H.G. Wells and Game Design

Greg Costikyan's article on the history of board and strategy gaming provoked me to return to H.G. Wells' Little Wars.

Actually, the full title is Little Wars: A Game for Boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books. Note that we already have the quaint idea that these sorts of games are for boys and men. In the book, Wells makes reference to a female acquaintance and doesn't miss the opportunity to refer to her as a "daring ornament of her sex".

The Gutenberg version omits the pictures that accompany the text in the book, so his description of a game he completed (an early After Action Report) is missing some clarifying images. But for the most part you can get a good idea of the game from his account and an even better idea of Wells' high hopes for the game.

First, there is little shame in Wells about a bunch of adults running around with tin soldiers. The minutiae of the rules and measurements clearly takes this out of the realm of simple play, and would probably be a challenge for even the cleverer sort of boys, let alone masculine girls. Wells emphasizes standardization in the size of soldiers, something that most children would not care much about in a game of this sort, I figure.

Second, there is no denying the middle class nature of the game. Only in the "Upstairs, Downstairs" world of Edwardian England could one conceive of gentlemen crawling on the floor large enough to measure troop movements in feet. Wells proposes a lawn version of his game, as well. Wells speaks of spending an afternoon and evening on a single session - this is the purview of those who can afford to spend the time.

But there is so much recognizeable in Wells' efforts to modify his game that he well earns the title of Father of Wargaming. There were certainly Kriegspiels before; Wells refers to them. But those are for training the soldiers. Wells seeks amusement - the thrill of battle without actually having to die. Wells is an idealist positing that his game is a great substitute for war.

Look at Wells' emphasis on the historicity of rules. Unhappy that solo soldiers were encouraged to charge bodies of men, Wells developed rules that mandated that greatly outnumbered troops would become prisoners instead of Sergeant York. Guns can be captured in similar circumstance. He suggests alternate rules that would cover rifled weapons and shrapnel. Even the idea of moving beyond piled encyclopedias to miniature houses is based on the recognition that it just didn't feel right.

Wells also tries to implement fog of war rules, by suggesting that troops be moved in unmarked boxes until an opponent gets in range to see what is in the box. The suggestion is not perfect, of course; you will always see the box. But the idea of an amateur game with minimal refereeing trying to provide the necessity for scouting is a brilliant step.

In Little Wars, Wells admitted that he had not tried all the variants he mentions. And, as simple as the rules are, I still can't fathom how this sort of thing gets worked out in the absence of an umpire, who would have to know the rules. As adult as Wells portrays the activity to be, even the eccentric English probably thought that this was a little peculiar.

Still, anyone interested in game design should probably check out Little Wars. It's an early twentieth century design document that shows how a great author tried to make a game for grown-ups.

Must Read Article

All strategy and wargamers should read Greg Costikyan's contribution to this week's Escapist. It's a great little summary of the evolution of board and paper games, including strategy and wargames. I don't as eagerly endorse the conclusions he draws for the computer gaming industry, but his account of the history of gaming is full of juicy nuggets.

Like, did you know that wargamers were the first to use the term "gamers" as reference to their community? I didn't.

A picture is worth next to nothing

Four sim-Rome games coming out in the near future, and, based on the screenshots, not a hell of a lot to distinguish them.

Here are shots of Firaxis/Firefly's CivCity:Rome.

Here's Caesar IV from Tilted Mill.

Haemimont's Glory of the Roman Empire is here.

And finally, Deep Red's Heart of Empire: Rome.

Now, it is completely natural that the screens will be almost interchangeable. Ancient Rome is ancient Rome and it will always be marble temples, aqueducts, theaters and some wood huts.

But I wager that however similar these games look, there will be some noticeable differences between them. And that is the problem with screenshots.

In an understandable effort to cram as much visual splendor as possible into a single picture, important things like game interface and how the building relates to a larger game mission are left out. Screenshots are almost always taken divorced from any context.

