This month’s CGM has my review of Breakaway Games new “serious game” A Force More Powerful. And so far, it is the only review of this title.

This has nothing to do with me. I was curious about the title, but was waiting on requesting a review copy until my desk cleared of other stuff. My editor pre-empted me by asking if I would write it, so there I was. And, if you are familiar with the magazine, it even gets one of those gray backgrounds that make it look special. (I use the “give peace a chance” line twice because…I’m an idiot, I guess.)

The game itself is good. Not great. It has some repetitive bits, and I think succeeds more as a management sim than as the edutainment title it pledges to be. But it is undoubtedly a game – a strategy game even. It’s just one with an overt message.

The lack of mainstream gaming press coverage of this, admittedly marginal, game is a little disappointing. I know that “serious games” are usually outside the bailliwick of the gaming press, but I think that A Force More Powerful is actually something special in spite of all its faults.

A Force More Powerful works as a game because it takes its message completely for granted. There is never an option for your movement to escalate to violent action. Usually constraint of action is a bad thing in a game; you want to give players lots of options. But this overarching constraint doesn’t limit all the peaceful actions available to you. Do you rally the troops this time or call a press conference? Does Susie need more training? Is getting that newspaper out more important than passing out pamphlets in the boonies? These are make or break decisions.

And there is no single way to win a scenario. The government response to your action may vary from game to game, and you might have assets available to you at a crucial time this session that were lacking in the previous session.

I won’t re-review the game – I have misgivings that were given ample airing in CGM. And you should buy the magazine anyway. (Not for me, mind you. Do it for the children.) But I would like more people to give AFMP a look. It looks ancient, but plays out today’s headlines and reinforces an important point that all us bloodthirsty strategy and wargamers should be reminded of from time to time.

King and Gandhi remade the world without firing a shot.

Previews

Rome: Total War – Alexander
Pacific Storm
Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar

Reviews

Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War
Glory of the Roman Empire
Space Empires V
Left Behind: Eternal Forces
Galactic Civilizations II: The Dark Avatar
Ancient Wars: Sparta

You can read my hands-on preview of the new Alexander expansion to Rome: Total War at Games Radar. This is my first, but hopefully not final, piece for Future Publishing’s new web venture.

The download only Alexander expansion has none of the innovation of Babarian Invasion but it does put the phalanx in its proper place as a major military innovation. Rome left open the possibility for a powerful line of spearmen, but there were so many swordsmen and cavalry available that these brave front line troops were often easily outflanked and destroyed.

This is actually pretty common in wargames. GMT’s Great Battles series – both in tabletop and computer form – were often criticized for underestimating the strength and longevity of a phalanx on the battlefield. Strong up front but weak in the rear and flanks, phalanxes were easy rout points if you could make a gap somewhere in the line. Though intended to be the anvil to a heavy cavalry hammer, phalanxes are often stuck in place and then routed in a gaming exchange.

A big part of this is the inevitable result of hindsight. Though contemporary Romans described the Macedonian phalanx as one of the most terrible sights they’d ever seen, modern historical wargamers know that the low mobility and poor performance on rough terrain means that the phalanx is dead meat to a group of disciplined swordsmen or light cavalry.

Hindsight is a big problem in most historical strategy and wargaming. Unless design forces it, who would repeat Pickett’s Charge? Or Dieppe? Who would waste Me-262s as fighter-bombers instead of bomb group destroyers? Or underestimate the value of gunpowder weapons?

So we are never really “there” no matter how much game designers promise it. I would tell Pompey to charge at Pharsalus. I would tell Ney to move faster at Waterloo. And I would tell Darius to draw Alexander into the hills.

Victoria is the ugly stepsister of the Europa Universalis games. It’s good, but fatally flawed in a number of ways. Even the much vaunted regular patch reputation of Paradox couldn’t fix the problems associated with a Byzantine economic engine, the population management system and armies that swelled to incredible sizes.

It looks like they have finally straightened out the kinks to their own satisfaction. Victoria: Revolutions will be available later this summer. It extends the calendar into the interwar period (making a converter for Hearts of Iron II a no-brainer) and revises many of the troublesome areas of the game.

Colonization will be slowed by requiring states to reach tech levels consonant with living in the severe climates of tropical Africa. Certain government policies will restrict the amassing of a large mobilization pool or the construction of factories. The election system will be reworked, hopefully to the point where the player won’t be able to manipulate it so easily.

Victoria was my first print review and it was a modest recommendation. I haven’t played it much in the last year or so. Crusader Kings – a much better game – followed closely on its heels and the patching team at Paradox seemed to be at a loss when it came to fixing their sad little 19th century strategy game.

Part of the problem is that Victoria tried to set Europa Universalis in an era that was ill-fitted to that model. Hearts of Iron has the war already pre-ordained, so the diplomacy and domestic policy it sets for the twentieth century can be shallow. The entire point of the game is to win a war. But Victoria has to have domestic policy to reflect the shift from monarchies to democracies, the rise of nationalism, the effect of railroads on industry and mobility, the migration of hundreds of thousands of people for a better life…all the things that make the 19th century the 19th century.

So they threw out the simple economic and military models of EU – too abstracted to capture the radical changes in post-Napoleonic Europe – and tried to capture every major trend in what was a pivotal hundred years in human development. The result was confusing at best. You could tax your lowest class at 100% with no negative effects. Historic events were few and far between, and those that were there never fired right. Immigration was hard-coded to certain geographic regions, frustrating those who thought Australia could be a land of opportunity. Great innovations like the domestic politics model seemed to be only partially implemented.

I am glad that they are taking another crack at it though. Victoria has been cast aside for too long and it has too many interesting ideas to not get another chance.

Computer Games Magazine has a combined July/August issue this year, which makes sense since they are trying to launch their MMO mag. One less CGM issue to produce probably means more time for the new publication.

Lots of great strategy stuff in this issue, including a delicious preview of Medieval 2: Total War by Kelly Wand and a preview of the three upcoming Roman city-builders, co-written by Alex Handy and Cindy Yans. My interview with Firaxis’ Jesse Smith is there, too. The wargame Birth of America gets a big thumbs up from Bruce Geryk.

Two reviews from me this month. I gave Take Command 2: Second Manassas a strong endorsement; Mad Minute Games should start getting some serious money behind them, because I think they could do some great things if they had things like a staff.

The other review is of the non-violent edutainment title A Force More Powerful. I have some issues with the game, but this is my favorite review of the year so far. AFMP is a game with ideas, and I’ll write more about it later. The review was hard to write since the game fails in its primary mission, but succeeds in ways I wasn’t quite expecting. Not a great game, but an interesting one.

Be sure to check out Steve Bauman’s opening editorial, wherein he writes that New Media sucks. Well, that’s an oversimplification. But he makes some very good points about how New Media isn’t all that new, and is held to different ethical standards than the print media.

Paradox has postponed the release of Roman city-builder Heart of Empire Rome until the first quarter of 2007. No reason was given for the delay, naturally. Heart of Empire hasn’t been getting nearly the press coverage that CivCity and Caesar IV have which suggests that they have less to show at this point than two games that were announced months later.

Reading interviews and seeing screenshots of the Roman SimCities still leaves me with the disturbing sensation that there will be nothing to distinguish one game from another. If I had to bet now, it would be on Caesar IV being the best of the three, mostly because of Tilted Mill’s beautiful and underappreciated Children of the Nile.

In the meantime, you can build modern cities in the new release City Life from CDV and Monte Cristo. It has been getting good reviews, even from the hardasses at PCGamerUK and Eurogamer (the Old World is mean).