riadsala

This was the worst Three Moves Ahead show, by a long long way. No attempt was made to make the discussion accessible to anybody who hasn't played LoL. For example, did they ever explain what "jungling" is? A shame really. One of the reasons I rate Three Moves Ahead is that Troy,Bruce and co are usually excellent at directing interesting discussions which I enjoy listening to, even if I've never played the game. Sometimes, they get me interested in a game I would otherwise never of heard of, and sometimes, I just enjoy the discussion. I guess the LoL show was just for the l33t, and I'm too much of a n00b. That's basically how the show came about.

I thought any UK listeners might be interested in the BBCs big new world history series. I watched the first episode on the iplayer last night and was impressed. Hoping to watch episode 2 tonight, which will be covering all those early empires we know and love. I now have the urge to spend all weekend playing Civilization...

Oh yes, that sounds very familar!

Carcassonne is a great game to play with your other half. I strongly recommend getting either/both of the first two expansions. [The King and Scout micro-expansion is also great.] They add a bit more variety and depth to the game. The other game I play all the time with my girlfriend is Dominion. plays quickly, great with two players, and also works well with 3 or 4. Very easy to learn. Although some people complain that it's boring/too abstract. My current fav two player board game is War of the Ring, but, this is a very different beast. While my other half occasionally agrees to play, I think it's only cause she feels sorry for me. And the next game i was to get is the new addition of Descent: it doesn't look too complicated and should work well with one player acting as evil overlord, and the other controlling a 2 or 3 heros. I'd be interested to hear any other good suggestions for two player games that are arn't much more complicated than Dominion/Carc?

Very well put Troy. [Although, a space 4x, or rpg/tactics game which did simulate a newtonian galaxy/solar system would be great.]

On that note, the new fixtures are up! I've just been too busy to tell people about it, and Steam have messed up their Community Group page, so I can't send an annoucement! Anyway, sorry for the delay over the summer.

a related discussion I'd be interested is: learning to get good at a strategy game. Some people seem to enjoy reading up on the main strategies when they're new to a game, while others prefer to work them out for themselves. An example would be when I was learning how to play War of the Ring with a friend. I enjoyed trying to work out the main plays myself, while he enjoyed heading on to the internet to read up on the main paths to victory. Similar with many computer games. You can make Civ a lot easier for yourself if you go read up some build orders. But then doesn't that take some of the magic away? Which isn't to say I'm against strategy guides. Especially for things like the Total War games, which do a pretty bad job of giving the player feedback. And I remember that once I'd beaten CivIV on noble (the level with no AI bonuses/handicaps), I enjoyed reading some tips on how to win on higher levels, and discovered the cottage/village economy, etc. Thoughts?

Which is fine. But didn't they then go on to use the complexity of ASL as an example? (I maybe be confused I was listening to the podcast while flying home from my holiday). I do worry that the distinction between complex/deep games and complicated/fiddly rulesets is often confused though. There's a class of strategy gamer out there that believes that the two are the same. (ie, my impression of EUIII type games). A boardgame example would be the new-ish Civilization board game. I played it a while ago, and while i enjoyed it, I'm not sure the added complexity of the rules actually made it a better game, when compared to something like Puerto Rico. Both games have a similar feel, but PR doesn't take 6hours+ to play...

Hello, after playing "arm chair game designer" for a while, i finally decided to have a go at developing my own game. My progress is pretty slow, as I often get distracted and decide I'd rather spend my evening playing games, rather than coding. but other times, I get a lot done, and it's pretty rewarding. I've noticed that I always find it easier to keep my enthusiasm levels up when I'm collaboration with somebody: knowing somebody else is also spending time on the project gives me an incentive to get some of those tedious coding tasks done. So, I was wondering if anybody here fancies joining in? The current plan is to make some sort of fantasy turn based game (was originally inspired by how dreadful Elemental:War of Magic was). You can see some screenshots of work so far here. Note: this isn't a "serious" project.... ie, I don't currently plan to ever finish, let along think about selling the game for a profit. This is done purely as a hobby, and a chance for me to improve my coding skills.

Just a friendly bump in-case any new forum-ites are interested. I guess what with the success of the Planetary Annihilation kickstarter, spherical planets are currently quite trendy So if anybody fancies lending a hand, do let me know! I haven't touched my code in a couple of months. But with the arrival of autumn, I'll probably be spending more time inside, and will try and make the effort to get things moving again

Did Rob really complain that he didn't like deterministic games due to their predictability? And the suggested solution was to make rulesets more complex? Really? Surely chess and go suggest that that view is nonsense? Both are completely deterministic, with incredibly elegant and simple rule-sets (especially in the case of go). And neither are very predictable... if you can read more than three moves ahead, then you can consider yourself a pretty strong player!

