Something A Little different....The First Of The Romans

One on-going project I have at the moment (and one which is going to go on for quite a long time!), is painting up a lot of Warlord Early Imperial Romans. Not for me, I might add, but fun nonetheless. Here are the first 2 cohorts- eventually I'll have a couple of Legions worth + all the Auxilia to do. So, quite a bit.
I'm not doing this alone, thank God, but as part of a team of painters in order to accomplish this massive task.

I've always wanted to do an Early Imperial army, but have never actually got round to it, one of those situations common to just about every wargamer, we all have "those projects" I guess, so having the opportunity to paint one for someone else will hopefully get it out of my system.

Early Imperials have always been the "classic" Romans for me, Square Scutem, Lorica Segmentata, I suspect my like of them goes back to a bunch of Timpo figures I had when I was a youngster.
The Warlord figures have been around for while, go together fairly easily, choices of sword-arm or pilum, a few different head choices. The ones in the pictures are a mixture of the basic set and the set sold as "veterans" - these give you a few extra choices - different heads and helmets, and battered shields. All the veterans have the additional magnia sword- arm armour a few legionaires adopted for the Dacian wars. Fortunately these are indeed for the Dacian campaigns so they will fit right in.

                       There are a few extra metal command figures mixed in- manufacturer unknown.

Anyway, I'm enjoying doing these, which is probably just as well, seeing as there are a few to paint! It makes for a good diversion from the WWII projects which I'm also doing for myself.

        So thats a few Romans, Next up, I'll be showing some rather lovely Dacian tribesmen to oppose them

Warlord Blitzkrieg Infantry

                                             Warlord Pioneers romping through the bunny fur

Exploring Monster Taming Mechanics In Final Fantasy XIII-2: Asking Deeper Questions

So far in this Exploring Monster Taming Mechanics series, we've parsed a bunch of data, built up database tables, and connected them together in a website with some filtering sprinkled in. This setup allows us to browse around the data pretty easily and ask some basic questions of the data. Now it's time to think about how we can ask deeper questions. Instead of just asking things like, "What monsters have the Auto-Bravery ability," we want to be able to ask, "Where is the earliest location where I can get a monster with the Auto-Bravery ability?" Sounds like a useful think to know, right? Let's figure it out.

Are we asking the right question?

It would certainly be interesting to know the earliest location where we can get a monster with a given ability, but we have access to more data than that, so we could actually answer a bigger question with the same effort. How about, "what are the locations where I can get a monster with the Auto-Bravery ability, sorted from earliest to latest?" We still need to find the earliest location where a tamable monster has the Auto-Bravery ability, but we can find out more this way. We've transformed the question from a linear search through the locations from earliest to latest into a filter-and-sort query, which is easy for a database to do.

This filter-and-sort query is still more complex than previous questions because we're taking into account more types of data. Instead of just filtering monsters by ability, we also need to sort them by location, and to do that sorting, we need to know the order of the locations. We do have a complete ordering in the database table because the locations were added to the table in such a way that dependent locations were added after their source locations were added. 

That's not the only valid ordering of the locations, though. Sometimes the game path forks, and in those cases the locations that both have the same source can be reached in either order. Since the locations make a tree graph with New Bodhum 003 AF at the root, we can add a depth attribute to the location table and assign each location a depth value based on how far it is away from the root. This depth value represents how many areas must be visited if we headed straight for the area in question. We could do this algorithmically, but the table only has 30 locations, so it's easy enough to assign by hand. We've added attributes to tables and views a half dozen times now, so I'll assume it's obvious how to do this and move on.

