Rich Mintz  

My video game of choice for the summer, as you know, has been Civilization IV. But with Civilization V due in less than a month, I’m giving it a rest, and resurrecting two other favorite diversions for the waning days of summer: Scrabble, and Sim City 4.

First, Scrabble. I have to blame the Boon Companion for this; he got me addicted to iPad Scrabble, which we’re still playing at home. But most of my playing is via Lexulous, which is the Facebook game once known as Scrabulous, given a new name and a slightly different board configuration after an encounter with Hasbro’s lawyers. It’s still on Facebook, where you can play both in real time and via the correspondence method (“You have a move to make on Lexulous, Rich”); but I prefer to play on lexulous.com, where there are literally hundreds of Scrabble fanatics sitting in chat rooms 24 hours a day waiting to play with you immediately.

It turns out I’m a moderately good Scrabble player — but I’m an even better timed Lexulous player, and most of the fanatics on the site want to play timed. Timed games fit well with my satisficer personality, which races to find the best move available that can be thought up in the first 30 seconds, i.e., roughly the 85% move on average, and then gets bored and anxious trying to come up with something that’s 5 points better. Typically I play 8 minute games with a 10-second Fischer delay, but as I get better I’m going to inch the time limit down little by little.

(Side note: I saw Bobby Fischer in an elevator when I was going to the pediatrician’s, in Century City in L.A., when I was about eight or nine. This would put it in about 1974 or 1975. I was with my mom, who recognized him; she explained who he was, and I remembered hearing about him on the news — I was kind of a chess kid. I think that was both the most famous and the craziest person I met up to that point, at least until we saw Farrah Fawcett in the grocery store a few years later. Or I think it was Farrah. Anyway, I digress.)

The other game is SimCity 4, with the Rush Hour expansion pack, which I played for months before I started playing Civ IV. I figure it’s time to give it another shot, playing a bit more strategically. I’ll have more to say when I get a city to a more interesting point in development, but here’s the one I’m working now:

… consists of 3 iPhones, 1 iPad, 1 copy of the official Scrabble iPad app ($9.99), and 3 copies of the official “Scrabble Tile Rack” iPhone app (free). Actual retail value approximately $2,400, not counting 3 iPhone data service plans. If you’re really cheap, just buy 3 iPod Touches instead (bringing the total cost down to about $1,000).

Or just buy a Scrabble set at your local drugstore ($14.99). But what fun is that? There’s nothing to click or push or slide, it doesn’t beep, and you have to rotate the board yourself.

Below are a couple of photos demonstrating that, yes, this complicated Bluetooth-enabled setup does in fact work. The game even keeps track of where you’re sitting, and rotates the board to face you when it’s your turn. (The first few times, this is really creepy.) Photos are reversed, because they were already uploaded that way and I’m lazy.

I actually didn’t wake up that late, but I got up, went out into the steambath of a day to get the Times, came back in, made coffee and read the whole thing, then decided I’d play a few turns of Civilization IV. Four hours later (!), here I am, sitting on the couch being licked by a cat, eating toast made from yesterday’s bread, catching up on a little blogging as I listen to Kathy Griffin talking about her vaginal makeover.

I don’t know why I shouldn’t have days like this — and weather like today’s, nasty and oppressive and miserable, is the perfect day to stay indoors in the A/C and have one — but I feel vaguely guilty about it, as though there’s something More Important I should be doing. But there isn’t; it’s Sunday, so why not? Besides, this is life, as much as the stuff we do weekdays from 9 to 6 is. Right?

Bonus photos: current game of Civ IV. I’m playing green.

I’ve come to the end of a long, involved game of Civilization IV, and it’s time to take stock.

This game, which I played as Gandhi (whose color on the board is that lilac purple) was by far the longest, most involved, and most interesting game I’ve played so far. I did win a time victory (when the clock ran out, I was at around 3500 points, more than 1000 ahead of my next rival, and almost triple the score of my sworn enemy Montezuma. Great game, with several active civilizations and a dozen zones of triple or quadruple cultural influence.

I concentrated this time first on territorial advance and consolidation, second on cultural dominance, and only after that on research and on militarization, which may explain why I ended up in a hundred-year war of attrition with Montezuma. It didn’t affect my lead, but it sure did consume a lot of resources. Lesson learned: arm earlier, arm everywhere, and think carefully about how remote colonies will be supplied and protected.

Speaking of which, it was the first game in which I ended up with three or four completely separate and significant areas of influence, including most of the northern icecap, due to two things: an early bid to range as far as possible and plant colonies early, as soon as I got oceangoing transport; and the success of my long campaign against Montezuma (who, it must be said, declared war on me and not the other way around), who lost two large cities on his home continent of Montezumaland, and would have lost more if the clock hadn’t run out. Montezuma harried my polar cities, but only took two of the remotest ones (razing one and keeping the other); I’m not sure why, but I’m assuming he was just overextended.

