2013 WBC Event Recaps

Recently the event recaps for this past year's World Boardgaming Championships have gone up on the webpage. I read all of the recaps every year. Events I played in, events I wanted to play in, events I have no intention to ever play... I read them all! Even the ones for certain wargames that might as well be speaking another language. I like finding out what the people in charge of those events found interesting about their events. Maybe I'll find something I'll want to pick up. (Like Ace of Aces which always sounds awesome!)

One of things that comes along with the event recaps is the status for the coming year. A Few Acres of Snow, alas, did not get the man hours to stay in the Century. Given that we didn't have enough copies of the game and had to turn away a fifth of the field I wasn't too surprised. It does make me a little sad but it could still get voted back in. I put it on my ballot! I don't think I'd volunteer to GM it again since I found the whole thing to be very stressful especially in the leadup to WBC but I still want it to be an event and I'd definitely play in it if it didn't conflict with something like Le Havre.

They also sent out an email this week talking about how they're making a small change to the pricing scheme for WBC. They're cutting off preregistration earlier this year and they're also increasing the cost if you pay at the door. My group pays for the next year while we're still at the current one (it's easier to use up US money at that time instead of fumbling with a way to pay in a different currency once we get back to Canada) so we're not hit by either of these changes. But it is something to keep in mind if you're someone who waits or hasn't made up their mind yet.

cMud: Terrible Store Interface

Back in October I started playing on the Aardwolf mud again. I was having fun playing and had managed to massage many of my old aliases and triggers into a working state in the cMud client which was the replacement to the old zMud client I used to use way back in the day. Everything was going great and then the one month free trial for cMud expired. Ok, well, it was working for me and I wanted to keep playing Aardwolf so I figured I'd pony up the $30.

Unfortunately it would seem Zugg is only partially supporting the products now and their store doesn't work properly. It kept rejecting my credit card because of an incorrect address or something of the sort despite the fact that I use it everywhere else with the same info. I emailed them about it and after a week they got back to me basically saying they have fraud issues so they dialed up their security and it's probably something like the bank thinks I live on Yonge Street and I'm entering it as Yonge St or something like that. More likely I just don't know the right format for entering my apartment number.

They didn't have a solution and didn't offer to try to do anything like send me a bill or anything to get the sale. They suggested trying Paypal instead but I don't think I have one of those and it would probably just run into the same issue anyway.

It's a shame that I've stopped playing Aardwolf because a different company has a shoddy webstore. Oh well. Plenty of other games for me to play I guess! I do miss global quests though...

Path of Exile: Challenge Update

We're a little over one month in to the four month Path of Exile league season. There are 8 challenge achievements that I posted about and if you get all 8 of them done you win a t-shirt. Free shirt! I've now played enough of the game to have an idea for how rough these things will actually be...

Kill Rare Monsters - I'm currently at 186 of 188 here and the last two aren't hard. I'm sure I'll stumble across them eventually and if it comes down to it I can just farm the zones they spawn in until I get them. They can also spawn in end game maps. So I expect I'll just end up with this one and it's easy to grind out regardless.

Touch These Shrines - I've touched all 17 different shrines and have this challenge done. It just required playing a bunch in the domination league. It seemed a little hard while I was grouping with people since I never touched any shrines because I stand in the back but I started playing alone and they all showed up in no time. A couple are pretty rare but just playing a bunch will have them show up.

Slay the Nemeses - I've done 21 of 22 here. The last one is apparently really rare but picking it up means just playing a bunch on the nemesis league. It's a hardcore league and I stopped playing when my character died but it feels like this one will be easy to get if I just play more in that league.

Reach level 65 - I'm at 1 of 7 here. Getting the rest will also be easy, especially with all the lowbie uniques we keep finding. Probably a week or two to do it, mind, but definitely viable.

Own these Unique Items - I have 21 of 65 here, but I'm not nearly as close at that seems. I found a website that compiles sale posts from the main message boards and went through pricing them all out. These were mostly buyout prices so are really an upper bound. Buyouts still listed rate to be higher than the actual market value of these things should I be actually working on buying them. That said, all of the items look to be around 7700 chaos orbs in value. The ones I have are worth 326 and that's cheating a little since I got a 200 chaos orb valued flask as a race reward. The rest of my stuff is probably worth a couple hundred, plus whatever my maps are worth. So I'm nowhere near getting it all. This one scares me, but I think there's a lot of money to be made on drops from the really high maps. Plus some of these are bound to actually drop for me at some point.

