Procyon Lotor

I am in!

I could listen to an entire podcast of CK2 war stories.

(Staying way off topic): I've always thought that MOO1 had a wonderful ship design system, but it was wonderful because of the incredible (and, incredibly, never imitated) technology mechanic, which was itself very "deck builderesque". If you recall, in MOO1 you only had the opportunity to research some portion of the entire tech tree, which meant that you had to design your fleets (and your strategy) based on the available technologies that you drew. For example, you may have had great success last game with highly shielded beam weapon ships, but if you don't draw any early or middle-tech beam weapons in your current game, you will have to go with a hit-and-run missile fleets until you manage to get a decent beam weapon. In fact, I don't think the problem with space 4x games is with ship design. I think the problem is with overstuffed technology trees with no randomization. I can't stand the giant tech tree from Gal Civ II. Just thinking about it makes my heart sink. I am terrified that Gal Civ III is going to be even more bloated. I know Troy G. wrote about the MOO1 tech system on Flash of Steel when he was doing his technology series. IMHO, MOO1 has the best tech system of any 4x game out there. It boggles my mind that no one has imitated it.

I would not say that Dominions has simple mechanics. In fact, I think it's one of the most mechanically complicated games I've ever played. I still don't understand most of what is going on. But I think that complexity is what allows it to get away with such unbalanced factions. When you have that much stuff going on, you can't cover every contingency, and a nominally weaker nation can hit you from an angle you never saw coming.

Bought it. I'm excited to try a MP team game. The learning curve for this game is incredibly steep, and a multiplayer free-for-all is the most unforgiving way to play any game. Hiding behind the skirts of more skillful team members will give a n00b like myself a chance of seeing the midgame, while maybe learning a thing or two from them in the process.

Thanks for the reply. I'm going to check it out!

I have only played the first Shogun and the first Rome, so I do not have a comprehensive understanding of the Total War series. I felt that something was already missing between Rome and Shogun. In Shogun, resources were tight, armies were precious, and it was difficult to expand from one province to many. I remember the morale system being absolutely critical and fascinating. If your peasant spearmen didn't have people on their flanks and rear, they would start wavering very quickly. The result was that the battles were difficult, and they meant something. In Rome, the battles were rarely as interesting. The legions were all-purpose super-units, which made them very powerful, but also made them very boring. I'd much rather have to struggle with an army of archers and peasant spearmen than steamroll with a legion. Listening to this podcast, it sounds like things haven't gotten any better. My question: is Shogun 2 as good as Shogun 1? I enjoyed the podcast. I respect that you guys are willing to give an honest and nuanced discussion of a large game from a large developer.

EU4 is the first game with a rebellion mechanic that I've enjoyed. I like that the factions make sense in the context of your empire and the world-at-large, rather than being angry drones with generic gripes.

That is awesome! I played my Portugal game to 1600. I managed to get back on my feet, and I even took my provinces back from Castile by pouncing on them when they were in the midst of a peasant rebellion. I'm now playing an England game. I abandoned the continent immediately, except for Calais. I then tried to annex Scotland through force. My first war with them was a disaster. I lost a key early battle, which had the effect of draining my remaining manpower. It took a long time, but I was able to crush Scotland and besiege every province. However, when I tried to peace out, I noticed that their ally Burgundy was actually the leader of the enemy side. They had taken Calais, and had a much larger army than I. I was suffering from significant war weariness. I ended up peacing out by paying some money and surrendering Calais to Burgundy, despite the fact that I had squashed all of Scotland. Fun fact: when England loses every continental holding, they get +1 stability and +50 relations with France! Then the War of the Roses hit me. Hard. I chose York, and it quickly became apparent that Lancaster was going to win. Then Armageddon came in the form of the infamous "Peasant War" event = -6 stability, and craploads of peasant stacks popping up everywhere. Lancaster won, and I dissolved most of their army to rectify a quickly deteriorating fiscal situation. Then more peasant rebels arrived. And some Lollard heretics in Cornwall. And Welsh Nationalists. It turns out the Lancasters were in no better shape than the Yorks. A savior finally arrived in the form of Christopher I Howard, Pretender to the Throne. When he broke the country, Wales got its independence, the Lollards got their heresy, and Christopher the First became King of England. Shortly after, I got the event to stop the peasant war. I was sitting at 20 legitimacy and -100 prestige. I got an advisor to start working on that prestige. The Lancaster king had all but dissolved the Royal Navy to keep from going bankrupt during the peasant war, so I had very low upkeep. I began to develop the infrastructure of the county to increase the tax base. When my prestige got to around -50, I declared war on Wales and retook it. With the various battle victories over Wales and their Scottish ally, I got my prestige back to zero. Then I took the mission to vassalize Scotland, who was without allies. I managed it in two wars, which drove my prestige back to +100. Now the plan is to rebuild the Royal Navy, and sit back and develop. The common thread in my two games is surviving and overcoming a crushing disaster. It can be frustrating and disheartening to watch your country descend into 20 years of anarchy. But if you hang in there and play your cards right you can make a comeback. And I've found that coming back is more fun than getting there in the first place.

