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Entries from October 22nd, 2007

Unintended Consequences

October 22nd, 2007 · 7 Comments · Creative Assembly, Design, Modding

For the last week or so I’ve been playing the Europa Barbarorum mod for Rome: Total War. Like many mods, it aims for realism before anything else, even to the point of giving each faction an overly “correct” name. Greeks, for example, are the Koinon Hellenon. The “rebel” controlled cities are given the somewhat anachronistic […]

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Never send a monkey to do a code monkey’s job

October 18th, 2007 · 6 Comments · Me

Nothing could be easier than upgrading your WordPress software, eh? Well, a combination of plug-ins, database mismatches and general incompetence on my part led to a few hours of panic this afternoon as I considered the possibility of losing months of data. Patrick at POEHosting, however, saved my ass as we went back and forth […]

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Flailing Elephants

October 16th, 2007 · 5 Comments · Big Huge Games, Design, History, RTS

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 […]

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Opening Cinematics

October 15th, 2007 · 8 Comments · Art, Design

It wasn’t that long ago that television programs had theme songs and opening credit sequences. Some treacly music would play in the background while Michael J. Fox or William Daniels grinned at you. They’d be updated with new clips (and occasionally new names) each season, but the format pretty much stayed the same. Sometime in […]

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A Tale of Two Expansions

October 13th, 2007 · 7 Comments · Design, Paradox

In the last couple of months, Paradox has released two expansion packs – one for the year old Europa Universalis III (called Napoleon’s Ambition) and one for the aging Crusader Kings (dubbed Deus Vult). The former adds more new content, new options and answers pleas that the community has been making since the initial release. […]

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2008 IGF Entries

October 9th, 2007 · 5 Comments · Indie Games

A list of the entries in the 2008 Independent Games Festival can be found here. It shows just how out of the loop I am that I recognize very few of these titles. And I had no idea that Slitherine was working on another History Channel title. Finalists will be announced on December 3.

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