Cav's Place

Seeing as, if I’m to follow the plan to prepare for the marathon, just in case it actually will take place, I need to do that long run this week, today seems to be my best chance. It’ll be windy and just now the risk of a few showers appeared in the evening, but tomorrow it’ll quite certainly rain and be even windier, plus that I need to go back to the Treasury either today or tomorrow and, while I don’t know how I’ll manage to walk the day after such a run, I’d much rather not walk the day before it. And the forecast for Wednesday is somewhat worse than for today as well, and Thursday and Friday are definitely out of the question, since Friday morning I need to go for that MRI the doctor requested… And after that, depending on what they’ll find, I may well be out of order. I mean, I was told that it’s almost certainly nothing and they just want to make sure of it, but that means that a small risk exists.

Not that I wasn’t rather out of order this evening, afraid of the run, which I’m definitely not ready for, afraid of yet again failing to do what I want to do at the Treasury the next day, and that’s the last available day this month, afraid of Friday… And of course down because September 27 was coming, and has now arrived. Still, after being rather paralyzed for a few hours, I drew down the blinds, got myself to finally start writing the review for Fantasy General and somehow even finished and posted it just before midnight. Admittedly, after deciding to take a break to get lunch, I hadn’t finished the conclusion at that point, so I posted it as it was, then edited it with what ended up being a temporary conclusion and then, after I started eating dinner, edited it again, with what I hope is the final form. This also means that I submitted even that initial form after midnight on MobyGames, so that will show up as having been submitted on September 27, at least in my time zone, but it couldn’t be helped.

But, since that was all I had at that point, having only started to eat dinner at 3:20 AM and dealing with that review first, in order to still post it at the usual time of 4 AM I did that for this post as well, posting only the above, not even including the last sentence of the previous paragraph, and then editing to add the rest. It’s not exactly “fair”, but it seems more so than posting it when it’s done and then editing the timestamp to make it appear that it was posted at 4 AM. Not that the September 27 post was posted at 4 AM each and every time, but it was only posted a bit later in 2008 and much later in 2018, and this one doesn’t have what would be the normal title either, and that last happened in 2013, so that’s quite enough of a difference.

I guess that’s about it for now, and I finished eating as well, having peanut butter again, just in case it’ll help in some way. Didn’t make pasta these days, didn’t have any of that bread from Auchan that I tended to eat before runs, didn’t even have a larger piece of the one from Carrefour left, don’t have a good yogurt to eat after waking up… Do plan to take that running belt though, after having finally tried to wear it Tuesday, when I ran 16 km, albeit without anything in it, so one of the bottles should go in it, in which case I’ll be left with one free hand, but it remains to be seen whether that will actually work. Not that any of these are the real issues, of course, the main one being that I don’t feel in the least ready or capable of something like this, whether physically or mentally. But I guess I have to try, so now I’m going to wash what I used here, put the tea made tonight in at least one of the bottles, if it’ll still be too hot for the other one, which is made of plastic, and then see how much sleep I’ll manage to get. And in case I’ll fail or just drop, I guess it’ll only be appropriate, either another huge failure or another end coming on this same date…

Kept meaning to play Fantasy General ever since grabbing it back in 2017, when it was given away for free, but the turn limit was scaring me away… Until I saw it listed in the “time travel” thread for 1996 on the GOG.com forums and decided to finally go for it after all, managing to finish it with fewer difficulties than I feared and enjoying it more than I thought I would as a result. Even finished the expansion, which sounded truly daunting at first but ended up seeming probably less difficult than part four of the main campaign, albeit after accepting to settle for winning the scenarios in a “good enough” way, without wiping out the enemy after the first one.

The first positive aspect I made a note of after starting the game was the music, the soundtrack being one I can just listen to even outside the game, and it’s also included separately in the version I played, from GOG.com. And that’s a good thing even if you just want to make sure you can keep listening while you play, because the music tends to die at times in the game, so in that case you can turn it off in the game and just play the files.

