Harlequins: Making It Work

Chopping up yo faces.

So.. my last post about Harlequins might have been a little too negative.  Don't worry though, just because I'm talking real sometimes doesn't mean I'm going to give up.  You guys have to remember that even though I'm a competitive player, I'm not WAAC.  Think about it:  I've been playing pure Kabal Dark Eldar since 3rd.  I have never owned a single Coven unit because I don't like the playstyle and I despise the fluff.  So what does this mean?  That means that I'm going to be playing boatloads of Harlequins and trying to get them to work on the table.

I've been constructing a lot of lists in the last couple of days with the new book and I've had a lot of thought experiments.  Here are some of the topics that I've thought about the most the last couple of days:

• How viable is Harlequins as a standalone army?  They're so expensive and it's really difficult to get them to work from a raw points-effectiveness standpoint.  The more Harlequins you take, the less other "good stuff" you can take from allies.
• Speaking of allies:  What makes a good ally for Harlequins?  Do you take them with Eldar or do you take them with Dark Eldar?  What about both?  Do you even have enough points to take both?
• There are a TON of Strategems that I think Harlequins generally depend on.  Your model count is low, so you really need to spend CP on them every chance you get to make them worth it.  I think Harlequins might be one of the most CP-heavy armies in the entire game from what I've seen.
• For my playstyle, I'm going to keep the army mechanized because I need to be able to preserve the fragile assault units inside while delivering them across the table.  However, I did think about big units of Troupes a few times because of all the overlapping and stacking buffs.
• What is the best Form that I should take with my army?  I'm mainly thinking about Soaring Spite right now because my forces are mostly mechanized, but I'm also eyeing Frozen Stars for damage, Midnight Sorrow for tieing things up, and Silent Shroud for practicality with Eldar shenanigans.
• I'm still working on the best layout for my Troupes, mainly because I'm focusing on 3 key design principles:  The Form matters, but cost-effective units matter more.  The Troupe must be able to be a melee threat to all targets.  The first Fusion Pistol is a must, the rest is luxury.

With that said, I got started working on some basic list principles:

• Build with as much CP as possible because you should be using Harlequin Stratagems at every chance to keep the army alive.  This means double-Bat is a must-have.
• Build with some kind of Black Heart so you can bring in Cunning and introduce Vect so you can repress enemy bull-shittery while having a CP-farm on your side.
• Build as many threats as possible:  Keeping your Troupes alive so they can make a cost-effective return means you have to introduce some serious threats on your side of the table.

Should I take more Dark Eldar?

Here is the first list I came up with after some tweaking:

Soaring Heart
2000 // 13 CP

Soaring Spite Bat +5

HQ:
Troupe Master, Caress, Fusion = 86
Troupe Master, Caress, Fusion = 86

TROOP:
5x Troupe, 5x Caress, 2x Fusion = 118
Starweaver = 99
217

5x Troupe, 5x Caress, 2x Fusion = 118
Starweaver = 99
217

5x Troupe, 5x Caress, 2x Fusion = 118
Starweaver = 99
217

ELITE:
Solitaire = 98

+++

Black Heart Bat +5

HQ:
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91
Cunning, Living Muse

Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91

TROOP:
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47

PARTY BOATS:
Raider, Dissie = 80
Raider, Dissie = 80
Raider, Dissie = 80

HEAVY:
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125

>>>

Firepower:
12 Disintegrators at BS3+
24 Splinter Rifles at BS3+
6 Blasters at BS3+
2 Blasters at BS2+
6 Shuriken Cannons at BS3+
6 Fusion Pistols at BS3+
2 Fusion Pistols at BS2+

The list design here was really easy because I think all the right notes.  I originally had Razorwings in the army because I really like having some kind of air, but I didn't have enough boots on the ground for me to be truly influential.  When I first began army list construction, I noticed that I was hesitant to turn my Black Heart Spearhead into a Battalion.  I kept finding that second Archon as a bit of tax, but then I remembered just how many times I'm going to use Harlequin Strategems throughout the game.  While the firepower of the list looks pretty small, one can't remember the absolute monster that is Harlequins in melee once they get there.  With all 5 Players in a Troupe having 4 S5 AP-2 attacks, things are going to get all kinds of disgusting once you actually get in there.  To make things more exciting, I'm planning to make one of the Troupe Masters The Great Harlequin for that tasty re-roll 1s to Hit bubble.

