<< Portico: June 2005

6/30/2005

Replaying The End Times

Two real-time strategy games based on the final battle between God and Satan are on their way. Can you save souls and battle demons in the name of all that is holy?

Heaven vs Hell is the one closest to release. Developed by TKO Software, HvH is set in a world where human science has become so powerful that it is a threat to God's creation, so the divine and loving lord decides to smite it so he can start from scratch. Satan takes the chance to start Armageddon and grab as many souls as he can. So we have God vs. Satan vs. Humans. I have no idea how you begin to balance sides when two are powerful mystical forces and one is an elaborate primate, but it might have something to do with all that advanced science.

The trailer for HvH really emphasizes Satan, which I guess is supposed to be cool and edgy. Most of the screens look like bad speed metal album covers.

Very recently, it has been announced that there will be a game based on the popular Apocalyptic novel Left Behind. The RTS, named Eternal Forces, is due for release this coming winter. Players take control of either the forces of good (the Tribulation Forces) or the armies of evil (
Global Community Peacekeepers). Yeah, I know evil gets a lame sounding army, but remember that to the Left Behind authors, the United Nations is evil.

If you read the Left Behind ministry's website, they have a subsection devoted to an explanation about how the games industry is big money. Instead of an evangelical rant about games as a corrupting influence or how D&D is the tool of the devil, it is a "We can get a piece of this action" explanation of how games fit into their business model. Because Left Behind is big business.

But back to the game. You will be able to play either side, so I guess that the forces of darkness can overwhelm the earth. This is purely a fight of humans versus humans, though, and takes place in the period of wars and rumors of wars before the Second Coming. Therefore, you can play the game and not worry about too much blasphemy.

Much of the game will supposedly center on the conversion of units to your side and the setting will be New York City. The urban landscape is an interesting idea, one used to great effect in certain scenarios in the recent Act of War. Good Multiplayer will need a greater variety of maps, however, and at this point there doesn't seem to be any discussion of that.

6/27/2005

G-Phoria snubs strategy

G4's annual award show has announced its nominees. The voice performance categories are - as usual - dominated by B-list celebrities instead of by the everyday voice actors who bring a lot of character to everything they do without breaking the bank. Sure, it could be the only time that Brooke Burke ever wins anything, but there's a principle here.

My main grievance is with the total absence of any strategy games whatsoever. There is no strategy game category and there are zero nominees in any of the others.

Could it be that the awards are for console games only? The presence of World of Warcraft and City of Heroes would lead you to think that PC Games are invited to the party. But since they are the only PC exclusive titles there, apparently not.

The Entertainment Software Association reports that strategy games are by far the most popular genre on the PC. They almost triple the share of consumers that role-playing games do. Of course, strategy games are almost completely absent on the console scene, though older strategy titles are finding their way onto handhelds.

So, no Rome: Total War. No Sims 2.

The PC's declining share of the market has led to some disrespect from G4 - serious disrespect. I can think of a half-dozen PC games released in their eligibility window that deserve to be on that list. But PC games are apparently not cool or hip or edgy or whatever. Of course, it was the same last year, but with the MMO world showing that there are still cool things that you can't do in front of your TV, you would think that G4 would think outside the console box.

Of course, this is the same network that brings you video vixens and lets on air personalities moderate console product launches. But it is also the televised voice of gaming. And except for Screen Savers, there's not a lot of computer stuff going on.

6/25/2005

Hell, but with crates

Ever wanted to play a game based on Shakespeare? How about Melville?

Well now you can! " Great Books Games aims to develop gaming franchises centered about rich stories contained in the Great Books." And they will start with Dante's Inferno.

This isn't real, but it should be. A game based on Red Badge of Courage? Don't we have that with Sid Meier's Gettysburg? How would you capture Hamlet in a game? It's like a grand love letter to overambitious game designers around the world.

I love how they trumpet the educational value: "GBG games will have great educational value: as long as kids/teens are shooting/flying/racing, why not expose them to classical art and literature?"

Hilarious.

I can imagine the Inferno game now.

"YOU ARE IN A ROOM OF RIGHTEOUS PAGANS. WILL YOU SMITE THEM?" YES
"SORRY. THEY ARE ALREADY DEAD."

If they borrow from Daikatana, you'll probably get killed if Virgil gets stuck on a doorway. And what exactly will you be doing here? I know I asked for religion in games, but medieval Catholicism isn't quite what I expected.

(Thanks to Josh over at Cathode Tan.)

Slow summer for strategy? Not quite

This list at Review Outpost suggests that the next six weeks will be pretty bare for PC Games in general and strategy games in particular. In August we get Stalingrad and Clan Wars as well as a new tycoon game. Battlestations: Midway is billed as a strategy game, but most of the screens seem very action oriented. After August, things pick up. But it could be a dry summer.

Thanks to Matrix Games and Shrapnel Gmaes, though, there are other options.

Crown of Glory has just gone gold. It is the first of three Napoleonic themed games that Matrix has in the hopper, with Empires at Arms and Black Power Wars. Crown of Glory will be officially released by the end of next week, but no dates on the others.

Shrapnel looks to be having a busy summer. The Falkland Wars: 1982 is now shipping. Based on the Armored Task Force engine/ruleset, it could be as impenetrable as Raging Tiger is to me. But the fierce infantry combat of that recent war should make the game a must have for serious modern warsimmers. Salvo has gone gold; it's another Age of Sail type game that seems like it will sacrifice graphic beauty for historical options. A fantasy strategy game called Land of Legends is targeted for release next month, as is the next segment in the Horse & Musket series. The latter title, dubbed Prussia's Glory, looks like it will cover much of the same ground as Dragoon did.

The big problem for these indie online publishing houses is getting the word out. Though Wargamer can be counted on to review almost every single major release from both Matrix and Shrapnel, most publications skip the coverage altogether. Dragoon has four reviews listed on Gamerankings. Matrix's two Tin Soldiers games do better but no review from Gamespot or Gamespy and none from Computer Gaming World. IGN reviewed the Caesar variant, but not the other. (There may be magazine reviews of the Caesar game in the hopper; PCGamer reviewed the Alexander one.)

So if you rely on official release dates from online sources, you could miss some stuff. Gamespot has a listing for Salvo, but not Land of Legends or Falklands War. Gamespy has Falklands but not Salvo or Land of Legends. Both have listings for Crown of Glory.

Most serious strategy gamers know about both Matrix and Shrapnel. Both are important to the indie strategy community, and, like strategy publishers since time immemorial have published as many cubic zirconiums as they have diamonds.

Thanks to them, I might be able to get through the summer with a stream of worlds, old and new, to conquer.

