tomchick

Why bother? Just buy another hospital for 99 cents. -Tom

You're spot-on about the contrast to Sid Meier's conception of a Video game, Mr. Sclpls (dude, what happened to all your vowels?). Early in the podcast, Michael mentioned something along these lines as well, referring to it as more of a simulation than a game. There's an argument to be made that Victoria (and Paradox's games in general) defy a lot of the conventional wisdom about what makes a good game, and you're absolutely right to invoke that Meier quote. My problem with that quote is that "interesting decision" is a meaningless phrase. I don't personally find the decision about whether to bank my plane right or left in that godawful little Ace Patrol boondoggle the least bit "interesting", because of the game built around it. However, I find it terribly interesting how many spaces to move my soldiers in Xcom, because of the game built around it. So it is with Victoria. Once you wrap your head around what the game is doing, it's not only interesting to decide whether to grant wider voting rights, it's damn near paralyzingly difficult. But mostly, I disagree that it's passive. As you're learning the game's systems, working your way up the learning curve, you start to understand more ways you can interact with the simulation. You make very important decisions, but you don't always know the consequences of those decisions immediately. Which is another way that I feel Victoria is a uniquely valuable model for history and politics. The crisis system is entirely new in Heart of Darkness. -Tom

Great episode, guys! It's always nice to hear the folks who make games talking frankly about games. However, I want to take issue with something Soren said about Battle of the Bulge being not suited to asynchronous multiplayer. There were various murmurs of agreement, so you guys obviously couldn't hear me yelling at the podcast. But I disagree pretty strongly. It's true that many wargames are long drawn-out exercises in moving chits and waiting for something to happen, which can be a really dull PBEM or asynchronous experience, and that feels true of Battle of the Bulge at first. But part of the genius of the design is how much of the detail is streamlined and abstracted. As with XCOM, the result of this approach is that there are fewer choices, and a corollary of this is that they're therefore more meaningful. It's hard to talk about Battle of the Bulge without using the term chess-like and I find this perfectly suited to asynchronous multiplayer. For example, have a look at Bruce Geryk's analysis of the first couple of turns. He suggests a move called the Longville Lunge, and it reads like a discussion of the opening moves in a chess game. And because there are dice involved, Bruce can't quite solve it with math, try as he might. There are no moves in Battle of the Bulge that don't matter, and because of the way the game measures time (you never know how many turns there are, or who will get the last move on any given day), there is a degree of suspense in every move. It's downright cat and mouse at times. This makes for some of the most compelling multiplayer asynchronous play I have ever seen on the iPad. And I'm not even a wargamer! Anyway, sorry to hop up on a soapbox, but since you couldn't hear me yelling at the podcast, I had to come here instead. -Tom