ilitarist

Probably so. I get my post-movie Star Wars dose from replaying Knights of the Old Republic 2. Will survive without a perfect SW 4X. Besides I haven't finished EU4 as every country yet.

When you say "this mod adds more" you're losing me. I bought SWEaW this year and wanted Star Wars 4X. When I found out it's about selecting units and sending them to enemy base I quickly got bored. I'd like less units and more meaningful interactions.

This episode shows you some cool skills of 3MA crew. Usually the most entertaining kind of review is the one that bashes the book/movie/game. E.g. see Zero Punctuation. Yahtzee often likes the games he's talking about but openly admits it's hard making praise funny so he concentrates on bad things. 3MA guys concentrate on the good. They try to find something interesting and thought provoking in most games. When they talk about bad things it's entertaining too but only highlights how they're able to have an interesting discussion about the games they like without turning it into circlejerk (except when it's about EU4). Great episode, interestring discussion. You mentioned Svarog so I guess it's slavic-based game. I guess Withcer made it a trend. Also Slavs love minigame games and emergent storytelling for some reason. Space Rangers 2, Eador, Age of Pirates, Pathologic, King's Bounty. And they've also participated in Crusader Kings, Heroes and Disciples series.

Is this the time for shameless self-promotion? Here's the game I've made trying to rethink Civilization as 5 minute mobile game.

XCOM is a nice example and counter-example. It has some safety valves for "comeback". E.g. upgrades that make your soldiers better at being in coma. You also can often retreat to attack later. But then you look at the community and strategy guides. All of those things are frowned upon. You have to go up. You should not lose a soldier or a mission and you should not spend resources on preparing for it. So you do the opposite of what you'd do in real life. SP games may provide comeback mechanics but devs know that most players play without Iron Man and would just reload if there's a small fall on their way up.

Episodes like this let us see you actually usually have to think what you're saying on the episodes, not just saying whatever comes to mind in a company of friends. I think it's safe bet that those who signed up for the Patreon are dedicated strategy games players and would not mind to be overwhelmed once in a while. I understand you may have doubts - you probably can't compare those episodes listener stats to other episodes - but I'm sure this is the best time to go full hardcore.

Those who support you on Patreon have the privilege of asking questions. Perhaps you can release quarterly Q&A a quarter later, many Patreons seem to work on this model. And in any case it's not like you put some sort of DRM paywall, I suspect those who really want to ask questions and hear Q&A but can't spend ten bucks for some reason will find the way. And by the way I'm happy I got to hear this episode and can expect similar in-depth talks relatively soon. It seemed like knowing people payed for this episode had turned off some of your defensive mechanisms. Previously you went easy on people, now you know they've asked for it so you can go all the way using obscure hardcore board games in your discussion.

I think you have to have high rank to *create* those. I'm playing single player quest right now. It's sort of King's Bounty map, but with some counter-action and smaller scale.

Pick it up. Even if your friends betray you we will be here.

It was a nice venture into the inner psychology of Rob' and Bruce's minds. You forget to mention the game has a singleplayer too. Sort of campaign. With optional multiplayer invasions. And - rare thing! - it has a demo. With tutorial, some single player challenges and even some multiplayer modes. I'd say it's a rare thing to see a demo for a modern strategy game. And no, there are no microtransactions there in case you were wondering so it's an honest demo. Ah, and also there's hot seat.

Why did Terran win over this Zerg? He had bigger guys and bigger army. And he did something smart like striking artillery from afar. Why did he have a bigger army? Because he exploted more resources on a map more quickly. Why that strange character killed this strange character? Well you see, the first one has stuns and high DPS shortburst when he's at full mana and all his cooldowns are down. Second guy had effective escape skill but it was on cooldown. He didn't have enough magic defense to survive through the first guy's ultimate ability. Why didn't he have it? Because he was on a line with effective denier and besides he thought that the most dangerous guy on enemy team will be the one with physical attack so he didn't have resources to spare for magic defense. Come on, Lords Managements are ten times harder to comprehend and less spectacular.

I see pitch video has only 137 episodes. Even if you didn't need any more reasons to give those people money and just clicked "become a patron" before page had loaded - I recommend to see the video. You'll see the beard and glasses behind those voices in high definition. Contrary to what you may have thought it's not cowboy hat and monocle.

