Cool, will keep a mincer out for it. If anyone else sees it first please post here...
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Cool, will keep a mincer out for it. If anyone else sees it first please post here...
He did not bring me any WoT gamecodes though
I did get a horse for my LOTRO account though, thanks Turbine.
Episodes usually come out on Fridays. So go here:
http://flashofsteel.com/
And start spamming 'refresh' on Friday.
I checked this out last night and there's some interesting stuff there. I liked Troy's point about editors underestimating strategy gamers - while every community has its share of idiots I bet on average the strategy world is more clever than most.
I also found the first question asked very interesting, and very relevant to Paradox games. An audience member asked how the panel saw the problem of the momentum always being with the human player after a certain point, once your empire reaches a particular size for example. Chris pointed out that the player likes to win, which I agree is true, but at the same time my present game of AHD is literally the best I've ever played, and it's because I'm losing. I'm Italy, and because of the new Great Wars mechanic I'm in a situation where I'm about to lose a significant part of my empire and drop down the rankings a fair bit.
For those who don't know, Great Wars only come into existence later in the game, at a time when the human player has usually achieved a fair bit, and they mean you can gain or lose much more from Great Wars then normal wars. This has turned what's normally the most boring and predictable part of the game into the most exciting - precisely because there is now a real risk of losing everything you built up in the first half of the game. CK2 also simulates this, because a crap ruler and certain circumstances can see you in real trouble even when you have done well up to this point.
Is more of these mechanics something that Paradox would consider for future titles? I have found that it really extends the lifetime of an individual game.
I also found the first question asked very interesting, and very relevant to Paradox games. An audience member asked how the panel saw the problem of the momentum always being with the human player after a certain point, once your empire reaches a particular size for example. Chris pointed out that the player likes to win, which I agree is true, but at the same time my present game of AHD is literally the best I've ever played, and it's because I'm losing. I'm Italy, and because of the new Great Wars mechanic I'm in a situation where I'm about to lose a significant part of my empire and drop down the rankings a fair bit.
For those who don't know, Great Wars only come into existence later in the game, at a time when the human player has usually achieved a fair bit, and they mean you can gain or lose much more from Great Wars then normal wars. This has turned what's normally the most boring and predictable part of the game into the most exciting - precisely because there is now a real risk of losing everything you built up in the first half of the game. CK2 also simulates this, because a crap ruler and certain circumstances can see you in real trouble even when you have done well up to this point.
Is more of these mechanics something that Paradox would consider for future titles? I have found that it really extends the lifetime of an individual game.
I feel that Troy's point runs deeper than that. Editors tend to assume that players always want the fast and easy 'fix' of a shooter. I agree with Troy when he points out that gamers are far more sophisticated than that and have far more diverse tastes. Sometimes we might just want 20 minutes of quick entertainment but other times we want more. Part of the problem with strategy games is not that people would not be interested in your game, but getting people to know about your game. If editors were more willing to give it coverage people would know more.
For point 2, it something we always look at and consider. The problem isn't so much that we couldn't come up with ideas but making them fit the game and be fun. Once you get to a certain size we could simply take half your provinces off you, now this would be challenging but it would annoy the crap out of you because of that eternal question of why. The AHD great wars are a perfect example of this, people know that World War I saw the end of the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary and the weakening of Germany and Russia so it fits the game. Thus you can easily buy into it as a game expierence. This is the challenge when it comes to question of how you put breaks on a player.
Do you think the potential player base for historical strategy games could get much bigger than it already is? Is there a perception among editors that people who want these types of games already know about them, so they don't merit much promotional coverage?
Yeah I agree, some random savaging of your empire would just be annoying. But I think for me the key is to keep whatever mechanic that's used to constrict (or however you want to put it) the player for the mid-late game exclusively. Personally I like a relatively easy period of expansion and growth early on - but I also want to know that when I form Germany, or Prussia, or Spain, the game will still hold challenges and I'll still have to be careful. You always know when the tipping point has been reached and you can play proactively rather than reactively, but it's great when a challenge remains after this point.