But what truly matters is the gameplay, and it does let you get carried away through the battle, for better or worse. The fact that, even though you can save and load at any point, I often tried to go through scenarios start to end in one sitting or, if I didn’t, it was mostly because I had to quit the game to do something else, should be proof enough of that, considering my need to do things “just right”. There were some situations when I did save before what seemed like a turning point, and others when I made use of a save made because I had to quit after a number of turns in order to not restart the scenario from the beginning if things went bad, or simply because plenty of times the right thing to do seems to be to try a battle once, get an idea of it, and then have a proper go at it the second time around, but I often did restart in such a situation and can’t say I was too bothered by that, which again is saying something.
One thing that helps a lot is that units, with the exception of mechanical ones until or unless you gain the ability to repair them, can recover. Most regular units are actually squads that take damage in the form of injuries or kills, with the injuries healed by resting for one turn while not next to an enemy or by magic and kills being replaced by recruiting while next to a friendly town without an enemy also being in the immediate vicinity, while in case of heroes and the other units that are also single entities it’s even simpler, all damage being considered as injuries. That means you can press forward and fight hard without needing to sacrifice your units, and doing so is actually necessary, considering the importance of experience.
This balance between pressing forward and preserving units is already a major tactical element, but there are many others, tactics, and therefore the player’s skill, truly making a difference. The manual offers the necessary information, but the road between theory and practice is always long, so you’ll be learning as you go along and will see the difference once you apply what you have learned. Admittedly, some tactical aspects become less relevant when the units involved are more powerful, and the few units with the Raise Dead ability will let you get away with a lot once you’ll get them, late in the game, but even then that may be counterbalanced to some extent by the need to care for a weaker replacement or volunteer unit. Overall, while it was likely thanks to the strength of my units that part five of the main campaign seemed much easier than part four, good tactics will always be necessary in order to obtain a good outcome, so a victory with no or at least no unacceptable losses, which is the only kind that counts, seeing as units carry over, remains an achievement throughout the game. And I’ll also mention here that Burel’s Wall stood out for me, needing to attack an entrenched enemy making for an interesting and different kind of battle.
Still on the topic of the actual battles, seeing the estimated outcome for an attack is definitely useful, at least to get a general idea. At times it can be way off, but there are certain situations when it’s more likely to be off, such as when support is involved or when there’s a significant difference between the experience levels of the units, so you can take that into account on your own before deciding what to do. And the fact that you can undo moves allows you to check multiple possible attack options, and maybe also get some idea of what you may need to defend against on the enemy’s turn, before committing.

On top of all of that, there are decisions to be made between scenarios as well. That includes choosing which units to purchase and how to allocate the magical items in order to have the best possible army, considering the available funds and slots, but in the longer term the research aspect is crucial, and that involves allocating funds, separately for each unit type, and therefore balancing between gaining access to better units sooner and having enough left to actually make use of that research, by upgrading or purchasing new units, and also to replace lost units, plus the small amounts needed to replace kills by recruiting during battles. And, with the possible exception of light infantry, all unit types have their uses, so you can prioritize according to the strategy that works best for you, but a varied army will always have benefits. What’s more, in some cases even different units of the same type may have their own uses, so immediately upgrading all units, assuming it’s possible, may not be the best idea each and every time. That’s obviously the case for spell casters, each of them having a completely different purpose, but it can apply to some other units as well.

Otherwise, it’s good to be able to toggle showing hidden units, and also AI moves. As far as I’m concerned, the turn limit leaves no room for searching for enemies, so having everything visible at all times is necessary so the game won’t be absolutely impossible, but those who want the insane difficulty added by the fog of war can leave it on the default setting. Anyone who manages to beat the game like that deserves some sort of award though, as far as I’m concerned.

Since I mentioned the turn limit, let me just say again that it sucks! Yes, I managed to deal with it and enjoy the game in spite of it, and the scenario descriptions tend to offer justifications for it, but it’d have been so much better to not have it and be able to play at my own pace, use my preferred defensive tactics, outlast the enemy, train my units as well as possible and make sure I’ll always be able to completely wipe the enemy. And it’s also the turn limit that makes the random number generator have a much more significant impact, since there’s less time for things to even out during a battle.

