My homeland has announced the nominees for the first ever Canadian Awards for the Electronic and Animated Arts. Dubbed the “Elan” awards, they will honor Canadian animators and game makers for their work.

Ubisoft cleans up in the nomination count, but I find it a little worrying that the only PC games they could think to recognize were the good but not great Supreme Ruler 2010 (from Battlegoat) and Doodlebops Club House Games (a Cookie Jar game based on a very colorful children’s show).

Not sure what the release date cut-off was, but the absence of Canadian superstar Bioware (Jade Empire was a month earlier than SR2010) is surprising.

Good luck to Battlegoat. My CGM review called their game a “first draft of the future” and the germs of an excellent strategy game developer are certainly there. (I wish no ill to the Doodlebops game, but I’m still not sure what exactly a Doodlebop is.)

Not having cable, I missed Gphoria 2006. Even if I had it, I’m not sure I could have stomached much of it, if Kyle Orland’s summary is reliable – and I am confident it is.

The strategy nominees were Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, Battle for Middle Earth II, Star Wars: Empire at War, and Age of Empires III.

I’m not too familiar with Fire Emblem and only dabbled with eventual winner Empire at War in the demo. I think Battle for Middle Earth II is the best strategy game of the year so far, but the Gphoria nominees stretch back into last summer when the 2005 awards were held.

Age of Empires III was in Autumn 2005, released a week before Civilization IV.

Which was not nominated.

How can the game of the year for 2005 – not just strategy game, but game period – not get nominated in this category? You can’t blame the graphics, since it looks better than either of the console nominees here. It is turn based as are Advance Wars and Fire Emblem.

Now I know I shouldn’t take Gphoria seriously. I couldn’t even find a list of the winners until today, well after the show aired. And they have awards sponsored by Mountain Dew and Garnier Fructis. I can’t quibble with their Game of the Year (Oblivion) since almost everyone is telling me how amazing it is.

But guys. Play Civ IV. And do a recount.

Slitherine Strategies has unveiled the first shots of its new World War II grand strategy game, Commander – Europe at War.

Though many people would point to Paradox’s Hearts of Iron as the ultimate WW2 game, I always look back to SSI’s Clash of Steel, a thirteen year old grand strategy game with a simple economic and political model. It had nowhere near the options available to me in Hearts of Iron, but it did have a certain simplicity that let me pick up and play with very little need to invest time in figuring out what I was doing.

Not that I mind the planning phase in HoI. It’s just that there are no really good beer and pretzel grand strategy wargames for this most celebrated of conflicts. As much as I love a good, deep game (Europa Universalis II never leaves my computer), there is a lot to be said for just getting down to invading France without trying to make sure I have enough iron coming in.

Judging from what Slitherine has said so far, this could be that game.

Slitherine’s games to this point have ranged from good (Spartan) to unimpressive (Legion: Arena). Despite their emphasis, to this point, on my favorite stomping grounds of ancient history, these charming British chaps haven’t quite won me over. I passed over Cult of Mithras entirely.

But all of a sudden I am excited about Commander. The look is simple, the demands on the player seem to be few and it has hexes. Slitherine’s games have always played fairly easy, though their battle engine has a lot more going on than it appears.

Commander has tech research (even Axis and Allies had that) but only 50 techs over five areas. Only 12 unit types, and somehow I doubt there is going to be a lot of national variation. Terrain, morale, leadership…all the things we expect from war games in this day and age.

No word on a release date.

It’s a big issue for a big month. School starts again (but not for me, it seems) and the console section is very thin. So there is a lot to read in the issue that interests me.

My own contributions are minimal. I have a preview of Dominions 3, a review of Hearts of Iron: Doomsday (with an embarrassing typo in the final paragraph) and my Alt.Games column covers Flatspace, Crusaders in Space and New Star Soccer. OK, maybe not minimal.

The big preview is the cover story on Sid Meier’s Railroads by Tom Chick. I had the good fortune to see Tom at work when he did this story and the resulting article and interview demonstrates why he is in such high demand as a writer. I’ll admit to not being fully sold on the idea of yet another railroad business sim, but the game looks good and, in my brief experience with it, it seems to have that Firaxis polish.

Lara Crigger continues her solid work on social issues and gaming with an article on religious expression and games. Naturally, there is a lot on the upcoming Left Behind game, probably my most highly anticipated game of the fall because so much can go wrong with it. I also look forward to the tortured phrasings of my colleagues if the game part actually seems to work well.

On the transition front, there have been some inexplicable stalls on the other end, demonstrating why friends should be careful working with friends. I may just go for some other hosting option, since I have a logo and everything now.

Expect more frequent updates until I can get everything sorted out.

The friend handling a lot of the domain transition stuff is going through a rough time, so the big move will have to wait until after I deal with some family stuff of my own. So, early August – a full month after I’d intended to complete the move.

I’ve been holding back on posting here because I want to save a lot of content for the relaunch, plus I am planning semi-regular features for the new blog and I need to get some outlines squared away for that.

One thought – who at 2k Games thought it would a great idea to launch two games aimed at similar audiences on the same day? Both Civ IV Warlords and CivCity: Rome hit store shelves yesterday and I think that the city builder will get the short end of a lot of sticks because of the piles of awards that Civ IV won. After the uninspiring Glory of the Roman Empire, I would love to have a good city-builder, and both Yahoo Games and IGN seem to like CivCity well enough. The Gamespy review is more worrying; in spite of the good score, the text raises some interesting issues.

When I get back, I promise to have full reports and reviews. And a new look before the school year starts.

The last couple of weeks have been busier than I expected and the migration to the new location is taking its good sweet time. I have a ton of writing to do before I head to my ancestral home for a brief visit, and a ton of writing to do while I am there. I hate being idle, so I guess it’s a good thing.

For any Gamesblogs readers, I have been trying to contact the management there to see if I can find a way to merge my stats there with my new domain. I know it can be done since Kyle Orland managed it when he made the leap off blogspot. So if anyone can give me a contact address for those guys (not the site’s contact address because no one seems to answer that…) I would appreciate it.

When I start blogging in earnest you can expect a review of the Warlords expansion to Civ IV, some reflections on Gal Civ 2 post-updates, and a long commentary on Pox Nora. As well as some new regular features.