Who? Me??

A lot of times many people ask me about which laptop should they buy. Today I put together one analysis sheet for a good friend, thought that I should share this with you. Needless to say that this is only the first cut and of course open to many changes. We can collaborate these changes on the blog and see how things go.

In my earlier post, I had said that strategies in game have to be civilization specific. This is the first of that series. Today I was playing 1 v 3 Tough on British Isles, being Egyptians, I decided to go on the front foot from the word go, and while I was battling on the opponent’s islands, I was building wonders and booming steadily on mine. The key to Egyptians dominating is based on exactly this point, wonders. To illustrate this point and to take screenshots, I ran one more game this time 1 v 1 Tough on a random map.

Egyptians have multiple benefits which can be used right from the start. One of the foremost is the 7 farms per city benefit. Not only do the farms generate food, but also they generate a small trickle of gold. So right at the start of the game, aim for 150 food and 150 gold (this is the time when everyone goes for Sci 2). As an Egyptian, you can start building the Hanging Gardens (+50 Knowledge). By the time you are finished building this, you would be aging to Classical age. Now, the HG comes in handy, with generating an extra +50 knowledge, you can age faster, gather more knowledge.

Having an early access to all wonders one age before they are available to you means that you get to pick and choose the best of them. In the image below, I have built Versailles and Statue of Liberty by the Enlightenment age.

In a standard game, a tough computer opponent would have attacked you at least once, and would have started on some wonders to compete against your wonder streak. That also means if you get the Terracotta Army and gather free Light Infantry (LI), then you have resources, wonders and an army, whereas your opponent has only 2 of those 3.

In this game, I built some 8 wonders (Hanging Gardens, Colossus, Terracotta Army, Versailles, Statue of Liberty, Red Fort, Forbidden City and Taj Mahal), and all of them before they were accessible to the other opponent. I won this game through a simple wonder victory.

The Egyptians are a flexible lot, as long as you actively target specific wonders, you can be very lethal. Some of the best games I have played as a strong economy and an unbeatable army have been as Egyptians. The right strategy for this civilization is to do a delayed rush (aim for during the 3rd age). By this age, you will have a trickle of LI’s from the Terracotta Army, 4-5 HI, 2 siege weapons and some Egyptian cavalry (camels) and you are set. Go for the nearest city, with the spoils you boom. With the booming resources, build wonders. Rinse repeat.

Any season player will tell you that the choice of civilization will make or break your game. This is all the more true in multi-player games. When our lot started playing, we quickly realized that certain nations are way much better than the rest. Soon, some of us developed their styles around certain civilizations. Amongst the entire lot, one of us could never figure out which is his best civ. He used to play the same with any civilization … soon it dawned on the rest of us, that this is the way the game is to be played. You need to be as good or as effective with any civilization. What needs to change is our choice of strategy.

For example, if you are Aztec, then you have to be a war-monger. You cannot stay in peace. If you are Greeks, then you have to boom and race ahead in terms of ages. So on and so forth. Some civilizations are well rounded. The Americans, Dutch … Indians … I think they are very well balanced to suit any strategy.

I know some of you may not agree, but I think the winning player is the one who can choose the right strategy with the right game play style with the right civilization. That’s the trick.

In continuation to the earlier post on Rise of Nations, I realized that rushing strategy changes once you are on a sea map. The complications are there because you need to go Sci1, Mil1 and Com1 (to build a port). That means time management has to be absolutely spot on. The ante of the gamble rises because by the time you have a sizeable army and navy to support the crossing, the opponent has gained significant advantage by booming.

So one of the main decisions you have to take is – do you sacrifice economy or the element of surprise? Sea maps are generally long drawn out battles, and the quick rush at the start can really turn the tables. This is even more applicable against the AI. The moment you are across, the first thing should be to capture a city. That becomes your military base. All military upgrades you do on your home base, all unit production on your military base. Here is how I go about the delayed rush -

1. Build two villagers and set them on timber
2. Research Sci1, then Civ1 (I try to strike a balance between speed and economy)
3. Build a farm, keep churning more villies
4. Build the second town and go for Com1 the moment it is feasible (54 food, 54 wood)
5. Focus on wood, build one more timber mill
6. Build a dock and some fishing ships, one to explore, the other (1-2 to fish)
7. By this time you are ready for Mil1, research and build a barracks. Note: Do not stop churning out villies, putting them on wood and farms
8. Aim for Classical age and while you are aging start building units at the barracks. I generally squeeze 3HI + 1 archer before I age.
9. The moment you age go for the senate. Research Despotism, this gives you 25% cheaper barrack units.
10. Now start churning barrack units. Atleast 3HI + 2LI. So you should be having 6HI + 2LI + 1 archer.
11. By this time, your fishing ship would have found your opponents shores, take your army (with the patriot), and head towards the shore. This should be around the seventh minute or so of the game, by which not many players have put together a navy. How to tackle with the navy we will deal later.
12. Board the shores, and head for the nearest city. Attack mercilessly, and take it down.
13. Search for enemy barracks and take it out as well. Wait for the city to assimilate.
14. Once the city is yours, then convert this into a military base. Barracks, Stables, Siege … the works.
15. A temple and a fort would also be advised. This gives you more space territory. More territory + attrition is a good defensive tactic.