Well, some obvious choices (which are easily available from the download service of your choice) Civ is a no brainer (both IV and V I guess, as they're quite different in terms of design philosophy) A Total War game (am guessing Rome or Shogun2... probably Rome as it will run on older computers) Frozen Synapse. Starcarft 2 (note to self: I should get round to playing this one day) I'm not sure I'd include Dom3 in a "canon" type list. It's too unwieldy, archaic and niche (good game though, until it descends into micromanagement hell).

I'm interested. Although I warn you now that I'll be away 1/9 - 13/9. Not sure if I'll be able to take turns between those dates.

I think the learning curve in GalCiv2 is a lot steeper than in Sins. ... I said I'd report back after completing another game. And I have! This time on Hard, on the doppelgänger map, playing as advant loyalists. Now, either one of three things are happenings: the AI is is a lot worse in Rebellion than in previous versions of the game I am a lot better at Sins than I used to be I'm confused and have got "hard" and "unfair" mixed up. Either way, three hard AIs offered next to no resistance. And unlocking the titan early didn't seem to do me any hard.... It was the 3rd capital ship in my fleet! And I only got round to building some starbases while waiting for titan to be constructed. That said, the Advant ship is a lot weaker than the TEC (in terms of direct firepower). Near the end of the game, I effectively have 3 of the 4 systems, while the last AI was barricaded in the 4th behind a maxed out starbase and a load of level 5 cap sips (I guess it was putting its huge credit income bonuses to good use). So, I parked my fleet in orbit around their sun, built two starbases, and built the culture spreading upgrades on them. Then went for a science victory. I still feel that titans should be higher in the tech trees. It seems odd that it is easier to unlock than some of the cruisers. Think I'll give the game a little break and hopefully a patch will tweak things a little more to my liking. Which again, isn't to say I don't like the game... 15 hours played in under two weeks is a lot by my standards. But I do have a good few other games on my "to play" list.

Hmm. nice idea, but I think, I will be sensible for now and declare the basic geometry of the globe as done. (I've made a note of the idea of subdividing hexes into smaller tiles... it wouldn't be too hard to do, but I think I've had enough messing about with my geometry code for now). I can add some code which detects continents.. that wouldn't be too hard to do, and is a good idea. It sounds like the verdict on world size is for one in between the two examples I posted the other day. So, I'll set that as the new default size for now. (it's trivial to change it later, but it means I have a rough idea of what world size/tile density to be designing for). The the good news is that I've completed the code for generating the world and spitting out save files for each player. And I've also completed the code which allows players to then read those save files and open up the world so they can take their turn. So all that's left (in terms of getting a playable system) is coming up with a format for saving the orders a player makes, and then code which allows the host to read all that information in and process the turn. I've also installed FRAPS so I can make a little video for my next blog update

Yes, I know, but there are a couple of issues. Maybe one of them is that I was only playing on "normal" difficulty. But ignoring that point: I think they're way too cheap. They're only a couple of levels higher than starbases on the tech tree. I can imagine in most games, titans will be out before players have unlocked all the starbase upgrades. - The fact that the titans are SO big and powerful unbalances the game. Not as in, one faction is more powerful than the others. but that the best strategy now appears to "get a titan," at the expense of anything else really. It's interesting to compare them to the Starbases, which where the big shiny toy in previous versions on the game. Starbases, while fun, where also of limited use and very expensive. I always built them, as I thought they were cool. But there was a good argument that the money spent on researching, building, and upgrading starbases would be better spent on expanding and improving your fleet. After all, if the game is going well, your starbases aren't even going to be seeing much action as you'll be taking the fight to the enemy. Plus, starbases had some simple counters (long range ships, protected by flak, or simply avoid them). The only answer to a titan though, appears to be another titan. Which just reduces the range of effective game plans and strategies. And, on a harsh reading, just turns the game into a LoL type thing where you worry about controlling and levelling up one ship. Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy the game! and I admit, these are only my initial reactions. I will try playing another game and see how I get on.

+1 for Spacechem being a great game. I like that it's difficult... too many modern games are afraid to challenge the player and instead reduce puzzles to simplistic minigames.

