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Rob Zacny

Episode 337: 2015 Wrap-up

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Three Moves Ahead 337:

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2015 Wrap-up

2015 has come and gone, cast aside like an empty yogurt container. "It's time for a new yogurt," you think. "I am done with this one, even if there is a little left in the bottom." Still, we should take time to reflect and look back at all of the good parts of the yogurt from the past year. Like the one whole blueberry amidst small bits of blueberries. Or when the yogurt burped a little no matter how softly you tried to peel back the lid. If it's not clear by now, this is a metaphor for Starcraft. Happy New Year from Three Moves Ahead!

Frozen Cortex, Blood Bowl, Heroes of the Storm, Invisible, Inc., The Long War, Cities: Skylines, Total War: Attila, Massive Chalice, Hard West, Darkest Dungeon, The Long War, Vietnam '65, Grey Goo, Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void, Ashes of the Singularity, Offworld Trading Company, Kingdom, Fate Tectonics

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I still don't unerstand why you guys are so high on Total War Attila. It's really not a very good game. There's still a ton of bugs that haven't been fixed from day one. It's the worst performing game I've ever owned. Their business model sucks. It didn't really add anything new to the series. All they did was add some things back that were lost over the years. The few new things they did add don't work well. The game hasn't been properly supported with patching. The modders haven't been properly supported with fixes for the new modding tools. I was Creative Assembly's biggest fan, but even I can see that this is a series on the decline.

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I was Creative Assembly's biggest fan, but even I can see that this is a series on the decline.

Maybe that's your problem. I never got deep into TW even thouhh I liked those games. I know fans are the most picky about the games cause I saw what do most vocal and devoted fans of Paradox games say about specific people designing those games. Attila sounds like it breaks the formula. Like EU4 which is despised for mana yet is the best Paradox ever.

Also I know how to fix TW games. Make autoresolve extra costly. Do not make it more convinient. In battles appetite comes in a process itself. And this is why those games are fun in tutorials and in the beginning when you can't just rewind the game. Autoresolve would work in a strategy game, not spectacle game.

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Frozen Cortex, Blood Bowl, Heroes of the Storm, Invisible, Inc., The Long War, Cities: Skylines, Total War: Attila, Massive Chalice, Hard West, Darkest Dungeon, The Long War, Vietnam '65, Grey Goo, Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void, Ashes of the Singularity, Offworld Trading Company, Kingdom, Fate Tectonics

 

No Black Sea? Ahhhhh...

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Great show!

 

Got the agree with the cast on Attila, also much like it was said, CA appear to found its way or model for their dlc, as the Empire of Sand is as really good and much like it was said, a game changer and the Charlemagne campaign, which I wasn´t really expecting much, have been surprising me at most every turn - like the way it handle war and peace moments and the decisions, which work and where good (at first I wasn´t expecting a event chain for Carloman´s death, I keep playing and expecting at best a war, but them - bang! a chain of events with branching options).

 

However I was surprised you guys did said anything on Beyond Earth, I guess that could be a let down on 2015 (maybe followed by Act of War).

 

Cities Skylines is a great game, even if after some point, there is much to do, still is gorgeous enough, that just expand your city still worth, specially with the expansion, where I found myself - ok, how I design this place to look amazing at night?

 

Next year, if the releases keep on date, beside the titles mentioned, we would also have - Disgaea for PC, Master of Orion, Endless Legend 2 and Oriental Empires.

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The Long War was the best strategy game I played this year. Mind you I didn't play that many. The Long War. It's both long, and a war. A very very brutal war with an unfortunately tendency to let you play for 40+ hours before letting you know that really bad month you had right at the start meant you were never going to win this campaign. 8 Mectoids on one map? Yeah, thanks for that......

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I still don't unerstand why you guys are so high on Total War Attila. It's really not a very good game. There's still a ton of bugs that haven't been fixed from day one. It's the worst performing game I've ever owned. Their business model sucks. It didn't really add anything new to the series. All they did was add some things back that were lost over the years. The few new things they did add don't work well. The game hasn't been properly supported with patching. The modders haven't been properly supported with fixes for the new modding tools. I was Creative Assembly's biggest fan, but even I can see that this is a series on the decline.