Or should I take more Eldar?

Alaitoc Soaring Heart
1999 // 14 CP

Soaring Spite Bat +5

HQ:
Troupe Master, Caress, Fusion = 86
Troupe Master, Caress, Fusion = 86

TROOP:
5x Troupe, 5x Caress, Fusion = 109
Starweaver = 99
208

5x Troupe, 5x Caress, Fusion = 109
Starweaver = 99
208

5x Troupe, 5x Caress, Fusion = 109
Starweaver = 99
208

+++

Alaitoc Bat +5

HQ:
Farseer Skyrunner = 135
Doom, Mind War

Warlock Skyrunner = 70
Protect/Jinx

TROOP:
5x Rangers = 60
5x Rangers = 60
5x Rangers = 60

FLYER:
Crimson Hunter Ex, Lances = 175
Crimson Hunter Ex, Lances = 175

+++

Black Heart Spearhead +1

HQ:
Archon, Huskblade, Blaster = 93
Cunning, Living Muse

HEAVY:
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125

>>>

Firepower:
9 Disintegrators at BS3+
4 Bright Lances at BS2+
2 Pulse Laser at BS2+
6 Shuriken Cannons at BS3+
3 Fusion Pistols at BS3+
2 Fusion Pistols at BS2+
15 Ranger Long Rifle at BS3+

This one is a bit different and I might be stretching myself too thin.  I've already dropped the Solitaire (which hurts my heart greatly) to make room for some Eldar allies, while greatly decreasing the amount of DE I have in the army.  The Black Heart detachment has been reduced to a small footprint just for the CP farm and fire support, but I've introduced fighters back into the mix with 2x Crimson Hunter Exarchs to give some heavy lances while the Doomseer and Jinxlock go do their thing.  I still have Rangers to be backcap but otherwise, I find this list a bit light on boots on the ground.  Missions might also be a problem, which is why I'm slightly in favor of the first list.

Regardless of which list works out to be better, both lists have a sizeable Harlequin presence with a lot of melee pressure.  The Caress' across the entire army really puts out some good threat, as well as the 22" moving and shooting Shuriken Cannons and Fusion Pistols without BS penalty.  Hell, I even have a pet unit in the first list because I think the Solitaire is the coolest thing ever.  With CP/Ravager farms in both lists, Warrior/Blasters in the first list, and Crimson Hunters in the second, which list do you guys like better?

Huzzah 2019 Game 1

Not quite home yet but there's time for a blog post.

Rob and I RV'd nicely, arriving at our destination about an hour apart after each making an approach march of about 1,000 km. How's that for converging columns?

Rosmark's forces deploy. To keep things simple I set out a few terrain pieces and we deployed symmetrical forces. 

Rob had grabbed a free table and there was just time for a test game of Howard Whitehouse's new A Gentleman's War rules.

I proposed 3 objectives: the 2 houses and the hill. Victory going to the one who held 2 at the end.

The Shuffling-Bushwackers deploy. (I may have spelled that wrong...or maybe I've accidently used the Rosmark slang for the enemy....) 

 After lots of page flipping we were ready and the first card was drawn.

The game was atable! (Sic)

Red for Rosmark! Whats the range on artillery again?"..."FIRE!"  
First shot, first blood.

Rob's Light infantry seized the first house and he was going to take the hill easily.  I used 2 brigade moves to drive him out and occupy the whole village.

"Ah, this is going to be easy....HEY! Where'd that cannon ball come from? Oh well, 5 of my troopers can easily deal with 6 of his." 
First cavalry melee, 5 dice for me: 1 hit, 6 dice for Rob: 3 hits. Doubled and Shaken...Morale test:1.....
"RUN AWAY!"

