So last night, I started binge-reading a comic...but couldn't catch up on it overnight before tiredness claimed me. Now, admittedly. I did 550 pages, started at 3 am, and this was like two hours later, so that's still 550 pages in two hours, butstill. There's seven hundred pages and I only got 3/4ths of them overnight. May or may not have the time to do more later, kinda have stuff to do today, but I want to.

The comic in question is one I've always wanted to binge-read, Not A Villain, and now I'm glad I have. I can aptly describe it as such:
Has a strong parallel to Danganronpa (especially the second game) with ever so slightly the touch of Hunger Games (The Game and it requiring watchers to do well in).

But more specifically.

I can describe it adequately as:
"Imagine Danganronpa's setting where Junko Enoshima did all of the things she did...but then, had a legitimate HeelFaceTurn." With Junko post-turning-good being the protagonist trying to overcome how she literally ended the world. (Or as Jake puts it, "redeem the unredeemable".)

If you've played the Danganronpa games enough to be familiar with them, and you've read to the point I have in Not A Villain, you'll instantly get where I'm coming from with that description and I do think it is an apt one. A very very apt one, given the setting.

Like I said, pretty busy today so this might be my only blog entry in spite of it being short (I'm kinda rushing to get this in during a brief gap so I don't forget to mention this later), butyeah. Definitely something I'd recommend.

Randomly felt like being struck on a whim to talk more about League. (Hey I am an official addict at this point. I play a ton of matches even without my girlfriend--admittedly, pretty much exclusively AI matches with the occasional ARAM because I'm too scared of people yelling at my incompetency to do a PVP match without someone on my team, butstill. Also, I watch the LoL Sports stuff even when it's not a requirement for a quest.)

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that I play exclusively Ashe, but I didn't really go much into the why. She's basically the only champ I think I can ever be remotely competent as. To some extent, this is because of a self-feeding loop; I only play Ashe, so I am only experienced as Ashe, so when I play other champs I suck, so I play more as Ashe, so I become more dependent on playing Ashe, and so on and so forth. She's who I practice playing as, so naturally she's the only one I'm good as.

But the reason I chose her to play as pretty much exclusively is because she is the champ that I just find is the most me to use. I'm still fairly incompetent at many aspects of her. In 80+% of the games I play, I lose my lane to my opponents. I am easily caught out of position in team fights, too far forward or isolated in the jungle for easy pickings or easy gank prey because I overextend.

In team fights, I have trouble following who's who, who's where, what's happening, and so on and so forth, frequently thinking I'm somewhere I'm not, and thus, making a ton of misplays because I can't track the information accurately.

I have been picking up knowledge from tutorials, from watching streamers, from watching pro play, on all the things which should be done, but while I do process some of that knowledge, I am utterly clueless as to what I should be doing, when. When do I go for plates on a tower, when do I instead of going for plates on a tower push the wave and recall, when do I instead of going for plates on a tower go to roam, when do I avoid pushing the wave and instead try to freeze it, how to pull off a successful freeze, when do I go for an all-in, when do I avoid an all-in and rely on poking, when I'm low on health yet am the only defender when do I recall and when do I stave them off; when I'm low on health and yet my team is there, when do I help them try to kill the enemy in spite of being low on health and when do I recall and hope that they have me covered?

In basic fundamental shot-calling like that, I am dismal. I need to constantly ask for advice from others, which is another reason why I don't like to go into PVP matches unless I have someone on my team; they can talk to me about it and give me advice I'd otherwise go without and they go into the game knowing I need that help without me needing to tell them about it every single match.

I know those are skills that I'd need to master on my own to take my play to a higher level, and I know some of them I might be able to, but I also know some of them I'll never be able to, which is why I know that I'll never get much better than where I am now--yet Ashe gives me the best chance of improving because she's the champ whose skills are best suited to my strengths.

Her skills are very useful for a player that works mostly on gut instinct. I don't know what to do when, and largely go with the flow. Unless given shots called, I have to guess what to use, when, and while I am objectively terrible at it, going with what I feel is usually something that works out. Having played as much as I do, and with the practice I do (this is one of the few things that going up against bots is actually useful for!), I have a fairly decent idea of what my abilities can do, when. Of when I can win an engagement, and when I cannot. Of how long (or rather, how short) my stun lasts, of how powerful my slow is, of how much damage I can deal and how much damage I can receive. (Okay so I'm still working on the 'receive' part because I tend to be a little bit clumsy about tracking my HP at times but I usually can tell, I just occasionally go into engagements at full HP and don't notice I'm taking damage or think I'm taking less damage than I am and in those occasions end up dead when I didn't know I was even at risk.)

Stuff like that, I kinda have a feel for, which I do off of instinct. And Ashe's skills are pretty good at getting good damage in, too. If I'm confused, caught off-guard, or just plain outright misclick (which I do often, mind you), I'll tend to mess up the usage of my skills, but I usually just have a feel for what to use, when. Still get complaints about wasted ults of course, but that's usually a result of a misjudgment of engagement (for instance as an example I think we're going to all-in them, but then my team...doesn't, because they had a reason not to which I wasn't aware of, e.g. they were out of mana which is something I am utterly terrible at tracking).

Still. While incompetencies like that are purely my fault. That doesn't change my statement that Ashe is suited for me. I like attacking from a distance, and Ashe apparently has the third-longest auto-attack range (behind Caitlyn my prior main who I couldn't get the handle of netting/trapping which're her signature skills, and Jinx). I usually excel at hit-and-run tactics, and Ashe's slow (both from her passive and from all her skills) makes her one of the best at kiting.

Mind you. Kiting requires effective timing and clicking and I am prone to misclicking, e.g. trying to attack but instead clicking to the side which causes Ashe to move towards my opponent instead of attacking then away, or launching two attacks instead of the intended one because my click backwards didn't register as I intended (I take a lot of tower aggro shots this way, where I'll poke or even kill a champ that was under tower protection, with the intention of running out of tower range before the tower aggros me, which works if I do it right, but hurts when I instead, sayyy, click to attack a minion behind me meaning I'm still in the turret's range).

But! It is still the thing that I generally like to do and try to get the most out of. Ashe is meant to be a kiter, and I like kiting and usually am reasonably decent at it. More than that, Ashe's skills make her ridiculously good at poking opponents; her volley (spread shot) attack is almost impossible to dodge (as long as I don't misclick) and almost impossible for me to miss on; the one and only defense against it is to have a minion (or fellow champ I suppose, but then that champ still takes damage) intercept the shot.

And to me that's usually a win-win. Keep the champ cowering behind their minion and presumably out of their attack range (so they can't hit me), potentially farm minions for me, or if they come out, nail them. Plus, build up ranger's focus (her rapid-fire attack), and she can take out anywhere from half to three-quarters of a champion's HP instantly. (Or if I'm lategame and fed against a champ with little resistance, instakill them, but that's fairly rare and requires specific circumstances to work.)

