I'm still playing some Out of the Park Baseball, where by Expos improved from 90 wins in 1983, to 95 wins in 1984, to 99 wins in 1985. And 99 wins was enough to beat the Phillies and make the playoffs. For whatever reason - player preference, trying to maximize profits, who knows - the Phillies didn't re-sign either their star center fielder or one of their two ace pitchers to a new contract after the 1984 season. Granted, they each earned record-setting contracts of just under $3 million per year apiece, so it would have been expensive, but the Phillies could have ponied up. They still wound up winning over 90 games and having a chance to make the playoffs into the last two weeks of the season.
But instead, Montreal advanced, and is currently tied 1-1 with the San Diego Padres in the best-of-7 NLCS. Across the way, Kansas City and Cleveland are also tied 1-1. It seems to be a dead heat in the NL, where both teams have better batting than pitching. Our surprise star player this year is the super-veteran Ron Santo, who is in his 26th MLB season. At age 44, we traded for him last year in the hopes that he might provide just a little bit of a boost down the stretch, and he did well enough that we signed him to a one-year extension for age 45. Really, though, he had 499 home runs at that point, and I anticipated we'd probably release him around early May after he got to 500, and clear a roster spot for someone younger.
Instead, he got his 500th home run on the second day of the season, and did so well that he became our starting first baseman all year. .282 average and 18 home runs. Solidly above average. But before we could make a decision on whether to extend him for another year, he announced in early September that he would be retiring. Bummer, now I'll have to play the 28-year-old that was supposed to be our long-term plan but couldn't keep up with a guy 17 years his senior. Santo is still with us for the playoffs though, seeking his first World Series championship, the downside of playing for the Cubs for most of his career.
While the Phillies have a depleted farm system, we at least still have some decent prospects, including a rich pipeline of bullpen talent. Cleveland, meanwhile, is ascendant, with seven great batters and three excellent starting pitchers. I may have created a juggernaut by making a three-team trade with them and Pittsburgh that saw Cleveland get the last piece to its batting dominance, the well-hitting slugger Pedro Guerrero, myself get a very promising outfield prospect, and Pittsburgh get two more average prospects. Their star is still Cal Ripken Jr, and while Ripken hasn't beaten his own home record yet, he did bat .381 this year, the highest since Ted Williams in 1957. With both power and average, as well as high durability, Ripken is looking like potentially one of the greatest players of all time.
Then there's the 1984 World Series champion Detroit Tigers, who were inexplicably the second or third worst team in baseball in 1985. Usually that means a fire sale, but not in this case - Detroit maintained the second-highest payroll in baseball, and still fell off a cliff. A veteran team aging into a less potent one is not surprising, but for a team that brought all but one of its key pieces back, it's perplexing how quickly it happened. Season ticket holders, needless to say, are not impressed.
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Aside from that, I've started playing Millennia again. I'm Babylon (and, thus, plan to cook an authentic Babylonian dinner this week), and am in the Age of Plague, in a war with Nigeria, which demanded tribute from me, which I refused to pay. Nigeria had some veteran leaders from an earlier war with the Aztecs, which they narrowly lost, but they seem to have expected us to pay tribute, as they weren't right at the front lines early on. But while I would launch some raids, they would eventually converge on my second city, seemingly willing to accept some pillaging for a chance to take the plum prize.
Unfortunately for them, both that city of Kish and Babylon itself were by then churning out lots of spearmen and crossbows, so it would not be an easy prize, and I quickly turned both my primary army and my raiding cavalry army back towards Kish, cutting off Nigeria's path of retreat. The town of Samarra, outside of Kish, would be destroyed by Nigeria, as had one of my outposts, but the main Nigerian armies were crushed. Now, Babylon is on the offensive, having destroyed one town already, and plotting the right balance of risk versus reward for the next move.
The economy mustn't be forgotten, of course. I like how Millennia gives you several paths to choose from when advancing, not just the ages but customized focuses, all while allowing you to retain your civilization's identity. I chose the Wild Hunters path, and Babylon thrives on the meat and bones of the deer and antelope on the steppe. But we also farm, mill wheat into flour, having a copper mining industry, and are developing iron ore and limestone mines and quarries. Had Nigeria not requested enrollment in the school of hard knocks, I would have been perfectly content to continue focusing purely on the economy and peaceful expansion.
All in all, I'm left wondering what would have happened had Paradox supported the game until past Civ 7's release. Clearly its sales didn't take the world by storm, but so far it feels like a good Civ successor to me, in a way that Humankind with its civ-switching mechanic never did.
