Okay, I spent a week with Colonization .  Unfortunately, as with Empire: Total War , I have been a bit too busy to really give Colonization a real shake.  Strangely enough, though, this fact bothered me more with Empire: Total War than it did with Colonization .  I can't put my finger on why: perhaps it was Empire 's compounded load times (loading the strategic game, loading the battle screen, back to loading the strategic game); perhaps it was that I didn't feel "right" s...

I've been continuing playing Civ 4: Colonization .  It is an interesting game so far, but it is hampered by some odd user interface choices (just now, it took me a while to find where the heck the "Governor's Tab" was hidden, so I could automate a trade route).  Here and there I have encountered a bug, but nothing major. This game does have some major differences in "feel" than Civ games, even though this is a Civ mod.  I spend a lot more time managing my settlem...

This week, I decided I would try to concentrate on Civilization 4: Colonization .  As I had mentioned, I had purchased Civ 4 a few years ago, but I never got any of the expansion packs.  Just recently, they released "The Complete Edition", which had all the expansions AND Colonization .  The price was great, so this wasn't a particularly difficult decision! I had only played a little of the original Colonization , so this is turning out to be a pretty new experience for me...

My plan had been that I would concentrate on Empire: Total War for a week.  I imagined knocking off the "Road to Independence" tutorial campaigns and getting somewhere in the "Grand Campaign".  Well, I must admit: total failure! The problem is that this is a game that needs time, but I wound up being too busy to really give it that time.  Also, I encountered a bug with the second "Road to Independence" campaign where it stopped telling me what to do . . . I wound up repl...

Unfortunately, this week I haven't had as much time to devote to gaming as I had hoped.  Empire: Total War is a game that requires time dedication!  This runs counter to another trend in strategy games that I'm seeing, which is the a-game-won't-take-that-long game (such as Demigod or Dawn of War 2 ).  I'm still not done with the tutorial campaigns ("Road to Independence"); I'm getting impatient to just go to the Grand Campaign, but I figure that if I don't have enough time to...

I'm finally getting around to actually playing Empire: Total War .  Of course, I'm starting with the "tutorial" campaign, which details American independence.  The first campaign was pretty straightforward, but then I started the second campaign.  Armies became large and battles seemed complex . . . but I couldn't help but wonder if they realy boiled down to "select everyone and click on the enemy".  Then, I got a new mission (to build up a fleet of ships and use them to tra...

Not long ago, I was thinking "wow, I love Demigod . . . and I'm doing really well at these multiplayer matchs!"  Then, I realized that these multiplayer matches were, for some reason or another, against bots.  This was all during a transition phase, with beta versions and all that: I figured that had something to do with that. Last night, I fired up Demigod again, and played a ranked match.  The other three players all had ping's!  REAL PEOPLE!  And my team won!&n...

My ITunes library was corrupted, but I managed to recover most of it from some partial backups.  One of my pet peeves about ITunes: I don't see any way to re-download purchased items, aside from purchasing them again.  Am I missing something here?  It seems like an obvious feature.

First, thanks to everyone that advised me.  Regarding my battleshield cap in Sins of a Solar Empire : all I can say is "duh".  I thought I had researched that second level, but I hadn't.  As for Steam . . . The premise behind how Steam handles DRM is that you can install Steam and all the games on your account on multiple systems, but that you can only log on to Steam on one system.  This makes perfect sense: my license says one user can run the game.  In other wo...

Again, I didn't have much time to continue with my Sins of a Solar Empire game last night.  I wasn't expecting much: I assumed I was at the "mop up remaining planets" phase.  Well . . . not quite.  I had one colony's loyalty dropping: I wasn't expecting that.  The pirates are gone and can't launch huge attacks, I was expecting a somewhat more relaxed pace.  Nope: now the other empire has noticed me, and has been pretty regularly launching huge attacks.  I won...

I didn't have much time tonight to really go at it with my current game of Sins of a Solar Empire .  I think I'm now in the mandatory "I have a huge fleet, plenty of planets generating tons of ships, and now I'm going from planet to planet mopping up" phase.  I wiped out the pirates and now I've taken an enemy planet: damn those were some huge and spectacular battles! In many ways, Sins reminds me of Kohan .  Kohan , for example, was the first RTS I remember where you coul...

I don't know what it is about Sins of a Solar Empire .  I dabble in the game, fire up a random map and mess around for a bit.  Then, I save it and say "I'll get back to that game later."  The next time, I start again.  I have yet to have actually finished a game of Sins .  Maybe it's that these random maps take so long.  I'm trying again: let's see if I can make myself push through small random map.  I'm about 2 1/2 hours into it, and I'm now at the point whe...

I've had a few good Demigod matches (by "good", I mean that I didn't suck and my team actually won), but I find myself haunted by a little question . . . was I actually playing multiplayer?  Does anyone out there know if there is an easy way to spot if other players are AI?  Anyway, I've been mucking around with Empire: Total War .  At this point, I have determined that I am playing altogether too many strategy games, and perhaps this would be a good time to go back to FPS's...

I think I might have solved the problems I'm having with my 64-bit Vista laptop and my wireless connection.  As I mentioned before, I tried an experiment: I hooked another router to the FIOS-provided Actiontec router.  It seemed to improve things, but I was still having problems. On Friday night, I tried something: I switched the security on the Actiontec router from WEP to WPA.  Since then, I have had no problem at all.  Still, I'm not going to celebrate just yet: le...

I just played a really exciting match of Demigod .  It didn't take long to get in to the 2 vs. 2 match (matchmaking has improved, it would seem), the connection was smooth, my team won, and I actually felt useful . . . in fact, I did really well! I think we need to deal with a little reality with Demigod : once they fix the matchmaking, this game WILL be the Game of the Year.  The gaming world for the rest of the year is suddenly a whole lot less interesting.