The sign of a good lunch is when you’ve finished the food and still want to sit and talk for another two hours. So I had a very good lunch yesterday with Portico reader and Big Huge Games Design Lead Paul Stephanouk. He was present at the creation of the gaming company, and so played an important role in Rise of Nations, still the best RTS ever.

I described this meeting as a business lunch to friends and acquaintances, but it really wasn’t. It was mostly two guys talking about what they liked and didn’t like in games and a lot of speculation about game design and how strategy games can move in new directions.

It’s always nice to meet someone who shares your interests and opinions, and it seems that Paul and I are on the same page of a lot of stuff. Similar likes and dislikes, but always for our own personal reasons.

The highlight, I think, was hearing Paul’s opinions on artificial intelligence and the challenge of developing a strategy game AI that plays like a human player and/or is able to diagnose a situation instead of having build orders and precise goals.

Or maybe the highlight was hearing that Paul has hundreds of board games and that he is an old fashioned wargamer. Envy – we meet again!

Actually, the highlight was the entire conversation with another adult game geek who is really enthusiastic about his job and the hobby. There were all kinds of little details dropped here and there, but nothing earth shattering. Since the conversation was casual and, therefore, off-the-record, I couldn’t tell you anyway.

Thanks, Paul, for a great afternoon. Next time, I get the check.