While trying to use propaganda posts in Sins of a Solar Empire last week, I started thinking about cultural control in strategy gaming, how culture assimilation is an either/or proposition, how an homogeneous culture is assumed to be better than one with spillover from neighbors, how rival cultures bring nothing with them but trouble.
Then I […]

[Read more →]

The always interesting Vic Davis has recently posted about appeasement as an historical tactic and game mechanic.
Appeasement as a strategy is often a bad choice. It can be a catastrophic choice under certain conditions. Perhaps the most famous from the last century is the sad spectacle of the Munich Conference in 1938 and Neville Chamberlain’s […]

[Read more →]

This month’s Games for Windows has an interesting feature story on the use of Native Americans as protagonists in Age of Empires III: Warchiefs and Prey. Michael Sheyahshe does a good job of getting the viewpoints of the developers on the use of Native American perspectives and voices. Let’s face it, this is the kind […]

[Read more →]

From Big Huge Games’ Andrew Auseon at the Asian Dynasties blog at IGN.
A good example of when the element of history bowed to the element of fun was the Flail Elephant. The Indian civilization can train a siege elephant that swings a weighted chain from the end of its trunk. The only accounts of this […]

[Read more →]

It’s been 30 years since the BBC adaptation of Robert Graves’ historical novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God was broadcast on Public Television’s Masterpiece Theatre. The series remains well-loved and stands as one of the great mini-series in a time when everyone on broadcast television was doing mini-series. The format seems to have been […]

[Read more →]

At moment, I’m sitting through the very long install of World in Conflict, the Cold War Gone Hot RTS from Massive Entertainment and Sierra. The box cover shows a GI dragging two little girls to safety as a helicopter fires rockets at the Statue of Liberty.
As far as settings go, this setting is pretty popular. […]

[Read more →]

A few months ago I wrote about a strategy game from the distant past, Medieval Lords: Soldier Kings of Europe. The game’s developer, Martin Campion, stumbled upon the entry and commented. He graciously agreed to answer a few questions on his experiences developing simulation games. Though Campion has been away from the computer game business […]

[Read more →]

How in the name of all that is holy does Alexander Hamilton not make the cut as an advisor for the United States in the Napoleon’s Ambition expansion to Europa Universalis 3? He’s the indispensable founding father - he did and thought things that precious few of his compatriots did.
Add him. Level 6 Treasurer.

[Read more →]

Remember when I made that snarky comment about the Mayans throwing beehives?
Turns out it’s true. Sort of. The Popol Vuh states that in one battle, Mayan leaders trapped wasps and hornets in gourds and released the insects at an auspicious moment to panic the enemy.
And the Medieval II expansion isn’t the first game to use […]

[Read more →]

A unit description for the upcoming Medieval 2: Total War Kingdoms.
Mayan Hornet Throwers gather nests of stinging insects and hurl them into combat! Once thrown, the nest erupts on impact, sending forth a swarm of angry stinging insects which can even get inside European armour and cause serious pain to the recipient. The Hornet […]

[Read more →]