Rob Zacny Posted November 16, 2018 Three Moves Ahead 451: Cities: Skylines - Industries Cities: Skylines has continued to grow, adding expansions like so many strip malls to suburban hell. The latest DLC, Industries, shines a light on the utilitarian but necessary underbelly of any city: the industrial zone. But does Industries really capture the economic importance of production and mining? To answer this and other important questions, Rob and T.J. are joined by Justin Roczniak (donoteat01 on Youtube), who offers a comprehensive breakdown of the city building genre from an urban planning perspective. Cities: Skylines, Simcity Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
graddy Posted November 17, 2018 Haven't listened to this yet, bit I want to point out donoteat has an incredible series on YouTube looking at the history of Urban planning (often from a leftist, materialist perspective) by looking at the evolution of a fictional city named Franklin using cities skylines. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ilitarist Posted November 19, 2018 I'm a little confused. From what I saw this game from the very beginning was a sandbox, a toybox. There's no real goal apart from get big. It's not like Impression Games citybuilders where there is threat, special conditions, special goal. You can't lose. If you're in trouble you can demolish half of the city and start anew, right? And people on a panel seem to complain about that. New expansion didn't bring meaningful gameplay. It's a weird criticism. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sorbicol Posted November 20, 2018 I really enjoyed this episode and it felt like an episode from 3MAs golden period 5 or 6 years back. A really knowledgable and interesting guest podcaster, a solid topic that went beyond just the game and some real proper insights. Can we please have more episodes like this again? I know Rob is busy with a myriad of other things and 3MA is becoming a forgotten part of his output, but there is no reason it can’t return to form. More please! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Michael Posted November 20, 2018 1 hour ago, Sorbicol said: I really enjoyed this episode and it felt like an episode from 3MAs golden period 5 or 6 years back. A really knowledgable and interesting guest podcaster, a solid topic that went beyond just the game and some real proper insights. Can we please have more episodes like this again? I know Rob is busy with a myriad of other things and 3MA is becoming a forgotten part of his output, but there is no reason it can’t return to form. More please! Glad you liked the show! I’ll shoulder most of the blame for the decreased output over the last few months. Real Life Stuff was happening for most of the main players that plan the show, myself especially. The good news is that, as of last week or so, that’s mostly behind us. We’ve been getting our planning together for what to do after this Thanksgiving week, and I’m pretty excited for what we have coming up. We have some good Winter of Wargaming content planned, several new and interesting games to cover, and something NEW to Three Moves Ahead that I believe will be well received. Stay tuned, and thanks for your patience! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Khan Khomrad Posted November 20, 2018 Welcome back 3MA! 3 hours ago, Sorbicol said: I really enjoyed this episode and it felt like an episode from 3MAs golden period 5 or 6 years back. A really knowledgable and interesting guest podcaster, a solid topic that went beyond just the game and some real proper insights. Can we please have more episodes like this again? I know Rob is busy with a myriad of other things and 3MA is becoming a forgotten part of his output, but there is no reason it can’t return to form. More please! I must agree. This one felt very much like a throw back to the earlier episodes, which is good. It also made me realize how few episodes focused on city-builders were made that there may be an interesting conversation to be have about how the different games of this genre go about simulating a city. As Rob mentioned, the Anno series is basically a logistic-chain simulator. If you have to have enough production to supply the ever growing needs of your expanding pop, enough land to set up production chains and finally you need to have automated trade routes where your ships will sail from one island to the next taking and dropping cargo. This model is completely different from the Impressions city-builders, but they are both sell the fantasy of being a ruler of an expanding city/cities. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sorbicol Posted November 21, 2018 21 hours ago, Michael said: Glad you liked the show! I’ll shoulder most of the blame for the decreased output over the last few months. Real Life Stuff was happening for most of the main players that plan the show, myself especially. The good news is that, as of last week or so, that’s mostly behind us. We’ve been getting our planning together for what to do after this Thanksgiving week, and I’m pretty excited for what we have coming up. We have some good Winter of Wargaming content planned, several new and interesting games to cover, and something NEW to Three Moves Ahead that I believe will be well received. Stay tuned, and thanks for your patience! That sounds great thanks. I’ve been listening to 3MA for years but for the last couple of months it’s felt more like a chore than something I genuinely enjoy. The Valkyria Chronicles episode representing something of a nadir I’m afraid. I’m not invalidating the legitimacy of the discussion that episode I must say, it’s just not why I listen to 3MA. