Google's Monopoly City Streets - Online

Well here goes another twenty hours wasted. Google introduced their Monopoly Streets game about two weeks ago and it has been a craze on the Internet. Like monopoly, the object of the game is to be richer than the next person. Buy streets, place houses, collect rent - these are still concepts in the game, but the big seller of the game is that these are REAL streets and you're competing with people from the entire globe!

I won't go in depth about how the game works, but the hardest part about the game is finding LONG streets so you can place as many buildings on them as the eyes and see (or the screen can stretch). You make money by collecting rent from the buildings and you can only collect rent once a day, so it's a strategy of how you use your money from day to day. Since the new rule is that every street after your first five, you will get taxed 3% of your net worth, it's advantageous to keep five or less streets. I tend to keep about eight streets, so I'm taxed about 9% every day, but I do like to know I have more streets available if people attack me. Attack, meaning people putting prisons and waste treatment plants on your street, which stops you from collecting rent.

But in any case, I started with my first street: Jackson Street in Oakland, California and started buying streets in Canada, Ohio, and even Chico, Ca. I wanted to buy some streets in Japan, but they were all taken. That's the fun of the game, you can be an absentee land-owner to real streets of the world. I never knew how many little mountain roads there are in California until I started playing the game.

Well with a little bit of math, a little know-how in geography, and a lot of effort in playing competitive games, I am finally in the TOP 10 of my local area, Alameda, California. Of course, I'm #10, but I still am proud. I'm level 5 (or 7), meaning I am worth $1,000,000,000 billion dollars. My goal is to reach level 7, then I'll call it quits. Until then, let the money bags roll in!

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI - PC

Yet another year passes and another Romance of the Three Kingdoms is released, this time for the PC. I finally got a copy of this last week and I started playing with a fury. I must have been deprived of it since the big skip from RTK6. 

The game is about 1.2 gigabites and runs quite smooth on my old computer. As I turn it on and select my character I realize the interface has changed a lot. I owned RTK10 for awhile but didn't like it much. I don't like playing officers in another person's army. This one goes back to the idea of being a warlord in the warring states of China. I picked Sun Jian, my usual pick for my first go around. Of the three big warlords, I usually pick him because he has so much room to expand and you basically can just take empty cities in the south and south east. 

Now during the city months there is much to do. They have Action Points for every action and Technique Points that are rewarded to you once you complete a deed. For every 1000 TP you can upgrade your weapons on the tech-tree. Development of farms and markets are similar to development of land plots in Civilization 4. I totally like the new idea. It's different, but you can actually see the farms next to your cities. Additionally, you can destroy enemy farms and barracks before ever attacking the main city itself. Another thing you do besides raise troops, build infrastructure, and employ new officers is that you have to perserve "order" in the city. This needs to be done by inspecting the town, a new feature. Cities with low order will lose moral and troops will leave monthly.

The battles are not on a different screen but happening on the world map. I hesitate, but it's one of the most enjoyable battle systems so far. All the old tricks are put into play: attacks, tactics, and strategy. Some tactics from Dynasty Warriors: Tactics (PS2) are used here as you can do  class-specific attacks like Rake and Onslaught. You can confuse armies with your advisors and also do co-ordinated attacks by adjacent armies with the "surround" command. 

The Emperial ranking system is still in play. This limits your use of huge armies. It also makes use for characters with lower stats like Yuan Shu and Liu Biao - if it weren't for their ranks, I would have sent them to my rear towns long ago. I haven't dealt much with the system as of yet, but the "auto-set" feature is quite handy. I'll trust it for now.

Lastly, and most hilarious of the game is the intellect duals that have been added on. Characters sometimes enter "debates" where they battle each other with facts and ponderings which seems like life or death verbal volleys. I think it's just so funny! Here's a screenshot:

I have much more work to do in this game, but for now it's eaten about 10 hours of my time.

Civilization I, II, & III (PC)

Sid Meier's Civilization definitely made an impact on my studies when I was in high school. It was two folded: on the one hand it got me interested in history, on the other hand it distracted me from my studies big time. Yes, the game of battling other historical figures. The thing was, I was never good at battling.

The first one started it all. It had the turn-based building, the cities, and a tech-tree that lasts up into today's games. I spent a lot reading about the Wonders and really was aspired to read about history and travel through the world. Then there was another part of me that just wanted to work for Sid Meiers.

The second CIV featured the space colonization, hence the Antares subtitle. I really didn't play this much, but I got the gist of it. It kind of sucked that my computer wasn't powerful enough to play this. I do remember trade routes, and how annoying they were.

My attention for CIV3 came a lot later, long after it was published. I was in Japan and I had my powerbook G4 with me. There weren't many games available to Mac, and one in particular was CIV3. Now studying abroad is a fun and exciting thing, but if you ask anybody that's done it, there's a lot of down-time. During those hours of self-discovery, I played CIV. And yes, I'd get aggravated at it. The computer doesn't necessarily cheat, but they do plot together. Not only that, but they didn't have the fog of war, so they knew where your cities were. Not cool. I was able to beat the fourth difficulty against eight players once, but only through space race. For conquest, it'd be unimaginable.

Completion: completed all three, but not at highest difficulty.
Civilization = 40 Hours
Civilization 2 = 10 Hours
Civilization 3 = 60 Hours
Hours = 110 Hours

01 - Heroes of Might and Magic V

Well, there you have it, the fifth installment of the HOMM series. I have to say that... I loved this game! I have tried the third and fourth games of this series, but I never got into it. This time, I played two maps and got hooked.

Not really much to say about the game play, everybody knows by now that HOMM is a strategy-rpg game where you control armies lead by heroes. There are two types of play, the town building and resource acquiring aspect and the tactical battle aspect when a fight occurs. There are six types of troops this time (althought this being HOMM5): Humans, Elves, Dark Elves, Wizards, Demons, and Undead.

The story is of Agreal, the expeled demon on the quest of saving the human queen, Isabel. Through the worlds and leaders, we find great leaders and dark plots that have been set in motion by the demon lord. I just completed it and the four "good guys" linger in my mind: Findan, Godrick, Zehir, and Raelag (Agrael). I will definitely try the add-on and perhaps try "hard" difficulty soon.











Completion: Normal Difficulty
Hours spent: 60Hrs