By that, I mean, I came up with the outline for a Final Fantasyesque RPG while at work.
Some baseline RPG rules are in effect.
You have enough item storage to store every item in the game (though, there is a quick-select menu of nine items), and the limit for carrying is 99.
You have a party of nine in this case, which can be subdivided into parties of three as needed for specific areas.

And at the beginning of the game, you get to select which class each of your characters are. (Optional would be selecting gender.) A generic group of heroes, so characters don't have unique roles to fill--character A doesn't need to do something only character A can do; there's no real backstory or much in the way of plot interaction. The heroes go places and do heroic stuff, in a world which in spite of this lack of characterization is still rich, filled to the brim with an internal lore.

Or something to that effect, where the world itself is important, and the actual features of the game are important (it being a game), but beyond that, nothing is important because those two aspects take front and center stage.

To start out with, the game has eight stats:
Attack, Defense, Magic Attack, Magic Defense, Speed, HP, MP, and Ki.

Attack increases damage of physical attacks dealt; Defense reduces damage of physical attacks received; Magic Attack increases damage of magical attacks dealt; Magic Defense reduces damage of magical attacks received; HP is how much health the character has; MP is how much mana the character has; Speed controls how rapidly the character's action bar regenerates and chance to evade attacks. All standard. The standout is Ki, which both increases damage of Ki attacks dealt and decreases damage of Ki attacks received.

Each stat has a normal cap of 99, multiplied by 10 for MP (999) and 100 for HP (9999). Pretty standard.
However.
Every class has at least one "starred" stat. Starred stats not only grow faster than other stats (mind you, certain classes gain stats at different rates even if not starred but a starred stat is guaranteed to grow faster than any other non-starred stat), but grow further, up to double that of the normal cap: 199, multiplied by 10 for MP as 1999, multiplied by 100 for HP as 19999.

Equippable items can raise stats above their normal cap, up to the starred cap level, albeit rather difficult to get. (Most equippable items aren't, saaaaaay, +50 to a stat; +5 would be more akin to the range we're talking.)

However, battle consumable items, and/or spells, can raise stats up for that battle to be above the starred cap level--to the absolute maximum of 999, multiplied by 10 for MP as 9999, multiplied by 100 for HP as 99999. But, as these effects wear off at the end of the battle, and would be requiring an insanely high amount of time to reach, doing this is mostly for the sake of doing it; there's no pragmatic reason to boost stats beyond the starred maximum, or for that matter, to a large extent, past the normal maximum.

To keep it simple, you can differentiate things as being "quest items" (have their own item menu), "unique items" (cannot be sold, cannot be thrown, cannot be duplicated, etc.), "consumable items", and then equips, done into three categories, of Weapon (no class is required to hold a weapon; some classes can't use some weapons; all classes have preferred weapons), Armor (no class is required to wear armor; classes can't use armor heavier than their stated type but can use lighter, but are best in their preferred armor), and Accessories (not sure if it'd be just one equippable accessory or 2-3 slots for this, but if multiple, it absolutely would be utterly interchangeable; every class except martial artists can equip any accessory).

There's also an "Offhand" slot, for holding a second Weapon which provides half the effect of something in the main hand. Not all weapons can be in the offhand, and some weapons are two-handed, eating up the offhand slot.

Then there are 25 playable classes, subdivided into 9 categories, from which the number of players is derived.
The three "White Mage" classes (Holy), the three "Red Mage" classes (Balanced), the three "Black Mage" classes (Demon), the three "Fighter" classes (well, technically, three "Warrior" classes, but Fighter is the most well-known name even though it's not the center; these are the light melee), the three "Knight" classes (heavy melee), the three "Archer" classes (ranged), the three "Rogue" classes (throwing), the three "Thief" classes (sneaky), and the Martial Artist.

Each class has a reason to be used, unique to them.

White Mages are, along with Black Mages, unique among the 'class namers' (unless you also count the Fighter), in being at the far end of the spectrum in their class tree. White Mages are the ultimate healers, having access to every healing spell in the game. They also have access to every buff spell in the game, and have some minor debuff spells in their arsenal as well.

They are not, however, exclusively medics, though, because they also have access to powerful Holy magic: light-based, lightning-based, sun-based, etc. Spells which are illuminating, fiery, bright, and the like. Their preferred weapon is staves; they cannot use large blades (small blades, i.e., daggers, are fine). They can wear only 'Robes', the armor class which is so low it's almost nonexistent.

Their starred stats--yes, plural--are MP and Magic Defense, making them the ultimate answer to defending against magical assaults. They are rather squishy, however, vulnerable to being attacked.

Clerics are the next step in the White Mage tree--they have access to most of the healing spells in the game, and all the Holy offensive magic that White Mages have, including most buffs (but not all). They can wear the Light Armor class, allowing them to have a greater array of defense. They also have a much, much stronger, notable, melee attack, and in fact, can actually attack and have it do notable damage. Their preferred weapons are large blades; they can use staves or small blades as well.

They do not have a starred stat as of right now. They also have no debuff spells.

Paladins are even further--they only have a few healing spells, and only about half the Holy offensive magic in the game, with zero buff or debuff abilities. In exchange for this, they can wear Heavy Armor, and are very strong melee fighters, to the point where their melee is stronger than their magic. They are also built like tanks, capable of taking a huge punishment. They have the starred stat of Defense.

Red Mages are pretty much what you'd expect: they can use about half the healing spells in the game, fewer than a Cleric but a lot more than the Paladin. They can use some (de)buffs, but not the full array. They also have access to every Holy offensive magic in the game. On the flip side, they can use every Black Mage spell, except the debuff and status ailments ones.

They have a few other advantages as well--they have the second-highest stat growth in every stat, and can use any weapon (including none)--and are the second-best at using said weapon of any class. (While not as good as, say, a Fighter with a sword, they are second only to said Fighter in the sword; while not as good as an Archer with a Bow, they are second only to the Archer for the bow; while not as good as a Martial Artist barehanded, they are second only to the Martial Artist barehanded, etc.)

There's also their unique quirk, which the other two RM classes lack: they, and they alone, have the ability to cast spells at a reduced cost; say a fireball for a black mage costs 10 MP; it'd cost the red mage only 8 MP to cast. (75%, rounded up.) They can wear light armor; their starred stat is MP.

Blue Mages, to the left of the tree on Red Mages, have the same base effects of a Red Mage: same spells (albeit lacking debuffs or buffs), high stat growth, proficiency in the same weapons, etc. Though lacking the reduced mana casting ability, they make up for it with their own unique quirk: the ability to learn enemy spells. This makes having one a necessity, since certain spells in the game can only be used by enemies, and a blue mage is thus required for the purposes of learning them all. They also share the starred stat of MP as a red mage.

