We've just found out about a relatively new indie game called Theocracy which the author @kaptainkook says is his personal homage to Civilization 2. On closer inspection I can also see some Civ 1, Sid Meier's Colonization and Master of Magic influences too as the game appears to be a fascinating...

Looks nice! 3D does seem like like the natural next step. That said, I hope they do more with it than just everyone running around the same ol' 2d plane.

To be fair, the OG Hitler was also pretty open about his goals.

You can put me down in the meaningless distinction camp. Back in the day, it was a useful designation to separate "American" board games like Sorry, Monopoly, Scrabble, and etc from "European" board games like Catan, Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, and etc. As a whole, though, the hobby has moved on. Today, it's more useful to define games in terms of specific mechanics and level of interactivity, with similar games being grouped in genres. A few examples would be trick takers, deck builders, worker placement, auction games, and cube rails, though there are many more.

"Yeah, we can get Age of Steam done in 2 hours."

The little sub that could!

Yeah, you're allowed to curse on the internet. Be free! It is bullshit when this happens.

"In further news, strange link between board games and train motifs also explained."

Hard to find much info on this. Looks like some kind of dice game?
BGG: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/438266/va-mourir-sur-mars

To be honest, if you had access to the equipment that would be a lot more practical way to make this. Get a piece of square bar stock of your chosen metal, cut it into cubes, and then engrave and polish. That said, most people don't have that kind of stuff just lying around. Maybe if you've got access to a makerspace or a shop thru work or some really, really good friends.

Got Bohnanza and Resistance placed this week. We discussed whether or not Bohnanza should be considered a board game, card game, or go into a third, new category called a "bean game." It was a four player game and decently close. I think Bohnanza holds up at 4, but I wouldn't want to play it at any less. My hot Uwe Rosenberg take has always been that Bohnanza is his best game, but that's probably not true. After all, there's Mamma Mia and at least a few others that contend for the title.
Resistance is my cult of the old pick for social deduction. It's less convoluted than Secret Hitler, doesn't need a GM like BOTC or Werewolf, and has more depth than One-Night Ultimate Werewolf. It's a tightly designed game that expects a lot from the players and needs repeat plays to appreciate. It's short enough that it doesn't feel excessive to run it 2-3 times back to back. In my opinion, the best way to play is with the plot cards expansion. It does need a little more than just the base rules to be interesting, and I like the democatic element of powers being handed out to people during the game instead of being chosen beforehand.

I'm a big Rotarycraft fan. I even made a modpack for it called Rotary Skies, though it was released so late after 1.7.10 that it didn't get much attention. Still, good times.

👍

I'm big on the cult of the old. I'd rather play one game ten times than ten games one time, and I think that if a game can't hold up to at least five plays it isn't worth owning. Of course, if other people want to spend their money on that kind of stuff, it's fine, but I like to keep my collection small and replayable. In my opinion, the best board games get better with repeated plays because that's when you can really get into the strategy.
Side note, but I also really hate the idea of legacy games where you just have to throw the thing out once you're done.

Live free or die, birbs

Can't believe it's been 8 years since Civ6 came out! I still remember people being mad about Civ5 changing stuff from Civ4.
I suppose we're overdue, though. There were only six years between 5 and 6, five between 4 and 5, and four between 3 and 4.

Cool! I think whether or not this works will vary from case to case, but I'm glad you got it working.

Very handsy boy

New Mandela effect just dropped.
No, I always remember it being a forge mod, since the 1.15 days at least. Not sure what to tell you. Maybe they discussed Fabric but went with Forge in the early stages? Maybe you're thinking of being frustrated with it not being a Fabric mod and having to install Forge? Maybe you're thinking of another mod entirely?

Hadn't heard of it before, but looks neat! RPG-style packs are cool but sometimes get ignored in the sea of tech and magic packs.

