Cult Of Games XLBS: Making History Fun; Drop The Boring Bits!
September 24, 2023 by warzan
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It’s the XLBS SHow……….Happy Sunday Fellow CoGs!
Good show for more info. As always we can count on quality banter. History versus fantasy is an interesting conundrum with the like of games like SAGA (for example). Making things up is precisely why there are the timeframe tomes versus that of Age of Magic. For the rest of things I feel thoroughly entertained and informed as far as the goings on with the crew and community for the week.
To my mind every historical game is a “what if’ game. Yes you do all the research and you have what is hopefully correct OOB’s for the combatants involved and hopefully if available a close approximation to the terrain the battles/seiges were fought and then its down to the players what happens next
Pretty on the money!
@warzan check this link out. Good wider picture of how the British and the locals thwarted Napoleon’s plans in the Med. Really cool story well told by LindyBiege. https://youtu.be/jdM3ID4m38U?si=YFGSTOlG2It_U-2b
I’ll check that. Haven’t watched one of Lindy’s videos for a while. Not sure why I stopped watching!
@warzan Definitely something off if that dice print failed and if the results are so random. Could be any number of things, I would just check everything with the printer, the FEP condition, build plate levelling and zeroing etc. And when you’re debugging, use a file that you know should print successfully, with safe supports and settings.
And sorry if this is twisting the knife in regards to FDM printing… I got a Prusa Mk4 FDM printer in summer, took it out of the box and did the basic setup. I’ve printed bunch of terrain bits and non wargaming stuff with 100% success just using the default settings with Prusa slicer. Yes, Prusa printers are more expensive, but man the machine has been such a breeze to use. Only used PLA so far, and I try to go through one spool in quite quick fashion to avoid the moisture issues.
Happy Sunday everybody. God bless and may your Sunday be full of hobby fun.
Happy Sunday one and all.
There is a danger of fretting needlessly. We are wargamers, not historians. Even the most finely crafted table and collection of models will only ever be an approximation of historical events. In addition, if we want a game with any level of interest, the outcome cannot be known at the start, so gaming events are very likely to differ from real historical events during the game.
I would be shocked to find there are individuals who are GENUINE wargame hobbyists who would attack any project executed in good faith. I could see a situation where non gaming historians may pass comment on inaccuracies and inconsistencies, but they aren’t gamers so the whole premise of what we are trying to achieve is beyond them, so their opinion has to be valued in that context.
Historically accurate… example. The war of the three kingdoms (ECW) is based on histories written fairly close to the period (17th century), memoirs, diaries, even songs and poems have been lent on to piece together what happened. That period in history terms is not that long ago. But even serious publications can have amazing ranges of numbers of those involved in battles and how it played out. Some of the Marquis of Montrose campaigns in Scotland (relatively small battles) can have numbers presented like “2000 to 3500” troops on one side… What? It was maybe 2000, or maybe nearly twice as many?
So as long as people have fun with their research, and get as close to the historical events as they feel comfortable with, I don’t think there’s any negatives to trying to keep things accurate. But I think you are right to focus on fun. If 2000 troops rather than 3500 troops suits your wargaming scenario better, and historically experts haven’t been able to agree either, then represent 2000 not 3500 in your game with a clear conscience. ?
But in my experience a lot of people keen on historical games just want rules and scenarios that put you in the period and in a style of fighting that feels sympathetic to the era and fun to play out. The simulation style gaming doesn’t seem to be as popular.
The name…Acre.
I understand the dilemma that if you are calling it Acre, but no one ever fought in the city in the real battle, but the fun and the terrain interaction being more important. Even with strict focus on keeping things historically accurate you sometimes change history. Why play a wargame if only one side can win, and in exactly the same fashion as history dictated. So if your battle ends up in the city I don’t think it’s really digging too deep into alternative histories to have that happen. I think you can play the Siege of Acre with city street action rather than needing to change the name.
The goblins went well for me in places? Did they though?
Hi XLBSers happy Sunday.
Napoleon he got lost when he was going to Amarillo ?