Kill these Unique Bosses - I'm at 81 of 116. A couple that I'm missing are randomly spawning rogue exiles and most of them are high end map bosses. I'm pretty sure if I keep playing for the next couple months I will get one copy of all the maps and kill all those bosses. The rogue exiles I just need to hope will show up? There are 11 total and I run into one every couple days; I just need the right ones to show up. Probably doable.

Use these Currency Items - I have used 19 of 23. The four I haven't used are the really expensive ones, but combined they aren't even close in value to, say, a Soul Taker unique. I expect to actually find a reason to use everything at some point but if I don't it's trivial to do just for kicks,

Items from Vendor Recipes - I have 30 of 33 done here. The last three are to crush 40% of quality maps into a chisel (easy to pick up at some point) to crush a level 20 gem (something I plan to do in a couple weeks when I finally get a level 20 gem) and to crush a full set of 75+ rares into a regal orb. That last one will require me to get to a higher map tier but once there is easy. If I get the unique boss challenge this one will come along for the ride, and I expect to get that one.


Eight challenge achievements and seven of them now seem 'easy'. Owning all the listed uniques still feels daunting but at least it's 'just' making a bunch of money. One of the best ways to do that is to just play more! On it!

Bridge Match 2 - Board 29

Board 29 – Dealer North – All Vul

Opponents convention card: Dutch Doubleton
Opponents playing strength: Fair

My hand: ♠ A 7 4 ♥ T 9 5 ♦ Q 9 2 ♣ A T 5 4

Partner opens 1NT (weak). My balanced 10 count plus his balanced 12-14 count means we should make 1NT and not much else so I pass. West bids 2 clubs alerted as showing the majors. East bids 2 spades after partner passes. Do I want to let them play 2 spades? We have most of the points but they presumably have most of the spades. My only option would be 2NT I think and it feels like if we're making that we're probably setting 2 spades and if we're not making it we're in trouble vulnerable. So I pass and so does everyone else.

I don't know what to lead. Through strength might make sense, so I lead the T of hearts.

WEST ♠ J 9 6 2 ♥ A K J 6 3 ♦ J 6 ♣ 6 3
	SOUTH ♠ A 7 4 ♥ T 9 5 ♦ Q 9 2 ♣ A T 5 4

West	North	East	South
	1NT1	Pass	Pass
2♣2	Pass	2♠	All Pass
112-14
2Both majors

T-K-7-8. I believe partner probably has the Q and is trying to signal high with the 7. Declarer cashes a second heart. A-4-2-5. He then ruffs out partner's Q. 3-Q-3 of spades-9. He has two hearts set up on board if he can draw trump and find an entry over there. Like, say, the J of spades.

Declarer is in hand and shifts to a low club. 2-5-6-8. Partner decides to cash clubs. K-9-4-3. Then he shifts to a diamond. 4-5-Q-6.

I'm in. What is partner trying to do? I suspect he's just trying to take out tricks and go home. Hopefully he has a high diamond and I return one for him. 2-J-K-A. Declarer cashes his high diamond. T-9-6 of hearts-7. Then he ruffs a club. 7-T-2 of spades-Q. A heart back. J-8 of diamonds-8 of spades-???

Am I supposed to ruff here? If I pitch they win the trick and need only one of the last 3 tricks. Partner can't have both the K and Q of spades so declarer has at least one of them. If he has both he gets at least one trick, obviously. If declarer has the T along with the honour he can guarantee a trick too. So I need to assume partner has KT. But even then declarer can set up a trick. So if I pitch they make. Guess I need to overruff even though that's normally wrong. I win with the A.

I'm pretty sure partner has the last club so leading that is a ruff and sluff. But drawing trump is bad too. Maybe partner pitched properly and has a diamond left? Sure, run it! I lead a club. A-9 of spades-T of spades-J. Woo! Partner has the K of spades back to take the last trick. Down 1!

	NORTH ♠ K T 5 ♥ Q 7 4 ♦ K 8 7 4 ♣ K Q 8
WEST ♠ J 9 6 2 ♥ A K J 6 3 ♦ J 6 ♣ 6 3		EAST ♠ Q 8 3 ♥ 8 2 ♦ A T 5 3 ♣ J 9 7 2
	SOUTH ♠ A 7 4 ♥ T 9 5 ♦ Q 9 2 ♣ A T 5 4

2 of the NS pairs got to play 1NT and made up one for more points than we got. One NS pair played 1NT just in for fewer points. One EW pair tried 2 hearts and went down 1. And three NS pairs tried 3NT and went down. So we get 9 MPs.

