The Civ 5 Cultural Victory

My Civ 5 playing has mostly revolved around the Cultural Victory. It's a rather fragile way of playing, since there are a couple of computer-controlled civ playstyles that can ruin it. If you start between Japan, Greece, and Persia, it's going to be really, really hard, because even if you kick all their buts, if you devote much production to military units, the cultural victory slips away. You have to build certain improvements, and specific wonders(Oracle, Sistine Chapel, Cristo Redendor, Sydney Opera House) by a certain time or you are screwed. In particular, Sistine Chapel and Cristo Redendor are game-breakers. If another civ builds one, you need to drop the cultural victory right then and there. I got to where I could win a Cultural Victory nearly any time with any civ at Warlord, so I moved up to Prince. I got to where I could win a Cultural Victory with any civ some of the time, and culture-favored civs(Egypt, France, Siam, India) most of the time, so I moved up to King. Now I am having some big problems. I came within 2 turns of success with France. Then I had an ideal scenario playing as Egypt where I had a large island all to myself. However Persia was so ridiculously far ahead in tech and had about 20 cities, then produced Cristo Redendor about 5 turns before me (game over). I have no doubt that a cultural victory is possible even on Emperor level, since higher difficulty means making things easier for other civs, not penalizing yours. So as long as you stay out of war and somebody like the above example with Persia does not happen, you should be able to do it. I just have not done it yet. Today I try again as France. But one thing I am not sure about is whether I will ever be able to get a Cultural victory with a culture-unfriendly civ at King or higher. I almost did with China, hell I guess that is possible too for the same reasons, just gotta keep trying.

Civ 5 and Rock Band 3

I'm pretty happy lately because 2 of the best games ever just came out: First Civlization 5 and then Rock Band 3. In particular, I recommend anybody who has not played Civilization games to try Civilization 5. Especially if you are a heavy thinker and planner and love to create something and make it better, this game is wonderful. I love the way it plays, the way it looks, the way it sounds, even the way I imagine it smells (like Thanksgiving dinner with a strong pot of coffee brewing and pumpkin pie that just came out of the oven). It's really THAT GOOD. And with Rock Band 3 out now also, to get up and do something else in between Civ 5 games, life could not be any better!
World of WHAT-craft? Who cares!

Wow movies

Well soon after creating a YouTube channel, I found out I had this nifty program included with Windows called "Windows Movie Maker". So I purchased FRAPS and decided to make some Wow movies. The first two were very simple not very interesting movies. But then I decided to make a movie with a script and some voice-over. Well, it turns out this is a very big pain in the ass. My lvl warrior got killed by lions or bears about 10 times just trying to get one small video clip in a high level zone. Then I had a short action sequence that for some reason unknown to me, wasn't saving the video on my hard drive. When I finally got the shot, I had forgotten to make my UI invisible. So this little project is now going on 2 days just to make this short little video(my 3rd). Anyways that's my little project I am working on now. I'm not giving up because I am sick of Wow honestly and I need a hobby. Also yes I am playing Starcraft II like everybody else. I bought it today, installed it and played the first mission. Tomorrow hopefully will have time to work on my video some more and play through some more interesting Starcraft II missions.

New Hero Class - Dragon Master

I'm calling out the new hero class in World of Warcraft. It will be Dragon Master/Dragon Tamer/Drake Master - something like that. I successfully predicted an evil plate class long before death knights were announced. But this is much more of a reach. I have thought about what is missing from the current classes, and honestly, I don't think much of anything is missing. That is why I believe the next hero class will be something very different such as this. I believe it will be a leather or mail wearing class which can tame summon dragonkin pets for combat purposes and will have an assortment of buffs for their pet or party as well as some damage spells.
Why dragon master, you ask? Well, at the risk of being completely nerdy, I'll say that most everybody loves dragons. We need a leather class since right now we only have druids and rogues. We need spells over melee since the last hero class was melee. Other possibilities I were some new type of druid class or a cloth caster such as an illusionist or Oracle(healer/dps hybrid). But would either of these be as cool as a dragon master? Would you like to go out and tame dragonkin the way a hunter tames beasts? Would you like to have interesting buff and dps spells like a druid? I think it sounds really awesome. And I think Blizzard knows awesome pretty well.