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riadsala Posted November 22, 2018 On 11/21/2018 at 12:18 PM, Sorbicol said: That sounds great thanks. I’ve been listening to 3MA for years but for the last couple of months it’s felt more like a chore than something I genuinely enjoy. The Valkyria Chronicles episode representing something of a nadir I’m afraid. I’m not invalidating the legitimacy of the discussion that episode I must say, it’s just not why I listen to 3MA. Agree entirely. This was one of the best shows you guys have done in a while! Other episodes I really enjoyed were the Chess episode and the one in which Michael and Troy talked about Aurora (? am I getting the name correct, that crazy complicated space game). Which is actually pretty interesting, when you consider that I don't play chess (my heart has already been given to Go), will likely never try Aurora, and haven't played a city building since Sim City 2000. But the discussions where top notch. In the same way, I find that Bruce always has something interesting to say, even if it's on a game i will likely never play. On the other hand, I don't find the regular panelists have much of interest (to me, personally) on the games I actually enjoy playing. (with the notable exception of Fraser, but that might just be because he's Scottish). The problem is most likely with me: playing a lot of Go gives one different perspective on computer games, complexity, losing, etc. I suppose if I was to sum it up, the usual panelists seem to really enjoy the 'strategy game as power fantasy' side of things. Which is fine! But just not something I'm really that interested in. And to echo Sorbicol's point of view, I have no interest whatsoever in listening to 3MA talk about culture wars/identity politics stuff. Again, this isn't to say that they're no important topics (they are!) but, I work in a university, and have to deal with, and think about, these things all the time (in some ways, university campuses are the frontline for a lot of these issues). Sure, perhaps I am a privileged, entitled person, but if I'm listening to a podcast about strategy games, it's because I want to mentally unwind and take my mind off things like that. These topics are covered in lots of detail elsewhere, by very knowledgeable, well read academics and other thinkers: there are plenty of places to find out more [I quite like https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qy05]. I've gone from listening to every show, for years, to skipping most of them But this one was really good! I nearly ended up working in planning (and have an MSc in a related topic), and could really identify when Justin was talking about generations of town planners growing up having played Sim City! I've always found city builders really odd, as living in the UK (i.e., the old country), they really don't correspond well with our idea of what a city is! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Marchettus Posted November 22, 2018 Not sure if this is the right place for tech issues, but I just got a repeat of the two point hospital - I'm on android if that helps. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Khan Khomrad Posted November 22, 2018 3 hours ago, riadsala said: [...] Agree entirely. This was one of the best shows you guys have done in a while! Other episodes I really enjoyed were the Chess episode and the one in which Michael and Troy talked about Aurora (? am I getting the name correct, that crazy complicated space game). Which is actually pretty interesting, when you consider that I don't play chess (my heart has already been given to Go), will likely never try Aurora, and haven't played a city building since Sim City 2000. But the discussions where top notch. In the same way, I find that Bruce always has something interesting to say, even if it's on a game i will likely never play. On the other hand, I don't find the regular panelists have much of interest (to me, personally) on the games I actually enjoy playing. (with the notable exception of Fraser, but that might just be because he's Scottish). The problem is most likely with me: playing a lot of Go gives one different perspective on computer games, complexity, losing, etc. I suppose if I was to sum it up, the usual panelists seem to really enjoy the 'strategy game as power fantasy' side of things. Which is fine! But just not something I'm really that interested in. [...] I hope we can get a show on Go some day. First the chess show, then Go and finally Bridge. 3MA is slowly breaking into mainstream strategy games About the panelists, that's a very interesting point that you raised. I find that my favorite episodes tends to be the ones where: Bruce talks about History, Video game & boardgame designs, Michael gets on the show to talk about management games (Never played one and probably won't) and Troy talks about history and the strategy games that no one remembers any more (walls of Rome anyone?). Guess I really like when the panel talks about game design and history (after dark and year in retrospect also tend to be good shows to me). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Michael Posted November 22, 2018 1 hour ago, Marchettus said: Not sure if this is the right place for tech issues, but I just got a repeat of the two point hospital - I'm on android if that helps. That was an issue that I fixed earlier- delete and do a redownload and that should fix it. The wrong file was uploaded to Soundcloud originally. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riadsala Posted November 23, 2018 15 hours ago, Khan Khomrad said: I hope we can get a show on Go some day. First the chess show, then Go and finally Bridge. 3MA is slowly breaking into mainstream strategy games About the panelists, that's a very interesting point that you raised. I find that my favorite episodes tends to be the ones where: Bruce talks about History, Video game & boardgame designs, Michael gets on the show to talk about management games (Never played one and probably won't) and Troy talks about history and the strategy games that no one remembers any more (walls of Rome anyone?). Guess I really like when the panel talks about game design and history (after dark and year in retrospect also tend to be good shows to me). I agree! i nearly always enjoy listening to what Bruce has to say, even though I'm very unlikely to ever play any of the games he talks about! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
OliverZ Posted November 24, 2018 Hi Rob, I just got Angel's ore smelting mod for Factorio, and feel that, if you are interested in an industrial simulator, you should check out that mod for Factorio. The sheer amount of waste products captures the scale of operations. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cornchip Posted December 10, 2018 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. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