Speaking of that, on top of the RNG’s heavy influence on each attack or spell, there is randomness in maps as well. Even in case of those that seem to be quite fixed, with named locations of interest, the starting locations of enemy units can vary, which can make a huge difference. But other maps seem quite generic, with the type of the locations of interest, as in town or reward location, being determined randomly at the beginning, which will obviously change things even more. And the rewards received when you capture a reward location are also random. A few have some special effects that are specific to a particular scenario, and it’s possible that those are fixed, but otherwise when you capture such a location anything may happen. You may find a random amount of money or a random magical item, the unit may be improved in a random manner, a random unit, ranging from regular volunteer units to generic heroes to named heroes, may join, but you may also find nothing or a random enemy unit, sometimes even a particularly powerful one, may appear, this sometimes happening in combination with any of the other rewards.
Not sure whether it’s good or bad that if you happen to capture a reward location when you kill the last enemy unit and a new enemy unit appears from it, you still win immediately, even if the enemy is no longer wiped out at that point. But what’s definitely bad is that, if you start with a reward location, you need to let the enemy take it and then regain it in order to get the reward.

Since I mentioned magical items, it’d have been better if you’d have been able to allocate them to units during a scenario as well, not only between them, but what’s worse is how easy they are to lose and how hard they are to gain, seeing as whenever a unit carrying one is lost, so is the item. So you lose any magical item carried by one of your units if it’s killed and don’t gain any if you kill an enemy unit carrying one, so with the exception of the few that are obtained at the end of certain scenarios, the only way to obtain one is to have the RNG decide to give it to you when you capture a reward location. And you also lose any magical items carried by any generic heroes that leave at the end of a part of the campaign.

That brings me to another issue, which is that your army is weakened at the end of each part of the campaign, so the beginning of the next part brings quite a difficulty spike. It’d have likely done so anyway, seeing as you have to deal with a new enemy, with new powers and new units that you need to adapt to, but also losing units at the same time makes it worse. And while all regular volunteer units leave, so you can at least plan for that to some extent, and those units also can’t be given magical items, so they won’t take any with them, sometimes one or more of your generic heroes will also leave. It’s possible that it’s not random, the weakest ones being chosen, but I’m not at all certain of that and either way you can’t know before the scenario exactly which one or which ones will leave, also taking any magical items they’re carrying.
Still on the topic of your army getting weaker, something you’ll need to deal with on a regular basis is the fact that new recruits are inexperienced, and for the units that aren’t single entities, kills are automatically replaced at the end of a scenario. So, while during a scenario you may choose whether to recruit in order to replace the kills, restoring the number of attacks but possibly losing a level or maybe even more, at the end of it that happens automatically, even if sometimes you may prefer to keep the level at the expense of the number for a while.

Moving on to UI and design choices, it’s all too easy to accidentally end a unit’s turn, or cast on the wrong one if walking and flying units share a hex, so on top of being able to undo moving, you should also be able to undo ending a unit’s turn, including resting, and casting on a friendly unit. But the UI in general makes the age of the game obvious, perhaps more so than anything else, requiring some getting used to if you want to play the game now. There were moments when not having the current turn and the turn limit displayed at all times was a bit annoying, and it also struck me as particularly strange to see what should be settings mixed with the other buttons, while on the other hand many UI slots remain unused in the deployment phase, when the left side could have easily been used to display the list of units that are yet to be deployed, allowing you to select them in the order you wish without switching to another screen each time.
A problem that quite clearly has to do with how this version runs, under DOSBox, is that the map scrolls pretty much instantly if you move the mouse to the edge of the screen, so you can’t move to a certain spot like that, needing to switch to the tactical view for that purpose. What doesn’t have to do with this specific version, however, is that if you do switch to that view and then switch back without selecting a location, the view doesn’t return to where it was before you switched, but instead goes to the center of the map, which is even more annoying when combined with the scrolling issue.
Still on this topic, needing to choose the next area to attack based on name alone, since you can’t go back and try another after you click to read the description, is a bad design choice, as is the fact that you can’t know which areas you’ll still be able to attack if you don’t choose them the first time and which will no longer be available. Yes, at least when it comes to the choice itself, you can go ahead, end the deployment phase without deploying any units, load your save made before you clicked and try again, but that’s tedious and shouldn’t be necessary. And it’s also unnecessarily tedious to load a game between scenarios, the button not being available then, so you must return to the main menu if you want to load at that point. In addition, I don’t know whether this has to do with this version or not, but the manual states that the details of a saved game should be displayed, yet that area remains empty.

