The Flat Atom Society

So long, and thanks for all the fish

ghoti — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 12:10:39 GMT

This journal has moved to https://ghoti-mhic-uait.dreamwidth.org/

It's been a blast,and I'll miss this journal, but it's time for a change.

Pandemic legacy: December

ghoti — Sun, 02 Apr 2017 15:47:53 GMT

We got to December, where the goals completely change. We now know that the zombie outbreak is artificial, and that the shady world military government thing has a stockpile of mutations so they can keep the population down even if the world is vaccinated.
No curing diseases - instead, every faded city must be vaccinated and the stockpile of mtations destroyed.

Rachel was keen to play another game with us, so we played as medic (me), generalist (C) and immunologist (R). We had 2 or 3 vaccinated cities out of 20 faded cities. We found and destroyed the stockpile reasonably quickly, and I tried to contain the normal diseases while C & R vaccinated. That worked pretty well, but I didn't quite manage to fight all the fires and we died of too many outbreaks in Sydney (still red) with a couple (again, I think it was 2 or 3) of cities still to go. Victory felt so close though, so we played again, same characters, and won within two rounds. That was our first time playing with the generalist, who was more useful than we'd guessed.

Overall, we scored in the second band, not brilliant but better than average. If we'd had better luck with the cards earlier on (two games with an epidemic in the first draw meant we went down rather more than we should have, and we should have done more vaccinating earlier to win a game earlier) we'd have been easily in the top band, we were 20 points off. So I'm not too disappointed, and it was fun, which is the main thing.

Now we have two new games - Ghostbusters, which is also a campaigny game but a bit less long term and the littles are more enthusiastic about it, and Atlantis, which is a game lots of people may age played while I was playing Labyrinth and Fang Den Hut and other games whose English name I didn't know. I played a lot of Cluedo and Risk, too. Fang den Hut is sort of like a better balanced Ludo. Often it comes down to the last turn before it's obvious who wins, which I like, but it is mostly chasing players around the board trying to capture their pieces. Wikipedia says its English name is Coppit. Labyrinth is called that in English too.

Things in my garden which are not dead.

ghoti — Mon, 27 Mar 2017 17:03:55 GMT

Aldi has chili and pepper plants in their specials this week, and add I've had good experiences growing chili, I thought I'd give both a chance. They said transfer asap, so Judith and I did that this afternoon and I thought maybe it was time for one of these posts again. So.

6 chilis, 6 bell peppers.
2 clumps of chives
1 rosemary. My rosemary was stolen last year at mother's day but not this year!
2 strawberry plants, I think I might plant some more later.
5 raspberry canes
2 redcurrants
1 blueberry
1 blackcurrant
1 jostaberry
1 miniature fig
1 tiny almond, with blossom!
1 Mirabelle tree, blossom in by bud.

I was thinking of planting lateral thyme or chamomile to fill the gap between the big things, too.

Mother's day

ghoti — Sun, 26 Mar 2017 20:51:53 GMT

I had a lovely mother's day, and I hope you had a good day too, and much sympathy for those of you who find it hard.

We had a bit of a rough start and got to church late, but then we went out to lunch, at Pizza Express where i rarely get to go but where the salad is the nicest of all the pizzerias so i had bruschetta con funghi, pizza with a hole in, and tiny spiced figs, which are all my favourite things from the recipe, and we talked and talked. And then we came home and i was given presents, Survival: Escape from Atlantis, which is a sort of rerelease of Atlantis but better balanced, you have to get your meeples to safety, while an island collapses and sea creatures try to eat you.

Benedict gave me the first Kate Bishop (Hawkeye) book and some sugar mice, which is both awesome and a perfect pairing.

Now I'm having a cuddle with Andreas.

So that's got me thinking - what superheroes pair with what confectionary? I'm thinking nut brittle for squirrel girl, Werther's Original for Captain America (because it's old guy candy) and salmiakki (adult, dark and quirky) for Watchmen. What do you think?

Freezer

ghoti — Sat, 25 Mar 2017 14:02:36 GMT

This week I cleaned the fridge and inventoried the freezer. And i was talking about it and said to my friend "shall i put it on LJ?" And they are like me, curious about this stuff so says yes.