 Meanwhile, on the far flank, my light infantry whittled down his Hussars significantly and he pulled back. "I shall answer him with my Lancers" (Sorry, just rewatched Waterloo last week) 
Not a great day for my cavalry but at least my lancers didn't run off the board.

The result of a long(ish) multi unit firefight. 

 In the centre and left the game settled into an extended firefight where having my supporting artillery closer and my troops more concentrated and rolling better seemed to be balanced by Rob's troops being  more than a little bit stubborn.

It couldn't last forever though. As MacDuff's Grenadiers closed in on the annoying gun, the  Shoeffen-Busch-Hagen army dropped below 50% of units unrouted and on table. With  both houses being well garrisoned by my troops, Rob gave the order to retreat.

The game is up.

The rules are quite easy but in a few areas there is slightly more detail than I am used to and the charts are more detailed. Won't take long to learn and remember the commonly used bits but there was a lot of page flipping and I was surprised later at how many little things we missed or got wrong on the first go. A QRS, especially a periodic specific QRS would have been useful and will be once we make one.

Overall though, the game was quick, fun and exciting. In the end, victory felt satisfying and earned after hard fighting and manouevring rather than being a random event decided by dice.

We broke for supper with 4 Nova Scotian gamers and 4 HAWKs from Maryland seated around the table. The conversation was lively and it was only when Jeff started a round of self-introductions that I suddenly realized that I was the only one there who knew everyone in both groups and considered them all friends, in some cases friends over decades rather than years. Felt good to have that change.

After supper we had to step out smartly for Rob and I to get our game set up and underway, but that's a post for another day.

Western Borders - AD&D - Session 0 Recap

The first Roll20/Discord game set in my Etinerra world happened last Tuesday. We're going to meet every other Tuesday, from 7 to 9(ish) CST.

The cast of adventurers:

Corvin - a human Cleric of Yorkai, the pagan god of doors and thresholds.
Karl - an elven Magic-User/Thief
Mort - a bedraggled, mostly-naked human Druid, with some squirrels running around him
Fascul - a human Fighter
Obroam - a human Paladin, a champion of Tangadorin, the pagan god of light and revealing secrets
Pickles - a littleling (halfling) Thief

The first hour was normal session 0 stuff. Discord worked VERY well for our audio - there were none of the issues that I had experienced earlier in the year when I attempted my Ultima game online.

Then, we got into the "You meet..." part of the game except it was a bit different for the meeting:

* The PCs were traveling to the Duchy of Elthest, in the company of a group of (very) rural merchants and their horses. Their destination was the backwater village of Gireford.

* Terry and York spoke about rumors of recent attacks on travelers from the forests to the south of this trail.

* The party was surprised by an ambuscade of kobolds, which kill York's favorite horse in their opening hail of arrows!

* A merry battle, in which 2 PCs go to -1 hit points and 1 hit point. Terry takes off running away, screaming. York jumps into the fray alongside the adventurers.

* Karl was the kobold killer, knocking several down with his deadly bow, along with Mort, Fascul and Obroam. Seven kobolds are slain, they know of one that got away.

* Mort, after urging the remaining horses away from battle, and having a moment of silence for the dead horse, has a squirrel follow the fleeing kobold (and thereby selecting "follow" as a trick that he is teaching his animals as a result of the 'Animal Friendship' spell)

The PCs earned 700xp for killing the kobolds. They were very impressed that York had joined in the battle.

Our next session is on Tuesday, Dec 18th.

Interview With Brian Cody, Co-Creator Of Fooblitzky

By Joe Pranevich

From time to time, it has been our pleasure to not only play and explore the classic games, but to discuss them with their creators. We've spoken to game designers and game illustrators, but I am pleased to have been able to spend some virtual time with someone who was both: Brian Cody, the co-creator of Fooblitzky, Infocom's first and last computer board game. If you missed our coverage of that game, you can find it here. Brian was not only responsible for much of the game design, he also developed the game's unique graphical style.

The following interview has been assembled from a series of emails in January 2019 and edited together for your reading enjoyment.

A fine example of Mike's "textbook"-style illustration

How you got your start at Infocom and what you had been doing prior to that?