Sorting by Location Depth

Sorting by location depth isn't as hard as it may appear. We already have the filtering done between the links in the location table and the filter parameter processing in the monster controller, and we have the filtered list of monsters in the monster controller. All we have to do is sort that list by the location depth for where we can find each monster. Also, remember that a monster can be found in up to three different locations, so we're going to have to handle that detail as well. First, let's go ahead and add the sorting by location depth to the monster controller in app/controllers/monster_controller.rb:

class MonsterController < ApplicationController
  def index
    if params[:filter]
      location = Location.find_by(name: params[:filter])
      @monsters = location.location_monsters +
                  location.location2_monsters +
                  location.location3_monsters
    elsif params[:ability_filter]
      ability = Ability.find_by(name: params[:ability_filter])
      @monsters = ability.get_all_monsters.sort_by { |monster| monster.first_location_depth }
    elsif params[:skill_filter]
      ability = RoleAbility.find_by(name: params[:skill_filter])
      @monsters = ability.get_all_monsters.sort_by { |monster| monster.first_location_depth }
    else
      @monsters = Monster.all
    end
  end

  def show
    @monster = Monster.find(params[:id])
  end
end

It ends up reading in code just about the same as it reads in the above description. I went ahead and did the sort on both abilities and skills here because it's the same code. Now, we need to define this first_location_depth method that we've called on the monster model. As long as it returns the depth of the location where the monster can first be found, sort_by will end up sorting the list of monsters the way we want it to. Here's one way to define that method in app/models/monster.rb:

class Monster < ApplicationRecord
  # ... A whole mess of belongs_to macros ...

  def first_location_depth
    [location&.depth, location2&.depth, location3&.depth].compact.min
  end
end

We simply build up a short array of depths using the existence (&.) operator for each potential location, compact the array to remove the nil values for the locations that didn't exist, and return the minimum value. That's all there is to it. When we click on the Auto-Bravery ability in the ability table, we are presented with a list of monsters with that ability sorted by the depth of the first location where we can find them:

What's Left?

This feature of filtering and sorting by first location depth is pretty useful for finding monsters with certain abilities to tame. It's so useful, I wanted to do something similar with monsters' base strength or max level or some combination of those, but I realized that there's already a pretty effective way of looking for the strongest monsters at a given point in the game just by filtering monsters by location. You're normally interested in seeing which monsters you want to tame and keep in the location where you are right now or heading to next, and it's simple enough to just find the strongest monsters that can be leveled up the most by visual inspection of the filtered monster table. There aren't enough monsters in any given location to make this method burdensome, and we have plenty of info in this table to make informed choices.

Trying to automate this question of finding the strongest monsters also adds its own complications. What should we sort by, base strength, max level, or some combination of them? What if it's not what the user wants? Should we give the user the option? The solution to these questions will necessarily add complexity to the user interface that we should prefer to avoid. Side-stepping the issue and just not trying to do something for the user that is easier for them to do for themselves ends up being the better solution. We should always watch out for that simple case when designing a user interface.

Since we already have the feature of finding strong monsters in each location, the only things remaining are the two tables that we haven't connected: monster materials and monster characteristics. Monster materials is an interesting table that we can use to figure out how quickly we can level up the monsters we've tamed because we need to find the monsters that drop those materials that are used to level up our tamed monsters. However, enabling that feature is going to take a bit of work because the material table doesn't currently have the info for which monsters drop each material. We'll add that missing data and connect up that table next time.

The Forest By Michaelbrent Collings, Book Review

 

Alex and Tricia have been able to explain everything through the application of scientific principles as long as they can both remember. But, when they are in the forest and the fog is swirling around them, their analytical minds fail to explain what they are experiencing. They want to run, but they are drawn forward, or did they run to find themselves moving in the wrong direction? Like fractals circles constantly turning and never ending, the lives of Alex and Tricia keep circling and twisting back on themselves in a regularly repeating pattern.

The Forest by Michaelbrent Collings is a tale of horror about a couple who must confront their past, their loss, their grief, and their fears. I received an advance review copy from the author.

The Forest is a wild ride through Alex's and Tricia's memories and visions to be wrapped up in a conclusion of science, metaphysics, and philosophy.

