The Russians are coming, and they’re bringing Tom Chick with them to talk about Wargame: European Escalation. Bruce, Troy, and Rob take the field to share their enthusiasm for Wargame and how it makes some smart revisions to its predecessor, RUSE. They discuss its clever approach to LOS rules and unit spotting, how it blends wargaming with RTS, and the orgy of period detail it includes.
Tom’s review of the “Cold War Pokemon”
Rob’s impressions for GameSpy
Troy on Cold War hardware
@bowlisimo Three Moves Ahead podcast on Wargame European… « The Squadron of Shame Squawkbox // Mar 17, 2012 at 9:11 pm
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Eek….I really don’t have time to play this one, and I generally don’t like RTS games (although I do appreciate the good ones….), but you guys really make me want to try this game. Good show.
And a dig at political parties in a wargame discussion… and an inaccurate one at that. Sad.
“Inaccurate”? It was schtick. Surprised anyone would get offended at that, but whatever floats your boat.
A few quick thoughts:
The online scene – this is the first RTS I’ve played almost entirely MP, and also one of the first games in which I’ve really jumped into the MP community, instead of limiting myself to playing with friends. I agree the players online are a well-mannered lot; I think Wargame benefits from being the kind of title that DOESN’T draw the ‘l2p u nub’ crowd.
Anti-aircraft guns panicking tanks – I think this was addressed in a recent patch, so either the patch _didn’t_ fix the problem or Rob’s game was before then.
Tom’s helicopter rushing – I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who jumped into MP with tactics that were too clever for one’s own good! ;)
A more general note on MP play styles – you know the truism that official forums do NOT provide an accurate indication of the average player’s experience, because they’re dominated by the hardcore of the hardcore? So, so valid for Wargame. The forums are a litany of complaints about people spamming unit X, Y being overpowered, or Z being broken… but 95% of the games I’ve played have been just fine. For instance, I’ve only played one game against all-in artillery spammers. Instead, most people roll with balanced armies, play in a non-game-y fashion, and don’t exploit whatever breaks there may be in the system.
Just a little piece of advice for those who are panicking about the first Soviet campaign (Poland), the loss of units that Rob was struggling is primarily Event-Driven rather than from the relatively low likelihood of losing through sheer attrition throughout the campaign.
Lesson learned: near-perfection through Save scumming is NOT necessary, although it can help with secondary objectives.
Another great episode. If I had the hardware I’d check out this title.
P.S. — The fact that you guys have such a good time with each other is the “secret sauce” that makes the show so darned enjoyable.
We are all friends and I owe every regular panelist on this show a great debt.
You covered Starcraft as a game… any chance of a followup on Starcraft from the esports angle?
I don’t play Starcraft very much — casual 2v2s for a few hours a month. But if there’s a big tournament I might watch 15 hours of it in a weekend! I’ve never experienced a strategy game like this before.
That’s pretty much guaranteed in the near future. Maybe several weeks out, but it will happen.
The Sunday Papers | Rock, Paper, Shotgun // Mar 25, 2012 at 10:12 am
[…] guys over at Three Moves Ahead have been talking about Wargame: European Escalation, and also writing a bit about it here. They reminded me that we really […]