In August 2005 I made a big deal about passing the 5000 hit counter for all time. That took about nine months.
May 2006 on its own will have 5000 hits. Plus the few dozen who get the feed through Feedburner or Bloglines or Google Reader or what have you. Traffic is growing steadily and I […]

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PCGamer’s editorial staff would probably say that their big strength is their ability to grab exclusives. For me, the big strength is their columns. They have genre specialists writing every month, including Desslock on RPGs and Andy Mahood on simulations. I’m hard pressed to think of two better people for those particular genres. (Games For […]

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There are only three scoring cards in the Early War and all appeared this turn, which means it’s likely none will turn up until Turn 3 and the deck is re-shuffled. So Turn 2 will be a mess. Turn 1 was a special kind of mess, since we both tried to get points very early.
I […]

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If you missed the basic description of the game, here it is.
As usual, Bruce plays the good guys, the Americans. That leaves the Soviets for me. Socialized medicine for all!
Here is the starting position.
Each turn opens with a headline phase in which each player must play an event from their hand.
TURN 1
Headline Phase
USSR Warsaw […]

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Twilight Struggle is relatively new to me, and probably very new to many readers, so I’ll add explanation wherever I can.
First, the basics. The game has ten turns, each turn marked by “phases” - i.e., each player takes turn playing cards. Every card has a point value (from 1 to 4) and an event description. […]

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Here is a list of all the AAR’s I’ve done so far, listed by game. Click on the title of the game and it will take you to the category page designated for that title. The reports are, blog style, in reverse chronological order, so start at the bottom and read up, I guess. I […]

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When I mentioned my experiences with Paths of Glory a few weeks ago, one commenter asked about doing an AAR of my futile efforts against Bruce Geryk. I replied that I wasn’t quite sure how that would work. Now we are going to find out.
Twlight Struggle is a two player card based strategy game from […]

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We’re about a third of the way through our PBEM Civilization IV: Warlords game, playing the excellent Chinese Unification scenario. In single player, the scenario is largely about diplomacy - persuading your opponents to support your claim to the Mandate of Heaven. So you export your bloodline or strategically convert, all the while beating on […]

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Best-selling historian Niall Ferguson has written an essay about his experiences with Muzzy Lane’s Making History: The Calm and the Storm. Ferguson is thrilled to find out that he can test counterfactuals with PC strategy games.
I’ve always loved counterfactuals and alternate histories. (What if Alexander had lived to consolidate his empire? What if Pompey […]

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I’ve been trying to hammer out an article for the latest Gaming Round Table, but I’m not very happy with how it is turning out. I guess I still have a week, but it’s one of those cases where you have an idea and some witty phrases, but the argument is in that netherworld between […]

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