Crimson Mages, to the right on the tree of Red Mages, are basically a Red Mage on steroids: they have the same spells as a Red/Blue Mage, with one notable exception: a complete lack of so much as a single healing spell. They more than make up for it, with their unique blood magic. Blood Magic spells use both HP and MP to cast, but are unique spells that have unique effects, including at least one status ailment unique to the class that not even the Black Mage (master of status ailments) possesses.

Among said spells are also ways of generating MP at the cost of HP. One spell, acting as a barrier, amplifies damage received by 3x, but causes 1/3rd of all damage received to be absorbed as HP. The Crimson Mage is also one of the very few classes to possess a Mana Drain spell, directly siphoning enemy MP into the Crimson Mage. They also share the same class traits as the Red Mage:

Proficiency with every weapon (in fact, even exceeding the Red Mage in that regard), high stat growth, ability to wear Heavy Armor (albeit preferring Light), and similar amplifications. There is a downside, though. In spite of this increased attack power both physical (hitting almost as hard as the melee classes and harder than the paladin) and magical, spells cost 3-5 times their normal MP. Add in a lack of starred stat plus the complete absence of healing magic, and the crimson mage while basically unequaled in ability to dish out damage (exceeding even Black Mage abilities), has no way to prevent damage from being dealt.

Black Mages are pretty much exactly what you'd expect: every offensive magic that's not Holy, they can cast. Every debuff spell not classified as Holy, they can cast. Every status ailment in the game, they can cast. Including being one of only two classes with the Instant Death ability! Their other properties mirror that of the white mage; they can only wear robes, use staves, and have the starred stat of MP. However, instead of a second starred stat being magical defense, the Black Mage's second starred stat is Magical Attack.

Battle Mages, the next on the BM line, are also pretty much what you'd expect: wearing Light Armor, and able to use long blades (but preferring small blades), they can use every black magic spell...except for the debuffs and status ailments. They have significantly higher ability to attack and take a hit back, but pay for it in having no starred stats.

Spellblades, the last on the BM line, may not be what you'd expect: able to wear heavy armor, they're more like an equal mixture of death knight, vampire, and spellblade. Their normal, baseline attack will drain MP if their target's Defense is higher than their target's Magic Defense--the strongest, easiest to use MP drain technique in the game.

Since every spell they cast goes through their blade, this produces a unique effect: if their target's Defense stat is lower than their Magic Defense, then the attack will be classified as a physical attack; if their target's Magic Defense stat is lower than their Defense stat, then the attack will be classified as a magical attack; if their target's Defense and Magic Defense stats are identical, then the power of the spellblade attack used is doubled.

They also are unique among all the classes in being the only class to feature a Life Leech spell, draining HP from their target and siphoning it back into them. They can only use longer blades, and obviously their spells use up MP and are weaker than their non-bladed cousins (a fire sword isn't gonna have the same impact as a fireball), but this still makes them able to answer to any situation. They lack a starred stat, however.

Warriors, the center of the Fighter column, represent a balance of Light Armor melee fighters: equally focused on defense and offense, they are pretty run-of-the-mill. They have starred stats of Attack and Defense.

Barbarians, the left side of the Fighter class, represent abandonment of armor and defense altogether in favor of pure offense. They can't wear armor, but have the highest attack stat growth with Attack and Speed as a starred stat, and a class-based immunity to all status ailments and debuffs except Berserk.

Fighters, the right side of their titular class, represent a focus more on the defensive, with starred stats of both Attack and Defense, but a much higher growth in HP and Def than warriors have. They also possess the immunity to debuffs, albeit vulnerable to status ailments.

Knights, the center of their class, are Heavy Armor, heavy-hitting individuals, with the starred stats of Defense, HP, and Attack.

Samurai, the left of the Knight classes, are also Heavy Armor, but focus more on Speed, with the starred stats of HP, Speed, and Attack.

Dragoons, the right of the Knight classes, share this Heavy Armor, but focus on attack, being one of the heaviest hitting melee classes and also one of the heaviest armored, albeit at the extreme penalty of speed. Slow-moving, but with starred stats of HP, Defense, and Attack, and having gains there higher than any other classes do.

Archers, center of their class, are ranged-based fighters, preferring the use of bows. They can wear light armor, and are generally able to fight from afar, chaining multiple attacks with speed. Their starred stat is precisely that, Speed, and of the Archer classes, that is their highest gain.

Rangers, left of that, are basically archers with less speed and attack, but with the aided benefit of being able to use magic--a few white mage spells, and a couple black mage spells, including a status ailment spell or two. This comes at the cost of having no starred stat.

Gunmen, right of archers, are basically archers with a heavy emphasis on chaining together powerful attacks in rapid succession with their guns (their preferred weapon). They have the starred stats of Attack and Speed, but pay for this in being unable to wear armor.

Rogues, center of their class of "throwers", have the ability to throw items--thrown items do increased damage (or in the case of armors, damage at all) and may have effects or increased effects in the case of thrown consumables. This is an ability all three share; the Rogues unique spin on this? Every item thrown is treated as if it were sold, giving the party gold equal to that item's sell value. They have the starred stat of speed, and use small blades and wear light armor.

Ninjas, to the left of that, copy pretty much the same stats as Rogues albeit not hitting as hard (lower attack growth) and lower defense. However, this is because their ability more than makes up for it; they have the power of doubling Items (specifically Items, not Consumables). That is, when Throwing an item, their Throw can be doubled in strength; their Throw can be thrown at two different targets rather than just the one; their Throw can not consume the originally thrown item effectively giving them unlimited supply of that item. They have the starred stat of speed as well, also wielding the same equipment.

Alchemists use the same equipment and have the same starred stat with similar stat growths to the ninja, and have the inverse ability: they have the power of doubling Consumables. That is, when Throwing a consumable, their Throw can double the effect of that consumable, double the number of targets for the consumable, or not consume the originally thrown consumable effectively turning, say, one HP potion into an infinite supply of them. (However, this latter ability does have the coded-in inability to duplicate an MP-generating consumable. All these abilities? Yeah, they use MP, and this is one loophole not available to to the players. I thought of that.)

Yes, these are precisely as strong as you'd imagine them to be.

Then there's the remaining classes.
Thief is another must-have in a 100% completion game, for being the only class with the Steal ability, able of stealing Items, Consumables, and Gold. Since some opponents have unique items/consumables only possible to obtain via this method, a party wanting every item needs a Thief. They have similar capacities to a Rogue, in just about every regard otherwise.

Duelist, to the left, is basically a melee rogue instead of a throwing rogue: light armor, but focused on Speed and Attack (both starred) to deliver deadly blows. Light on HP, but having innate evade that's the highest in the game, they're ridiculously hard to hit, and also rather lethal.

