alfredglenstein

Hey guys. I'm here to share my very detailed experience with the 1993 Marlins, as we tried to make ourselves survive the first year, always the hardest for any expansion team.1993, new teams! The Florida Marlins are a new expansion, along with the Colorado Rockies. The main thing this new rag-tag group must to is damage control, and with $40 million in extra salary money ready we should be able to think of something.Here is a look at the current roster:c :Benito Santiago- THE Benito. If we stay as we are, he'd be the team leader and centerpeice. But even at that he only has an OBP of around .300 and an average in the .260's. Good defense though and will do the job. Makes 1.5 mill.1b:Orestes Destrade- A mysterious 30 year old with B- contact C+ eye and A power. Tiny salary. I am not sure I trust this dude.2b:Rich Renteria Ratings all in the C's and low B's definately not worth starting.3b:Dave Magadan- Yeah! Our contact hitter. Makes 1.4 million, and will be a solid option at 3b for his OBP and average.SS:Walt Weiss- Supposed to be great, but does not even have great fielding ratings. Since he can't hit, he's not worth the 380k unless he's on the bench.LF:Greg Briley- Unknown speedster who can barely hit (a few B- skills) Not worth starting.CF:Junior Felix- Making 1.8 mill. Can hit a little (not enough to rely off for anything big) and is fast, good range/arm. For the salary though, we may want to trade.RF:Darrel Whitmore- Rookie who can not field, but has an incredible arm. Borderline hitting, will probably bomb against major league pithing.Notable Bench players:LF Carillo- A power but has never played, could perhaps fill in in the OF.CF Pose- a borderline OF good for the bench.LF Conine- the conine. Has borderline power/eye ratings but is better than others. Still not solid enough that I would really want to risk a season on him.C Decker- a solid backup who has a tiny bit of power and can field competently.LF Berroa: A power hitting OF who also fields well, will take the LF slot when I move things around.CF Carr- THE Chuck Carr! He's not really great, but compared to the rest of these guys, it's such a releif to see an actual major leaguer! He makes just 320k and this means Felix will be traded.SS Arias- Is just C's all over the place, but is just 25, just 440k, and I do need a backup SS. So he'll do.LF Wilson- really young kid with lots of skills in the B's. Makes an ok backup if we need one.CF Everett- a great prospect with power and many other tools. Will be a backup because he's probably too young to start. Probably won't need Wilson now.Crappy Bench players to dump:SS Polidor- (old and all C ratings)LF Farris- (nice B+ power but the rest is no good. Was thinking of keeping him but he's not quite worth it.)3B Barberie- A good fielder and just barely a good enough hitter, so he makes a solid 3B replacement. But he costs 1.1 million. For a bench player I'd rather pay less. But I may keep him around.C Mcgriff- Awful catcher.C Lyden- not as bad but we still don't need him with Decker around. C Natal- An ok C, backup worthy. But we do have Decker already.To review, an embarrasingly bad offense where the best hitters are Magadan and Berrora and Everett (even though I wouldn't start Everett yet). If we're lucky Conine and Orestes will help also, but I'm not counting on it. This is the type of offense that could get shut out game after game and deperately needs change.On to the pitching...SP1: Chris Hammond- Great movement, a competent #5 starter or #4 or 3 on a bad team. But he's listed as #1. Can probably survive and hopefully stay in the 4's in era (though I suspect he will hit the 5's.) He looks like and gives hope that his ERA would stay in the 3's and that he would be a kind of 11-12 w/l record kind of guy, but he won't be. He costs 2.6 million, so if he does poorly he's got to go.SP2: Patt Rapp- Never played, bunch of B and C ratings (mostly low-mid Would make solid long releif on a team that needed it.SP3: Ryan Bowen- A terrible terrible pitcher who only belongs in the minors. The only reason he can claim to be a starter is his B- endurance. Control is D- and Movement is C-. He would not live against big league hitting. Would be the source of many losses for us.SP4: Jack Armstrong- Compared to others this guy is remarkably qualified. Equal or better than Hammond, C-B-A minus Control power and movement respectively. He has proven he can hold a 4.50 era but also fluctuates as much as one run in each direction. Solid #5 starter, and decent #4 for an average or below average team.SP5: Luis Aquino- An actual good pitcher, most likely. On a worse than average team (that is, a team much better than Florida currently) he could be as high as #3. A+ movement and control with C endurance and power. At 1.8 million, he and Hammond are the only two starters with 7 digit salaries.