One thing I've always wished we could do - though I know in practical terms it wouldn't work - is to increase the difficulty level later on in a game. Mechanics which effectively do this from some point after midway in the game are a godsend for me.
I do, I firmly believe that there are more people interested in history that play historical games. Also history as a setting is popular with players. Look at Civilisation or Assasins Creed as two examples of huge games that use history as a setting. Historical games could be bigger. In addition strategy as a genre used to be much bigger than it is now, but we took a wrong turning and began to obesess on micro details, if we continue down that path we will go the same way as the flight sim. So yes we can be bigger, the media can help this, but strategy developers need to help themselves here.
You are describing a classic game design curve were you increase difficulty in line with ability. RPGs do this very well, as you level up you get stronger monsters with new abilities, meaning you content matches your level at all times and you need to continually learn new tricks to progress. A open ended strategy game is much harder to this than in the tightly controlled environment of an RPG. If you take EU3 as an example developing mid game content that will work if you start as France, or Luxemburg or the Incas is a serious challenge.
I hope you're right. Actually my son loves Assassin's Creed exactly because there's a good storyline and setting - even though he's not generally big on history he has asked me a good bit about this era and how life was in those days, so people can obviously be drawn in by history if it's done right. He was also pretty intested in CK2 until I named one of my sons after him and he gained the homosexual trait, but that's 15 years olds for you.
I think to some degree it was attempted with the reformation, though I did find that a bit too easy to deal with for it to have the desired effect. The designer is also going to be constrained by historical accuracy too, Victoria lends itself to this curve very well because of the changes in warfare in the 1900s, but HoI, for example, doesn't really have anything that could achieve this unless you wanted to make nukes achievable by 1942 or something.
See all we need to do is a be less gay and we are there.
Ok a bit of a joke but there is a pool of players there all we need to do is figure out how to tap into them. The EU series tries this through two game mechanisms, firstly the neighbour bonus. The very act of gaining a tech advatage over a country automatically gives them a boost to tech research. The second is the increasing price of technology as you expand. This gives smaller countries some help in the face of the larger countries. Now as we well know this isn't sufficient but it is the kind of mechanics you can develop to help out the struggling countries.
See all we need to do is a be less gay and we are there.
Sometimes serendipity helps out, for example I bet the popularity of Game of Thrones indirectly boosted interest in CK2. Make a good WW1 game for release in July 2014 and you'll be laughing! I'm joking, WW1 cannot be made into a game.
What about making the AI more aware of long-term expansion? We can easily expand even within the infamy limits, but the AI doesn't see the pattern when a country has been expanding continuously for half the game.
I don't want to make a direct comparison, but in Civ5, the AI knows when you are trying to win the game the same way as they are. I wonder could this general principle be applied to EU, so the AI would at least become conscious of a country expanding way too far outside it's original borders through foul means...
I heard exactly the same words from one of the Muzzy Lane guys (they do the Making History games for the record) and I'd just like to say thanks for coming along to the panel. Oh and they are currently working on a World War I game, so best of luck with that. This is where the Media comes in though, because one of the challenges with selling strategy games is to explain what the game is about. The more coverage we get the more people will know about the genre and the easier it becomes to explain what your game offers to a player.
The problem with AI is defining things like expanding too much. How much is too much? It is hard to quantify in an abstract sense. If you have a fixed victory condition(s) like in Civ5, the AI can easily measure how close you are to victory and thus assess your relative threat. With a more open setting like in EU it becomes far more difficult.
I actually have a fantasy that they will make a WW1 Band of Brothers style show, but from the German POV...
Yeah, I see your point. I wouldn't want the AI from Civ5 (which actively tries to win the game) in Paradox games. I don't know though, maybe something like a sliding scale of infamy or some 'homeland' cores... it would be hard to quantify how much is too much, but it would be cool if the collective AIs could have some indication that one country is going mad with expansion. Anyway as you know V2 is my game and the problem's been solved nicely there!