Very interesting talk. This Quill18 guy is not just a Letsplayer as we all see now. I feel multitude of victory types is the real strength and definitive quality of 4X games. Sid Meier solved design problem of turtling before it appeared. In a typical strategy game going into defensive brings game to a stall. Attacker grinds through defenses to win but as he still controls all the resources he'll win. In a way infinite expansion problem was there from the very beginning. How do you make a game with big map that is not inevitably about moving 100 units every turn? Not everyone wants to do that. And what do you do with inevitable snowballing? Civ1 solved this problem by adding alternative victory condition - the country that was in a lead could just prove it without destroying others. Alternatively, faction that sees it looses the domination game can divert its resources into something else and win this way. So basically all of 4X games were really this XIX century Big Game domination Rob earns for. Alternative victory is to add spice to the real competition, the war. Same for Master of Orion - it's about war, diplomatic victory is really shortcut for when you are already dominating the galaxy and destroyed anyone who opposes you. And Antarans are there for additional challenge. Basically it's the same philosophy for all 4X/Grand Strategy games till a recent time - same for Civ2-4, GalCiv1-3, Age of Wonders 3 (once they've added alternative victory and surrendering the game pacing has come very close to 4X), Warlock 1, Rise of Nations, Elemental. Now Civ5 as well as some recent 4X's (Endless Space/Legend, Distant Worlds) gives it another philosophy. It's not a competition and zero-sum game anymore, it's sort of race, boardgame. We're all coming together and each play our own game. Now Rob with his XIX century imperialist mentality still can own us modern peaceloving people cause UN denouncement and sanctions do not work against destroying us one after another and no amount of our cultural superiority beats his evil hordes. But his hordes have harder time getting to us thanks to 1 unit per tile (though tactical system gives him an edge if he likes to micromanage) and we can influence him somehow through other types of competition like World Congress or ideological pressure. Same in Endless Legend - you don't just win by being the coolest guy (Space ship victory is this in Civ1-4. As well as culture in 4.) unless it's a time score victory. You win by being specific type of empire. You can go for science. Go for money. Go for diplomatic agreements. You can go complete quests. There's a synergy between those so you can really chose your victory type around midgame but then you specialize and decide who you are in a big picture. It's a more of a roleplaying and simulationist way, I feel. After all, when a game tries to tell me it's about human development and it's not just about war I feel cheated when it turns out that you're still supposed to be conqueror if you want to be effective. TLDR: before recently you could only win 4X games by being Rome, Mongols, Great Britain etc. Nowadays you can win by being good in something else apart from being an Empire. You can win by being a very good Swiss or Sweden. And Rob still can be a dick and ruin everyone's life if he wants, but now it's not the only way to play.

That's why I like 3MA goals. Exclusive content is some voting and playing MP with guys. Latter should obviously limited. Since I'm poor guy from Eastern Europe I'm glad those guys can have my 5 bucks (half of monthly income in my country) and I'm still helping. But I won't lose a show if state death squads take all my money. Also are you sure about Napoleon? It's a TW game no one plays. They even play Empire instead. I too love the era but modelling Borodino with couple of thousands guys is underwhelming.

Well, time to sign up for this Patreon thing everyone talks about. I like how Paradox Special is illustrated with Victoria 2 screenshot. Vic3 confirmed, naturally. Michael, keep up the great job. It takes listening to many other podcast to understand that either 3MA hosts are superhumans devoid of snoring, coughing, yawning and mewing or you are doing a tremendous invisible work from the shadows.

Don't listen to them, Rob. You should just dump Kingdom if it makes you work through hell to get to its magic. There's plenty of fish in the sea. So you're playing as Sonic in Terraria in Civilization and you're the only one who can do things. Has Fraser really used the term "Herculian task" or did he mean "Sysiphean"? It was a very interesting discussion even if I'm not interested in the game. Made me get where all those negative reviews with 100+ hours of playing are coming from. The beginning of the Tom Chick parabola is too steep. In this Kingdom game it may seem that the game can be as big as possible. Maybe you'll build intergalactic empire for all you know. And not only in the terms of scope and content, there's a promise of some deep strategy. The same way as Empire Total War promises huge battles, scenarios, revolutions, ships, technologies, Indians, Americans - and it's sorta there but it's not even useful because you should just get a full stack of line infantry and the enemy will die throwing himself at you. In some sense it's an anthitesis of Cookie Clicker. Cause it makes you think you're playing cookie clicker. It starts like one and it is one for 15 minutes and then you're supposed to master what there's. Problem for many 4X too. Can't remember many games that succesfully live with it. Maybe Heroes of Might & Magic? You start a scenario, get few types of monsters. Then you look into your castle and see there are many more guys there. And they're upgradable. And there are spells, dozens of them. And there are many types of castles. And it transforms into Tom Chick √x

I'll tell you what's left. Almost infinite skill progression. RTS lets you progress both as a strategist and action player. And the other thing is AI. It has an edge due to reaction time. You can make seemingly competent AI by giving him quick reaction time and omnipresence instead of bonuses which many people see as cheating. And the problem with adventure games, I think, was lack of gameplay. You play interactive story while solving insane puzzles. Why can't you have the same story while solving real puzzles like in puzzle games? Or just clicking quick time events like in modern Telltale (or Fahrenheit) adventures? Or doing anything except clicking on every object and applying newspaper to the hole under the door and straw into the key hole?

Not much has changed. Of course Warcraft 3 had a great story, movies etc but campaign structure lacked flexibility. Infested Planet can win hearts with cheap, casual but effective system of grinding and bribing your way to victory. What can devs learn from Warcraft 3? Threw a bunch of money at the game and make it shine. Infested Planet dev made effective single player experience in his mom's basement (not actually true fact) by understanding players needs and embracing RPG/F2P style grinding and Tower Defens-ish difficulty curve. Troy talked about Age of Empires 3 model not being reused - Infested Planet is where something similar is used quite effectively. And perhaps C&C4 but we don't talk about it.