I'm not talking about screenshots that may intentionally mislead ("bullshots"), though that also happens. I'm talking about screenshots as stills completely isolated from how the player will actually interact with them. None of these Roman city-builder shots give you an idea how the buildings are constructed, how the economy will work or whether there is any significant military component to the game.

Game videos are often not much better. As I type, I'm downloading the demo for Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War, Midway's action/rts that marked the end of the line for Stainless Steel Studios. Almost all of the gameplay videos released to this point have emphasized the "hero mode", wherein you as the player take part in the battle on your screen. Game descriptions, however, have mentioned that this is only a single part of the game. Screenshots show traditional RTS action, but nothing besides men on ships to set it apart from the rest. Video shows a half-naked Cleopatra cutting heads off.

Screenshots, in my opinion, need to show the interface at some point in development - at least if they want to be informative. Discussion of the new Europa Universalis III screenshots in the developers' diaries have focused on the revelation of a court screen and a new economic/tech investment screen - not as much on how the trees still look stupid. Discussion on real information.

But screenshots are really about marketing, and marketing means showing as much of the artwork as possible; these are "video" games after all. But based on these Roman city shots, I so far have no real reason to pick one over the others.

Wardell fires back

Brad Wardell, the big brain behind Galactic Civilizations II (one of the best strategy games of a young 2006) thinks I am wrong. Or at least focused on the wrong things. And not just me.

In my recent Round Table post on gaming friendships, I noted that GC2's lack of multiplayer handicapped it when compared to other strategy games available to us. I wrote how good MP experiences encourage me to look for this feature in the games I play. Wardell replies:

I think if we sat down and did an inventory of strategy games that have come out in the past 5 years that the multiplayer fanbase has gotten served quite well. By contrast, people like me who want to sit down and play against computer players have gotten, in my opinion, the shaft.

This is an intriguing interpretation of how gaming has developed. Have single player gamers gotten the shaft?

If you look around at gaming coverage, the 800 pound gorilla of World of Warcraft can make it appear that everyone is playing multiplayer games all the time. I know that my multiplayer gaming has increased a thousandfold in the last year or so.

But multiplayer is still very much an afterthought in strategy game design. Real time strategy game developers seem to spend more time on crafting lame single player campaigns instead of doing proper faction balancing - something that can only become really apparent after hours of multiplayer experience.

Computer wargames are almost exclusively single player oriented - it often takes some kind of masochist to want to play the larger SSG games by email. Even a game that seems ready made for MP action like Second Manassas has no way to lose to a friend.

None of the Paradox games have really worked all that well in multiplayer - especially the no-brainer Diplomacy - sometimes because of the huge time commitment involved, but as often because of poor networking.

Civ IV has a great multiplayer interface and loads of options, but the Pit Boss wasn't made available until fairly recently - about six months after release. No doubt what their priorities are.

Wardell admits that the next GalCiv will likely have multiplayer, and I am very much looking forward to Society, Stardock's upcoming MMRTS. So even he realizes that MP has become very important to people like me.

But it's not like I deducted points from GC2 because of the lack of multiplayer; I didn't. My review was almost entirely enthusiastic, with my biggest complaints reserved for documentation. I still play most of my games alone, after all. As my gaming relationship post noted, I prefer to play with friends and friends are not always available. Single player is all of our first entrees into a new game.

But the multiplayer experience is becoming more and more important to me. And games that provide it will probably have a longer life on my computer.

By the way, I still highly recommend Galactic Civilizations II.

Making the pie bigger

My recent review of Birth of America has been linked over at the unfortunately named Tacticular Cancer, a sister site to the better known RPGCodex. Since they frequently link to my rants and raves, I've added them to my site list on the side bar. It's a fairly decent linking site at this point, though I hope they can soon add some original content. Some of the people there seem to know what they are talking about.

The forum post on my review has raised an interesting question about getting people interested in wargaming. I made a throwaway comment in my BoA review in which I doubted its efficacy as a starter wargame. A guy named Naked Lunch argued against that and has asked the very reasonable question "What would I recommend?"