6/24/2005

Best Game Writers in the Business Here

Well, here. Except for the ridiculous nod to "Game Informer staff" (Come on, guys. Put your name down. Stand up for your opinions. Afraid of backing up those scores divided into .25 increments?), I have no real problems with the list. Well, two.

First, putting Scott Kurtz in the same game-writing category as Jerry "Tycho" Holkins is puzzling since PvP has become more a traditional (but still funny) workplace comedy more than a game or gamer satire. (Check out his archives for how much more frequent the game humor was at the beginning.) As hit or miss as the Penny Arcade comics can sometimes be, the commentary is always worthwhile.

Second, I didn't make the list.

No need to wait: Paradox Beta Patches

I'm the type who usually waits for official patches. The idea of using user created mods to fix game issues usually puts me off for some reason, and patches that are "in progress" are even more worrisome. Why apply a piece of software that isn't finished to a game that mostly is? Enter Paradox and the beta patch.

For quite a while now, Paradox has been working on a patch for Crusader Kings. This medieval strategy game is my favorite Paradox title since Europa Universalis II because, as I noted in my review, it's like a soap opera set in the Middle Ages. Royal dynasties by way of Dynasty, if you will.

Still, the retail game had some major issues on the strategy end, especially regarding the Crusades which gave their name to the game. The 1.04a patch fixed a lot of this, but there was a general consensus that another patch was needed.

Paradox has never been afraid of patches. EU2 has eight. The first EU had 10. I think they only stopped at 3 for Victoria I think because that game is probably unfixable. But the constant testing of patches to satisfy one of the most vocal communities in the strategy game world probably took a toll on the development of new product. So they took advantage of that vocal community in the most constructive way possible. They designed a beta patch process where interested players could apply patches in progress and offer feedback along the way.

The one obvious problem with this is that people who don't know it is going on because they don't frequent the official forum are stuck with an older patch and miss a lot of the cool stuff going on.

The best thing about this process is that user input has meant that there is a lot of cool stuff going on.

Most of the changes in the Crusader Kings beta patch are related to the role-playing element that makes CK the most personal of the Paradox grand strategy games. There are now events that make regencies more full of intrigue, that force your lord to deal with the politics of having a bastard and that make changing your laws to suit your game more dependent on the support of your vassals or the church. The domestic side, always the richest part of the game, is now infinitely richer.

There are some stability issues with the beta patch (dated June 3rd if you are interested), but this patch is one of the best improvements to a peronal favorite game that didn't come in an expansion pack. If you haven't looked at Crusader Kings in a while, take another look with the beta patch. It's one of the best examples of community pickiness being used for good instead of evil.

It's important to emphasize that Paradox can do this because they have devoted considerable time and effort to cultivating a strong connection with their fans. At times the forums are like echo chambers - parroting the official line and shouting down dissent. But most of the time, the Paradox community shows its strength through a deep understanding of what the game designers are trying to do. I can think of few communities that have such general goodwill for the developers of the games that they have been drawn to. (Only Bioware comes immediately to mind.)

If I was giving a review of the beta patch, it would get a 4/5. The beta patch process would get four and a half.

If you still want to wait for the official patch, they are aiming for 1.05 by the end of summer. That will probably spell the end of the patching process, but at least it is going out on a high note.

6/23/2005

Carnival Numero 3

The third Carnival of Gamers is up at Man Bytes Blog. (What a great name for a blog.)

Enjoy all the unfiltered opinions.

6/22/2005

Ever want to write about games?

A different type of post here. My sometime writing home Game Method is looking for more writing staff, preferably people who can contribute to the site in other ways as well. Here's the link. They cover consoles and PCs, so whatever your poison is.

The payment for this? Well, nothing except seeing your name on a byline or a staff page. The occasional game.

So why do it? Well, if you want to ever get paid for this, you need a portfolio of work to show and you can only get that through writing for free. Bleak, but true. There is an art to this sort of thing and it takes time to find your own voice.

Why do it for Game Method? Because I like these guys, I guess. The site has been in a bit of a slow period after E3 (recovery period, I suppose), but I can vouch for the professionalism and courtesy of the senior staff. (The editor in chief even has the gall to edit me!) They aren't Gamespy or Gamespot, but they are real pros at what they do and I want them to make their little corner of the internet something worth visiting.

If you are at least curious, drop them a line.

6/21/2005

Gaming and the Quest for Knowledge

Does this sound like you?

"One test of how well you connect with a game like this is how much it makes you want to read background material."

When I read this line in Bruce Geryk's review of recent submarine games (Computer Games Magazine, July 2005, pg 65), I smiled at the apt phrase and moved on. His reviews are usually full of gems like this. His review of Gary Grigsby's World at War in the same issue, for example, likens it to a "handful of clumsy dice." But the truth of the book quote was only hammered into me this afternoon.

The same friend who had all those problems with Pirates a while ago is now playing Rome: Total War based on my recommendation. This time he borrowed my copy for testing before buying his own. (A wise move, even though he eventually got Pirates working.) He is now in the middle of reading a novelization of the rise of Caesar and is asking me for recommendations on other books to read about the period. This was the second time in the day that I was pressed for recommendations on Roman history to read but the only time that I could trace the renewed interest to a game.

He is loving Rome, obviously, but he is moving beyond just the game to want to know more about the society, the politics and the war. I mentioned in passing that the dictator Sulla died of natural causes in retirement and he asked the perceptive question of whether or not Caesar would have eventually retired.

Now I am thinking back to all the games I've played that have led me to read more about the period. I know that Europa Universalis got me interested in the Thirty Year's War, as well as conquistadors, and my hours with Sid Meier's Gettysburg were followed by binging on books about the American Civil War.

Since I devour strategy games at a pretty good pace, you can probably guess that I already have an interest in history - especially military and political history. (Nothing against social history. But my tastes have always been pretty conservative even if my politics aren't.) But not every game send me to the library. Shogun did not inspire an interest in Tokugawan Japan and Age of Kings certainly didn't make me interested in castles and knights.

Sometimes, as Geryk says, a game just strikes the right note and you want to learn more. It has happened to me outside of the strategy arena. Though I've always been a baseball fan, I remember Oldtime Baseball inspiring my love of baseball history. I just had to know who all these dead guys were. And that was just a stats pack for Tony LaRussa Baseball when it came down to it. I connected with Oldtime Baseball, though, in a way that I have with few action sports titles since.

As a strategy consumer, I am going to suggest that developers of historical strategy games include a recommended reading list to go with their games. That would save me bugging my friends for recommendations on Operation Barbarossa.

6/20/2005

Gaming Blindspots

A guest writer over at Bastard Numbered has hit the nail on the head and coined a phrase that I think will work its way into my repertoire. Why do certain people fail at certain tasks in games?