Ashe's skills are very effective at preventing champs from running away, and fairly useful (with good kiting at least) at allowing for a tactical retreat. Hit them, then run, with them slowed (or stunned if I needed to use the ult to cover the escape), until reaching safety. (Well, in theory. Because I mess up on the kiting, usually they still kill me, but again, that's usually from a misclick and I keep trying to practice that. I can pretty much almost 100% successfully kite by using volley on the enemy champ and run away, but using Ashe's auto-attack is where I usually fuck up the kiting and as mentioned, not click on an enemy which causes Ashe to reverse direction and walk toward the people who're trying and can easily kill her.)

Plus, I've found that unless the enemy champ is ridiculously fed or they are already at point blank distance or they outnumber me significantly, Ashe can pretty much kill most champs before they get close enough to kill her, assuming she's at full health. (Lower health, yeah, I need to run because it takes a miracle for me to win a fight against a champ that's not weakened when I am.)

Basically. I like the things that Ashe is designed to do, hit and run, poke aggressively, slow/stun enemies, hit from afar, and rapidfire attacks. Because Ashe can attack ridiculously quickly with the right items backing her. I like fast attacks; I like long-range attacks; I like multi-target attacks; I like attacks that slow/stun Ashe's volley and ranger's focus provide both, with her ult having unlimited range and adds that stun in.

Plus, hawkshot is useful for scouting. I admit, I don't have the hang of it. I know how to use it. When I use it, I can with a good solid 98% accuracy hit the location I meant to hit using it, and reveal what I intended to reveal. The how isn't the problem, though; it's the when and where that I'm not so sure about. Guides have helped that a little bit, but I still don't really know much about it, and this is a skill which unfortunately can't be improved on in bot games because bots don't go into the areas Ashe should be revealing. (I know that much at least.)

It's something that I can only improve on using by using it in PVP matches, making it few and far between where I get a chance to make use of it. Still! While I've usually been favoring other skills over it (because, again, I don't know how/when to use it so usually haven't used it, even though I knew I should), it's something that if I could get a hang on it (practice makes potentially passable?), I'd do well.

Ashe is someone who is designed to be fairly easy to utilize, too. She might have a lower skill cap than other champs, she might be less useful than other champs overall, she might be seen as trash compared to other champs in higher-level play. But for me, that ease of access is essential.

Her skills aren't hard to understand and the theory behind them is easy to grasp. Her skills are fairly easy to utilize effectively, or at least some semblance thereof. I usually fail, big time, to be what she's meant to be (the ad CARRY of the team), because rarely if ever am I in the top damage dealers of the match (well, in bot games I get to be the top about 40-60% of the time, but that's because it's against bots).

But I don't think I'd do any better at any other champ and/or in any other role. I'd never be able to pull off, sayyyy, Tryndamere top in spite of having watched the master of said champ and in theory knowing what to go for and what to do with him, because it's a role ill-suited for my skills, my playstyle, my general way of thinking, my handling of things.

I'd never be able to pull off any champ in jungle; I can barely navigate in the jungle yet alone master it.

I'd never be able to pull off any real champ in support. To be honest, my Ashe playstyle is kinda sorta supportish, but not an official support. Not the defined role of support. Not doing the things that are the job of the support (e.g. wards, roaming, and so on and so forth). I don't quite mean 'living ultimate', either, which is what poor Ashe players are defined as being (although that is closer to what I mean).

But the way I play Ashe, I tend to keep my teammates alive long enough that they can win fights; I tend to slow enemies enough that my team can kill the enemy champs. I tend to usually not be the one to kill three enemy champs (what a proper adc is meant to be able to do), but rather tend to be the one who sets the enemy up for being killed. Not with my ult (though I do use it as part of that), but with a combination of my other two skills and auto-attacks, using my passive, mostly.

Assuming I'm not caught out of position (which I often am), I've found that I tend to get a ton of assists. I know that that's the "wrong" way to play Ashe and is dangerously close to the "basically a living ult" viewpoint of her. But it's the role I feel I can actually do somewhat competently. I don't have the necessary skills to pull off the hard-carry I'm meant to.

But...well. Hmm. How do I explain it? Basically--I am always going to be a trash-tier player. I'll never have the skills necessary to play any role as it's meant to be played. There's no Top role I'd do what Top is meant to. There's no Mid role I'd do what Mid is meant to. There's no Jungle role where I'd be a competent Jungler; I can never pull that off. There's no Support role where I'd be able to do what a Support champ is supposed to do.

And there's no Bottom champ where I can do what I'm meant to do and be a proper adc. Not even Ashe. I don't think I will ever be able to do what I am meant to do, not even on Ashe. But on Ashe, I feel like I have the best chance of getting some semblance of what I'm meant to do, while also kinda able to do my own thing with her. A thing where I can support my team in spite of not being the Support. A thing where I can help kill the enemy champs even if I'm not the one personally killing three champs in a row.

I'm not good enough to do anything that I'm meant to as any role, with any champ, properly. Practice can make me better, but never will I be good. Just...adequate, if that. But I feel like Ashe gives me the most freedom to do what I can do. Which is usually use my instincts to make snap-shot calls that can vastly help the team if they were the right call to make.

Obviously, I would prefer to win lane, even though I expect in every game to lose it (unless against bots in which case I might "lose" it, but there's always a teammate to take over and cause the team to win the lane, usually because I kept 1v2ing the enemy champs, winning, but being whittled down by this effort until they either kill me or force me to recall because in bot matches I don't automatically have a second champ to even things out).

Obviously, I would prefer to be what people expect Ashe to be, and actually carry.

Obviously, I would prefer to be using the champ to their maximum utility in their designated role.

Would prefer.
But know I never can, not even close.

And because I can't be that, I do what I can to be what I can be. To be what I am useful as. Someone who falls behind compared to others, but who is not valued purely for her ult. Someone who can use her skills to help position the team for the win, even if she's not doing the damage she's meant to. Someone who can basically...I guess. Exert some control over enemy champs.

Basically, what I mean by this. Is that Ashe is meant at her full potential to basically be best at killing, repeatedly, the enemy. Over and over again. Killing them and killing them and killing them again. I can't do that with her. But what I can do, even without my ult. Is I feel like I am somewhat competent at controlling the enemy. Positioning them. Slowing them. Stunning them. Getting them low enough HP that they can be killed by my allies. Getting them low enough HP that they are forced to retreat. Forcing them to waste skills/spells.

I know that's not what Ashe is meant to do, but that's what I feel I am good at making her do. Well. "Good". In the sense of. "At least kinda sorta passably competent". Because I misclick, because I get confused, because I get caught off-guard, because I misjudge, because I don't track variables I should, and so on and so forth, things which some of which can be improved and others of which will remain true due to my utter incompetence.

There are plenty of other champs that are designed to do the things I just described; it's basically the thing Support champs are meant to do, more or less. (Not really, but it's a part of their job, especially in the laning phase; they are meant to control the enemy champs so that their adc can get ahead, more or less. Vast, vast oversimplification and again far far far from all they do but it's *a* basic PART of their job even though it's far from the entirety of their job.)

But I legitimately, honestly, think that I'd never be able to do the things I described as well on them as I do on Ashe. I can practice them on other champs, sure. I can try. And I can try. And I can try some more. I could practice all day on other champs, trying to master those things. But I legitimately, genuinely. Just don't think that there's a champ out there that has skills I'd be able to master for that sort of role, better than what I have as Ashe.

