War of Nations

I am always returning to this game. I play one age, stay 2 or 3 out, then I return. Some ages are incredible, if you are at the right team. Yes: there is a world with six nations, each one fighting each other. The one that conquers more marketplaces or scrolls wins. You recruit an army in your provinces and upgrade them to get more gold. Simple? Yes, and simple games like this one can be very exciting, due to team cooperation.




It appears it works better in old computers, I played one day with the newest version of firefox and I found the map too different. The map was clearly done for IE 6.0, but the difference isn't big.

• Site address: http://www.warofnations.com/

• Free? Yes, and if there is one ad somewhere, I have never saw it. It is a totally free and clean site.

• Time spent playing: 10 Minutes each 6 hours will make you the best player, if nobody stronger crosses you :) It is still playable with 2 log-ins per day.

Happy Holidays!

All the best for everybody! I wish for you a great Christmas and an wonderful New Year! (full of victories not only in the games we play, but in our lives too :D)

Solve chess problems on-line

Who never tried to solve some chess problems in the newspaper? Have you ever thought of solving another few, maybe more difficult? And for free? So, this site is for you. It currently has more than 23.000 problems and nearly 28.000 users. It is clean, it has no ads, it is free and you play as much as you like. Isn't this wonderful? Welcome to internet!

For each problem you have 6 seconds for initial time, to familiarize yourself with the board composition. After that, is your move, and you have a few seconds to solve. If you pass the time, you may lose rating. So, be quick ;) It is an incredible tool to train for blitz.

• Site address: chess.emrald.net

• Free: Sure! :D

Correspondence-Chess in your Brownser

Another great way to pass your time. As Tarrasch once said: "Chess, like love, like music, has the power of making man happy." And this is exactly the meaning of our life in earth to seek happiness. Yes, chess is a must.

And there is some wonderful sites out there to play chess. One of the best totally free correspondence chess sites is the "lss" (Lechenicher SchachServer). It dedicates itself to browser-based correspondence chess. Each player has some days to each move. The intention is to give you enough time to think, try all moves possibles, consult some books, sites, etc.. Only computer programs is prohibited in this modality, although some people insist in doing that. As I have a low rating, I don't think I find one of this guys any day :)

There is a limit of games that each one can play, as a free and clean (no ads) site. You can play 5 at the begginning, as you complete some games it increases to 30-50 simultaneous games.

• Site address: lss.chess-server.net or lls.game-host.com

• Free: Sure! :D

• Time spent playing: It depends where the game is. But with a plenty number of days available, you can choose the best time of the day to open your chessboard and your books in front of the computer and then mate your adversary ;)

Macromanage a country in WW1

After a long time out, due to my studies at university, I return. And with a new game to relax :)




Supremacy1914 is the game that tries to reproduce the Europe scenario in the first world war. You have to administrate a country, recruiting armies, building fortresses, railways, and factories for artillery. It is possible to use ships too. Diplomacy is essential, as you can guess, since it is not possible to win a war alone. Have you ever thought that you could do better at WW1 than the Kaisers, Czares, Kings and Presidents of that time? Is your chance.





The game appeared to me to be highly based in Europa Universalis - a game produced by Paradox Entertainment. The game is great: imagine a "risk" game. Now imagine that you can build some things in your provinces that can help you in war, that diplomacy matters more, etc.. This is Europa Universalis.The difference between the site and this game is that Europa Universalis (now in his third version) passes in medieval europe, has some more options and it isn't online.




I loved the idea of its German creators. I hope the find a way of keeping it free after the beta test passes.




One last thing: it is slow in old computers. The administrators advice 1 Ghz or higher, plus 128 ram. If your computer is old, it may be slow. My one has half of this, and I have to wait some time to load (10 minutes LOL), but it works perfectly after that.

• Site address: www.supremacy1914.com
  
  
• Time spent on-line: In peaceful times, 10 minutes per day work. But it is first world war, and peace is difficult ;) Prepare yourself to 3-4 different log-ins around the day, with at least 25 minutes each. Yes, it needs a lot of time.
  
• Free? Totally free, and you can play as many games as you want. But it is still on Beta, and I don't know how it will be when officially released.