Captain Jack disagrees with my opening lead. If I lead a heart I should lead the 9, not the T. I guess we're probably playing Rusinow leads? Also he wants me to draw trump with the 4 to start.

Ranking after board 29/60: 3/16 with 55.42%

Building Sandcastles

Sthenno posted earlier this week about a clicking browser game he's recently started playing and about how the game is more obtuse than the previous ones like Candy Box and Cookie Clicker. I like building spreadsheets and watching numbers go up so I had to check it out. Numbers are certainly going up and there is certainly a spreadsheet being built!

It's also definitely weird. I've had to stop and think while building my spreadsheet. And not in a 'how do I make Excel do this' way but in a 'what in the world is happening and how can I model it' way. I don't think I have a good model yet and I fear my sleep tonight will be filled with XKCD pictures and Fibonacci sequences.

It's got my attention for now. I apologize, but it's probably going to get your attention too. I hope you enjoy building sandcastles in the sand.

Path of Exile: Crafting

One of the rewards you can earn this race season is an alternate art moonstone ring. There is no way to inspect other characters that we can find so having an alternate art ring didn't seem very useful. Then it was pointed out that these items actually all have an item level of 100 and can therefore roll all of the best affixes. Most of the rewards are unique items so that doesn't matter but for this one ring it does matter. I hit that reward plateau a while ago and the ring has just been sitting around waiting to get used.

There are two main ways to try to craft something really good. There's the complete reroll method and there's the iterative gain method. The complete reroll method involved using an orb of alchemy to turn a white item into a yellow item and then using a chaos orb on the resulting yellow item if you don't like it to force a complete reroll. The iterative method involves starting with an orb of transmutation to turn your white item into a blue item. Then you reroll the blue item over and over with orbs of alteration until you get the most important prefix and the most important suffix on your item. Then you use a regal orb to upgrade it to a yellow item and get an extra affix. Then you use 3 exalted orbs to add more affixes to the yellow item. This still gives you a bunch of random stuff on top of your really good stuff so you can also use an eternal orb to save the state along the way.

The second method is the one most likely to generate a really good item, but it's also more expensive. Really expensive. An eternal orb alone is worth 40 chaos orbs! 3 exalted orbs are another 60! I can't imagine this ring is worth enough to run that amount of money into crafting it. Could it even be worth tossing a couple chaos orbs at? Should I just try for one yellow item? Or make a really good blue and be done with it?

I should probably start by looking at what affixes I want to end up with on an idea yellow item and how those differ on an item level 100 item versus a 67 that I can easily find on a monster...

Prefixes:

Energy Shield: 47 base or 22% VS 37 base or 16%
Increased Item Quantity: 24% regardless
Mana: 68 VS 59

Suffixes:

Cast Speed: 22% VS 19%
Fire/Lightning/Cold Resist: 45% VS 41%


Realistically the odds of even hitting the top category of a given affix is probably pretty slim. I need to get IIQ on any ring I use because that's what my character does and the second most important thing is energy shield. Those are both prefixes so making a really good blue can't even get the two things I most want. The best would be a high resist with the IIQ and that's not going to be better than the yellow ring I have now with 32% IIQ and 32% fire resist. (It's a gold ring so it starts with extra IIQ. The moonstone ring does start with extra energy shield at least.)

So I think the way to go with this ring in particular is to just use an orb of alchemy on it and hope for the best!

Quadradius

Matt sent me an email earlier this week asking if I'd played the game Quadradius which came recommended by one Richard Garfield. The website opened up with a tutorial video and then some training missions against the AI so I figured I'd give it a shot. I roped Robb into signing up and playing a few games with me and off we went.

The game is essentially a turn based abstract game where you get to move one of your balls each turn. Balls move one space orthogonally on the board and if you jump on your opponent's ball they die. This sounds pretty boring to start so the game is set up so periodically spaces get lit up on the board. Move a ball onto one of these spaces and you get a power you can use on a future turn. You don't know what the power will be before you move onto the space and your opponent doesn't get told what power you gained until you use it.