Because, again, to reiterate, I am a trash-tier player. I am not good; I am barely passable as passable, if that. I can get better, but only to some extent; I will always be a trash-tier player, it's just that in the future with practice I'll be a higher-level-trash-tier player rather than the lower-level-trash-tier player I am now.

I could be wrong, of course. I haven't played every champ in the game and even if I had the only way I'd 100% know for a fact I am better on Ashe than any champ is if I put in the hours on each of those other champs equivalent to Ashe and found out after all that practice, "Yeah I do better on Ashe".

But knowing who I am as a person, as a player. What I am good at, what I am not good at. Ashe is just the champ I feel is the best suited for what I tend to do. Plus. If nothing else. I don't really play League to win. I mean, winning's the goal, especially if I have an objective requiring I win a match. You don't exactly play to lose. (Well, you could call a match against someone you know is a better player a guaranteed lost; when I duel my girlfriend I know I'm not going to win no matter what so that's technically speaking playing a guaranteed loss...but it's not like I roll over and just let them win, I fight and lose because they are better than me and they outplay me and I make stupid mistakes which squander any advantage I may have had a chance at holding. So I don't play to lose, I just lose because I'm not as good.)

But while I don't try to lose.
And while I will sometimes really want a win.
And while I will definitely want a win if an objective requires it.
I mostly play League to have fun.

And I don't get tilted playing it. I just...don't. I'll get annoyed by a losing streak, but I won't be surprised by it because I know I'm incompetent and most of our losses can be attributed in large part to me making a ton of mistakes which put our team behind/me helping to snowball the enemy team's lead over our team.

And Ashe is who I just have the most fun as playing as. Because what she does matches my style. What she does matches what I like to do. What I like to do doesn't really line up with what she should do (again, she should CARRY the team and I do everything but), but handling her is just fun for me. 

Admittedly, it gets less fun to get repeatedly killed unless I see it coming, to be dead more often than I am alive unless I know it'll happen, to constantly be running to the action because Ashe be slowwwwwwwww (at least with the boot passive she automatically gets free boots with a bonus 10 movement speed that can be upgraded to better boots with more movement speed, and she has good movement speed boost items like Runaan's bow that also serves as a broken thing because her ranger's focus attacks also split off which is RIDICULOUSLY OP but I digress).

By which, I mean, beit death or by recall, if there's action half-way or all-the-way across the map, by the time Ashe can get there it's usually too late beit my team lost or my team already won or the damage to my turrets was already done or something to that effect.

Unless I expect those things to happen (e.g. it's a given that's the outcome when dueling my girlfriend, because, again, my girlfriend is going to win our duel no matter what I do so I don't really get affected by it then because I expected it going in as a given), it can get a little annoying. It can get a little less fun. If you're constantly OUT of the battle, then there's not a lot of fun to be had because the fun to be had is IN the battles.

Yet I still get enjoyment out of it all the same, and I tend to learn from each defeat. Maybe by the next day I'll have forgotten the lesson I learned (hopefully not but you can only hold onto so much information before some of it gets lost), but usually I'll at least not make those same mistakes I made for the rest of that night if nothing else, and will take the advice/criticism I receive into consideration.

Usually with a back and forth; "don't do that", "well, this is what happened that caused that", "okay, well in the future, do this instead", and then I try to do that this instead. (Particularly, "I KEEP ON HAVING X HAPPEN TO ME"; "To not have X happen, do this", "Kk, will try" and bam, X happens less often. Never gets altogether removed, but happens less after I'm given the answer necessary to help me actually improve on the mistake.)

I feel like I probably didn't quite get out my strengths (few as they may be) out properly and why what Ashe's skills are, are well-suited to what I do. Which is what I set out to do; I set out to say why I prefer playing her and yet while I feel like I explained a lot I don't feel like I really conveyed it effectively. Or rather. I feel like I probably conveyed the wrong message, and don't really know how to convey the right one.

Butstill.

I still like having typed this blog out, because it felt good to talk about the subject some. I like playing Ashe, and while I'll never be able to play her as effectively as she's meant to be played, I still like playing her and think that she's the best champion for me to use of any.

Mind you, I chose that wording carefully because while I'm not as bad as I was yesterday, this is more a reversion to be what I was two days ago--that being, still depressed, just...not as painfully so. I am still down and can feel that I am quite down, I just am not as horrifically down as I was yesterday.

I'm not upbeat, I'm not energetic, I'm still fairly lethargic, I'm down, and I'm just not enthused by most things, but I'm at least at the point of feeling like I can live, whereas yesterday was actually kinda DANGEROUS levels of low.

Soyeah. Not gonna lie. I could be better. I could be much, much better. I would love to be absolutely entirely better than where I am at right now. I even kinda have an inkling of a desire to be inspired, a desire to work on something, a desire to be passionate, so maybe I'm on the rebound.

...But I know I'm not recovered yet, because while there's that small portion of desire, it's not actually focused on anything. If my lack of focus were because of too many things, I'd know I'd be recovered, but my lack of focus here is because there is no thing. No single thing, and no more-than-one thing. Just nothing. 

I have the desire to be inspired, which is good, but nothing actually inspiring me, which is not as good. In actuality, I feel like I can kinda sorta express where I'm at with this, kinda sorta. I feel like what I want to do isn't so much as work on anything, so much as I want to talk about something. On here. On my blog.

I want my blog to basically, were it to actually have readership (which I know it doesn't, stats be damned, because I know there's no way that I'm getting at-lowest 30 readers a day, at-highest 110 readers a day; I'd expect maybe one tenth of those to be real, 3-11 people per day).

If people were actually reading what I was writing. For it to actually be something that was inspiring to them. That was uplifting to them. I need not write uplifting content myself. My blog entry could be entirely a long entry about why my day sucked, but what I kinda want is that if people actually read my blog, for them to actually have some thorough enjoyment, entertainment, enrichment, enlightenment, from it.

You know.

Basically.

It's the same dream I had when I first became a writer which kept me being a writer for all those years that I was a writer.
It's the same dream I have for being a webcomic artist, and for sharing Phyrra and Cyrus with the rest of the world, even after having had the writer within me be basically dead for novelwriting.

It's to have others feel the same way about what I wrote, that I feel about things that I read. You know how I go on about all these things that enriched my life? How Dan Shive was a massive inspiration to me once I read his work. How Grrr Power was a massive inspiration to me once I read the comic (okay admittedly you never got the full blog entry there but you did get a part of it).

How Worm was an incredibly uplifting, inspirational, piece of work in spite of it being incredibly dark, just because it represented how you can do so much and make a work so incredible online using just sheer willpower combined with clever planning basically, determination combined with competent storyboarding, to lay out a guideline to a plot.

And so on and so forth.

That's been going on since I was a kid. When I was young, I saw that Eragon was published by a person when they were a teenager--I knew that the Inheritance Cycle was, objectively speaking, not a too terribly well-written book series filled to the brim with flaws, but the inspiring fact about it wasn't the quality of the books (which I felt were entertaining in spite of being flawed; think basically "like most mainstream films these days" which are absolute junk in so many ways but can still be mindless entertainment that you get creative ideas from).