I'm loving this game. I have never been able to get into a Paradox game, try as I might. Until now. This is one for the Pantheon. I'm playing as Portugal, 1444 start. It's now about 1520. I started off strong, pushing around the Moroccans and beginning an overseas empire in Brazil. In 1490 I had 100 prestige, 100 legitimacy, and +2 stability. My armies were strong, and my fleets were mighty. It was a golden age. But the apparent strength of the Portuguese Empire was built on a shaky foundation. You see, I was a spendthrift. In 1490 I went bankrupt. I lost all my prestige and legitimacy, and crashed to -2 stability. All of the problems lurking under the surface (angry peasants, angry Berbers, angry heretics, pretenders to the throne) all burst through to wreak havoc. My demoralized armies were crushed by rebellious mobs. I began conceding to the demands of everyone, which crashed my prestige to -100. It took me about 20 years to claw my way out of that debacle. The "cure" involved firing all my advisors, scuttling most of my fleet, reducing my army, and slowly boosting my stability. Just when I started to get my feet back under me, Castile broke our alliance. In desperation, I sought the affections of the beaten rump of Aragon and allied with them. When Aragon and Castile went to war, I foolishly honored our alliance. Castile squashed me, and took two of my Iberian provinces in the eventual peace deal. I can barely stand to look at myself on the map, as the gaps of the lost provinces are like bleeding holes in my heart. Then Tangiers came calling. As it stands, I'm still at war with Tangiers. I have no army. I have a pitiful remnant of a navy. The Berbers are besieging my core provinces. In a massive kick-to-the-nuts moment, they conquered Lisbon right before the $500 March I ordered up was built, which destroyed it. I'm probably going to go bankrupt again. Every horrible thing that has befallen me has been a result of a clear (and terrible) decision I've made. I'm enjoying the hell out of this. In any event, I've got 300 years of game left, and I'm Not. Dead. Yet.

Sid Meier's "Ace Patrol", an iPad strategy/tactic game, is an example of a game where it pays to think three moves ahead (or more). You can play it poorly by pushing planes around without thinking. To play it well you need to plan coordinated attacks that will unfold over several moves.

"The Paradox Effect": When you really want to love a game, but you never quite get into it. Yet you keep buying sequels because you are THIS CLOSE to an enrapturing game experience. Every time a Paradox game is discussed, all of us strategy die-hards suffering from the Paradox effect and come out of the woodwork say the same thing: "I tried [GAME], but never got into it, which surprises me because strategy games and the [ERA] age really interest me." I suffer from the Paradox effect. I so want to love EU and Crusader Kings, and while I like them, I never really get sucked into them. Of course, I'm hoping EUIV is the breakthrough game, and I'm going to buy it.

A really interesting and enjoyable episode!

Re: X-Com Expansions: Firaxis games (or, at least the Civ games) have always been vastly improved by subsequent expansions. Civ IV was much better once Beyond the Sword was released, and Civ V was made much better by its expansions. Given that track record, I am hopeful that we are only playing "vanilla" X-Com, with the real prize coming down the pipe.