RLCraft is definitely a modpack, ha. Don't be afraid to change packs if you end up getting frustrated, since I've heard that unfair deaths are pretty common. You could also do stuff like turn KeepInventory on.

February 2024: What Have You Been Playing Lately?
Haven't done one of these in awhile. What are you guys up to now?

February 2024: What Board Games are You Playing?
Haven't done one of these in awhile. What's up, peeps?

February 2024: What Packs Are You Playing?
On time as always, our monthly community post!

December 2023: What Packs Are You Playing?
Spill it, boys. I know you can't stay away.

Asmurboshkuc, champion of the crundles



It was quite the battle.

What, it's just a little... OH MY GOODNESS



And it just gets worse. I tried to wait them out, but even when they left a few stayed behind, lurking in the treetops:

I knocked over one tree with a ballista, and those creatures left voluntarily. I took about thirty casualties clearing out the second tree.
A year later, the horde returns, and right now I'm ignoring them because there's lots of work inside the fortress that needs done, and I've got a decent tree farm up and going. I'm thinking it's time for Operation FTW, but I'll have to wait until they leave to set up it for the inevitable third return.

Announcement: This Sub is now open to posts from all users
Not sure why it wasn't before, to be honest, but at some point that setting got changed.

The Sea Mourns


Tip: If you have visitors wandering around your base, you can go under the knowledge task to see what all books they've read in their lifetime and what kind of books they are. That way, you can search for somewhat unusual types like novels, chronicles, cultural histories, biographies, autobiographies, dictionaries, dialogues, and etc.
I really wish this functionality was on the written objects screen. Right now you just have to go off of the title. This work, unfortunately, wasn't written in my fortress and we don't have a copy of it, either. That said, I do have a pair of autobiographies and some cultural histories.
What I would like to do is figure out a way to reliably make dwarves produce biographies. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how. The only requirement that I know of for a dwarf to produce a biography is knowledge of the biography topic, which can be obtained either from them reading a book on the subject (easy) to discovering it themselves (very, very hard and random)

October 2023: What Have You Been Playing Lately?

Theocracy (new Civ 1 & 2 like 4X indie game)
Looks interesting. It has more of a fantasy-focus than its inspiration. Right now it's on sale on Steam, so it could be worth checking out.

September 2023: What Have You Been Playing Lately?
On time as always, it's time to ask: What Have You Been Playing?

September 2023: What Packs are You Playing?
On time as always, our monthly "What Are You Playing?" post! Whatcha all doing, fellow blockheads?

Rotary Skies has been released!


From the creator of Brass and a couple other reasonably successful modpacks comes an entirely new experience: Rotary Skies!
You wake up and look at your floating rock of dirt. It seems so familiar, somehow, but then a massive meteor screams through the sky overhead. Welcome to Rotary Skies!
Rotary Skies is the authorized Rotarycraft-centered Skyblock modpack. The start seems similar enough, but as soon as you get steel, a whole world of engines, gearboxes, grinders, pumps, and centrifuges opens up!
Work through over eighty quests as you go from cobblestone generators to fusion reactors! The quests guide you but don’t hold your hand. They’ll tell you what you need to do next, but not exactly how. In Rotary Skies, the “how” is the fun part!
There is no sieving in this modpack! What are you, some kind of caveman? No, un

Patbox's Brewery
This mod caught my eye. It's similar to a plugin that was on a server I used to play on. Nice to see it as a proper mod instead of a plugin. It's pretty configurable and could be a good addition to the right modpack.


2023 saw DoamCon return to Kansas City, so I made the drive to check it out. Here's my plays.


Railcraft is back!
It's an authorized port, and it looks like most of the cart stuff has made it over.

Modrinth Launcher enters open beta

We're changing the modded Minecraft landscape with the new Modrinth App, alongside several other major features we've been working on the past few months.


August 2023: What Have You Been Playing Lately?
From Civ to Centauri and the Aztec to the Second American Civil War, everyone is asking: What have you been playing lately?