It was my first game with such a heavy sea component, and because the icecaps effectively divided the world into a western sea and an eastern sea (with my continent at the middle, of course), I had to run two completely separate sea supply and defense operations, which I didn’t get figured out for a while. That cost me. In the early days, I depended on an alliance with Mao for an outlet to the eastern sea, and after he closed his borders I briefly had to go to war with him (with the help of Peter, who took Chengdu and opened the sea lanes again), but we made peace right after that. I tend to play the way I live, which is to say relatively amicably with almost everyone — that may explain why at the end of the game, despite my victory, I was rated with the strategic prowess of Ethelred the Unready (worst of all save Dan Quayle), but I think it makes the game interesting.

To my amazement, I held Darjeeling throughout the hundred years’ war, despite light defenses, a century of bombardment, and a land border with Montezuma (at a city he’d taken from me). This was for the same reason that it had originally been hard to settle: the city itself was cut off by a mountain from the adjacent lands, so it would have had to have been attacked by sea, and he must have not had marines or the capacity to use them. (See the bottom photo below.)

Here are a couple of photos. Click through to see larger images, or to see the whole set, which is also here.

I don’t know how you spent the holiday weekend, but I spent mine playing Electro Chase 2000 with 14 of my friends in Dutchess County. I now have about 5,000 mosquito and ant bites, one nasty horsefly bite (now healing, thank you), and a huge sense of camaraderie and accomplishment.

If you aren’t familiar with EC2K (which you aren’t, since we invented it ourselves earlier this year), it’s kind of like paintball for people who (1) like to play at night, (2) prefer the “playing” part over the “winning” part, and (3) don’t really like getting sprayed with paint. I’ve never been much of a running-around group gamer, and I sat out the previous rounds on the sidelines, but this just goes to show that if you throw me in with the right crowd and cajole me enough, I can enjoy myself playing along with anything.

Here’s what you need:

• Somewhere between six (6) and twenty (20) fun-loving and group-oriented friends, who don’t mind running around in the dark on potentially treacherous terrain;
• Grounds to play on, with some acreage and varied land features;
• Dark outfits for everyone, to help make the game harder;
• A supply of glow bracelets in various colors;
• A golf cart and some flashlights;
• Additional adventure accoutrements to taste (robot breastplates, face makeup, etc.).

It’s worth noting that most of the supplies we needed (aside from the golf cart) were available at the Dollar Tree a few miles away on Route 22.

The rules, which are still evolving, are straightforward. Imagine yourself in a dystopian future, with whatever backstory you choose. For starters, just to calibrate your brain, imagine a gigantic game of “Logan’s Run” played in the dark, between a small group of Seekers and a larger band of Runners. The object of the game is for the Runners to find all the energeon rings (we used glow bracelets) that were previously hidden by the Seekers, and return the rings to base, before the Seekers can find and apprehend all the Runners. The Runners must wear the energeon rings visibly (that’s part of the game), so what you see at the height of a round is flashes of luminescent blue and green in the distance, pursued at intervals by furious flashlight-waving lunatics in a golf cart. In the dark. Loads of fun!

We had two Seekers in a golf cart chasing between six and ten Runners, which was about right for the size of playing field we had. We also had one or two Jailers, who kept time and score and looked after the detainees. In the two largest rounds, we added a third Seeker on foot; the Foot Seeker was required to wear a ridiculous flashing necklace to make him visible to Runners, but in both rounds, despite that handicap, the Foot Seeker did an able job of apprehending Runners, who need to put their eyes in every direction at once and can’t possibly do it.

We played about 15 rounds over the course of the weekend, tinkering with the rules, and experimented with various things: what are the rules of engagement for apprehending Runners, what is the proper ratio of energeon rings to runners, how may flashlights be employed, how must Seekers on foot identify themselves, should there be a time limit, where and how is it permissible for the Seekers to hide energeon rings, how must rings be displayed by Runners once found, how may jailed Runners be broken out of jail to rejoin the game, etc.

In a group of our size, playing on our field with our rules, rounds typically take about 15 to 20 minutes (down from 30 minutes when we first started, before we got good); and with adept Seekers, the odds of winning the round are roughly even between Runners and Seekers.

The game definitely goes better if everyone stays in character; we had a lot of “Run, Runner, Run!” and “You can’t hide forever!” from the Seekers, which kept us all focused.