Otherwise, seeing as the game is hard enough as it is, I’ll list the fact that the AI is decent but won’t win any prizes, particularly when it comes to making good use of magic, under miscellaneous negative aspects. I’ll also mention here the fact that the color scheme for the terrain in part five looks rather bad and that, while a lot can otherwise be seen if you check the detailed information for a unit, the movement method, open or closed, is strangely absent, being only available in the manual. And the only thing I really have to say about the expansion also goes here, and that’s that I’d have preferred it to start with more advanced units, though in some ways I understand why that isn’t the case.

Overall, Fantasy General was a great game when it was released and remains a good one to this day. There are a few poor design choices, the RNG may be too powerful, the turn limit is infuriating and it shows its age in particular when it comes to the UI, but when it comes to the actual intended gameplay, the tactical battles themselves, it’s still enjoyable and likely to make anyone interested in the genre get carried away, the importance of tactics and therefore player skill leads to a satisfying feeling of accomplishment when you win, or even advance in a significant manner in a scenario, and for me the fact that units can and should be cared for and preserved is another important positive aspect. It may be found lacking in various aspects when compared to newer games, but if I could finish and actually enjoy it despite the turn limit, which I’d normally see as a deal breaker, it must still be well worth playing.

Later edit: The GOG.com version of the game was updated on October 11, so two weeks after I wrote this, and the changelog claims that the scrolling and audio issues were fixed. But I reviewed what I played at the time I played it and didn’t try the updated version to see whether those claims are true, so the review stays as it is otherwise.

Though it passed the threshold of three cases per one thousand people on Wednesday, it was only yesterday, meaning Friday, that a meeting was held to decide that Bucharest will enter the “red” scenario from midnight. And even that took many hours, since the desire was to postpone such a decision until Monday, obviously because PNL’s congress, where the party’s president was to be elected, was taking place this morning. But eventually, as I already mentioned, the decision applied from midnight… Not that it does that much, considering how many things are still allowed and the numerous exceptions that pretty much mean that if all participants are vaccinated there are hardly any real restrictions, the problem being that requiring the certificate for so many things means that, first of all, people are tracked at a level likely never seen before. And I also wonder how they should call the next levels, if three per one thousand is already “red” and there are other thresholds at six and 7.5, and there also used to be one at four, though the measures intended for that level were moved up, to only apply once the number of cases reaches six per one thousand people, just before the large cities would have been affected.
Either way, the current situation, with only a handful of intensive care beds left and most counties having none, would require some serious measures and I’m not seeing anything of the sort, and for me personally the current ones mean that nothing will change. Maybe something more significant will happen next week, after that congress, but probably not, since it was clear from the beginning that they had decided to hold off any real measures until that threshold of six will be reached, even though Romania’s low vaccination rate and the overall health of the population mean that the total number of cases isn’t at all decoupled from the number of serious cases and that of deaths, so increasing the threshold, and by so much as well, only ensures that things will be even worse than before. But I guess it won’t be long until we’ll get there, with the way things are going.

Should have spent the day writing, at least about what happened after being released from hospital, the plan being to run tomorrow, but now I see that the forecast changed and tomorrow evening it’s likely to rain, so I guess I’ll run Tuesday and decided to rush out today in order to also catch that pharmacy still open, since it closes at 4:45 PM on Sunday, and then buy some more things. But while the post was scheduled to appear pretty much only with that text, I did manage to write about the day after getting back, off-line, then I edited it when I got back on-line, at night, so that’s what follows.

