I'm sure most have seen or hard of this already but Markos and Solver but have previews up for the game.

Nice stuff in there for those who haven't been testing this thing for the past 3 months or more, lol.

If you enjoy samurai combat, you might be interested in the new Age of Shoguns modpack available on http://civmods.com/aosdemo.htm

Description from the website: Put on your samurai armor and lead your loyal troops into battle! You are about to enter the Golden Age of Shoguns. Honor and glory await you on the fields of war! Will you become the ultimate Shogun? Age of Shoguns (AOS), written by Shay Yates Roberts, is a dramatic expansion of the excellent Conquests Sengoku scenario written by Michael Fetterman at Firaxis Games. Age of Shoguns can be played solo or multiplayer, on land or at sea. Choose from six major Japanese clans to play. All tribes have distinct personalities, special abilities, and unique units.

If you like swashbuckling pirates, you may want to check out the new Age of Piracy modpack available on http://civmods.com/aopdemo.htm

Description from the website: Run up the jolly roger and set sail for a life of infamy! You are about to enter the Golden Age of Piracy. A king's ransom awaits you on the high seas, if you're bold enough to claim it! Age of Piracy 3.0, written by Shay Yates Roberts, is unlike any mod pack you have experienced. It contains 74 new units, 46 new technologies, 26 new city improvements and 13 new wonders. It can be played solo or multiplayer, on land or at sea. Choose from eight civilizations to play, including two ruthless pirate clans. All civs have distinct personalities, special abilities, and unique units.

4 of us are are ready to do the first mission and hope to make it to Pikens tonite. Those who missed last week might want to log on a bit early and team up to catch up. We are not too far apart yet, so no biggie.


PS: Maybe we can get a team to clear out FoW in one sitting after the Nudist meet


KoP

I saw this in Sirian's signature at CFC:

Quote:Epic 1 is coming in November!

So there I was, with Kronin Thistleknott leading Riara Renthese through Perdition Rock to Ring of Fire when she started uttering some truely bizarre assertions:
- Warriors are tanks
- Warriors are the centrepiece around which the battle is joined (not exactly those words but some other mantra with roughly that meaning).
- That I had said something like "We need a warrior who can take a hit." Referring to a recent People vs. dragon Glint fight, where what I said was more like, "We need a tank who can take a hit," thinking of putting Kronin himself forward for the role as I recall.

And proceeded to use Devona's Riara-directed combat tactics to illustrate how "warriors" are supposed to behave . . .

. . .

Needless to say I had a fairly powerful WTF moment over that one, after already being astounded by some of the prior assessments. Here's me, veteren primary warrior player of a thousand battles running a fairly un-tank-like hammer build who's observance of Riara's pearls of wisdom would be a surefire way to either A.) Drain a monk's energy supply flat in no time. Or B.) Die.

The whole episode made me think back to a PvP run where a monk on my team tried to direct everyone to his called target and threw a fit when both warriors, my Ragnar and one other, sensibly switched to something else. The monk left the game and left us high and dry.

Or the times where I've run up against a sword and shield based R/W and found myself facing a "tank".
Or the times where I've entered a RB game with Somewhat Zen and repeatedly had to insist on the inclusion of Mhenlo etc.
And so many other times where people have made false assumptions about those playing alongside them or outright dictations as to what they should be.

One thing is clear about Guild Wars and that is its wealth of character diversity. If the Primary and secondary professions mixed weren't enough to loosen up a character's predictability then surely the range of attribute and skill options would throw any preconceptions out the window, but apparently not. And given the tendancy for RB'ers to experiment I suspect I'm not alone . . .



So here it is. Clearing the air. My "Do you get it now?" thread . . . or something like that.