Below is a satellite map of our playing field in daylight (remember, we played by moonlight, so everyone had to commit the map to memory). We ruled certain parts of the property nearest the house out of bounds (so as not to disturb our kind and generous hosts, who were already in bed), but otherwise we had the run of the place, and we took full advantage.

Note the maze at right, which is a set of winding paths cut into a field of tall grasses (where yours truly got his nasty horsefly bite, when he dove into a patch of native wildflowers to avoid the oncoming Seekers); the pond with dock and rowboat at upper right; the woods at the top; and the large tree-studded lawns elsewhere. Most of these areas were in play. Each part of the field involved its own strategy and had its own dangers — like the tree full of ants I hid behind at one point.

I’m proud to say that, during my one round as Seeker, I was responsible for three of the best ring hides of the weekend: in the left rear wheel well of my VW New Beetle, nine feet up in the crook of an oak tree, and tied to the boat rope hanging from the dock into the pond. Our rules say that the rings had to be visible from somewhere on the field, but it didn’t say from where, so all these hides were legit. Someone else wrapped a ring around the flagpole (ingenious!), and yet another sneak placed one right under the lights at the front gate, making it impossible to retrieve without being fully illuminated for the benefit of the Seekers.

Here’s our merry band just before going out for the first round of night 3:

It’s important to note that, despite possible appearances to the contrary, this is not a game to be played under the influence, of alcohol or otherwise. Not only do you need your reflexes to stay in the game (it’s surprising how quickly your primal reactions take over when you’re being chased by two lunatics in a golf cart yelling “Run, Runner, Run!” in the dark), but remember we’re all running around on hilly terrain in the dark and being chased across that terrain by a golf cart with no headlights. We did have one accident on night 2 involving a face and a low-hanging tree limb (which was subsequently tagged with a “caution” glow ring), whose victim jumped right back into the game on night 3 (good sport!), but it could easily have been worse: golf cart in the pond, player run over in the maze, etc.

So play with your friends, look out for each other, stay alert, and keep the game fun. I’m looking forward to the next round, later in the summer.

(Photos courtesy Keren Form)

They’re here: Civilization V screenshots (hat tip: Dave Leichtman). Cool stuff, although the feel of the game will be totally different.

Sorry, gotta go play Civ IV…

Worth putting in another quick plug for Peter Gordon’s Fireball Crosswords, a puzzle-a-week subscription crossword edited by the puzzle constructor who formerly edited the New York Sun puzzles.

For the record, I’ve spent more than an hour, over two days, on Puzzle 22, and I’m still missing about a third of the fill. These are very, very hard puzzles. (Peter recently asked if the puzzles were too hard, just right, or not hard enough, and the votes were slightly in favor of “not hard enough” — he apparently pays attention.) And, hello, compared to everyone except the top 100 solvers in the world, I’m really good at crosswords.

Sign up here for 10 bucks a year. And buy Peter’s books — they pay his mortgage.

Here are the photos you’ve been waiting for. Enjoy!

I want to put in a plug for Peter Gordon’s Fireball Crosswords, which are the successor series to the beloved New York Sun puzzles that Peter edited and (in large part) constructed. These weekly puzzles, typically themeless so far (although Peter may have other ideas in store), which arrive in your email, are on average difficult to very difficult: I’m currently working puzzle 4, which is at least as difficult as a Times Friday and is very, very slow going.

Subscription is $10 per year, or $70 if you want the right to provide an entry for 1-Across in a future puzzle. Very much worth the money. Please subscribe — we want Peter to be subsidized to keep this effort up!

Tonight I re-solved a clean copy of Brendan Emmett Quigley’s puzzle #5 from the tournament. (Note: No spoilers here.) I suspect I wouldn’t have had a clean solve even untimed — tonight I peeked at the answer grid with 3 squares unfilled, and one of them I probably never would have gotten (although now, 15 minutes later, I finally have understood the clueing for that last entry).

What made it hard, I think, is that the way the clues and the theme combine to create the theme entries is a little different than in other puzzles. This threw me (along with a couple hundred of my friends), such that the theme took me a long time to start puzzling out, and I didn’t get it until it was too late. In fact, I realize now that I understood the theme logic a little incorrectly in competition — it’s only now as I re-solve that I have it right.

If anyone has a lock of Brendan Quigley’s hair, or a fingernail clipping, or anything I can use for some protective white magic in advance of next year’s tournament, please send it my way. I was originally in a somewhat less generous mood and thinking voodoo, but white magic is so much more in the spirit of the event. Besides, with crossword construction powers like his, he’s probably immune to black magic anyway. Along with my white magic, I plan to do every puzzle on Brendan’s Web site between now and next year’s tournament. Best to be prepared.