Is that not part of the charm getting people taking about the battle an you can get more information about the battle for you an other’s.
Ooh Gerry doing dolly with the trolley job showing off the goods.
The answer is very simple, its your game do what you want with it. as say before must historical games are what ifs so call it Acre, call it what you like, as long as you and the people you are playing with enjoy it, who cares
Good work Ben.
Oddly for me, being historically accurate as far as possible, within certain periods, is the fun bit.
But it varies, in line with my own historical knowledge. So while my 38t tanks have the correct number of rivets, my Napoleonic armies are far looser in accuracy terms.
It’s a direct equation to my book shelves, where 90% of my books are WW2 based!
That said, Military history is ‘fun’. Im not sure what the boring bits are, but as always, there is a sub text that somehow, being historically accurate/interested to a minute degree, somehow imparts connotations that historical gamers are boring or staid in their hobby outlook.
It’s an old stereotype that clearly still has legs on it.
That said, some historical gamers think all sci-fi/fantasy gamers have long hair, like heavy metal and have poor bodily hygiene, so I guess the stereotypes are still out there.
That 2nd Saladin looks like the spitting image of Russell Brand!
Sunday?
00:00 There’s people on my screen… why?
01:30 Dinobots!
02:00 “A coupple quick bits” … sit back, grab a cup, this will take a while.
04:30 I’ve seen a video on that by Extra History. It’s cool. @warzan give this a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjoS_uTtmTs&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5CvuRAKaM69klvG54Gs5LYs
06:30 Rabbit!
09:15 “hmmmm”
10:00 @lloyd building Rome yet?
18:30 Karawansy!
24:00 Flying dice!
27:00 Tool Time! *hur hur hur hur hur*
28:30 the tool using the tool… a tools errant.
33:00 At that amount of time spent “printing” you could sculpt that by hand! XD 😉
34:45 “by the time you watch this…” is the shop burned down? *g*
39:00 “It’s a map!”
40:55 Add tanks!
44:00 biased on a true story
47:00 also could be that Aliens are involved!
55:00 STOP! Hobbytime!
57:00 “BEANS”
59:00 MDF houses
1:00:00 Foamripper!
1:07:00 Die with their boots on? That’s an Iron Maiden song… or is it?
1:17:00 Plus the uHH had him FÖRST! 8)
1:20:00 Shay getting pushed hard XD
Now what? XLBS is over… so much Sunday left… HELP!
A fabulous show guy’s.
Yes research is a huge part of the fun for some people, and they can put on some super-realistic simulation. It’s a game, and the purpose is to have fun. Go easy on yourself. Love history but piss on the nitpickers.
There’s nothing wrong with “representing” situations- you are always going to get bean counters who will get huffy cos you’ve used the wrong type of crenelations on the wall who will hate it. Most will be happy. I remember in the past thou people lifting battles such as Napoleon era Waterloo and twisting it into medieval Italy or 80yrs war. It’s no different to recreating starship troopers using guard and nids!
quick fix on lift for fdm plates. use glue sticks on the areas that are lifting
Pritt stick (or Tesco-own-brand) ftw!
I always smear a thin layer of Tescos-not-pritt-stick on my build plate before starting the first layer. Sure, it looks ugly. But it keeps the bugger stuck down!
@warzan Napoleon did indeed lay siege to Acre in 1799. He invaded Syria to counter an anticipated Turkish attack into Egypt. The siege was a failure, partly due to his siege artillery being intercepted by the Royal Navy enroute along the coast. In fact the British redeployed the captured guns into Acre to defend it from the French. The siege lasted 62 days and included 40 assaults and 20 sallies; it could be very interesting to game various scenarios around the siege.
Oh wow, amazing! I’m not sure what to say, except thank you very much.
Excellent show. @warzan How is the Dungeon display coming along? Really looking forward to seeing that finished, hint hint. You have a massive set-up for the Crusades, that will look amazing when done.
@brennon Your painting skills continue to ramp up. At the rate you are improving you will be giving John a run for his money before long.
Congrats to the Golden Button winners this week, some inspiring stuff. All three are worthy winners. The ACW stuff at a smaller scale is really eye-pleasing.
