Catchin’ up with the slackin’ off…

Now, after moving down to Nashville last summer, I was fortunate enough to land a teaching job at a respectable blue collar university.  The pay wasn’t great, and the job was just a touch on the exploitative side.  The good news is that it IS a real job, and comes with benefits, an office, an even a catchy job title like “Professor.”  Now, I was teaching a whole bunch of classes this spring (five, to be exact), but the good news is that my final grades for the semester are, as of last Thursday afternoon, “in the can” (to use a Hollywood expression).

You see, by NOT being in a tenure track position, I have the good fortune to be in a job where showing up to teach is pretty much all I have to do.  No messy committees, no student advising.  Sure, I’ll have to do a little curriculum development over the summer and deal with a couple of students who got “incomplete” grades.  However, between now and the middle of August, there really isn’t much that I have to worry about.  Since my payroll is on a twelve month cycle, I’m still getting paid the same amount every month while doing virtually no work.

Yes, anyone reading this is free to mutter, “lucky bastard.”  Let’s be clear - staring down a stack of 80 student papers (most of them really bad) is far from fun.  I do more or less earn the money that they are paying me.  However, I seem to have landed myself in a real world job that still gives me plenty of opportunities to achieve some serious slack during the off season.  Hence, the “T.A.” card from the Chez Geek card game still applies pretty well to my lifestyle.

So, I’m in the process of sorting out my priorities for the summer.  It would be great to do some writing, maybe design a board game or two, read some classic novels, make some lasting contribution to the better welfare of mankind, err, um, hang on there… let’s not kids ourselves.  I’m going to play some games.

So, one little reward for making it to the end of the semester is a new computer game.  In this case, it’s a little something called the “Gold Edition” of a little number called Galactic Civilizations II.  This is a game that first came out in early 2006, and the expansion pack came out earlier this year.  As the name might imply, the gold edition bundles the base game and the expansion pack.  Both the base game and the expansion got pretty good reviews, but mind you, you have to know what sort of game genre you are dealing with here.  The term to use is “4X” game, where the “x”s have something to do with explore, expand, exploit, exterminate, or something like that.  Funny they don’t call it a 4 “E” game.  Anyway, this is a turn-based game where you start off with a planet or two and a couple of ships, and you build up the economy of your homeworld, send scouts around the galaxy, make some trades with alien races, and then eventually construct an imperial armada with which to wipe out the other alien civilizations.

Galactic Civilizations II is interesting because you really can win scenarios in a couple of different ways.  You could just wipe out your opponents, or you can dominate them culturally if you think genocide is more of a “last resort” sort of thing.  The game doesn’t really have any multiplayer, but it has a lot of replayability because of a very flexible skirmish mode and some great AI logic that can work at a variety of skill levels without really ever “cheating.”  The computer opponents have some “personality,” and won’t neccessarily gang up on you, unless you give them a good reason.  They seem to have some sort of clue about how to negotiate good treaties for themselves, although the logic there isn’t always as context sensitive as real human thinking. 

Anyway, some people really, really, like this genre of computer game, going back to the old days of Civilization on the PC, and including other entries in the “space” field like the Space Empires series.  I do know that the scenarios in Galactic Civilizations II are a heck of a lot faster to play than games of Civilization III, but that has more to do with the latter game being a clunky beast.  My thumb is leaning up for the moment, but I’m not a huge fan on the genre, so we’ll see how long it takes me to get bored of this one.

In other computer gaming news, I also picked up an obscure Playstation II game called Okami.  You play a god running around in the form of a wolf using your celestial paintbrush to banish evil from the land and make things safe for your worshippers.  Oh, those wacky Japanese people.  What will they think of next?  Anyway, I’m only a little ways into this one, and maybe I’ll have some more to say in the form of some kind of review a little further on down the line.

I haven’t given up on Magic: The Gathering since I played in that Pre-Release tournament a couple of weeks ago and finished in the top 16.  My booster box of Future Sight cards should arrive in a day or two.  I’ll be fiddling with the “block constructed” format for the Time Spiral block, and also playing in some Friday Night Magic draft tournaments at the local game store.  These kinds of events could also work their way into my blog.

I might end up running a D&D game.  That hasn’t been set in stone yet, but I’ll know more about that in a week or two.  Obviously, getting back into the saddle as a GM should, in theory, give me plenty to blog about.

Of course, I am also still playing a fair number of board games.  On Sunday I got to play one of my favorite little 3 player games – a gem called San Marco.  My Nashville BG group is trying to launch a spin-off night at a new location closer to where I live, possibly running on Wednesdays 2 or 3 times a month.

I am also putting together convention plans, including a BG convention in Atlanta near the end of June, and quite possibly a trip to Origins in Columbus, Ohio, in early July.  Needless to say, those are the sorts of adventures that should provide plenty of copy for a gaming blog.

In closing, let me just admit that I am a very diverse gamer.  Probably everyone but me who reads my weekly column likes some of my chosen topics and interests better than others.  It is what it is.  I write my blog as a journal of my life as a gamer.  That said, I am open to suggestions for article ideas.  Since I have some time off this summer, let me put my slack to work for YOU!  Need some NPCs for a D&D game?  Need a second opinion on a new board game release?  I’m happy to lend a hand…