Greg Costikyan’s article on the history of board and strategy gaming provoked me to return to H.G. Wells’ Little Wars.
Actually, the full title is Little Wars: A Game for Boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys’ games and books. […]

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All strategy and wargamers should read Greg Costikyan’s contribution to this week’s Escapist. It’s a great little summary of the evolution of board and paper games, including strategy and wargames. I don’t as eagerly endorse the conclusions he draws for the computer gaming industry, but his account of the history of gaming is full of […]

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Four sim-Rome games coming out in the near future, and, based on the screenshots, not a hell of a lot to distinguish them.
Here are shots of Firaxis/Firefly’s CivCity:Rome.
Here’s Caesar IV from Tilted Mill.

Haemimont’s Glory of the Roman Empire is here.
And finally, Deep Red’s Heart of Empire: Rome.
Now, it is completely natural that the screens will […]

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Brad Wardell, the big brain behind Galactic Civilizations II (one of the best strategy games of a young 2006) thinks I am wrong. Or at least focused on the wrong things. And not just me.
In my recent Round Table post on gaming friendships, I noted that GC2’s lack of multiplayer handicapped it when compared to […]

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My recent review of Birth of America has been linked over at the unfortunately named Tacticular Cancer, a sister site to the better known RPGCodex. Since they frequently link to my rants and raves, I’ve added them to my site list on the side bar. It’s a fairly decent linking site at this point, though […]

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It looks like a grand strategy game, but Birth of America is a pure wargame. No building of units, no construction of buildings (beyond the odd fort), no resouce gathering. This alone will turn a lot of people away from the game, despite the novelty of the 18th century setting. More’s the pity.
AGEOD’s first […]

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I am a very nice guy. I make friends very easily, can engage with strangers comfortably and am a devastatingly charming dinner companion. Modest, too.
But even someone as patient and self-effacing as I am has his limits. And my limit is anonymous online gaming. I hate it. I can’t go into a multiplayer lobby and […]

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While finishing up my review of the non-violent conflict sim A Force More Powerful (hopefully coming to a magazine near you in a month or so) it occurred to me that it shows a side of politics that is completely missing from strategy games - the question of legitimate and illegitimate actions.
In a site […]

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Civilization IV has been patched, and the changes are pretty interesting.
In probably the most significant gameplay change, the “chop till you drop” strategy has been seriously weakened. Many of the most successful Civ IV players center their early game around the deforestation of their first few cities. The wood is converted into hammers, pushing production […]

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Yeah, I’m just getting to this now. It was on my wish list, so the missus picked it up for my birthday. Good of her to do that. Always marry a nerd.
Lionhead and Peter Molyneux take a lot of beatings for creating games that are high on ambition and low on execution, and, despite the […]

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