(Short, Middle, Long, Alternate Releif)CL: Brian Harvey- Former closer for the California Angels, he is, beleive it or not, a legitimate closer. A control, A+ power, A+ movement. A badly needed bright spot for a team with little going its way as far as hitting and SP are concerned. Makes 4.2 million but for the league of closers he belongs to you could pay much more for someone else. For example, a similarly rated Gregg Olson of Baltimore costs 7.9 million. THE Rob Dibble of Cincinatti makes 8.8 million (but he's in a league of his own.) Parret of the Rockies is 4.2 million (but much worse than our guy.) Doug Jones, 11 million, etc. And then there is just a large group of closers who are not as good. So Harvey is our beast.SU: Cris Carpenter- Great A-B-A+ stuff, he could probably close for a team that needed him. He's a proven performer (and has the $3.6 million price tag of one) and will be liked.SR: Joe Klink- Solid ratings of B-, B-, and A. Should be a solid pitcher worthy of short releif.MR: Jim Corsi- Another very good releiver. His B+, B-, A, stuff will be greatly appreciated. Costs $1.5 million.LR: Bob McClure- A 40 year old lifelong releiver, and journeyman as of the past 7 years (Florida is his 6th team in that span of time) his rock rolid B, C+, A+ ratings are happily welcomed. Makes 580k.AR: Mat Turner- And if all that were not enough, we have here young Mat Turner, 26 years old, C+, B, A- ratings. You'd think from looking at this staff that you weren't in Florida.Before going on, I will say that there is at least one part of philosophy that my predecessor (who put together this team I have to work with) and I agree on: the importance of releif pitching. I think solid releif is CRITICAL and I think it is a good means of judging what teams are bound for the post season, and it should never under any circumstances be underestimated. For a poor team, its the easiest and quickest way to improve and try to reach for .500 and beyond. However, my predecessor and seems to disagree with me on one point: you need a team that doesn't suck if you want to win. Surely he could not have beleived that with this pathetic offense we were going anywhere. And for all the benefits of good releif, if there is no lead to hold onto, good releif does not really matter.Notable pitchers in AAA:SP Hough- Yes, the knuckleballer, now 45 years old but still pitching. He seems to be approaching the end of his career, but it's been 13 years since he's had an era higher than 4.35, and even just last year was a successful 3.93 run with the White Sox. Costing just about 700k, he's well worth the possible 200 innings we could get out of him. May perhaps be the best or second best starter available to us, depending on what you think of Aybar. We have to be wary of a collapse though, which may happen and will have to one of these years.RP Trever Hoffman- C-, A-, C. For a 25 year old this A- power may be worth holding on to.Crappy pitchers in AAA to dump:SP Lewis- a crappy 27 year old with low C's and B's. But the sad thing is at this point he might actually be needed on our team.RP Weathers- real life forsight would tell me of the great releif career he has waiting for him, but here in 1993-land I just can not see it.SP Johnstone- 24 year old made up of D's and C's, not even worth being on this team.And that is your Marlins. Let's go on to contracts about to expire.Contracts that are up this year:SS Weiss wants an extra 4 years at 390k, over his 1 year 380k deal now. Not bad, but I'll wait and see.CF Felix wants 4 years at 2.5 mill. I don't even want him at 1.8. He'll be traded soon.RF Whitmore took a one year extension at 310k. Losing 10k on his salary but gaining a year of security.LF Carillo, who may or may not be a good hitter, wants a 1 year extension to 540k from his current 450k salary. I may trade him, so I'm not really interested.CF Scott Pose earns an extra 10k, up to 350,000 by signing on for the 1994 season.LF Conine wants to go up to 590k for an extra year of play (from 500k). We may trade him, and he doesn't even really have a starting job here. We'll let some other team give it to him.Signed 2 year extension for C Decker (his contract is now until he's 30 (3 years) and is 10k LESS than what it was.)LF Berroa wants a raise from 540k to 660k for an extra 3 years. His power potential is much better than the other guys, so we'll give him a shot.SS Arias wants to go from 440k to 520k for an extra year. I barely want him as it is.LF Nigel Wilson wants a 70k raise to 480, but I don't care.CF Everett actually took a 10k cut to stay on