And that's kind of the kicker, isn't it? There was a time when there were lots of beer and pretzel wargames that served as training grounds for would-be Rommels and wannabe Lees; games that were easy to understand and provided some immediate satisfaction. Stuff like Panzer General. That war-ish niche has been filled by the RTS in many respects. It looks like war, and even feels like war, but for people who prefer Korsun Pocket they don't quite scratch that itch.

It's not news to anybody that wargaming is less than it once was, percentage wise. There are niche developers like HPS and the occasional publisher like Matrix Games or Shrapnel that are willing to put some money behind things like Flashpoint Germany or the Armored Task Force series.

And it's not like there aren't some great wargames out there. Birth of America is almost great. The SSG wargames are gems that don't get enough publicity. If Second Manassas holds up to the high standard set by its predecessor, we could have an excellent introductory serious wargame company not to far from me.

So how does a genre move beyond its base? I point RTS people to Battle for Middle Earth II. I point wannabe strategy gamers to the Total War series. But wargamers? Could I be wrong about Birth of America?

Please enlighten me.

On Site Review: Birth of America

It looks like a grand strategy game, but Birth of America is a pure wargame. No building of units, no construction of buildings (beyond the odd fort), no resouce gathering. This alone will turn a lot of people away from the game, despite the novelty of the 18th century setting. More's the pity.

AGEOD's first game puts you in control of one of the sides in the French and Indian War or the American Revolution through two long campaigns or a number of shorter scenarios. It plays out in simultaneous turns and gives you all of North America east of the Mississippi (plus some Caribbean fortresses) for your battlefield.

The first thing that strikes you about BoA is the artwork. The map itself is a mess of greens and browns, splotched with white in the winter. But the counters are great, with leaders having very convincing portraits and the armies having clear colors. Planned movement is indicated with with lines and little numbers marking how many days it will take the army to get to a location along the way.

The simplicity of the game hides how well it mirrors 18th century combat. Sieges can take a long time, but assaults can be effective. Supply trains are essential to long distance treks, but can slow you down immensely. Nothing breaks a campaign like winter does, and breaking fortress towns like Louisbourg will take many winters or a lucky assault.

Fog of war is connected to control of regions, terrain and the abilities of your generals. Some of your little men will be able to hide better than others, making ambushes an effective strategy. It is a little counterintuitive that Cornwallis can set an ambush in the wilds of the Ohio Valley, but the game doesn't discriminate against any one side.

(I have been very unfortunate in my efforts to get a PBEM game going. There is an error on one end that prevents us from even getting the game going. Once I can get a game running, I'll comment on its suitability for multiplayer.)

Any technical issues with scrolling and load times have been ironed out from the preview, making BoA a mostly pleasant experience.

So much for the description. The conclusion? Birth of America is a very good game. The design is wholly original, and is not an attempt to ape or mimic the design of any other title on the market (a charge that could be fairly leveled at Philippe Thibaut's other strategy games, both of which had more than a passing resemblance to Europa Universalis.) As turns move on, a greater sense of the turning points of the conflicts evolves and the strategic situation facing each of the nations involved becomes clearer.

Take the issue of reinforcements. Each side is reinforced based on historical exigencies. This poses a problem for the British in the French and Indian War. They have too few troops in place to be strong everywhere they need to be and are faced with a colonial levy system that means some forces get disbanded once their service is up. They will eventually be reconstituted, but back at colonial capitals. So, the British player has to plan his/her early movements with this in mind. A stream of Redcoats will soon arrive, though, meaning that the French player has the opposite problem - he/she has to move quickly.

The inclusion of river movement adds another twist left out of many theater level wargames. The rivers of Eastern North America give the side with the craft power to move a lot of troops quickly. So, control of port towns not only means controlling the high seas but also controlling the interior waterways.

No game in recent memory so effectively enforces the concept of "Winter Quarters", meaning that moving troops like little firefighters eliminating threats here and there won't work. You need to decide what your one or two priority targets are for a campaign season and hope to hold ground in those places your opponent targets. This makes for some serious strategic thinking.

Birth of America is not perfect. Turn results could be displayed more prominently and the rollover tooltips are often in too small a font. The entire game could be written with larger print, in fact. The music is forgettable and there are enough bugs and glitches to mean that we are now on a sixth patch - with still more to come.