Went out just before 4:20 PM, also taking some trash to throw in a bin, and jogged most of the way to the pharmacy. Since it was going to get cooler in the evening and I didn’t want to lose even more time before leaving to put it in my backpack, I had the jacket on, but when I started running I realized it was a bad idea, so I probably lost more time taking it off, holding it until I got close and stopped running, then tying it around my waist. But I was in line at 4:30 PM in spite of that and it moved quickly enough, though there was an annoying moment just before it’d have been my turn, when the person behind me told a pregnant woman to go ahead even though there was one more person between them, and after that person also agreed to let her through I felt pressured to do the same, while obviously mentally lashing out at yet another person worsening the world’s worst problem. Either way, I had to be in that line for the iron, which requires a prescription, but should have gone to the other area for the supplement I decided on, which also has vitamin D, zinc and a negligible amount of magnesium on top of the pointlessly huge quantity of vitamin C I had been prescribed, so after showing her the prescription and asking for that iron, I asked the cashier whether I really needed to do that for that other thing, showing her a screenshot of the product page on my phone, and she said I couldn’t go there anyway because it was closed, so she brought it for me as well, and it was a good thing they found it, since the site listed the stock in that location as “critical”, which seems to mean that no more than two are left. And then I had another pleasant surprise, the total being less than I expected, and she also rounded down, saying it was fine as I was digging for coins.
I was just walking away at 4:45 PM, when the announcement that the pharmacy was closed came, so I rushed outside and then checked the receipt, seeing that a discount I hadn’t known about had been applied for the iron. Then I went to that Mega Image, looking for the food for Micky and Rocky, which is on sale again, but there was none left in that location and when I walked out I meant to first head to that larger one from this area and then to that one that’s close to the clinic… But somehow found myself on the way to Kaufland, which I had meant to go to after that, and didn’t turn around when I realized it, especially since some chicken breast was supposed to have a very good price this weekend and I wanted to see whether I’ll still find any.
Well, I didn’t find that chicken breast, not even a label to show where it should have been, despite looking all over and also asking an employee. But I found discounted watermelons, the price actually dropping while I was there, after I talked to dad. Had given him a beep while I was in line at the pharmacy, meaning to ask whether he wanted something from there as well, but he didn’t call back and I didn’t try again until he sent me a message to say he’ll be back in about an hour, at which point I replied to tell him to call, which he did, so I asked whether I should pick up food for Rocky as well, and grapes and watermelon for my mother, but at that point I assumed I was going to get the watermelon from Carrefour, the prices I had seen in Kaufland being higher… Only for them to drop by the time I had another look, so I decided to get four from there, two of one kind and two of another, since they were quite small. I’m less certain that they’re good than I’ve been so far, but I guess that’s why they reduced the price in that manner for those that were left when it wasn’t even close to closing time. That meant I’d have had a fair bit to carry… And that additional weight increased even more when I couldn’t find the cat litter I get from there, so I had to get the 10 kg bag of another kind, and with some expiring bread for dad the total weight exceeded 25 kg, the self-checkout giving an error when I placed the last watermelon on it. But an employee had kept her eyes on me, probably expecting this, so she immediately logged on to override the weight check for that last watermelon, so I didn’t have to get that one separately. And there was a whole pile of coins in the machine, which I used.
Once I got out and put everything in a cabinet, after having already told dad that he might need to help me carry everything, I realized I had forgotten about the olives I wanted to get, so I rushed back in and got some of those, plus an ice cream, then peed, washed my hands and went out to eat the ice cream… Only for dad to call again while I was doing that, which seems to have caused me to get some ice cream on my mask. But at least I could give him the cabinet number and code, then finished the ice cream, went back in to wash my hands and mouth, that part of my mask and also the spot on my shirt where some ice cream had fallen, then continued on my way to that Mega Image that’s close to the clinic.
Looked at a few expiring things after getting there, but then I went to the cat food area and found pretty much just enough, only leaving a couple of cans of the kinds I wanted… And having a guard stop next to me when I dropped one and was trying to retrieve it from underneath the shelf, asking what was I going to do with all that food, but then realized it was on sale and walked away. So I then took my time to count the cans, then checked some more expiring things… And that made me go to that Equilibrium area, to check the price of one such product… Only to decide that I should get some more peanut butter while I’m there, though I think that by looking through those that were at the back of the shelf I got an older one, the expiration date being four months sooner but deciding to get it because the label lists that there’s no added sugar or salt and the nutritional values also differ to some extent, the amount of sugar and the calories being lower than those listed on the ones that were in front. The bar code was the same and the only listed ingredient is peanuts on both, but maybe they changed something in the recipe…
Either way, I then went to the checkout and the cashier seemed exhausted, when she got to the person who was in front of me she called a coworker to help her with something, saying she’s so tired she doesn’t trust herself with money anymore. But she was definitely still thinking properly, because that other customer made some comment about the pandemic and she said we don’t seem to even want to get rid of it, when her child can wear a mask for six hours but a customer walking in the store for ten minutes apparently finds it too hard, so of course things are getting even worse instead of better and the economy is also affected. Then she also said that about half of their employees have left, many to go abroad, even if they know all too well that it’s not all milk and honey there, and when that customer said it’s because of the money she said that’s hardly the main reason, more important ones being the degree of civilization, the respect received and, in case of those with children, the education they have access to. And I guess the discussion distracted that customer a little, since when I was also done and grabbed my bags a product was left there and the cashier realized the previous customer had forgotten it, telling a guard to place it in a refrigerator. But I hope there was no need to keep it there for long, because I rushed out, looked for that woman, couldn’t spot her right away, just picked a direction which proved to be the correct one, spotted her a moment later, walked up and asked whether she had been ahead of me in the store, not being quite certain, since she had taken her mask off. That seemed to have scared her, and I’d have also been scared to be approached in such a manner, and she seemed about to rush away, but when I told her about the forgotten product she thanked me and rushed back.
Then I made my way to Carrefour, wondering about having another look in Kaufland when I passed in front of it but deciding against it after sending dad another message to ask whether he had retrieved those purchases and being told he had and had just gotten back. With no more need to look at watermelons in Carrefour, the only real reason to go there was to get some grapes for my mother, and dad was uncertain about that when I asked, but he did say I could get about 1.5 kg, so that was exactly what I did… But first I checked the eggs, looking through those that could be picked up individually, which were again deeply discounted, and finding three bio (organic) ones that were neither cracked nor too small. Maybe there were one or two more, but the code wasn’t visible on them and I didn’t risk it, since we otherwise have eggs, after I grabbed some expiring ones with code one on my way back on Friday. Shouldn’t have done that, since I found some with code one this evening as well, and the price was lower, but I couldn’t have known that then. Either way, I added a few more things for myself, then finally walked back.

