A agree wholeheartedly to the condensation of your idea: empathy should be taught.

As for how, my personal belief is that everyone should work in a field that most closely relates to their passion. For me, it was as a customer service rep for a gaming company for a year. When everyone you are servicing acts like a…

This might fall under "Negotiation," but I would add Human Factors and Team Dynamics to the list.

People can be hard to predict, and covering a course of this nature helps to at least guess how people around you might operate and how best to engage and/or work with them, as well as recognizing how your own…

I read this from the point of view as an EA Executive. Chillingly true.

I've max - leveled a Crusader, Wizard and Witchdoctor, and I agree with your post. Crusader is a tanking terror on the battlefield with spell options similar to the latter two but with way more survivability.

Totally gave me nightmares too!

Reminds me of Steven King's short story "The Jaunt":

:::SPOILERS:::SPOILERS:::SPOILERS:::SPOILERS:::SPOILERS:::

People have to be put to sleep before being teleported, but one curious little boy decides to hold his breath when they gas him, and in the blink of an eye he lives for an eternity. The thought haunted me…

A good alternative is to buy a solid wooden door, then buy Ikea metal table legs and bolt them on. The hole normally reserved for the door knob can be used as the games master's cup holder or for power cables, depending on your game set up. Alone, it makes for a really great work table, especially if you have it…

Mobile Frame Zero is a fun little strategy game, even if you don't have the legos to effectively play it. Some buddies and I play it occasionally on a beer & games night.

It's a very niche market, I'll admit. I know they frequented Kublacon on the West Coast for two years, but stopped when they didn't drum up enough business. I imagine that hiring a friend who loves his craft to do the project at cost would definitely be cheaper, but if you're building for a market that may or may…

Kublacon 2014 had Tables of Catan with digitized surfaces for the tiles. I couldn't find the digital version online (the tables in the tourney may have been custom made) but the "analogue" ones are available here: http://www.tableofcatan.com/

Some of those tables are really classy; the surface can be covered over to…

This supports my theory that *everyone* should work in customer service for at least one year of their lives. I did so for a game company that put games on Facebook, and I had to read every single game complaint and vitriol ridden rant directed toward the developers.

Since I wanted to present an "honest" face to the…

Have you ever had the opportunity to see the one guy show "MacHomer"? He does en entire live one man show of Macbeth, but with Simpsons characters. It's hilarious! Your impersonation is so spot on to Peter, you should do something similar (or try to, at any rate!). Great work!

Venice too, with the Merchants of Venice unit! Plus, without having to spend cash!

Ethiopia is fantastic if you're going for a Cultural/Religious dominance— the Stele city improvement grants both +2 culture and +2 faith. Coupled with Tradition (first four cities get free monuments) and you have a great early lead on both.

Venice is an often overlooked Civilization, since you can only guide the…

Also: Isn't it the Liberty tree that grants additional/reduced build times for workers and settlers? Tradition is for smaller empires, though it's nearly always the Social track I start out on (see other post as to why).

While I agree real estate is important, especially in the beginning, I'd caution against expanding too fast. Building settlers when your capital is too small takes production away from other more important things, like the infrastructure to increase growth, production, or culture (which in and of itself helps to…

I second the Shoshone. The pathfinder is easily one of the best units; they can choose what ruins bonus you get when you use them. Even better, when they upgrade weapons they upgrade to composite bowmen. It's fantastic when you're playing with Raging Barbarians.

The lengths people will go to in order to escape the Obama Administration! Really now...

I had a friend in college who was also dealing on the side; he had a roommate who ate all his food. So he gets fed up with the roommate and tells him "You shouldn't eat my food— it might be spiked with something" and then goes on to plant a piece of cake with a drop of LSD on the frosting (the roommate knew he was…

Now that you mention it, I remember quite a number of runs to get guildies keyed for MC. That was a PITA... until we discovered the warlock summoning trick to get guidlies to the end without having to run the entire instance with them. Still, very good points.