It was that a teenager managed to write, then successfully sell, the book he wrote. The books sold, and they sold well. That they sold so well, no matter what you think of the quality of the material, means that the author did something right. Same principle applies to the Twilight Saga. I enjoyed reading it, and the books sold well. I objectively know about all of the flaws in the series which have been pointed out to the point of being old, boring news.

Everyone knows the books are objectively junk--but they were still enthralling enough to be an enjoyable read in spite of knowing all the flaws therein, and the books still sold incredibly well. You can say whatever you'd like about the author; you can say whatever you'd like about the quality of the books. But the fact that they sold incredibly well, combined with my subjective experience of enjoying them in spite of knowing that they were flawed. Means that you have to acknowledge that objectively, she did something right.

She was able to sell something that was flawed, and make people buy it in spite of its flaws, and even enjoy it knowing all of what is flawed within. For all the flaws of the writing you can find, the fact that it had that effect, again, means that there was something being done right.

And that's the effect which has always been inspiring to me as a writer. Knowing that in spite of the flaws of the writing, it is still possible to make a product that people genuinely enjoy, and can derive entertainment from. More than that! That they can be enriched in their lives from having read a work in spite of the flaws of that work. That they can be inspired, that they can be uplifted, to the point where they dream big and can maybe do something that they otherwise wouldn't.

In other words.

My dream of dreams is basically. To be able to have it so that I do for others, what others have done for me, throughout my life. Picked me up, made me stronger, made me more enriched, made me more inspired, made me the dreamer that I am. I want to make other people dream. I want to make others be picked up by what I do.

And right now the only way I have of doing that is through the one thing that I've never consistently failed at for the longest time of anything I've worked on. Which is my blog. Yes, I occasionally for whatever reason miss an entry in spite of the aim to be a daily blog. But the simple fact of the matter is. By and large. For four and a half years.

I've kept this going.

Do you know what else I've kept going for four and a half years?

Pretty much nothing.
Nothing that's me, at least.
Sure, job; tae kwon do; dancing; counseling. Stuff like that, been doing longer than four and a half years. But it doesn't really count as being me. Those things are a part of me, but they aren't a part of my expression of me.

Every dance I try to write, I don't finish.
Every time I take up songwriting I never go anywhere with it.
Every time I try to compose music, I keep it in my head and do nothing with it.
Every time I write a story, I never end up following through with it and publishing it.
Every time I start a webcomic, I end up abandoning it, even after having taken precautions against abandoning it.
Every time I work on a project, I end up abandoning it, even after knowing about my bipolar disorder and taking steps to counteract it.

I have listened to uplifting speech after uplifting speech. People who succeed say the same cliched lines about why they succeeded, not because it's a cliche, but because the cliche is cliche because it is true to reality and they all say the same thing because the same thing held true for each of them. I forget the exact words, but something along the lines of willpower being temporary, of how the drive to work is temporary, but you need to keep doing it, keep efforting at it, even when you don't feel like it, force your way through it, keep at it, and if you really want it, you will put in the work necessary to get it done.

More or less, something along those lines at least. And I have tried to implement that advice before--tried...and failed. I have, consistently, failed. In spite of knowing about the autistic concept of inertia. I know that once I get rolling I can keep things rolling but that when they screech to a halt they stay stopped with a near-impossibility to get started again. I take measures to prevent the stop, and even if the stop happens, I tell myself that I have the strength of will to push the stopped train, inch by inch, until it's moving again.

...But I never actually do and all the planning in the world falls apart because I, frankly, just suck. I dream. I dream the dream, I never bring the dream to reality. For all of those things. For all of those ideas. They all fail. I've gone into this before, about how while I dream of succeeding, I'm actually happier in my failures, and hypothesize that's why so many people who don't make it big can still be happy and why quite a number of people who do make it big are often not-so-happy in spite of having made it big.

Who knows, maybe that is true. I honestly don't know anymore. I am a contradictory being. Old enough where I'm expected to more or less be solidifying myself, young enough where I can't actually do so and am constantly, consistently, second-guessing every single thing about everything. All my beliefs, all my thoughts on myself, how I view things, everything, I doubt it all and I constantly revise everything including my outlook on life.

But I'm going on a bit of a tangent, there. My point is...I generally am just. A failure in general. Yet this blog is pretty much the one thing which I don't think I have failed at.

I've had plenty of blog entries where I didn't succeed.

I like to pour my heart and soul out every single entry, so when I am forced to blog-dodge for whatever reason. Forced to make an empty, substanceless entry. Forced to make nothing. Or whenever I forget to make an entry. When anything like that happens. Obviously, it's not a success.

But by and large. Four and a half years. Four and a half years, I've been doing this blog. And by and large it actually has succeeded. It hasn't succeeded as often as I'd like. It certainly hasn't succeeded in all the ways I'd hope it'd succeed, in part because those hopes are by and large contradictory. I've wanted different things out of my blog at different times, so of course my blog can't be all of them.

But it's still been most of them, most of the time. Even this entry. It started out as any other would, and yet now has been built up to be something actually unique. And there's the charm, I feel, in my blog writing. There's where I derive some hope from.

I want what I write on this blog. No matter the subject. About me. About me talking about my latest passion project. About whatever caught my fancy. About something I read, something I watched. About whatever I have on my mind when I make a blog entry. I want what I write here to be something that readers can get some enjoyment from.

I want as many people as is possible to read my blog, so that as many people as is possible can find something, anything, in my blog, which made it worth the read. I want a blog which is worth the time and effort to read. After all.

It's four and a half years.
And counting.
Of content.
Filled with entries that are this length and longer.
Like, what's my longest entry? I wouldn't even know, but it'd have to be something probably ten times as long as this already-lengthy blog.

I know that even I can't read all four and a half years of my blog.
I can't even really stand to skim too much of it. I just don't have the time/focus to review it all, even though I know that I'd actually be better off if I did review what I wrote/said from time to time so that things that I said that I didn't want to be forgotten, aren't actually forgotten.

And if I.
The girl who wrote the blog in the first place.
If I.
The person who made the entries in the first place.
If I.
The person who can read 800 pages in a single night and then some.
If I.
The person who could read almost all of Worm in the span of weeks, and then finish the rest in the span of days. When that work is over a million words long by some significant amount.

If I can't do it.

Then I doubt anyone else could. And even if they could, I doubt that they would.

Sure, some people like to stay fairly current on my blog; they read it every day, or if not, they binge-read it every few days, every week, every month, you name it. Some people do that, and can do that. That's not too hard to do; keep current on something updating every day.

But starting from the beginning? Yeahhhhhhh nobody can start from the beginning, read every entry, and get caught up, while having read it all well and truly having read it all. It's impossible.

But believe it or not.

I'm actually kinda proud of that.

It's enough content that it's impossible to keep track of it all.

Instantly that means it's worth more than most other things.

I know that my few readers, such as they are, have changed over the years.
I know that they come and they go.
That I legitimately do have a small readership who stay...but who said readers are that stay, tend to change.
But right now the closest I have to inspiration to do something is...well. Just this. My blog.

