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Rob Zacny

Episode 417: 2017 in Review

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Three Moves Ahead 417:

Three Moves Ahead 417


2017 in Review
Another year of strategy gaming has come to a close. Rob, Rowan, and T.J. are here to tell you what they liked, what they didn't, and what left them vehemently ambivalent. Rob doesn't bury the lede and jumps out with his GOTY right away and Rowan fulfills his duty of making people feel bad for liking certain things.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, Stardew Valley?, Tooth and Tail, Hearts of Iron IV, Ultimate General: Civil War, Total War: WARHAMMER II, Steel Division: Normandy 44, Endless Space 2, Gettysburg: The Tide Turns, Crusader Kings 2, Stellaris, Battlestar Galactica Deadlock, Battle Brothers, Europa Universalis IV, Expeditions: Viking, Dawn of War III, Divinity: Original Sin 2, The Long War 2

 

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I think Rob greatly underestimated Age of Wonders 3. In some episode he mentioned that Endless Legend was the only truly great 4X of later years and I'm quite surprised by it, especially with EL being broken and unpolished in so many ways. AoW3 was rough when it came out but now it's one of the best 4X people do not notice. It's also similar to TW Warhammer so try it if you burned up on this.

 

What differentiates this game is the character each map has - it's full of important structures that make you want to place cities as if you were playing Civilization. It's randomly generated landscapes are memorable and important. You can modify them by end game climate change spells. You fight neutrals in their huge monster dens and incorporate them into your powerful cities. Expansions added 2 new victory types - Seal control (basically have to keep strong monster spawn points for a long time; the idea is that even scratching an army sitting on those points makes it vulnerable for neutrals to take over) and sort of Diplomacy victory (you have to become the most popular guy with couple of races - not playable factions but races like elves and cat people - and build wonders for them). It has deep tactical battles. It has lots of competitive elements like global quests and diplomacy contest and global spells - usually 4X is all about fighting or allying but here you can get into a war of magical attrition. Try it now that it's a final version.

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Thanks for the show ! I found the section on Paradox very interesting. Paradox continuous DLC policy seems like a good way to improve the game and keep it fresh for hardcore gamers while paying the bills, but it does have a few potential problems :

- The "content" DLCs increase the risks of feature bloat and of messy game design (with new mechanics that don't mix very well with the old ones), since they have to add features significant enough to attract buyers without making them mandatory so that base game can still be playable.

- It makes the game harder to document : it's a bit like having to document a bleeding edge linux distribution, with features changing all the time. Fortunately for Paradox, the community is dedicated enough to do that job !

- Patches created with specific DLCs in mind can mess up the balance of the game for people who don't have these DLCs and lead to player fragmentation, with players staying on older patches.

 

Paradox did a excellent job if the "DLC fatigue" for CK2 is only getting serious now and if EUIV is still going strong. I wouldn't know myself, since I haven't played them since 2015 : I actually prefer Paradox older games, especially For the Glory and Darkest Hour, the enhanced versions of EU2 and HoI2.

 

 

 

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It would be great if posters gave their own personal strategy gaming highlights of 2017 : there are so many games around that it's easy to miss a good one !

 

Favorite strategy game released in 2017

The Operational Art of War IV. I only dabbled a bit in the first one when I was a kid. The fourth one isn't a huge  leap forward, but it does have  an amazing amount of scenarios, more refined rules and an improved interface.

I didn't dare dip in the big scenarios yet, but I enjoyed all the small ones I've tried. I found the game fairly easy to pick up and play : you don't need to know every nook and cranny of the ruleset to have fun. The game is quite detailed in some areas, like the combat mechanics, and surprisingly simplistic in others : there is no real chain of command for example. Still,  it's a great traditional wargame with a very flexible  engine. It doesn't require too much computing power either, which is a huge plus in my book.