3 kippers
4 portions turbut
2 mackerel
8 portions trout
2 packs scallop
bacon
1 pork chop
1/2 a bag doner meat
2 boxes veg fingers
1/2 a bag quorn chicken pieces
3 cheese & onion crispbakes
3 boxes veggie burgers
1 bag quorn mince
1 box veggie sausages
1 pizza
2 bags okra
1 bag bitter gourds
1 pack turnip dumplings
1 box waffles
1 box Dal Puri
6 packs smoothie mix
Cranberries
Raspberries
Blueberries
Vanilla ice cream
Cookie dough ice cream
Fruit puree ice cubes
Breadcrumbs
3 cocktails

That's probably too much fish and a bit more okra than is optimal, and a ridiculous amount of frozen fruit to keep on hand at all times. But now i know and will clear some of that so we can fit chips and stuff.

Pandemic legacy: November

ghoti — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 08:04:06 GMT

Game recap - the while red, blue and yellow diseases are similar to in normal pandemic, just easier to cure, black is a zombie plague. But we learnt to make vaccines. So our job now is to destroy military bases (which are going to appear at the rate of one a game until we run out of stickers, we had two stickers left.

The first game in November, we played as virologist and immunologist. We also turned up an epidemic in the first turn. We did what we could in terms of fire fighting but we had trouble getting around and too many military bases (which make vaccinating harder) so we lost without curing a single disease. We did vaccinate a couple of cities and build a couple of vaccination factories though, and we did destroy a couple of military bases (we had six starting military bases).

End of game bonus, we kept one of the factories as a starting factory and made the immunologist better at sabotage.

Second game went much smoother. We played as ops expert and immunologist. We got nice cards too, i got a bunch of blue and then red, and Colin got a lot of yellow. Ops expert can get around easier, and flew to military cities to sabotage and treat, and Colin wandered around vaccinating and sabotaging, and the lucky cards meant that cured as we went and it felt much easier. We destroyed 4 military bases, meaning there are only two on the board, not near any faded cities, and added a second starting vaccine factory and some equipment to cards.

Media round up

ghoti — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 10:37:15 GMT

Monday morning means Emerald City, which is Oz for grownups. It's based on not just the first book, but subsequent books, and I'm less familiar with those. I think there's some new stuff thrown in, and certainly I can think of at least one character where they've amalgamated two and I'm pretty certain they were separate in the book. But it's gripping, I'm loving it.
Content note: there's a trans* kid who gets forced off his meds. It's so emotionally hard, and that's the point, to show how he really needs that help.

I'm reading Magic for Nothing by Seanan McGuire, which is the latest InCryptid and told from Antimony's perspective. Lots of roller derby and lots of fun. Also Taking the Village Online which if you like academic parenting books, you might be interested in, but otherwise, maybe not? IDK.

Playing: Colin just got the Ghostbusters boardgame so we haven't played that yet but it's our next plan. I haven't been playing so many games recently though.

Also, yesterday I made blackbean enchiladas which made Colin happy, and Jack cooked for me so that made me happy. A nice salsa though, finely chopped onion, tomatoes, mixed salad leaves, lime juice and a lot of pepper. And lime and black pepper soured cream, I normally just offer plain soured cream or yoghurt, but that was a good plan. Also in recent menu, mixed nuts fried with rice wine and rice vinegar, they were really good.

Cheese pudding and other life things

ghoti — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 21:13:46 GMT

I made cheese pudding for tea, because I suddenly thought it might be a good idea, and although Judith said she liked it a bit, and ate about half of what I gave her, the general conclusion was that cheese pudding is for feeding to cartesiandaemon (and not the people who live in this house).

I finished the Emily trilogy by LM Montgomery. Unlike the Anne series, this is deeply creepy and uncomfortable. It's a story of the grooming of a young girl, how she was broken and how it affected everyone around her.

Judith and Bärli and I watched Hidden Figures at the flicks, and it was glorious. Judith is just starting to notice racism, and of course loves space stuff and she described the film as 'fascinating'. I find I don't have a lot of words, but it was wonderful and if you think you might like it you want to see it.