In alphabetical order:

Ice Blade of Realms
Elementalist/Mesmer

PvE
Primary Function: "Nuker" Long ranged blasting
Secondary Function: Caster shutdown, energy leech, knock down and slow down

Concept: Ice Blade is quite literally a walking ice cube. His Elementalist side lets him cool things down and his Mesmer side sucks up energy.
Notes: A lot of fun to play, I can blend in to most teams and really play a significant part in most games. My one attempt at running him in random PvP had me quite surprised by how unsuitable he turned out to be in that role. I think he could really come into his own as a flag runner's wingman or base defender in a guild match, but that remains to be seen.

Kronin Thistleknott
Ranger/Mesmer

PvE
Primary Function: Leech shutdown
Secondary Function: Multi-purpose applications

Concept: He's based on a minor character of the Kender race from the DragonLance series of books.
Notes: The ranger body provides the look and the mesmer skills contribute a "sewing the seeds of chaos" factor that matches Kenders quite well. The domination staff lends itself to replicate the Kender hoopak staff too.

Ragnar of Syvesten
Warrior/Monk

PvE
Primary Function: "Ninja"
Secondary Function: Big pinpoint damage with some knockdown and moderate tanking ability on the side.

PvP
Primary Function: Hunting down runners
Secondary Function: Pinpoint damage dealer

Concept: None really. Ragnar is my first non-beta character and I initially built him blending my old passion for Diablo II Paladins and the Clan warriors of BattleTech. His current green and yellow colour scheme is based on the banner of Clan Jade Falcon. Syvesten is a village where my father is from in the north of Denmark.
Notes: With Ragnar I've developed a 4-skill attack combo that when left unchecked has been known to wipe out Elementalists before the fourth hit even lands. He's kind of like how Diablo II's Werewolf often turns out: Front-line equivalent of a glass cannon. Ninja is an occasional GW term for characters who head back behind enemy lines, make a kill and scarper, hopefully before getting killed in the process. To that end Ragnar is an all or nothing kind of guy - It's either "Full steam ahead!" or "Retreat!"

Somewhat Zen
Monk/Ranger
PvE
Primary Function: Fire-support/Heal-support
Secondary Function: -

PvP
Primary Function: Marathon runner
Secondary Function: Extreme range Fire-support/Heal-support

Concept: I made the character and decided a few hours later that a zen archer would be a neat idea (normally the concept comes before the character).
Notes: My first true 50/50 split in a game dominated by tweaking the hell out of things to get highly focused cookie cutters, Somewhat Zen has proven to be amazingly effective all over the game. When the group needs to damage she adds in skills like Barrage to the mix and when the group is suffering I throw the mental switch and have her become the healer. This is the most problematic character for me to get through the pre-mission team chat. People don't understand or quickly forget that her healing ability, while highly useful, has been developed to operate in general ways as a long range support tactic in conjunction with her bow and more importantly another (primary) healer. This effectively makes her a good compliment to any other monk on the team covering general needs while the team mate (or henchman) focuses on spot heals and/or protection. Another major difference with her to other healers is Zen's standing postion is governed by the reach of the bow moreso than by the reach of her heals eg. Other monks are often in the cluster of casters while Zen will be on the fringe somewhere or on a higher elevation.

Monks sometimes have a rough time directing henchies normally, but not Zen. She just twangs away happily at key targets while going back to the healing and the henchies follow the designated target.

My limited PvP experience with Somewhat Zen recreates her into something even further removed from other healing monks. Usually other monks will stay with the group, heal the group and use self-protection, healing and even smiting tactics. Zen just runs away. Normally what happens is monks are like some kind of rabbit to a greyhound and have the universe come charging after them to gobble them up. In Zen's case the pursuers generally break off to deal with the more immediate threat leaving me to either return to take potshots at the range limit (and toss in some healing) or drag some lone warrior all around the map. This isn't a bad thing usually. It tends to cut a 4:4 fight down to a 3:3 with Somewhat Zen lobbing off Heal Team to unbalance things back to something like 3.1:3. In either case her boon and bane are the list of slowdown skills in the game. She works well with teams that have a few of these up their sleaves and is living dangerously when the enemy is packing them.



