Troy Goodfellow

The portals are so underdeveloped it's kind of sad. I treat them like Buffy-style hellmouths that I have to keep policing in order to keep elementals, demons and big bads from flooding through and wrecking my plans.

Yay! Already forgotten! As Rob notes, this was my show - I founded it, staffed it, made it pretty good, brought on Rob, gave him first chair and he made it pretty damned good, too. But we do have different styles, and, if you are not hosting from week to week, it can be weird for a listener to get used to Rob's probing questions and Diane Rehm voice and then have me go full bore into a conversation with two pretty good friends about a game and league we are both in. If you listen to the back catalog, you'll find that my hosting style varied heavily depending on the topic and panel composition. Podcasts are conversations between friends and peers. (Rob is no different in this respect, btw. He is just great at what he does.) Sorry that you didn't think my tone was correct, MyGaffer. We do mix things up a bit, and we will from time to time because (as a former host, I really really know this) it can be exhausting to plan, man and upload a show every week. In my day, I edited it too. Thankfully, Michael Hermes has taken that task and done great work with it. Rob is right, though, that we have a super deep bench. Bruce, Julian and Tom Chick have each hosted at various points in the podcast's life and I can think of regular guests I'd pass the show off to without a moment's hesitation. I'm sure Rob can too. For us, the important thing is the discussion. We are lucky to have many friends with similar interests and who hosts only matters insofar as getting the conversation moving. A bad guest kills things much, much faster. I do appreciate the criticism and take it in the well meaning spirit in which I am sure it was meant. 3MA is my favorite professional accomplishment, and I have worked to share it with as many people as I can. I want it to be better.

Would have loved to go longer, Mike, but one of the panel had a prior commitment. But Bill and Dirk are both welcome back any time.

Jan Haugland from Turbotape Games drops by to talk to Rob about the art and science of designing a modern naval sim. Radars, ships, scenarios...is Naval War: Arctic Circle the spiritual successor to Harpoon that I have been waiting for? Listen here. RSS here. Subscribe on iTunes.

Board gaming has become something we've covered a lot in the last year or so - and a great deal of that has to do with Rob taking over the number one chair and Bruce recommending some really great topics. I think it's a great direction for us so long as we keep the video game side strong as well - the two do complement each other, we love to talk about mechanics and representation in general and board games have always been a part of our mandate. Only now we give them 90 minutes at a time.

When I started listening and heard Bruce introduce himself as "stand in host", my first thought was I can never mock Rob's NPR voice again. Bruce is the new model. It was a great episode, and I have four books to buy now. Damn this show.

STAVKA-OKH is another beast - each game is very short, unlike Grigsby's War on the East which takes many, many hours. Short games, like RTSes, are much more palatable when you are losing.

Sure, but note that none of us are suggesting that you keep playing games when they stop being fun. Yes, my best stories are when I struggle through adversity (note, these may not be everybody's preferred story), but these are also rare because, with the snowball mechanic in so many 4x games, it can be hard to come back from a truly dismal position, and, as Rob pointed out in his column, if you already know that you will finish in the middle of the pack and there are no great stories to tell, why slug it out? My point was not meant to discourage people from being badasses, but just that the discussion seemed to be very down on people that were reloading saves so that they were in a better position and not so down on the idea of simply giving up and starting again with a clean slate. "Ethically" (in game terms) both avoid the loss and wipe the slate clean of defeat. They are, in fact, the same in many ways and condemning one means that sometimes we must condemn the other. And, as you note, giving a player a mechanic or goal that lets them define winning on their own, like CK2 or DF, means that this you are much more likely to soldier on. Most strategy and wargames, however, have clear victory states. I can't imagine playing through an entire losing game of War on the Eastern Front just because Hitler screwed it up too. Games aren't supposed to be punishment, though I do concur with the general point that we should expect players to not be so ready to have everything run smoothly.

You won't always have a good match available, especially at the daughter of a king level. Plus they will sometimes insist that any kids be a part of their dynasty and not yours. So look for powerful dukes or counts in your area that have no or only a single son, with daughters to marry off. Use betrothals to grab the eldest daughters when you can (and the gap between the kids isn't too great - you want some good childbearing years in there). Or look for underage duchesses or countesses. Create a network of allies and then you can use these to undermine the royal families of England or maybe in a few generations marry into high society. One of the advantages of sometimes sitting back is that war is expensive. Fielding troops costs money and you need that money to improve your holdings. Constant war also drains support from your vassals - it takes time to recover. But it sounds like you have a good grip on things. Scotland has lots of opportunities for expansion because England becomes a cockpit quite easily with competing claims, even if William of Normandy wins.

