Rodymetal

Great reply and discussion Rob, that is why I like 3MA, you guys cover a lot of angles about strategy games, keep it up, and always voice your opinion, games are media medium and a lot of developers/ publishers would put their controversial ideas/ point of view in them, podcast like yours should be the critique.

I want to get it because I love Pike & Shot, the system is one of best for tactical gameplay. I kept Sengoku Jidai on my wishlist, the thing is I do not want to pay full price, especially for a setting that I am not much interested in (currently).

Nice episode. A lot of thoughts and nostalgia. Well I agree with a lot of things said by Rob, there are very few old games that has special mechanisms and styles that you will make you grab them and play them again and again (not because of nostalgia), most other games had been redone and improved upon them (whether it is sequel game or similar games done by different developers). The example of Rise of Nations is good one, even if it is a generic RTS as play style, but it is one of the few that has this amazing balance and it is abstract of all historic period flavors, I gotta say there were other games tried to achieve the same like empire earth series and Empires: dawn of modern world, but RON had distinguishable balance, UI and overall aesthetic. The thing is after 2005 there was no attempt by any developers to make something similar to RON, and that is why in my opinion such a game will be played over and over. I want to add about total war games, I see it evolving overall, and to be honest I dont see any right justification of the old ones to be superior, as much as I loved M2TW and had most fun playing it, I revisited it recently and there many annoying things in the campaign mechanism, buildings, UI, and the AI. For games that have a really superior predecessor, I cant think of much, Stronghold games come to my mind.

Nice podcast. I think Stronghold Crusader 2 used a traditional RTS formula, and reduced the castle management aspects and siege tower defense aspects, it is clearly that the developers are following the recent trend of many re-made/HD edition classic RTS games approach, which is about competitive fast pace multiplayer game rather than innovative RTS game design, and that's the problem that made game such the stronghold very generic and mediocre, that also applies to other newly released RTS games. Innovation in RTS is very important nowadays, the older player already got done with those repetitive clicks and actions, while the new players find other genre more appealing as discussed in the podcast. We need more games that can take RTS in different direction such as COH, wargame series, and the game that nobody mentioned : Hegemony series. Regards