That's a bit of a chicken and egg thing though... design the mechanics for the board/world, or design a world for the mechanics. I like the idea of ideas from both sides influencing the developing. For example, I wanted a hex sphere... but a repercussion of that is the need for twelve "pentagonal poles." So they're going to be incorperated into the design and will do something gameplay wise. (might as well make use of them if they're there right?)

not a total daft suggestion. one question I'd like some feedback on: do people prefer a coarse or fine grid? Examples here

I know exactly what you mean. A happy accident I think! yup, Unity3d, coding in C# (as that seemed to be the most useful/transferable language to learn] Sadly, I made no progress over the weekend (played Sins:Rebellion and Empire Total War instead).

Just finished my first Sins:Reb game. 8 factions, over 3 systems. And, sadly, the TEC Rebel Titan basically acted as the "I win" button. Sure, I had a lot of fun with it... but it seems FAR FAR too easy to build. There were 4 factions in my star system with around 5 planets each. I took out my neighbour easily enough, and one of the nearby enemy AIso also conquered his neighbour. My titan came online just as my remaining opponent in the star system launched an attack. As my empire was still fairly small, it was only 3 phase jumps to reach the front line, and the level 1 titan flew in an obliterated the enemies attack fleet. I can't remember exactly how many ships, but there were enough to level my titan up to level 5 in a matter of minutes. From then on, it was pretty much unstoppable. Starbases just crumple. I'm guessing that the only counter to a titan is another titan. Which, while "fun" and "cool", etc, it does seem to be a bit strategically lacking. Methinks Sins + Entrenchment + Diplomacy was maybe more of a balanced game. [Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy the game, and will be playing again, up a difficulty level, soon]

Thanks people. the current state of the "game" is that I can generate a random planet (obviously, the world gen code is pretty simplistic at this point in time), and then save/load the world details. Also, I have "cities" which can build new chits, and you can click on chits and move them each turn. I've also got a slightly odd turn structure which I'm quite proud off. The next stage is a bit dull, so I've been putting it off... I want to switch over to a "we go" structure, and then get a small group of people together to play via dropbox. One issue that I should probably decide soon is what level of granularity to use for my world. Do I want a small number of hexes (something akin to a board game). Or a much finer tiling, so it feels more like a 4x. Pros and cons for each one. The main challenge to me is that this is the biggest coding project I've ever undertaken. While I do comp-sci research for a day job, most of that concerns witing algorithms, etc, which is pretty different from writing software. Well, a) getting the hexes to tile was a pain: the mathematics requires 12 "pentagonal poles" which is a complicating factor. But I've decided to take this "limitation" as an oppertunity, and the pentagonal tiles will be special tiles. At the moment they have shrines on them. The shrines currently don't do anything, but I'm thinking of having them act as either victory point conditions, or mana-resources. Something like that anyway. Also, the camera was a bit of a pain do get working... 3d angular geometry can be confusing (at least, it confuses me). On the plus side, I think the hex tiles (+pents) tiling a globe has given me a pretty neat graphical look

Cheers. Was quite a bit of work figuring out how to create it!

The Fall from Heaven 2 mod is fantastic, although maybe a little tricky to get into to start with. I'm another CivIV fan. The world feels larger and more interesting. And I don't mind stacks of doom: Civ was never a war game, and i prefer the more abstracted combat + the AI is actually capable of attacking. 1 unit per tile is all well and good, IF the AI can use it effectively. But, I think the new system works against the AI (would love to read an interview with whoever coded up the AI). With stacks of doom, the AI just has to stick all units offensive units into an "army" and then decide where to move that army and what to attack. That's one search tree, and it doesn't take a whole lot of computation. With 1 unit per tile, the AI has to plan orders for each unit one at a time. And worse, it can't consider all the moves independently, as moving one unit impacts on where you move another unit. This surely creates an exponential blow up in the number of possibilities the AI has to search through to find sensible moves. This means a load of constraints need to be used, as otherwise players are going to be waiting far too long between turns. So, forward planning, movement dependencies, etc, are probably cut. I would LOVE for a proper indepth 3MA show on game AI design. My day job is computer science research in a university, and while I don't work directly on this type of AI, I have a little bit of knowledge.

True, but I do think there is a tendancy to go too far making in 4x games. My idle is when the races are different from each other in interesting (game mechanical) ways, but there's still scope to play the races in different ways. The race of robotic AIs can either be warmongering Reapers in one game, and completely pacifist in an another. Maybe some of this is randomly determined when you click "new game" and maybe some of it is determined by how the game plays out. But it leaves far more scope for discovery, and weaving your own story. I'm glad AI War was mentioned. I also think Sword of the Stars (1) made a good attempt at this. I haven't played it enough to suss out all of the differences between the races, but the impression I got was that the developers made an effort to make the races play differently based on their FTL tech