Taming "The Beast"

Aside from my new alliance warrior starlet I made recently, I still play my hordie hunter and druid a little bit. Basically, I log each of them on every day and do the Dalaran cooking and Troll Patrol dailies for some quick easy money. Sometimes then I send the druid to do the 3 easiest KOTEB dailies since some cloth drops on that one and he is a tailor. And sometimes then I send my hunter to do the 4 easiest SOH dailies since that is easy borean leather from skinning the jorgumar(yeah probably spelled that wrong). But ANYWAYS.............. I have had this thing with my hunter wanting the red core-hound pet from Upper Blackrock Spire known as "The Beast". Not only because it is a good-looking pet that most people do not bother to tame(because it is a pain in the ass), but if you tame "The Beast", your pet afterwards will always show as "Level ???(Boss)" and a skull next to its picture instead of its level number. On top of that, I have read that it is a huge pain to tame but barely possible (Otherwise known as a CHALLENGE!). So I accepted this challenge a couple months ago and failed. I bought many haste potions in the auction house and spent about 3 hours there trying and either dying or feigning death until my haste potions, food, drink, and healing potions were all used up and I had a 80g repair bill. (When you are 80% done with your tame and down to 3k health you do not FD, you stick with it and probably die).
So a few days ago I decided I had not given up, I was just resting for 2 months. I bought more haste potions, some haste elixirs, made some haste food, bought 2 haste rings in the auction house, some haste boots, and re-gemmed 3 of my gem-slots to pure haste. I went back there and after 11 attempts, MINE ALL MINE. I still need a name for him(started with "Dogar" but already wish I didn't) and I am meandering between something fearsome such as "Angelslayer" and something silly "Bunnymuffins". A guy at work suggested "DickCheney" and I laughed pretty hard, however won't do that. But yes now I have to get him to level 80 and yes because of the difficulty I had getting him, I am a very happy camper to have him! I won't make another annoying rant on the exact best method to tame him, but as you read above, don't be cheap and do it half-ass. Spend the money and get all the haste you can get before you do it. And yeah, I know a green or white core-hound works just as well. You have your purple pixels and I have my dog-on-fire.

Playing alliance

Well after four months of not playing, I decided to try something new and level an alliance character. Actually I did play in between there when Blizzard gave me some free playing time for some unknown reason. But anyways, now I am paying. It's a lot cheaper than playing slot machines at the local Indian casino, anyways. But I decided to try an alliance character on the same server that somebody at work plays on. We might have something to talk about to pass time at work, at least.
So I made a dranei warrior, since I liked their racial abilities and how they went with warrior (added hit rating, and a heal over time spell). The server seems to be old and the prices on the auction house are ridiculously high, which is perfect for starting your first character on a server. I get 1 gold or more for stacks of light leather, peacebloom, silverleaf, and at least 8 gold for stacks of briarthorn, stranglekelp, mageroyal. Medium leather is about 4 gold per stack. So it's a pretty good life for a new dranei warrior and I know I will have fun re-learning the quests and flight paths. I have never been over level 65 as alliance so the high level stuff will be especially interesting.
My goals for now with this character are to level quickly but also to make money well so I get epic flying the sooner the better. I do not want to be doing the quests in Storm Peaks on a slow flyer. If I can get epic flying by the time I first go to Northrend, that much the better. I am anxious to see the alliance equivalent of Wrathgate and events leading up to it. It's hard to imagine it being better than helping the forsaken develop a poison and Al-Qaeda the whole peace process, but at least I'll get to see the other side of things first-hand(instead of youtube).
A secondary goal for me is to keep this thing time-efficient, which means not creating a bunch of alts. If I need my things enchanted, I need to hire an enchanter or buy enchant scrolls from the auction house. My next character I make on this server should wait until worgen are available. I don't want to turn this fun little project into an obsessive-compulsive disaster that takes over my life. Currently Mysharra (Whisperwind, U.S.) is level 23 and sitting in Astrannar, wondering why there are tigers walking around inside the inn. Night elves are strange.