 

Favorite strategy game discovered in 2017

John Tiller's Campaign Series. It's a compilation of WW2 platoon-based wargames that came out in the late nineties : East Front, West Front and Rising Sun. The rules are inspired by tabletop wargames of the seventies and are quite simplistic, with no modelling of suppression fire for example. The amount of content is mind-boggling : randomized and linked campaigns, hundreds of scenarios of all level of complexity, huge database of units and OOBs... Depending on the scenario or the campaign, you can control a battalion, a regiment or even a corp. I don't really enjoy the higher levels of command, because I think the amount of units gets out of control, especially with all those HQ and transport units, but I'm having a blast with the battalion level scenarios and campaigns.

 

Favorite strategy game rediscovered in 2017

VGA Civil War is a old shareware game of the nineties : I enjoyed it a lot as a kid and I revisited it this year. It's a beer-and-pretzel WEGO grand strategy game that manages to be simple while taking into account a lot of factors : rail movement, blockades, supply, leadership, fortifications, recruitment, etc. The whole war can be finished in 30 minutes, and they are a lot of options to add replayability. The graphics are simple but very clear and the keyboard interface is pretty convenient. Last but not least, the game is legally available for free at http://www.hutsellgames.com/civil-war-strategy/

 

 

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I think the only 2017 game I played was OOTP 18 so I don't have much to say about the year.

 

But Rob, Troy, Michael, Fraser, Rowan, Bruce, and T.J. I hope 2018 is good to you. Thanks for making something I regularly look forward to.

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Listening to this review, 2017 comes across as incredibly underwhelming for new strategy games. The top picks being more Total War Warhammer, and more XCOM2. And there didn't seem to be any genuine passion around any of the games.

This show came across as very stale to me. I'm not sure if it's the fault of the games on offer, or I've now heard this week's panel articulate all their thoughts on these games several times already. [In contrast, the enthusiasm and joy on show when Michael, Bruce and Troy were talking about Dominions 5 the other week was much more enjoyable to listen to!]. I felt no desire to go buy any 2017 games after listening to this, and the panel failed to make me feel like I'm missing out on anything. I guess that means 2017 was a mediocre-to-poor year for strategy games?

Request for 2018: Please don't do a show on a space 4x unless it's one you guys are actually excited to play and talk about :-)

oh, and happy new year.

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I was surprised that Steel Division turned out so well-regarded in this show: not that I thought it was bad, but that I only played a little of it before getting distracted by other games. Even if the show's lack of spirit showed what an underwhelming year it was, it did at least convince me to give Steel Division another shot. Despite its clunkiness and Eugen's usual charmingly garbled documentation, I really enjoy it as a skirmish game.

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Perusing and catching up on some back episodes of 3MA after the spark was rekindled from Stellaris 2.0 rolling out this weekend, it's equal parts hilarious and frustrating to hear that Rowan's solution to make space games not all MoO is to make them literally not space games.

 

 

Relatedly, who the hell is putting ********* on a pizza with pepperoni? The whole idea is it's Hawaiian style because the ********* goes with the ham.

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23 hours ago, Badfinger said:

Perusing and catching up on some back episodes of 3MA after the spark was rekindled from Stellaris 2.0 rolling out this weekend, it's equal parts hilarious and frustrating to hear that Rowan's solution to make space games not all MoO is to make them literally not space games.

 

 

Relatedly, who the hell is putting ********* on a pizza with pepperoni? The whole idea is it's Hawaiian style because the ********* goes with the ham.

 

That would be me. It's not supposed to be authentic Hawaiian, it's just supposed to have *********. I had ********* / jalepeno and the combination of sweet and spicy rocked my world. ********* and pepperoni turns out to be way better than the ham version.

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I respect this! I think pepperoni and ham are bringing significantly different things to the ********* party and I wouldn't switch it up but I understand. If you're already pairing ********* and jalapeno I just want the salt of the ham.

 

If you want to go whole hog go *********/ham/bacon.

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3 hours ago, ilitarist said:

Wait, did you really added ********* to censorship blacklist?

 

Haha, I asked about that. Apparently it's an Idle Thumbs thing that goes way back, we just stumbled upon it with our pined apple discussion. No one really knows why it's on the list.

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