Every now and then, a very odd or unique game catches my eye. I knew nothing about Cosmogenesis when I bought it. It looked like a borderline "edu-tainment" product, with its theme about the creation of solar systems and origins of life. And I had success with previous edu-tainment games. Photosynthesis was a surprise smash hit, and turned out to be one of the most popular games in my collection. So maybe Cosmogenesis would capture that same lightning-in-a-bottle?

But solo designer Yves Touringny and publisher Ludonova are not Blue Orange Games. Cosmogenesis plays solidly enough, but it just lacks the sheer "table presence" of something like Photosynthesis.

Star child

Cosmogenesis plays like a tableau-building card game, but without any cards. Instead, each player has a cardboard player board with circular slots along one side, in which circular cardboard planet discs can be slotted. Other cardboard asteroids, comets, and planets can be placed on the board, on the same row as a slotted planet, to act as moons. And small, gray plastic discs (that looks like an Advil tablet) are used to track the development of life on a track on eligible planets (or moons).

The only player interaction is resource-denial, which is rare.

Each player is kind of playing your own little game with almost no interaction with the other players. This can be good for players who can be more sensitive to being "attacked" by other players, or for players who prefer to focus on what they are doing instead of having to try to consider how other players might interfere with their strategy. The only player-interaction that ever really happens would be resource-denial, in cases in which one player specifically claims a token or objective that another player wanted.

But even that seems rare. The way that the game is structured, players are always acquiring new objectives every game round. You always have your own objectives to accomplish, even late in the game. So most players are going to be claiming tokens that actually accomplish their own objectives or improve their own score, rather than wasting a valuable turn by claiming a token specifically to keep it away from another player. If you do claim a token that another player wanted, it's likely because it's also something that benefits you.

This high focus comes from the fact that every game round the players acquire new short-to-medium-term goals to work towards. Even in the last round of the game, you will still be acquiring a new objective (whether you'll be able to accomplish it or not). These goals always feel viable to attain. I've never seen a situation in which its outright impossible for a given player to compete for at least one of the goals that's available, if they work to try to achieve it. I'm sure it's possible, but I haven't seen it happen yet.

Acquiring new objectives throughout the game
keeps play focused and goal-oriented.

Each player is also given a secret goal during game setup. In most games, this would likely be an end-game goal that could make or break your strategy. But in Cosmogenesis, this initial goal is the same kind of short-to-medium-term goal as all the other objective cards in the game. This initial goal will likely influence your game-long strategy, but it isn't the end-all-be-all. Instead, it just gives every player something to work towards right from the start of the game, in order to keep everyone's play laser-focused. From turn 1 all the way through round 6 (the final round of the game), every player has goals to work towards.

My partner and I have been planning on buying rooftop solar panels for our home for years. We had been saving up for it for a while. We were hoping to save up more, so as not to have to finance the project very much (if at all). But when Donald Trump was sworn in as president again in January of 2025, and promptly began to disassemble the federal government and replace it with a single-party, authoritarian police state, we figured that home solar and electric vehicle tax rebates would not last much longer. We moved quickly to spend what we had to get the ball rolling on solar panel installation before the administration would inevitably terminate federal tax credits for solar installations, which they did in August.

We tried moving as fast as we could, but there were delays in the installation due to defects with the house's roofing tiles. We just hoped that projects that were initiated before the announcement of the tax credit repeal would be grandfathered-in. Thankfully, Republicans were "kind" enough to keep them going through the end of the year.

In any case, we finally got the project completed at the end of August, and now have functioning solar panels on the roof of the house!

We also now have a couple months of lower energy bills due to the panels. Unfortunately, we did not get the panels installed early enough to take advantage of all the summer sun this year, but now that we are in the autumn, and the air conditioner isn't running as often, we should start seeing credits on our power bill for the electricity we are exporting back to the grid. By the time next summer rolls along, the expectation is that we will have banked enough credits that our energy bill will be down to little more than just the baseline connection fee (which I think is currently $18.50). We should still be able to qualify for the 30% tax rebate next year, which should put another nice chunk of cash back in our pockets.

We now have functioning solar panels and have taken the largest step to reduce our carbon footprint.