 

I have to agree with this sentiment. I've been a very avid Total War fan since Rome I, and I don't think Attila is all it's cracked up to be. It has some severe bugginess and the optimization for this game is shit. And while the optimization for Rome II at launch was also shit, the difference is with Rome II they patched the hell out of it and now it runs wonderfully. Attila is still an absolute slog on my machine (gtx 970, 4790k, 16g ram) and they don't seem overly concerned with improving performance as it seems like, with the release of Charlemagne, their focus is now on Warhammer. 

 

The AI improvements to the grand campaign have been mediocre at best. When the game launched it was, by the end, a desolate wasteland of razed cities. Now, by the end, it's half a desolate wasteland of razed cities. Alliances are more stable than they used to be, but still leave a lot to be desired. Further, provinces tend to be pretty cookie cutter, a checklist of 'build these things in every province, ok, now what do I do with these couple of free slots?' as anything else would be disadvantageous to your gameplay. 

 

Balance is pretty atrocious, with the game coming down to 'he who has more cavalry wins' and not much else. Well, unless you wall up in a city center, in which case you win.

 

I do agree that CA has found success with their current DLC model - the DLCs have been by and large worthwhile, far from a nickel and dime, every one has been fairly game changing. But, I think much of Rome II's DLC was in the same vein, culture packs aside. The Rome II DLC campaigns were very solid.

 

I don't think Attila is a bad game, but I don't get the love is has from the 3ma crew. To me, and I think many Total War fans, it was two steps forward one step back in many ways from Rome II.

 

~

 

Further, I have to agree with Fraser Brown (sp?) that the Emperor edition of Rome II, while not perfect by a long stretch, is a pretty damn good Total War game, and I don't feel like any of the hosts other than him have played the Emperor edition, or if they have, they didn't do it with an open mind. Sort of a, "Fine, ok, I'll try this shit... see, still too many Romans, shitty." Some of the systems are still shit. There is not family tree. Internal politics are still bad. Civil Wars are still somewhat obfuscated, although now draw on your actual forces like a civil war should, thus becoming way more logical. Artillery are still op and way too easy to obtain.

 

But some systems were way overhauled, and are now fantastic. The entire economy/building setup was overhauled. Trade goods have important strategic value now, each providing a significant bonus/gameplay feature if you have them. Further, the building diversity was upped and improved to make differentiating provinces worthwhile. Battles have been drastically rebalanced and are some of the best in the series. Optimization, a nightmare at launch, is now fantastic. Mod support has been way better than Attila. (Though still not great... CA doesn't want you modding things too much or it might infringe on their market.)

 

I seem to remember when Rome II was first covered one of the hosts (don't remember who) panning the intro movie at the games launch that had Egyptian chariot archers, talking about how ahistorical the game was because Egypt would have had Greek phalanx armies. If any of the hosts had actually bothered to play as Egypt, they'd see that it does rely 90% on Greek style units and warfare. But the anti Rome II circle jerk was too strong to bother actually playing Egypt - clearly the intro movie was enough. 

 

Is it absolutely shameful that CA released Rome II in the state they did? Yes. Is it ridiculous that it took a year of patching and updating to make it a solid Total War title? Also yes. But they supported it, in fact a hell of a lot more than they've been supporting optimizing Attila. 

 

At the end of the day, Rome II does feel a bit hollow to me. It doesn't have the heart of some of the other Total War titles. But to continue to talk about it like it never improved after launch is ill-informed at best, disingenuous at worst. A glance at Steam player stats would show that people by and large prefer Rome II to Attila, precisely because of post launch support and the fact that it turned out to be a very solid title. 

 

Look, I understand there are only so many hours in the day to play games, and you have to pick and choose, but Rome II is simply not the same game as it was at launch. Some of the problems were too big to iron out in patches, and unfortunately will be with the game forever, but it still ended in damn decent condition. A solid B game at the end of the day. 

 

Sorry my butt hurt is so strong. But it's only as strong as the circle jerk I keep hearing on the cast. Which I love and appreciate by the way. I love having such a fantastic strategy podcast on the air. Don't let my vent/bitching discourage you guys, it serious is great. I just needed to let it all out.

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I'd have to agree with that Martothir - neither Rome II or Attila are great.  A combination of the two possibly would be.  However, the AI and physics engine are simply too poor and unrealistic to regard either game as great. As you imply, CA are ALL about the DLC these days.  Their greed and abuse of their own player base is shameful compared to the way studios such as CD Projekt Red, Amplitude or even little MuHa (Thea won Explorminate's game of the year btw).