Now use your home base as an economic powerhouse, and the military base as the hammer and nail to drive into your opponents heart.

If you see the screenshot I have attached, I was playing against Americans, had managed to put two cities and launch an attack on the enemy shores. Found the second city, and took it. Then used it to take the capital and then the third city.

Variants

I have seen some folks wait for even some more time to research Mil2, and get some siege engines in place. That is also effective, but then to launch an attack you will also need some naval support to engage with the opponent’s navies.

This is for all gamers who play Rise of Nations (and/or Thrones and Patriots). One of the most effective strategies is rushing early on in the game. I shall put it down with pros and cons that I have experienced in the last 18 months of playing the game.

What is a rush?

A rush is done by immediately launching into an attack and striking the opponent before he realizes what just happened. He might be building the 5th farm, getting ready to age, and boom! in comes your army from the darkness and takes his capital. Yeah … thats what I am talking about.

How is it done?

Pretty simple really. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book.

1. Research Mil1 (some civs already come with this, you are lucky then). An alternate is to go Sci1, Mil1 (but I feel you end up loosing precious timber)
2. Start scouting and build 2-3 villies and put atleast one on farming
3. Build a barrack and start churning out Heavy Infantry (HI). Use the scout on auto, and HI created on micro to search for more ruins. Fastest way to build your resources.
4. Build atleast 4 HI and start heading towards the general direction of your opponents capital. Ignore other cities, you will get to those later. If you are not able to find the capital, then only go for other cities.
5. Keep the unit queue in your barracks active. I aim for 6HI + 2LI (light infantry to take out archers). For speed you can do 5HI + 1LI as well.
6. The minute you find the capital, use all soldiers to attack the capital. Beware of towers and archers.
7. Keep an eye out for the opponent’s barracks. If you have been fast enough, then he should be constructing it right now. Use one HI to tear the construction down (but this is not your priority, the capital is)
8. That should do, you will get the capital sack (+500 resources). If you think that you can hold onto this city (i.e if you have suffered minimal damages, then continue churning more LI (2-3) and some bowmen. Then age. If you think you are going to loose the city, then start razing resources (timber first, farms next, temple, market, university in that order)

Counter

You can counter a rush. Here’s how -

1. Go Mil1 and build a barracks
2. Build a tower behind your capital. With behind I mean, keep the capital between the tower you build and the direction from which you most expect the attack from.
3. In the barracks build 1-2 archers
4. Focus on booming and aging to the next age. Post which the first research should be attrition in the tower

Pros

1. If done properly, you can now use the existing resources as a launchpad for the next opponent. I have seen players do double and triple rushes even taking out 3 players in a go
2. War happens far away from your capital leaving you with a busy resource churning capital
3. In the least it cripples the opponent and makes him ultra-paranoid

Cons

1. If countered well, you are left with a crippled economy and defenseless. It takes a good player to come out of this situation
2. If you are attacked by another player when your army is attacking someone else, then its bye-bye capital and without a city almost immediate loss

In the screenshot I have attached, I was playing a 1-1 Arena match against a Tough comp (piece of cake). I started out with enough resources and a good civ (Turks – faster assimilation). I was not able to find the capital, so I took the city I could find (see the minimap). Then I got to see the border of the capital and moved towards that direction. By this time the Brit had made a barrack (+1 free archers). Fortunately I had 2 slingers to take on the archers. All is well . By the seventh minute I had taken 2 cities and game over.

Seasoned players, feel free to chip in.

Vipul says (and I agree) -

If you see that the map is a sea map and you have already started plans for the rush, then you need to change strategies a little bit. You need to go for a delayed rush, and switch from pure rushing to delayed rush and booming.

If you already know about this, don’t bother to read any further, but if you don’t then hey, have I got a nifty utility for you!!

Do you remember GDrive? It had come up some time back, where users could use their GMail accounts like a virtual storage drive. I am not sure as to why it disappeared, possibly due to Google Docs and copyright issues, but it was great to have a online storage for your crucial documents. If I am going home and I want to take some files with me, why bother carrying them in a pen-drive when you can always have it online and access them anytime you want as long as you have internet.

Well, Dropbox does exactly that! You get a 2GB free account, from which you can version and collaborate documents. A good collaborative tool as any. There are a lot of such tools, but I really like the ease with which a newbie can start using this tool. Will try it as a tool within the office and post on this further.

Addendum

This is my application of the Dropbox idea. I have backed up my entire workspace (documents, mail, setups I need, etc) in one dropbox. And wherever I go I have my workspace online! No need for machines, laptops, pen drives whatever. Give me a new machine and all I have to do is install this nifty little application and voila! All my workspace documents will be synced with me in no time.

Tired of playing the same game again and again? Are you sick of taking down those computer simulated players (bots) again and again? Are you missing your hostel LANs … or are you wishing that on your network there would be more people willing to play Counter Strike or AOE. Its true – there can be no substitute for the human mind.

