spacerumsfeld

Bravo! I'm glad to see someone doing this. Sam, I love hearing from people who love this game. I was thinking of writing a "comprehensive intro manual" to the game some years ago, but when I actually sat down to do it I realized I was way behind the curve of where I needed to be to write such a thing. And I never got closer. I never really knew what to do with China in the game, and still don't. I suspected there was no way to win. Glad to see my surmise was correct. I haven't played EotS in years. But I remember there were some problems with the game initially - was it all fixed by errata?

WOT ABOUT CURIOUS EXPEDITION?? HT: Tom Chick

Thanks for the post and the movie, Duke. The next video is planned for a Monday 5/18 posting, although I have to work all weekend.

Thanks - just to clarify, the next video will be on Paul Rohrbaugh's game La vallée de la mort. I still have a couple games to cover before I get to Kim's masterpiece.

I plan to post it within the next week. This interview was actually recorded over a month ago, but I wanted to hold it until closer to the second video release.

Yeah tell me about it. I played it more than Rob, I think, and was not nearly as successful in my efforts. I haven't played for a while (waiting for the patch, now scheduled for the "first half of May") but I won once on Veteran, total. So maybe Rob should have been in charge in Southeast Asia...

For WWI media, I think there are several essential pieces: 1. There is a Channel Four series based on Hew Strachan's history. It's similar to Ken Burns' style, but more streamlined. This is the best video documentary on the war I have seen. There was a 4-disc set from Image Entertainment and a 3-disc reissue from Entertainment One. I have the older one and from the reviews the newer one may have better technical specs, but the content is the same. http://www.amazon.com/First-World-War-Complete/dp/B0009S2K9C/ http://www.amazon.com/First-World-War-Complete-Series/dp/B00IS6WPT2/ 2. Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August was published in 1962, won the Pulitzer Prize, and over 50 years later is still the best book ever on the origins of the war and the first months up to the Marne. It reads like a novel but has the analytical depth of a monograph. Possibly the best book ever written about the First World War. There is no substitute. http://www.amazon.com/Guns-August-Pulitzer-Prize-Winning-Outbreak/dp/0345476093/ 3. Sir Alistair Horne is a prominent British historian of France who has written several classic books, but one of interest to you would be his celebrated work on Verdun, The Price of Glory. Horne is an accomplished historian, brilliant storyteller, and his command of French is superlative. He was able to interview many participants at the time, and his access to the sources was unprecedented. He wrote a great book. http://www.amazon.com/The-Price-Glory-Verdun-1916/dp/0140170413 If you watch that video and read those two books (one on the origins and its ultimate turning point, and the other on one of its iconic moments) then you will be better educated on the First World War than 99.9% of the people you may meet. As for a video game on the war, I will leave that to others. To be honest, I'm not sure there is one I'd recommend. I remember liking Frank Hunter's Guns of August 1914-1918 from Matrix http://www.matrixgames.com/products/331/details/GunsOfAugust1914-1918 but besides that I think the offerings are lacking. If you really want to play a game about WWI, play Paths of Glory http://www.gmtgames.com/p-426-paths-of-glory-5th-printing.aspx or at least watch the movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050825/

While you can turn the Weapons off, they only disappear from the map view, so you're still tripping over them when you have units in the same hex. And the map view gets these ugly squares that are almost worse than having the weapons there. I don't think it helps much, but you're right to point it out. But my objection is to the design element more than the implementation. While I understand the economics of these games, I think that having this in the game is a poor design choice, because it is an element that is irrelevant to the historical gameplay. The implied thesis in the Squad battles series is that squad-level warfare can be modeled by essentially the same rule set whether it is 1965 or 1915. I don't think that's really a supportable thesis. I have read the designers notes, but again, my experience of the design effects is different from their intended effects, I think. The designers can explain all they want, and I do like reading about their reasoning and decision-making, but ultimately it has to be an entertaining game. It was for Rob, and less so for me and Troy, I think.

sclpls makes an excellent point, I think, although I haven't played half of the games he mentions. But I'd argue that Civ4 has a certain boardgame sensibility to it. One of my top five games of all time, Imperialism II, could easily be a boardgame. I think part of it is designers' inability to combine mechanics with replayability, and that has a lot to do with not only making the game possible for an AI to play well, but giving the game enough scope that it doesn't feel like a puzzle-solving exercise. If games like the Shenandoah Studios Crisis in Command series had good AI, I think I could play them forever.

They definitely run out of stock on items frequently. My suspicion is that they have limited cash flow to reprint and keep large inventories of different products, so they have to balance new releases with the need to reprint base titles. I'm sure if they could keep enough inventory on hand to satisfy every customer's order of any product, they would. That said, these products are all available from multiple secondary vendors, as well as eBay and Boardgamegeek Marketplace.

I support the assertion posted by LHughes41!

You read my mind on Kim Kanger , Mike. I'm going to finish A Savage War of Peace before I talk to him. Look for it later in the year. I really like Tonkin and Ici, c'est la France.

Now that the Vietnam series is over, would you guys be interested in another series of interviews with game designers on a single topic? Or is it just too much of the same thing?

I guess I used a poor example - D-Day and Bulge games came out around this time as well, in which the US was directly involved. But good point about Stalingrad.

Duke, you can hear my interview with Volko Ruhnke at http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2014/05/09/qt3-games-podcast-bringing-vietnam-table/

There is super-extra-bonus content available now: Qt3 Games Podcast with Tom Chick and Volko Ruhnke about the upcoming Fire in the Lake: http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2014/05/09/qt3-games-podcast-bringing-vietnam-table/

All I can say is that if you want to hear from Volko Ruhnke, you won't be disappointed, although not exactly in the way you think.

"Tour of Duty was another Wargame of the Year contender from John Tiller, some guy that Bruce Geryk of CGW felt compelled to write about in every goddamned issue. Of course, none of Tiller's games were in our online database. Hurray for the time consuming manual add! We hate you, Bruce." Ha!

Yes. All three are about Vietnam games, with their respective designers.

This is going to be part of an ongoing series called "Thinking about history, talking about games" in which I explore other historical topics with game designers. Your feedback is important, because the more (or less) that people enjoy this format, the more (or less) likely there will be further ones. But there are for sure two more coming up, at least - they're already recorded.

Across the Dnepr had some very serious balance issues when it came out, as I recall. I never got around to giving it a second look after release. I'm glad people enjoyed that episode - I was kind of nervous about spending a whole hour on a game from 2003 that I was sure most listeners hadn't played. But I think it's a landmark wargame for all the reasons I mentioned on the podcast. I got about halfway through Stahel's book and got distracted, so I'll have to go back and finish it. We could do a whole show about Combat Mission by itself.

No Retreat is a great game. The North Africa deluxe version from GMT was just released last month.

Dominions 3 is now available on Steam (and Dom4 is on Desura) so you never have to worry about losing the CD again.

I don't really like shooters.

Great to hear it. El Alamein is currently in playtesting. I have been debating getting in on the playtest (which is being done as a boardgame) vs letting myself be surprised on release.