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I seem to remember when Rome II was first covered one of the hosts (don't remember who) panning the intro movie at the games launch that had Egyptian chariot archers, talking about how ahistorical the game was because Egypt would have had Greek phalanx armies. If any of the hosts had actually bothered to play as Egypt, they'd see that it does rely 90% on Greek style units and warfare. But the anti Rome II circle jerk was too strong to bother actually playing Egypt - clearly the intro movie was enough. 

 

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. 

 

At the end of the day, Rome II does feel a bit hollow to me. It doesn't have the heart of some of the other Total War titles. But to continue to talk about it like it never improved after launch is ill-informed at best, disingenuous at worst. A glance at Steam player stats would show that people by and large prefer Rome II to Attila, precisely because of post launch support and the fact that it turned out to be a very solid title. 

 

Look, I understand there are only so many hours in the day to play games, and you have to pick and choose, but Rome II is simply not the same game as it was at launch. Some of the problems were too big to iron out in patches, and unfortunately will be with the game forever, but it still ended in damn decent condition. A solid B game at the end of the day. 

 

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. 

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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. 

 

 

I apologize if I came across a little hot. I should have toned down the language.

 

I did acknowledge that you defended it. It did not go unnoticed.

 

I guess at the end of the day, I don't really think Attila is only marginally better than Rome II. It had a better launch, by and large. And it certainly made strides towards improving the campaign side of the gameplay, but still felt pretty flat to me. The event chains are limited and repetitive if you play multple campaigns. The family tree doesn't add that much given the limited time span of the game... you barely advance through one generation of your family. The political system, while adding depth the campaign gameplay, came across as tedious "put this guy in this slot" repeatedly, with the occasional assasination, what have you, to keep a general in line.

 

Battles are horribly balanced. Cavalry wins against pretty much everything. It's severely hurt the multiplayer gameplay, and you often see almost three times more people in the RII battle lobby because of it. I don't know if y'all are much for multiplayer battles. I don't remember y'all really mentioning it, but I could be forgetting. But for those into multiplayer battles it's a pretty significant system that they've not really addressed in favor of launching DLC's, which is where some of the DLC hatred comes from - why should we buy DLC factions when you can't even balance the factions already in the game? Don't get me wrong, I like Charlemagne, and I even enjoyed The Last Roman, though I felt like they were both somewhat low effort campaigns like Wrath of Sparta.

 

I'm just not sure I 'see' what is being seen in it, and I'm trying to figure out what that it is. 

 

It's been further disconcerting the lack of optimization and balance passes given to the game, issues well known in the community and expressed to CA. It feels like CA is very much being pressed to move onto the next project by SEGA, which probably explains the state Rome II was released in. Certainly not good for future iterations in the franchise if this push to release is going to become the new norm. Hopefully the increased funding and development staff can offset that.

 

Anyway, I'm sorry I was a bit hotheaded. I should have sat down and read my reply and not posted some of that. 

 

I really do enjoy the show and all of y'all contributions. I have a hard time imaging what I did before I listened to the idlethumbs network podcasts. :) And thank you Fraser for graciously engaging with me. 

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I think SEGA hasn't been doing well financially for some time now. They are probably cracking the whip on Creative Assembly and making them rush things and are behind the DLC/pre-order bullshit.

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Battles are horribly balanced. Cavalry wins against pretty much everything. It's severely hurt the multiplayer gameplay, and you often see almost three times more people in the RII battle lobby because of it. I don't know if y'all are much for multiplayer battles. I don't remember y'all really mentioning it, but I could be forgetting. But for those into multiplayer battles it's a pretty significant system that they've not really addressed in favor of launching DLC's, which is where some of the DLC hatred comes from - why should we buy DLC factions when you can't even balance the factions already in the game? Don't get me wrong, I like Charlemagne, and I even enjoyed The Last Roman, though I felt like they were both somewhat low effort campaigns like Wrath of Sparta.

 

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.  

 

It's been further disconcerting the lack of optimization and balance passes given to the game, issues well known in the community and expressed to CA. It feels like CA is very much being pressed to move onto the next project by SEGA, which probably explains the state Rome II was released in. Certainly not good for future iterations in the franchise if this push to release is going to become the new norm. Hopefully the increased funding and development staff can offset that.

 

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!

 

Anyway, I'm sorry I was a bit hotheaded. I should have sat down and read my reply and not posted some of that. 