"Frosty" says that people have blindspots in games that develop largely through getting accustomed to certain mechanics. In case, years of playing shooters that showed you everything has made him a sitting duck in Half Life 2 when enemies start hitting him from behind.

My blindspot is probably aggression in RTS games. Most of the early ones allowed you to build up a nice defense, amass a huge army and then destroy the opponent. The more recent ones discourage rushing, to an extent, but also make turtling much less effective. This new paradigm in RTS games means that my years of expertise are now useless. This is game design getting better melding with my gaming time getting shorter leading to my total humiliation at almost all multiplayer RTS games.

Anyway, read "Frsoty's" piece and share your own blind spots.

Strategy Games of the Half Year

With no major strategy releases due by the end of the month, this is as good a time as any to unveil my picks for the three top strategy games so far in 2005. It has been a pretty uninspiring start to the year, with all the big goodies waiting until the fall and winter.

Two of the big yawns of the year were Empire Earth II, a mediocre seen-it-all-before RTS, and, apparently, Imperial Glory. I haven't played IG yet, so it wouldn't make my list anyway, but the reviews have persuaded me to wait a little. You'll get more from me on it when the time is right and I have devoted some time to it. Shame, because I really liked the demo.

The rules are simple - it has to have been released in 2005 and I must have played it. It also has to be a strategy or war game.

Number 3: Bull Run: Take Command 1861 (MadMinute Games/Activision Value) - If this isn't the best budget strategy/war game in five years, I'm hard pressed to think what else could be. It rewards patience and moves the player from the omnipotent commander to just another officer. You stumble in the dark a little, have encounters almost by accident and somehow a big battle happens - sometimes. The interface isn't great and it is much too easy to get lost. The beautiful scenery looks out of place with the blobby soldiers and choppy animation. But this is one great battle game that has me anxiously anticipating their next game.

Number 2: Act of War: Direct Action (Eugen Systems/Atari) - Who'd have thunk it? A stylish B-movie with lots of things that blow up real good as well as an excellent game. The skirmish mode has grown on me, but I still think the real strength of this game is its campaign missions. Leaving aside the hammy acting and politics, the city battles are tense and exciting. Each side's best units can really destroy a world, so much of the skirmish game is a rush to get there, but I can think of no game which brings Bruckheimer to life the way that Act of War does.

Number 1: Darwinia (Introversion) - Small, charming, a little repetitive but probably the most tightly designed and immersive strategy game out there so far this year. I sometimes wonder how much of the design is due to practical constraints (you can only have so many "programs" running at once) and how much of it is derived from the setting (a computer world that looks like virtual fantasies from 15 years ago). There is no complicated research tree, and, yes, a lot of the game's appeal comes from the style of the art. But art and function meld beautifully here. I gave it 5 stars over at DIYGames, and I don't regret a single one.

Wow. No sequels. No remakes. Two indies.

Somehow I think my end of year list will have all sequels and remakes from major players - this is going to be a huge Xmas for strategy gamers. But pick up each of these three games before the giants return to the field.

6/19/2005

Lack of updates and acting civilized

I've spent the last few days working on my book and finishing up a review for CGM, so I haven't been updating here. I notice people keep coming to read, so I feel kind of guilty every time that there isn't anything new.

What gaming I have been doing has been returning to a comfortable old friend.

What is it about Civilization that keeps me coming back? If you spend a lot of time on message boards (and I do), you would get the impression that Civ 3 was disaster of epic proportions - it has cheating AI, ridiculous resource requirements, broken diplomacy and a predictable path every game out.

All of this is true, but it works anyway. The Conquests expansion is probably one of the most remarkably excellent expansion packs in recent memory and makes a very good game nearly perfect - in spite of all the obvious criticisms.

I tend to play on Warlord or Regent level - not the higher levels - because the AI cheating is less noticeable and I can enjoy the game at its best. Civ is about the exploration and the conquest. Finding new resources, building the perfect city, making all quake before you. Though I can win on the higher levels, they are less fun - largely because the AI shuts me out of the diplomatic horse-trading. And when an entire aspect of the game design is closed to you, there isn't a lot of incentive to keep going.

With the Conquests expansion, you can play one of the historic scenarios they have or you can play an ordinary Civ game with one of the custom unit sets for the game. The new cultures are OK and the new units aren't great (though I love the Numidian Mercenary unit), but the new wonders and automation shortcuts improve things noticeably.

Civilization IV is still many months off, and you can find a lot of news about it on your favorite gaming sites. I don't like the look of it very much, though the design ideas seem to be going in the right direction. With Civ3 still entertaining me, I can wait.

6/17/2005

A new way of making a magazine?

The Gamer's Quarter has recently made its second issue available. It's a free download and a long PDF - over 100 pages - full of nice pictures, mediocre cartoons and lots of text. This is a New Games Journalism magazine.

Which apparently amounts to talking about games that no one plays any more.

I kid, but a lot of the analysis is pretty focused on memories of games that are long past. So it isn't journalism so much as it is criticism, but I think the writers would admit to that. This is about gaming like the New York Review of Books is about literature.

Only the NY Review mostly talks about books that people can buy. Most of this magazine is about stuff that is either barely remembered or completely inaccessible.

There is an interesting article in "defense" of New Games Journalism that, I think, goes too far in attacking "Old Games Journalism", but it is probably designed to ruffle feathers. Calling reviewers who get free games or industry access "pets" is as silly as calling Ben Brantley a pet of Broadway because he gets to see the shows for free. There is certainly a difference between most journalism and entertainment media ('cause that's what we are), but credibility depends on more than the fact that reviewers and previewers can get early access to bits and bytes. Because, unlike political journalists or the guy covering city hall, when an entertainment reviewer praises a piece of crap, the gamers know it. Too bad more of them don't pay attention to bylines.

Anyway, this magazine is not a bad thing. If people want to understand gaming as a cultural and social phenomenon, they have to move beyond the preview/review/cheats format that typifies game writing. And I think that gaming blogs and dedicated zines like The Gamers's Quarter are doing this.

But the magazine has also confirmed in my mind the lack of commercial appeal for this sort of thing. The thing about gamers is that they don't take their hobby all that seriously. (I loved the GQ article on "Pongism" because it was so irreverent.) But media criticism does, to some extent, require that you take a long hard look at your medium. Plus, gamers who read magazines are also the type who tell you that you are a pompous ass on the Internet.

I would love for The Gamer's Quarter to take on some more current games or at least place more of the nostalgia in a context that young gamers can understand. I've been at this a while - I get where they are coming from. But just as this discussion of summer movies posits a time when blockbusters did not rule the earth, good criticism should bring past and present together.

