Saturday, September 22, 2012

I'll be Bach

Have you ever played Haydn seek? It's a very fun game where one hide and the other seeks. Or maybe I should put up a bumper sticker saying "dude, Bach off". Don't worry, I can Handel it. Ok, that's enough of my stupid music puns. Let's get down to business.

For those who haven't been stalking reading my blog, I'll just let you know that I'm part of a clan in World of Tanks. I thought it might be a nice idea to just recount the events of our battles for the past couple of nights. It's unfortunate that I didn't get the time/chance to take screenshots seeing how lately my schedule has been so tight. No, I'm pretty sure she didn't say that for all those who were about to say "that's what she said". 

So one particular night, I had the lovely experience of being in a 11 vs. 15 battle. Naturally, I was part of the 11 (woot!) and the awesome part was, our strategy worked! We were able to take on a numerically superior force and I'm sure that it'll really help with morale in the clan. Granted it wasn't their "good" team that we fought against but it was still a good start. We have been fighting in clan wars for about a month now and we never really held land for more than a couple of days. We could take it but we never really had enough people to hold it. So I'm really hoping that we'll soon get more players to help defend. 

I wish I could talk about the strategy but that would mean revealing classified information and no one would like that. So I'll just keep quiet and let you readers use your imagination. We also managed to develop a nice strategy that was awesome for defense even if it costed us half of our team. As long as we could lead the battle into a draw, we still kept the land. That's how it works with owner's battles in World of Tanks. 

Aside from that, the clan does do a very nice job of fighting together as a team and it's often quite interesting when the enemy decides to just pool all their resources onto one flank and we get hard pressed to defend it. 

Monday, September 17, 2012

T32 Research Path

Essentially the heavy version of the M26 Pershing, the T32 carries a lot more armor and has a bigger gun than its medium brother. Basically some dude walked into a Pershing factory and went "What if we made this bigger?" (Or something similar to that).

Anyway, keep in mind that even with the 105 mm gun you'll still be outgunned so you must always aim for the weak spots if you are to shine on the battlefield. Also thanks to its low profile, the T32 is also an excellent tank for facehugging especially against those pesky KV-5's.
  1. Tracks: T84E3A
  2. Gun: 105 mm Gun T5E1
  3. Turret: T119
  4. Engine: GMC Allison V1710-E32
  5. Engine: Continental AV-1790-3
  6. Radio: SCR 528
  7. Tank: M103

You should have most of these modules from the T29 such as the 105 mm or the upgraded engine. You can put on the engine without having to research the tracks so do that if you already have it. Also keep in mind that you will need new tracks if you want to mount the 105 mm so you'll be stuck using that 90 mm for quite some time. 



Friday, September 14, 2012

Anno 2070 [Updated]

So approximately a year ago, Ubisoft released Anno 2070. A sequel to its series, Anno 2070 introduces players to a possible future where global warming has taken a turn for the worse and has caused the ice bergs to melt considerably. It's to the point where mountains are the new lands and everything else is submerged.

Anno 2070 is a city building game but also incorporates some RTS into it as you command your ships and some aircraft. The variety of units may be lacking but they are still fun to play around with. You've got standard cargo ships able to transport goods from one island to another (keep in mind that Anno 2070 takes place on islands and not large pieces of lands). Then you've got nifty warships which do battle against other warships and depending on the ship in question, it may have the armaments to attack submarines and aircraft. Submarines can't attack aircraft but they are awesome for attacking most ships as they lack the proper weapons to defend themselves against these sneaky units. Aircraft on the other hand lets you attack inland as your ships' ranges will reach only so far. Although strangely enough, there are no airplanes but instead, there are helicopters and VTOLs.

Anno 2070 is also a rather complicated game as you progress onward and build up your civilization. At first you may only need to contend with fishery for food and tea or liquor for drinks to satisfy your citizens' needs. But soon you'll be faced with challenges of getting them lobster meals, champagnes, expensive jewelry, household robots and 3D projectors just to name a few. The problem is that each of these goods requires different raw materials and other unfinished goods so you'll be jumping all over the place trying to gather all the right materials.

There's also the issue of raw materials. Each island can support up to a maximum number of 4 fertilities (provided you are playing on easy mode) so you may farm up to 4 different foods. Seeing how this game has more than four foods, you're going to have to expand to other islands and farm there as well. Other raw materials such as oil, coal, copper or uranium are also difficult to find all on one island thereby forcing you to either stay in the stone age or expand and settle in other islands. The biggest issue with expand to so many different islands is making sure that all raw materials and goods go to where they need to go. Raw materials need to go to factories while finished goods need to go to your citizens. You can put factories on the same island as your citizens thereby saving time and the trip of transporting the goods in question. But then you face the problem of eco-balance.     

The biggest challenge in this game is maintaining a good eco-balance for your citizens. Those living underneath too much smog will soon start feeling unhappy and unhappy citizens means less taxes. Also, if your eco-balance drops too low (say -500 for example), you might see a natural disaster or two destroying a good chunk of your city. This encourages players to build buildings that help improve the eco-balance making it a much better place for your people to live in.

This is just a brief outline of what Anno 2070 has to offer. I know I didn't write much here but I will put up a couple of pictures just to please your eyes.

In this picture, you can see an anti-ship turret in the foreground protecting my docks from enemy attack. My (unfinished) city sits in the background.

Here we have two lovely submarines on the surface of the water waiting for their orders.

Here we see the same two submarines now submerged and are underwater. You can see some of the marine animals in the background.

Edit (Sept. 15): I felt like taking more pictures so here they are.




Thursday, September 13, 2012

M103 Research Path

This tier 9 American heavy tank replaced the T34 in patch 0.7.2 and quite honestly, it's quite an improvement over the T34. The hull armor is now sloped making it very difficult to penetrate its upper glacis while the turret armor, despite having less armor, is still very strong as it too has lots of slopes everywhere. In addition, you now have access to the 120 mm T122 gun which has a decent amount of penetration and with enough skill, you probably won't ever have to research the last gun, the 120 mm M58. Yes, you heard me right. As long as you are constantly aiming at the weak spots, your 120 mm T122 gun will serve you very nicely. Although if you want to make your life easier, a better gun is always nicer too.

Right, now that I got the introduction out of the way, let's get started shall we?

  1. Gun: 120 mm Gun T122
  2. Engine: Continental AV-1790-7C
  3. Turret: T140
  4. Gun: 120 mm Gun M58
  5. Tracks: T97E2
  6. Radio: AN/GRC-7
  7. Tank: T110E5


Like I said previously, if you believe that you're good enough and don't want to research the final gun, don't bother. You'll get the exact same gun when you reach the T110E5 so you'll end up eliting your M103 without having to spend research points on that gun. Also, the stock tracks are able to support all your upgraded modules with some weight left for equipment. Keep in mind that your tank will still feel rather sluggish so you'll want to get the tracks before you get the radio. 

Monday, September 10, 2012

Mmm, Free Stuff


Isn't it wonderful when you get free stuff? We live in a world today where free stuff is only available at supermarkets sampling food and the internet. So whenever you come across the chance of getting free stuff, chances are it's probably too good to be true or someone gave you a gift.

Anyway, I wanted to share this video which shows how to hide your tanks in World of Tanks. I won't say much other than the fact that it was very interesting and funny because of Monty Python. Read the description of the video if you don't know what I'm talking about.