Yeah, I see your point. I wouldn't want the AI from Civ5 (which actively tries to win the game) in Paradox games. I don't know though, maybe something like a sliding scale of infamy or some 'homeland' cores... it would be hard to quantify how much is too much, but it would be cool if the collective AIs could have some indication that one country is going mad with expansion. Anyway as you know V2 is my game and the problem's been solved nicely there!
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Of course it can, it's been done many times, including by AGEOD (now Paradox France). The problem is making a good game of it. The usual review of AH's The Guns of August is that 'it feels like WWI—the problem is, it feels like WWI!'
So far, the most successful treatment is Paths of Glory, currently the 20th ranked game over at BGG, which is not a wargame-centric site by any means. Though I prefer the related Pursuit of Glory.
The challenge has always been to get to the people who do not yet know they like historical strategy games. Why don't they know already? They've never tried one, so any opinions they have are hearsay, all too often on the level of editors telling them 'never mind, you're not interested'.
From my observations at BGG, one of the best advertisements for wargames is to let the people who enjoy them sit around and talk to each other for a while, while also talking about other games that interest them. There is a steady stream of people who ask, 'Okay, I've been hearing about these games for a while, and I've got to try one out. Here's my constraints, what do you suggest?' Not all of them will like them, but they are at that point making an informed decision. And of course, some do find an entire new vista opening up before them....
I don't know that it's the difficulty, per se, that needs to be adjusted. It's the continuity. The previous episode of TMA was about CKII, and they pointed out that it actually does a very effective job of putting the brakes on the player, because no matter how powerful and respected you are, you're going to die, and you have to rebuild that respect and loyalty again, and that period seriously curtails your power.
Now, that doesn't help so much in the EU or Victoria model, but it is well worth keeping in mind. Generally, large empires tend to come apart from centrifugal forces, and those are perhaps underestimated. Of course doing that properly, without the player feeling like he's being punished is the problem....
Well, you could make a game set on the East front. Perhaps, I don't know.
I'd like a game set just before ww1. With all the intrigue that will end up in the war, which then ends the game. Something like defcon, which is an awesome game.
Troy here, and yeah, that was my point in a nutshell. This is not about talking to strategy gamers - this is about getting the word out that there is an entire beautiful and wide corpus of gaming beyond Sims and Civ and Total War (all of which I love and play) that can be sampled and celebrated.
As a strategy gamer, I want more people playing these games because they are enjoyable, they are truly creative and I think there is a vast constituency of gamers that could embrace strategy as a genre (also, I think there are more of us out there than most editors know - we're just used to being ignored). Now maybe Hearts of Iron or Victoria won't get warm hugs; they are often a cold embrace even for die hards.
The panel was a lot of fun, and I'd like to thank Paradox for letting Chris participate. He was a great sport and I love working with him.
Oh, and War of the Roses and Showdown Effect both look amazing. Working at the booth and seeing all the con attendees drop by and talking to them was a great pleasure.
Yes you could. The problem is convincing people that it's a good idea, especially in the English-speaking world, which has problems of getting out of the rut (trench) of the Western Front, which from a game standpoint is the toughest theater to work with.
But not impossible, and over the last decade opinion is slowly swinging around, at least in wargame (boardgame) circles, largely thanks to Ted Racier. Paths of Glory has done a lot to rehabilitate the image of WWI as a gameable subject, as has his Clash of Giants series (operational level WWI, generally split between East and West front subjects).
Also, my understanding is that 1914: Twilight in the East is a great study of how the armies of the Great War worked (all on the campaign that led to Tannenberg). It's big enough to (so far) scare me off as a boardgame, though sooner or later I will have to try it on Vassal. An actual computer port would have me leaping on it in minutes.
There's also some more tactical titles that I'm not really aware of.
That's called Origins of WWI.
Haven't played it, but the very similar Origins of WWII is a fun, light, quick game, that desperately needs a graphical refresh. It is simple enough to be a fairly limited game, a dash of extra depth would be good.Hmm, something akin to Days of Decision set before WWI could be a very interesting subject. Or, maybe something more focused on the Balkans.
Yeah, we tend to have very similar outlooks on this. Except when Bruce Geyrk goes on a rant, and then I'm cheering him all the way.