Played in a woefully-underused setting, 1992’s Castles II: Siege & Conquest supposes that a civil war breaks out in France in 1311, about a decade before the Hundred Years’ War was due to start. So rather than a century of grudge matches between the English and a unified French, we get a vicious battle between five claimants to the French throne: two internal powers (Valois & Anjou) and three mostly external agitators (Burgundy, Aragon / Spain, and Albion / England) who all have their own equally valid claims to the title.

They all start the game off roughly equal, but their starting positions on the map of France actually unbalance them quite a bit. Albion is generally the easiest to play, as a smart player can use diplomacy to focus on one target at a time. Burgundy and Anjou generally have it the worst, as they will always start the game off bordering too many opponents at once.

You play as an administrator-in-chief rather than the traditional micromanager-in-chief, making decisions and then waiting to see how they are carried out in a quite hands-off manner. Tasks are divided into three broad categories: Administrative, dealing with resources and castle construction; Military, directly related to all things aggresive; Political, or pretty much intelligence-gathering. You’ll combine all of these abilities to control territories that can produce one of four key resources. However, the goal is not neccessarily to control all of these territories, but to gain enough points (respect) to make a claim to the throne and then hold it for a period of about five months. Once you do so, you’ll be crowned King of France by that ever-blasted Pope.

What makes this game interesting is that all actions have a downside, and that you never have the time or ability to do all the things you would like to do. It’s rather like some of my favorite board games like Colossal Arena or Vinci in that way. It makes some definitely goofy design decisions (I have to send a scouting unit for a month just to see who owns the piece of land across the way?) and castles end up being kind of death traps for the defense if you run your own battles, but the game’s depth in other areas makes up for it. Consider the play session below, picking up about midway through a recent game…

The Tale of the Most Noble Poet-Warrior Count of Valois Here’s the situation: I’m facing the losing end of a three year war with the vile forces of Aragon. Early on, I found myself surrounded primarily by gold-producing territories and went a little nuts acquiring them. I let those other posers worry about territories that could produce crap like timber or even food.

As a result, I had a filthy-rich and filthy-tiny empire with a near-constant starvation problem. The constant invasions were only making us tinier and starving-er.

Even with a neverending Merchant mission to my only friend down in Burgundy (see earlier note about Burgundy being perpetually weak. VALOIS IS BEYOND REPROACH IN OUR DECISION MAKING, HOWEVER.), I scrounged up enough food to feed my peeps and build an army that could just barely hold the line. See, way back in the day, I had built a monstrously-large super-castle “Castle DeathEagle” well in my own territory, mostly in a bad-ass, Ozymandias sort of way.

Beyond impractical when it was built, Castle DeathEagle was now the only reason my empire continued. The stonemasons working on repairing the damage from the last seige would sigh and depart as they saw yet another advancing Aragon army pissed off about the latest messenger I had returned to them in pieces purely on principle. We’d then proceed to fight with the only serious losses being Castle DeathEagle itself. The stonemasons would return, looking ever more down-trodden, and continue their never-ending repair work.

I have to give it to those Spaniards though, they’re clever. Seeing the futility in further Super-Castle Super-Seiges, they then started pounding Burgundy. Normally I wouldn’t shed a tear over one less competitor, but seeing as all of my citizens’ food came stamped “Made in Burgundy,” this presented a teensy problem. I had at most a year to go from losing this war to re-entering it pretty aggressively if I wanted to avoid people feeding people to people.

There is one spy in the service of Valois who will have statues erected all over the good land of France for his discovery. Children will grow up knowing his legend to the point where Joan of Arc won’t mean shit next to this guy. Why, you ask? Well, it was right about then that he turns in a fairly standard report: Aragon has twice as many territories as you, about 2/3 more soldiers, and a Happiness of 4.

Wait.. a Happiness of 4?! You see, in Castles II each nation’s populace has a happiness rating from 2 to 9. It affects a variety of things like how difficult you are to sabotage as well as how effectively your men fight in battle. It turns out that even though I wasn’t making any kind of dent in Aragon’s army, each time I forced his army to retreat from the shattered hulk of Castle DeathEagle, his people grew increasingly despondant. It’s one of two things that will decrease the happiness of your land.