for another year! (now 320k.) Everett certainly seems a man of the future here.SP Rapp, just 40k for a year, he gets it.It looks like our setup man Carpenter will not be coming back after this season. (He wants 4 years at 4.9 million up from 3.6 mill, which would make him more well-paid than our closer.)RP Klink signs on for an extra three years at 780k. He might not entirely be worth it, but if he is we have him at a decent price.RP McClure just wants a one year deal to stick around in the 700k range. We'll wait and see.RP Hoffman wants to jump up to 550k, but maybe a full year in the minors will make him a bit more modest, because that is where I plan on keeping him.Now we have to think of what holes we want to fill. We have a large amount of dumpable hitters/pitchers that some stupid teams will want to grab. We have 35 million in projected salary room and 18.7mill in cash, we need a strategy.As much as I want a strategy for winning, I think my resources are only good enough to permit surviving as a strategy. The holes in the offense are so gaping and many that something must be done. And we need a few SP anchors. The only thing that doesn't need improvement is releif (hopefully). As much as I'd like to take on a WINNING strategy (something like the Arizona Diamondback ploy of having two ace sp's) I am not sure how feasible it is. And I cannot put hopes in marginally good players, as poor performance is infections (I strongly beleive some Devil Rays players playing right now would have turned into stars in a better environment) I think I will need some solid true hard-core centerpeices for my offense and pitching. Not just stupid minor upgrades like getting Shawon Dunstin or something.Hopefully some teams will like my guys enough so I can pull off a collection of Shawon-Dunstin type deals without giving up my depth (which I need for GOOD players) so I can just make straight improvements and send a little extra cash toward some other teams plas a player in exchange for an improvement. Also, I will need to spend a substantial portion of that 45 million on scouting, because the draft for next year is ESSENTIAL. We will be focusing on starting pitching above all, then releif pitching, and then any power hitting position players available.First I am going to try for a starting pitcher who can truly anchor us. And not some stupid almost anchor like Tom Candiotti, but a real one.I thought about Boston's Roger Clemens, but he would have costed RP Weathers, SP Johnstone, RF Whitmore and 17.8 million, almost all my money. He also has a salary of 15.9 million. But I am not going to forget this. It would be huge to have him.Amazingly, when searching for power pitchers, Nolan Ryan of Texas came up. Apparently Texas really didn't have a place for him, as they basically let him walk for free on over to Florida!APRIL 1, 1993 Marlins receive Nolan Ryan (SP) Rangers receive $200,000His ratings are B+ Endurance, A- Control, A+ Power and A+ Movement. I am still wary last year his ERA surged up to 3.72 and he is 46 years old. Hopefully he can provide some anchorage, but I fear he came cheap for a reason and perhaps Texas knows something I don't.We looked at power pitchers. Clemens we could not get. We got Ryan. Juan Guzman, Sid Fernandez, David Cone, and Tom Gordon's names came up but for the most part they had huge salaries they couldn't justify. But there was one 6'10" 29 year old with power and perhaps a real future...APRIL 1, 1993 Mariners receive Gus Polidor (SS), Dave Weathers (SP), John Johnstone (RP), Richie Lewis (SP), Nigel Wilson (LF) and Terry McGriff © Marlins receive Randy Johnson (SP) Mariners receive $5,900,000Apparently the Mariners really needed some bench warmers. Johnson is a more substantial ace, but does carry the burden of a 10.5 million dollar salary. But we still have 36 million we can spend. (we haven't yet taken out the money for ensuring a solid farm system yet.)One other phenom came up, a 28 year old bearing a world series ring that the Mets were able to give up..APRIL 1, 1993 Mets receive Bob Natal ©, Mitch Lyden ©, Bret Barberie (3B), Junior Felix (CF) and Darrell Whitmore (RF) Marlins receive Dwight Gooden (SP) Mets receive $5,800,000This was also for a combination of bench warmers and money. I am sure you reading will disagree with my spending all this expendable talent on Johnson and Gooden, saying I could have got one or the other, and then if I really needed I could have got someone else who just wasn't so costly. I thought this also and am aware of it but I must contend that I do not want a stale gray destined to fail staff, and I think this is a legitimately decent rotation now.Ok. Will add more stuff later on as the season continues.