I will keep reading, though.

Strategy still strong

Here's the 20 best selling games for the week ending June 4.

1) Guild Wars - NCsoft
2) World Of Warcraft - Vivendi Universal
3) Star Wars Galaxies: The Total Experience - LucasArts
4) The Sims 2 - Electronic Arts
5) The Sims 2 University Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
6) Half-Life 2 - Vivendi Universal
7) Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords - LucasArts
8) Empire Earth 2 - Vivendi Universal
9) Lego Star Wars - Eidos
10) Stronghold 2 - 2K Games
11) Zoo Tycoon 2 - Microsoft
12) Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 - Atari
13) Sid Meier's Pirates - Atari
14) Rome: Total War - Activision
15) Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: Century Of Flight - Microsoft
16) The Sims Deluxe - Electronic Arts
17) Warcraft III Battle Chest - Vivendi Universal
18) Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic - LucasArts
19) Doom 3 - Activision
20) Sim City 4 Deluxe - Electronic Arts

The most surprising thing is that three MMOs rule the list. Anyone who says that a game has to have single player to be successful are clearly behind the curve. And it's nice to see Guild Wars on top for a change.

What surprised me was the continuing strength of sims and strategy games. Three Sims titles, Rome, Sim City 4, Stronghold 2, Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, Zoo Tycoon 2, the Warcraft III set and, shockingly, Empire Earth 2. Ten of the twenty - half - are strategy or strategy lite games. None of them are available on a console.

A more worrying note: Excepting Guild Wars, all the titles on the list are sequels, remakes, franchise knockoffs or games using licensed properties. This is not that different from any console list, which will usually have a good proportion of sequels or franchise titles, but it is certainly harder to point to AAA PC games with no progenitor than it is to point to God of War, Mercenaries or Katmari Damacy - all of which will likely become franchises.

So, everything old is new again.

6/15/2005

Age of Empires III trailer up

You can find the new trailer for Age of Empires III at Gamespot.

In a way, game trailers are silly idea. They usually show little gameplay and tell you nothing you don't already know. Unlike movie trailers, there is zero chance that they will spoil a game for you or reveal plot points that are best kept under wraps.

This being the internet, there is still an entire site devoted to game trailers. Thanks to my friends over at Computer Games Magazine news, I can even watch old game trailers and commercials from around the world. (The Intellivision ones remind me how much I miss George Plimpton.)

With the AoE3 trailer, the last 40 seconds or so show some gameplay images, but they are intercut with cutscenes and edited into small segments that make it clear that this is very much an Age of game, but fail to really separate it from the others.

And why do all RPG and strategy trailers fit that cliche "It was a time...of war. A time...of love" style? This one goes for the "They came for wealth. They stayed for war. The winner is teh k1ng" motif.

The AoE3 trailer does nothing to increase or dampen my enthusiasm or anticipation for the game. It's an obvious purchase, and will probably be the game I spend all Boxing Day with. Unless I happen to install Civ IV first.

6/14/2005

Imperium: Rise of Rome

In keeping with my obsession for ancient history (sorry, WW2 buffs - Panzers just don't do a lot for me), I want to introduce my readers to a small European project that has me really excited.

Imperium: Rise of Rome is a tiny operation. And it has been in development for a couple of years now. But it could be everything that Pax Romana should have been but wasn't. The lead designer, Michael Akinde, has a deep interest in ancient history and has made army sets for the Hoplites card game.

I was involved in testing an early version of the battle system, and it was pretty rudimentary. But it was user friendly and clearly on its way to something better.

Like Pax Romana, Imperium will have the Roman player deal with the vagaries of Republican government, but Akinde has wisely chosen not to make the player do this every year. This is ahistorical, for sure, but it is an intelligent concession to a player's desire to deal with those sorts of things every few years instead of being a constant pressure on decision making.

Akinde is hoping to give the Romans a different feel from the merchant oligarchy of Carthage or the Successor Monarchies of the Hellenistic World. Game characters will have certain expectations and traits that will affect how well they respond to player orders or offers.

It remains to be seen how much of this ambitious design can actually be implemented. As progress has been made, the revealed design has become clearer and less pie-in-the-sky. I don't often champion games that haven't been finished yet, but, as a champion of independent strategy games, I couldn't let this project remain undiscovered.

6/13/2005

Great Invasions on its way

Now that their website is up, the makers of Great Invasions have announced 15 July as the date that their game hits "your favorite store". They have announced Digital Jesters as the UK publisher. No word on when or if it will make its way over to America.

If you haven't heard of this game, don't be too surprised. It is the sequel to Pax Romana, an overambitious mess of a game. The lead designer, Philippe Thibault was one of the brains behind the original Europa Universalis board game and helped with the transition of that title to the computer arena.

Full disclosure: I was a beta tester for Pax Romana and was assigned to be a beta tester for Great Invasions. I never spent much time on it, and haven't played the game since I downloaded the first build all those months ago.

Great Invasions deals with the collapse of Rome and the rise of barbarian empires through the dark ages. It also has religion as an important characteristic of your state culture, including both Catholicism and Orthodoxy as well as the rise of Islam as a challenger faith to the east.

Will it get a US release? Strength and Honour from Magitech is still looking for a publisher in the UK and US, so indie developers are seemingly having troubles finding a distributor for ancient grand strategy. Strength and Honour has been in Australia and Poland for months, and Magitech is a Canadian developer.

Anyway, if any of you see either of these games floating around your local shops, drop me a line.

Governors, viceroys and underlings

As I work my way through Supreme Ruler 2010, I am astonished both by its ambition and its solutions to overreach. Though you will have to wait until the review is published to get my full opinions on it, I can confidently say that it does a much better job than Superpower 2, the only other modern geopolitics sim out there.

Part of their solution to user confusion is rife with peril - the assistant manager.

The use of a territorial governor to handle micromanagement is an old answer to a growing problem. As games get large and more complicated, designers are confronted with the basic fact that gamers either can't process all the information they being fed or they have no desire to deal with the increasing levels of micromanagement. If these duties can be delegated to an AI helper, the player can focus on the big picture.

In Civ III we see this in its most barebones form. The production queue and resource management of cities can be given to a "governor". The governor is assigned a priority (happiness, city growth, production, etc.) and then the player doesn't have to worry about it. It works well enough for some chores. It can manage happiness reasonably well, and can prevent unrest in many circumstances. When it comes to military production, it tends to create a more balanced force than is usually necessary for your basic game of Civ.

It's certainly much better than the infamous governors in Masters of Orion III, who would produce hundreds of transports even when their orders were overridden. Though patches did ameliorate this to some extent, the developers were never able to make the viceroys trustworthy.