At the end of the day, though, we didn't do this for financial reasons. We did it because it's the right thing to do. Even if I knew for a fact that I would never get a return on investment from installing solar, I would still have wanted to do it in order to reduce my personal contribution to the carbon emissions that are contributing to climate change. The fact that it will provide a financial return on investment within a few years is just icing on the cake.

Civilization VII is a considerably different game compared to Civ V and Civ VI. As such, the leader guides that I wrote for those games won't quite work for Civ VII. Instead, I'm going to be experimenting with a slightly different format of doing independent guides for civilizations and for leaders separately. Leader guides will be complicated, so I'm starting with civilization guides while I figure out how I want to tackle the problem of creating guides for leaders that can change civs 3 times in a single game. Unfortunately, the lack of Hot Seat multiplayer severely limits my ability to do specific testing of things like the damage dealt by unique units in different circumstances, certain diplomatic actions, pillage effects, and other things. Hopefully, Hot Seat will be added soon.

As always, I welcome feedback. I will probably need a lot of feedback as I learn the new game and experiment with the format of these guides. Of course, you can also support the creation of this content by becoming a Patron.

As has been my tradition with these guides, I plan to start by focusing my attention on civilizations and leaders who have never been playable in Civilization games before.

The early life of Chandragupta Maurya is steeped in legend with few historical facts known. What is known is that around 322 BCE, after the death of Alexander the Great, Chandragupta raised an army to overthrow the Nanda Empire and Greek occupiers of India. He was the first to unify most of the Indian subcontinent, and may have abdicated his throne after converting from the Brahmanism religion to Jainism late in his life. One of his successors, Ashoka, would go on to convert to Buddhism, and declare Buddhism to be the official state religion of the increasingly-urban empire. Ashoka would go on to oversee the construction of many stupas and temples across India and expanded the influence of the religion into Afghanistan and Thailand.

Maurya gets to adopt multiple pantheons, and it excels in keeping its citizens happy. That happiness can then be converted into other yields, or be used to support military conquest.

DISCLAIMER:

Civilization VII is a "live service" game, which means it will be periodically updated with new content, new features, and balance changes. I may update this guide if Firaxis updates the game such that it considerably impacts this civilization, or if new strategies are discovered by the community. This guide is up to date as of the 1.2.5 patch on 30 September 2025.

I welcome any feedback or suggestions that readers wish to offer. Feel free to post on the linked forums, or by posting a comment at the bottom of the page.

[More]

After the disappointment of College Football 26, I wasn't sure if I would care enough to play this year's Madden. If the college game that everyone was excited about and praising last year somehow managed to get worse this year, that didn't bode well for Madden. As usual, I waited a couple weeks and bought it used, then still put off playing it for another week or so. After having to click through multiple advertisements for Ultimate Team and the stupid Season Pass, getting into the actual game didn't make me feel any better.

Just like with College Football 26, my single, biggest problem with Madden 26 (at release) is the inability to run the ball. Just like with the college game, blockers seem incapable of holding blocks, and defensive pursuit is uncanny good. There's like 3 run plays that even seem viable: draws from shotgun, read option keepers, and 01 Trap. With almost every other run play that I call, there is always a defender in the gap. Unless you are able to quickly react to cut back, or you have the stick skills to make a move or break a tackle in the gap, you'll be lucky to average more than a single yard per run.

That's the case for the user, anyway. For the CPU, every inside running play seems to break for 20 yards, and the CPU running back will successfully juke at least 2 defenders every play.

People online are saying that in order to run the ball, you need to utilize the new "Untarget Defender" feature in order to force your blockers to ignore backside defenders in favor of sending an extra blocker to the play-side. There are a few problems with this. First and foremost, as a matter of principle, I should not have to change the blocking assignments every single play in order to get competent blocking!

Running the ball was borderline impossible when the game launched.

Madden also doesn't bother to teach or explain this new "Untarget defender" mechanic. Unless you pay attention to pre-release promotional material, you probably won't know that this option is even available. It isn't documented anywhere, and there's no tutorials for it. I had no idea about it until I went online looking for advice on how to run the ball. Worse yet, this option is located under the "Pass Protection" pre-play menu, which means that a lot of users might not even realize that this feature can be used to modify run blocking assignments.

Almost as important is the fact that, unlike College Football, Madden does not show the actual individual blocking assignments of your blockers on running plays. It does for [most] pass plays, but not for run plays. I have no idea who the offensive line is actually going to try to block, so how am I even supposed to know that I should be modifying the blocking assignments? Or how am I supposed to know that the Untarget Defender command is even working?

