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 […]
Entries Tagged as 'Design'
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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Building a Better Odin
October 8th, 2007 · 3 Comments · Design, Ensemble, RTS
AI researchers in Austria have come to the conclusion that a “neurotic AI” is more likely to win real time strategy games than other AI personalities. In a test of four different AI scripts, aggressive and neurotic personalities won all their matches against the default AI in
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Halo Wars: Cracking the Console Nut
September 24th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Design, Ensemble, RTS
Soren Johnson has posted his thoughts on the future of real time strategy on the console side of the industry, inspired by a video of Ensemble’s Halo Wars in action. The money quote: At the very end of the video, however, there is a tiny suggestion of just how fun an RTS could be on […]
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