Plot

Alex and Tricia grew up as neighbors and have known each other as far back as their memories will take them. They bonded through their understanding and love of all things scientific. The love of science made them outcasts from most everyone they knew, but it also made them the center of attention. It was just the two of them until a new kid showed up in high school.

Sam was as smart as they were, if not smarter. They only knew him for a few days before they lost him to a horrific chain of events. They tried to rescue him from his mother while in the forest by the town they lived and grew up in. They weren't able to.

Later, the two married and had a son, Sammy. Another loss. This time a car accident. This time while driving on the road by the forest where they had lost their friend years ago. The grief of having lost their child was tearing them apart, so they sought professional counseling. They were given the advice to go back and face their loss at the place where it had happened—the forest.

Style

The Forest is told through the lens of the two main characters, Tricia and Alex, by a narrator who tells us they have their own agenda of what to tell. Our narrator doesn't just switch back and forth between the two main characters, but also between the two times of the major events. We are given the events of when they lost their friend Sam in high school and when they go back to the forest to confront their issues.

Alex and Tricia are connected through their appreciation of science. Their connection is so complete they complete each other's sentences, as though they already knew what the other was thinking. This is carried through in the story's style. Where one chapter begins the events through one character, another chapter completes the thoughts from the point of view of the other.

The back and forth pattern in time carries the same style. What happened in the past is happening in the present. That which started in one timeframe is moved through the other. Creating a pattern of concentric circles that are building out on themselves, or receding in.

The level of connectivity between the characters and the structure of the chapters sets up the use of cliffhangers to keep the reader moving forward. The story pulls you forward when an event is paused in midpoint to be taken up by the other lead's point of view.

Both the points of view of the characters and the different timelines are tied together through the understanding of science by the characters and how that science is at odds with the metaphysical or supernatural phenomena they are experiencing. And, Michaelbrent Collings does a wonderful job of pulling it together in word and in pattern.

There is great use of symbol and metaphor in The Forest. The symbols tie the two timelines into one coherent story. Collings then threads one section into another. It raises the events above the scientific minds of the lead characters to pull them, and the reader, into the level of the metaphysical and the philosophical.

Overall

I enjoyed The Forest. I was drawn forward through the pages. As I read further, I wanted to keep reading. I wanted to find how the individual threads would come together to create a finished fabric and the pattern upon it. It was nicely layered in the style of the fractal geometry promised early on.

Michaelbrent Collings did a great job of maintaining two main story events and bringing them into one storyline. He provided links and bridges to bring the conclusion of the story into a satisfying ending. An ending that answered the questions raised earlier. And then, raises new questions for the reader to contemplate.

I recommend The Forest for readers who enjoy a horror tale involving the fears and threats we create for ourselves. Those fears we bury deep within our subconscious selves. Those threats we know are there. Those parts we work to keep hidden from those around us, and especially from our own conscious minds.

The Forest is not yet available on Amazon (link)

Here are additional reviews of Michaelbrent Collings's book I have published.

The Sword Chronicles: Child of the Empire (link to review)

The Sword Chronicles: Child of Sorrows (link to review)

The Sword Chronicles: Child of Ash (link to review)

Predators (link to review)

The Longest Con (link to review)

About the Author (from the book)

Michaelbrent is an internationally-bestselling author, produced screenwriter, and member of the Writers Guild of America, but his greatest jobs are being a husband and father. See a complete list of Michaelbrent's books at writteninsomnia.com.

 

I'm working at keeping my material free of subscription charges by supplementing costs by being an Amazon Associate and having advertising appear. I earn a fee when people make purchases of qualified products from Amazon when they enter the site from a link on Guild Master Gaming and when people click on an ad. If you do either, thank you.

If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.

I have articles being published by others and you can find most of them on Guild Master Gaming on Facebookand Twitter(@GuildMstrGmng).

 

Section 8 Prejudice Free Download

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