FM 2006 - Brazil in the North American Gold Cup

You may recall that I took up international management again (specifically, Brazil). During the course of season 2030/31, myBrazil side took part in the North American Gold Cup.

You can see the results below. Hoozah, a tick in the tourney win column for me!

Although I won the tournament though, it wasn't a great performance by any measure. The toughest team I faced was Mexico (not exactly world class) and they almost took me out. In fact, in the end, I only won via penalties.

What was most disappointing was that my team didn't play particularly well. Its one thing to lose to a drug induced GK but its altogether more annoying when your own team doesn't do well.

This ain't an isolated incident either. In some of the friendlies, I've struggled against strong opposition. In fact, I lost the following friendly against Spain (so far, my Brazil team is nil for two against world class opposition in friendlies).

Anyway, my current Brazil squad below:

Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2

Other than the fact that both of these games are RPGs being developed by BioWare, you would think there isn't much in common between these games. However, in a recent marketing move, BioWare have created a link by giving people who buy the Collectors Edition of DA:O a bonus item to use in Mass Effect 2.

And as a result, a bunch of people on the forums are up in arms over what they perceive as a bad marketing decisions.

My own view? Pro-consumer as I am, I find it hard to get upset by this.

In all likelihood, the bonus item offered in DA:O is probably a relatively weak item which will only be of use in the early part of the game. As such, I seriously doubt that not having that bonus item will "ruin" the fun of ME2 for me.

Looking at the arguments of the posters, it looks like a lot of people have fallen for the ol' slippery slope fallacy. In other words, "Oh noes, if BioWare (or EA depending on your view) gets away with this then, before we know it, we will only get a complete game in future if we buy 100 different completely unrelated games!!!!!!!!"

This is an obvious slippery slope fallacy. Just because the buying public accept what BioWare are doing now, it doesn't mean that they will accept any and all future decisions. If BioWare do something in future which the buying public don't like, then you will see that reflected in sales accordingly. Ultimately, the market will decide what is and is not acceptable business practice (but then, I've always believed in strong or semi-strong markets).

Disciples II - the Undead Horde

Several weeks ago, I blogged about Disciples II and how it felt a little like playing a strategic version of D&D. Since then, I've finished playing the Empire faction and started playing the Undead Horde campaign and, like any good strategy game, the experience is completely different.

To understand why, I need to backup a bit and tell you a little bit more about the game which I didn't mention in my first post. One of the things you do in Disciples II at the start of the campaign is choose which type of Lord you are (this Lord represents you and not your hero unit). There are three different Lords to choose from.

The Fighter Lord allows all units in your Kingdom to heal a certain percentage of health at the start of every turn. The Mage Lord allows you to research spells at half the cost (which is significant for higher level spells) as well as allowing you to research level 5 spells. The Thief Lord grants your thieves extra abilities such as false orders which can mess up enemy formations (and possibly end up putting their mages in the front line as fodder for my melee units).

When I played the Empire campaign, I chose the Fighter Lord. The extra per turn healing of the Fighter Lord, coupled with the healing of the cleric and some healing spells, meant that my hero units swept across the battlefield in an unstoppable wave of destruction. My cleric meant that I ended easy fights at full health and really boosted my groups durability in tough fights. Even if I did get mauled in a tough scrap, the per turn healing of the Fighter Lord plus the healing spell ensured that I could just keep going the next turn.

However, with the current Undead Horde campaign that I'm playing, I chose a Mage Lord so I no longer have the per turn healing. In addition, the Undead Horde have no healer unit and no healing spells (which kinda makes sense if you think about it). As I don't want to waste the expensive healing potions, I have to go back to base every fight or two (Other than going back to base, the only other option to heal is to stand in my own territory but this only gives you back a tiny percentage of health).

In other words - adios, unstoppable wave of destruction.

The cool thing about the Undead Horde though is that they have some pretty cool units. The main ranged attacker unit doesn't cause any damage but instead can paralyse the enemy unit. There have been loads of times when I've been able to take out strong enemy parties with relatively little damage simply becase the enemy heavy hitters were all just sitting around. The sorceror unit can turn into an Undead Wraith which is impervious to weapons. Once you level up to the wraith, you just stick him in the front line and laugh as the enemy melee units become worthless.
:D

Still, its a bit of a bummer that my unstoppable wave of destruction has turned into an inevitable creep of doom instead. Actually, when I put it like that, it doesn't sound so bad...