Supreme Ruler uses cabinet ministers to handle government policy and my opinion is still being formed on how well this works.

But efficiency of the governors is only part of the problem. If developers can make an AI that can manage my cities as well as I can, I would be an idiot to not use them. But, if they can get to that point, what is the player supposed to do? Micromanagement is really an essential game mechanic in a lot of strategy games and if it is removed the designers need to find something else for the player to do.

Right now, most players don't use automated governors because they like the micromanagement but because the AI substitutes are so terrible. So the choice is between queues and losing. Most gamers will choose the queues. And complain all the way.

But if Civ, for example, had good city managers the player would have little to do beyond set the priorities for each city, choose the next research topic and conduct diplomacy. If Civ had a large canvas with a wide range of diplomatic options and conditions (like Europa Universalis) this would be more than enough. But then, it wouldn't be Civ.

So now, with Supreme Ruler, I am trying to find out what my role is. Am I a senior bureaucrat or a leader? Or does Battlegoat Studios see those as two sides of the same coin?

6/11/2005

Games and Religion

Christian Game Developers will be holding a conference in Portland, Oregon at the end of the month. Their "three-fold mission" includes the usual exchange on game development and making contacts with developers with similar interests as well as the not-quite typical prayer session for the industry at large.

Given the secular nature of popular entertainment at large, the lack of obviously Christian or religious games on best-seller lists should not be surprising. Given the reluctance of most game developers to deal with Ideas at all, their unwillingness to include messages of faith (or lack thereof) is standard operating procedure.

So, we have role-playing games with clerics who pray, but their faith is usually unmentioned. We have cultural distinctions based on religion in grand strategy or even Crusades, but the player never really engages with the religious issues that surround them. Religion, when present, is either an historical curiosity or a route to a flamestrike spell.

Probably the most famous Christian game is Catechumen, an odd first-person shooter that had the player converting enemy soldiers by zapping them with a magic sword. But there was no real religion or faith there, so even Christians don't know how to make really Christian games.

Civilization IV will include historic religious faiths, and this idea is rife with peril. The religions will have to have "bonuses" of some kind, but this risks reinforcing preconceptions of what religions are like. Not to mention that, in treating historic religions as interchangeable parts of a society, they miss the fact that many people take their religions as truth, not cultural constructs. I don't subscribe to the idea that this is another example of Sid Meier's insidious leftist agenda (if anything, the Civ games privilege conservative realpolitik over internationalist ideas), but it does just place religion into the scale as just another part of a civilization - something all cultures have, but no more.

And there is nothing wrong with this. Even Christians like myself can appreciate alternate views of the place and purpose of religion in the development of humankind. As a mainstream Protestant, I probably have an easier time with this than my evangelical brethren.

But there is a great challenge to be taken up here. How do we communicate values in a game? Role-playing games seem to be the obvious avenue for this since they require the player to make choices. If the trade-offs are meaningful - if there is a sense of temptation to follow a certain path - the player could get a window into their own souls. Bioware's dark/light role-playing system in Jade Empire and Knights of the Old Republic is a very crude version of this, since "light" inevitably means healing and "dark" means all the cool pyrotechnics. Apparently the good doctors at Bioware never read Genesis.

As I said above, the inability or unwillingness of game designers to confront religion is just a symptom of a larger reluctance to have their games confront anything beyond frame rates and unit balance. Games aren't messageless, but what they communicate is more by what they don't address than by what they do.

6/09/2005

Caesar IV?

I spent a good part of the winter obsessing over Tilted Mill's Children of the Nile. It was the perfect little city builder, and coming from some former Impressions developers, was everything I expected and more.

Most of the critical responce was more tepid than my own, but the game seemed to be received well enough for Tilted Mill to keep in business. Still, there is no word of either a new game on the way or an expansion or sequel for Chidren of the Nile.

Meanwhile, it looks like Deep Silver will beat them to the Roman punch with Heart of Empire: Rome, a very pretty city builder being developed by deepRed. IGN has a lot of screenshots and a nice E3 preview here.

Even more ancients

Where the market was once starved for game with a sword and sandals theme, there is now a glut of projects in development or on the way. Longbow Digital Arts, a small Canadian gaming house heretofore focused on small arcade games including the excellent Breakout clone DX-Ball 2, has announced that it is making an ancient strategy game along the lines of Rome: Total War.

Hegemony: Philip of Macedon will focus on the career of the father of Alexander the Great. Philip was one of the great military innovators of the ancient world and is often credited with creating the unstoppable force that Alexander would use to conquer much of the known world.

The early video just shows soldiers marching, many with the Spartan lambda on their shields - an annoying but forgivable historical error that I fear Rome is reponsible for.

With Rome already out there (with an expansion on the way), Legion: Arena and Rise and Fall well into their development cycles, the piling on of ancient battle games has even me exhausted at this point.

What I really crave is a remake of the old CCS game Encyclopedia of War: Ancient Battles. It was an easily customizable game with a plethora of battle options. You could play not just Alexander's army, but different variants on that army. Think of playing DBA with a very generous friend. There was no strategic option, but it still has the most wide ranging and flexible army list ever made.

Well, I think I crave that. Maybe I just want an end to the cycle of ancient battle games and the broader the next one is, the less pressure there will be on me to buy whatever follows.

Anyway, no release date for Hegemony yet. And no word on whether or not there is a strategic component.

Carnival of Gamers II

The second edition of the Carnival of Gamers is now up at Mile Zero. Read some of what the gaming blogosphere has to offer.

6/08/2005

I think I've heard this before

A couple of days ago I read this informative little interview with Firaxis's Bill Caudill over at Computer and Video Games. The by-line is "staff", which should have set some alarm bells ringing. But the interview intro said "...we managed to catch a word with Barry Caudill, senior producer on the title, to catch up on all the latest news and learn how Civ IV could be the one to capture strategy fans' hearts all over again. Here's what we discovered"

Sounds legit.

Then, today, I see the exact same interview over at Fragland. No by-line or any indication of where the interview is from. Or at least none unless you click on the "News" section. Then it is apparent that the Q&A is from 2k Games itself - the publisher of Civ IV.

So either 2k Games is passing around interviews they did with Computer and Video Games, or - more likely - they are passing around a generic interview script for the smaller sites to put up as content. So the C&VG people did not "catch a word" with anybody or "discover" anything. The exact same interview has been posted on an Italian website and a Spanish one. The interviewer is never identified and the questions are generic enough to fit just about anywhere. A question on game balance, a question on handhelds, a question on consoles...nothing that would make the reader suspect that this is a corporate Q&A.

So, credit to Fragland for saying that the interview came from 2k Games. This should be more prominently posted with the interview itself and not just on the news post, but it's more than C&VG did. "Catch a word" indeed.