Assassins, the final of that branch, are masters of status ailments almost rivaling black mages, to the point of being the other holder of the instant death status ailment. They focus on pure Speed and Attack (also both starred), but sacrifice their innate evade while being the lowest of the three on HP.

And finally, the Martial Artist class.
The Martial Artist class is unique in not being able to equip anything: no weapons, no armor, no accessories. They make up for it in having stat growth almost on par with red mages in all stats, and being the only class with a starred stat growth in Ki--in fact, the only class at all that even can have their Ki stat naturally increase.

Martial Artists specialize in incredibly powerful blows, chained together in rapid succession, dishing out multiple hits per turn that all pack the largest punch in the game at baseline levels. There is a drawback, however--whereas other classes gain weapons that have innate stats that are higher (thus, meaning that their attacks with a new sword do more damage than their attacks with the old sword in spite of having their own personal stats be the same), martial artists being unarmed fighters have no such luck.

They make up for this with being able to use Ki attacks. Ki attack use mana, but have the unique property of being classified as neither physical nor magical in nature--allowing them to be one of only two classes (the other being the spellblader) to bypass opponents who have high stats in both Defense and Magical Defense. It gets better. Most opponents have next-to-zero resistance against Ki attacks. The few who do are usually quite vulnerable to physical attacks.

Plus, the few enemies making use of Ki attacks would devastate your party normally but a Martial Artist with that as their starred stat is unfazed by this. The tradeoff is, as mentioned, the lack of equips--in any given RPG, you know why that is hugely detrimental, as by the lategame, you have epic items that are capable of the, like, +50 stat gain, or items granting a multitude of permanent buffs, or items granting immunity to debuffs, or status ailments, and so on and so forth...and they can't use any of those.

You can probably tell that some of these I haven't gotten to think about properly and that the system isn't quite perfected, but I think that it's not bad for less than an hour's work in dreaming up, and would in fact be perfectly at home as a Final Fantasyesque game.

Hoh boy is it stupid; I can't simply expand the size of an existing map. So I will in fact need to create the map for scrap.

Still not sure if it's faster to use the baseline from Rise of Rome or the baseline from the vanilla game; right now I'm trying the latter, but not that it matters that much since.

Well.

IT'S GONNA BE TOO MUCH WORK NO MATTER WHAT.

I have to build. A. Full. Map.

160 x 160.
Trying to manually recreate...lesse the math...25,600 tiles' worth of space, getting it as close as is possible to the Mediterranean maps already in existence, but with the necessary adjustments.
Also I need to teach myself how to create fixed starting locations and also...cities.
​And also, figure out what units to give, and...and...oh god this is gonna take me forever.

I think that the looming despair has made me go, "Yep. That's all the work I'm doing on this today."
In spite of me having done...pretty much nothing!

​Ah well.

...I want to actually make one of my original mod ideas for civ 3.
Specifically, "Across the Ages: Mediterranean", which would be modeled after the Mediterranean taking aspects of Mesopotamia, Rise of Rome, Fall of Rome, The Middle Ages, Age of Discovery, and even the Napoleonic Era...while expanding it to also include all the tech from the normal game through the modern age, so while we're at it throwing in the WWII scenario, too.

There are some obvious hurdles.
The first being, is it easier to start from scratch, or to start from the Rise of Rome scenario (since the seven player civs with the eighth being canon fodder Egypt are from said scenario, but for good reason) and basically nuke the hell out of many key aspects of it.

Like...literally every single tech, and redoing everything involving the techs...which means, everything. (Notably, this would not be replacing my existing scenario; this would be a project undertaken separate from it which would also take things in a different overall direction; things in my current scenario, while mostly kept in, wouldn't all be kept in.)

And if it's easier to start from the Rise of Rome scenario...if it's possible to change the map to the maximum possible size (I am fairly certain the map isn't maximum size in that scenario), keep the lack of edge-wrapping all scenarios feature, and then add in resources to the appropriate spots from the other scenarios, add in resources from the standard game in locations where I'm employing guesswork (unless I cheat and look at a "map of the world" scenario, I suppose, of which there are dozens preloaded), add cities in, and so on and so forth and whatnot.

My basic idea here is that the Celts both represent themselves, and also pieces of the Franks/French and English; the Goths represent themselves, descendants in the form of Ostrogoths and Visigoths, a little bit of the Franks/French and English (via the Anglo-Saxons), the Germans, the "Viking" civilizations (Sweden, Denmark, etc.), even Russia.
The Scythians would be renamed the Mongols, representing said civ plus the Scythians and Huns.
The Persians represent a sum of the Medeans, Babylonians, Sumerians (all into the Persian Empire), with aspects of the Sassanids, Abbasids, Turks, and Ottomans thrown in for good measure.
The Greeks represent...well, Greece throughout the ages, including them being at the forefront of the Byzantine empire, sharing the Roman's Byzantine midgame tech.
The Carthaginians are a combination of the Phoenicians and later on the Caliphate(s) inhabiting that territory. (I remember the name of the Abbasid Caliphate, but not the other two.)
And of course, Rome would be. Well. Rome, but also the Byzantines, yet also the Burgundians, and also, the Kingdom of Naples.

It is probably impossibly ambitious, and I will probably never make it.
But the idea is there, and I've been putting the work in for the last few days on steps I'd take to actually make it reality.
I feel like it could work, if I did it smart, wasn't lazy, and took things one small step at a time, rather than rushing and doing it all at once, messily.

Plus, working on the mod I have been has given me the first-hand experience necessary to avoid mistakes. (Well. I wouldn't call anything I did really a mistake; if I wanted to remove something from what I made, I'd just remove it--that I keep it in is evidence that, yes, I see some charm in the aspect...even if it is something when making a new mod, I make the active and deliberate decision to decidedly not repeat. So, in that sense, they are "corrected", so sure, fit what many would call as mistakes. I'd prefer the term 'quirk'.)

Well, avoid the ones I made, anyway.
There are plenty more I haven't made...yet!

Will I follow through, probably no. I'll work on it when I work on it; when I don't work on it, I don't work on it.
I could go a day without working on it. Or a week. Or a month. Or a year.
I could permanently abandon the idea, not because of any reason, but simply due to shifting my interests elsewhere.

So who knows.

But it's something I am actively thinking about.
​At least right now.

My dad is genuinely wondering if, due to the power outage we had literally thirty seconds after I had left the computer (thank god I had blogged before then)--which, incidentally, means I can tell you the time to the minute, almost second, as 2:42--fried something in it.

Not sure if he's right or not, but I do know that it quit working.

