Ajaxpost Plays: Beyond The Game

So, this was a post I wrote back in October 2020 but, for some reason never quite finished or published it...🤔 The situation has escalated somewhat since then, in August 2023 my little hobby channel had acquired an astonishing 2,500 subscribers!  I wonder if my musings of three years ago are still valid (I have made some minor edits to the original draft for spelling and grammar) ... Well, it was just a little hobby, to share the fun I was having with my Sims 3 stories and now I've reached the first big 'proper YouTuber' milestone ... 1,000 subscribers!! In December 2015 I uploaded my first ever gameplay video, "Slade Dynasty Chronicles Intro : Sims 3 Lets Play" As ropey as it was, I think I was actually using just the microphone on my cheap-as-chips headset, I actually enjoyed the process of creating videos and the very kind Sims 3 community were encouraging in their support. I experimented with other games and types of video, trying to work out what I most...

  Saturday 2nd November 2019 A narrow win but otherwise respectable performance in the cup game against Charlton prompts me to expect a win against relegation bound Barnsley.   Our injury tally is still too high, for my liking, so I've been looking at our younger players to find some prospects capable of stepping into the breach when needed. One such is Vincent Harper who I've added to the senior roster and included as a sub for this upcoming match. There is also very encouraging news from my Loan Managers that many of our loaned players are doing very well and even, as here, picking up awards! According to the 'experts' we should return from our trip to Barnsley with a solid win. Even so, on the advice of my staff, bearing in mind the players we have available, we going in with a  positive 4-2-3-1 formations today  Ready? Let's kick off!

Tuesday 29th October 2019 It seems like only yesterday when we last beat Charlton Athletic and here we are again. This time they play host and our team has some very important players out of action due to injury. That said, the squad is in very good spirits and have the skills necessary to take us through to the next round. We still have numerous key players out with injuries but our medical team tell me that a couple of players are about ready to play again Palmer is a very effective midfielder so if he's ready I think we'll try and play him but I think we'll give Pereira a little more recovery time. Whatever our team on the day, the informed opinion is that we can, once again, best our Championship opposition     To shake things up a little, I've decided that we'll start this cup match in one of our alternate formations and give our newly acquired goalkeeper Mark Gillespie another match. Ready? Let's kick off!

Sunday 27th October 2019 Will the team be able to replicate the good result we had against Charlton in our next home match against mid-table Wigan Athletic? We still have numerous key players out with injuries but our results are sound so the generally opinion is that we can best the somewhat inconsistent Wigan Athletic   But before the match, I have agreed to attend a press conference, I think it goes reasonably well. I've decided to keep the same formation and team on the pitch as we had against Charlton with the exception of the injured Palmer who will be replaced by Andreas Weimann. Ready? Let's kick off!

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 At home today, facing a team that has not had the best of results lately and my team are in good spirits. Let's hope the high morale and the enthusiasm of a home crowd translate to good performances on the pitch ... every result counts! The press has marked us as favourites Of the three formations the team are training, we're going to stick with our usual 4-1-4-1, which we're so far best suited to Several of our key players are out due to injury but we can still put up a pretty solid squad Ready? Let's kick off!

Just in case there is an audience for FM2020 highlights videos beyond my typical YouTube channel subscriber, it occurred to me (several weeks late, admittedly!) that I could post each match highlights video here on this blog! So, here's the first couple of months worth of matches, I will endeavour to publish the others here in a more timely manner. 😎 To work through the whole series so far, you can go directly to the YouTube playlist: Football Manager 2020: Bristol City Season 1 . Or, if for some reason you'd want to watch them from here just keep on scrolling! Either way, if you would like to know more about the team, my tactics, my decisions, please just ask. Though, as my earlier, historical, post explains I actually know nothing about football and most choices I make in this game are either arbitrary or just following the advice of my club staff. 😕 League Match 1 - Leeds United League Match 2 - Birmingham City Carabao Cup Rnd 1 - Northampton Town League Match 3 -Queen Par...

I have never seriously followed football or, indeed, any sport. My parents were not participants and at best infrequent watchers. Sure, we would indulge in the Saturday afternoon TV ritual of World of Sport for some horse racing or wrestling - that's the proper British style of wrestling combat, not the American show-business nonsense. Rounded off, of course with the run-down of the football results, mainly to see if we had won anything on the pools ! Through my teens I became a little more aware of football, though in three quite specific ways. Firstly there was that good feeling when someone from your own area became successful, I was always rather pleased to hear when a local team had some success which, to be honest, didn't happen very often as Berkshire was not home to many world class teams! Secondly, footballers were starting to become celebrities. Certainly a world away from the mega-stardom that they would come to be afforded some years later but back then the...

In the third episode of my SimAirport series Building Bristol I add the first of many Remote Gates. Before recording that episode I did a little more research to clarify how many gates and stands were in use at Bristol. I found a few more photographs that helped show the arrangement of stands more definitively. In particular this one, that I used within the video, which appears to show all the stands in use though there may be a couple more spaces at the far right-hand : Another couple of photos of the airport show the sheer scale of car parking usage - it is said that the airport company earns more from parking charges than air fees! Bristol Airport Resources For anyone interested in the operation of the real Bristol Airport, I'll keep this post updated to collate the various bits of information I use within this SimAirport series. The main pages I used in planning the series include: https://www.bristol-airport.net/terminal.php https://www.bristolairportspo...