Thanks, my mistake. I threw that in afterward, but you are right. Are you saying that if there wasn't censoring then the cursing and language would be a serious problem? Ok then. Is this supposed to refute what I said? I respectfully submit that what you said doesn't put to rest the things I mentioned about censoring, that it is all just meaningless silly gestures that don't really acheive anything. I didn't even advocate any policing nor beleive that to be the solution, just to plain drop the filters because they don't really do anything. The specific words a person uses to express their sentiment are trivial compared to the idea their words come together to form. A person can be just as angry whether they use the word *bottom* or its alternative and you don't stop that by just censoring. Even if you do, you don't resolve it. A person just sighs in frustration that you (by censoring) have strong-armed them out of saying what they really meant. And the discussion suffers. I'm up to 40 something posts here now and I'm not sure I swore once (except for one peice of writing but that was a peice of creative writing not addressed to anyone where swears were involved actually to convey meaning) If you really wanted respectful discussion on these boards, you aren't going to get it by just choosing what words to filter, but rather by the community. And to say "yes, that's true but these filters still help in a limited way" implies that you are trying to hold up to some level of quality, but I think filters really just take that away by just objecting to curse words, etc. I know you had more in your post, but I was afraid this just kind of got away from what I was saying at the start. I have read your post 2-3 times in full, and will be back to address them tommorow afternoon and acknowledge the parts where you are right, but I have to get going for the moment. Notice from jlhaslip: merged

The censoring I think is unhelpful, and that this forum's policies are contradictory on this subject. For one example, the "vent" and related forums are under the umbrella of the "Trapped in *BLEEP*" web site. Look at that! Did you see? The name of one of your very own websites I am not allowed to reproduce in a post. THAT is a double standard. Additionally, while writing this post, I see an add for "Dont Stop Adult T-Shirt"... no swears but hey go get adult T-shirts?However, I don't think you should stop censoring just because of that. I think you should in respect for the community so this web site doesn't feel like a padded Disneyland children's park (which it feels like when you have to read the word "bleep"... honestly... it's like we are playing house or trying to pretend this is TV and imagine that this our words are bleeped out.) And the use of "*bottom*" to replace the other obvious word, I think it silly and makes the forums kind of a joke whenever we have to confront that aspect of it. It would seem more grounded in reality to lift the censoring.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/world/creationism-dismissed-as-a-kind-of-paganism-by-vatican-s-astronomer-1-1116595 I just wanted to say, if there can be any religious authority that is closest to the voice of objectivity on this issue, I beleive it is the Vatican. Besides the sad half-arguments offered (trying to seperate Macro and Micro evolution which are one in the same but only seperated for the sake of conceptualization and interpretation) it should be allowed that evolution and christianity are not mutually exclusive. I think it ends up being something of a pet cause, so you know you are at least doing something in the name of god, to take up this issue and fight for it. It's a phony fight that has more to do with ones religion and need to act in service of it than with their conviction of what is true.