At this point, I think that the closest thing I'll ever have to a lasting legacy is in fact this blog.
Not any story I'll write; I won't probably ever publish even though that's been a lifelong dream of mine.
Not any webcomic I'll start; I won't probably ever finish any of them no matter my desire.
Not any ambitious project, e.g. a video game, Phyrra and Cyrus; you actually think that I, me, Bree, could actually have the conviction necessary to see it through, by myself? Nooooooooot a chance in hell. Maybe, maybe, MAYBE with the right support network I could see them through, but that would require that support network be perfectly placed and able to push me in that direction actively and consistently and continuously and to keep me from slacking.

Realistically speaking.
This blog is it.
It's all I'll ever actually have as lasting proof.
Because after I'm gone.
You'll have random scattered notes everywhere about random scattered ideas I had. In bad handwriting, with most of the papers having long-since deteriorated due to whatever various poor conditions they were stored in having withered away the penciling/ink to the point where the already-basically-unreadable writing is turned utterly-illegible. 

The ideas die with me.
And because I will probably never actually get those ideas to reality.
They will never be made. They will always just...disappear, when I (hopefully very very very far away) eventually die.
Which, mind you, I know is morbid and is obviously something which isn't something that many people (including myself) like to dwell on, but is a hard fact of life. Much as we like to dream of being immortal and plan on living forever, everyone including myself dies eventually.

Since I don't want to really ponder on it much further, not going to say more on that than that, but what I'm focusing on is how this blog is basically...well. Assuming it isn't taken down at some point. (Which would really really suck and screw you weebly if you ever do that to me.) It's the proof I was alive. It's the proof I was a person. It's the proof I existed. It's the best insight into my personality, my being, my existence, that will remain. It's the record of who I was as a person.

It's not a perfect record, of course. But it's a lasting insight into who I am--and it is something which is there available for everyone to see. It is available to all, which is one of the things which I've always wanted. I've wanted to share myself with the world. I've wanted to share my being with others, open up and just. Tell them about myself. Tell them anything and everything about me.

Basically lay out my life's story, except for the things about my life that I want to keep private to only me or those that I choose to share those things with. (E.g. things that I tell my girlfriend and only my girlfriend are...pretty self-evidently, going to have a level of intimacy to them.)

This blog is who I am. It's not all of who I am, but it is who I am, as is recorded in time, in history. And I know nobody reads it, in spite of my dreams otherwise. But that doesn't stop the dreams from existing. Of this blog. Of my writing here. Being the thing that I get from others all the time.

Of being something that enriches the lives of those who read it. Of being something worthwhile to have read. Of being something that people actually enjoyed experiencing. Of sharing my visions with others, and those visions having inspired those others, in spite of them having been mine.

I guess that typing this out has made me feel even better than I was before, a little. Because that spark is there. Mind you. Beyond continuing to blog every day, not gonna do anything with it. I could, theoretically, have ways to spread my blog to others. When I comment on webcomics that allow you to link to a site, I deliberately avoid linking to any site including this blog, even though I could easily do so without consequence and have said link theoretically lead to potentially more exposure. Same for comments on Worm; I left a few and had that option, but chose not to take it.

I could theoretically explore post options more; there's options for search engine optimization. There are sites which I have profiles on that don't link to my blog even though both ComicFury and the site I play mafia on contain the blog link; on the ones that don't, I could add it in.

By having an increased presence on other sites, with a link to the blog, I would in theory be able to get an increased number of readers. Heck, all of those are free but if I really wanted to, there are paid options to expand what I can do using weebly's software (paid options which can go to hell as far as I'm concerned; I'm never paying so much as a cent to weebly and if they try to force me to, they can kiss my presence goodbye; I'd find somewhere else to blog).

That I can list these options but am not going to do them tells you what I mean--I could do more with my blog to increase its exposure, and with luck, increase the odds of my dream coming true, of me succeeding in having it be what I dream of dreams it being, of it being uplifting, inspiring, and so on and so forth.

But beyond making entries like this.

I won't actually do that.

So the dream will remain just that, a dream.

​But it's a nice one to have, isn't it?

Granted, that's probably in large part due to not having much OF a day. I played League of Legends last night with my girlfriend for seven hours...starting after midnight. I was honestly surprised when I woke up after only six or so hours of sleep; I thought I'd get eight, but I guess my body couldn't stand being asleep that long. Oh well.

After that came breakfast and a shower, which...pretty much takes me to right now, time-wise. I don't really expect family night to generate any blog-worthy content (well, it could, it's just that I tend to be too slow on the uptake in transcribing events), so this is probably my only entry today even though it's a little lackluster.

Sorry!

Can't make five lengthy, meaty blog entries every single day. I'd love to, and yeah I sure as heck would want to, but no, it's absolutely in no way shape or form something I can actually pull off. It's subject entirely to my whims and right now I don't have that kind of creative muse within me.

Not exactly art, per se, although you could theoretically tie this in to art.
I have figured out how to make rudimentary edits to pcx files for my civ 3 mod. So far, the only one I've made is for the luxuries to in the city display screen (basically it involved exporting the existing one, making the changes to the existing one, then importing it back in, after I got the icons in the appropriate order), more or less display correctly (minor magenta pixels may display, but eh, close enough), but on my to-do list is to tackle getting buildings to display as they should...a task I have a feeling I know what will entail, but...*shudder*...it's going to be hell to get it to work right.

I've implemented literally every building except for the government-specific buildings, and have implemented the governments kinda sorta. Haven't had the game crash on me simply by having the governments exist, but that doesn't mean they work right. I still need to work out the exact balancing scheme for them; I've more or less outlined a general idea of a plan for them, but it is something that self-evidently needs tweaking.

Basically, Despotism (starting government of Persia, Goths, Celts, and Egypt) is the base government; I raised unit support from 4 to 6 for all, and this is the "universal +2 buff" that I applied to all other civs. I also raised Draft and Military Police to 3 each. (On my to-do list is to check governments' stats in full for all other scenarios.)

Monarchy became 4/6/12 with draft/military at 3/4 and was otherwise left alone.

Communism was raised to be 8/8/8, draft/military 3/5, with elite spies and was otherwise left alone--might need to buff Communism further, though, to give it the edge over tribal council (see below).

Republic's one I go back and forth on. War weariness is something I'm iffy on, but for now is set on Low. Cost/unit could be debilitating at its default 2, but for now I've left that alone. 3/5/6 is their unit support, with draft/military at 2/1; I'm not sure if that's appropriate in a scenario where you're generating a bajillion units to support and if playing one of the four warpowers, are locked in a war. The buff to veteran diplomats seems paltry compensation for this. (That said, Republic was given literally the best government-specific buildings, sooooooooo...)

Democracy given the scenario properties wouldn't be viable with high war weariness, so I set it to low. Their stats are similar to a republic, with 1/1/1 unit support per city (worse), and 2/1 draft/military and Elite diplomats. My concern is that this makes Democracy a worse Republic, even though Democracy has the worker rate bonus over Republic. Might need to buff the worker rate, or do something there.