Since literally everything I do uses the desktop, which requires a monitor, this left me at a loss of activities to partake in. (Haha I know sad, right? I have no life, except the one I've built in a medium invisible without the aid of a computer. Reason why works of fiction like Ghost in the Shell, Sword Art Online, Half Prince, and the like depicting full-dive tech hold such a personal interest for me. I was dreaming of that sort of thing being real since I was a young kid--before I had even seen those shows. We're talking, my dreams of this predate me watching digimon, old. Like, pre-2000s.)

I mean, there's more internet available than just through the desktop, and I can get by just fine without the internet if using the desktop. But everything still goes through the desktop, pretty much.

My phone can connect to the wifi...about half the time. Usually, the half I don't want it to, it'll connect; the half I need it to, it won't. Plus the screen's small enough that it's not very convenient for most things I'd want to use it for. It also clogs the phone up with junk. My phone was purchased strictly for work and family and other such incredibly personal-by-the-definition-of-PERSONS uses.

While I've laxed that somewhat, I deliberately still hold true to it to a large extent. I don't want my phone to have anything on it, except for what is strictly necessary for me to use. I don't want my phone to be used for anything except for work and family and honorary-family, pretty much. (Extending this to include a website was as far as I'm pretty much willing to go there.)

That's what I see my phone as being for. Plus, having only a...is it a 1G or 2G plan?...I do my best to limit data usage.
I used to have a warning at 50 MB and limit at 100 MB. That's loosened to be a warning at 100 MB and limit of like 300 MB, which is my absolute limit. (Thankfully, I don't use my phone often so even a HUGE spike caused by multiple failed attempts at downloading skype before the final successful one only brought me up to like 150--tripping the alarm, but not the shutdown.)

Of course, when on wifi, not a problem, except it's inconsistent in connecting to wifi as I said--and even when I do. Sometimes that's not a good thing, because the aforementioned site that I'll use on my phone? At our home wifi, that site is blocked. We've used the same setup blocking that site since 2009, when it was first blocked. (I got around that limit first by making use of computers at school, then computers at college, then a friend told me about the magic of proxies, and then when the site switched to https, that was enough where I could, via an indirect method, access it. Which is one of the reasons I am so obsessive about not closing my tabs in my browser. If they got closed and couldn't be recovered...I could be, permanently, locked out from accessing the site.)

Every time tech people have brought up replacing the setup, my eyes have lit up, because I know that if the right thing was replaced, then that ridiculously obsolete block would be removed. But alas, each time, the idea is shot down because of--what else?--money; what we have is the cheapest setup possible, so it remains blocked.

So my phone doesn't do me much good, most of the time.
And with my laptop long-since kaput, that leaves me with only one reliably consistent internet connection.
Said connection doesn't need to be on the internet to be useful.
I have steam, so all of my steam games can be played offline.
I have a whole bunch of reference images stored on the desktop for art, and while offline I can't get new ones, I can still obtain the old ones rather reliably.
I have a whole bunch of things I can do.

With the computer.

Without it...

...Well, I pretty much just took the chance to do catching up on Reader's Digest. I was only at the very beginning of the October article (the December/January article is already here, so I was a solid two articles behind), and got most of the way through it when my parents got home and I reported the problem.

I managed to get the problem fixed promptly by holding my dad's hunger hostage, pointing out that I can't do anything about his eating while the monitor's not working, so I forced him to fix it before he could eat. (My mom called me out on this, and to be fair, she wasn't exactly wrong to do so, but dangit, I had been without access to the computer for four hours at that point, when I am still 'grounded' due to illness, with nothing to do...with a mind like mine, that is literally torture. As you may recall when I outlined the absolute most cruel torture possible.)

The new monitor is taking some adjustment time, but overall, things seem to be working. The glitch with the civ3 editor program is even fixed now!

...Now.

What I was doing, completely have forgotten that.

​But it was fixed regardless!

So I was gonna do some work on my scenario today.
Was.

And then.

"ERROR: Could not locate Civilization III: Play the World. Please make sure the game has been properly installed and try again."

In spite of.
The game working fine. And being exactly where it should.
The folders being fine. And being exactly where they should.
NOTHING, even remotely, having changed. Absolutely zilch. I did nothing, changed nothing, made no alterations whatsoever.
But the editor which I edit the scenarios in.
Can't find the game!
In spite of it.
Being in a folder.
INSIDE OF THE GAME.
It literally has stopped finding something which it wouldn't be able to exist without.

​I'm pretty miffed.

I almost failed to get the shiny kongpanion of the week, in spite of me having gotten every single one thusfar in the year.

There's a special prize, one obtained only by a few thousand individuals each year, for those who can manage the feat of literally every single one in a year. And given how far we are into the year, would be rather miffed if I blew it so close.

Still, I got it now, so no worries. I've been getting numbers record-lows most of the time. Low-hundreds is my average, but I've gotten plenty in the double digits. Never have I gotten a single-digit one, alas, but I have gotten quite close. I think my record's 11? 13? Something like that. Tantalizingly close to single-digit kongpanion, but never getting it.

It's a little bit of a stupid obsession, but one I have all the same. Plus, it's something which usually takes less than 10 minutes per day, because I already have like a good 70% of the badges for games and even of those that I don't, a good 40% of them I have save data sufficient enough to earn the badge instantly because the reason I don't have it is due to playing it before it was badged.

There are plenty of badges I don't have, but mostly badges never given as badges of the day; there are badges I don't have for badge of the day, but those are rarities, coming up about once every two weeks or so.

What can I say.

I grew up on what I called "online flash games". (So called, because they were made primarily with the program of flash. Also, because one of the first places I played them was a place called at the time flashplayer.com. Which also contained animations.)

Kongregate is one of the modern platform equivalents of my childhood.

So I basically made a ton of changes--too many to really list. Like, I've made changes to/added like 75 units, for a start, and quite a number of buildings, too (including one per legitimate government, except for Republic which gets a ton more than that due to not producing good military units and having a more "civilian" focus).

But I basically tried to preserve the mold of the scenario.
I developed seven designations for civilizations:
"English" Civilizations: the Celts and Goths, with access to some medieval traits associated with the English. (Goths are the closest the scenario has to Angles/Saxons/Anglo-Saxons, Celts are already indigenous in the scenario.)
"Iberian" Civilizations: the Celts and Carthaginians.
"African" (and to a lesser extent, "Asian") Civilizations: the Carthaginians, Egyptians, and Persians.
"Barbarian" Civilizations: the Celts, Goths, and Scythians.
"Civilized" Civilizations: the Romans, Carthaginians, Macedonians, Persians, and Egyptians.
"Player" Civilizations: the original four player civilizations, Romans Carthaginians Macedonians Persians. AKA, the Player-four. AKA, the war-four. Terms to that extent.
And "Non-player" Civilizations: the original four NPCivilizations, Egyptians Celts Goths Scythians. AKA, the peaceful four. Terms to that extent. (Of course one of the first changes I made was making each playable, but the term remains useful.)

