning. There's a rich heritage of stuff from the General that I would love to see coming online. (via Terminal City Gamers)

David Warren places the struggle with Islamic terrorism within a very long historical and intellectual perspective. And Steven den Beste makes some typically intelligent comments:

Warren is also pessimistic about the outcome, but Warren writes as a Christian. As an atheist I see the situation as being far more positive, and oddly enough I am encouraged by the same things that make Warren fearful.

In particular, he writes:

We concentrate too much on the foreground circumstances. The bigger issue is that the Muslims themselves have begun to wonder whether their God exists, whether he is really going to help them.

It is in moments of doubt that one often makes the wildest, most desperate, professions of faith; and in a way Osama bin Laden is doing this within his own person, and calling to fellow Muslims who are experiencing the same dark night of the soul. It is as if they were confronting not us, but instead Allah, and saying, "Show us! Prove to us you still exist; because, if you don't, we will give up on you entirely."

If that's correct, it gives me even more hope for a positive outcome in this war, for it means that a sufficient number of terrible setbacks for their side will shatter that faith, as the infidel keep winning and Allah keeps not showing up for the fight.

www.gapingvoid.com: Hugh MacLeod is a New York artist who does cartoons drawn on the back of business cards. (via Oblivio)

Game Invention and Self-Publishing Resources - where to get your wooden pieces, blank hex tiles, custom dice, home binding machines, and everything else needed by the amateur game designer (via Terminal City Gamers)

More insights from John on Barbarossa to Berlin and how well it models the real thing:

My Normandy example is possibly not the best. The game limits you to turn
14 (Spring 1944) or later. This in itself is somewhat arbitrary but not
unreasonable. The key point is probably that you should not be able to play
Overlord until a certain number of turns after ASW Victory although this
probably applies to all of the invasions outside the Med. For Torch they all
had to scuttle across the mid-Atlantic off the trade routes to concentrate
at Gibraltar and hope that the U-boats didn't notice. A concentration of
transport shipping was obviously just what the U-boats were looking for and
at best surprise would have been totally lost.

With regard to the turn limit on Overlord, if you look at the COSSAC plan
for the invasion of France it is clear that until Montgomery arrives from
Italy what is being considered is a much smaller scale affair with only 3
divisions landing in the first wave rather than five. Because of this and
the option of doing Round-Up instead I can live with the turn limit on
Overlord.

Other things do not come through in the game however. One of the major
reasons for invading Italy was the opportunity to route shipping through the
Mediterranean and Suez rather than round the Cape. Since the single
critical limitation on Allied operations in all theatres was the available
merchant shipping to deploy and supply forces, saving ton-miles by invading
Italy significantly increased the speed with which the build-up for the
invasion of Europe could be conducted.

Other oddities are the frequency of Stalin Orders - fine in 1941-42 but
totally wrong later on (unless there is a rule or card I have missed).
Stalin was much more ready than Hitler to listen to his generals once they
had proved themselves (he just consoled himself with the thought that after
the war he could have them all liquidated). Likewise it is a little unkind
to only allow the Soviets Mechanised Fronts after Lend-Lease. The trucks
are important in allowing the Soviets to carry on operations in operational
depth - their previous offensives had a tendency to peter out in the first
couple of weeks after the breakthrough. This partly disappears by the time
of the Ukrainian offensives of late 1943 and entirely disappears with
Operation Bagration in 1944 but is not just due to US trucks. A significant
factor is also internal organisation of the Tank Corps and the problems of
low availability of armour due to breakdowns and poorly organised support
services. So Lend-Lease as the route to Mechanised Fronts does not entirely
do the Russian war machine justice.

I decided to try taking the train into work today, with a view to possibly getting rid of the car and so saving myself shedloads of money as well as saving the planet. I got up three quarters of an hour earlier than I usually do to catch the train, but arrived at work at the same time I always do, feeling very tired and with a headache from the loud vibrating noises inside the brand-new rolling-stock. Now it's nearly time to head for home. Not looking forward to the trip.

I have been swapping emails with the horribly well-informed John Medhurst about Barbarossa to Berlin. Here are some of his thoughts:

I have also had a solo go through with Barbarossa to Berlin and got a German
automatic victory in 1943 due to finally pushing the Soviets over the edge.
I am still not 100% on the rules though and am still finding things out.
Myself and Dave have whisked through to Winter 1943 (i.e. beginning of 1943)
and things are looking OK for the allies at the moment but Dave is playing
more cautiously than the actual Germans and the Fuhrer has not yet taken
command. I have kicked him out of North Africa and am holding him on a line
from in front of Moscow down through Kharkov to the mouth of the Dniepr. He
holds 4 VP spaces at the moment - Minsk, Kiev, Odessa and Sevastapol. He has
played Taifun but none of the other space attack cards. I have just got
some of the Russian mechanised fronts on the board so I feel that the
Fascist menace is under control but it is not as overextended as in the real
world so I wonder whether I will be able to knock him down to zero if he
plays Totaler Krieg. The strong point for the allies is that they have
played quite a few of the longer-term cards including ASW victory, US
build-up, Lend-Lease and so on. I have not yet played any invasions but
Dave is also looking quite strong with almost all of his units up to full
strength. I have been playing up to 3 RP cards a turn to keep the Soviets
intact.

My overall impression of the game is that it is much more bitty than Paths
of Glory - there are a lot of special rules and a lot of cards that have
quite dramatic effects - like Totaler Krieg. There are a lot more combined
event-action cards which at least makes the events more likely but is
possibly a bit of a 'no-brainer' compared with the agonising decisions of
Paths of Glory. I also find the events happening out of their real world
order a bit iffy. Compared with the First World War the second was rather
more in the way of the steady application of overwhelming force. Things
happened at certain times because that was how long it took to build up the
necessary forces. So Normandy was not possible until the U-boats had been
beaten - it took months of shipping troops across the Atlantic that would
have been much too dangerous against an unbeaten U-boat enemy.

All in all though it is a good game and Dave also seems to be enjoying it.

Well I'm not surprised John is not 100% on the rules - they are a bit of a moving target with Ted Raicer publishing new errata every few weeks. This is my only gripe with what is otherwise my latest most favourite wargame.