Aftermath!
The John Miller Full ApolyCon Report
So I showed up at arround 5:30 Friday. I saw the Apolycon 2006 (or
'06?) sign on the hotel which told me this was the right place.
As I went to the front door, I saw DanQ and Markos get out of a taxi
(from their visit to Firaxis), wondered if they were with the Con and
went inside. Inside there were a big group of people, but I was a
little unsure, and looked arround a bit before going to meet them (I
thought I would recognise 3 people there (OzzyKP, DanS, and KH (who
didn't go)).
I got to the group, and met condor223, Donegeal, CapTVK, Metaliturtle,
snoopy369, Snotty, and Zopperoni (I might have missed a name). DanQ and
Markos returned shortly. Then we went to the Hotel Restaurant (not
Veggie freindly) to eat and DanS, ZargonX, and Chieftess joined us.
After eating, we went over to BigHugeGames, where Dwight showed us
arround. Joe Phisgar also talked to us for a bit. There was interest in
Axis and Allies, but it was decided to play some Frank's Zoo
(spelling?) first. 7 of us played, CapTVK had brought the game, and he
won easily (I came in last place).
Then some people started playing Poker (and Rise of Legends and Pool)
and 4 of us played Settlers of Catan (Dwight, CapTVK, ZargonX, and
myself). Dwight did extremely well in this game and won handedly
(although ZargonX and myself were getting close to getting back in the
game at the end).
Then four of us played more Frank's Zoo which somehow I managed to win.
After that we played a Rise of Legends team game. It was Dwight and
ZargonX (I think) and CapTVK against myself, Markos (I think, possibly
ZargonX) and a computer player. It being the first time CapTVK played I
took him out earlier.. and then fought it out with Dwight over one of
my cities. After a bit ZargonX (? or whoever the other player was) took
out the computer player and started fighting the my ally (who I am
still confused about). I had managed to retake the city, and Dwight
decided to strike at one of my other cities. Arround this time ZargonX
took out my ally (who had lots of cities which were fine..). Now
watching the Computer player go out, it was obvious that taking the
capital destroyed that nation, so I decided to move my army to Dwight's
capital. He marched on mine, but because I had built defenses (he had
attacked it before, the city we fought over was close to my capital) it
took him much longer to take then for me to take his capital. Then I
rushed for ZargonX's and he rushed for mine. Once more, because of the
defenses I had built up, I succeeded (I was the Cuotl, and used the
Heroes and the Towers on defense).
I roomed with snotty that night (hopefully didn't wake him up when I
came in). The next morning people collected in the room arround 8:30
am. OzzyKP and a CGW reporter had joined us (later in the day Theseus
and the Firaxis apolytoners joined us (I think that Arnelos
(?spelling?) also joined us for a bit). First Snoopy369 and Zopperoni
presented the opening and showed us an Age of Nations video.
As that got over, we went to eat cookies and coffee that were provided
to us. While we were doing that, a guy came in unnannounced and took
some coffee, he was standing arround so some of us started talking to
him. It turns out that he was Brian Reynolds (others might have
recognized him, I hadn't) and we stood arround and talked (he answered
our questions) near the coffee and cookies. He talked some about what
he does on the projects, about BHGs, about how he did Civ2 and about
nonHistoric games (RoL and SMAC). As well as other stuff, towards the
end Paul Stephanouk arrived and Brian said he need to get ready to go
to his wife in the car because he was about to leave on vacation. We
asked for autographs, and pictures, and that all took a bit long (he
got a call on his cellphone). We talked to Paul Stephanouk a bit before
the break (he turns out to be a big boardgamer and BHG is his first
involvement in computer game production/design), and then he gave us a
presentation about what they did for RoN and just general BHG stuff.
We then headed off for lunch, I think some had lunch with Paul
Stephanouk, I and Donegeal went off to discuss Vox stuff (first meeting
of Voxes).
Donegeal and I got back a little late from lunch, as
in Sid had been talking for 5-10 minutes. He was talking about how he
came up with the idea of Civ. Then he told a bit about what Brian had
done with Civ2 and SMAC. He and Soren sort of glossed over Civ3, saying
that because of circumstances it wasn't so hot, but that it had been a
learning experience (Soren). Then Soren talked some about Civ4.
Afterwards people got in line for autographs, and I talked to Sid's
wife (Sue) for a bit. They were apparently going after this to do some
singing (Sid plays the keyboard). In the Firaxis crew were Soren, Sid's
son (Ralph??), Trip, Alexman, the first graphics person for Civ4 (don't
remember the name right now), another person (from Microprose) who I
didn't recognise (I arrived late) and maybe one more person. After Sid
and his wife left, Soren and the graphics person sat down and presented
the different alphas/betas of Civ4 and how the developement went. Which
was pretty cool. Additionally, it was after lunch that Theseus and
DaviddesJ (CFC) arrived.