Each designation serves a purpose.
There are English units, there are African units, there are Barbarian units, there are Civilized units, and there are certain traits universal to the player-four compared to the NPC-four. (I wanted to maintain balance by making those that start at war not be at a disadvantage due to the war, thus, those that start at war have an edge over those that start at peace. Because a war you can't control obviously can have consequences compared to a war you can.)

I also made each civilization have specialties, based around my perception of them.
Carthage emphasizes mercenaries, thus, has a wide variety of units at their disposal...when the appropriate resources are attained. (Units which drew some inspiration from the game Nemesis of the Roman Empire.) Carthage also emphasizes early naval dominance, having a unique sea unit as well as their starting galleys buffed to be elite.

Rome emphasizes terraforming, colonization, and lategame militaristic dominance, thus, has a wide variety of powerful units at their disposal which double as a makeshift work force when needed. (Their units draw from Age of Empires, Age of Empires II, plus ALL eras of the Roman empire present in Civ 3 Conquests: Rise, Fall, and via the Byzantines, Medieval.)

Macedon emphasizes the phalanx formation, as well as trusting in the "wall of wood": naval dominance, thus, two unique naval units, one of which is the undisputed best of all naval units in the scenario.

Persia emphasizes a variety of units, as well as masses of them. The Persians were basically renowned for bringing millions of troops--while most assuredly exaggeration where their actual numbers were in the hundreds of thousands (still impressive against a fighting force which would be hundreds or maybe thousands but certainly not hundreds of thousands), they have that heavy emphasis on not only a LOT of units but also a large variety of units, units that span the entirety of their empire for where they come from.

Scythia emphasizes horsemanship, thus, multiple units based around it. They also were given, via inspiration from age of empires II, the unique Scythian Shaman unit, emphasizing elements of mysticality which I associate with them for out-of-game reasoning. (Or rather, different-game reasoning.)

Goths I associated with a mass horde of units good on the attack but lacking in defense, but also with being essentially the closest the scenario has to forerunners of the vikings--thus, masters of the sea. They also represent the forerunners of the teutonic knights to me, so they have that available to them, too.

Celts, via their Gallic Swordsman being identical to a Swordsman just fast, I associated with "mobile infantry": fast-moving versions of normal units.

And Egypt, via their lore of being a civilization on the decline, I associated with "player self-imposed challenge", which would be a difficult civilization to master, but fully possible, via two opposite playstyles equally viable for a player but which require full commitment (something the AI lacks as it goes for half of one, half the other, and that never works out): complete warmongry (of savescumming and fighting the nearby empires for dominance of Africa and Asia Minor), or complete pacifist (via having no unique units that can be used offensively and aggressively).

I also made basic unit classifications.
"Spear" units, loosely defined as "Defensive" units (even though not all defensive units are spear units and not all spear units are defensive)
"Sword" units, loosely defined as "Offensive" units (even though not all offensive units are sword units though every sword unit does happen to be an offensive unit if you count 'offense value higher than defense' as the deciding factor)
"Bow" units, loosely defined as "Support" units
"Mounted" units, loosely defined as "Speed" units (even though not all speed units are mounted, though all mounted units are in fact speed units)
"Explore" units (loosely defined as "any non-worker unit that treats all terrain as road", even if they don't have the explore box ticked)
"Siege" units
"Terraforming" units (even though all but three--one of them in the original game, the base worker--don't work due to stupid programming limitations)
"Hidden Nationality" units
"Army" units
"Naval Power" units
"Naval Artillery" units (even though thanks to a programming limitation this doesn't work; the AI sees naval bombardment and power as synonymous)
"Naval Transport" units
"Naval Explore" units
"Naval Hidden Nationality" units
And "Building/Government-exclusive" units.

Obviously, there's overlap in quite a few unit categories, but. That's the general gist of how I divided the units.

Each government was thus reimagined as having one trait which made them be unique, but vastly inferior to the three "choice governments". (Tribal Council due to free units, Imperialism due to free units in a different way via a coding oversight present even in the original game!, Oligarchy as starting government until you can switch to Imperialism safely.)

To the map, I made eleven changes.
I added rivers, rivers everywhere. Mostly just 'cuz. This change didn't really serve much of a purpose other than satisfying my personal preference.

I added roads, roads everywhere--especially near Rome, where every single tile except those occupied by a Barbarian tribe has a road, leading into the Celts, Goths, and Macedonians; everything from the silver a little southwest of Masillia to the silks in the middle of nowhere, roads.

I added forts to that same area for Rome.

I added random barricades in locations sporadically throughout the map, representing some of my favorite settlement locations. (Basically a way of saying, "I'd put a city at or near this spot".)

I made some modifications to a couple of spaces, deleting forests in favor of coast in order to allow for naval shortcuts if founding a city in the right spot. (Mostly for Ireland and England, but there's also that spot which in the Medieval scenario is where I believe it's Denmark would be; I made it possible to bridge the ocean and that sea which in the vanilla game is landlocked.)

I added barbarian goody huts sporadically throughout the map--and placed heavy emphasis on some around the player four civilizations, once more to emphasize: these four civilizations get an advantage compared to the four original NPCs.
I added Barbarians sporadically throughout the map, mostly Russia, and reinforced heavily those that are around Rome. (Mostly for grinding purposes, of causing the conscript units to become regulars and even veterans.)

I added a few bonus resources here and there, especially to marshes (every marsh spot has some kind of resource on there because if I'm gonna have to deal with clearing the marshes out due to their disease I'm gonna get something out of it, dangit!), but did add a few resources. In Africa and Asia minor, there's a little more of what was already there, basically. Ivory, Silks, Spices. One spot in Africa has gold, silver, and gems added, but takes a long time to reach. (Similarly, the Oasis in Africa also has some bonuses, but is time-consuming to reach.)
Across the whole map, I added an eighth luxury of Wool, too.

I terraformed a fair number of spots, mostly adding irrigation to deserts and quite a number of plains with the occasional grassland irrigation thrown in for good measure: wherever there was a spot that would normally be impossible to reach, I added it. Speaking of which, every island got roads pre-added, many spots got pre-mined, and many more got pre-irrigated, due to the pain of transporting units there.

The four player civilizations were given outposts. Rome's are particularly noteworthy, as they allow first-turn contact with the three barbarian civilizations, and contain units pre-loaded onto them to defend them from attack. (To compensate for this, Carthage was given more starting Numidian Mercenaries as well as starting with some War Elephants, particularly in Hispaniola. Which, I felt, was thematically appropriate--and as I learned, surprisingly devastating to go up against!)