To make a long-story short, I spent the next year doing everything I could to make my people drunk with pleasure while the people of Aragon awoke to each day more sullen than the last. Constant saboteur raids meant that Aragon had to constantly and harshly police his own populace with his military. Meanwhile the people of Valois were having so many festivals and national celebrations (of what I can’t imagine. “Hooray We Have Food” Fest?) that it made Japan’s holiday calendar seem downright stingy by comparison. So when the food train from Burgundy finally did stop a-runnin, my people were near-euphoric with their fervent nationalistic glee.

“Zeal” was nothing to describe my 14-unit army when it finally took the field of battle against an army of 24, an army demoralized by a year of midnight raids and policing.

We stomped them. Burgundy may have been a fond memory by this point in time, but they were avenged by the sheer tonnage of Aragonian blood spilled that day. They entered with 24; they left with eight. By contrast, we lost two units.

The war would drag on, with Aragon even attempting to claim the throne of France at one point, but even the ever-blasted Pope had to eventually meet me at Castle DeathEagle to recognize my right to rule.

The Impact of Castles II Upon Me

Is Castles II even one of my favorite games of all time? No, not really. Only the midgame is really very interesting - the initial landgrab is always the same and the time difference between when you know you’ve won and when you actually win is far too long. Also, despite the story above, almost always the game turns solely upon army size and who you have as friends. For instance, if you’re Albion and you form both a decent army and a strong friendship with Valois, you’re pretty much going to win unless you’re playing on Impossible difficulty.

Additionally, the battle engine is pretty well broken. You can technically control your troops in battle, but it’s a death sentence to do so. If you want to win, you have to let the computer simulate the battles for you. So it’s definitely a game with flaws.

However, this idea of strategy games where you don’t have direct control over every action of the empire, but rather just what actions are being taken has stuck with me. While some games like Civilization have come close to this in certain regards, it still remains something I look for in many games.

The only game that really implements this is KOEI’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX, which is strange since KOEI isn’t really known for innovation (cough DYNASTY WARRIORS cough). It also remains one of the reasons I’m excited about playing some World in Conflict `ere long, as it seems to offer a similar level of abstraction over “uninteresting things” like resource gathering, etc. etc.

I misspelled “your” today in a business email. I won’t go into the messy details; it’s too painful right now.

You may forgive me, but I’ll never forgive myself. I should add my name to the List o’ Shame I keep in my office.

I feel a self-loathing-fueled alcohol binge weekend coming on. Time to channel my inner Hunter S. Thompson.

Panda Express: “You may not leave full, but you won’t leave hungry!”

Six brave men faced the Panda today. Their heat-lamped delicacies claimed three victims. A fourth is missing, presumed fed.

But man, Orange Chicken. We’re still not convinced there’s any meat in it, guessing rather that it may be just some Fried fried. I’d order more people to their doom in order to investigate but we’re running low on intrepid investigators. Besides, I can’t even order online groceries, let alone people.

To think one of the jobs I turned down was directly above a Chipotle! I wonder if I could have set up some sort of direct pre-tax burrito spending plan…

Day three of the One Month of Daily Writing pledge and I’m already feeling it. This has become my own personal Lost button. Writing an article on here just pushes back the clock to 24:00:00. Does existence wink out if I fail to write? Will that strange woman I left at the altar in the flashback I had last week suddenly awaken and start looking for me? I hope not; she crazy. Maybe I’ll get ice cream and a good nap instead. Who doesn’t want that?

That reminds me: Lost watchers, is there still a button at all? Or was this replaced by a strange Englishman walking around the jungle in a tophat, or maybe a coconut tree that is strangely dropping coconuts made of waffles. I don’t mean to be as condescending as I sound, but let’s review facts here.

Q: What’s out in the jungle?
A: A hatch.

Q: Oh, well that’s kind of interesting, I guess. What’s in the hatch?
A: A button.

Q: A button? Hmm. Well, okay, they can do neat things, right? Maybe a really cool, kick ass button. What’s it do?
A: Prevents a really bright light and the hatch collapsing.

Keep in mind that I just summarized some 44 episodes. Sure, there’s some other details thrown in around there too. People argue, a church is or is not built, drugs, babies, and flashbacks flashbacks FLASHBACKS! If Lost is a four-star meal (and given my appreciation of four-star dining, it may well be), then those details are kind of like the little fig leaves and tulip-shaped radish garnishes; while nice, they aren’t really the point.