Dude, we aren't "forgetting" anything if we haven't mentioned it, and the only way you can suggest that is if your intution led you to invent that idea. It is untrue. There are medical problems (but roughly 30% of obesity is due to genetics, meaning 70% is because of lifestyle and environment, those are the facts). The sources are out there and if you want I'll get them but I know off the top of my head. If you don't take my word for it I'll look it up (but it will only demonstrate I'm right.) This here is the problem with fat acceptance, and why it is such a complicated issue. We aren't even allowed to talk about it because first someone will get caught up warning us about how intolerant we are being. And while they stand up making that statement it gets in the way of the bigger issue: fat is unhealthy, it is preventable, and it kills (connected to diabetes, cancer, heart disease, some of the biggest killers out there.) That is important and it is really ironic that people who stand up and say others are being judgmental or aren't thinking about something, go on and assume (baselessly) that their opponents are making some assumption. There are always, in any discussion, exceptions to the rule, but if the exceptions are so irrelevantly tiny it is generally accepted that we don't have to go out of our way making note of them. I think that is a given (in many cases,) but you present it as if this speaks against the proven fact that obesity is unhealthy. Not accepting it doesn't mean that we don't understand the difficulty of it. This again is the problem. No one wants to speak up on obesity without first listing all of the exceptions, and frankly, its a disservice to the real discussion we should be having. Yes diets can be hard, yes in some cases people who take medicines are less able to lose weight yes this and that. But is this supposed to mean that it is ok to try and tell ourselves that being obese is healthy? Of course not! And that was the point in the first place! And so when these exceptions are listed it wastes our time filling the air and filling forums with space where we have to agree... which then opens a back door and lets us get distracted from the real issue. I think this is the laymen discussion on obesity: "Did you know obesity is attributable to 300,000 deaths a year?" "Yeah that's true but it's hard for some people to lose weight" "Yeah.." RIGHT THERE! Look! Did you see it! The main point just evaporated and was gone! We can't let our debates be so simple and shallow like this, because if they remain this way our country will never come to a solid and clearly unified understanding of the need to stop obesity. If they don't act to change it and at least see what weight loss they are capable of, then it is their fault, regardless of their metabolism or circumstance. If it truly isn't their fault, we are talking about minority of the people who actually are obese. Yes let's accept this but we have to move on and have the real discussion. Also note that I didn't even volunteer to get into any of this but spoke only of a specific organization that specifically volunteered particular facts that were untrue. But here I am having to defend against all these things that I never even claimed I beleived. And this is a reason for saying it's okay for levels of obesity to go up by like 25% a year across the world? Hmm. If it is true it has to still be placed in the context of all the diseases and health problems that it increases risk for. A straight mortality and obesity graph would show that the more obese one is the more likely they are to die an early death, so any health benefit (which I have not heard of) is definately absorbed and made insignificant by the problems it raises.

Have you guys heard of the National Association for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance? Their name is self-evident, but to elaborate it is a group that among other things, hint that the entire industry of obesity research is biased because of their economic stake in the issue, implying that their information on obesity health risks are misleading. http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ And from the same page: If you've ever tried to wade through piles of available research papers in any subject of science, you've surely realized that such a cavalier sweep of the hand as this, over the entire field of obesity research, does supreme injustice to the diversity of research and opinions available. And about that lack of excersize research, if you go to Obesityresearch.org and just type in "exercise" as a search term, this is the page you get: http://www.nature.com/aj/formerly_published.html= No exercise research? And those are just a few of their positions. There are surely stigmas against fat people that ought to be fought against. But in my opinion this group (which is sadly speaking for and influencing a lot of people concerned with this cause) takes this message to an anti-science turn that can not do anything but harm the people who listen to it. thoughts?

The exact sequence of buildings is this:1. Townhall2. Mill3. Townhall4. Blacksmith5. Storage Depot6. Barracks7. Market8. Town Hall9. Academy10. Barracks and stables and everything you want.As Ukraine, a Diplomacy Center is fairly important in the beginning to ensure against being rushed, a tactic which always makes this particular nation vulnerable. Even their gunners from the Barracks, the Serduiks, will not be enough. They will not slow the enemy pikemen down, and they'll waste time running away from pikeman when they should be shooting. Serduiks are fantastic shooters though. Even though Ukraine does not have 18th century technology, the Serdiuks can be upgraded to be so powerful that they can hold their own against ANY enemy gunmen until your enemy reaches the 18th century. Even then, their 18th century muskateers or grenadiers must first upgrade before they can be effective against Serdiuks.But if you really can not afford to build a Diplomacy center, it is OK. You may be one of those elitists like myself who is too good for one, who would rather hastily build up their own army rather than waste money on a fake army that just costs a ton of gold. There are other options.Option #1: Build a Palisade wall. I know they are pathetic. Against computers though you are all set. You don't have a better wall as Ukraine, just the stupid wood ones. Even against a human opponent, you can sit behind the fence with your Serduiks and shoot the life out of the enemy. Option #2: Villagers. Employ your villagers. Ukraine is the only country who's villagers can't be captured, and they actually put up a good fight against pikemen!!! If you are facing an early rush it will only be a small group of pikemen anyway. This will be a hurtful sacrifice but you will be able to do it and stay alive and focus on economy.