Most extensive of all though was the adding of units.
Each NPC starts with an Army now.
To compensate for this, each original player-civilization was given three of their initial golden age unit with elite experience based in the same city as their army. (Three Legionary Is experienced elite, three Hoplites experienced elite, three Immortals experienced elite, three War Elephants experienced elite.)
I developed a naval unit, the naval blockade, which can't be build and is immobile, and had each of those four start with a fair number. Carthage blocks off the pillars of hercules plus has presence near their starting islands, Rome also has presence near those islands as well as blocking off the lower half of the passageway through the island of Crete to Africa (or whatever that land is), Persia has a naval blockade which was my attempt to simulate Xerxes' Pontoon Bridges, and named them such, though because I was lazy and couldn't pinpoint precisely where said bridge would be, they blanket basically that whole sea. And Macedon blocks off any non-Persian square in that same sea, plus some spots near Italy.
There's also a Celtic one blocking off the narrow point between England and mainland Europe, plus Barbarian ones throughout that same area.

I gave the Romans a unique unit, the civil defender, envisioned as a "mobile defender": high early-game defense, and respectable lategame defense, but with an extra movement point as to keep pace with Roman Citizens and defend them from attack (since what good is two movement if your only way of covering them is with cavalry units that specialize in offense and have virtually no defense?), and placed them on each spot with a citizen (plus a couple extra which I thought had citizens but didn't).

To compensate for this, Carthage and Macedon got one extra settler in their capital city; Persia got two. Each also got their preferred defensive unit for said settler; Carthage got a Numidian Mercenary, Macedon a Hoplite, and Persia two spearmen. I may have given them one additional defensive unit prior to that, too, considering you start the game regardless of civilization with a settler unit--and normally, lacking the extra defensive unit to cover said settler.

From there, it's just a matter of specifics for the modifications I made.

I feel I did successfully preserve the dynamic of the civilizations, too, for what it's worth. Carthage always starts out lacking manpower compared to Rome, but having more cities than Rome. Carthage can take Sicily if lucky, but once Rome launches her initial invasion, all of Carthage's islands can fall, depending on the roll of the die. Soon, Carthage gets access to War Elephants relatively early, and storms Rome, launching a counter-offensive with their gained manpower. But when Rome gains Legionary IIIs, the tides turn against Carthage. Carthage eventually loses the Iberian Peninsula, and probably their islands, too, but Rome always lacks the manpower necessary to launch an invasion of mainland Carthage, stalemating the two. Unless at any point, the player intervenes on behalf of one.

Persia starts out with a manpower advantage over Macedon, but Macedon starts with their forces concentrated densely into a tight area, and is able to launch an initial wave of attacks. Eventually, Macedon controls the sea. Usually, Macedonia can control some Persian cities, such as Icosium (or was it Iconium?) and Ancyra, but after the Persians take the long way around, they start to lose ground. Ultimately, they juggle back and forth and it takes player intervention to break the stalemate.

Egypt is at a disadvantage, but can expand aggressively to the point of being the second-largest civilization in number of cities. As an AI, she messes it up by declaring war against the only civilizations capable of destroying her (Carthage and Persia), but as a player there's an opportunity to peacefully gain control of the world or via the AI's tactic done with player manipulation of the odds, aggressive expansion militaristically.

The Celts storm the world with their Gallic Swordsman, cheap units capable of launching an endless horde on their enemies, capable of coming in and getting out.

The Goths storm the world with their Teutonic Warrior, capable of launching an endless horde on their enemies of cheap, strong units--undisciplined, failing in the defensive, but relentless on the offensive (which is how any player would use them).

The Scythians storm the world with their cavalry, capable of utilizing hit-and-run tactics. (In the original scenario, their riders had an unlisted property of treating hills and mountains as if grassland--I upgraded this to be all terrain as roads. As I found out the hard way, "all terrain" doesn't just mean friendly/neutral/no territory terrain; it also includes terrain controlled by someone you're at war with so this buff was rather notably stronger than I originally thought!) Hordes of horsemen swarming, endlessly, even better at hit-and-run than the Celts, but utilizing it in a different way.

Even decisions that I to some extent regret--notably, terrain modifications which massively amp up shield/food production--have become an asset to the scenario, since I upped the size of a town to 10 rather than 6, and city up to 24 rather than 12. (And frankly, when it comes to that size, I always found it annoying that you had to have a metropolis to have every tile in a city be filled; now you don't!)

I still have alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll that work to do and this doesn't even cover most of the changes.
How I increased turns to 250, made percent of terrain 50% (a number which is actually challenging to achieve! Not impossible, but an actual real challenge to get, rather than something where you're struggling to try and avoid triggering too early which is what 20% was for me), population up to 65% (which frankly is a bit low; I should set it to like 75% to match the difficulty of terrain at 50% but whatever), the added police and civil engineer (not that I need them since corruption is way, way down on Chieftain and due to a perfect storm shield production is through the roof), the whole second era's worth of techs, the increased ease of cultural conversions (I looooooooove culture-hugs; regardless of game, it's my favorite type of tactic and the cousin of the turtle tactic I am so fond of where you expand via defense rather than through offense), enabling Espionage (because c'mon man that was a shortcoming of the original scenario in my opinion; don't pretend that time period didn't have spies because it VERY NOTABLY DID HAVE THEM in some rather famous cases and in warfare that's actually more important than normal to have!), a few general settings modifications, governments, resource values, terrain values, buildings/improvements/wonders, units...

...But this can give you some sense of the type of aesthetic I'm utilizing. A combination of multiple games covering the period (one recentish addition was adding a few things flavored off of Zeus/Poseidon), some inspiration from myths (I tried to keep this at a minimum and mostly in the form of, "you can think of this as allegory meant to invoke the image of the myth rather than literally being it"), some rather questionable and debatable historical evidence/facts/etc. borderline outlandish speculation which are meant to be artistic liberty (for instance, I gave the Macedonians a Hidden Nationality unit called the "Sea People", because ancestors of the Mycenaeans are one possible source of the Sea Peoples even though this is of dubious certainty).

Raising both into the past of the Mesopotamia, and into the future of the Middle Ages with some flavor from beyond, but mostly pre-gunpowder. (I had to take some exception there in naval units since the curragh, galley, longship, and dromon are literally the only non-gunpowder units.)

That's what I was aiming to build. And I've built it, and have pretty much finalized it. My seventh playtest is almost complete, and while I do need to make the easter egg harder to obtain (it's a little bit broken and poorly disguised right now), basically all that remains IS the civilopedia which is an extensive project to undertake.

I even managed to mostly fix the eighth luxury. In the city overview it still gives a blank icon, but at least now it is correctly labeling each luxury (whereas before, they were scrambled). Also got it to display properly on the map, albeit the way I did so borked a prior save and probably all prior saves. A comparatively minor thing, one which the fix is fairly simple, I think.

