It’s weird thinking about how 2016 is half over.

I think my summer break might also be close to half over – recently, thinking about the onset of July has made me realize that I have just under 2 months until the fall semester starts in August. While I’m all in favor of cooler weather (though that won’t probably happen until closer to October), I’ve kind of enjoyed the break (even if I haven’t done much other than work).

I haven’t written here for some time, I know, and April suddenly seems like a very long time ago. My semester ended okay, I suppose, and since it ended I’ve spent a lot of time not doing much of significance. Work, the Internet, and playing games have been how I’ve spent most of my days, and while I’ve thought about writing about some of my games that has yet to happen.

The Florida game in the Super States mod for Europa Universalis 4 that I’ve mentioned before has been played (as of last week) to November 11, 1494 (fifty years since the game started), so I’ve been wanting to write an overview of North America at that time.

There’s also my Crusader Kings 2 game in the After the End mod as the ruler of Springfield, Missouri and, last but certainly not least, my Stellaris game as the Commonwealth of Man.

While writing extensively about Stellaris may have to wait for another time, suffice it to say that Stellaris is a science fiction strategy game, and the Commonwealth of Man is a xenophobic military dictatorship descended from 250 thousand human colonists who left Earth near the end of the 21st century aboard a ship using experimental wormhole technology. When the game starts on January 1, 2200 the Commonwealth (one of a few pre-defined empires) has a few differences from the United Nations of Earth who remained on Earth, including their use of laser weapons on ships (in contrast to the United Nations’ nuclear missiles) and the use of wormholes to travel between star systems, rather than the warp drive used by the UN.

Sometime I may also have to write about my first game of Stellaris as the United Nations of Earth – to some extent, some of the things that happened were probably due to release version weirdness. For example, the initial President of the United Nations in my game (which began two days after the game was released) had an African name and wants to legalize slavery, despite that not being possible with the ethos being used. That’s… weird, to say the least.

I could probably write more, but now that I’ve renewed my domain registration, I’ll have to try writing here more often, or at least doing something so the money seems well-spent instead of basically spending it for no reason.