Why do I keep beating up on Lost week after week on this site? Because I WANT IT TO BE GOOD. This show started with what is perhaps one of the best pilots in the history of pilots, and I think the gap between that inspired beginning and every subsequent episode has widened considerably and continues to do so. I want to tune in every week again, to have that eery opening sound effect get my psyched like it used to. In short, I WANT TO BELIEVE.

Hope is on the way though. Last week, our favorite island drama was beaten in ratings by CBS’ crime drama Criminal Minds. “What,” you say, “CBS is airing an overly-serious episodic crime drama about an elite unit that solves crimes single-handedly, ending each episode with a confession?” I know, contain your shock.

Anyhoo, Minds scored 16.7 million viewers to Lost’s 16.1 million. Certainly not a crushing blow, but considering the show has been down in ratings about 25% from last season, this is making more than a few people nervous. There’s rumour that there could be a shakeup coming for this show. Maybe it’s J.J. Abrams actually showing up on the set of his darling program once in awhile; maybe it’s something else entirely. But in an interesting twist, the more we aren’t watching this show, the more likely it is to get better.

This theory isn’t entirely without precedent. The West Wing began hemorrhaging viewers between its fourth and fifth seasons, and the abysmal ratings that led to its cancellation also led to what some call its best season. However, for every Mission Impossible (whose falling TV ratings also turned the quality around, at least quality by that show’s standards) you can cite an X-Files or Buffy whose rating woes led to fairly terrible dramatic changes, but I still hold out hope. What else can be done?

So do us all a favor, and tune into Criminal Minds on Wednesday. I hear they have this one about a bunch of people trapped in a hole and they have to kill one and it’s a desperate race against time and …

A recent journal entry:

Had an interview here in November. Saw the Best Buy and the Crate & Barrel next to the landfill & incinerator. Got stuck in 5:00 PM traffic. That’s Chicago.

Came to look for an apartment. Found one with no A/C, hardwood floors, and park view. Picked this over one across the street that had new everything and carpets. A park view is more Chicago. Hardwood floors are more Chicago. But I don’t live in a park view, and the mice that have apparently lived in this apartment for several winters have enjoyed the hardwood floors more than I have. That’s Chicago.

It’s 2 AM on a Tuesday in April. I’m riding the train home after a night out. More precisely, I’m taking the train to a bus to a street corner to walk to my apartment. I’m listening to two girls chat, one debating whether or not to sleep with someone she met tonight. She would, but she has class tomorrow. I think back to my own college days. A year earlier, I was a college student in a small town with no dreams or desires beyond remaining a college student in a small town for some time. My life has become so different, I think. It’s been a good night out with good people. I play with my phone, thinking of several people I’d like to call, but it’s pushing three A.M. now. So I listen to two girls discuss casual hookups instead and watch the city go by. That’s Chicago.

Cut to now. That’s why I don’t post journals online, I think to myself. Too melodramatic. You’d think I don’t like Chicago, which isn’t the case. There are so many great times to be had, and so many great people with which to do it with. But these fall into the category of “my personal life”, and one of my golden rules I’ve followed since I started writing online was to keep my personal life out of it as much as possible. Watching sunsets through skyscrapers on Lake Shore Drive, biking through Evanston at night, the iO, music, nightlife, rain on the beach, you get the idea. All reasons I love Chicago.

When I moved to Chicago, I knew one person in the area. I asked her “How long did it take you to get used to the city?” She sighed, and replied that she hadn’t. She had lived here for years. I had to think long and hard about that response, about whether or not I’d made the right decision to come here. Mornings at church and evenings with walks on the beach.

Moving to Chicago was no mistake. But I have to find a balance between activity and quiet. So far I haven’t been doing a good job of it. Evidence: I have to schedule phone calls; I laid down for a nap and woke up over 3 hours later; comments haven’t worked on this website since April. I’ve been an avid reader for some time, and I’ve been buying books in Chicago based upon my previous reading pace. The fact that I have 7 books I haven’t so much as opened should indicate how I’m handling this balance issue. I love Chicago and I love the activities here, but I’m realizing that I also need to have down time. Not neccessarily time alone, but just time not spent out on the town. Chicago isn’t going anywhere, and I’m not going anywhere for the immediate future at least, so there has to be balance then.

This is why I don’t post journals online. Too melodramatic. Sorry if you read this - I just had to ramble I guess. For something entertaining, try Patton Oswalt’s A One year full of Kick-Ass Movie Pitches by Erik Blevins.