 

It's not a problem, and I was happy to clarify a few things. 

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I'd have to agree with that Martothir - neither Rome II or Attila are great.  A combination of the two possibly would be.  However, the AI and physics engine are simply too poor and unrealistic to regard either game as great. As you imply, CA are ALL about the DLC these days.  Their greed and abuse of their own player base is shameful compared to the way studios such as CD Projekt Red, Amplitude or even little MuHa (Thea won Explorminate's game of the year btw).

 

Yeah, I feel like the majority of the enthusiasm over Attila is equal parts passion for a fascinating period of history and relief that Creative Assembly didn't completely shit the bed with another launch. The Warscape engine is still a cartoonish parody of actual combat, with units racing around and crashing into each other like bumper cars. Character development is still an inscrutable collection of stats that only allows for an impressionistic guess at a character's actual competencies. The hate-you-forever diplomacy is still there, preventing the assumption of a rational actor even though it's been improved, and people are still excusing it because of the "appeal to title" fallacy. The AI still can't play its own campaign, so there's still tons of behind-the-scenes cheating to keep the AI from running out of food or money. Even with the addition of the family tree, the politics system is still an absurd series of "fill this bucket or empty your opponent's bucket" decision trees that repeat far too soon.

 

Even more than Bethesda, Creative Assembly excels at building Potemkin villages that give players an extremely specific experience and fail utterly when pushed outside that experience. Attila succeeds only because its setting is one of long odds, hard times, and decay, which makes the inflexible systems and rampant cheating feel less incongruous. I certainly don't feel like it's the sign that Creative Assembly's back on track, not when all the "innovations" of Attila like razing, hordes, and family trees are all mechanics from previous games (in most cases, the original Rome's "late antique" expansion) modified to fit into the systems from Rome 2, for better or for worse. Meanwhile, the Chaos faction from Warhammer is DLC for the upcoming game, so I don't feel great in general about anything.

 

I did appreciate Fraser going to bat for the original Crusader Kings. It's an ugly and difficult game, but it has virtually all the systems in place that make Crusader Kings 2 a truly great game. It's missing the fullness of the opinion mechanics and the de jure system, as well as the marriage/alliance equivalency, but otherwise it's all there, and it's been my opinion that the first game handles the process of revolt and disintegration better than the second, too!

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 did appreciate Fraser going to bat for the original Crusader Kings. It's an ugly and difficult game, but it has virtually all the systems in place that make Crusader Kings 2 a truly great game. It's missing the fullness of the opinion mechanics and the de jure system, as well as the marriage/alliance equivalency, but otherwise it's all there, and it's been my opinion that the first game handles the process of revolt and disintegration better than the second, too!

 

I've played quite a bit of CK2, but never played the original CK. Would you mind describing a bit of how the original handled revolts/internal struggles?

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I've played quite a bit of CK2, but never played the original CK. Would you mind describing a bit of how the original handled revolts/internal struggles?

Sure! In its final form, with the Crusader Kings: Deus Vult expansion, a vassal would have a chance every month of gaining the "rebellious" trait if their opinion was below a certain negative number. In addition to a blanket boost to their stats, rebellious vassals would be regularly offered the option, by event, either to rebel against their liege and leave the realm with no claim on them, to slip out of the realm leaving a claim by their liege, or to stay loyal for a prestige bonus. The way this worked allowed a realm ruled by an incompetent or disliked ruler to come apart very slowly, as disgruntled vassals would either become mightier while losing none of their ill feelings (because prestige in CK1 was basically a currency directly spent on ingame power), become independent with minimal immediate consequences, or start wars for independence that every other vassal with the "rebellious" trait would be offered a chance to join (again, by event, because triggered events were essentially how every system in CK1 functioned). CK2 turned the "rebellious" trait into the "ambitious" trait, but without the event system underpinning it, it's just a straight malus, as opposed to a threat that must be actively countered by all by the most skilled rulers, who could afford to wait the decade or two until the "rebellious" trait expired (via event).