As for the interview itself, there is not a lot here that we do not already know. Civilization IV will be powered by Gamebryo and there will not be hardcoded civ traits - civ abilities will be connected to the leader you choose for your country.

This last bit is actually disappointing. It was much more fun to be addressed as King Troy than as President Napoleon, but I suppose there is no reason that picking a leader means that I am choosing a name.

And don't forget to check out the new screenshots at the official site. Gandhi looks a little suspicious.

6/06/2005

Diplomacy beta test

Paradox has opened applications to beta test their computer translation of Diplomacy. I am curious as to how they are going to make it work. The initial placeholder artwork in progress is pretty awful - at least I hope it is placeholder art.

I am certainly anxious enough to consider applying myself, but, to maintain my objectivity when the time comes to preview/review it, I've decided to forego applying. I have a minimal chance of success but if I were accepted to the beta test, the NDA would prohibit me from publishing gossip or rumors about how the game is progressing.

Early word is that the game will focus on the negotiation phase. The screenshots look very much like traditional board game Diplomacy, but one of the shots call the map "default". This means that either there are a variety of map designs being considered for the final version or that the game will allow playing different variants of the game.

You can unleash your inner Kissinger in November 2005.

Review update - Knights of Honor

My review of Knights of Honor is published in this month's (July) Computer Games Magazine. It's an enjoyable little game that has ambitions bigger than its originality. It treads some very familiar territory and seems to intentionally mimick every Medieval strategy game from the last five years.

This melange of other similar games mixes to create something very much like everything that has gone before but still ends up pretty unique. As a starter strategy game, I can't think of a better choice. Hardcore strategists will be entertained, but I have come to the conclusion that it works best as an introduction to more complex games.

Not that Knights of Honor doesn't have complexity. There can be a lot of things to consider in any decision you make, but there isn't so much going on at the same time that you will get overwhelmed by pop-ups, crises or wars.

6/05/2005

New Carnival of Gamers - and a cooldown

Another Carnival of Gamers - a collection of gaming blog posts - will be held at Mile Zero on June 9th. Check it out soon.

If you do go to Mile Zero, you will notice this little rant about a mini-controversy over the last Carnival. Thomas links to all the relevant parts of what passes for debate on the Internet. (What is it about this place that makes us all act like we are on The McLaughlin Group?). Instead of really dealing with what could have been an interesting discussion of editorial ethics (the whole thing started with a standard blogger screed against big game media as personified by Gamespy) the thing broke down into Matt Gallant defending his opinion of the original post against others who were angry that he dismissed the entire Carnival as pointless. CGM editor Steve Bauman got involved, and I found the whole thing ridiculous.

Anyway, in the comments of that post you can get my opinion on Thomas's summary, which ends up being a post about why Computer Games Magazine still sucks. (I am being a little glib, here, but he calling Mr. Bauman a liar and accusing CGM of misogyny gives me a little license here.)

I think Matt was wrong to dismiss the Carnival of Gamers based on a single blog post. I think that Peter exaggerates for effect in his original post on Gamespy and comes off sounding self-righteous and deserves a little slamming for it. Both make the cardinal error of dismissing swaths of good writing and editing based on one or two things they don't like.

This is the last I will say on this issue, since I think the whole fight is both pointless and counterproductive. Despite the numerous examples of bad strategy game writing out there, or noticeable cases of people reviewing games they only half-played, I write very little about that. Why? Because the best counter to bad game writing is good game writing. And in a small way, I try to do that. You may disagree.

For the first time, I am disabling comments on a post. If you have a complaint, email me. But I do not want this fight on my porch. Any comments about this post in another post will be immediately deleted.

I will continue to contribute to Carnival of Gamers because it is fun and helpful. God (and Steve) willing, I will continue to offer my services to Computer Games Magazine and any other big media that want me.

Games That Never Were: Twilyt Productions

How many games never get made because of where the developer is based? How many silicon dreams are dashed on the shoals of local interest?

One such story is the tale of Twilyt Productions, a South African company that sought to bring the violence of the colonial African period to your desktop. It announced two titles in its short life, Zulu War andAnglo-Boer War. Screenshots for both are still available at Gamespot.

Founded in 1999, Twilyt was well aware of the challenges presented by its location. In the interview with Gamespot, Managing Director Travis Bulford stated:

"Being in South Africa is a blessing and a curse for a young development studio. Costs are low here so financing our developments is not as expensive. On the other hand, we are isolated from the heart of the industry and need to make quite a few trips each year overseas to keep the ball rolling with international contacts both in publication and in technology."

The screens of the two games show similar artwork. Very polygonal soldiers shoot at each other, looking a little ridiculous. Even the 2D art of Shogun: Total War, released in 2000, is more attractive. But these are early development shots and should not be assumed to be representative of what the final games would have looked like.

The Imperial period of European expansion is certainly underexplored. There have been a couple of small wargames released that dealt with moments in the Scramble for Africa. The battles of Isandlwhana and Rorke's Drift have been fertile soil for wargamers. Independent wargame maker Incredible Simulations has had a Zulu War game since 1996. But the content matter is pretty foreign to both American and European gamers at large. The two Twilyt games were clearly not going to be huge hits and would only find success by targetting the strong and loud niche of wargamers.

Plus, for a developer with only 13 employees they had a lot of irons in the fire. They developed an Xbox game called Toxic Bunny 2 that never saw the light of day as well as the two ambitious strategy/wargames based on their local history.

Then, all of a sudden, Twilyt Productions closed down. It was reported that there was a lack of funds. This probably means that it couldn't find a publisher for its strategy games and wasn't making enough headway on Toxic Bunny to keep its doors open. Despite public confidence that it could find capital investment for its projects, there have no reports of new development.

Zulu War was to be a quite limited game, judging by the description. Despite the promise of multiplayer ladders, having a game with only two battles - and thos battles divided into 25 distinct chapters - does not sound especially appealing on its face. And, planning for an expansion before even finishing the first game is a bit of hubris. So it could not have been an easy sell to investors.

Undoubtedly, the fears expressed in the original Gamespot interview came home to roost in some respects. South Africa was still recovering from a popular peaceful revolution and years of sanctions, so any long term investment would have had to come from overseas. Face time is still precious and partially explains why, even here in America, there is a distinct regionalism to most computer game development and production. For all its beauty, South Africa is an ocean away.

The theme of the games probably played a role, as well. European Imperialism in Africa is both interesting and important. The battles - the focus of Twilyt's games - are only part of the story. But the story of a heavily armed European aggressor wiping out autonomous African kingdoms is not a pretty one, and considering that the target market of these games, would be a bit of a downer. Sure, the Zulus win at Isandlwhana. But a savvy player who knows why the British lost could turn Natal into a killing field. There is a reason why The Battle of Bull Run is not a popular subject in computer games.

