Here is a list of the strategy games confirmed as being showcased at next months E3, with publisher and developer. This list has been compiled from a number of websites, primarily a master list of games on display from Gamespy.

American Conquest: Divided Nation (CDV/GSC)
Black and White 2 (Electronic Arts/Lionhead)
Blitzkrieg 2 (CDV/Nival Interactive)
Codename: Panzers, Phase Two (CDV/Stormregion)
Ghost Wars (Hip Games/Digital Reality)
The Guild 2 (JoWood/Deep Silver)
Heroes of Might and Magic V (Ubisoft/Nival Interactive)
Hotel Giant 2 (JoWood/Game Factory)
The Movies (Activision/Lionhead)
Pacific Storm (Buka/Lesta Studio)
Panzer Elite Action (JoWood/Zootfly)
Rollercoast Tycoon 3: Soaked (Atari/Frontier Dev.)
The Sims 2: Nightlife (Electronic Arts/Maxis)
Spellforce 2 (JoWood/Phenomic Game Development)
Star Wars: Empire at War (LucasArts)
Tycoon City: New York (Atari/Deep Red)
UFO: Aftershock (Cenega/Altar)
Untitled RTS (Deep Silver)
War Front: Turning Point (CDV/Digital Reality)
War Leaders: Clash of Nations (CDV/GSC)

Stay tuned for updates. Both Civilization IV and Age of Empires III are expected to be exhibited.

Against my better judgment, I accepted a challenge to play Act of War: Direct Action against a fellow writer/reviewer. He thought that I was giving the game’s skirmish play short shrift and should play more of it. So I reinstalled the 6 GB beast and got ready to rumble.

It was a massacre.

With some genres I am a slow learner, and RTS is one of those. I eventually become very good, but mostly I like building the stuff and killing things at a leisurely pace. My opponent had a much different philosophy. He is very good at most games, it seems, and he should be considering how many he plays. Once he gets an edge he never lets up, and an edge in Act of War is all it takes.

In the end, the experience didn’t sour me on Act of War – I still think it is a good game that people should certainly play – but I was not convinced that the MP or skirmish play was more than average. If a tipping point is reached, a player can begin rolling over his opponents. There is only one resource – money – so there is no way to compensate for a lack of one resource with an alternate plan. An edge in banks or oil fields is absolutely decisive. My infantile skills aside, a single misjudgment over the size of a scouting force effectively cost me the game – or at least cost me the game more quickly than it should have.

And though there were no stalemates in the games we played, I remain convinced (based on skirmish play versus the AI) that the way the game plays out with this single resource means that two equally resourceful players would find themselves at a deadlock, primarily based on the power of the defence and the low cost of infantry.

One thing I did underestimate was how devastating the end game weapons could be in the right hands. My rival rained destruction from above in such a scary manner it was like all four horsemen showed up and galloped over my spine with spiked horsehoes. The weapons in Act of War make the god powers in Age of Mythology seem like toys.

I clearly need some practice.

And I think that Jim of Bastard Numbered is going to kill me in Laser Squad Nemesis.

And this, my friends, is why single player games will never go out of fashion.

Gamestop is already listing an unnamed expansion for my favorite game of last year, Rome: Total War. What will the expansion be?

Well, if Total War forum dwellers can be trusted (and the poster is referring to a recent issue of PC Zone magazine), it will be titled Barbarian Invasion and will focus on the late Roman Empire as it heads towards collapse. Huns, Vandals, Sassanids, a divided empire and all that.

The official announcement will likely be made at next month’s E3.

Gamespot has just posted new demos from the ancient war buffs at Slitherine. Is this a demo of the anticipated indie war game Legion: Arena? Nope. In fact, the demos are of games a couple of years old – Legion: Gold and Chariots of War.

Why release demos of games that have already been out for a while? The most likely explanation is to expose Slitherine to a wider audience and build some anticipation for Legion: Arena. Get people playing games that they most likely missed and get them talking about the next big thing. I’ve been anticipating it for a while, but I tend to be a sucker for anything in a leather skirt.

As a marketing plan, it’s got some problems. Neither Legion nor Chariots are more than just average games, though both can be entertaining in small bursts. Second, unless the people announcing the new demos make the explicit connection between the old games and the new ones, the connection might be lost. Third, the new game is purely battles with no strategic map of any sort, so judging the potential value of Legion: Arena based on demos of the strategy games would be a serious error for any gamer.

I’m not sure how often this is done. I can’t immediately recall any game that had a demo introduced so long after the game itself had fled shelves and memories.

But if I am right and this is a marketing tactic to drum up interest in Legion: Arena, it is good news. Because that means that the game must be close to release.

Supreme Ruler: 2010 – We had Supremacy: Four Paths to Power this year. Supreme could be the new extreme.

War Leader: Clash of Nations – If only it were Rise of Nations. Instead, another WW2 RTS.

Throw in recently played Act of War, Knights of Honor and Tin Soldiers and you have the trite title all star team.

This is, of course, unavoidable. Strategy games can’t have names like Duke Nukem or Serious Sam. The names have to have appeal to some sense of grandeur or desire for power but the English language is only so big. How many variations on “power”, “empire” or “conquer” have there been in the history of strategy gaming? And, as the library of world conquest games grows, there will be fewer and fewer instantly recognizable concepts.

If you call a game Gettysburg or Napoleon’s War then there is no doubt that the gamer knows what is in the box just by looking at the name. Civilization was a tantalizing title for a game simply because the word is so big that my early nineties mind was boggled at the possibilities.

But try a name like Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns. What is a Kohan and why does it have an immortal king? And the sequel Ahriman’s Gift doesn’t improve the name at all. If you do fantasy strategy you have to use recognizable constructs like War + Craft or Hero + Might + Magic. No real shocks there.

Children of the Nile is a great name for a very good game. You instantly know that it is a strategy game set in Egypt. (It beats the pedestrian Pharaoh as a title.) Pax Romana is such an obvious title that it’s surprising that it took so long for someone to use it. (Too bad the game was so bad.)

But for the most part, strategy gamers will have to accept that there is a limited vocabulary for the games they like to play. But remember – sports game fanatics have it worse.

This news post at Gamesutra shows that very few exhibitors at E3 have strategy games in their top ten titles on display. A paltry five per cent of the titles listed were considered strategy games by the exhibitors, a number completely dwarfed by the action/adventure, roleplaying and sports/racing genres. Considering the wide range of games that can be considered strategy titles and the enduring popularity of this type of game, the number of titles in production is pretty small, it appears.

With no previous numbers to judge by, it’s not clear if this marks a significant drop or if it is par for the course. The number seems small, but it bears mentioning that strategy games have yet to make a huge splash on the console scene; there are a few out there, but no one seems to be pushing the strategy envelope in that arena.

There will be some huge strategy games at E3. Few other genres can compete with the combined star power of Civ 4 and Age of Empires 3. But beyond these two, I am hard pressed to think of another title that has me on the edge of my seat. There are certainly no original strategy games that have me excited.

The genre is too popular and cost effective to be doomed. There have been a lot of cookie cutter RTS games in the last year or two, and there is probably some hesitancy on the part of publishers to invest in another failing RTS in an already saturated market. But they are still investing in MMOs and I can’t figure out how many new players there are in that field.