The coach cam can show pass blocking assignments,
but not specific run blocking assignments.

If it ain't broke, break it!

Or at least, that was the case when the game released. In mid-September an update was released that seems to have inverted that problem so that running the ball is easy for the user, but the CPU cannot run the ball to save its life. I've had to reduce my Run Blocking sliders down to 20 or below in Franchise just to make CPU run defense competent, while tuning CPU Run Blocking into the 70s or higher just to make it so that the CPU running backs can gain positive yards.

Unfortunately, setting this slider so low leads to recurring problems where my own blockers will cut right in front of my running back right as he hits the hole. This is particularly annoying with receivers or tight ends who go in motion across the formation, away from the run, only to U-turn as soon as the ball is snapped and run through the hole as if to lead block. Despite there being a huge hole, my running back runs right into the back of one of my own players, has all his momentum stopped, and gets dragged down by a backside defender. It doesn't happen every time, but it happens frequently enough to really get on my nerves.

Maybe I would be able to fix some of these problems if the game would only let me see who each of my blockers is supposed to block on running plays. Then, maybe I could use the "Untarget Defender" function to force my pullers to block someone else, so that they don't get in my running back's way. But I can't do that because I have no idea who each of my blockers is actually supposed to block!

It would be really nice if publishers would stop being so reliant on post-release updates, and would actually put some QA effort into their games before they launch. That way, I wouldn't keep feeling like I have to write 2 fucking reviews for every one of these damn things!

After coming off of playing Foundation, and while jonesing for the Manor Lords castle update, I picked up another medieval village-builder: Farthest Frontier. I played this game while it was still technically in Early Access (and cheaper to buy), but its 1.0 release was only a month away, so I was basically playing (and reviewing) the release version. So for once, I'll actually have a review of a game out on the game's release! (Instead of weeks or months later, when everybody has stopped caring).

Farthest Frontier is another city-builder that's been on my radar for a long time, but I always figured that it would have a hard time competing with Manor Lords. Sure enough, I don't think Farthest Frontier is a good as Manor Lords, but it does have a lot of features and ideas that I really like, and which I would love to see ported or adopted into Manor Lords (and to other medieval survival city-builders.

I feel like the winters in Farthest Frontier look worse than they actually are.

Frontier fog

If anything, I think that fans of Banished should really like Farthest Frontier, as it feels very similar to that game. Both are grid-based city-builders, which stubbornly refuse to allow building on diagonals. One of my pet peeves with grid city-builders is when they generate maps that have diagonal features, and allow road-building on diagonals, but do not allow buildings to be placed on diagonals.

Both Banished and Farthest Frontier also put a large emphasis on logistics and trade. They also both have harsh winters -- though I did not find Farthest Frontier's weather or winters to be nearly as threatening as I remember them being in Banished.

Instead, Farthest Frontier plays up its "frontier" nature by including a fog of war that conceals potential threats and hazards. Even though the weather never posed as much of a threat to my village as I expected it to, I always had to be careful about exploring or expanding into the fog of war. You just never know what's out in that fog. Builders, loggers, hunters, or foragers who wander out into unexplored territory may run into bandit camps or wild predatory animals. If you send them out at the wrong time of year, they can also potentially get caught in a summer drought or winter blizzard, which could kill them from dehydration or cold if they can't get back to the village quickly enough.

The fog of war can hide dangerous wild animals or bandit camps.

Bandits and predators can also wander into your village or outposts from the fog of war, and can attack villagers, plunder resources, or damage or destroy buildings. You need to be sure to keep visibility of the perimeter of your village and satellite hamlets, and be prepared to defend it on a moment's notice. Watchtowers are therefore very important, but keeping them staffed takes precious population away from other jobs.

Villages in Farthest Frontier also never feel like they turn into full-blown cities or metropolises, like they can in Banished (and other games). Farthest Frontier actually has a hard cap on how high the population can get. This cap can be configured in the game's options (based on your computer's specs), implying that it's a technical and performance limitation (rather than a stylistic choice), and it defaults to 500 people. So unlike other games, you'll never fill up the map in Farthest Frontier (though you may have satellite villages all over the map). This limit may be a technical concession, but it does also contribute towards the "frontier" feeling of the game.