It was 9:35 PM when I got here, and had plenty to do, so I put a few things away, talked to dad a little, showered and rushed to write this. But since I only posted it at night, while eating, I’ll add here that I had a very late lunch, started at 12:30 AM, though I finished it in some 20 minutes, and then it was 3:25 AM when I started eating dinner, though I had a few small apples after managing to put just about all other things in their place. Also started taking the iron, after that late lunch… But there are a lot of irregular heartbeats again.

Though “reality” did even “better”, considering how recent and yet already outdated the data is, it does a good job of pointing out how bad things are and how much worse they’re going to get, explaining thoroughly, spelling out both the urgency and the complexity of the situation. It also stresses that the disaster is of our own making and we can avoid it if only we’d make the effort, and also that the important changes are the large scale ones, laws, regulations, government intervention, while the pressure for individual lifestyle changes is more of a way for society as a whole to feel that it’s doing something while continuing to avoid the drastic and sometimes painful changes that are desperately necessary. And the inequality aspect is also pointed out, the less guilty and powerless suffering more while the more guilty and powerful can avoid the negative consequences for much longer and may even benefit.
I’m not sure what the target audience is, however. Maybe it’s an attempt to avoid the usual problem with any such work, only being picked up by those already interested and involved, but the author disqualifies himself in my eyes when he says he’s not an environmentalist, even showing disdain for environmentalists and activists in general, and continues along those lines, even stating that he’d choose economic growth despite knowing that nature pays the price and spelling out his single-mindedly, unapologetically anthropocentric stance, saying he’d agree with the loss of most of what’s generally considered nature if only humans could live well in such a world, only acting because that can’t happen. He even sees caring for other species as an excuse for not acting, or at least not in what he’d consider an efficient manner.
Otherwise, there are awfully many notes, and towards the end they also become descriptions and comments, which might have been better placed in the text itself. And, at least in this edition, the numbers for notes are oddly placed, and the months were clearly automatically translated in the notes, including in English titles and URLs and the word “may”.

Rating: 3/5