I started a knit along for the Iditarod, but I haven't got very far. I think April is going to be finishing months, I've got so many left gloves and bits and pieces! Maybe lots of months will be.

Pandemic legacy: October

ghoti — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 00:36:52 GMT

Well, that was an exciting month! Colin was op expert and I was Colonel. We had to find patient zero as well as a paranoid soldier, who has been telling people that coda (the zombie disease) is manufactured by the military.

We found both, and thus learnt that the soldier was not paranoid, but correct. We found a mole - the soldier (because he had an upgrade, otherwise it would have been ops expert) - and discarded him.

Now we have to destroy instead of build military bases, the military is just going to get in our way.

But best of all, we now have the ability to build a vaccine! And an immunologist on our side.

Finding the two lost people was two of our three needed objectives, we'd cured and eradicated blue early on, and then it was all fire fighting until Colin cured red, two turns before the end of the game. Then we almost gave up as we were almost out of red, satisfied that we'd still had a good game, but we decided to keep trying to clear up red because I only needed one yellow to cure yellow. So, at one red cube left, I drew my yellow card to cure (bearing in mind that curing is instant because of earlier end of game upgrades), and an epidemic card. So if we hadn't won that turn, we would have lost.

So, win, and long term progress and story furthered.

February reading roundup

ghoti — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 17:43:18 GMT

I've mostly been forgetting to read a lot lately. Colin an I watched Interstellar, which I found emotionally difficult but, apart from an unfortunate resemblance of one of the minor characters, not for any good reason. We all went to see Sing for Andreas' birthday, which was rather lovely. But books not so much. I put my short story collection down somewhere and don't remember where, which is a sign I should move on and come back to it later, but I keep forgetting to do that step.

Anyway, in February I read 5 books.

4 written by women
1 written by a man

Not sure on ethnicity of all the authors (whch is a thing we discussed last month as being not always obvious)

2 fantasy
1 poetry
1 slice of life
1 biography

which is also 3 aimed at adults and 2 aimed at children.

Apart from the biography - the story of Togo, the dog who was lead dog for most of the Nome serum run - which I read to Judith because we both wanted to read it - all of those were read before the 16th.

Pandemic Legacy: September

ghoti — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 17:49:30 GMT

We played as the virologist for the first time and quarantine specialist, and in many ways it felt like the early games of zombies where we were focussed on that.
My game notes for August say we found the immunologist then, but we forgot so we played September as though we hadn't found the immunologist. Now we're uncertain as to whether I was wrong then or whether we just forgot to scratch the card. I can't imagine why I would have been wrong then.

It was a really close game. We'd almost lost on all the criteria before we won. This is due to the first card drawn being an epidemic, causing a few nasty outbreaks in the faded zone, and our first fallen city. From then on it was damage control all the way, until the hunt trails went cold. We cured blue relatively quickly, quarantined almost all of the faded cities, cured red, requarantined, built a military base in Africa (our last remaining zone), quarantined and then as the last action, cured yellow. As a game end upgrade, we built a sixth starting military base, partly so we fill a winning condition at the start of the game and partly to make getting around a lot easier, as we found getting into the heart of East Asia to control red outbreaks really hard (and nearly lost over there). Unusually, we didn't eradicate any diseases.

I guess we have to decide now whaether to trust my notes for next time, or whether to keep searching for the immunologist as though I was wrong.

Things I've been watching in which you might be interested.

ghoti — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 10:07:04 GMT

Into the Woods. It's a Sondheim musical base on interwoven fairy tales. It's about the meaning of family and how wishes work, and if you like either fairy tales or musicals, it's probably worth a go and if not, probably not.

RWBY. Recommened by a couple of people, and it's lovely. Largely female cast of well rounded characters, battling monsters (and trying to work out which of the people are monsters and which of the monsters just need to be left alone). It's beautiful, although in places it looks more like a video game than a tv show. Very violent in a cartoony way.

