Join us as we trawl through cool news from the world of 4X and strategy.
This is not your usual news bulletin (we have plenty of that elsewhere!), more just talking about things that caught our eye.
So, what are Sundays for?
Sundays are for:
- going for a run with your (willing) dog through a very muddy park
- showering the dog (less willing)
- having a shave
- discovering your phone facial recognition is glitching because you have had a shave
- playing Merchants and Marauders, Age of Wonders 4 and Absolum. Also, *starting* tom play Terra Invicta.
So, thoughts and news this week.
- This article and this video caught my eye. I remain sceptical of CA’s ability to create a historically grounded, authentic game, but I hope to be proven wrong. If history is something that appeals to you, please do read this blog.
- For some strange reason, I decided to watch Red Sonia. I cannot recommend it. But, it got me thinking, there is nothing really wrong with this movie perse, but everything it does (arena fights, love interest, cocky character, sfx etc) is done better elsewhere. But, this is a remake of a 1981 film which was a bit of a classic. What has this got to do with gaming? Well, it got me thinking. We all know the venerable elders of the industry, in the 4x genre these would be games like Civilization, Master of Magic, Masters of Orion and Alpha Centauri. Now, one of those was remade, quite faithfully apparently, fairly recently, and it did not do very well. So, be careful wishing for a remake, or exalting the praises of these older games. They were ground breaking, for sure, but if they were made today, would they be any good? So we should be looking ahead to games which approach the same ideas/concepts with modern tools and paradigms.
- On the subject of boardgames, shout out to Tabletop Simulator.
- Related to this, I played Merchants and Marauders recently, which is a fantastic and fun boardgame. Theme (what is theme?) and mechanics (what are those?) and victory conditions all combine to direct the player actions in a totally fun way. Even losing your galleon (ouch) is huge fun. We can learn something from boardgames when it comes to tight design, and linking victory conditions and theme to what the player does. So many 4X games seem to me increasingly like spreadsheet management with the burden on me to imagine I am an Emperor/God etc. I am not sure I agree with the emerging critique that current 4X games are too much like boardgames:
So, what games are you playing this week?
I am playing , Absolum (which continues to beat me down, frustrating!), Terra Invicta (well, I have booted it up – this is definitely not a game to rush into), AoW4 single and multiplayer (ongoing pbem organised by Doubt).
Enjoy, and keep exploring!
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Also known as BBB in many places, Andy is well known for his love of strategy games of all types, especially the Age of Wonders series.