It's just. Kinda falling into place, as something worth playing for me. Over and over again. And when I've finished, and when I've played it.

That'd be one down, at least two more to go. (Fall of Rome and Medieval Ages use basically the same map. So too does Mesopotamia albeit a little further southeast, but that one, not sure if I'd make a new one of.)

Some things, I'm not sure I'll be able to fix.
Right now, I have a couple of buildings which have the 'requires this good to be within city radius' icon checked.
Right now, I also have harbors.
I have wonders which put these things in every city.
The intention behind the harbor-in-every-city wonder was for it to be every coastal city. But it puts it in every city, even landlocked ones. The intention behind the wonder placing buildings requiring the good within the city radius was for it to place those buildings only in cities which had that.

Except.

Right now.

They're not working.

That's a technical glitch I'm baffled by. All evidence suggests that it should be working the way I intended, and yet it's not. A side-effect of this is that my cities are producing many, many more shields than intended since the buildings meant to require the goods within the city both have bonuses to shield production.

Now, in cities which build wonders, I'm okay with shield count skyrocketing into the high hundreds.

But in cities that only have normal improvements, while breaking the hundreds is inevitable with the modifications I've made, it should be the low-hundreds. (Honestly tho shield production is something which I might just have a bit of a global reset on to do over since I increased shield production and decreased corruption to degrees where things seem reasonable...at first, but then the bonuses keep stacking and stacking, spiraling into no-longer-reasonable levels as I mentioned where cities can be producing over a thousand shields.)

Having two shield-boosting improvements be in every city rather than select few cities is...stronger than my design intention.

I may also face a technical glitch in city displays since I added an eighth luxury in a scenario which only had seven. I downloaded the proper images, so things display properly (this did have the side-effect of royally borking my current save and probably all past saves, which in my defense, was not something I could have anticipated), fixing a VERY long-standing problem (I'd been using rubber as a stand-in symbol for it), which is putting me on the right track.

Revamping the Civilopedia to have everything is a massive project though. I've implemented about two dozen units...and I still have...lemme count, I made a list...54 more units to implement.
Then after having implemented all of those units, there's getting all the links to those units up and running. And a massive cross-check there.

And even after having done all those units. Then I've got wonders to do, and to tackle buildings. (I might have figured out how to do wonders, but I'm not positive; I'm a little worried about buildings so it's going to be one of the last things I tackle.) And then I'll have all of the links to them.

Plus, I need to do resources and terrain and such thanks to my modifications there. (Though, again, I might just do a gigantic reset of sorts there, which is one reason I haven't done this yet; I'm not sure if I'm going to keep things as-is or if not what changes I'll make and so on and so forth.)

All-in-all, the Civilopedia is probably less than 10% complete.

Still, since I borked my last save and did make significant changes (eighteen new units, a number of new buildings, a new great wonder, six new techs, plus changes to the way a few units work including changing what was basically "Legionary with two movement and all terrain as roads"--something I realized was broken only after I began my fifth playtest and put the unit into action, thus the need to alter it--into something that had a more unique function), I am going to launch my sixth playtest of the scenario.

At this point, I think that all the major changes are done.
If I can fix bugs, I will.
I will need to make the Civilopedia updates (which, incidentally, carry over into existing games), but this can be done progressively.
I may adjust terrains and resources and such and maybe production in some cases, but if I had to say.

The scenario should be a good 80-90% finished, it's just fine-tuning it now. Not much will change from my current playthrough to the final playthrough, other than hopefully less errors occurring.

Of course, before I do the test, I need to run a quick debug mode due to changing PRTOs of units; if I made a change inaccurately, it'd crash the game due to lacking a connection between the animation and PRTO, so. Gonna do that, then try my sixth.

Wish me luck; I'll need it, given my track record thusfar! (Of my playthroughs, I've made one as Carthage way back in the earliest stages, one as Persia way back in the earlyish stages, three or so unofficial Rome playthroughs, and then the five official Rome playthroughs. Finished the Persian one, finished the Carthage one, but of the Roman playthroughs, I've managed to finish...one. So my success rate for running games to completion is like 3/10 right now.)

I do think that the mod is a fun and creative one...if I can actually get it working well. It's not exactly challenging especially not to a notorious save scummer, but it's still. Filled with many interesting ideas, and I did my best to maintain the dynamics of the civilizations. (Having the "barbarian" civilizations start at a disadvantage but be viable to play to victory; having Egypt start on the decline and be challenging but possible to play; having Persia and Macedon duke it out with the Macedonians having an earlier edge but the Persians having the later edge, yet still having the Macedonians dominate the sea; having Rome and Carthage struggle for control, with Carthage being formidable across the game but Rome being more powerful, etc.)

I realize people tend to say "less is more", and they're probably right, it's probably too many ideas in one scenario for it to work as well as I want it to.

But I like it, dangit, and I'm the one who's making it so if I like it and will play it over and over and over again that's the important bit.

I've not been blogging about it, but I've had some pretty revolutionary insights into things lately, and I mean that in absolute sincerity; if I were actually able to properly unpack the thoughts I had, they would be pretty darn insightful and actually make you pause and think. And if nothing else, give good insight into my mind.

Now I ultimately decided. I didn't want to spend the time/effort making those blogs. I had other things I wanted to blog about which were unrelated, took less time to talk about, and so on and so forth. Things which I could unpack quickly, easily, flawlessly.

So on Wednesday, I didn't give an expansion on my reflections about fear.

Yesterday, I didn't give a narration about the nature of time (and by extent, reality--short version, time in the narration given both exists and doesn't exist, everywhere and nowhere, is an objective constant that can be measured yet subjective illusion subject to the whims of the subconscious, without this being paradoxical because there's a logic to how it works; there's more to it than that and that's a poor explanation of the thoughts but like I said I didn't want to bother with the full version and still don't).

But today, I had a thought about failure, and this one I did want to share.

Failure is fun.
Now, I realize the Dwarf Fortress meme of "Losing is Fun!" exists, along the lines of "There's no winning, only losing, so make the loss as spectacular as is possible", more or less.

That's not what I mean.

What I mean by that is.

Failure is seen as a bad thing, but in it, there comes a blessing.
When you succeed, it is seen as a good thing, but with success comes a curse.
Failure helps you learn, whereas success can cause bad habits to form, but even this is not what I am referring to.

I'm more referring to what the effects of failure and success are, long-term.

Continuously failing can be a test of character, causing someone to either break and give up or push themselves with a drive until they succeed, but this is not what I am talking about, either.

