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Entries from July 23rd, 2007

Round Table Entry: Artificial Humanity

July 23rd, 2007 · 6 Comments · Design, Round Table

My gaming forum of choice has just discovered Tom Francis’ after action report of a Galactic Civilizations II campaign. As I noted in my brief mention of this AAR a couple of months ago, there’s some curiosity about how much rationalizing Francis is doing to account for the AI’s actions. This rationalization could be seen […]

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Stupid browser

July 21st, 2007 · 6 Comments · Blogs, Me

I had a long post written about game designers who add things to their game that undermine the elegance of an earlier design. I was referencing SimCity, American Civil War and Neverwinter Nights II. Then I clicked the wrong button and lost the whole thing. So you’ll have to wait for my on-site review of […]

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The Eyes of the Innocent

July 20th, 2007 · 13 Comments · Battlefront, Blogs

The reviews for Combat Mission: Shock Force haven’t started arriving in bulk yet, with only two on the ‘net at the moment. Strategy game vet James Allen gives it top marks at Out of Eight (probably one of the best review sites for small titles and indie games, by the way). Combat Mission newbie Tom […]

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The Problem with Expansion Packs

July 19th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Firaxis

The problem with expansion packs is having to relearn everything because they’ve messed with some pretty familiar mechanics. This is my big issue so far with Beyond the Sword. While I love the scenarios and mods I’ve tried, the new techs and espionage system really mess with my mojo. You know how it is when […]

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Another History of Civilization

July 18th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Firaxis

For those of you who missed my thumbnail sketch of the entire series in the Civ Chronicles, Benj Edwards from Vintage Computing has done a bang-up job on the original game for Gamasutra. Edwards contacted me early in his research, wanting to make sure that he was covering the bases and that he wasn’t simply […]

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Medieval 2 Kingdoms and Expansion Packs

July 18th, 2007 · Comments Off on Medieval 2 Kingdoms and Expansion Packs · Creative Assembly, Medieval, Preview

No, I haven’t got an early look. And I’m too busy in Beyond the Sword boot camp to go back to knights and archers and beehive tossers in beautiful 3D. But Kieron Gillen’s preview is up at Eurogamer. It’s full of great bits, and is, as he notes, perilously close to a review. He makes […]

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