This sounds interesting enough but in practice the power levels of the different abilities seemed really swingy. Some of the abilities changed the height of the terrain which made movement trickier. You know it's coming and your opponent doesn't so presumably you can set up favourable situations. Other abilities allowed you to kill all of your opponent's units in your current column, or row, or in the 8 spaces around your ball! Then there was the worse version of that ability which would kill off all units in that row/column/around you including yourself. So if you happen to get all acid powerups and your opponent got all kamikaze powerups you would just dominate them. Then there was the powerup which made your ball immune to getting jumped on, permanently. If your opponent doesn't have acid or kamikaze you just get to ravage his line.

One of the abilities would teleport you randomly to any space on the board. In the last game I played with Robb his random teleport put him in one of two spaces on the board that let him kill two of my guys. My random teleport put my invincible unit into one of two spaces on the board that prevented him from moving again.

I could see how there could be a good tactical game with the outline of the game but as it actually played out it just seemed really random. The website talks about how good bluffing can feel but if your opponent called your bluff and you had +1 terrain level as your ability instead of acid row you'd just lose. So maybe if you had a pool of abilities and got to assign them when you hit the dots instead of just getting dealt one at random? My first game against the AI had the computer get jump immune as his first powerup and I didn't get a way to deal with it until I was down to 3 guys. Good game.

The game can go up to 6 people which could be really crazy and chaotic. But would it be good? I feel like probably not. Maybe there are people out there who would enjoy this game but I don't think I'm one of them. I don't regret trying it out, though!

Path of Exile: More Racing!

In the last day I've played in three of the hour long races in Path of Exile. Two were for the Descent Champions map where you get to start with unique items and fight through an artificial dungeon outside of the main storyline and one which was a 'fixed' map game where everyone playing had the same level layout and got to see the maps revealed without having to explore them. I ended up finishing in the top 20 for my class each time (12th, 19th, and 14th) which was good for a bonus point along with the large number of points for getting to such a high level itself. 27 points total for 3 hours is a pretty good deal!

My plan for getting better at these races was to watch one guy who does quite well (he's currently tied for first in overall points earned) while I'm eating. Helman streams every race on Twitch and they're archived so I can watch them afterwards and see what he's doing. It also helps that the stream contains a feed from his voice chat server so sometimes I get to hear top players talking strategy. Mostly I get to hear them make fun of each other and call RIP when someone dies, but you take the bad with the good.

I don't know that he necessarily has the best plan (Scions in general seem to place higher than Duelists do) but he has a very good one and I've been able to piece it together and implement the basics of it myself. Being the best overall doesn't really matter that much, especially since I know I'll never get there. Most of the bonus points are for doing well compared to other people of the same class anyway. So focusing on one class seems like it makes sense.

To summarize the plan you rush as fast as you can to a point where you can get the leap slam skill and then you use that as both your movement skill and your area damage skill for the rest of the game. Pretty much every choice on the skill tree and for gear is focused on leap slamming more often and hitting harder with leap slam. So there's a premium put on attack speed (attack speed impacts how long you spend in the air with any given leap slam) and on ramping up the damage done with a 2 handed weapon.

Races are played with hardcore characters so if you die you get eliminated and get no points at all. So my first instinct was to spend my skill points on extra health. Lower the chances of dying and increase the chances of scoring points! This is definitely true, but it also pretty much guarantees you get no bonus points and get to a lower level. If it takes you 3 or more hits to kill an enemy you're going to engage fewer enemies to stay safe and you're going to level slowly. If you kill enemies in one hit you can take on as many as you can reach at a time because they die too fast to kill you back. The glass cannon may well be taking four times as much damage per attack but as long as they don't get bursted out immediately they'll kill all the enemies and just drink a potion to heal to full. Because you get flask charges based on how many enemies you kill you get to heal so much more by killing faster. There is definitely the danger that you do get bursted out in one round of attacks but that's what player experience with the different areas is for, right? Helman comes really close to dying all the time, but he knows the signs of danger and bails quickly enough that he survives a pretty high percentage of the time. And by running right up against that line he's faster than safer builds.

What tips have I picked up from my stream watching and experimenting myself?