I came from a commercial art background, having graduated from Massachusetts College of Art in the mid-seventies, and worked in a variety of art-related jobs: freelance illustrator, TV cartoon animator and art director in children's book publishing. My last position before joining Infocom was as staff graphic designer for Houghton Mifflin's Children's Book Division, a position I found very slow-moving and boring. I was anxious to try something different.

Can you tell us more about the children's books that you illustrated of cartoons that you worked on before Infocom?

Children's book publishing is broken into 2 types:

• Trade books: those big colorful picture books you typically find in all children's book department. Many successful star illustrators have emerged from this category and earn a good living. I was not one of them.
• Educational publishing: huge publishing programs that produce 200-300-page textbooks for grades K-12 and, in the lower grades, are filled with fun, colorful, spot art. Textbook illustrators do not make big money. That was me.

So, consequently, there are no trade books with my name on them. But if you had a grade school child in the late 70's, 80's, 90's or early aughts then they undoubtedly experienced my work; you would have to dig through the back of the textbook to locate the paragraph, invariably set in 6-point mouse type, to find my name listed along with 25 other illustrators. I did thousands of illustrations for all the major textbook publishers: Houghton Mifflin, Brown, Scholastic, Harcourt/Brace, etc.

Just FYI, If you ever travel back in time and need to call Brian, he's extension 61.

As a child of the 80s, I no doubt saw some of your illustrations! Unfortunately, I didn't steal any textbooks to allow me to go back and check now. Can you tell us about the Infocom Graphics group, what was done when you arrived and what was not? How did it get started?

There was never any Infocom Graphics Group per se. Infocom author and interactive text game-designer Mike Berlyn hired Dan Horn, an Atlanta-based, experienced computer gamer, and myself in late 1982 to design Infocom's first graphics game. We were sort of like the company's skunk works; nobody knew what we were doing, least of all us. Mike was our manager and his first assignment was for us to go play computer games for six months so that we could learn what an actual, re-playable game was. We met weekly to discuss learnings. At around the six-month mark Mike decided it was time for Dan and me to produce some graphical game concepts, most probably to justify our existence.

How did development of Fooblitzky get started?

My first idea for a graphics game was of a huge, unwieldy, ill-defined meta game supported by six smaller, simpler games that required solving before gaining access to the big meta-thingie. What ultimately became Fooblitzky was at first one of those six smaller games, a computerized scavenger hunt involving stores and collectable items. During my presentation, composed of just Mike, Dan and myself, Mike allowed me enough rope to hang myself by trying to explain the meta mess. Once I proved I had no idea of the scope of what I was proposing, Mike looked at Dan and me and said, paraphrasing, "See that scavenger hunt? That's your game."

So I had a direction. Using the same blue-lined graph paper we all used in fifth grade science class, I mocked up a crude gameboard showing sidewalks, stores and items to be collected. We rolled Monopoly dice and moved around the board, keeping rough notes on who bought what. It must've shown some potential as a multi-player, family-oriented computer board game, of which there were few on the market at the time. But it had to be more Infocom-weird.

A "Koala Pad", courtesy of Wikimedia commons. Uploaded by Nynexman4464.

What happened next? How did the team come together?

Up until that point in early 1983, I was producing near unintelligible computer graphics on a Koala pad with stylus and no printable output. Then Infocom management showed up with something called a "Macintosh", a pre-release, 128K Apple prototype, intended for use in the development of future Infocom products. Mouse-driven, with both word processing and graphics programs, Mike recognized what it could be and soon appropriated it for my graphical use only. It did not take long to master both MacWord and MacPaint and I was soon producing graphics with supporting text for our weekly meetings, demonstrating what this computerized scavenger hunt might look and play like. It was at this point that one of Infocom's original founders, Marc Blank, began to occasionally join the graphics meetings, most probably at Mike's urging. 