Definately a classic example of the person who has a bad experience, then walks away bitter at the game and locks out any remaining chance at having fun with it. It's a wonderful game, but it is for younger kids. I have a brother and sister who both play and have friends that play, and unlike you, haven't locked themselves out from having a good experience. There is a lot to learn and experience in it and it feels a nice little niche of interest, but for younger kids. If you are 14 or over, though, it is probably not for you. But that is something totally different some saying the game is objectively crappy

Yeah, my ME experience is always pretty consistently horrible and infuriating if I give it enough time. I do put in the effort, the formatting, the anti-virus and anti-spyware programs. There is more I could do to defend windows ME (when the DLL errors start popping up, I try to check and replace DLL's, when a program implodes on itself, which happens now and then, I will re-install it) but you should only be expected to do so much before an OS is more of a chore than it is worth. I can get some clean sailing out of ME, but maybe 2000 is the way to go. I really don't want to abandon my games though. And I would really really like to, when I'm out of college, just be completely freeloading on a lightweight Linux OS with the hardware I still have. An 800mhz computer with 80 gigs of hard drive space (which is what I have) will be plenty for me to process text files and go online with, and eventually that will be my outfit. So, I suppose a partition dual-boot system with Windows 2000 and some version of Linux is the way to go. I will use Windows to play the games, and perhaps use it for Openoffice2000 (is there an office-type thing for Linux?) but I will stay offline with it. I think the online-ness side of things is what started to bogg me down. So linux would be for online things then. I think that might work. Has anyone else tried something like this?

Hey. In the vent forum I have been spending some time sharing problems with my windows pc. I have windows ME, and it used to run great, but it getting worse and worse and worse. I can switch to Windows 2000 which I have a copy of (never tried it) or re-format and stick with ME (in which case I'm fairly confident it will slowly over a period of 1-2 years again become unusable. But Linux I've heard is free and lightweight.Also, consider me not entirely interested in a Mac. They can be more stable than Windows (though I think XP is fairly equal to a mac in stability) but I do not want a mac, if only for stupid reasons of my own.. dislike of the interface, I'm used to games and programs that run on windows, I already have a scanner and print (each are functional but fairly ancient) etc. Can linux find itself compatable with PC devices, and perhaps, even programs? I know linux has rss readers and html editors, and that alone is enough to make me happy. It will be hard to wean myself from games such as Cossacks though. Should I just tough it out on windows? any help appreekeeated.

Thanks. I do have this however. I think that a format is truly the answer. You know how it is though, submerged in your own situation you just think of how to make the best of it. But it pulls you in further and further untill you try to make the best of ridiculous nonsense. So it is helpful to have someone from the outside come up with a fresh perspective and simlpy say it is intolerable. I think I will format it..

