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Enjoyable interview! Makes me think more designers should move to new cities and countries to unlock new insights.

You guys misremembered what Brian Reynolds said about SMAC. He wanted to use Dune-style dialogue, but it was drier than he remembered, so he used Pirates of Penzance instead. Fun episode. I think there was a fourth person whose dialogue was accidentally silenced during editing a few times during the middle of the episode.

Is Lord of the Realm 2 generally considered bad or is that just Rowan? That was a heavily played game on our two computer LAN. It’s admittedly a stronger TBS game with all battles auto-resolved since the real-time AI was janky.

I honestly don’t know the point of havivg a forum if you can’t make some funny autocorrects.

Excited for a luscious Winter of Wargaming! I try not to look a gift podcast in the mouth, but I am glad to hear some of the life issues this year may be behind you all because I do love when 3ma does what no other podcast is doing.

I think this may have been my favorite episode of this podcast. Very interesting. I just wish it were recorded a little more recently to incorporate thoughts from OTC’s release and more of FS’s development.

Enjoyed this episode, and I would very much like this format to be repeated!

I enjoyed ruining 7v1 Starcraft comp stomps on battle.net. The procedure: share vision but don’t ally. Help kill the AI enough to look like one of the helpers when the game doesn’t end. Get a few innocent players killed off by the mob while building forces (but not enough to look guilty.) Convince a couple others to quit in favor of functional teammates. With any luck, become one of the remaining three, kill the most suspicious one and de-vision to outplay the hapless final victim. I think there’s enough action and subterfuge and RTS gambiting there to make some kind of popular .io minigame out of it.

The dynamic in this episode was at times uncomfortable (to me, an ignorant listener), but I think the conversation benefitted from the differences between you two.

No worries, Michael. I hope that you all see inquiries from us in the audience as concern for well-being rather than a demand to push through personal life issues and get that episode out.

I’ve enjoyed this podcast since episode 8 or so. Sorry to see it drawing to a close, especially under such lame circumstances!

Really enjoyed this episode. I think one appeal of Rome in military tactical games is the myth of legible military ranks and formations. It's appealing to play first-generation warfare using third-generation tactics and fourth-generation knowledge, but in a historical setting that illudes that these things in one package is realistic due to superior organization and discipline.

I think this episode would have benefitted from taking the conclusion and making it the intro. Listening to these stories and moral dilemmas is entertaining, but “interesting to experience once” is the standard impression about these kinds of games. I’d like to hear more about how the mechanics and available strategies specifically reduce or improve the replayability of the game.

Brian, Lisp was not impractical! (Thoroughly enjoying this.)

Just wanted to say I am really enjoying the Winter of Wargaming so far.

Really interesting discussion in this one!

I bought this game a week or two the show came out, tried it and returned it to Steam, so I listened with interest. I appreciate what TaB is doing, a lot, actually, but it's not enjoyable to me to use units as defenders and my preferred playstyle in AoE is to skirmish early, not to build walls. There are parts of it I'd like to see as features in another game -- a spiritual successor to Settlers 3, particularly! I was glad to hear the panel's thoughts about it, and it's always nice to have Troy back. I like it when the panel ages its opinions a bit before recording an episode about finished games, but with early access, part of the value is playing when everyone else is, and in a defense game before best practices are too well established. I think you all are hitting a nice mix between established and 'hot new thing' strategy titles. 👍

This was interesting. I might have liked a bit about how to get into EU4 in 2018, but maybe that’s harder to answer when your playtime has four figures. Any forum suggestions?

I like the idea of Rob being the Brad Pitt of podcast hosts, eating while recording every chance he gets.

Well, I think it's safe to turn it back on again at 18:05...

Jedi Knight 2! I still occasionally wear the T-shirt I got for pre-ordering the game. Great game for LAN lightsaber fights at school. I remember disliking an update to lightsaber combat that adjusted the collision detection so parrying became easier. Fights became longer and less cutthroat. I was dimly aware at the time that there was a good lesson about what designs to polish and what not to polish.

Oops, sorry for not picking that up! I swear I listened before commenting.

I know I just thanked y'all for waiting to discuss Shadow Tactics, but thanks for discussing this one soon after release. I have been looking forward to the next game from the Monaco team, but I didn't realize that it was out already! Do aspects of the game remind anyone else of Pikmin or Darwinia?

Thanks, Michael. I also appreciated the discussion about save-scumming. In addition to a hotkey instant reload, I appreciate when turn-based games offer an undo. Invisible Inc's "inventory of undos" and the way they teach you to use one in the tutorial, and then tell you it's okay!, is my favorite recent example of this. Appreciate that you waited several months past release to discuss this, too!

Is it bad that KnobCon looks interesting to me? Entertaining episode. I agree Lords of Waterdeep's a game that's best on the table. I have the opposite opinion about its length, though. It looks heavy but it plays in about half an evening, even with people who are taking their time due to socializing or not having played previously.