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The State of Strategy Gaming

May 14th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Design, Industry, Maxis

I’m pretty far behind in my podcast listening. I haven’t listened to the PC Gamer podcast or the Games for Windows ‘cast in a while.

The Gamers With Jobs podcast is still a weekly listen, though. And this week’s broadcast deals specifically with strategy gaming. Maxis’ Soren Johnson sits in and talks about Civ IV, World in Conflict, Sins of a Solar Empire and board games. The real big strategy discussion starts about forty percent of the way in, but the entire podcast is worthwhile.

It’s very important that strategy games not go down the flight simulator path.

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XIII Century Review

May 13th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Medieval, Wargames

My review of the medieval war game XIII Century: Death or Glory is up at Crispy Gamer. I didn’t like it all that much, which puts me at odds with the only other review online, Brett Todd’s positive review at Gamespot.

It’s interesting how two reviewers can come to such different conclusions. Where he sees good AI, I see a computer given a numerical and positional advantage in almost every battle. He marvels at the variety of interesting battles, I dwell on how little variety there is in the armies. Todd and I disagree on about every fourth game, so this time is no real surprise.

The thing is, as usual, I can completely see his points. He’s not wrong about XIII Century (except for when he calls in a real time strategy game.) He just is more focused on the admittedly impressive parts of the game than I am. He liked the challenge, but I got angry fighting both the interface and the lopsided historical setups. He is happy that we have a game that deals with these fascinating battles, I’m upset that the only real differences in a lot of the battles is the map.

I would never go so far as to give XIII Century a “buy it” recommendation. It has too many small problems that get in the way of enjoying what splendor there is. But if I were in a more generous mood, I could edge this into “try it” territory.

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Poetical Cynicism

May 12th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Media

Chewing Pixels‘ Simon Parkham on Game, Set, Watch has treated us to a wonderful little poem about the downward spiral of a prospective games journalist.

For a while
It worked out
Till he married and chose to breed:
Ten pence a word a family will not feed.

So he worked
Ten times harder,
So he aged
Ten times faster
And sooner or later the games bored him:
Ten a week, not one would floor or awe him

Every one seemed quite the same
Shades of principles arcane:

For every one that mattered some
A hundred thousand mattered none

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The Coming Week

May 12th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Me

Apologies for the posting delay. It has been one of those weekends where things pop-up that you need to deal with. Ongoing negotiations over new opportunities, meeting deadlines and having Bruce drop four turn summaries of the Making of the President Game that we completed months ago…nothing so tests the mind as trying to recall what was going through your head in March.

I’ll get those turns loaded through this week and I promise to spend some time on meatier stuff somewhere in there.

Oh, and hello to all those Kotaku and Rock, Paper, Shotgun visitors who came to visit my series on Roman games but decided to stick around for the scenery. They would have done you a favor by linking directly to the initial post, here, instead of to the category tag, since it takes you everywhere you need to go, but so long as you’re here, have fun.

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Sudden Strike 3 Review

May 8th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Gameshark, Review, RTS, WW2

I liked it more than I thought I would. When you pull off an assault against an entrenched enemy with minor losses and combined arms, it really feels nice. It looks pretty good, too and the reinforcement based on objectives is a great way to encourage action and progress.

Ultimately, it comes apart because the interface is dated and confusing. You need to clutter up the screen to figure out which of your infantry are which and the supply line micromanaging adds a level of complexity that calls for better tools. Because the battlefields are so huge, managing a real time offensive means you need good peripheral vision to keep an eye on the minimap while you plan an attack somewhere else. Vehicles move fast, though, so if you see a red line of something or other on the other side of the map, it’s probably too late to do anything. Better sound cues that tell you that you are under attack would be greatly appreciated. Horns, alarms, flashing lights…anything.

One thing I didn’t talk much about in my review was that your troops can steal enemy tanks and guns. Enemy guns I can see, I suppose. But was there a lot of tank jacking in WW2? Were the designs so interchangeable that an American mechanic could swipe a Tiger in the night, repair it and then go nuts on the battlefield?

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In Nomine News

May 7th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · Paradox, Preview

With the release of EU: Rome and all the fun I’m having with Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor, I missed a bunch of news and updates about the upcoming expansion pack for Europa Universalis III. There are some major changes on the way and I think I’m more excited about In Nomine than I was for both Napoleon’s Ambition and Europa Universalis: Rome.

So let’s go through what we know and what we don’t.

1. The new mission system will be historically appropriate. If you played the original EU or EU2, then you probably remember their stupid mission system. It was an attempt to add some variability and short term goals into the game but was a failure because you would get some really strange demands. Things like “Keep the Poles out of Africa” or “Engineer a royal marriage with your best friend.” Easy victory points, there. Now some missions will be generated based on a national list of priorities and historical exigencies. This is one of many attempts to introduce more variability into how nations play, since the interchangeable nature of Poland and Portugal was one of the most common and legitimate complaints about the core game.

2. Rebels with a cause. By giving rebels something to fight for, and the possibility of greater strength or leadership, the decision of when and where to put down rebels matters. Some rebels will be limited to national borders, which means no more hoping that a huge rebel army will cross the border and attack your enemies. Traditionally, rebels have needed to take a lot of land to bring down a government, though, so I wonder how this will work for nations with large overseas empires. How would this work for English rebels in a nation that holds half of France? Will rebels get ships? This recent AAR shows that some rebels are religious insurgents, carrying a heretical faith with them. Anything that makes religious wars more likely works for me. To this point religious unorthodoxy has been a minor financial problem at most. You can negotiate with rebels, too, provided you have met certain conditions.

3. New colonial management issues. Colonies now grow on their own depending on national investment in colonial growth, giving options to those nations that want some colonial outposts but don’t have enough regular colonists coming in to pump that overseas population into the “city” category. This, of course, means a new expense on the ledger, a big challenge considering that they’ve also made the riches of colonies more difficult to reap. You now need a real navy to keep trade free from pirates or pillaging enemy fleets. No production income means that the money you’d usually spend on more colonists now has to go to the Admiralty. This as much as anything could slow down the race for America since colonies will now need some sort of protection in order to be worth the trouble at all.

4. Resources work. The prices of goods are now driven by a more appropriate supply and demand model. Blockades, occupation, the timeline and a plethora of other factors affect the value of goods.

5. A new map. More provinces in the Balkans, the Rhineland and low countries and South Central Europe. That means more countries, slower wars, and maybe an impediment to the blobbification of Europe. Still, even a few two province minor states can impede rapid annexation. And check out the pretty atlas screenshots in this thread.

6. Historical Events Are Back. Sort of. Only they are called Decisions. Provided you have met certain conditions, based on national standing or completed missions, you can enact decisions that are historically appropriate. Since these decisions don’t necessarily follow in a lockstep timeline, it doesn’t violate the new Paradox Credo that historical events are lame when you can see them coming from a mile away.

So we have more differentiation between nations, colonization as a strategy that may or may not pay off and higher stakes in managing rebellions. Plus an extended time frame.

You have to wonder how many of these changes are a response to player outcry and how many are things that were planned all along but difficulties in implementation slowed Paradox down. Many of these changes will make the game a little more difficult for newcomers, I think, but anything that makes the game feel more period appropriate plays to the strengths of the series.

No news on a release date yet. More information as it become available.

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