Hey all. This is the start of a Cossacks opening for Art of War, describing a Ukraine- based opening. I may change and edit it as time goes on, but here goes...It may very well just be my unique situation, that makes this Cossacks Art of War strategy so irresistable to write- but the reward to be had out of any game is more reaped from your investment in it than its initial surface level impact on the player. Let me say in the open, I here am heavily invested in this game, and this paper is one investment more for which I hopefully reap some further depth of experience that is to be had by the game.This is not to say that there is no limit whatever to the value of this game or the depth of it. Indeed, the computer A.I. even at a Very Hard setting is very beatable and very set on one particular strategy. The game Cossacks is just as much a victim of predictability as many other games. In a situation where several equally logical decisions can be made, or several decisions that are more or less similar even when a particular one is advantageous but the benefit of the others is in the nature of their uniqueness, you will find that the A.I. often has one and only one and never anything besides the one decision of how to engage that scenario. In certain senses this makes the game easier, as when one learns the exact decision the opponent is going to make, it releives them of the effort of preparing for any of their alternative decisions (which is NOT AT ALL EVER a thing to be taken lightly). The dissapointing thing is that so much of the value of a strategic move is not due to the raw tools (the strength of the units) who enact the move- but the circumstances which those units enter. A group of hundreds of pikemen marching straight into cannons will be slaughtered. But it is possible that a small cluster of five Cossacks can run through a town capturing and destroying dozens of buildings and peasants. It is obvious then that so much of an effective strategy, above and beyond the raw power of the units, is to be found in how the units are applied, and this is a realm which the computer player can seem to be totally blind to, which strips us of much value to be had in unpredicatability. It seems to me somewhat fruitless to similarly defang yourself in a conscious effort to not react to what you know the computer will do. In every game you must take full advantage of whatever knowledge you have, and have no sympathy for the enemy under any circumstance. Nonethess difficulty can still be increased, but only in narrow ways- your enemy can send several hundreds of troops to be slaughtered by your cannons instead of several dozen, but the only challenge is that you must build more cannons. But it very well may be necessary to "defang" onself by disabling artillery, using a huge map, disallowing mongolfier, or playing against several very hards who can attack from different directions. But any such handicap must be something that you can totally disable so it can never be used during the game.This naturally forces the most relevant discussion of strategy to be toward multiplayer, though computer players as well will be considered- and the experience victory over the computer (several very hards), and then the brick wall one hits where any further improvement in strategy is so irrelevant because it does so little to affect your already inevitable victory should be considered a point of "graduation" in strategy.This strategy then, to be more spefic, will for the most part focus on a land map (or mediterranean) and for the most part be dealing with Ukraine when discussing strategy, though the ideas here may be expanded for use in Cossacks in general.The economyThe real battle is the battle before the battle- for the supreme economy. Surely a huge economy and no army at all leaves you ruined, or a huge economy and a weak or poorly managed army leaves you ruined. The real strategy though is to avoid needing strategy, to avoid getting into a situation where you and your enemy are so equal that strategy (military maneuvoring, choice of troops to build, etc.) is the deciding arena of the game. A good strategy is one where you are so powerful that you can absorb mistakes made (though no mistake or laziness is EVER encouraged) and still win. Your answer is to your worst cast scenario- and you must make your victory so inevitable that this scenario shows your victory.A short example- Ukraine has the most terrible navy in all of Cossacks. Their most powerful unit is the Galley, and every single nation can build more powerful boats than Ukraine. However, I have been able to control the seas against two very hards with Galleys alone. They were inferior ships- but I had many docks and pumped the gallies out rapidly, and with a superior economy I could afford to build hundreds of them. I think the underlying principles in this example are the ultimate trump cards a player should hold as their first and highest goal. That is a superior economy that is "put in play" which is to say, to get and play this trump card by producing the kind of armies that can only be generated from a kind of an economic advantage, so that you have the very valuable luxury of being able to absorb the finer differences should they occur. Victory is more secure when the worst case scenario is always the one answered for. Out-economizing your opponents is the first and most central objective for the coveted victory.Obviously the peasants are your productive power, and so your goal is to increase the population of the peasants as rapidly as possible and to amass the largest amount of peasants possible. Every battle fought will have been decided before it has happened, one force will have already been stronger. The victory is won not on the battle field, but in the early game by whoever is increasing their peasant population the fastest, ESPECIALLY in the beginning of the game.Opening Plan- 3 Town Centers1. Immediatly upon starting out a large group of peasants should build a town hall as a smaller group goes off to a clearing to build a mill. Your town hall must be built near a wood or stone supply, and under that wood or stone supply, as villegers return their goods to the top halves of buildings. (Obviously both of these, the town center and mill, must be built instantly- you can not go a moment without food and as for your town center, even in you had a crazy strategy that would merit putting of the building of this, it is needed before other buildings can be built, your hands are tied.) When the first town hall is finished, it must be set to build infinity peasants (Ctrl-click.) Doing this saves the time of having to click the damned button over and over again, and it also keeps your food up, only taking a small 100 food at a time to build each individual peasant instead of taking, say, 10000 food when you manually order up a hundred peasants at once. Upgrades and other investments can be made. 2. Right after this town hall, a second must be built right away that also builds infinity peasants. The peasants who built the mill may proceed to build a storehouse, and then be sent off to a gold mine. The newly created peasants must first be sent to get the nearby gold mines (however many are close, don't go looking for them just yet) and then the ones after must be sent to the storehouse to chop wood. (You can and ought to build town centers close to your stone and wood.3. The larger group that created two town halls may then build a blacksmith, barracks, and then a market. ***Immedeately trade off all resources necessary at the market in order to build a third town hall as soon as possible. This specific point in the opening strategy is the blossoming of the trump card. Most opponents will not focus on this. Do this as soon as possible, commit this town center to building infinity peasants as well. After the third town hall, the academy must be built. Investing in these economic upgrades so quickly is to play your hand as strongly as possible so that your opponents can not "make up" this advantage on you by building a town center later.(Which upgrades to get, defending from the rush, a more detailed focus on the barracks and stables, and ideal numbering and grouping schemes to come in the future.)

