Fraser

"Most" is a wee bit of a stretch. Rob didn't talk about multiplayer because he's still playing through the campaign, but Bruno and I did. I'm pretty sure I even recommended that Rob play at least one MP match before he's done with it because it's the best part of the game. That said, I don't think we've had any particular attitude towards MP or SP on the show for years. SP campaigns are a big draw for a lot of people, and in many cases it's the only part of the game that they'll play, so we'd be remiss not to spend a big chunk of time talking about it.

We mention the similarities to Pikmin and Little King's Story when it comes to controlling your army of critters in the episode. I can honestly barely remember what Darwinia's like however, since it's been so many years since I played.

I answered this very question for RPS https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/04/28/total-war-warhammer-all-dlc-review/ That was published before Norsca was announced, but I would include that in the must buy category too. If you're on a budget or want to limit yourself instead of buying the lot, I reckon that the Wood Elves and the King and the Warlord DLC will keep you entertained. With that you get a mini-campaign, the Wood Elves faction, and new Greenskin and Dwarf leaders, starting locations and units.

Empire Earth 2 was fantastic, and I can't believe none of us mentioned it.

<3

Specifically campaigns where it's not just a series of battles and missions, but where there's a separate but connected strategy game wrapped around them - stuff with campaign maps and dynamic events opposed to a list of interconnected fights.

There's definitely a good chat about strategy storytelling waiting to be had. Maybe we'll do something like that in the near future!

War in the East and Unity of Command would probably suit you more, especially if you're looking for a game that a bit like those complex tabletop games you didn't have time to play. I'd recommend Unity because it's the more accessible of the two.

Quill18 has a couple of videos that explore division creation and then a battle - you might want to check them out! As we said on the episode, the best battles are team-based. Find a bud (or many buds), pick a role (air support, infantry, etc) and try to tackle an AI team on normal difficulty. The real challenge is learning how to handle all the different crises you're bound to encounter in a battle, but focusing on a particular role reduces the number of things that will need your attention.

I don't think the size of the developer has any bearing on how deserving a game is of discussion. I wanted to do a Monks & Mystics episode because it's what I've been playing and it's a fascinating expansion. That said, we have a monthly Patreon poll for this very reason - to find out what people want to hear us chat about!

Of course not, but it was especially horrific and trench warfare in WW2 was very different.

It's not the linearity on its own that's the problem. Linear is fine. No issues with that. The problem is the way it's inconsistently restrictive. One moment you're going over a wall, and the next you can't even step over what is basically a 1 foot tall rock. You get a jetpack, opening the game up, changing the format of the battles, and then it's ditched because it won't fit in a gargantuan cave you have to briefly pass through, even though you can clearly see that it does. Honestly, though, my biggest problem with it is that it's simply dreadfully dull. The combat is decent, but there's nothing beyond that. No surprises. No exploration. Dismal characters. And aside from the aforementioned jetpack bits, it's content to just plod along, doing the same crap over and over again. Anyway, I'm totally right. It's shite. But it's shite that a lot of people really enjoyed, and that's fine. I like a lot of garbage too. I gave Rome 2 a 7/10, after all.

Blood Bowl 2 was literally the first game mentioned. That has to count for something!

I feel very silly for not bringing that up when we were talking about things like Sunless Sea and AC4. M&B definitely has a lot of Pirates' DNA. Though M&B itself is getting on a bit too (it's only a few years younger than Pirates) and even Warband is over six years old. Thank goodness Bannerlord is on its way!

I don't think any of us planned to talk that much about documentation or tutorials, but when the point was raised, we all obviously realised we had a problem with it. Such is the nature of these chats! I definitely agree that it could be an interesting standalone topic though.

I wouldn't say the AI is awful, it's just very scripted and quite conservative. Also, in SP the maps are brilliant. Diverse, often sprawling, full of interesting geography. In MP, the maps are great, but there aren't many of them. I'm pretty sure Blackbird Interactive said they were working on more though.

I think I'm stuck with it forever. It's been well over a year now.

I'm not sure about the other chaps, but I'm not really into Total War multiplayer. For me, it's always been a strictly single-player experience, and in the campaigns I haven't really had a problem with balance and have won countless battles against AI enemies with a heavy cavalry focus. Honesty, balance isn't really something I care about all that much, anyway, because I confess that I'm not particularly competitive. Perhaps that's one of the reasons that my favourite multiplayer strategy games are things like EUIV, because they makes imbalances fun rather than something to worry about. I think people often forget just how inconsistent performance can be in any given PC game across different PCs, even ones that are, on paper at least, identical. Chances are, if a critic doesn't complain about a game's performance or optimisation problems, it's because they didn't experience any. That's certainly been the case for me, because Attila runs perfectly fine on my rig. Sure, if I turn everything up to 11 then I get some issues, but that's because Attila was designed with future GPUs in mind as well, so the maximum settings aren't really for a PC like mine. I'm still able to crank them up pretty damn high, though, and get an acceptable and mostly consistent frame rate. None of this invalidates the issues other players are having, but it's worth keeping in mind that it's much more likely that a critic simply hasn't experienced the problem in question and it doesn't mean a game is being given a pass. We're bastards, we never give anything a pass! It's not a problem, and I was happy to clarify a few things.

Can't remember which of us brought up the intro cinematic (it was Rowan, Rob and I on that episode as well) but it was probably just as it appeared: poking fun at the cinematic rather than condemning the game for not being historically accurate enough. I think it's a wee bit unfair to say we were "anti-Rome" too. Rowan and Rob ultimately didn't like the game at all, and for good reason, but I ended up defending it quite a bit because, despite the many, many issues, I actually enjoyed it a fair amount, giving it a 7 in my review. I don't think any of us said that it was still bad. I believe Rowan, at least at the time of recording, had only played the original launch version, so he can only talk about what he knows, while both Rob and I have played the Emperor Edition extensively and have on more than one occasion noted that it's improved. But since Rome II didn't come out in 2015, the wrap-up wasn't really the right time to go into that again.

It's more overt in Thea because all of these disparate elements are normally given their own game. There are card games, 4X games, RPGs, survival games -- but Thea attempts to make one game out of all of them. While other 4X games might draw from RPGs or other genres, Thea's different because it doesn't have one part that's dominant. It's not a 4X game with extra bits, because the 4X stuff is given no more attention than the other elements. I think it's also worth noting that none of us found this jarring. Indeed, I think one of the reasons that some of us liked it despite its flaws was because it wasn't traditional. The problem was that, on their own, none of the game's pieces really work particularly well.

I don't think we really believed Rob was being too hard on the game. All of his misgivings were valid, and were shared by both Rowan and I to a certain extent. And in regards to experience, while Rob had put the most hours into the game, we were all at the same stage, getting to end-game easily enough and focused on pushing past all the portals. Indeed, I believe that Rowan was actually the furthest along, and had been closest to the win condition. My point, as I said on the episode, was that for all of us, the game was still, in part, a mystery. None of us knew what the end really was, or if the game had more in store for us. That's why I wanted to keep playing.