Plus, if you don't like wargames this one won't win you over. It doesn't have enough of the political flavor to draw in afficianadoes of the Revolutionary Period and not enough chrome to bring in newcomers. This is too bad, since the game itself is accessible enough to newcomers to recommend to people want to give this sort of game a try.

(Full disclosure: Though uncredited, I edited the English language PDF manual.)

Good Gaming Relationships

I am a very nice guy. I make friends very easily, can engage with strangers comfortably and am a devastatingly charming dinner companion. Modest, too.

But even someone as patient and self-effacing as I am has his limits. And my limit is anonymous online gaming. I hate it. I can't go into a multiplayer lobby and just play a random guy. (If you saw a bunch of twits spamming a Battle for Middle Earth II chat screen, you wouldn't either.) Even on many serious wargaming forums I am a little antsy about starting up a PBEM game with WarDude113.

It's not that I have had a lot of negative experiences with this sort of thing. I haven't. I've heard all the stories about hackers, cheaters, sore losers...the gamut of online crimes against fun. And just like I don't have to be mugged to know that I shouldn't walk back from the Metro at 1 am, I don't have to be beaten by a cheater to know that I can avoid that situation.

One big reason to avoid anonymous online people is that I have a reservoir of people I know I can game with. People I trust to be good opponents and who will provide a stress free experience.

The first sign of a good gaming relationship is the acceptance that people are of different levels. As much as I love gaming, I know that I will not be the best at much of it. I have one friend who will always beat me in RTS - though I can make it close. I have another who I play wargames with (everything from Sid Meier's Gettysburg to Birth of America, assuming we can get it to work right) who I expect a thrashing from almost every time out. Despite the predictability of many of the outcomes, there is never a sign of impatience or frustration.

The second sign of a good gaming relationship is the teaching phase. Often a friend or colleague will get a game a week or two before I will. Being an idiot, I often jump right into multiplayer. Good gaming friends will often give a word or two of advice before, during and after the match. I've done the same with friends new to one game or another.

The third sign is nagging. "You have to buy this!" Why? "So we can play it together." Is there any finer compliment in the world than "We should play this"? (I'm starting to get a lot of this nagging about World of Warcraft.)

As I think through my gaming friendships, most of them exist purely online - not in any real world context. I've met my wargaming pal only once. My other gaming friends are either Europeans, colleagues scattered through America or random names from a good gaming forum or chat room whom I think I can trust.

Good multiplayer experiences can sure spoil you, though. Galactic Civilization II doesn't have MP, Civilization IV does. Both are great games, but guess which one will have a longer life on my hard drive? (And not just mine.) I've been a single player gamer for almost my entire life, but I have finally come to the point where a lot of gamers were a couple of years ago, seeking out multiplayer in every game. Good MP experiences have also made me hungry for real world human contact in gaming. Board gaming, DnD...anything to keep the rush of shared competition going between computer game cycles.

Friends and books two things you can never have too many of. I have Xfire. Look for me. If I can trust you.

Raison d'etat

While finishing up my review of the non-violent conflict sim A Force More Powerful (hopefully coming to a magazine near you in a month or so) it occurred to me that it shows a side of politics that is completely missing from strategy games - the question of legitimate and illegitimate actions.

In a site that I am not always sure is parody, Right on Games notes with complete accuracy that most Civilization players would not have put up with Iran's flouting of their desires without a prompt attack. In Civ III, I've started wars over horses, iron and dye. In Civ IV, I've attacked the Aztecs because, well, they're the Aztecs. (I've also started wars over oil, but somehow that doesn't seem as far-fetched.)

There is also no domestic penalty for any of this. Sure, war exhaustion will kick in if you've been at it for too long, but the reasons you go to war are never made explicit to anyone in game. You may annoy some mutual friends (like France) and nuclear weapons really get rival nations upset. But there is no price to be paid at home for an adventurous foreign policy.