This post was going to be mostly a summary of the activity on my YouTube channel in March but I thought I really should address the COVID-19 coronavirus situation and, umm,  got a bit carried away!  You can avoid my ranting about what has happened by scrolling down to the next headline. 😉  The 'Situation' It took a while for us here in the UK to realise but March was the month that everything changed ! After two weeks of 'lockdown' we're becoming accustomed to a new way of life, isolated in our own homes, either alone or with immediate family we are effectively confined within our homes. Unable to physically meet anyone we don't live with, unable to enjoy of the pleasures that come with socialising with our various communities. And then there is the 'knock-on' impact that has on the economy, the businesses, the organisations and institutions that have become an integral part of our way of life. Our governments may try to protect the bedrock comp...

Today I published the first episode for a new series on my YouTube channel, a Lets Play of Stellaris with the newly released Federations expansion pack. Why, you might be thinking, am I doing a big outer space grand strategy game? The answer, my friends, is back, way back, in my gaming history ... When I first discovered computer gaming it was on a magnificent Commodore 286 PC. Starting with this marvellous machine, and subsequent PC clones, I discovered the original Civilisation, Championship Manager (now Football Manager), SimCity, Master of Orion, Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon and many other great PC games. I never got into consoles at all so strategy and adventure were what captured my (relatively) youthful imagination. Time passes, and now while Civilisation is still great fun to play and retains it's essential 'pick up and play' quality to draw you easily into the gameplay complexities many of the "4X" games that followed it provide much deeper ...

After creating a huge terminal building in the first, planning, episode this second episode (the first real one of the series) I try to find somewhere to put all the essential ticketing and security infrastructure, along with some toilets and a little coffee shop. A Lovely Coffee Shop Spot As it has been several months since last played the game, you may notice some quiet ludicrous mistakes and errors of judgement! I would like to promise that I will get better as the series progresses ... I would like to! 😏 If only to laugh at my incompetence, please do join me in this new episode by clicking on the video link below.   Oh, and in case it's obvious ... I haven't actually used the airport in years (and years!) so if you have visited or travelled through Bristol Airport please do let me know - you may be able to help me get the arrival and departure routes right. 👍

I have been very fortunate to be offered keys to two exciting new games ... OK, one of them is a DLC but it's still pretty darned exciting! I shall be spending a few days getting to grips with the basics so that I can show them off reasonably competently (well, as competent as I ever am!) but within the next week I shall have at least one video published for one or, hopefully, both of them. So, if you haven't already, you probably ought to subscribe to the YouTube channel to make sure you don't miss them. 😉 A couple of teaser shots will, I'm sure, be enough for you work out which games they are. 😎

For the latest episode of my Transport Fever 2 Bristol series I revisit Bath, the very place that caused me so much heartache when I first tried to play this map! Since then I have been a little more cautious (read sensible ) and managed to make quite substantial profits so now, I reckon, the rime is right to look beyond the Bristol city area ... to the World Heritage city of Bath. The landscape is challenging, the city is compact and expensive but I think we can do it, we can finally establish a proper intercity train line.    

Having finished up one whole school year in Academia: School Simulator my first Lets Play series has come to an end.  If you have watched the series you will know that the last couple of episodes were plagued by an uncontrollable explosion in dirt and litter that my janitors never got on top of. Unfortunately that meant it was practically impossible to continue the game. I did play on, off camera, for another year but it was a constant battle with students leaving and having enough funds to progress research that might help fix the school. It wasn't fun for me, and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have made for entertaining viewing. 😓 That said, I really enjoyed the game up to that point and there are plenty of good things about it, and it's also possible that my problems were down to an issue with my old save game and not a bug in the game code itself. So, I wanted to wrap up the series with something reasonably positive, a review of my experience with the game. So...

In episode 21 in my Another Brick In The Mall Lets Play series I still have a couple of stores that just aren't making the money they should. So, in addition to starting work on the next wing of the Ajax Super Shopping Centre Experience (or whatever I'm calling it this week!) I'm trying to turn these failing franchises around. Oh, and I discover that cosmetics are a drug too! Drugs and Booze together ... a real profit opportunity!

It's been several months since I finished my first series of SimAirport where I promised I would take the money earned on that first airport to build a vaguely 'realistic' version of a real UK airport. Making good use of it's nearly 3 years in Early Access, the game was released on 29th February and I am now ready to start that new adventure by attempting to recreate ... Bristol Airport (BRS) In this first, introductory, episode I take a look at the layout of the real, the actual, Bristol Airport and some of the challenges that I will face before laying down some initial plans and building the first structures. In reality it looks like: You can follow my journey on YouTube, starting with some (over) ambitious laying of foundations:   Oh, I haven't actually used the airport in years (and years!) so if you have visited or travelled through Bristol Airport please do let me know - you may be able to help me get the arrival and departure routes...

I've had some fun playing around with the new modular station feature that was added to Transport Fever 2 and, despite it's limitations, found that it is possible to create quite a few fun (or ridiculous!) configurations! As I haven't seen anyone else create a video tutorial for the modular stations, nor a presentation of  the designs you can create I thought I would have a go ... in my own inimitable long-winded style! So, here they are. Part 1 is a basic tutorial covering how the feature works and what limitations there are and in Part 2 I show off some examples of designs ... well, as many as my limited imagination would stretch to! I'm using just base game / vanilla options but if anyone would like me to look at any of the modded station options I'd be happy to have a go.