Fascism I more or less buffed what was already there; 8/14/20 unit support, 4/6 draft/military police, veteran spies/diplomats, but keeping the drawbacks of the government.

Feudalism I tried hybridizing the game's default with the Shogun's-basically-better-Monarchy version of. Paid labor, no war weariness, trade bonus, no tile penalty, 6/8/10 unit support, draft/military set at a higher 5/6 (as a draw to the government), corruption/waste at problematic, but keeping the 3 upkeep cost of units. Plus veteran spies. Not quite sure if the hybrid works out as intended, but I think I'm on the right track.

Tribal Council right now is a better Communism it feels like, with free unit support, communal corruption, no war weariness, forced labor, 3/4 draft/military police, and elite spies/diplomats. This is where I want the government to be, so I'm not nerfing this; what needs to happen is buffs elsewhere in relation to this. I set it as the government for the Mongols, who need that free unit support to compensate for starting with basically no cities but having a ton of settlers ready to settle. (Well, migrants.)

Oligarchy I saw as being "similar to Monarchy"; nuisance not problematic corruption, forced not paid labor, 3/4 draft/military, and 3/5/11 unit support. I see this as approximately fair, though maybe it needs to be 4/6/12. It's meant to be close to normal Monarchy regardless. It's the government I set for Rome, Carthage, and Greece. (Persia not being one as in Rise is for balance reasons; Despotism being a worse government counterbalances the fact that Persia starts with a freakin' empire. Granted, it only takes Persia one turn to switch governments, butstill.)

Imperialism I hybridized the Rise/Fall versions of in some aspects, with high preferential treatment to the Rise version. Corruption at nuisance, unit support cost of 0 (effectively free, but handled differently), worker rate 4 (same as Fascism; most governments are 2, with Democracy at 3), draft/military 4/4, paid labor, unit support (not that it's relevant) 4/6/10, no war weariness, elite diplomats/spies.

Blood Cult, I learned, from the game has a unique trait: not requiring maintenance. (Well, Anarchy has that, but that doesn't count.) This INSTANTLY became my focus for the government, but I kept it well-rounded in other aspects as well. Removed the tile penalty (which I realize means Despotism's the only government with it and I am okay with that), no war weariness, forced labor, veteran diplomats, elite spies (this is straight out of the game mind you), 10/10/10 unit support (this is out of the game as well, just with the +2 bonus), 3/3 draft/military police, problematic corruption.

Protestant Monarchy is currently "maybe a worse Democracy", so might need a buff. Minimal corruption/waste, 2/2 draft/military support, trade bonus, worker rate 3, paid labor, no war weariness, 3/4/6 unit support. Seems to be comparable, but again, Democracy might need a buff.

So governments are loosely in.
Buildings, aside from governments (and unit generation, as in most cases, the units they're meant to generate aren't in the game yet), are in.
Resources I fixed to be in as they're meant to be.
Still need to implement Wonders (a little bit more of an undertaking than buildings) and units, and I'm midway through adding some of the buildings that I want cities to start with (this is something that I'll need to test out by playtesting and playtesting and playtesting).

I also need to tweak stuff like starting gold of civs; I had a rough idea of how much gold I wanted each to start with, and need to actually implement it.

So the scenario's progressing nicely. Lags like hell at every stage (seriously, it almost crashes every single time I try to launch the scenario) so frankly, once again, might be utterly unplayable; has way too many resources on the map for each civ (I could make do with literally half as many, and my playstyle of denying my opponents key strategic resources is nigh-impossible even though this means that the second half of my playstyle involving not being denied strategic resources is equally as super-viable) and just a lot of things that I executed imperfectly, but perfection is the enemy of good.

I do keep questioning myself, wondering what the scenario would be like if I made it perfectly rather than the hot mess I'm building, but oh well. I'm still making it, albeit not constantly. Just when it fancies me.

I did do a side-project for a while; a tweaked Middle Ages scenario. Played it twice through, once as the Kievans (a bit of a test-run, that; managed to trigger both the domination and VP wincons the same turn though it was effort to get the domination to trigger because I had to propaganda-steal a ton of cities and make some ill-advised conquests of enemy cities that left my own cities vulnerable but so worth it), then as the Abbasids.

Was quite fun. The exact list of changes is a little more extensive than I would've originally made, but I kept the heart and soul, the core, of the scenario the same. No new units/buildings, just modifying existing ones to fix some annoyances.

With no score-tracking, though, twice was enough for that.

Soyeah. On the gaming front, while I've largely not been talking about it, I did make progress there.

It's not the thing I want to focus on, mind you (and I can only work on it for so long before wanting to do...well, more than just that), but I feel like I'm making significant progress all the same.

​If only I could make that same progress in my art.

It's a good one, too, but I'm not sure how to schedule the time out for actually getting it done. When I start doing art, I want a solid bloc of time, where I start on the art and do nothing else until I finish the art. Anything less than that is considerably sub-optimal, to say the least, and the quality of the art will be vastly affected as a result. I thought I might be able to manage it today, but no, I got distracted doing work on the civ 3 mod (not a bad thing, mind you, as that is a project I need to work on; I finished implementing buildings and played around with pcx editing; I currently have one horrifically botched pcx file edited and I need to closely investigate the trick to make it not be botched since I've read about the method but don't quite understand it).

I'm not sure how long it'll take me to complete it, either. It'll be a full-torso, most-of-arms drawing taking up a full sketchbook page, and I'll need to gather up a ton of reference images to pull it off right. Multiple hours is the estimate, and I need to go to bed at midnight, so even if I started it now, not sure I'd finish. (Also, I'm typing this blog before I eat, at 8:40ish, so that's your reference point.)

Basically, my idea this time is to revisit a little-known piece of art I did before I even knew I was a girl. I'm not even sure I'd be able to find the original piece of art, it might be permanently lost to the ages, and was only posted in one place as far as I can recall, a site of someone who was a vague associate (not really even a friend).

What I'm aiming for is to redo that, and have it be more complete.
The original drawing I did was a combination of my two widely-used avatars at the time.
On mastin2 (this is so old that it predates the trololol avatar I later used), and on all Mastin accounts, I originally used the same avatar, originating back from my days on the battleon forums. The signature grin of the ebil (not a typo) blue moglin Zorbak, the Zorbak grin as I believe the filename is technically called.

It is the signature look of Mastin/mastin2, even if people don't think about it now as being so. Here, have a look.

...That would be a yes, I do have it.
​The original original (which I don't have anymore) said 'For SCIENCE!', and after I came out, it was kinda a big deal, so I changed my avatar (and what it said) appropriately so to match that. (And, yes, this is the much, much, much better done version. I could track down some horrific pictures of the original version but I much prefer to focus on this more refined version even if this refined version isn't perfect.)

The drawing that I want to redo combined both of them; I made a fullbody furry scientist, blue fur, semi-transparent, semi-opaque glasses, labcoat, bunny ears, red eyes, a full hybrid of the two, but again, image probably lost to the ages and even if not, was before I realized I am a girl.

Additionally.

It was before Red Hood Rider.