So there it is. Two characters who wield unexpected weapons and actually make some use of their secondary profession, one warrior who isn't much of a tank and a walking ice cube. Ice Blade is easy for the people to wrap their heads around, but the others have a tendancy to inspire no end of debate.

Just in case no one reads the stickied thread "Members & Time Slots"...I'll clutter up the forums with a new thread and post a little about myself.

GW Invite Name: Seijin Tetsujin / Seijin Ronin

AKA:
Muneyoshi Shinkage W/Mo - currently Mo secondary, originally Nec secondary. Those are the only two I really use and have some skills unlocked for them. But I can eventually do the other professions too, will just take time. Currently went through the whole story with him. Just needs Titan's Source, and some SF quests.

Kiy Terrell R/E 20th - My original character because I LOVE rangers and I LOVE mages. But I found it was hard to find groups in the latter stages of the game and I got pissed off, so I started my warrior and finished before my ranger. Currently he's stuck in Thunderhead Keep.

Keilarra Starhealer Mo/N 20th - Made her because monks are soooo sexy. Actually I did it to see what monks have to go through when playing. I honestly love being a healing monk. I find it fun and relaxing not to have to find targets to kill. Plus if I find a jerk I can just not heal him. Currently she has just gotten passed ascension.

Availability:
Usually I'm on any day of the week, mainly at night after 8 pm PST. My time is usually dependent upon my work schedule. Weekends I will rarely be on during the day because I usually work a full shift from around 12-8pm. If I have a day off, I might be on all day.

My Guild Story:
I've been in about 10 guilds now. About half I left, the other half I was kicked out. The one's I left were usually too small, rarely any guild interaction, no real team feeling or helpfulness to newcomers. The one's I got kicked out of were usually helpful, but really PvP oriented. So I got kicked mainly because I didn't participate in PvP.

Realms Beyond:
Thus far I've had a lot of fun with the guild members that I've met. Actually this is the MOST interaction I've had with any one guild and its members. Everyone seems helpful and knowledgable about the game. I'm really looking forward to being a big part of this guild. Oh yeah...I love the capes...as I told one of the members, a lot of other guilds have capes that looks like they were designed by clowns.

I’m buying a set of 500 chips for an (ex) father-in-law I have a LOT of respect for. I’m not much of a “chip” poker player—in my low-rent games quarters make good chips and dollars and fives make good plaques that draw the “oooohs” from the players.


The problem is, it is a special series with 8 distinct chips, and I want them all in the set, but don’t know how to break down that many chips into 500 properly.


I’m thinking 100 100 100 50 50 50 25 25.


Does that sound workable?

He normally plays a 4-6 person game.

For any chip aficionados, I’m talking about the Nevada Jacks American Beauty chips. If I was buying for myself, I’d go for the Paulson Pharaoh’s Club chips, but the American Beauties are just right for him, composite or not.


Bonus question—These are NCV chips and not strictly in traditional colors—would anyone have a cow over me breaking the above numbers into Pink/Light Blue/Red (100), Green/Orange/Purple (50), Black/Red White Blue [coolest chip *ever*] (25)? The Orange has to go somewhere, and I’m flipping the Purple and Black because the gal on the Black is holding a gun, which *has* to be worth more than whatever-the-heck the gal on the Purple is holding 8-).


Thanks for the help.

--jack

This looks encouraging:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civi...l?page=158


Ooh, more map types.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civi...l?page=164


The lands look pretty good to me.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civi...l?page=161

I will freely admit I am a packrat of the worse kind. I have been keeping a few useless items just because they look useless-but-cute and especially some cursed items even when I have no room to pick up drops anymore.

I have 3 such cursed items I do hear people asking for from time to time, and finally bothered to sell one. Here's a screenie.





The one I sold for 10K has Blood req. He offered 8 and I asked for 10

The thing is, these focus items are quest rewards from Pre-school. City of Ascalon, I think. I think there are -20 health ones in Post searing too.

So I am left wondering how much more I can get for the one with Healing req. And, I thought low health monk is a thing of the pass since the nerf on protection.


KoP