In Which a Defeat feels like Victory

Good morning, my friend, dear reader of this post! Hope you are okay? Do let me know! And maybe the weather is also fairing not as summery, instead leaning more on towards Autumn, assuming you come from the north! Here, the weather of September has been mild, which is a blessing! As a whole, the month so far was one of a slowly fading winter, in towards what one can pray it may be a fresh spring. As for me, the weekend was relatively calm. I did play some games, and I could work on my first 2026 season christmas postcard! As a personal tradition I have, I do it early, as I adore christmas. I was worried if this year I could have done it as early, fortunately the answer is yes!

As usual, this is dedicated to my dear pen pals, excellent online friends, that I have cultivated across the years. It has a sparkly feel to it, more than in past years. It just ended up this way, and I like it. No reason for it to look particularly optimistic, just happened in the end. God knows I have my lamentations and woes, reasons to weep and lash teeth, but at least the christmas postcard looks happy, and given Christmas is the happiest of days, only natural it could be the case...

Apart from this happy occasion, I did achieve something else this very late Sunday/early Monday: I wrapped up a Civ 5 game, the first ever since I started modding in Civ, and the first civ game at all to be finished since 2023! Now, it is true that I lost, but it was a fair play. Korea built a spaceship first, as such achieving the science victory. If they have missed a few turns, I'd have won, either diplomatically or culturally. In fact, at around 2500 something points in the score, first place amongst the nations, I was decidedly the favorite, and Korea was a bit of an underdog Civ, not even in the top 5, of a game that had 9 civs on the map at the eve of wrapping, as Assyria and England were conquered. All I can say is bravo, Korea. And it attests to the significant improvements that the community patch mod, associated with the big overhaul Vox Populi, did to the Civ 5 game. I have moved on from Vox Populi, it did not suit my taste at the end of the day, but the community patch had to stay, and it made for a jolly good difference.

I think this is a milestone, perhaps bigger than what I can pinpoint to right now, as I have not done a Civ 5 game this long or this enjoyable since deciding to try the mods out, I did mention above speaking of which. And of course I should ever mention the usage of the patch does not mean Civ 5 vanilla is not good. Civ 5 vanilla is the best strategy game ever released, in fact. What it means is that the AI behaves much more intelligently, the glitches and bugs still present have been either eliminated or mitigated as well, so it builds above a nice foundation, while Vox Populi overhauls the game in ways I decided I did not need to keep going towards.

With the postcard for Christmas season 2026 done and shared, setting the tone for this year's holidays, it is the first but in many ways the most important, and the victory in defeat of my Civ 5 game, I should move towards wrapping up another positive post. I earnt this finished Civ game, that is for sure! And the postcard is earnt as well, I had to overcome some creative block to keep it going. At the end of the day, just happy to be here, I hope I can remind myself of that more offen, and do not let the many woes of the routine cause me to weep so frequently. Anyway, thank you for being here today! And don't worry, I will be back real soon with more thoughts, ideas, perhaps more wins and losses. I should be around for the week, and before the next weekend, I pray I can put up another post! Meanwhile, I may write something in paralel on my Substack side-blog... we'll see! For now, jusr for now, farewell! Cheers, never say die! Have a beautiful new week.