When Shogun came out in 2000, marrying a fair strategy game to amazing battles, pure wargames with no strategy element must have seemed a little antiquated. Add in the fact that you have redcoats with rifles shooting at waves of spearmen and the game is a hard sell. Anglo-Boer War might have been a better place to start, but that conflict is likely even more obscure to potential investors than the Zulu War.

We don't know enough about Zulu War or Anglo-Boer War to assess whether they would have been truly interesting or not. They were a small development house, and there are hundreds just like them around the world. Were their eyes bigger than their stomachs? Did they overestimate the appeal of their local history to potential overseas investors? Their end did mean that we gamers were deprived of another look at an underexplored area of history.

6/03/2005

Joining the 21st Century

Thanks to Jim over at Bastard Numbered, I now have expandable posts for lengthier bits of fluff. The "read more" tag will be at the of every post, but, sadly, not all of them actually have more to read.

Confused? Don't be. It's just a way I can get more stuff on the front page without wearing out your scroll wheel unless you really want it.

6/02/2005

Calvin and Hobbes

Your favorite cartoon brat and stuffed tiger started as two of the great thinkers of the 16th and 17th centuries. John Calvin was the great Reformer whose strong opinions on right, wrong and the inevitable led to Puritanism and Presbyterianism. Thomas Hobbes was one of the first philosophers to put forth that all men were created equal, and that the only way to rein in this equality – which is mind is equality of murderous abilities – was to surrender all of our rights to an absolute sovereign.

What does any of this have to do with strategy gaming? More than you might think. These two men are not only giants of Western thought and civilization, they are the founders of the precepts that underlie almost every strategy game out there.

The link to Thomas Hobbes is obvious. In the Hobbesian mindset, a world without a government to enforce order, his state of nature, meant that people’s lives would be “nasty, brutish and short”. It was a war of “all against all.” In his magnum opus, Leviathan, he pointed out that while we had kings to keep us from killing each other in the domestic sphere; the international arena was still anarchic; no government enforced rules so it was a free for all.

And there we have all strategy gaming. Cooperation is a sucker’s game and conflict is the entire point of the exercise. Conflict is not only inevitable, it’s the rule set. Does anybody in Civ III trade iron or oil to rivals who don’t have them? Of course not, since these are the sinews of Civ-war. Collaborative victory is impossible in most strategy games and is generally unsatisfying.

But if you look around today, you will see that international relations is highly dependent on cooperation, trade and even has a fine amount of generosity and altruism in it. Countries do not live lives that are nasty, brutish and short and interstate war is the exception and not the rule. In fact, war between large powers has reached the point that it seems self-defeating to even conceive of it.

Why are there no strategy games that try to simulate this? Almost all of the large history spanning games make war more frequent at the end than at the beginning and none capture the true friendship that can grow between countries. If the world ever was Hobbesian, it’s certainly questionable if it still is.

Conflict may be more exciting to portray. You get explosions, neat weapons and the like. Trying to make a trade pact look exciting is a challenge for all the great graphic artists of our generation. But it would be something new and give players an interesting way to “win” a game without necessarily beating everyone into submission. Even “cultural” or “wonder” victories require you to either annex others or hold the wonder before an opponent knocks it down.

John Calvin’s connection is less obvious, and has not always been present. One of Calvin’s central precepts was predestination. In his learned theological interpretation of scripture, God – being omniscient and prescient – already knew who was saved and who wasn’t. Therefore, your fate is already decided. Any exercise of free will in this world is also preordained to achieve the God-established decision of who makes it into Heaven and who doesn’t.

Increasingly, developers of strategy games have tried to differentiate between opposing sides with more than just unit descriptions or force compositions. In the original Civilization, there were no differences between the opposing races except in how pretty their leader was. Warcraft had human and orc forces that were exactly the same except for the art. But ever since Starcraft blew everyone away with three wonderfully different and balanced forces, strategy game designers have ordained that certain cultures will have certain tendencies.

So, if you an easy early game in Civ III, you have to choose an “expansionist” race. If you randomly end up with the French, the rush to gunpowder becomes even more important. If you like artillery in Rise of Nations, the Turks are your best choice. If you choose a random race and end up with the Mongols, you’d be an idiot not to spam your empire with stables.

Cultural traits therefore determine the game you will play. And, since race is destiny, you can expect some of these issues to move from game to game because, as I wrote earlier, game designers tend to go back to the same templates for national powers. If you make a Rome that does not rely on heavy infantry, you are not only scoffing at history. You are risking the wrath of ten million gamers who know that Rome conquered the world because its infantry rocked. So it must rock in the game they are playing.

I know why developers do this. It provides a variety of different gameplay styles for the player and allows them to try to win games in different ways. Sure there is a best strategy for the Aztecs or the Egyptians, but they are different enough from each other to persuade the player that some thought went into balancing the game. And, since history is there, developers might as well use it as a baseline for each culture.

I have no major complaint with Calvinizing strategy games, but it does make me wonder whatever happened to the idea of gaming against an opponent with an identical set-up. In chess, the black pieces don’t get +1 moves with their pawns while White bishops can jump a single piece. The whole idea is to beat a force the same as your own without relying on magic powers or special advantages.

Of the two, I think that Hobbes puts greater constraints on developers and players than Calvin. The primacy of warfare and elimination as the endgames of strategy titles does give a perverted view of what international politics is all about. As powerful as Age of Empires is in teaching people about pikemen and trebuchets, are the messages that gamers get about war and politics any less important?

And if Will Wright can make care about making a virtual doll take a shower, don’t tell me that a game about real international politics would surely be dull. All it takes is some imagination and a willingness to move beyond the canon.

Yet another reason not to get cable

This year's E3 Game Critics Awards will be televised on the testosterone fueled Spike TV. Given that these awards are being judged by industry experts, I hope there will be a little more class and maturity than has been on display at Spike TV's annual game awards orgy, which usually has more rappers and B-movie actors than people actually connected to the industry. Given my lack of cable TV these days, I'll catch the recap later.

Taking a quick glance at the judges for this event, I find it surprising that so many non-gaming publications have judges on the panel. Maxim Magazine? Rolling Stone? Time Magazine? CNN/Money? (On a side note, why are games usually put in the business or tech sections instead of the entertainment section?) No sign of my occasional platform, Computer Gaming Magazine though both of its rival US mags are represented. The big three game review sites are there, and so is Gamesdomain, once my favorite of them all. Some very capable judges on are the panel. Greg Kasavin, Marc Saltzman, Jeff Green - three of my favorite writers right there.

