The Well is Running Dry

Screenshot of the Commander's Position in the Panther
IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad

Contrast the German Panther commander's position above with that of the Soviet KV-1 commander's position below ...

Screenshot of the Commander's Position in the KV-1
IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad

Note the game play aids along the bottom of the screen along with the mini-map in the lower right hand corner.

I've had this game for a long time, couple of years at least. When I got it my machine didn't really have the cojones to run the game, it IS a resource hog, comparatively speaking. My Razer laptop could run it but that poor beast died before I could really get to this game. Okay, I have a LOT of games for the computer.

My current laptop has the cojones to run the game but, and this is a big but, the laptop heats up quickly when playing games of this sort and I don't really want to burn up another laptop. Laptops are deuced useful when traveling dontcha know? But the smell of hot electronics bothers me. A lot. Can't imagine why. (Bit of snark there, I used to work avionics and the smell of hot electronics meant there was something we had to fix ... Which is exactly why I don't like that smell.)

My current desktop machine has lots of power and lots of cooling fans, seven to be precise, and the CPU is liquid cooled, not quite like a Maxim machine gun but you get the idea.

I'm still getting to know this new machine (so far I love it) and I do that by playing games on it. It's who I am, it's what I do. Can't command armies in the field but I certainly can on my computer. Best of all, no one gets hurt for real.

A game I am anxiously awaiting is Grand Tactician: Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815). The following screenshot might tell you why ...

Grand Tactician: Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815)

I have the American Civil War version of this, Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865) and enjoy it though the graphics aren't quite as good as what is shown above. As can be seen below ...

Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865)

The units seemed to be scaled better in the former, by which I mean the number of men represented on the display matches what the actual unit would have. If a battalion has 500 men, you'll see 500 men. The latter game seems to have fewer soldiers on the display than would be present in real life. Then again, that might be a setting the user can fiddle with. More items to display takes longer and on lower end machines could really bog down the game play. We shall see.

So that's what I'm up to, as for material for blog posts the well does seem to be running dry. Maybe it's me being lazy (or tired, I stay up way too late playing these damned games) or perhaps I need a break.

Might take a couple of weeks away from the hurla burla of the internet, I'm starting to need it. Failbook is driving me nuts (too much political shit) so I'm cutting back on my time spent over there. I'll read friend and family posts about their families and vacations but not much more. It's getting out of hand. (And don't get me started on the number of bloody ads Failbook inundates us with.)

Anyhoo, enjoy your Sunday. See you ...

Uh, scratch that, be back on Tuesday with something, I dunno ...

Maybe inspiration will hit, you never know.