I got going in the other guys thread a bit about the similar problems our computers had, and would like to hear a bit from you guys if you've had any of my amazingly unique problems, it would be neat to hear if I'm not the only one.. I will go through some of the symptoms.But first, I think I am kind of proud of my computer, though, being that I've been able to run a windows ME machine for as long as I have without it utterly shattering to peices, and I can enjoy a fair game of cossacks on it. It's been about 3-4 years now unformatted (my record for sure, other runs have lasted a month, a year and a year), but it does have inexplicable problems often. ok on to the problems.1. Abilon, feed reader- feeds suddenly dissapearing. This one really really makes me way angry, I'll open up my reader one day, and half the feeds will be gone for no reason. I have to load feeds from a backup file I always end up making. And I adjust my feeds all the time, and I always get to a point where I say "I am definately going to format this BS" but then the computer runs well for a bit and my motivation subsides. 2. A program like Firefox will suddenly not run and I will get something like a "JS352.dll" error (made that one up, but something like that and its different every time) and the program will have an error every single time afterward. But if I restart everything is fine.3. A program or game quitting for no reason- when playing a game online with a friend for 3 hours and waiting to see how it will end, the game will suddenly close with no explanation and happily display my desktop as if nothing happened. Infuriating!4. Everything slowing down... Firefox has gotten way slower for me lately even though it was quick and clean when I first had it.5. Sudden restart for no reason- my computer will suddenly restart. I could be typing a word document and just out of nowhere the screen goes blank and goes to the DOS bootup screen and starts up. What the hell?6. Weird lockups.. these are really weird, because they have happened not only to this version of windows, but I had it on my old version before I formatted that one.. What happens is, the screen goes black, except for a series of thin green bars across the top of the screen. What the hell? Anyone else had this? I have, twice, and it really sucks.There are others, but this is the bulk of them.. do you think I should format or switch to linux or what?

By any chance did you also have a memory problem with your computer that kept scanning the memory over and over again? Maybe I'm just being too speculative but it reminds me much of issues I've had with my computer. My power supply blew out one night, with a huge pair of sparks the size of watermelons while I happened to be looking in its direction when the light in the room was turned off. I left it and dealt with it in the morning- having to get a new power supply, not a month, but year. After that, I then had a problem with my fan, and still do today- it makes a grinding, buzzing sound at times but like you I can lightly tap it and it goes away (or could..). Was your system an 800mghz by any chance? I don't know much about my computer, but am just throwing that out there in case perhaps, you never know, a coincidence or something.

Windandwater I appreciate the response. That's definately a good call on the fingernail on the chalkboard thing. The trouble is, and I think I knew this a bit but it helps to hear it verified, the trouble is that it's hard to take it seriously if there is not at least a lead in to go for. I'd like for it to not sound like total nonsense but also get at a "fervent" spirit, so that it's kind of justified. I think, if nothing else, it's good to write consistently (and hopefully you pick it back up yourself) to establish a sandbox of ideas, some things that you've at least already explored a bit so that when you try to speak about them or write about them later, they can come out more clearly or developed. But even that is kind of thin I think... it would be right to have it come out right the first time. Keep moving, keep at it I guess.