Our dear cat Penelope has died. Thus, the history today is personal.
Penelope’s early life is shrouded in mystery. She lived on the streets, but we do not know for how long and if she had been in a human household before. In 2016, she was found and taken to an animal shelter. For the next three years, nobody wanted to adopt her… until we came there and found her to be a somewhat reserved, but very sweet middle-aged lady.
She integrated into the family immediately: One day after her adoption, she already strategized how to blunt the Prussian invasion of Bohemia.
From then on, she was our constant companion. She read with us…
…celebrated Halloween…
and Christmas with us…
…rid our place of provocative ribbons…
…tested all boxes for their sitting qualities…
…and had secret admirers who sent her bouquets.
She even found the time to adopt a secret second identity as quirky nanny Purry Poppins.
Her love for board games remained undiminished. Sometimes we suspected that she considered herself to be a board game.
The only thing she could not abide was me going for business trips. Big-eyed protests were staged on my suitcase.
Yet when I came back and played a game with her, everything was forgiven.
While she certainly enjoyed the games…
…the most important part to her was spending quality time with her family – for example, sitting on my lap while I sorted counters into trays.
Penelope was with us during tumultuous years. No matter if Covid forced us to stay at home or Putin threatened to cut off our energy supply, it was always a comfort to have a furry, affectionate companion with us.
As Penelope aged, her health deteriorated. She succumbed to a lung edema on March 11. She will be greatly missed.
2025 is in the distant future, right? …nope, that’s right now. Actually, it’s halfway over already. So here are some snapshots from my board gaming in the first six months of this year.
The Raw Numbers
Let’s start with a statistical overview (as of June 29):
I’ve played 23 different games (slightly up compared to last year at this point).
9 of them were new to me (also slightly up).
These 23 games resulted in a total of 52 plays (lower than last year, but higher than 2023)
The month in which I played most games was January (with 17 plays), the months with the fewest plays March and April (4 each).
Of the 23 different games, 17 are historical. These account for 43 of the plays (twice the games, three times the plays compared to last year).
Just one of the plays was solo (utterly collapsing from last year’s 17).
32 of the 52 plays were digital, which makes for a digital majority for the first time since getting out of the pandemic in 2022.
The overall trend this year for me has been more digital and more historical gaming – or, from the other side, less on-the-table casual gaming. There are a few reasons for that, including me being mostly homebound for several months taking care of our cat which requires medication twice daily.
Most importantly: She continues to live a happy cat life (except for the few minutes in the morning when she has to take a pill that tastes very bitter)!
Besides that, I’m happy for the gaming I got so far this year. Here are some highlights.
Ottomans at Vienna!Monarchists in Essen!Cars on the race track!
Rally the Troops!
I play more digitally these days because I lack some face-to-face opportunities, but I also play more digitally because the offers have gotten very good. My main platform is the admirable Rally the Troops! which allows you to play a variety of historical board games (especially block and card-driven games) in a visually appealing, rules-enforcing manner in your browser for free. I’ve used it to get back to old favorites like 1989 (Jason Matthews/Ted Torgerson, GMT Games) or Maria (Richard Sivél, Histogame) as well as to try out games about which I’ve heard my friends rave for years… for example, the game which I’ve played most often this year so far.
Austria (white) has recovered and is pressing Prussia (blue) hard in Silesia (east) as well as in the western reaches of Prussia proper. From the Maria implementation on Rally the Troops!
One of my discoveries of last year – so much strategy and bluffing with so little rules overhead!
Pompeius (gold) holds Spain, Africa, and Sicily; but Caesar’s (red) march through the east all the way to Egypt proved decisive. From the implementation on Rally the Troops!
The struggle between Caesar and Pompeius for mastery of the Roman Republic requires sharp wits, calm nerves, and a little bit of luck when you cast the die crossing the Rubicon. The games are dynamic and play out in a variety of ways – sometimes, your armies stalk each other in the east, sometimes, you slug it out in bloody battles in Spain, and sometimes, amphibious landings turn erstwhile quiet regions into sudden flashpoints. May the gods favor you… but not too much.
I’ve played Julius Caesar around a dozen times since December last year, and it hasn’t lost its charm.
And, to finish this post, here are two new discoveries of mine on Rally the Troops!:
I’m excited to learn new things from and with games. One topic I knew next to nothing about is the 14th century in India. That, however, has changed a bit now due to Vijayanagara, a COIN-lite treatment of the collapse of the Delhi Sultanate’s hegemony under the challenge of invasion from the north (Timur’s Mongols) and centrifugal forces in the south (the nascent Bahmani Kingdom and Vijayanagara Empire).
My yellow Vijayanagara Empire has a few strongholds in the south, and, with the Delhi Sultanate (black) currently busy fending off the Mongols (red) in the north, will have some breathing space… yet the Bahmani Kingdom (turquoise) might fill the power vacuum. From the implementation on Rally the Troops!
Chaos – some games hate it, others, like Time of Crisis, embrace it. Whoever wants to be Roman emperor in the tumultuous third century must be prepared to deal with a whole whirlwind of challenges: Angry mobs want to drag your governors into the gutter, Barbarian tribes stand ready to cross the border into your provinces, and, worst of all, the rest of the Roman elite wants to be emperor, too, and will gleefully take whatever you possess. I have been thwarted in my imperial aspirations by my fellow bloggers Dave, Grant, and Michal, and have been loving every minute of it.
My (red) emperor sits in Italia, yet the yellow pretender empire seems to be the most dynamic faction right now. From the implementation on Rally the Troops!
What have the first six months of 2025 brought to you in gaming? – Let me know in the comments!
Anmelden