What I more mean. Is that with failure, comes an expectation--or rather. A lack thereof. With failure, there is freedom. Failure gives you the luxury of choice, at every step. Do I continue, do I give up, as a start, but. I'm more talking about. When you fail.

You are under no obligations.

The results are right there, failure, in front of you. So if you've failed at everything. Then there's no obligation to do anything. What you do with that failure is up to you, allowing you the opportunity to do what you want--even if what you want to do is continue to fail.

That might seem like something nobody would want. Who'd deliberately want to continue to fail at a task which it's possible to succeed in? But therein lies the realization. Sometimes, continuing the task and failing it is the fun part, because it is the task itself which is fun--and succeeding at the task would make it no longer be the same level of fun.

This is one reason why I think so many people are perfectionists. They find flaws in what was done, to give themselves an excuse to call it a failure--so that they can do it again, but better.

Because the flip side of failure is success.
With success comes obligations.

If you succeed once, you are continuously haunted by that success: "I did it before, so why can't I do it again?" plagues all too many people. More than that, by having succeeded, it is expected that you will succeed again. People hold you to the level of quality you have shown you can do. If you do good, then you are under pressure to always do that good.

Once you have succeeded.
Once you have made your name.
Suddenly, everything is viewed in the lens of that success, compared to it.
"This is better than that".
"This is worse than that".

But when you have nothing but failures, there's a level of equality to it. A failure is still a failure, and while some failures are more spectacular (and I mean that in both senses it can be used in, in that they are massive failures or look-better-but-still-are-failures) than others, they still have more or less the same treatment.

A failure is a failure.

But when you succeed.
Suddenly, everything must be a success, viewed in terms of "less successful than previous" or "more successful than previous". And while some of these metrics are objective, plenty are subjective. Artists, creators, writers, and so on and so forth in particular are what I am getting at here; when they have gained renown for their work, their future projects are compared to these past projects, and inevitably, some will shower praise while others, criticism.

And it was this that made me understand why.

Why I am okay with living my life as a failure--and even seek failure out.

​There's a trope for this: Victory Is Boring. But it's a trope for good reason; it's true to life. There is less excitement in success, because with success comes obligation, comes expectation, comes pressure, comes the chains of the weight of the world bearing down on you. When you succeed, you are burdened by it.

But with failure, when you fail. You can forever continue to fail. You never need to succeed as a failure, because you can continue to fail over and over again and nothing changes. Nobody expects differently. There's no pressure to succeed, because you have failed. There's only the minimal burdens of the world coming from the bare necessities of survival. (You need to eat, you need to hydrate, you need to have shelter, and these things in the modern world come from some form of success in some endeavor for the most part.)

And I realized that this is why I am acting the way I do.

I have, for the longest time, lacked the drive to succeed.
I have, for the longest time, been dreaming up ideas and then not following through with making them reality.
I've been figuring this as being my bipolar disorder for as long as I've had that diagnosis: manic episodes for creativity, depression for how the idea dies out.

But there's a constant throughout this, and it's not just in my creative works. In mafia games, in all aspects of my life.

I have proven, time and time again, that when I put my mind to it and really try, there is almost no challenge I can't overcome. (I am human so I have limitations, but these are much fewer than most, especially myself, would assume.)

I have proven, time and time again, that I can do this, I can do that.

I have proven it as a proof of concept. Yes, it's viable. Yes, I can do it.

So why don't I do it more often?

Why do I lack the investment to try?

Why do I not make the effort?

Because if I made the effort, I might actually succeed--and that's something I don't actually want.

Well. Obviously. There are some things that I'd rather succeed on. (Namely, transitioning; living with my girlfriend.) But by and large. "It's the journey which matters, not the destination" is a saying for good reason, and it is specifically this that I am getting at.

The destination of success isn't actually worth anything to me (except on the few things it is; see above).
The journey is what I have fun with.
But the only way to ensure I keep on the journey.
Is if I don't reach success--and thus, fail.

So as I said.

Failure is fun.

And that's why I will forever be one.
I'll probably, realistically speaking, never succeed. Not even on the projects I most want to, like Phyrra and Cyrus. And because I'll keep inventing new ideas and never put in the time/effort to find out solutions for the technical difficulties in my modding, I'll never succeed in perfecting my mod.

But I'm at peace with that, because I am okay with living my life that way.
It comes with its own hardships. It comes with its own trials. It comes with the difficulties, the pains of knowing that my vision will never reach others. It comes with financial difficulty and making the few things I still want to actively pursue succeeding at, harder to get. (It's easier to succeed in transitioning and living with your girlfriend if you have succeeded at getting a steady, well-paying income, for instance, so it's harder on me that I can't get that easily.)

But it is not without its perks.

And honestly I actually think this is a contributing factor to why most people don't "succeed" in life.
Not everyone is famous.
Nobody achieves most of their dreams.
Everyone has a little creativity in them, and the vast majority of the human population has an overabundance of it; almost every single person in existence has some sort of creative thing they'd love to make. Music. Songs. Poems. Stories. Games. And so on and so forth. Yet only some of them so much as start, and of those that start, only the smallest of fractions of them succeed.

Most people are unknowns.
Most people are failures.
Most people never make it.

But I think the reason why.
Is because even if they never consciously make this connection.
On some subconscious level.
They know it, and are happy with who they end up being, even if it's a nobody.

For most of my life I've always struggled with the dilemma of feeling like I am half-nobody, half-extraordinary. That I am stuck in the middle of being ordinary and being special, that I am not normal enough to really fit in with more normal individuals and yet not special enough to make it big as a star, not talented enough to become the famous person I've always dreamed about being.

Yet I think that with this realization, I can be more at peace with myself.

I still won't ever fully "normalize", because with my brain wiring that's not possible.
I still won't ever succeed.

But now I feel a sense of serenity about it, that this is not a bad thing. That this is an alright place to be in.

You might think that this would mean, thanks to this realization, I'd give up on some things.
Oh no.
Furthest thing from it.
I'm doubling down on doing them.
Even knowing that I'm going to fail, I'm going to do them--specifically because I know I'm going to fail!
(The mythbusters quote about "Failure is always an option"? More like 'failure is always the ultimate option'.)

Honestly if I actually succeeded at this point I wouldn't know what to do with it.
But I'll still try. Over and over and over again.
My lot in life likely won't ever change, especially given my lack of drive to do so since I'm mostly content (aside from hating my dad) to live as I am.
But I'll still try.
Because the failure from trying is the most fun I can have.

I ended up crashing the game! (Also, tremendously unbalancing it; I thought I was tweaking variables to make things a bit more broken, but I may have dialed the notch more than intended to make them tremendously broken.)

I have some vague idea of what I did to crash the game, but actually no not really I don't know what crashed the game there's too many possibilities.

I'll figure it out tho.