In the meantime, Mike began inviting a couple of different subject experts to our weekly graphics meetings. Poh C. Lim, an MIT graduate and software engineer at Infocom, was added to begin the conversion of my Macintosh graphics files into a format acceptable to Infocom's proprietary, virtual ZIL-machine compiler. Poh soon became an almost full-time member of the still-informal graphics group, providing not only deep technical support but also many different game suggestions and improvements. Brian Moriarty, a former tech editor at ANALOG Computing and combination tech editor/game designer at Infocom, also joined the group for our weekly meetings; while his principal function seemed to be to remind us every week of how stupid we were to be designing a graphics game in an interactive text gaming company, Brian's long background in computer gaming often proved invaluable in keeping the game's design and implementation on track.

If this is composed of reused tiles, I sure can't tell. 

[ Ed Note: You can read about Brian Moriarty's ANALOG career and his first game published in that magazine here. ]

What was Poh Lim's role on the development team?

It was Poh who first understood and articulated the need to establish a limit on the graphics used to produce the scavenger hunt. Otherwise it would grow too large and slow for the mainframe-based ZIL graphical compiler to be able to digest and convert into Apple II, IBM PC and Atari-compatible software. If memory serves me, I was given 240 separate and distinct blocks (8x8 pixels? Not sure.) to use to illustrate, color and animate the entire game. For instance, a single black block could be used a thousand times to outline the four-quadrant gameboard, the multiple iterations of the animated dog, the 18 different store items, the Chanceman and so on and the compiler would still recognize and count all those things as being comprised of only a single, black block. To a degree, that explains the game's blocky look and feel; the entire thing is built on a grid.

As the game took further shape, mid-to-late 1983, and Poh was able to preview online the most basic functions using my Macintosh illustrations – gameboard, stores, spinning game wheel, animated items and animated dog, etc. – weekly graphics meeting became important in fleshing out the actual gameplay. I'd come up with the game's concept and look/feel but the gameplay itself needed more fun, more randomness, maybe even some strategy. Which is where the addition of Marc and Brian to our group of Mike, Dan, Poh and myself became so valuable; the Chanceman, crosswalks, the falling piano, UGH, bumping, lockers, pawn shops and more elements of chance all came careening out of this collective group. Marc came up with the name Fooble to describe the game's coins and eventually named the game Fooblitzky. 

Oh yes. We know all about Cornerstone. *shudder*

How did the development of Cornerstone affect what you were doing and how it was released?

Other internal projects, including Infocom's answer to Lotus Software's groundbreaking 1-2-3 spreadsheet software, named Cornerstone, continued pulling at Mike's time and he began to back out of the babysitting portion of managing Fooblitzky. Jon Palace was hired to project manage the graphics project as well as other ongoing interactive text projects. By this time, I knew what Fooblitzky was and I knew what was required, from a graphics POV, to finish it; just keep drawing. Jon joined our weekly graphics meetings and his scheduling discipline became important to helping keep development on track. 

You've mentioned Mike Berlyn, Marc Blank, and Poh Lim, but there is a fourth person credited for Fooblitzky. How did Paula Maxwell come to join the team?

In very early 1984, I was able to hire Paula Maxwell to help with the game's animation. Her responsibility was to complete animations I'd begun, using a rough style guide for direction. Paula worked in the graphics group for about six months and then decided to return to her native California.

By mid/late-1984 we had a fingers-crossed finish date for development of Fooblitzky of December 1984. I'd mocked-up a prototype of the game box and worksheets, shown them to Mike, Marc and the group and, with their approval released it to Carl Genatossio, Infocom's Creative Director, for production. A rough cut of the game was in Testing for debugging and it had been previewed with Public Relations and the senior interactive writer's group. "Doubtful" was the word I think best described their puzzled reaction. In late 1984 I was unexpectedly laid off. Graphical work on Fooblitzky stopped. 

That is unexpected! Do you know how the game was finished?

In 1985, I was hired back as an independent contractor to finish the remaining Fooblitzky graphics and animations. January and February are what it took I believe. Mike had, at that point I think, left the company.

Original Fooblitzky box for the PC

The launch of Fooblitzky was strange-- mail order-only for the first six month. Leaked sales records suggest it may have sold only sold 500 copies that way. (It sold more later.) Do you know anything else about the release?

I had no input into the game's production, release, and distribution. It would not strike me as silly to find that Carl had 500 boxes printed and management put minimum effort into trying to sell them in order to clear warehouse shelf space.