Zero women. ZERO. Why does this continually surprise me...

On to the games themselves. Well, the strategy and PC stuff.

The strategy category is all PC Games. While PC zealots might like to trumpet the continuing dominance of our favorite platform in this genre, the failure of game developers to find a way to make strategy work on the console might have serious ramifications for the health of the genre.

The titles are the usual suspects.

Age of Empires III (Ensemble Studios/Microsoft)
Civilization IV
(Firaxis Games/2K Games)
Company of Heroes
(Relic/THQ)
Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends (Big Huge Games/Microsoft)
Star Wars Empire At War (Petroglyph Games/LucasArts)

Spore was nominated in the simulation category, though it could fit here just as easily. It's also a nominee for Best of Show, and it has to be the odds on favorite even though it is up against one of the three new consoles.

The strategy nominees are not an interesting bunch, sadly. I am looking forward to all of them, but only one of the five is not a franchise title. Company of Heroes looks like Combat Mission in real time, and could be the sleeper hit of the year. But most of the gaming press over the next twelve months will go to the new games from LucasArts and the three giants of strategy gaming - Meier, Reynolds and Shelley. Though Rise of Legends is, to me, probably the most interesting title on the list, Age of Empires III or Empire at War are probably the favorites. Both have more finished at this point and Empire can cruise on the goodwill generated by a not-crappy movie.

Age of Empires III is also nominated for best PC Game, but is up against Spore. Even though we don't know all that much about Spore at this point, the post-E3 buzz is so strong that it will be a major upset if it loses. And, if it does, Battlefield 2 or Prey are more likely winners than AoE.

Previous strategy winners do provide an interesting perspective on the genre.

2004 - Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth (EA)
2003 - Rome: Total War (Creative Assembly/Activision)
2002 - Command and Conquer: Generals (EA)
2001 - Age of Mythology (Ensemble/Microsoft)
2000 - Black and White (Lionhead/EA) - Best of Show, Best PC Game, Best Original
1999 - Homeworld (Relic/Sierra)
1998 - Homeworld (Relic/Sierra) RTS
1998 - Alpha Centauri (Firaxis/EA) TBS

First, there have been no turn based winners since they had a turn based specific award in 1998.
Second, there is no vaporware here, though the E3 awards have often been criticized for giving awards to games that are nowhere near finished. ((Both Homeworld and Black and White did win some sort of award in two consecutive years, but neither missed a release date by more than a year.)

Third, there are no games here that could be called bad or misfires. Black and White wasn't the triumph that people expected, but wasn't terrible either. There are none of the "Say what?" moments that you see in other genres or awards. (the yet unreleased Team Fortress 2, Sims Online, Majestic, Auto Modellista).

This third point is easy to explain. Strategy games are harder to sell based on flash, glamor or licenses. People come to the strategy genre with a certain set of expectations and these expectations are probably harder to overcome than in other genres. Age of Empires III still needs to look like Age of Empires, Company of Heroes has to convey the impression of war. Tech demos only get you so far in this field. As impressed as people are by graphics, even the most pixel happy observer wants a little more from a strategy game.

I could not go to E3 this year, so if any of you readers were there, please pipe in with your observations. Do the nominees surprise anyone? What happened to 1C Games, the Russian company that had eight billion games on display? Any pet projects not here?

6/01/2005

Gigantism

There is a new mod for Civ 3 available at Gamespot. The "Rise and Rule Mod" - an unfortunate title which only brings to mind this mess - promises the moon.

200 techs
13 governments
100 Improvements
67 Great Wonders
36 Small Wonders
14 Specialist Citizen types
52 Resources
340 Units
13 governments? 67 Great Wonders? 14 types of citizens? Does this make the game more fun?

Not really. Though the designers claim that the point is to provide all kinds of cost/benefit decisions for the player, the fact is that Civ is, at its heart, a simple game. Too many decisions to make gets in the way of the elegantly simple design. Of the 340 units, many of them are simple reskinning existing units so that some countries have custom spearmen or unique aircraft. Many of the Great Wonders have no expiration date or nullifying tech, so the bonuses just keep stacking. Instead of making the game more challenging or interesting, it becomes a math puzzle in which the player must run sums in his head and determine which gives him the best cumulative payoff. For those Civ players that like micromanagement, this might sound appealing. I'm largely indifferent.

In a similar vein is the Total Realism mod for Rome: Total War which I wrote about a couple of days ago. Dozens of new units and new cities in an effort to approximate some ultimate realism almost lose the appeal of the game. As attractive and stylish as the new units are (and as enthusiastic as I am to see the Pharaoh's armies made true Ptolemaic forces for Egypt) the changes to the map and the recruitment process take a lot of effort to really enjoy. The game does play out more historically accurate; Rome is slowed down in its expansion, especially to the East. And this is the obvious goal of the mod. But it also slows the game down, meaning that you spend a lot more time on a single campaign.

Speaking of which, RTR takes out the Imperial Campaign altogether in favor of "provincial campaigns". There isn't a lot of difference in the design, except the elimination of the other Roman factions alters the endgame considerably. It is still recognizable as Rome: Total War, but is not the game that I love. It's merely a game I like.

Both mods, I think, point to a common issue with user created mods. There is an emphasis on increased amounts of content or greater accuracy without a clear idea of how it affects the game in general. Now these are mods, so no one is forcing me to play them. I can uninstall them at any time if I choose. My favorite games are not broken and lots of people enjoy these mods. RTR has become pseudo-official judging by the number of people who play it.

But more is sometimes less. Most players, including myself, are astonished at the ambition at first. I like my games tighter, though. When you start adding bits here and there, the parts of the game that make it a game get a little unfocused. The desire to add more content is a natural outgrowth of the feedback loop of Internet game forums and user friendly modding tools. There are lots of talented people out there. Give them a digital lever and a place to stand and show their work and they can remake the world.

I am largely resistant to large scale mods of strategy games, though. I preferred the Improved Grand Campaign for Europa Universalis, but the mods of its sequel have a greater emphasis on historical events and fantasy outcomes than on actually improving the game.

My resistance is based primarily on a distrust of amateur historians or "wouldn't it be cool if..." people making a game. Once you start messing around in the rule set, the months of beta testing and QA work that the original developers put into a game are lost. True, many of the larger mods have teams of players testing them out, but most seem to be the already converted and not the wisely skeptical.

In spite of my own wariness towards these larger mods, I do think that they are valuable. Lots of people enjoy them, and though it is my job to tell them if a game is bad or not, it is not my job to rail against them if they think I am wrong.

There is always hope that some of the talented people behind these mods will get a chance to work on their own original game sometime soon. And maybe some of them will learn the beauty of a smaller scale.