An adjunct to this system was the "realm duress" trait. Any liege with a certain combination of rebellious vassals and low "stability" score (the latter an EU system ported over poorly and obscured from player agency, unfortunately) would gain the "realm duress" trait, which decreased stats of and opinions about the liege, as well as offering an increased chance for vassals to become "rebellious" themselves, with the consequences described above. It was an extremely clumsy way of forcing civil wars, relying too much on triggered events that sometimes ran completely counter to the actual strength and integrity of the realm in question, but it did allow for more dramatic and historical-seeming rebellions, as opposed to CK2's here-and-there rebellions by vassals without a hope of victory. A ruler with the "realm divide" trait was going to have to fight one or two serious civil wars with a sizable minority of their vassals, usually their most talented and wealthy ones, and by the time that the conditions for the removal of the "realm divide" trait were satisfied (by the failure for any more vassals to gain the "rebellious" trait over a certain period of time, either through the independence of all vassals that might have been candidates or through their liege's military supremacy) the outcome was either a vastly reduced realm or one that was stronger and more stable than ever. It was extremely jury-rigged, but I feel that it worked better than anything short of the CK2+ mod's faction mechanics.

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I just remembered one thing that happened in this year: Might and Magic Heroes VII which was kind a huge disaster that no one talked about (wondering how much the game come and go with very little noise). I dodged that by close, because I had to choose between this and Samurai Warriors 4 - II and I did end I pick up SW 4 II. This make me wonder the future of the franchise, will Ubisoft put some weight, like it happened with Heroes V, which at some point became good with Tribes of the East, or the whole thing became a short mess like happened with VI? I am more convinced than ever that maybe they should give the Heroes franchise a rest and instead try again with the rpg part of Might and Magic...

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Heroes 7 weren't disastrous enough. It's a not very good game in a boring way. Like Babylon A.D., that movie with Vin Diesel you saw advertised in 2008 and hadn't thought about since till I've mentioned it. Heroes 6 were even worse IIRC and at that point some people still cared. Now they don't. 

 

And again about Attila - sadly Potemkin village is what Total War is for most of the people who pay for you to be able to play this monstrosity of a game with tons of content. And don't say you don't care about all those models, fancy graphics and music: you're here talking about how shallow and simplistic this game is instead of getting into some deep and original wargame published by Matrix Games with basic graphics and sounds. 

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And again about Attila - sadly Potemkin village is what Total War is for most of the people who pay for you to be able to play this monstrosity of a game with tons of content. And don't say you don't care about all those models, fancy graphics and music: you're here talking about how shallow and simplistic this game is instead of getting into some deep and original wargame published by Matrix Games with basic graphics and sounds. 

 

I assume you're speaking towards me, since I'm the primary one bringing up Total War in this thread.

 

Yes, graphics and sound are absolutely important to me in the Total War series. But I think comparing Total War to a wargame is completely off base and missing mark. 

 

Total war games are not true wargames/grand strategy games, nor have they tried to be up to this point. At the end of the day they are about the set piece battles in which, yes, the graphics, music, and atmosphere are all very important. The campaign map and any strategy layers upon it have, in single player mode, largely been there to support the progression of those battles in a (hopefully) logical way, providing a typically empire building context for those battles giving each battle meaning. The campaign map has largely been a means to an end. 

 

Now, the series often misses this mark in one or more ways, but trying to push Total War into a niche into which it not only doesn't fit, but further doesn't even try to be a part of, is silly. They do stress increasingly cinematic graphics. And up until the last couple of entries into the series, the music has been, while probably not amazing, very memorable and tone setting. These are important elements to the series, and divorcing the series from them is silly. 

 

Truly, I'm not sure what genre I would call total war, as it somewhat stands alone in gameplay. I can think of a few other examples: "King Arthur - The Roleplaying Wargame," "Imperial Glory," and "The Kings' Crusade" come to mind. All three entries fairly deeply flawed, but similar in concept. Interestingly, Arthur and Kings' both try to solve the campaign contextual and set piece battle balance issues by providing a fairly linear story experience. This did help alleviate the severe imbalance problems you often have in Total War campaigns, but at the same time drastically reduce replayability since the progression would be essentially the same time to time, something Attila encroaches on with it's scripted events, though not anywhere near to the same degree.

 

I, for the longest time, resisted EUIV and CK2, because I had a hard time imagining playing a game where all I did was stare at a map. I had been a long time Total War fan, and the battles were 90% of the game to me, so I couldn't imagine a game where the battles came down to abstracted numbers being any fun. While bored and lacking new releases one summer I eventually took the plunge and found that I greatly enjoyed both. Now, 844 hours into EUIV and 199 into CK2, I can say I really enjoy both games, though I've begin falling out of EUIV for reasons not relevant here. 

