It's been chill, but in a good way.

I'm a little low on vegetable supplies but been making do regardless.  Used some of those dried chilis we got from China today to cook Shui Zhu Yu.  Of course, the chilis I usually use are imported from there too, so it's not too different, but it was still a lovely fragrance after giving them a brief toast in oil.  I didn't use enough doubanjiang at first (I tend to underestimate it, I think I need to remember to overindex on it next time especially because I do the nontraditional thing and strain the broth before serving it so it's easier to eat), and I think next time I could probably look to amp up the sichuan peppercorn flavor more, but I managed to rescue it with some quick thinking, stir frying some of the paste in a separate skillet before adding it in to avoid clumping.

I've been taking a bit more time than expected to do bugfixes on the Rhythm Quest patch update that I put out, so I'm looking to take a step back from that now -- maybe at the very most, just do an end-of-year mailing list post and/or brief devlog.  I took some time over the past couple of days to put in some more work on the ALTTPR site -- this next upcoming update is going to be a huge one, when I get around to finishing it, as it's going to include all of the rooms in GT basement.  I've already done the left side entirely, so now I need to start working on the rooms on the right side (which, thankfully, there are less of).

In the meantime, I've started playing Caesar 3 again!  Or, Augustus v4, to be exact.  I started eyeing it again since I called it quits on MOO2, and I've been sucked in again and am loving it.

I've thought for a while that I would just play the vanilla Caesar 3 campaign again (again), on very hard, but this time with the addition of the Augustus v4 features, like cart depots and highways and all that.  Perhaps even trying to be really disciplined with how I approached each of the missions, maybe even recording segmented video playthroughs to show how you can approach them in my style.

But!  I decided to do something differently and I noticed on rereading the Augustus manual that they've got an entirely new custom campaign designed to be played with Augustus, using all of its fancy new features and custom scenario tooling.  So I've been going along with that, and having fun so far.

It's definitely a new sort of challenge; the maps are not generous at all, and so far there are all of these irregularly-shaped outcroppings and rocks everywhere that make it impossible to really put down big ideal-shaped housing blocks.  To my initial dismay, the campaign is designed to be played using a global labor pool, which I've never really used before when playing Caesar 3, as I think having to situate housing close to industries makes for more challenging and interesting housing block considerations.

But you can clearly see that the campaign is structured in a way that expects you to be using it (although it's stated that you =can= play ithout).  I cleared the first 2 levels without, but when I saw the map for the 3rd assignment I decided that enough was enough and I turned it on, since it seemed like there would be plenty of challenge even without that restriction.

And that was definitely true!  My first attempt at the map ended up failing after quite a bit of time spent on it -- I ran into a situation where I just didn't have enough people to power all of my industries/buildings, money was tight, my population was aging (meaning less workers), etc etc.  I had to start over, this time with a better plan in mind, and using bigger housing blocks with multiple fountains.  Besides the few boo-boos I made here and there (I think I ran out of money early on because I had forgot to actually fully connect one of my key industries for trade), it worked much, much better -- I never had =any= semblance of money issues, and though I had to squeeze in one more housing block than I anticipated, everything worked pretty well and I even got some residents living in small villas at the end.

Looking forward to spending some more time enjoying the rest of that campaign, for sure.  Did I end another year essentially alone again?  Yeah, I guess so, but I've made sure to carve out peace for myself -- peace which didn't exist a month ago, sadly -- and I'm finding a way to enjoy it, as I'm apt to do.

I've got another whole week off from work, I guess?  Xmas eve should be more chilling, maybe we'll do hot pot if we're feeling it, and then Xmas day I'll drive down south.  I'll be at one of the concerts this coming weekend and then hoping to watch Liz and the Blue Bird with the rest of them, which should be good as I've actually been meaning to revisit and recall that film; it's been too long.  Reminds me that it will probably be time to watch some more Kanon soon, as well.  (right now my casual watch material has just been more Initial D...)

Hope everyone is having an okay holiday season so far.