The smallest podcast ever! Scheduling confusion means that just Tom and Troy are on hand to talk about naval tactics in strategy games. High on nostalgia, low on insight and yet another plug for Crown of Glory: Emperor’s Edition‘s tactical naval engine.
You do get a moment where Tom fancies himself to be Da Vinci.
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Lost Admiral
Perfect General
Crown of Glory: Emperor’s Edition
The Battle of Lepanto
hello,
I just wanted to say your blog is very good and I see a lot of them every day!
You can make it even better if you put some kind of flash clock on your sidebar, what do you think?
Get one for free here: http://www.flash2nd.com
best wishes
Troy:
I’ve been listening to the podcast for the past few months and must say that I’ve taken to listening to yours first when I download the latest batch from iTunes. It may be the quirky characters that inhabit your space. Speaking of characters, I came across this fellow on the internet and I was wondering if you are familiar with this other Troy Goodfellow: http://www.ontariostrongman.ca/Athletes/troy-goodfellow/troy-index.html
Cheers.
I always loved the naval combat in TA/SupCom. Possibly simply because the ships looked so cool with their rotating turrets and everything, and battleships were so powerful at bombardment, but I think because, as you mentioned in the podcast, those games do a great job of integrating land, air and sea power.
Also, while it’s not quite as elegant as RoN’s transport system, it’s worth noting that SupCom has a fantastic transport command, which sets up transport units to ferry other units back and forth automatically.
Good ‘cast. The original Harpoon PC game was my first naval-themed game. It took awhile, but once I figured out the mechanics of the game and did a little reading on naval tactics, I was hooked.
I also enjoyed and occasionally revisit Sonalysts’ “Dangerous Waters” from a few years back, though I think the game underachieved, particularly in its attempts to add a graphical layer to the experience.
Also, on the subject of naval strategy games, though I’m admittedly late jumping on board for this one, I finally bought the full version of War Plan Pacific, and I have been pleased with the experience so far. Nice game to get one’s feet wet on WW2 Pacific theater. A great starter game for eventually stepping up to more complex games on the subject. Any readers tried the PBEM yet? I’d be interested in giving it a try.
Been on holiday in Paris, so I’m lagging behind at the moment, but even with a reduced complement of chatters I don’t think the show lacked anything. Enjoyable romp through some oldies as well as the lack of a decent Naval Wargame currently.
My experience with naval war gaming has been more at the action/simulation end with games like Silent Hunter and the newer console titles Battlestations Midway and now Battlestations Pacific, and going back in time, with more simplistic action/arcade games like Legends of the Black Kat on the original Xbox (but I’m stretching the term strategy to snapping point there). I’m intrigued to hear of the naval component inside of Crown of Glory Emporer’s Edition, and I’d love to play that as a tactical naval wargame, rather than have to sift through the grand strategy to get there. I too am lusting over a turn based Trafalgar of some sort, but there doesn’t seem to be any recent games that support such a notion.
I set about asking some grognards over on The Wargamer’s forums, and it seems there are a number of very old games that tackled naval warfare, as well as a good number of board game implementations (such as Wooden Ships and Iron Men), but I think Age of Sail II was about the best offered. However, there is a hobbyist java based game in development called Heart of Oak[1], posted up there by a fellow know as ‘Richitis’ that looks really interesting.
One game that comes to mind that had exciting “cold war” style naval combat in it, is Defcon[2]. Primarily a game about nuclear war, from what I can remember, the navy had a profound effect on launching mobile nukes, and there was a tight interplay between carriers and aircraft and subs trying to prevent these mobile nukes sneaking in and launching swift unpredictable strikes on your cities. The ICBM land war was detectable and to a certain degree you could counter some of the incoming, but the naval attacks where much more unpredictable and could hit crucial targets without much in the way of counter, if your navy wasn’t on the ball.
Looking forward to catching up with TMA 29!
[1] http://www.richitis.co.uk/HeartOfOak/
[2] http://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/
On the subject of naval wargaming, do any of you that read/post have any feedback on “Strategic Command: Pacific Theater”?? This almost year-old game slipped under my radar, and I’m surprised to find little review coverage on it outside of one good write-up on wargamer.com
In particular, how well does the SC game system fare in a theater with a comparatively larger slant towards naval ops? The wargamer.com reviewer generally seemed to like it, although there were some oddities mentioned with regard to ship/sub movement as relating to map scale and turn length.
Any second (or third) opinions appreciated!
I notice that you did not discuss what could best be construed as naval space combat. In that category, I’d reference anything from in the board game realm like Star Fleet Battles to the RTS like Homeworld and Sins of a Solar Empire despite the fact that you called the latter game the best strategy game of 2008.
There are not just carriers and frigates on the water, but in space as well. Frankly, the tactical and strategic gameplay in these genres are quite a bit deeper and fleshed-out than in the games that you discussed on the podcast.