Emerald City. This is on actual TV (5star) once a week, so I'm on the second episode right now. It's a retelling of the Wizard of Oz for adults, and I'm enjoying it immensely. It's quite big in scope, and feels like there's a lot of world and characterisation still to find, and i'm really enjoying their Dorothy and West in particular.
ETA: trans* character outed at end of second episode. I'm hoping he's treated well, and a quick Google brings up conservatives complaining about the show being too respectful so I'm not totally baseless in that hope, but reserving judgment.

Meme about favourites.

ghoti — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 13:57:02 GMT

There's a meme over at Facebook and I thought it was ripe for moving over here: Ask me my top 5 [blanks].

Anything which I might have five favourites of, fill I the blank however you want, and I'll endeavour to answer.

Recent bobcats

ghoti — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 10:36:22 GMT

I'm getting a package every couple of days now. My most recent was a cute little screwdriver set but I can't remember where I put it. Been a while since I showed you anyway, so I thought I'd gather a selection.

There's an art postcard, a couple of necklaces, a bracelet, some stickers, a gyoza maker, some heart shaped stones with words painted on, and a small snail for clipping your teabag string to your mug.

Or I suppose it could just sit on the side like this:

Rest of life:
Reading: still Oz Reimagined
Watching: Colin and I watched Once Upon a Time and Judith and I are watching our way through Hannah Montana. Love that mummy/Judith time.
Making: Lace fingerless gloves for a knit along and simple crochet hat for when I need something with less concentration (also a crochet along)
Eating: bratwurst, mashed potatoes and carrots and Apple sauce last night. I've a sweet potato and black bean casserole from the box for tonight which will be more interesting but I haven't tried it yet.
Playing: introduced the littles to Cat Boxes, quite successfully. Andreas is really into Blokus at the moment.

Pandemic Legacy: July & August.

ghoti — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 18:56:54 GMT

July was the first month we lost. We were told at the beginning of the game that there was a missing virologist who could probably help with zombie disease and we should find them in a research station in a fallen city. Luckily we had one of those already, in the original zombie colour of black, and we put another in a red fallen city (we have red and blue zombie cities as well as the original black. thankfully the English channel is protecting us... for now). Colin played as the soldier and I as the scientist, so he did a lot of searching and zombie control and I worked on curing. It all was going very well until we focussed on finding the virologist instead of treating (cured) blue and ran out of blue cubes.
But it was going so well we decided to do the same again in late July. We didn't need to search, because we'd already found the virologist, but we did need to both keep the zombies under check and cure diseases, and sadly, we had an out of control outbreak in central asia causing us to lose when we were so close to winning again.
Er, game end upgrades - there was an extra starting military base, so we're now at 5. we made blue need one fewer card to cure. There must have been two more but I don't remember what they were.

At the beginning of August we were told that the virologist had an immunologist colleague we needed to find before we could get to work on zombie-disease. So we were to search for the immunologist. I was the medic and Colin the quarantine specialist. This was a much easier game, less tense and when we found the immunologist we won very quickly afterwards. Partly that was luck of the cards - late July we would have won but for a sad lack of red cards turning up. Partly, though, it was just easier to quarantine everything (one of the victory conditions is 7 fallen cities quarantined, at the moment we have to fulfil two of three optional as well as curing the three non-zombie diseases) and hope for the best. We won fairly comfortably.
Game end upgrades - we made the medic military and we added equipment, basically turning some of the city cards into useful stuff you can use at any time.

[Meme] Books read in January

ghoti — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 11:19:33 GMT

Not so much exactly what I've been reading as what kind of thing I've been reading.

13 in total.