I later heard anecdotally through Infocom friends that the development of Cornerstone had far outgrown anyone's estimate for time, budget, and headcount required to finish. And that all non-mission-critical internal projects had to end in order to get Cornerstone out the door. Just company gossip.

What have you been up to since then?

I returned to my core expertise in late 1985, what was once called "commercial art". I held a variety of positions involving illustration, graphic design and art direction. Eventually I moved into management, spending 10 years at Digital Equipment and culminating in five years as Director of Marketing Services at relational database manufacturer Sybase, then one of the 10 largest software manufacturers in the U.S.

I am fortunate to have a wonderful 43-year marriage to my wife Joel. We have 2 great kids and are starstruck daily by our four granddaughters, two of whom live in Seattle and two locally in Ipswich; the latter pair I fruitlessly attempt to provide daycare for. Fooblitzky was a breeze compared to these two. 

This is amazing! Thank you for sharing your story.

---

Brian really does find unique character in his art.

I want to thank Brian for spending as much time as he did talking with us. Reading over our conversation for the first time was like turning on a light into an otherwise unknown portion of Infocom history. There is a lot here to digest, but it's clear that Brian had a much larger role in the development of the game than is popularly understood. Perhaps we can have a follow-up interview with Mike Berlyn in a few months, if he is interested, especially as we have now played all of his adventure games except 1997's Zork: The Undiscovered Underground.
You can find (and purchase!) Brian's work at his website, BrianCody.com as well as his Zazzle store.

Up next for me will be Dave Lebling's Spellbreaker, our last Infocom game of 1985. That should be a lot of fun.

If We Don't Save History, No One Will

The only surviving recordings of long dead indigenous tribes. Numerous Egyptian mummies, including an unopened coffin. Frescoes that survived the eruption of Vesuvius. Artifacts from the Nazca and Inca cultures, including a 3,500 year old Chilean man. An impeccable fossil record that boasted of 110 million year turtles, the nation's largest sauropods, and its most unique carnivores. The biological collections of hundreds of diverse insects and birds. An invaulable record of our global heritage, the fruits of 200 years of labor, were in one night baked, burned, and broiled. Brazil's independence day, for many, came not with cheers, but with weeping.



Brazil is far from the only place where history is threatened or destroyed. The Taj Mahal is now so discolored and degraded by air pollution that an Indian Supreme Court has suggested either shutdown or demolition. The Notre Dame de Paris is falling apart and is in need of a $114 million restoration, which currently relies on foreign donations. 2,000 kilometers of the Great Wall of China have disappeared since the Ming Dynasty, with only 8.2% of it in good condition according to a 2014 study. The Colosseum is routinely vandalized by tourists. In 2014, the beard on Tutenkhamen's mask snapped off during cleaning and was crudely glued back on, but thankfully repaired with beeswax by professionals in 2015. Consider too our natural history. The Great Barrier Reef is being bleached into ruin by rising ocean temperatures. Everest, our highest peak, is accumulating trash and human waste. Severe droughts influenced by climate change are degrading the Amazon rainforest. Floating islands of garbage are filling our oceans and farm pollution has produced an oxygen-lacking dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Will Venice, New Orleans, or the Maldives still be above land when the seas rise? How much access to their history and culture will be lost as a result?

This century alone has seen incalculable loss to the greatest treasures of history. In 2007, IKEA destroyed ten ancient tombs dating back 1,800 years to make room for construction in China's Nanjing province. Greenpeace lost much of its credibility as a conservationist movement in 2015 when its activists illegally crossed into the Nazca Lines and permanently damaged the soil. In 2013, a 2,300 year old Mayan pyramid was bulldozed so its limestone could make new roads. That same year, a 5,000 year old pyramid was bulldozed by construction companies in Peru. In 2014, a 5,000 year old rock painting in Quesada, Spain was destroyed by thieves who tried to steal it. ISIS, ravaged the glory of the Middle East in Mosul by destroying statues that date to Assyrian and Akkadian eras, blew up the tomb of Jonah, and brought ruin to Syria's historic Palmyra. Meanwhile our "ally", Saudi Arabia, continued its rape and pillage of Islamic heritage in Mecca by building a garish clocktower over a historic Ottoman fortress. Never mind the botched art "restorations": The Roman mosaics in Turkey, a 500 year old St. George statue in Spain, and new concrete was slapped onto the Spanish medieval castle of Matrera. On and on and on it goes, where it stops, nobody knows.