Ruby has since become one of my signature avatars. Black Ruby has replaced upside-down Argus as the most-used image of myself (though that's slightly debatable; upside-down Argus is pretty much mostly my gravatar image and lots of sites use gravatar), and I've used other versions of Ruby as my avatar as well.

I genuinely think that it'd be possible for me to draw an image (not meant as an avatar) that would hybridize all three designs; the anthropomorphic bunny with the ebil grin, the scientist, and Ruby. The scientist look is (minus the glasses and labcoat), mind you, meant to be an accurate representation of me; keep in mind that for the longest time, I had a ponytail on the back rather than...the thing I do now. (Is it a pigtail? A side-ponytail? I honestly don't know.)

What I have in mind is difficult. What I have in mind would take effort. And it'd be easy to screw up, so much needs to go right for it to work well. But I genuinely think I can do it, if I can set aside the time for it.

It will look so cool if done right, even in just the black and white of pencil.

But I need to actually do it and nail it​ in order for it to work that way.

When you go out of your way to watch MSI games (with no need for it) and you play a few matches on your own (also with no need for it), what else can be said of you other than exactly that?

Basically to sum it up quickly, I kinda sorta want to just make slightly modified versions of the civ 3 scenarios I haven't modified. (Or maybe in the case of the fall of rome one, make a proper one rather than my original botched one.)

The sorts of changes that aren't adding units/wonders (or if so, are only minimalistically so and logically done), and which don't extensively modify things, but which do provide some change.

I don't particularly enjoy some scenarios as much as others and I don't think modifying them would fix that.
I don't really enjoy the WWII scenario and no modification will change it.
I enjoy the stuff in the Mesoamerican scenario, but playing it once kills all feeling of need to play it again. Also, its unique features are easily imported into the Age of Discovery scenario.
I enjoy the Sengoku/Shogun scenario, but playing it once kills all feeling of need to play it again especially once you learn that literally the only difference between the civs is their starting location; the only difference in playthroughs is in which method of winning you decide to pursue. (War Council is ridiculously easy to get elected to if you can manage to keep the island nations stuck on being islands and literally control the entirety of the mainland via having wiped out altogether all mainland nations.)
I enjoy the Mesopotamian scenario, but as-is the only changes I'd make are to the VP limit (it needs to be like, double, because it's too easy to achieve) and the time limit (it could use being longer). Maybe retaining culture of cities captured but that's a feature I love regardless of scenario anyway.

​Rise of Rome I've modded already, multiple times in fact, it being my favorite scenario and all that, so I wouldn't be doing it again.

​Which leaves Fall of Rome, The Middle Ages, Age of Discovery, and Napoleonic Europe.
Napoleonic Europe, I'd make one change only; the ability to culturally convert cities (seriously why the heck is that option ever off?), which would make Espionage actually be useful. (What's the point of it if not to use Propaganda? Troop movement is useless because on any computer due to whatever coding went into the system, civ 3 can only show so many units moving even with animations disabled before you get the laggy wheel of doom that causes you to miss what said units are doing. It also only lasts one turn and is redundant since just HAVING a spy tells you troop amounts and if you know how many troops they have you can deduce said troops' locations fairly easily. World map's worthless especially on a map you have fully revealed. Tech? You can do that without a spy. Investigating a city? You can do that without a spy. Sabotaging production? In a scenario with no wonders to build, worthless.)

Okay maybe I'd make it so that other cavalry units than the Cossack have Blitz? Because Russia's ability to Blitz with Cossacks makes nobody else worth playing.
Maybe I'd eliminate the war weariness that's annoying for playing as France? You're literally LOCKED IN A WAR YOU CAN'T MAKE PEACE IN and have to deal with war weariness as a result, not to mention the invisible warmongery penalties that I know exist but don't know the exact mechanics of because I don't particularly care to. (Butstill, are bs because you can incur severe warmongry penalties for a war you didn't even start.)

Very small, minute changes to make the scenario something more fun to play in. Still wouldn't play as anyone other than Russia or France (France has the best units stat-wise bar none and starts with three armies, so if you're in any way shape or form aggressive you can conquer the world ridiculously easily, it's just a matter of being aggressive to surpass the city advantage Russia starts with), but it'd make the scenario be more replayable to me.

For Age of Discovery, I'd retain culture on capture of cities--given that it's almost impossible for me to win by culture (I've tried with the Mayans who're best suited for it and while I came close, didn't manage it), it'd be tempting to leave that variable unchanged, but I recognize that I would need to adjust it somewhat. Not a full double, but maybe like 1.5x as much.

I'd definitely double the amount of turns in the game, though, because seriously, even if you go 100% science the entire game (only possible on Chieftain difficulty, mind you, as the easiest difficulty's the only one where you're not penalized for having no treasury), you can't actually research all tech. (Dropping the minimum turn number for techs from 4 to 2 would help there, too.)

Victory Points is difficult to do as well; as Portugal literally wiping out everyone except the Spanish to have complete control of the map and limiting the Spaniards to Cagliari (basically, preventing them from EVER settling anywhere else if you put so much as a caravel in the straights of Gibraltar), building every single wonder, and having as many units transporting treasure as I could get, I only barely pulled it off.

So like culture, I'd probably give it an increase, not full double but like 1.75x as much.

I'd make a lot of other changes, too, though.
I've tested the Mayans; there is literally no reason to go for the Mesoamerican civs. Even if you maintain a stranglehold on all of America (difficult, but possible, to do) and all of its surrounding landmasses, even if you have 100% science going the entire time...you can't out-compete with the European civilizations. Sure, you can eventually match their tech level, but you can never surpass them. You run out of time before it's possible.

It's also impossible to out-European the European civs, meaning the only way to get all of those wonders they complete first would be to launch an invasion of Europe.

I can't fix that, but I can mitigate it. My plan for that would be to give the Mesoamericans entire upgrade paths for units that all have the Enslave ability. A Mesoamerican Pikeman with Enslave; a Mesoamerican Longbowman with Enslave; a Mesoamerican Medieval Infantry with Enslave; a Mesoamerican Musketman with Enslave.

I would, in addition to making those units, make them cheaper than their European equivalents shield-wise to make.

This would give an actual incentive for me to play them; it would make them more unique and give them more of the vibe they are meant to give off. Sure, they would still lose the tech race and not have the European wonders, but this ability to have units that're cheaper, just as effective, and yet have Enslave, compared to their European versions? Worth. it.

Also I'd give them some of the Mesoamerican buildings as well, fit into their tech tree path.

I wouldn't just modify the Mesoamerican civs, though.
Currently, you have literally zero incentive to ever play as a Protestant Monarchy. Why? Because Jesuit Colleges are just too gamebreakingly powerful. Missionaries mass-produced, and boosting your scientific output? Not something you want to miss out on. So even if the theme were lost, I'd make them available to all governments.

Yes, this would mean less reason to play a Catholic Monarchy, but there are reasons to have the Catholic Monarchy even beyond their Jesuit College. The two governments are basically equals in terms of value without taking into effect their buildings/wonders; with said buildings/wonders, you'd never have reason to go Non-Catholic.

I might modify the Missionary unit, make it nationless and maybe not require upkeep (they are, after all, mass-produced!), but most of my modifications would in fact be to make Portugal not be the only viable player nation.