 

But that said, what I want from Total War is completely different from what I want from those games. The graphics in those games is largely not relevant because it comes down to strategy. Total War is largely about tactics, and I think it's fair to say most Total War fans want that cinematic experience... but it's not unreasonable to want the experience enriched over time, rather taking away some of those core elements from previous titles. 

 

-

 

Short note on Matrix Games: I don't believe I've played any games developed by them. The closest I can see looking at their website is Alea Jacta Est, which seems to have just been published by them. Hardly fair to give any comparison to them regarding this one game. But, if it's in any way similar to their developed offerings, I found it more akin to a grand strategy like a paradox game than anything resembling what I want out of Total War. And I found that the games UI got in the way of gameplay. Pared down graphics doesn't excuse bad UI, and Alea's was obtuse to say the least. 

 

However, they have such a large product catalog that this one anecdotal example is, I'm sure, not the best representation of what they have to offer. I might try to find another title to give a shot in the future when I have the time on a rain day. Any suggestions?

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Martothir, nice post. I can relate to defining Total War as something between genres and larger than those genres. This approach explains why those games are not particularly good strategy games and or tactical games yet they are probably the most popular strategy or tactical games - maybe Civilization is more popular but I'm not sure.

 

Funny how after 800 hours in EU4 you still remember your scepticism looking at this boring province map without any kind of "real" battles. AGEOD games are certainly closer to Paradox games than to Total War games. They're just more detailed and war-oriented. E.g. Rise of Prussia is all about 10 years in a middle of a 18th century. You know all the details like the guy in 5th batalion of Saxon cavalry division not heaving enough gunpowder and feeling bad about it. But once it gets to the fight you have to just wait and see the effect of your preparations, no player input involved. Same with all AGEOD games. If you want to get into Matrix published wargames then I can recommend Panzer Corps - it's a spiritual successor to classic Panzer General. Close enough abstraction of WW2. Still no detailed unit visuals and stats but puts you in command of more or less realistic troops and interesting tactical - not strategic - problems.

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Fun episode, thanks. Nice to hear a shout out for Heroes of the Storm, which has been heaps of fun all year for me. It's strange for me to hear it described as a simple, pick-up-and-play game, though. I mean, it only looks simple next to Dota and LoL, which are massively arcane and complex games. It's still 5 on 5 hugely varied characters (each of whom can be talented in different ways) on a complex map with multiple objectives, involving fast action and tons of tricky decision making. That such a beast of a game can be comfortably played a but more casually is a strong testament to Blizzard's excellent design.

 

If you're seeing grief about it from the community (excepting the official Blizzard forums, which are a permanent scarred wasteland) the only thing I can think about is a bit more of the usual grumble about matchmaking, and some concern about the meta being too focused on stuns and bursts. Generally, though, balance is great at the moment, and Blizzard have clearly indicated that they're working on some of the weaker characters.

 

For the first part of the year new characters tended to be a bit overpowered and had to be tuned back a bit. More recently, though, new characters have been coming in with lower win rates. It's a testament to the design to see the win rates go up over multiple weeks as the nuances of each character is worked out. See Morales (the Starcraft medic)- she's had a very minor buff since release, and from being considered not usable she's moving herself into a valuable support pick. Cho'Gall was not obvious how to play correctly, but is creeping up the charts as players get it down. 

 

Rowan's comments about aesthetics struck me as true. I've been really enjoying Massive Chalice, despite it being merely competent at strategy and tactics. Nevertheless, there's something about the combination of the oddness of the world, the great character models, and the warmth of the voice acting that makes playing it very pleasant. In general, despite the systems being a little light, I think it succeeds very well as an overall experience.

 

If there's a game I feel got a bit overlooked it's Abbey Games Renowned Explorers: International Society. Tom Chick is very hot on it, and  I think he's on to something. It's a game with a great aesthetic, fantastic pacing, and good variety. The tactical encounter system is largely focused on managing the moods of your party and the enemies, and that turns out to be way more interesting than it sounds. It's also hit a nice sweet spot with the variety and depth of systems in the game- enough to keep things varied and to allow for multiple ways to approach the game, without ever getting bogged down and losing that pace. 

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Zacny - I'm Jonesing for an XCom 2 episode.  

 

Come on - we know you've all been playing it for days by now - lucky bastards! 

 

 

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