6 written by women
7 written by men

(I think)
3 written by authors of colour,
10 written by white authors

4 fantasy
4 non fiction
3 slice of life
1 poetry

Actually, right now I'm reading Oz Reimagined which Colin gave me, a set of short stories inspired by The Wizard of Oz.
Knitting my Alice gloves still, photo when I'm done
Watching The Secret World of Alex Mack with Judith (90s Nickelodeon show about a girl who gets caught in a chemical accident and has to hide that she has resulting superpowers - I loved it then, and I'm enjoying introducing the rest of the family to it)
Playing, well, I got dragged into a Skylanders game yesterday but mostly

Because I'm just that rocknroll.

ghoti — Sun, 29 Jan 2017 20:17:12 GMT

Surprise gloves!

ghoti — Thu, 26 Jan 2017 17:21:03 GMT

Recently, I received a pair of gloves in the post. Very nice gloves. I thought they came from a swap I was involved in, and posted a suitable thank you. Today I received a tea cosy and a note saying 'I was a bit confused by your thank you note, because I didn't send you any gloves'.
So, 'fess up; who sent me gloves? And if it was you, thank you!

Local radio

ghoti — Sat, 21 Jan 2017 17:15:24 GMT

This week's dogsled race, the Kuskokwim 300 is being covered on a radio station that sounds more or less like British local radio*, if you tune in early there's NPR news, or a variety of music. Last week's, however, was a religious local radio station; if you tuned in early, you got a sermon, or a talk on Letter From a Birmingham Jail, or Fox news (the last two don't quite gel in my mind) At first I was taken aback, but then I thought; is it better to have religion randomly in a general station, like we have, or better to put it in a place where you can go if you want it and ignore if you don't?

What do you think?

*I''ve never heard Athabaskan on a British radio, but you get the idea.

Pandemic Legacy: June

ghoti — Tue, 17 Jan 2017 16:58:18 GMT

Half way through! I'm really pleased this has momentum and we're doing so well at finding time for it, and hoping when we're done we'll keep finding time for games.

June started with two research stations and three military bases, and a new character, soldier, who looks like he might be useful for wandering around putting roadblocks in place if enough other players to actually win with. For two players, though, he wasn't so useful. Black is our Zombie illness, and almost all of our black cities are now faded

Colin played as Colonel and I played as Op.Expert. Unfortunately, he went first and then at the end of his turn there was a zombie outbreak in Chennai, where we started, so Op. Expert now has two scars (maximum before the character dies). So I built a military base there and flew out. Colin wiped red off the board, then cured it, and I wondered around America treating and curing yellow. Then there was a giant smallpox (blue) outbreak in Europe and while dealing with that a couple of zombie outbreaks and it was all a bit tense, but we treated and made sure noone got caught, and then managed to cure blue. I forgot about roadblocks, which are a bit difficult to use, although the three we were given at the start were quite useful.

Colin felt it was a bit more comfortable, but the second scar and the blue outbreak was a bit scary. We did win, though, and without any cities going to level 3 rioting, even though we had two go to level 2 and two new level 1s.
It was also quite unexpected that suddenly research stations became useful again, they haven't been since we were able to cure all the curable diseases anywhere, but now you can pick up equipment there (like Hazmat suits, which allow you to be near outbreaks safely), which get attached to a card in your hand and thereafter in all future occasions, that card can be either a city card or an equipment card. With no funding, it's quite nice to have an occasional 'useful card' although we've still only got one.

End of game upgrades: we took gerald_duck's advice and put a permanent military base in Atlanta, which makes it easier for military to get around, and intend to start not in the zombie base in future, and gave op. expert a character upgrade, that he doesn't get a scar if he's in a city when it outbreaks.

Silly mistakes

ghoti — Tue, 17 Jan 2017 00:13:41 GMT

I've just realised I cast on fewer stitches than I was meant to in the gloves I'm making. They're meant to have 6 columns around, and they alternate hearts and diamonds on the left glove and spades and clubs on the right. I've got 5 columns around, which means that two columns together are the same. I think it will be OK to make those be the two nearest the thumb, as the thumb breaks it up a bit, and they''re a good fit at the moment.

In other knitting news, I signed up to a Mystery Knit Along, a shawl based on Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb, and the group that's in is pretty dogsled enthusiastic (they do a knit along for Yukon Quest and Iditarod as well, and I plan to do the knit for the Iditarod. Basically the pattern will be released at the start of the race, and the group tries to finish before the Iditarod is over. This has lead to me also paying attention to dog sled racing, which turns out to be quite exciting even over radio or watching online trackers.So if you see me and I'm talking about the weather in Alaska, or something equally random seeming, that's why.