That's a decent way to start, but you have to be careful doing that - if they are not your vassals (the Isles for example), you are probably OK unless you end up interfering with a larger power's claim. If you are just adding your own vassals to your own personal lands, then you are asking for long term trouble once a poor heir comes to power with angry nobles around. This is a game where it is OK not to be doing something all the time. Like many of the Paradox games, trouble will find you soon enough. (Except Victoria 2 pre-expansion; what a snoozer) If it's too great an opportunity to let slide (for example, you find that you suddenly have a claim on the Duke of Northumberland and England is riven by civil war) then strike. Or acquire the lands you need to create new duchies and kingdoms. Scotland is a good starting choice, though. You can expand into the isles, Ireland is ripe for the plucking. England and Wales will marry with you, so it's possible to worm your dynasty onto the throne that way. But sit back and don't just play CK2 like Risk or Hearts of Iron. You can play it that way, but you end up missing what really sets it apart. The land is just the excuse for the story of how your descendants held the world in their hands and then dropped it.

I waver every now and then, usually under Bruce's influence. I think that II is a more complex game, I think it is a more colorful game, I think that it has many amazing qualities you can't find in I. But the original has a purity and clarity with, I think, its very simplicity opening more options for victory.

I'm with you Jon, actually. I like the first one's simplicity, greater emphasis on diplomacy (since you didn't have primitive's to conquer and needed votes) and industrial theme. Imperialism II had a greater range of techs and resource options, but seemed more a war heavy game than its predecessor. Not that that made it a bad game, but it is slightly inferior, in my opinion.

Still catching up on Fall, because I missed Rise along the way and I am really loving it.

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? Listen here. RSS here. Subscribe on iTunes. (And a reminder to rate and review us on iTunes please! Can always use feedback.)

If I had it to do over again, I would have structured that show better - had a better organizing idea and given Michael and Bruce more common language to talk about.

You can tap the cards to make them larger, but after a few games you recognize them all anyway.

To reach a goal like that, you need to know if your character is even good for the job - a chancellor is a pretty plum position and the HRE has lots of guys to choose from. Then you suck up to the Emperor and follow him in all things. This is, however, a long distance ambition - don't think of it as a quest you have to fulfill, because you don't and you won't be penalized if you don't meet it. You can even change ambitions after a few years. It gives you nice bonuses if you do, but it's not a huge priority. For a Duke in a large kingdom or Empire, your general goal is to weaken the power of your liege so you can have a freer hand at acquiring the loyalty of nearby counts, or just grabbing other ducal titles. Click on your Court (the crown icon in the upper left) and see how you can use your advisors. The "Fabricate Claim" power of your chancellor is one you will use from time to time to expand your power since you can only really make hay out of attacking lands where you have a legal claim to authority. Check your family. Is your heir weak? Is there a stronger heir you want to in power in a generation or two? How can you make that happen? Look around for neighbors that have only daughters as heirs - in a generation or two, with the right succession laws and the right marriage, these lands can fall into your lap.

I really need to find room in my budget for an iPad...business expense, right? I am playing a lot of Ascension, and will eventually get into Hero Academy I guess. But feel like some of these are constrained on my phone. I like the Kairo games quite a bit - light sim strategy games - and have been dabbling a little bit with Ravenmark, a medieval tactical battle game. It's OK, but I haven't gotten very far. Honestly, it's mostly been Ascension versus a few people and Draw Something (not a strategy game) versus one person.

Rest assured, the printed manual is still mysterious - the gods are inscrutable. It's just more convenient than switching to the iPhone manual.

That was a great show full of great conversation. Todd, Lara and Soren are welcome any time - hell Soren was practically a fifth Beatle last summer.

Yep, it's part of what makes the CK series special - setbacks are not only part of the game, they are expected. You can prepare for them and anticipate them, but not entirely avoid them. You may find yourself praying for 20 years of nothing happening just so you can get your lands fertile again. And since you know that nobody is safe because there is no 'snowball effect' to victory (well maybe for Byzantium) then you can wait it out. I wrote an essay about CK's making you play through the pain a short while ago. (Yes, Bruce, I have to write more.) Such a great game. I have it on my phone but thank God I have the paper manual from the PC version. So much I have forgotten.

I'm back in with my Amazons.

Always say hello. Autographs...would be weird and worth nothing. But I like hellos.

OH HELL YES. Now get Imperialism 2.

Yeah, I'm familiar with the MegaGame (but Vicky before HoI right?). Never had the patience to try it.