Rob Zacny

Cory Banks joins Julian, Troy, and Rob to talk about fiction and world-building in strategy games. They talk a lot about Endless Space and whether or not its fiction is undercooked, and how it affects the rest of the game. Does having an interesting world make for a better strategy game? Is Civilization just abstracting human history, or is it doing world-building of its own? The gang considers Alpha Centauri, and what its fiction added to the game, and what the poor fiction of Rise of Legends and Kohan took away. Julian explains why Warhammer’s fiction works so brilliantly. Listen Rob’s Endless Space review

I don't think the Titans act as an "I win" button. You pretty much have to build one at some point, but there is a lot of latitude about when and how you bring it out. The Titan has four research stages, at which point you can complete the damn thing. So you are talking about a Tier 4 Military technology, then an expenditure of several thousand credits and resources. Plus whatever supply and training technologies you need to make room for the damn thing. That's a lot of research time and money that goes into bringing out your Titan, and someone else could be improving their regular fleet and economy for the same money. If they use that time well, they could negate any advantage you get by deploying a Titan early. As for faction differences, they have different Titan and tweaked tech trees. Each faction has a half dozen technologies specific to itself. So TEC Loyalist has technologies that confer bonuses for a defensive game style, plus I think some improved diplomacy, while the Rebels get technologies that encourage raiding and using pirates. AI is tough to judge. I play against Hard AI and I usually end up narrowly losing. I've seen it do clever stuff and nothing really terrible. They employ different strategies. They use super weapons effectively. They seem a little passive diplomatically, but just a bit. I was super impressed when it deployed a bunch of level 1 support capital ships behind two higher-level battleships to basically run a Medic-Marine strategy against me. I'd never seen that before, but it won a major battle as the AI healed more damage than my fleet could inflict. Good stuff.

Rod “Slasher” Breslau, eSports correspondent for GameSpot and a panelist on Live on Three, joins Julian and Rob to help them with their recent conversion to the cause of eSports and pro gaming. They discuss the difficulties of getting into the pro gaming scene, how it evolved, and the different forms of success embodied by StarCraft 2 and League of Legends. They also describe why eSports appeal to them, and how it speaks to them as strategy gamers. Listen here.

Tom Chick, SMG Studios designer David Heron, and Jon Shafer join Rob to reflect on their various issues with "fun" and how we relate to games. It's a rambling discussion about what we want from games, how we want to talk about them, and whether enjoyment is possible without fun. Listen to it here.

Not exactly a casual game, but I really like Tropico 4 as a relaxing strategy game. It's got a great banana republic vibe, a decent soundtrack, and really nice looks. Plus, it just isn't all that hard. Or at least, it's not like you'll screw yourself and lose a scenario without ever having a chance. You can almost always fix mistakes, so there's not a ton of pressure, even though some of the missions are challenging.

What I have played is Ahrimen's Gift, and that was strongly favored by my expert Kohan buddies. I need to play Kohan 2 to see whether Tom is right, or whether the Kohan faithful were correct to be skeptical.

If this is trolling, it is very well-done and I applaud you. If not, here's the deal: I went on vacation for a couple weeks and while I was gone, Troy and Bruce stepped up to host great shows and give me a badly-needed break. I was running on fumes, and I felt the show quality had suffered a little bit, and there were a couple topics we had in reserve that I knew I would not be a good fit for. So Bruce did a Bomber Command episode and Troy did Out of the Park. I'm back hosting this week, refreshed thanks to my awesome panelists. The next episode might be delayed a little bit due to some stuff that's going on in our producer's life right now. By the way, Troy created Three Moves Ahead, so it's not like it's weird when he hosts. He did it for years before stepping down to give me my shot, since he was going into PR and now represents a good many strategy games. He's got a different style than I do, and he and I joke about who is the better host, but the truth is the show is in great hands when I'm not around. And even when neither Troy nor I are around. After 170 episodes, we've all gotten pretty good at this.

Jon Shafer joins Rob, Troy, and Julian to talk about challenge in strategy games. What kind of challenges do we want from strategy games, and how does it get botched? Why are people still surprised when AI opponents aren't very clever? Why are they so hesitant to take on multiplayer? What's the difference between good scenario design and unfair scenario design? How amazing is Unity of Command? Seriously, you guys. Download here

PC Gamer staff writer Tom Senior and freelance writer Phill Cameron come to Rob's podcasting island, bringing with them rifles and steam-powered ironclads. Things swiftly turn violent as they discuss Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai, and some of the Total War series' longstanding contradictions. How does balance function in Fall of the Samurai, and how does the campaign structure let down the setting? Why does the AI behave as if it's not sure if it's in a game, or a history sim? How does Fall of the Samurai change the role of gunpowder weapons? Listen here. Rob's Fall of the Samurai Review Phill's review Tom's review

I think one exception to this rule is a question of personal interest. If you really know Civil War-era US politics, Victoria II is going to be a lot more engaging and intuitive than it is for a lot of people. My pal Erik Hanson, who was on our Pride of Nations episode, really got into that game because he actually knows a lot of what's going on in that time period. It gave him a place from which to start figuring out the game. In general, I think the debate between CK2 and EU3 is a good one. I'm with Jon that EU3 is probably easier to learn, but I also think it's easier to be bored while you're figuring out EU3 than it is with CK2. CK2 you've just got more stuff to manage: marriage arrangements, vassal loyalty, plotting, province improvements, etc. Even if you haven't figured it all out, you can more easily track the impact your decisions are having on the game. That is a little harder with EU3, I think, even though it may ultimately be a simpler game.

Hey, just made my account as I begin to move in. Wanted to say hi, and thanks for the warm welcome. I'm really glad there are so many Thumbs listeners who dig what we do over at 3MA. I promise we'll continue to be awesome, and so niche we're almost impossible to understand at times.