Pi, Tabletop Currency, and Female Supervillains – Geekout 19

Today I’ve got an interesting prompt. One of them doesn’t allow me to answer as I normally would. At least I’ll be back on track today! On this page, I’ll be writing about Four Digits of Pi, Four Tabletop Games that have Currency, and Four Female Supervillains.

Easy day! Here goes!

Four Digits of Pi

Here’s what I know: 3.14159265358979. Much fewer than some people, but far more than enough for most calculations regular people ever need to do. I’ve known these since I was in school. I believe that my calculator did 3.1415926535898. It was rounding, and I looked up the next digit, deciding it was a reasonably smart place to round with a 9 coming next.

Four Tabletop Games that have Currency

I’m going to assume this means board/card games. I’m also going to assume that the game itself should have a physical representation of said currency.

Solarquest

Most people will not have heard of this one, but it was a childhood favorite of mine. This game is similar to Monopoly, because it’s a dice-rolling, property-buying game. As a property-buying game, you probably figured out that it also has money to facilitate the purchasing of those properties, paying port fees, and buying fuel. Instead of moving around the outside of the board, you move over most of the board as you travel around the solar system, orbiting planets.

I like the game better than it’s earth-based counterpart due to the additional strategic elements and control. Your ship requires fuel and you can manipulate fuel levels against other players as well as using it to attempt to stay around friendlier planets for longer periods of time. It’s also a great way to learn the names of moons of the various planets in our solar system!

Die Macher

My favorite board game, Die Macher will take you 4-6 hours to play. It varies based on the group, and I enjoy playing with 4 or 5 players. In the game, each player takes on the role of a German political party trying to win seats in regional elections. To achieve this, you will need to spend quite a bit of money. You can get some money from your membership through the game, but you’ll likely need to accept a “donation” or two (clearly not a bribe…) Instead of paper money, the game uses cards as money. The cards are small, so it’s easy to conceal your full wealth. Being cards, however, it’s easy to deal with than paper in most cases.

7 Wonders

Coins are the currency in this game, and they’re mostly used for buying access to resources from your neighbors. This makes for a great economic element to the game, because you can generate an economy by trading with your neighbor, or try to starve them out of money and resources. And maybe you behave one of those two ways with each neighbor! I like this game for its ability to play quickly with up to seven players; most games increase time greatly for each added player.

Firefly the Game

This game is a bit thematic, so it’s certainly not for everyone. I enjoy the theme though! Some of you may have guessed this. When playing this game, you choose which scenario you want to play. One is simply amassing stockpiles of money, and other scenarios are more complicated. Regardless, all of them will require you to get money in order to hire crew and buy the supplies needed to achieve your goals. The money in this game is paper, and the designs on the money are quite detailed.

Four Female Supervillains

Not sure exactly how to define a “supervillain”, but I’ll go with the villains against the supers regardless of whether the villain herself has super powers. Time to list some dangerous women!

Harley Quinn

As far as I know, she doesn’t have any super powers of her own, but Harley is able to give Batman and others some trouble. She’s a fun, well-liked character, so she’ll make the list. I prefer the harlequin-style she had originally to the modern interpretation of her character. Then again, I prefer strong female characters to eye-candied female characters. And I don’t pretend that she wasn’t used that way previously, but I think the modern interpretation jumped over the line that was previously tiptoed around.

Catwoman

An interesting character when done well. She was a bit strange in Batman Returns, and I loved that we got to see the “making of” her costume. While she’s not always the villain, she’s certainly not completely on the Good side. I like that this character can team up with either side depending on her interests at the time. There’s no doubt that she belongs on this list though!

Mystique

Her power may not seem all that crazy, but Mystique really is one of the most powerful of the mutants. When she’s not on your side, it’s dangerous. Being able to look like anyone else can get her a lot of power when militaries like ours exist. Imagine her getting access to nuclear missiles or ordering airstrikes. Most mutants cannot detect her illusions either, so she’s able to easily fool them. It’s be to be aligned with her when you can be!

Emma Frost

As a strong telepath, Emma Frost is one dangerous opponent. On screen, we’ve seen her cause quite a bit of trouble for Professor X. Anyone who can mess with people’s minds is dangerous, but she’s more than just a telepath. She can take on a diamond form, which must be quite difficult for most mutants to deal with.

Wrap Up

Some of you may be wondering why I type “Good” instead of “good”. That comes from playing enough games where I might say “capital ‘g’ good” to make sure I’m emphasizing an alignment rather than just an action. I felt like doing it here. I’m weird sometimes. Anyway, tune in next time for Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and General Geekiness.