We lament the burning of Alexandria's library by Ceasar's army, the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols, the smashing of Qurayshi idols by Muhammad, Napoleon's army using the Sphinx for target practice, Heinrich Schliemann's careless erasure of Troy, the Crusaders who sacked Constantinople and melted bronze Roman statues into coins, the carzed hammer attack on Michelangelo's Pieta, the Taliban's literal "defacing" of Buddhist statues, Saddam Hussein's crude makeover of ancient Babylon, and the current idiot-in-chief's demolition of priceless Art Deco sculptures to save money on phallic tower, but we are not far from the mistakes of history, and history has all too often repeated itself.

We are grateful to the Irish monks and Muslim scholars who kept the wisdom of the Greco-Roman Ancients alive, to First Lady Dolley Madison for rescuing Stuart's portrait of Washington from the White House fire, to Secretary of War Henry Stimson for knocking Kyoto off the firebombing list during the Pacific War, to the Malians of Timbuktu who saved their ancient manuscripts from the Turaeg rebels, and many others, but such heroes are few and far between. History always has so very few heroes.

The greatest threats to history are war, greed, dictatorship, vandalism, and negligence. The latter was what struck Brazil's museum. Brazilians have complained of austerity measures that cut funding to the musuem's upkeep. A situation so terrible that the museum did not have fire sprinklers, that even my college apartment has, nor were firefighters able to access hydrants to put the fires out. Brazil could apparently afford to host the World Cup in 2014, the Summer Olympics in 2016, but not to install fire sprinklers in its national museum. This is what happens when profit is put over people. If our history isn't even safe in musuems, among the curators, then it isn't safe anywhere. We must redouble our efforts, all of us, as global citizens, so that access to the treasures of our heritage, the lineage of our ancestors, the very stuff that makes us human, is never again erased from the modern memory. Even here, there is hope. After the tomb of Jonah was destroyed, archaeologists discovered an Assyrian palace not seen since 7th century BC. There's a lesson in that, perhaps.

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   • Payment time-daily
   
   
4. Clk.sh: Clk.sh is a newly launched trusted link shortener network, it is a sister site of shrinkearn.com. I like ClkSh because it accepts multiple views from same visitors. If any one searching for Top and best url shortener service then i recommend this url shortener to our users. Clk.sh accepts advertisers and publishers from all over the world. It offers an opportunity to all its publishers to earn money and advertisers will get their targeted audience for cheapest rate. While writing ClkSh was offering up to $8 per 1000 visits and its minimum cpm rate is $1.4. Like Shrinkearn, Shorte.st url shorteners Clk.sh also offers some best features to all its users, including Good customer support, multiple views counting, decent cpm rates, good referral rate, multiple tools, quick payments etc. ClkSh offers 30% referral commission to its publishers. It uses 6 payment methods to all its users.
   • Payout for 1000 Views: Upto $8
   • Minimum Withdrawal: $5
   • Referral Commission: 30%
   • Payment Methods: PayPal, Payza, Skrill etc.
   • Payment Time: Daily
   
   
5. Short.am: Short.am provides a big opportunity for earning money by shortening links. It is a rapidly growing URL Shortening Service. You simply need to sign up and start shrinking links. You can share the shortened links across the web, on your webpage, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Short.am provides detailed statistics and easy-to-use API.
   It even provides add-ons and plugins so that you can monetize your WordPress site. The minimum payout is $5 before you will be paid. It pays users via PayPal or Payoneer. It has the best market payout rates, offering unparalleled revenue. Short.am also run a referral program wherein you can earn 20% extra commission for life.
   
