Favonius Cornelius

Hi folks, just wanted to mention that I have posted my second installment of pictures from my Italy trip this year, this time of the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli. Note the spooky black cat on the alter in the square temple!

The Turks are some of the worst in the world, right next to the Chinese, who have a remarkable disregard for history and archaeology. Over the last 10 years at least I've read countless articles of Byzantinian sites being destroyed for the smallest of reasons. You know why too: different religion, intolerance and ignorance, and an effort to forget the past in exchange for the now. What gets me is when countries like these get all upset that someone from another country has a historical artifact. Fact is, if it was not for that collector then some priceless history would not exist today, as with much of China

Are you talking EU3 here? That's the only one that is similar to Rome, all the others (the Eu2-generation games) are quite different. CK is a role-playing game, HoI a wargame, Victoria a highly complex socio-economic simulator and then there's EU2 which I suppose is the base template but still very different from the others, as well as different from EU3 and Rome. That said, Rome has turned out to be a flop, and I'm glad I withstood the temptation of finally getting my hands on a Roman Paradox game. Perhaps you are right, I think I am thinking of the progression of EUII to Roma. It was so disappointing to see how similar Rome and EU were. $50 down the drain...oh the burn! I usually keenly enjoy going out of my way of sending my money to great game developers too.

The writing and the plot was not great, but at least it did not insult you or spit in your face. Also it was clearly made to make a splash with IMAX. I could do with a touch less flashy action scenes, and more content. Hey though, if the label needs that level of success though to keep going and inspire more attention then I'm ok with it.

You know what we need isn't oil at all, what we need is to make every land combustion engine an electric one. We have the tech to do it now, but what we don't have is the will to do so nor the power over the oil countries and corporations to make it happen. What the world really needed was not an Iraq but a total conversion over to electric powered cars. It could easily have happened with those billions, and would have spurned huge business opportunities. Of course, we instead chose the path of war for a variety of reasons I'll not bother to get into. Course, thinking back to an old topic long ago in the arena, M. Porcius Cato might have a few different big business counter opinions.

Ah there's the correct balance post.

I'll have to check that one out Maladict. Actually reminds me of another unique battle game: The Great Battles series.

I hate cities with a passion, and in the next few years am going to do my level best to get away from them. Frankly, I rather risk the occasional sting of the bee than the crime, crowding, noise and pollution of most cities of the world. Cities are unnatural, filthy places where disease of mind and body breeds. Don't believe me? Visit Rome, and you will be a new believer! I don't think it has changed much since Augustus' day.

Have you ever needed your Roman game fix, and gone to the store in a vain attempt to find something fresh and exciting? After you get over RTW and its mods, you'll find that a great majority of 'Roman' themed games are nothing more than a sorry template of the Warcraft war game engine. I can't tell you how tired I am of seeing that garbage being sold to us on the sly, for the Roman theme and many more. Read the box and they will sell you all sorts of promises on the game play and show you graphics you'll never see, only to find that its just another cookie cutter version of Warcraft: collect resources, build buildings, build mindless units then send them en masse against your enemy. The game developers do this because they are cowards! Too afraid to try something new and fresh, they do what's been done before. Hell I think you can even buy the rights to the template, and all you have to do is make the maps and unit graphics. The best attempts at the Roman theme are RTW and Roma Victor (if you have the computational power and LOTS of patience). Oh I suppose there is the Caesar city building game, but how many times can one arrange one's temples around the forum? Everything else sadly sucks. I

Not sure that 'massive' is accurate....maybe multiplayer online role playing game. MORPG! In the time I played it though it was pretty fun. I guess my biggest gripes about it would be needing to add 1000's of objects into a mud hut to make one, and the combat system. Point, click, and hope the gods are on your side that day!

Basically when it comes to these Paradox games, all you need to buy is Europa Universalis, because each of its associated games are a cookie cutter match to this one, with a few bells and whistles added to make it seem more adjusted to the theme. So in this one they have what, a few 'pleb' and 'equites' scores and some new graphics, but essentially you are buying EU. EU somewhat fun, but it can have a steep learning curve and many nuances that you might disastrously forget the next time you play, overburdened with probably too many options that don't do much to reflect the times as much as make you want to build a few excel spreadsheets to keep on top of what is going on. I totally agree with Ursus' review!

If you want to set up your own battles with units that reflect the time period, then it is worth it. If you want to redo Alexander's conquest of Persia in campaign mode, save your money, because it's AI is terrible and things get unrealistically slogged down.

200,000 year old human hair found in dung By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent Palaeontologists found 40 strands of fossilised hair inside samples of coprolite, or fossilised dung, from a cave in South Africa that was used by brown hyaenas. Until now the oldest samples of human hair were from a 9,000 year old mummy found in northern Chile. It is extremely rare for soft tissue such as hair, skin and muscle to survive more than a few hundred years and only hard tissue like bone is fossilised normally. But scientists believe the new samples of hair are the remains of an early species of human that was scavenged by hyaenas after death, allowing the delicate hairs to be preserved inside the dung as it fossilised. As reported at Telegraph.co.uk...

Who was that masked man? Hail one and all, I'm back! I just had too much fun in Rome with too many things to share.

I spent the day there yesterday and I intend to return as soon as possible Are you traveling in the area around Rome at the moment? Oh excellent! I came back a few days ago, and now I'm letting my body recover from running around Latium and Campania. Thankfully I got sick only after getting home, but I figured it would happen some time. Although I went to Capri with the intention of seeing some of Tiberius' villas, but decided against it since its a pain in the posterior to get around that island and I did not plan it well. As you might expect, after a mixed sea food platter I had there, Tiberius had his revenge on me.