The Battle Plan 1st June 2021 (Patreon)

Ah, Ms Moneypenny! Watch me throw my hat casually onto the hat stand!

What? Who? What's this?

Obviously, I spend quite a lot of time in my hotel rooms practising my hat throwing purely so I can do it when arriving back here at MI6 headquarters.

I'm not sure where you're going with this.

Then I get back to wrecking/losing all the kit that Q just gave me which, mercifully, there's almost always a use for. It's rather like playing Dungeons and Dragons where the DM "randomly" gives the players a bunch of cure poison potions in their first loot drop of the day. It's like "oh sure, Mr DM, why not telegraph exactly which critters we'll be facing in the tomb of the last giant freaking arachnid."

I'm not really following. Are you saying you're about to start a tabletop RPG series?

Let's not even talk about the cars! Oh look, this one goes underwater! I wonder if that will be useful? After all I've done a bunch of these missions and never once lost my DB5 in the drink.

M will see you now.

Hello there, pickle.

Well, we sure have The Fever in full flow right now don't we? Judging by the viewing numbers I'd left it long enough between series that I'm managing to flog the same jokes again as fresh material. Bless you and your acceptance of "more of the same". I'm enjoying it, you seem to be enjoying it, we're all winners.

Anyway, this Japan series will wrap up at the 16-20 episode mark with a tracks and beats. We'll then revisit the map again when it's next up in rotation. Rotation is key. I want to be able to play through full series quickly before moving onto something else, as such the 4-per-week approach I'm currently sporting is working splendidly well. Sometimes it'll be a game you love, sometimes it won't be. Next up in the pipe is Soviet Republic - I'm going to go for a bunch of trains and self sufficiency this time, covering one area of industry with each series.

Shall we address the weekend rando selection? Yes. Let's do that.

Rising Star is still wonderful but it may be running out of steam. In the last episode I had the first feeling of retreading old ground. I've got a couple of solid ideas still to pursue, but I'm a little tied to game updates for keeping it both fresh and zesty. No changes for now, but we'll see.

Automation is evolving rapidly and the next one should be the series in its final form. I'm having a bunch of fun and it's safe to say that nobody knows where it's going - apart from me, I know where it's going. Hopefully I'll be ready to talk about that a bit more by the end of June.

Baseball is coming up on the end of the season (maybe another month) after which... basketball? Football? No idea.

Let's get granular!

• Tue: Transport Fever
• Wed: Transport Fever
• Thu: Transport Fever
• Fri: Something new or Derail Valley (if there's nothing new)
• Sat: Rising Star and the Bannerlord live stream
• Sun: Automation (CF), Baseball (Electrosports), Dyson Sphere Program (Backers)

Smell the variety, friends!

-CF