Reading: Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb :) and Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. Both compelling in different ways
Playing: date night! Pandemic Legacy
Eating: meatballs for the beef eaters and beans for the bean eaters, in tomato and courgette sauce and topped with grilled aubergines, very tasty, would eat again.

Pandemic Legacy: May

ghoti — Sat, 14 Jan 2017 15:34:13 GMT

Today Benedict, Colin and I played May in Pandemic Legacy. Last month we'd had a zombie outbreak in Mumbai, and this month, we mostly spent containing zombie outbreaks. There was more military involvement, too, and a new character, Colonel, who is good at containing zombie outbreaks but bad at curing diseases. Benedict was the Quarantine Specialist, I was the Operations Expert and Colin the Colonel - we got more relationship stickers, so Op Exp and Colonel are now rivals (which makes passing cards back and forth easy) .

Anyway, Colin and Benedict ran around the board containing the outbreaks, mostly running into the zombie area, quarantining in B's case or hospitalising in C's case*, while I flew around treating treatable diseases and building military bases. We had to win 3 objectives this game; cure the curable diseases and 2 of quarantine 7 faded (zombied) cites, eradicate a disease and place a military base in every region of the board (Asia, Europe, Africa, North AMerica, South America, Pacific Rim). We eradicated blue as soon as it was treated, and had a military base in every region, and won as soon as the third disease was cured.

Again, to me it felt easier than some of the earlier games. One of the additional things we could have used this game was road blocks, which stops the disease spreading (and makes travel harder) but we didn't use any and we only had one outbreak. I'm sure they'll be useful in future games though. For our game end upgrades, we chose two military bases, so we now have starting research stations in Atlanta and Chennai (and have mostly chosen to start in Chennai) and starting military bases in Istanbul, Taipei, and Lima.

*The game is explicit that the zombies are violent at first but calm down after a while, so I much prefer the idea that we're keeping them secure until peaceable.

Date night

ghoti — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:10:53 GMT

I've recently had some lovely dates.
First with Bärli, who wanted to relearn to knit, I provided her with a Yarmulke kit and we sat and she worked on that and I worked on the shrug in my userpic, and we watched White Christmas, which is about what people do when they've been trained for war and the war is over, with lots of singing and dancing.

Then I made dinner for the Flapjack Muse which I was really proud of - chicken stuffed with halloumi (he doesn't eat pork) and brie, fondant potato and swede, buttered leeks and chili-garlic butternut squash. The squash and swede were late additions I threw in because they were in the fridge and needed using up. It all worked together beautifully and he was happy :) and we played Tokkaido because I love it and it was new to him, but he was instantly keen too.

Last night, Colin and I watched To Walk Invisible, a Brontë biopic. It was written by an acquaintance of ours, but I think we'd have watched it anyway as I'm reading a lot of good reviews. Anyway, it was beautiful and wonderful and if you're at all interested, I'd recommend it. Colin doesn't have a lot of Brontë experience but he was swept away too.

Tonight, I'm going out with Jack to celebrate his birthday; happy Jack day!

Qu

ghoti — Sun, 08 Jan 2017 19:56:16 GMT

For some stupid reason I tend not to talk about presents on here - fear of sounding like I'm boasting maybe? Or worry that I leave someone out? SO I didn't mention the super awesome presents I've been given recently. Like the molecular gastronomy kit, or the tattoo voucher (photos when I get it done), or the leaf-shaped peridot necklace (not usually a stone I like, but it's perfect for the setting), or the pBuzz (cross between a vuvuzela and a swanee whistle) or the Nessie ladles. I did mention Top Dogs, which is a game so perfectly matched to Judith's strengths that it's a joy to lose to her.

Speaking of a game matched to strengths, we now have Pandemic Legacy. It's like Pandemic - cure diseases, save the world - but it comes with a plethora of secret boxes and evil advent calendars (er, I mean dossiers) and stickers, and as you win or lose your way through in-game months the state of the world shifts and the rules change. Colin & Rachel have a theory that the skills needed for both parenting and cooking are the same skills as for Pandemic - get everyone where they need to be with everything they need at the right time, and if you don't quite manage it, improvise a replacement. That could be. I'm not always good at that, but we nrmally manage to muddle through anyway. We're also really good at compromise and cooperation, which is definitely needed.