Now a new cadre of gaming is here: VPN Gaming. A Virtual Private Network (VPN), is basically a virtual LAN over the internet; usually by the means of a software medium – a VPN client. The de facto standard for this is usually a free client-based VPN like Hamachi; which is free for individual users but limits the VPN connections to 8, the paid version can get you around 128 users.

If you are not technologically inclined, worry naught, these clients are pretty easy to install and use. So once, it is installed and you are online, all you need is to create a virtual network, give it a password (since you want to control who accesses your network) and ask your friends to join in. Voila!! Now you and your friends are on the same LAN despite being in different geographies. Its downhill from there on, just fire up your favorite game and ask people to join your multi-player game. Here’s a simple installation and use guide -

The installation is pretty much a click through process. The following are a few screenshots that can act as a guide for newbies. Remember, for the more security buffs, there is an option of disabling the more vulnerable services of Windows over this connection.

During the installation, Hamachi lets you choose which version of its services will you be availing. If you are just trying out the client or do not want to fork out money for the licensed version, then I suggest you select the non-commercial license. Once the software has installed, it will give you a small run though of the application, believe me its one of the shortest demos I have seen, and one of the most informative ones!!

This is how the application looks once it is fired up. Hamachi gives you a different ip address (it also creates a logically separate network connection on your machine). I have created one network and joined another network. Both of these are shown on my screen, any peers which are online and using Hamachi are also listed (in the screenshot none of them are online currently). The moment any of them is online, you can ping them as if they were online over a global ip.

Say hello to LAN gaming again

This is as a personal note to myself and to all you amateur gamers

Yesterday, I was at my sasural for some pani puuri and general chit chat. My wife’s cousin had also come-over. They have one desktop and one laptop over there, I had also taken my laptop over there. Enough for a mini-lan party . So we were three gamers, with three machines and many multi-player games to play. The problem – how do we connect to each other and create a network? There are no switches available.

Fortunately, Ameya (that’s my saala) had a cross-cable through which we connected my laptop and his desktop. Then we took the other laptop and created an ad-hoc wireless connection on it, and connected that laptop to my laptop. So, my laptop was connected to both the machines on two different network interfaces viz., one lan card and the other wireless card. After this, I selected both the connections (in Network Connections) and clicked on Bridge connections. Thus a network bridge between the two connections was created allowing network traffic to pass between the two networks through my laptop. Voila!! The other laptop could now ping the desktop and vice-versa.

A co-blogger and an expert in start-ups, Sushrut has written an excellent post on reasons why one should join a start-up and what are the pitfalls one should look out for before joining a start-up.

The reason why I am re-iterating this point is simply because many start-ups demand the kind of dedication from their employees that is not needed and certainly not justified … all in the name of it being a start-up. Tum mujhe khoon do, main tumhe ESOPs dunga seems to be their mantra. While this works out for people who know exactly what are they signing up for, it comes out as a shell shocker for those who join the band wagon expecting a different culture altogether.

It’s the culture that could be a defining moment for the start-up. I am not dishing out gyaan here. It is true … the culture of an organization can go a long way between success and failure.

My father is a diabetic; my grand-father was a diabetic (may god bless his soul); my great-grandfather was also a diabetic. Diabetes is a Y-linked disease – meaning that it gets inherited from father to son. So much for parental legacy

Diabetes is an incurable disease. That does not mean that once you get it you are doomed … no, certainly not. The day my father was diagnosed with diabetes, my mother started learning more and more about the same. She was smart enough to educate us as well. Well, hope some of you benefit from this post as I did from my mother’s admonitions. 

What’s this? – Diabetes mellitus refers to the group of diseases that lead to high blood glucose levels due to defects in either insulin secretion or insulin action.

So? – So, that means blood sugar levels go through the roof, increasing your chronic exposure. In short, if not taken proper care … you are in deep shit.

Why Me? – It’s hereditary, so you cannot escape it if its in your genes. Might as well embrace it and understand how to control your sugar levels.

Now what? – Worry naught. The entire secret is in controlling your sugar levels (the implicit ones and the explicit ones as well). With explicit, I mean the intake of sugar and sweet substances; implicit are those which are finally broken down into sugar – oil being one of the major stakeholders. Monitor those sugar levels judiciously, reduce the oil intake you eat.

Change your oil especially if you eats Saffola or Sunflower (these two brands are a strict no-no). They advertise to be healthy oils, but frankly speaking, they are not!! Would recommend changing to olive oil (too expensive for some) or mustard oil (too smelly for some), well if you don’t like these, then groundnut oil will do as well.

Exercise is also good, I am not saying heavy gym work-outs. Simple half an hour to one hour walks every day would do you good. Establish a routine. Normal life helps get your health back on track.

Eating certain items also help – 1 walnut a day, home-made ghee (sajuk tup), flax-seed (alshi), fish (halwa, bangda, surmai). All of these contain a chemical called as Omega-3 fatty acids. These help the body combat sugar levels.

Here’s looking at a healthier, happier and stress-free life.