This is the analog of the "casualties/schmasulaties" problem I wrote about last year. In that post, I observed that wargames give no sense of the loss involved or sacrifice required in a battle. Battles are isolated from campaigns, losses don't necessarily carry over from one fight to the next...many modern wargames are more about equipment losses than manpower losses.

In short, as much as strategy gamers like to say that they appreciate tough decisions, they are never faced with the really tough ones. War becomes a cost-benefit analysis (in a "realist" model) and not a decision that has important consequences for anyone but yourself. In Europa Universalis II, I've started wars even though it meant that an ally would get overrun - sometimes even because they would get overrun. Nuclear weapons are always beautiful when they explode.

Much of this is because of the god-like perspective that strategy games give to the player. You are the big picture guy/gal who can't be bothered with the problems of citizens except insofar as they might revolt. There is no impression that your rule is a charge or a trust or dependent on the legitimacy of your actions.

Oddly enough, Crusader Kings - with all the divine right that the term "king" connotes - comes closest. Here, almost all of your concerns are domestic. Do your vassals respect you as a leader? Do you have a reputation for piety? If I assassinate my eldest idiot son so he can't rise to the throne, I might lose all legitimacy (through acquiring the "kinslayer" trait.) Upset the Pope and you could get excommunicated - say farewell to your kingdom as everyone around you grabs claims on it.

I've written before about how the realist notion of a state of nature permeates the strategy genre. It even approaches neo-realism in how states are billiard balls in a game centered on a balance of power. And I love me my wars - virtually, of course.

Still, I am convinced that there is something to be gained by giving the cyber commander-in-chief more to be concerned about than what he/she can get by conquering their peaceful neighbor to the north. Because if life was Civilization, Canada would be gone by now.

Civ IV patch 1.61

Civilization IV has been patched, and the changes are pretty interesting.

In probably the most significant gameplay change, the "chop till you drop" strategy has been seriously weakened. Many of the most successful Civ IV players center their early game around the deforestation of their first few cities. The wood is converted into hammers, pushing production ahead very quickly. The new patch limits forest cuts and decreases their productivity the further you chop from a city. Discovering mathematics will give you a 50% bonus to the deforestation effort.

The biggest longterm balance changes, though, relate to modifications to civilization traits and civic costs. Expansive states now have extra health to let their cities manage growth better and financial states don't get the bonus that came with banks. These changes are in line with many complaints from users that financial leaders were overpowered and expansive ones too weak to really expand.

The Pit Boss and SDK have also been released, which means that there should be a revival of MP interest and lots of new mods in the coming months.

The Movies

Yeah, I'm just getting to this now. It was on my wish list, so the missus picked it up for my birthday. Good of her to do that. Always marry a nerd.

Lionhead and Peter Molyneux take a lot of beatings for creating games that are high on ambition and low on execution, and, despite the mostly positive reviews that The Movies got, this game has been lumped into the morass of failed expectations by much of the gaming public.

From what I can see that's a little unfair. I haven't really explored the much touted custom movie maker yet and I can already tell that this is a pretty good tycoon game. There are some interface problems, but there is a lot to recommend The Movies at a certain price point.

What I like most is that The Movies has a sense of time and place that few other games do. The period movies you make have the right feel, the clothing looks right, nothing is garishly out of place unless you advance too quickly on the research curve. I can think of few other "historical" game that has the same clarity about where and when it is set. And considering that the time changes with every passing hour, this is quite an accomplishment. Children of the Nile managed that feeling, but it was consciously an historical simulation, and limited to one time frame. This is a business simulation.

I may end up being disappointed in the end. But even if this is not the greatest people management sim of all time, I don't quite get the dismissiveness that many gamers have for this title.

Actually, I think I do. Molyneux is still paying for Black and White. Developers that embrace publicity can never move out of the shadow of their worst game. Even as Derek Smart's spaceship sims have improved (still not enough for me to understand them, mind you), he still bears the yoke of Battlecruiser 3000. A name change might let his games escape the past. John Romero will always be stuck with Daikatana. And Molyneux is forever linked with monkeys that throw crap.