6. Wi.cr: Wi.cr is also one of the 30 highest paying URL sites.You can earn through shortening links.When someone will click on your link.You will be paid.They offer $7 for 1000 views.Minimum payout is $5.
   You can earn through its referral program.When someone will open the account through your link you will get 10% commission.Payment option is PayPal.
   
   • Payout for 1000 views-$7
   • Minimum payout-$5
   • Referral commission-10%
   • Payout method-Paypal
   • Payout time-daily
   
   
7. Adf.ly: Adf.ly is the oldest and one of the most trusted URL Shortener Service for making money by shrinking your links. Adf.ly provides you an opportunity to earn up to $5 per 1000 views. However, the earnings depend upon the demographics of users who go on to click the shortened link by Adf.ly.
   It offers a very comprehensive reporting system for tracking the performance of your each shortened URL. The minimum payout is kept low, and it is $5. It pays on 10th of every month. You can receive your earnings via PayPal, Payza, or AlertPay. Adf.ly also runs a referral program wherein you can earn a flat 20% commission for each referral for a lifetime.
   
8. Ouo.io: Ouo.io is one of the fastest growing URL Shortener Service. Its pretty domain name is helpful in generating more clicks than other URL Shortener Services, and so you get a good opportunity for earning more money out of your shortened link. Ouo.io comes with several advanced features as well as customization options.
   With Ouo.io you can earn up to $8 per 1000 views. It also counts multiple views from same IP or person. With Ouo.io is becomes easy to earn money using its URL Shortener Service. The minimum payout is $5. Your earnings are automatically credited to your PayPal or Payoneer account on 1st or 15th of the month.
   
   • Payout for every 1000 views-$5
   • Minimum payout-$5
   • Referral commission-20%
   • Payout time-1st and 15th date of the month
   • Payout options-PayPal and Payza
   
   
9. Linkbucks: Linkbucks is another best and one of the most popular sites for shortening URLs and earning money. It boasts of high Google Page Rank as well as very high Alexa rankings. Linkbucks is paying $0.5 to $7 per 1000 views, and it depends on country to country.
   The minimum payout is $10, and payment method is PayPal. It also provides the opportunity of referral earnings wherein you can earn 20% commission for a lifetime. Linkbucks runs advertising programs as well.
   
   • The payout for 1000 views-$3-9
   • Minimum payout-$10
   • Referral commission-20%
   • Payment options-PayPal,Payza,and Payoneer
   • Payment-on the daily basis
   
   

The Tournament That Almost Wasn'T

Yesterday's Dark Souls Trilogy tournament was the best yet. But it almost never happened.

On Friday night, after the tournament draft and Resident Evil 2 exhibition match, I was celebrating a bit with the wife. These tournaments take a ton of work to organize but everything was in place--it was a great feeling! A couple glasses of wine and Game of Thrones episodes in, I went into my office tweak some camera settings for the tournament. Somehow, I knocked my tripod off my desk, right into my fiber internet modem. The same fiber internet that had never dropped a frame in 10 tournaments.

Tripods, it turns out, are deadly, because the evil thing severed my fiber line...12 hours before the biggest tournament I've ever done. In that moment, I wanted to Sekiro. Please Alt+F4.

Twelve runners, half a dozen commentators, thousands of viewers, all counting on my trusty internet connection.

Months of planning all seemingly destroyed by a single clumsy moment.

Friends to the rescue. I reached out to the GGLeague discord immediately, and the amazing members of this community came up with back up plans and talked me off the ledge.

I jumped into JoeDD's stream and asked him for a quick discord call to come up with contingencies. We worked it all out. Joe's a damn MVP.

My neighbor offered up their son's room and Comcast WiFi so I could stream the tournament. Their son is the same kid I slayed 30x over in Fortnite months ago. He almost uninstalled. But Fortnite kid gave up his room so I could stream the biggest Dark Souls tournament to date.

Comcast only dropped 900 frames in 9 hours. Pretty good. Even Comcast was on my side.

It really is dangerous to go alone. It's a cold dark place with no internet, no one to laugh with and nobody to have your back when shit goes down.

Thanks to everyone that had my back this weekend and thanks for the reminder that I'm on the best team there is on Twitch.