Then there was another break, and Alexman and Trip presented Moding
information. Alexman took us through the xml files and told us some
about Python and the SDK. It seems really really powerful, the most
powerful for a strategy game that I have ever heard about. Trip then
talked about the scenario creation for Warlords and showed us two fo
them, the Genghis Khan one seems great, and I never imagined what could
be done (before today). We found out quite a bit about warlords that I
hadn't known before (I think they told us a few things that hadn't been
told before).
Next OzzyKP and CapTVK talked about Diplogames and FreeCiv. I have
always thought Diplogames seemed interesting, and Ozzy's talk seemed
pretty good. It was also interesting to hear about the state of FreeCiv
(if you want to play Vanilla Civ2, it is probably the best way to do
so). It would probably have been good to have a Demogames group (and
there were a number of us there, I and Donegeal from Vox (and GoW for
Donegeal), Arenos (spelling?) from RP, Alexman from Sarrantium (SP?)
and GS, Trip from Lux and GS, Metaturtle for GS and Theseus for GS,
ZargonX from Sarrantium), but it was a long time of meetings (~10
hours?) and while they were excellent, I think everyone was tired.
For dinner we went to a restaurant and Pub, and I liked it quite a bit
(had a lot more Veggie stuff). The Firaxians who had stayed with us
were there, and Paul Stephanouk and Joe Phisgar joined us. I sat next
to DanQ, DanS, snotty, Zopperoni, and OzzyKP. I think that the
Firaxians and Paul Stephanouk sat together??? I don't remember all the
seating arrangements. It was pretty good, we left for it arround 7:30,
and headed back to the hotel at 9:30.
At the hotel, we tried to get everything going for the Civ. There were
a lot of problems with getting it going actually, and it seemed to be
issues with netoworking. Like for the longest time my computer wouldn't
work with sid's son's computer (I think it got somewhat better when I
turned off wireless with mine). The first game (to get going) was
between Alexman, Trip, and Soren. It was long and hardfought, but I
think Trip ended up winning (I was trying to get things working).
ZargonX and Snotty and DanS got into a game (I was suppose to be in it,
and Theseus, but I couldn't connect at the same time that ZargonX could
connect and Theseus' computer quit working). DanS went out early, but
Snotty and ZargonX fought it out long and hard (I think that Snotty
ended up winning on points).
Finally I got it going with Donegeal, and Theseus joined us on DanS's
computer (the game was Renasaince, Lakes, death at lost of city). Now
this was mine and Donegeal's first game, and we thought Theseus was
better than us (I still think he is) and so we had a sort of truce to
begin with. Which was good, because I fought long and hard against
Theseus for a pretty much the whole game. Initially I and Donegeal did
nothing versus eachother, after a while he sent a couple of troops into
my territory. I attacked them (didn't want them to be pillaging me or
attacking a weakened city (from an attack by Theseus)). I still had to
focus on Theseus though (I don't know what Donegeal was doing), finally
it seemed as if Theseus had backed off a little, and I sent a stack
towards Donegeal (I didn't have horses) (Additionally, I had been ahead
in points until a bit before this time, when Donegeal went ahead in
points). In that direction Donegeal was over 10 turns away (I had just
gotten Musketeers (the first?) and sent at most one with the stack) so
thety were long in getting their. After the stack was well away, I
noticed that Donegeal had built a city up on my other border (not the
one facing Theseus), this would be important for any future attacks (as
it wouldn't be so many turns to get there). Also, Theseus renewed his
asasult, and I almost wasn't prepared enough (came the cloest to losing
a city that I ever would). Finally my troops got to Donegeal, and I
discovered that he had just gotten to the Cossacks, which slaughtered
my stack (I had one Musketeer, all the rest Longbowmen and Crossbowmen
and Catapults), soon after this he sent one Cossack to my north. I got
at this time an almost invincible Longbowmen unit (4 First Strike
advances and 1 +10% one) which enabled me to survive against Theseus
(it was still a bit iffy). I did an attack on Donegeals northern city,
which I was close to taking (and lost my super longbowman). Then
Theseus did a last suicide attack on me while Donegeal took one of his
cities (this was with 15 turns to go or something) losing a lot of
Cossacks. I then rushed the few Cannons I had (7 or so) up to
Donegeal's city with Grenaders and attacked. I managed to take with
with only a couple of functioning units with 5 or so turns to go.
At this time, everone else was playing Bang (or something) with the
Firaxians. There had been another game (a team game), which had ended
with snoopy369 versus OzzyKP (I think that snoopy369 ended up winning).
I then had to leave, so returned the CD to Theseus (who had lent it to
me) and drove down to a Wedding in VA Beach.
It was a good time, and I enjoyed meeting everyone. I got really good
vibes from Soren (he really loved Civ) and BHG (they really loved
games) and it was great meeting Sid.
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