England's Sea Dogs would become nationless, because seriously them not having a nationless sea unit kinda defeats the point of producing that line of unit in the first place. I'd probably also give them the Ship-of-the-Line unit so that they have unquestioned dominance over naval sea power, their intended specialty.

Amsterdam I'd buff their Swiss Mercenaries and reduce their shield cost as to make them viable.

France, I'd make their Musketeers be much, much cheaper.

And similarly, Spain's Conquistadors? Why the heck is a 3/2 unit cost 70 shields when it is replacing a unit costing 20? Why the heck is a 3/2 unit with amphibious assault costing 70 shields when the other amphibious assault units cost 30/40 shields and have stronger attack/defense (respectively)? I'd half its build cost as a result, to be ~35ish.

Would this perfectly balance things out? No, but it'd make it more equal all-around, because as-is, really. You just never have any reason to ever play anyone other than Portugal. They're just...the best all-around as-is. They can conquer Europe and conquer the New World without really breaking a sweat. In spite of having no unique unit, what they are given is just...it's enough where it's basically impossible for them to lose if you're playing even remotely competently/aggressively.

Since that's a lot of changes to Age of Discovery, probably not the one I'd work on.

But there's still Fall of Rome and The Middle Ages.
For Fall of Rome, what I'd basically do is "do what I did before, but properly rather than messily".
Give the Sassanids the entry tech on the Barbarian tech tree but compensate the other Barbarian nations by giving them the first three levels in it. Nerf Legionary defense by one. Increase Horseman/Heavy Cavalry/Raider/Marauder/Pillager/Warlord movement by one. Make Warlords cheaper than Heavy Cavalry, and create Pillagers instead of Marauders. (Because you have incentive to keep Pillagers as they create Workers themselves.)

A few wonder tweaks/additions.
Sassanids starting with a couple extra Heavy Cavalry and an Army because I don't want to bother with the save scumming necessary to create one every single game (which I did on every single one of my Sassanid playthroughs, save scummed until one of your starting two "Immortals" heavy cavalries produced a leader).

Change the city elimination to be 10 instead of 8. (Frankly I'd like it if I could set that at 12, but the max is 10.)
Frikkin' fix the land bridge for Constantinople so I don't have to travel half way across the map in order to take the city, a feature unique to this scenario only (as literally every other scenario with that location has there be a land bridge--Mesopotamia, Rise of Rome, The Middle Ages, and Napoleonic Era all have it be land, not sea).

Double the needed VP points to win and increase (but not double) the number of turns in the game.

Small stuff, but which I messed up the first time. (I set the VP points way too high, for instance, and literally doubled the turns which is tortuously long, making the scenario nigh-unwinnable except with an insane amount of time spent.)

And then there's the Middle Ages scenario, which I wouldn't need to add a thing to, just tweaking existing things as to make it be less annoying.

I'd have the Christian civilizations start with the first three in their tech tree, to make it harder to out-Christian the Christian civilizations. (Harder, but not impossible.) Because I can easily build the Holy Roman Empire as the Kievan Rus, Turks, Abbasids, and so on and so forth. You just have to focus on it the second you can, and if you complete it, magically, you get two bonus techs; if you were in any way behind because of focusing on the wrong tech tree, those two techs boost you up and mean you lose nothing.

I'd rework all the cavalry units. I'd make the Sipahi have three movement and gain blitz, make the Ansar Warrior have four movement, buff cataphracts' defense, and buff knights' attack, or something like that. Not sure the exact tweak I'd make, but I'd do something to make each of the four cavalry units be different from the other and the difference be something that makes them not be inferior, because as-is, you never have reason to use anything other than the Sipahi or the Ansar Warrior. Sipahi for being the best in attack; Ansar Warrior for being the best in movement.

I'd probably buff the berserk as well in some fashion.
I'd make the Kievan Rus be able to build both Longships and Dromons rather than just one, doing whatever would be necessary for that.

I'd make the pure Viking civilizations start with three of their techs, and have the three Caliphates start with three levels of their Arab techs. The Byzantines would also have three Byzantine techs. The Kievan Rus would start with both the first Viking tech and the first Byzantine tech (because seriously, it says that they favor the Byzantine tech tree but they start with nothing in it so that's an outright lie pretty much), with the Turks having the second Arab tech.

Beyond that, it'd just be a matter of unit tweaks. Specifically, making swordsmen upgrade into medieval infantry (who I'd add amphibious assault to) upgrade into crusaders (who'd gain the amphibious assault ability as well).

From there, all I'd need is minor building tweaks. Hospitals for city size 3 instead of 2, because screw only coastal cities being possible to get metropolises. A building being repurposed to include pollution reduction. Small tweaks to buildings, mostly in their cost, to match their more cheaper build costs. Maybe minor tweaks to wonders, but nothing that unusual.

Little stuff.

Stuff that takes less than a day's work, I'd guess.

But who knows if I'll follow through, the idea sounds more and more boring and tedious the more I outline it.
If for no other reason than I still don't know how to get scores for custom scenarios recorded and these modified scenarios count as custom scenarios. A feeling of "what's the point" exists, more or less.

In my defense, when I wake up at like 2 pm, have to spend most of that time prepping for the staff meeting, leave for said staff meeting, and don't get home until 9:30ish, doesn't leave me a lot of time in a day.

Soyeah, this is a day where I really didn't do much, because there wasn't anything I could do, not really, given the limited amount of time.

The best I did was what I dreamed last night, which was a game. It involved zombies, and more or less had three "base" storylines...with a twist, that you could switch storylines to some degree (not quite, it was complicated), and replay past missions to try the other storylines...but the game would remember which storylines you did first and that would have a "corrupting" effect on your attempt to play through the other storylines differently...

...Leading to a total of like 12-15+ storylines total, but still following more or less a Good/Bad/Ugly format with 'Good' as being doing the right thing and trying to survive and more or less acting as a humanitarian/civilian, 'Bad' in this case being the sentient zombie virus (it isn't just a plague, it literally has a mind of its own and the mind is pure evil), and the 'Corrupt' more or less being the 'following orders' militaristic/corporate dystopian vibe where they are corrupt and want to make use of the virus but do need to make some efforts to take decisions different from what the zombie path would be.

It was a quite interesting game idea but not one which I can remember vividly to ever make reality--plus it was contrived, convoluted, and complex enough that I don't think it'd actually be possible to code in the way I saw it in my dream? It was basically like a game designed to be played in a dream. Which was exactly what I was doing; I was playing the game in my dream.

It had pretty darn good storylines, too, but that's usually the case when I bring zombies into my dreams. (They often have very depressing undertones of repeating history often getting worse and worse outcomes until my subconscious gets sick of all the depressing deaths and inserts a magical way for things to go better; not perfectly, but a way for things to turn interesting.)

Butyeah, that's all I've got.
I have work tomorrow so I need bed now.

Mostly wasted it on gaming.

No regrets, tho; I liked having the rest day.

Tomorrow will be absolute hell on me for catching up on all the stuff I didn't do today, but oh well.

​Worth.