I didn’t blog nearly as much as I wanted to this year. My creative energies have been very job focused, and only now that I am settling in do I feel like I am ready to begin really unleashing my writing here. Plus the video series that I hope will premiere soon once I get some gameplay tips.

Traffic was steady though. Yielding first chair on the podcast to Rob Zacny has not hurt traffic in the least, either on the blog comments about the shows or podcast traffic.

As expected, the national character series has been most popular, probably because it has been extensively linked at Critical Distance (and from there Gamasutra) and Rock, Paper, Shotgun. I need to write more that is not that series, of course, since my Turning Points blog also got a lot of attention. And I need to write more about games. So I need to play more games. I need fewer distractions, so I can distract myself.

OK, the stats.

Top Ten Referring Sites: (not including Google or Twitter or Facebook)

1. Rock, Paper, Shotgun (which referred more than Google, in fact.)
2. Quarter to Three
3. Wargamer
4. Matrix Games
5. Board Game Geek (mostly for the patent in gaming podcast)
6. Paradox Interactive Forums
7. CivFanatics (people still clicking on Jon Shafer’s leaving Firaxis)
8. Fog of War Games
9. VrDesigns.nl
10. No High Scores

Top 10 Countries of Visitors: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, France, Ireland

Top 10 Cities of Visitors: London (UK), New York, Berlin, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Sydney (AUS), Chicago, Washington DC, Singapore

Top Ten General Categories of Things People Are Looking For:

1. Our podcast or strategy game podcasts in general. Lots of variations on Three Moves Ahead. Easily number 1.
2. The blog. Try just added “.com” to the end, guys. Saves you a google search for the terms.
3. Star Ruler review. This exploded when the game went on sale on Steam last week.
4. Me and my opinions. Searches on my name or my name attached to a review. Sadly some of these reviews are in print only.
5. Civilization 5 stuff. Holy crap there is a lot here. Mostly people who want Babylon DLC without paying for it. But also strategies, maps, cheats, opening moves, etc.
6. Tom Chick and his opinions. Especially on Divine Wind.
7. Mods to various strategy games.
8. National character information.
9. Bruce Geryk and his opinions.
10. Reviews of Hannibal: Rome and Carthage and Hegemony: Philip of Macedon.

There are certainly people looking for Rob Zacny stuff, but not nearly at the scale they do Tom and Bruce. Shame. He’s every bit the writer they are.

10 Favorite Peculiar Searches:

The blog and podcast are popular enough now that I hardly ever get creepy sex terms like I used to.

1. Someone in Seattle and someone in the White Plains area of New York/Connecticut are very curious about marital situation. Over 60 searches from these two locales connected to my status – am I married? divorced? who’s my wife? etc.
2. “i want to be a mutant” – I gave this title to a post about the geographical limits of Fallout 3 and how it left my then residence off the map. No idea what these people are looking for.
3. “deadliest warrior review tom chick” – 19 searches for this, and if Tom hasn’t reviewed it yet, he really should.
4. “chick parabola” – I am glad this is a thing.
5. “whip select” – I am trying to forget Stormrise, but the internet won’t let me.
6. “bruce geryk favorite books” – I would guess “Going Rogue” and something about tanks.
7. “sim auschwitz” – God, I hate people.
8. “montezuma is a prick” – Yep.
9. “where did tom chick go on three moves ahead” – His life got busy. He wanted to try other things. He left. We parted on good terms. We always have a seat for him.
10. “”steveh” “south dakota” or “sdsu” or brenda or “steve hanley” or huron or wentworth or “liberty national” or “loan officer” or banker or desmet or nikken or “great western” or “first federal” or beef “ – I have no freaking idea.