We just played April - there are 12 months, each of which you play once, if you win you move to the next 'month', if you lose, you play the month once more before moving on. It seems like the sort of game that's good to talk about while everything's fresh, but also, everything's secret, so I'm putting it behind a spoiler cut.

We've so far won every game - a quick google suggests that most groups have lost at least ne game, more likely two or three by this point, but of course we're not unique. Colin and I played the first three games by ourselves, and OSOs joined us for the fourth. The fourth game felt about as difficult as the first three games to me, maybe a little easier? Jack's and my roles interacted really well which certainly helped, and it's good to have a little more help. I think generally it's meant to get harder as it goes on, but it's difficult to tell. Anyway, I didn't have the 'oh no we're all going to die' moment like I did in the second and third games.

Anyway, on with the specifics while I still remember them.
January started out more or less the same as vanilla Pandemic. We played as medic and scientist. We wiped out, then cured and automatically eradicated blue really early, so it felt like we were doing really well, but two epidemics in and we suddenly were told that black was uncurable, (which illness it is depends on the game, but for us it was black), and the winning condition was to cure the other three diseases. Which we then did pretty swiftly.

At the end of the game you also get to choose upgrades, good effects for the board. We added a new starting research station at Chennai and a mod to blue so it can be cured anywhere.

February introduced quarantine - black can't be cured or treated (that's new), but it can be contained. There was a new role, Quarantine Specialist, and new feature, relationships, where two named characters can interact in special wasys. So we played as Medic and Quarantine Specialist, and rivals, which makes passing cards back and forth super easy. This time we wiped out yellow before curing, which got us a long way there, but we spent a lot of time containing outbreaks. No riots started (I'll get to riots later) and we cured red and blue OK and I think eradicated blue again.

Game upgrades: we made it so yellow can be cured anywhere, and it doesn't take an action.

March introduced military. March also introduced new objectives. You still have to cure 3 diseases, but you also must either eradicate one disease or put a military base in every region of the board. We played as operations expert (can add new buildings and fly from buildings really easily) and quarantine specialist.

It's a bit fuzzy in my mind, possibly because we played February and March back-to-back, but I do know we eradicated red and cured 3, maybe even eradicated yellow too before and I think we had one or two military bases but I don't remember.
We won though, and game upgrades were making it so red doesn't need you to be in a research station to cure and it doesn't take an action.

April we played with quad, and it was a bit easier. No worry about having to discard cards (because you start with 2 not 4). We played as quarantines specialist, researcher, scientist and operations expert. This was the first game where we had rioting - every time a city has an outbreak, a counter increments, and when it's at 2 or 3, there is rioting, which means that any research station there is destroyed and you can't fly into or out of it. You can build a military base there, though, so Colin did, before taking a secret teleporter machine to clear up blue, after curing all three iseases. Once again, we eradicated a disease rather than placing all the military bases, but we got closer - I suspect May may require us to fulfil more objectives so it's good to be close. However, after our second epidemic, the untreatable, incurable disease became a ZOMBIE OUTBREAK. We managed reasonably well wrt zombies, keeping them contained to one city, but for future games, there are no more black cubes but only zombies. This time we eradicated blue to win, so now blue also doesn't need an action to cure. We also placed a starting military base, figuring that we might need it for later. We're tempted to do character upgrades next time, but we'll see what turns up.

Fringe benefits of poly

ghoti — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 16:54:41 GMT

Of all the wonderful attributes of my partners - and they are many - today, and the arrival of my brother-out-law's recent book in the post, reminded me of an unexpected side effect. More siblings-out-law means more cinnamon balls*, more book recommendations and, due to the acquisition-by-poly of not one but two poets-out-law, more poetry! I am definitely happier for more poetry in my life, and the works of my particular poets-out-law so delightful that I'm definitely counting them as a blessing.

*probably only true if your partner is Bárli