April 12, 2012 We heard the people, and we brought Three Moves Ahead directly to the masses who gathered at PAX East. But what if you missed it? Will we punish you for your lack of dedication? Yes, but you can still listen to this episode. Listen to Rob forget to introduce himself or the panel, a panel that includes Troy, Julian, Paradox's Chris King (Victoria II), Stardock's Jon Shafer (Civ V), and Hasbro's Rob Daviau (Risk Legacy). Why is this such a good time to be a strategy gamer, and how can we make it better?

April 6, 2012 Rob welcomes freelancer Rowan Kaiser and designer Jon Shafer to talk about Crusader Kings 2. They swap stories, discuss the impact of making a family-based strategy game, and question whether there's all that much crusading going on here.

March 31, 2012 Idle Thumbs visits Three Moves Ahead to start discussing plans. As Sean Vanaman mandates a Far Cry 2 episode quota, Troy and Rob begin to realize they have made a deal with a Kickstarter devil. Still, there is more that unites the podcasts the divide them. The panel discusses what their respective podcasts are really about, and what they hope to achieve with a podcast network. Idle Thumbs discusses the surprising cost of running a successful Kickstarter. Honestly, this is more a conversation between new partners than a proper episode. There is a lot of thinking out-loud about our intentions, rather than a cohesive topic. It's kind of what you might expect from this group of people. Don't worry, though, regular programming resumes next week.

March 23, 2012 As is appropriate for a week where you join a group of podcasting super-friends, the regular panel of Bruce, Troy, Rob, and Julian gets together to discuss co-op gaming. They share old war stories, co-op and learning, what they want from co-op, and how co-op games employ adversarial and story elements. Julian tells a story about collaborative board gaming, Bruce strangles him.

March 21, 2012 Rob and Troy look at the Idle Thumbs Kickstarter and conclude that maybe these crazy kids know what they are doing. Maybe Rob and Troy are crazy kids themselves, and maybe they have a plan so crazy it just might work. They have partnered up with Idle Thumbs, finally giving Three Moves Ahead and its community the home they deserve as a part of the Idle Thumbs network. You have questions, and Rob and Troy have some answers! But never forget that Three Moves Ahead remains an independent podcast. It's like it joined an awesome podcast commune led by our talented, brilliant friends. Friends who love 3MA as much as we do, and who have some great plans to help it grow. Don't forget to retweet, and ask us questions via email and Twitter. We'll do a proper introduction to the Idle Thumbs network next week!

March 17, 2012 The Russians are coming, and they're bringing Tom Chick with them to talk about Wargame: European Escalation. Bruce, Troy, and Rob take the field to share their enthusiasm for Wargame and how it makes some smart revisions to its predecessor, RUSE. They discuss its clever approach to LOS rules and unit spotting, how it blends wargaming with RTS, and the orgy of period detail it includes.

March 9, 2012 Hold onto your black t-shirts and skim lattes! It's all iPad, all the time on 3MA, as Bruce declares the iPad the greatest platform for strategy games, and Julian explains why the real story of the iPad announcement is the iPad 2 price drop. Then, this being Bruce and Julian, they fall to arguing minutiae about specific games, like Titan. Rob wants to know whether the iPad will ultimately move in the same complex direction as a lot of PC strategy games did, but Bruce and Julian think the iPad interface limits complexity. Then Bruce admits he's sick of board game conversions.

March 1, 2012 Rob Zacny gets a well earned week off and lets the old people run the show as Troy welcomes Bruce Geryk and Tom Chick to talk about Illwinter's new game Conquest of Elysium 3. It's a strategy game, it's a roguelike, it's an adventure. Tom talks about how the developers can make the game more engaging, Troy is the only person who thinks it's pretty ugly and Bruce demonstrates that only he has an ear for music. But everyone agrees that they really like Conquest of Elysium 3.

February 24, 2012 Darius Kazemi and GameSpy Editor-in-Chief Dan Stapleton return to 3MA to discuss Jagged Alliance: Back in Action. Darius wants to know where the role-playing went, while Dan got heartily sick of the pause-and-go system in larger battles. Rob is going to murder whoever came up with the inventory system. All in all, they had an okay time.

February 16, 2012 PC Gamer's Evan Lahti and game designer Darius Kazemi parachute into 3MA to liberate it from Rob and Bruce. Their only weapon is a frightening knowledge of Jagged Alliance 2, but that just might be enough to get the job done. Darius explains why it is his favorite game, and makes a good case for it being the coolest game ever. Evan sees Jagged Alliance 2 as a game the defines 1990s' design, typifying the mix of ambition, quirkiness, and technical simplicity characteristic of the era's best offerings. Rob loves its portrayal of guerrilla warfare, and how Jagged Alliance was willing to punish hubris. Listen to war stories, Easter eggs, and memories of the strange cast of characters that comprise Jagged Alliance 2.

February 11, 2012 Freelance writers Andrew Groen and Charlie Hall join Rob for a conversation about King Arthur 2: The Role-Playing Wargame. Everyone digs the setting, but opinions begin to diverge about the quality of the battles, and whether KA2's elements even hang together in a way that makes sense. Rob and Andrew can barely remember losing a battle, but Charlie creates his own challenges by trying to win cleanly. Is King Arthur 2 actually a good game, and is there hope for Neocore to finally get this formula right?

February 4, 2012 Recent Good Old Games releases have gotten Rob thinking about what he wants to rescue from the past (besides Troy, that is). Julian doesn't think the distant past is the big problem, it's the games of the late 90s and early 2000s. Everyone agrees the LucasArts situation is a disgrace. Troy says Alpha Centauri doesn't hold up all that well, and is swiftly nerve-stapled and loaded into the Punishment Sphere.

January 28, 2012 Jenn Cutter and Dan Stapleton return to 3MA to talk about Paradox Con with Rob. They discuss War of the Roses, Gettysburg: Armored Warfare, Arctic Circle, Salem, and Napoleon's Campaigns 2, as well as some prominent no-shows.

January 20, 2012 Bruce, Julian, and Rob host board game designer Martin Wallace to ask him that timeless question, "How awesome is your game?" The crew discuss A Few Acres of Snow, the card-based board wargame that has consumed their lives, and dissect how it handles its subject: The French and Indian War. Martin explains why a game about 18th-century colonial warfare was originally conceptualized as a game about interstellar warfare. How does Martin approach his various subjects, and why does he think that is distinct from how most wargames are designed?

January 12, 2012 Rob, Julian, and Hasbro's Rob Daviau are marooned in rural Massachusetts. To avert cabin fever, they gather 'round the fireplace with a few microphones to talk about whether gaming gives them any carry-over skills for other activities, like cooking and work. Do games make us better at reasoning and problem analysis? Do they provide the same kind of perspective as an econ or stats course, for example? Julian is convinced he's a better negotiator because of games. Are we talking about gamification as opposed to achievement-ization, and is it helpful to try and perceive an underlying system to everyday tasks?