• Chest armour slows your movement speed down. 8% for a strength or strength/int chest and 4% for any other chest. The solution? Don't wear a chest until you get leap slam. It's right to carry one around for hard fights (Brutus in particular) but wearing a chest while walking through a zone is a big mistake. Shields do the same thing, but wearing a shield really slows down your killing speed so it's a double whammy. Don't wear those either!
• You can CTRL click on things as a shortcut. At a vendor CTRL click will move an item from your inventory to the vendor. On the skill tree it will lock in the selected point without needing confirmation. This lets you skill up as you walk if you're fast enough!
• Logging out and back in will respawn you back in town, and is faster than a town portal scroll. So unless you need to go back through the portal the other way, just log out. You get the waypoint after a boss when you kill them (like Brutus) so logging out and taking the waypoint is faster than walking out, nevermind that you need to go to town to claim the leap slam quest reward.
• You can sell an unidentified blue item for 2 transmutation shards. You can sell those for 2/5ths of an identify scroll. Identify scrolls let you buy critical items from a vendor! Things you wouldn't buy in a normal game like a small mana potion or a white ring/amulet/belt but that you need to buy in a race. Belts are only 2 scrolls each, the others are 3. So if Hillock drops the right stuff and I get 5 scrolls in town I can open with iron ring + rustic sash for more damage! Later on I'll buy some potions if I didn't get the right ones to drop.
• You need a two red link item early because you want to connect added fire damage to leap slam as soon as possible. You need a two red link and a green link to add in double strike. I used to take life on hit as my support gem because it would keep me alive but it also made the mana cost go up too much and I can stay alive better by doing more fire damage and one shotting the enemies! If you don't have the 3 link you can make do by using a R-R and a R-G and swapping the added fire damage around for bosses.
• If you're fast with a mouse you can input a move command and then rearrange your inventory as you walk in order to swap gems and gear around or use orbs. I am not good enough to do this. I think it's growing up with a SNES controller instead of a mouse but I simply can't make those precise movements. It's also why I'm mediocre at StarCraft II!
• Your weapon is the most important thing. You want to constantly be on the lookout for white 2-handed weapons above your level that you can pick up and use if you level up without finding a good weapon. Use an alch, or a chance, or a transmute on it. The stats you want are IPD (improved physical damage), attack speed, or added elemental damage. Until you have leap slam you need to stick with a sword or axe for cleave.
• Resist rings are really important. Cold resist for Merveil, lightning resist for chambers of sin 2/3... Boss fights are sketchy regardless. Run up, double strike a couple times as you chug your best potion. When you get knocked down low enough that you'll die in one hit you kite the boss away as you drink to full then you can leap slam back in and double strike some more. With a good enough weapon you probably only need to do this once or twice. With a worse weapon you probably need to be cheezy and use a portal scroll to refill your flask.
• Once you have leap slam and some attack speed you don't need movement speed. So you can throw away quicksilver flask and movement speed boots! Skipping the flask quest is therefore a really good idea.
• The really early zones just aren't worth enough experience. Run through them. Maybe stop and kill blue packs? I think you want to be level 3 by the time you get into upper submerged passage so you need to kill enough to make that happen? I know I kill too many things but I just can't help myself! 
• The +2 range on Master of the Arena does not help cleave, sweep, or leap slam. It turns out it only helps cyclone and actual single target attacks. It's still good to have on double strike for bosses, I think, but it isn't as nutty as I thought it was.
• Thinking on the fly is bad. Having a mental checklist of things to do and a precise build order has helped me by removing some of the things I need to think about and letting me focus more on just running through zones killing things quickly.

For my own reference, here's a list of all 2-handers base types so I know what to look for. Turns out axes are always one level higher in each chunk. I think that means axes are probably better? I think the axe nodes are closest to the berserking build path too and 30% damage for one point sounds really good.

1 - axe - Stone Axe
1 - sword - Corroded Blade
1 - maul - Driftwood Maul
8 - sword - Longsword
8 - maul - Tribal Maul
9 - axe - Jade Chopper
12 - sword - Bastard Sword
12 - maul - Mallet
13 - axe - Woodsplitter
17 - sword - Two-Handed Sword
17 - maul - Sledgehammer
18 - axe - Poleaxe
22 - sword - Etched Greatsword
22 - maul - Spiked Maul
23 - axe - Double Axe
27 - sword - Ornate Sword
27 - maul - Brass Maul
28 - axe - Gilded Axe
32 - sword - Spectral Sword
32 - maul - Fright Maul
33 - axe - Shadow Axe