Great Episode. Bruce is "the man." And Victor's Advanced Tactics Gold is one of my all-time favorites.

For a 4x-type game, I have three key metrics. The first is how frequently an awesome battle happens. For example, I've been playing MOO2 recently. Last night I took on a huge Darlok invasion fleet of battleships and titans with my smaller (but more advanced) fleet of cruisers. I did not expect to win the fight, but I did. That was awesome. Awesome things frequently happen in MOO2, which is why it is a Classic. Another key metric is how satisfying it is to build stuff. In Civ, for example, it is fun to build cities and expand. The final key metric is how clearly my strategic decisions mattered down the road. In MOO2, my earlier decisions to research Zortrium armor, Graviton beams, and to quickly build heavily armored but affordable cruisers (instead of waiting to build battleships) put me in a position to crush the Darlok fleet. In FE, it is satisfying to build stuff, and your strategic decisions seem to matter down the road. I can't say that many awesome battles have happened, though there have been some. If anything, it seems like I either get absolutely crushed, or I absolutely crush the enemy. There needs to be a bit of parity to satisfy the awesome battle factor, and that seems to be missing. That seems to be a pretty fixable problem, though. And the game is still a lot of fun, in the end.

The trade topic might be really interesting once EU4 comes out. From what I've read, it has a really interesting new take on how trade is handled.

Compare and contrast Warlock with Fallen Enchantress. Both are wildly different takes on the fantasy strategy genre. Warlock is simple and to-the-point, while Fallen Enchantress takes the "kitchen sink" approach.

This seems right. The problem I have is that the guy who dies to trigger the panic in the first place is often the guy with LOS on aliens. The lily-livered weakling in the back rank panics, and all he can see are friendlies. So he caps them. I should note that I've had panics actually turn out well, too, with actual alien kills. Re: Chrysalids, I focus as much high explosives on them as possible, followed by every ounce of firepower I can bring to bear. And prayer. Lots of prayer.

I got the full "to the nuts" treatment this weekend. Several times, in fact. My Grand Squad got wiped, which lead to a succession of wipes on missions populated by ill-trained replacements. I'm struggling to recover. One huge gripe - I'm awfully sick of panicking soldiers blasting each other. I can see having this happen maybe once in a great while. But it happens way too frequently, and when it happens it just seems stupid. I'm okay with losing, as long as I'm losing for the right reasons. Having my team panic and decide that shooting friendlies is the answer to their predicament does not feel right. Rather, it makes me feel like launching my controller through the TV.

I just listened to episode 183 on Take Command 2. This is a game that sounds awesome, like the exact sort of game that I'm looking for. And I've never heard of it before. This isn't the first time this has happened to me as a 3MA listener. For example, I had also never heard of Dominions 3, which is now one of my favorites. The purpose of this thread is to "cut to the chase" -- what are the essential strategy games for a 3MA listener? Discuss!

I agree with Sorbicol that the satellite/panic element makes for some very difficult decisionmaking (in a good way). I find myself agonizing over my satellite capacity and location. At the end of the last month in my current game, I had three satellites come available at the end of the month. Do I grab a continent bonus, or do I spread the satellites to the three "in the red" countries about to withdraw from the project (all on different continents, and two on continents that had already seen a country withdraw)? I went with the latter choice, but not before chewing my nails for a while.

I think this is really good advice. A lot of people are frustrated with the "alien pop and cover" mechanic, but this tactic really allows the alert player to get the jump on the bad guys. I often put my squad-sight snipers on overwatch before moving my guys forward, and they often get easy kills on uncovered aliens.

I recommend this post on the X-Com forums: http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?155231-Classic-Ironman-Tips-to-Survival-Learn-From-My-Mistakes

Of course, one of the great challenges of this games is that you don't have carte blanche to choose your squad make-up. I just ran 1 assault, 2 snipers, and 2 support, not because I find this group particularly effective (it's not) but because they are the only guys that are healthy!