When I came of age RTS games were dead. I've played WarCraft 3 and Rise of Nations, even older games - but I was a kid. I vividly remember what I wanted RTS to be. I think most players want it to be the same, except few MP-oriented ones. City-builder and tower defense. Really, it's a default strategy newcomers fall into. You don't know what's the size of army you need to win so you have to build the biggest one. You want to see what's in the end of the tech tree so your primary objective it's getting there and seeing all you can use. It's the same in all strategy games. Heroes, Civilization. But in RTS you're punished for this behavior. Turtling may help you survive campaign but it's a least effective behavior - understandably, cause if all players turtle you don't exactly get a game. Civilization 5 is a rare classical game succesfully embracing this newb behavior - probably cause 4X are better suited for it already as it has tutrling victory. I'm not dumb or slow yet I can't be bothered playing RTS good. Seriously, it's a very demanding gameplay. And it's easy to give AI an edge by teaching it to microcontrol. I play Lords Management games with friends and those are basically RTS with one unit. And those are still complex as hell. Meanwhile city-builders and tower defenses are played the way most people would want to play RTS. Especially Tower Defense. Creating a progression is easy. Tweaking difficulty is easy. Creating a SP experience with infinite progression is easy. Look at Infested Planet. Haven't played CoH2 Ardennes Assault but IP feels like the best campaign ever to me, even better than WarCraft 3. It has story missions which are specific scenarios modifying basic formula. It has side missions of various types of difficulties. You can grind to buy better setup before next mission. And gameplay itself is sort of tower-defensy. Enemy doesn't really become proactive till you're deep into the game - it's too complex so I won't get into it but trust me. It's a progression reminiscent of RPG games with tweak your difficulty requirement. You can grind if it's difficult, you can play a relatively short campaign if you want to close Gestalt, you can play random maps and daily challenges with increasing difficulty forever. I understand it's similar to Age of Empires but I've missed that game. Anyway, to hell with those balance MP-oriented games. And Troy, don't let Johan to build grand strategy games around multiplayer. I'm still in denial but when Paradox people talk about how next title is fun in multiplayer and new features or design philosophies are implemented specifically for multiplayer I get nightmares about GS genre getting into the same traps of making games for an elitist few.

We just need people not to make any strategy games for a couple of years and 3MA will be fine.

Gaizokubanou, it's an old idea. . Basically the idea is you either write human substitute AI or "fun" AI which doesn't actually plays to win. You need first for "sport" games like chess or maybe fighting games. You want second for cases when you sell an experience or winning AI is impossible anyway. And in some games AI is obvious script that is not supposed to be anywhere as smart as real opponent. Like Tower Defense games.

Rob came close to saying it, but anyway. I think the most important thing in tower defense is this loop of planning and executing. Your brain isn't required to work all the time, you are welcome to look at the spectacle. It's not the same as watching animations in TBS, it's a different state of mind pressing different buttons in your brain. Strategy - Action movie - Strategy. Also it's very easy to learn those games and vary difficulty. The usual RTS tutorial goes like that: move mouse to edge of the screen, select unit, move it here, attack here, build a building. Now go and explore the map while watching your base resources, expanding your economy and making sure it's exploited properly, make a well-composed army to defend from enemy attacks and destroy it. TD games are much easier to learn and skill ceiling is still well beyond anything an average human being is capable of. And no AI is the best AI.

Hey Adam, none of your links are working so here's the link for anyone interested. Also you are quite mad.

Nah, you underestimate yourself. You see, in RoN you instantly learn "build order". You know what can you do, the question is what should you do. And there you can learn by reacting to various challenges. In those arcade-ish RTS you know you want to build big tanks. Build order tells you how to do it in objectively better way. While in RoN, like in Civilization, there are few objective truths and multitude of strategies. When the game tells you someone has advanced in Era and you have not it doesn't mean anything. You may have chosen to expand or build Rush military, you don't need Era advancement for that. Try again, man. It really is much easier to learn than, say, StarCraft, as it depends on your metastrategic much more than on learning specific mechanics - and all mechanics you need are quickly advised by the perfect UI.

Haven't played Command & Conquers: General but all this talk about build order reminds me of how we under appreciate Rise of Nations. The game is complex as heck yet it has a very straightforward build order. Almost all buildings are unlocked by advancing age - this button on top of your screen. Some are unlocked by one of 4 other techs, but only with first couple of them. This part made simple yet you still have a good dozen types of units per age, each one has a unique role and some of them fulfill very special roles (supply, scouting, buffing, insurgency). And none of them require any techs or other buildings. You get barracks - you see all possible upgrades and what's needed. And you only need age and military. Meanwhile traditional RTS is structured as a learning experience. You are almost required to learn it step-by-step in campaign of some sorts, otherwise even on easiest difficulties you can't make any interesting decisions.