@warran – forget enclosures until it gets cold down in your dungeon! When it gets cold, resin goes a bit thicker and failures are more likely; but atm you’re not probably going to see much difference. I run my Anycubic 4k mono in an unheated workshop overnight and it’s only really from Nov. onwards I worry about trying to heat the printer.
Reasons for failure?
Temperature is a big one. But I honestly don’t think that’s your issue right now.
You tend to get failures in specific parts of the bed if the FEP is too tight/too floppy (if the FEP is too floppy, you’ll get failures in the middle and more success around the outsides of the build plate – if it’s too tight, the opposite).
Thinking about what happens when your resin printer plate lifts: the resin is stuck between the FEP and the print bed. The FEP has a degree of “give” to it. Lifting the head pulls the cured resin and needs to rise enough that the printed resin eventually releases off the FEP (and stays stuck to the previous layer).
If the FEP is too floppy, the printed resin never releases off the FEP.
If it’s too tight, with no give at all, the printed resin is equally as likely to stay stuck to the FEP as it is the bed (and you only need it to stay stuck to the FEP once for it to stay there for the rest of the print!)
Lift speed. Lower it.
I usually lift between layers at about 35-40mm/sec. A lot of printers can go much faster than this. But then it’s like ripping off a plaster. Again, thinking about how the printer works, you want to lift (relatively) slowly, so as you pull the FEP up with the printed layer, there’s enough time for the FEP to give, then release, then spring back into place. If your lift speed it too fast, you’re “ripping the plaster off”.
Add delays between layers.
This used to be important for my Anycubic Photon (less so for my 4k mono, but I still include it). When the head has lifted, turn off the UV array (the purple lights) and give it a few seconds (I use any value up to about 4 seconds). Why? Well, firstly it’s the ripped plaster thing again. But ALSO it allows the UV matrix time to cool down (so it’s not switched on almost all of the time).
Without delays, your UV light is on for 2.5-10 seconds (depending on 3d printer type), then it goes off and the head lifts. If you lift the head really quickly and return, then whack the UV light on again, it’s on for more time than it’s off. This can cause the printing bed to warm up over time. A warm LCD, exposed to UV, breaks down quicker than a cold one.
(my original Anycubic Photon had an expected LCD lifetime of about 400 hours; I was still running the original LCD after more than twice this, because I allowed cooling time between layers).
Don’t just delete islands!
Thing about an upsidedown traffic cone – the problem with just deleting islands, is you’ll remove almost all of your traffic code, until it reaches a point where it touches another object. Now you’ll be printing not a tiny little point that gradually gets bigger over multiple layers, but a massive, flat, square area, possibly connected to another shape by just a few pixels.
There’s more to checking your files than just deleting islands! Sometimes you need to connect islands to other objects, or add in some “filler pixels” over a number of layers to make good, strong bonds.
So first thing, check your supported STLs for unsupported shapes and support them.
Then check the sliced file for islands and *fix them*.
Then make sure the temperature isn’t too cold for printing (by which we’re talking below 15C or so – at this time of year, given it’s unseasonably warm in much of the UK, this is unlikely to be an issue; if you feel like you’d want to put the heating on to be comfortable yourself, that’s when print failures might occur due to temperature if you don’t).
Then check your lift speed isn’t too high (40mm/sec ish should be fine – it slows down your print, but if you’re leaving it to run overnight, does it matter if it takes 4hrs instead of 3.5hrs?)
Add a time off delay between layers (I use 4 sec but this is probably overkill).
Lastly, make sure you’ve got your exposure time (per layer) set correctly.
Too high and your minis will appear “soapy” (overexposure).
Too low and you’re also get failures!
The great thing is, once you’ve got your printer set up right for your conditions, it can be as repeatable and reliable as any of your other tools!
@warzan – ping
Acre – As John said: “This is a true story, only the facts have been changed to make it more interesting”
God , I don’t want to be that guy but Acre is pronounced ‘A’cre like the unit of land or when someone kicks you in the nutz 🙂