Adding pages! Dark or light background?
What have I done with the site since the last blog post?
-Added Gameplay page from weebly (opens in new tab so you can keep reading this! :))
-Disqus comments should now be enabled, but I don’t want to download their low rated plugin full of ads. Facebook comments working, G+ who knows. I commented through Disqus yesterday but it doesn’t seem to show up all the time. Google+ may be the least popular of the three so I can always just disable that. Ideally I’ll have a comment system where people can comment without signing into anything. I would LOVE for comments and feedback, so don’t hesitate to start the discussion! This is a work in progress and I will update things as I improve them. For now, Facebook is your best bet (and possibly the only option by the looks of it today…).
I’m wondering about whether or not the main menu should scroll with pages. Right now it’s similar to how the top row or rows of a spreadsheet can be frozen in place, which can be very useful. However, I think the menu is already large enough to be a hindrance when scrolling, and it’s only going to have more and more stuff.
Also, I’ve looked into using light text on a dark background vs the opposite. My original fansite was modeled after Pojo because:
- Pojo was the first Pirates site I posted at.
- I like the light text on dark background look because it’s different than what we’re used to seeing on websites.
- I wanted my site to stand out from the crowd and be a bit different.
However, as you can see from the link, it may actually be worse for reading text! Even by looking at their examples I can tell a bit of a difference. I may do more research on the matter. Since I’ll be publishing a TON of text-based content on this site and blog, perhaps it’s best to just stick with light background and dark text. Looking for feedback on this as well. I haven’t figured it out yet, but there may also be ways to change the theme colors/backgrounds. Though, I probably shouldn’t have some pages with a dark background and others with white since it could be jarring.
Deal of the Day: Long gone. Current eBay offerings This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
**Disclaimer: I will be using affiliate links with things like this, so if someone buys from it, I could make a few cents. XD
Pirates CSG Card of the Day
Set number: 7 – Mysterious Islands
Collector’s Number: 140 – Empty Sky
Faction Affiliation: Pirate
Rarity: SE
Type: Ship
Point Value: 12
Cargo Space: 5
Base Move: S
Cannons: 3S,2S,2S,3S
Number of Masts: 4
Crew of any nationality may use their abilities on this ship.
Flavor: Captain Hart and his crew of pirates believe in two things: gold will make you happy and rum will make you even happier.
Nice, got lucky with an interesting and rare SE (Special Edition) ship! Lots of sets had common SE box ships, but MI SE boxes were more rare. Onto the ship! The Empty Sky is clearly trash compared to what players got spoiled on in the early sets, with the Darkhawk II and Neptune’s Hoard (among many others) being far superior 4 masters.
She does have strengths, namely her cannons, cargo, and ability. Her abysmal speed is such a detriment that it really holds her back quite a lot. However, with a captain and helmsman she can be a reasonable hybrid ship.
Standard 40 point games: Hammersmith, or just a captain and helmsman if you don’t have him. (17 total points)
Medium size games (50-100 points): Hammersmith + Gentleman Jocard and an optional explorer. This really gets you cargo – H saves you a space by combining abilities and Jocard gets you an extra space. Without the explorer you can have 5 cargo at S+S with good guns ready to fire – not a terrible deal for 20 points. The explorer would make Jocard less beneficial on paper (at least in my opinion, since you’re just filling up his space with a 1 point crew), but speeds up exploring (you’re not likely to catch and board enemy gold runners with slow speed) and adds insurance to protect the more important named crew.
Large games (over 100 points): Here I like Hammersmith, Coconut, and Calico Cat. This maxes out the Empty Sky’s point cap, and gives her a plethora of abilities while saving cargo to preserve her hybrid status. Coconut’s reroll is perfect for Cat, while exploring for gold remains a solid option. The SAT-boosted speed turns the ship into a legitimate threat, though at this point level you could be facing multiple super gunships at once.
Honestly I’ve never been big on the Pirates getting international crew, since they already have the best crew selection of any faction in the game. That said, there are some potential combos… you could combine Hammersmith with English Griffin to make her an even better hybrid. Dominic Freda is another great named crew.
Game Piece Rating: 5/10. The Empty Sky looks nice and has some good attributes, but really can’t sail around to save her own life. Unfortunately, the base move of S is almost a death knell as it is for most other ships that move at a snail’s pace. However, her strengths keep her from being unusable, and she remains quite an interesting novelty among the pack of largely boring SE box ships.
Picture of the Day
Speaking of the Deliverance, here’s the rare version I do own. Command the Oceans (my solo campaign game from 2017) pioneered the use of tiny screen pieces as ladders. The Deliverance is receiving some crew replacements from the Pirate Kingdom (their home “island” in that game) so Havana Black can keep his sacrificial operations alive as part of the whirlpool squadron. Whew, what a run-on paragraph this could become if I got into the details. In that case, I guess it’s not surprising that the battle reports for this game take up nearly 500 pages in a google doc! O_O
Get some crew replacements! Havana Black is hungry! 😉
It’s a Pirates’ Life for Me.
Ben