I actually enjoy my yearly call-up because it's great to catch up with friends that I've known for about a decade. It's amazing how people bond when they go through tough times together.

I'm taking my Individual Physical Proficiency Test tomorrow. It involves some static stations (sit-ups, chin-ups, etc) and a 2.4km run. The Singapore Armed Forces is pretty generous with their incentives. A gold award nets you S$400, silver S$200 and just passing the test gets you a S$100.

~SDC~

Wow! You get paid to pass your Physical Test?!? Well, I guess that makes sense since it's mandatory military service. In the all volunteer US military, you do well on the test and they don't punish you. LOL

Good morning, all! Happy Monday and hope everybody had a fantastic weekend! The wife and I bought an SUV over the weekend and basically worked all weekend, so no gaming for me! I'm going to try to finish that Huge/Crippling sometime this week. Hopefully 1.11 will be out and I will be able to submit that other Huge/Crippling!

It appears I have about 6 days of work to do today here at my wonderful job, so if I'm a little quiet today, you'll know why. I'll try to get a new issue of the Metaverse Review sometime today to celebrate the Jedi's million points.

A brand new issue of the Metaverse Review is now out!

http://metaversereview.joeuser.com

Headlines include:

~ Cotal Number One!
~ G.R.O.S.S. breaks 2 million
~ Jedi Republic breaks 1 million
~ Weekly Spotlight Empire

And Much, Much More!

Good job as always, Theoden.

I feel your pain regarding work... it's an absolutely beatiful day out and I'm stuck here preparing a presentation

I'm thinking about maybe trying to revive the GOTM. Would any of you be interested? If so, any thoughts on what the GOTM should be like?

Theoden of Rohan . . . a great and conscice coverage of whats been a pretty interesting couple of weeks. And I'm not just saying that because you gave me such a nice rap . . . well mabye a little . . . hehe . . . well done!

vincible,

I think there might be some interest in a GOTM. I never played the old ones, as I was a newbie at the time and didn't think I'd be able to compete. But it would be something to look at.

Cotal, thanks! I appreciate your (and everybody else's) nice comments about the Metaverse Review!

Well gang, it's the end of another fun-filled work day here in Virginia. Everybody take care and happy gaming! I'll see you all bright and early tomorrow morning!

Welcome to the Fellowship, Jexal!

Do drop by and say hi.

~SDC~

Hey, everybody.

I'm not at work today. The baby's sick so I've got to take her to the doctor. Nothing serious, just a little pink eye and a cold I guess.

I was able to finish my Huge/Crippling today, so that's cool. Now whenever 1.11 comes out, I can submit the other one.

Welcome to the Fellowship, Jexal! I'll add you to our website Roster momentarily. Be sure to drop by this http://www.angelfire.com/rings/fellowshipgalciv and check out our website!

Theoden. Very nice huge/crippling. Congratulations.

Ray. Good to see your post. Vincible. Congrats on the 60k games. I tried a gigantic maso and got a 59k so will have to try again for a 60k sometime. I couldn't finish the tech tree, there was only one pure evil AI left and he was getting nasty since I was pure good, and I lost diplomacy advantage as the AI raced through unambiguous comm and majesty I-III. The AI had me 25 planets to 5 and I got so nervous about the Arceans declaring war, I finished the game with a 25 terror-star alpha strike, which was kind of cool. LOL.

Hey maso players, what morality do you set the AI? Default? I usually set the AI to pure evil and play good but after nearly losing my maso game today, I may go back to default.

Jexal, welcome to FotR.

FotR, let's go for 3 million points.
[Message Edited]

Yeah, that 3 million isn't so far off!

Jexal, welcome!

Rick, my last several games have been with all AIs at pure evil.

Ouch Rick, you were *so* close to 60K.

So you got to about 60K without being the dominant power? Intersting. Did you get most of the wonders though?

Nice work both of you on those big masos. I have managed to push my small maps up near 29,000 so still have to play two to your one (and cheers to Solitair still playing Tiny - us guys should stick together!).

Alignment: I still play all AIs pure evil - as the game goes on if I am doing well I make choices to try and attain the pure good alignment, although I'm not sure that the 'reverse alignment' gives much of a point bonus these days. Any thoughts?

For you people with joeuser blogs--can you put files on their site? If I did a GOTM I'd need somewhere to put the saves.

Vincible - I can host some space if needed!

Alex


~SDC~

Great! I'll post something more public to guage interest.

I was never dominant in anything but I did get most of the tg/wonders except for Gal Exhibition, Gal monument, galactic guide book, the terraformer and a few others (various morale boosters, I think). I was able to swap/buy grav accel from a minor. I had a ton of money - over 300,000 bc - until I bought all the terror stars and some starbases. 90% of my income was from trade. I was pure good playing all pure evil AI for whatever that still counts as. I didn't do so well in the tech department stopping tech around either cultural conquest or regenerators and then changing to constructors for the rest of the game.

I think the Arceans just got too strong, too fast, wiped everyone else out with no AI surrendering to me and then it was a "one on one" contest with me being the 98 pound weakling. The Arceans then got nasty demanding extortion money even with all kinds of bribes (even cash and trade goods) but I was saintly and they were pure evil so maybe I brought some of that on myself. I headed for terror stars and hoped to avoid war as long as possible. When the Arceans (who were on neutral at the time) said something like, "We are going to take care of you . . . before you take care of us", it was war, so I blasted all 25 of their stars in one turn. Fortunately my constructors had a move of 12 for most of the game with some random pop-up bonus (some new drive has been developed and all ships are faster now), grav accel, techs, and my +1 speed pick). That gigantic is really . . . gigantic. Compared to large maps gigantic seems sort of slow motion.

I will try again for 60k soon. After about 12 or 13 maso games, there were two that I came very close to getting thumped in and this was one. Any comments to get me to wack the AI on maso gigantic are appreciated. Cotal has a nice gigantic/maso walk-through on the "New number one thread" and wild wombat put out another walk-through for small/maso so maybe I better go study. Thanks everyone.

Yeah, one on one with the AI is rough. I don't know what to tell you other than not to let it happen in the first place. :notsure:

I responded to your post on freighters in the maso strategies thread btw.
[Message Edited]

"Next on the agenda," Ray looks down at this notepad. "Ah, the Fellowship is looking for...." Ray was interrupted in midsentence.

"Attention. Attention." A man dressed in all black appears before the crowd. "Listen up. This is to all the EVIL men out there. The Evil Empire is looking to expand. This is an invitation to all interesting in an 'evil-only empire'" The mysterious man disappears like his entrance leaving all those in attendance amazed. That something like this could happen.

Holy crap!!

I just scored almost 20k points on a small map!! You know, I think I could get the hang of using Terror Stars to vaporize my final enemy! :SINISTERGRIN:

It's just too much fun watching the four systems the Torians control disappear into the mists of space...

Sounds like someone is falling to the lure of EVIL. The EVIL is strong with this one.

You wouldn't have much luck recruiting here in the Fellowship Halls, Dark.

You should probably conserve your energies to kick out those three zero-pointers in the Evil Empire.

~SDC~

They have until Sunday to get an evil game in, then they're done.

We shall see how my recruitment efforts work. You never know until someone defects.

-DA

Hmm. I'd watch out for that Dark One. Kidnapping sounds like his kind of mission if persuasion and bribery fail.