This is partially Molyneux's fault. He has a history of trumpeting how great and revolutionary his games will be, and from the man who gave me Populous, I expect great and revolutionary things. But Black and White and Fable were only partially successful in meeting expectations that he had raised.

And so, this good but not great movie making toy is lumped in with Moly's Follies even though he made none of the same exaggerated predictions about what it would be or how it would transform gaming. Unfair, I think. But gamers are not exactly known for being fair.

Developer Interview: Ming-Sheng Lee

In another of my series of interviews with independent strategy game developers,
Ming-Sheng Lee of Magitech games agreed to answer a few questions about his enterprise, its past and its future.

Magitech is a Canadian gaming company that has had a bad run of luck. Its first game, Takeda, had the misfortune to arrive shortly after the almost identically themed but graphically superior Shogun: Total War. Creative Assembly has gone on to international acclaim and huge success.

Magitech has not. Its second game, Strength and Honour, languished for a long time before the company decided to go the self-publishing route in North America. It was mostly ignored. Takeda 2 was released earlier this year and has also eluded the notice of most of the press, though last month's CGM had my quite negative review of the title.
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Why did you decide to do a sequel for Takeda?

I have some attachment to the Takeda game. Maybe it is because Takeda was my first published box game, and maybe because my father used to told me the stories about the Japanese samurai at Takeda's time since I was very young. From the company's view, it is reasonable that we start the Takeda 2 because of the feedback from Takeda 1 was not too bad and because it is a setting that we don't have to do much new research.

Strength and Honor found a number of third party publishers outside North America, but you had to resort to self-publishing in Canada and the US. Did this surprise you?

It is kind of surprise us that the North America PC publishers didn't pick up Strength and Honor for publishing. Though we did receive couple of offers but we decide to go by ourselves. It is a fast changing industry and overall, it seems the overseas market is getting stronger lately.

Strength and Honor has had almost zero coverage in the gaming press - even on sites that prefer to cover the indie scene - and Takeda 2 has likewise been uncovered. To what do you attribute this lack of attention?

I guess we are just not up to the job in marketing. We are considering hiring an agent for PR next time.

Have you changed how you promote your games so that more strategy gamers can learn about them?

We didn't really put on any advertising for Takeda 2 or Strength & Honour in the North America market partially because we want to how the market reacts. As our latest title coming up, we will consider put all three products together and launch another demo kits for press.

The original Takeda was released shortly after Creative Assembly's Shogun: Total War. Strength and Honor came out just after Rome: Total War. What is the effect of having a popular series cover the same ground as your titles?

Somehow, this has a huge effect which I didn't expect it in the first place. Most people think we are a clone but the releasing date explained itself that it just happened both companies were developing the same types of game in the same time, twice. However, becoming a shadow of a mainstream game makes our games more difficult to stand out. People just comparing these titles without much knowing of what we really are.

In Takeda 2, you have abandoned much of the domestic government level micromanagement that Strength and Honour had. Why?

Basically we try to create a few different product lines. Takeda1 was a simple world mode mixed with plotted missions. S&H is an open world for players to explore. Takeda2 is a mixed of both. It's not really which one is better but we like to offer players different game-plays in these title lines. And, if players favor one more than another, we will put more work on the popular one.

How big is your staff is Magitech? Does your size pose particular challenges in developing grand strategy games?

We are a really small company that most people wouldn't believe. However, size doesn't mean we could create a lower quality game. It is very challenging and it's definitely an up hill battle. In every one of our games, we have a focus that no other games have. In Takeda series, it's the
formation. In S&H, it's the personnel system.

What have been the biggest influences on Magitech as a developer?

The biggest influences on Magitech are actually the team itself. It's not budget, and it certainly not the technology. It's how Magitech sees what the games fun part about. Sometimes, we will have discussions or even arguments about how a game should be. After clear up the ideas then we will see if we can realize the ideas using our current resources. It's like reality and dreams; budget is the reality and idea is the dream. Although budget is limiting where we can go, the dream is the one actually driving
us.

What's next for your company?

We now have our new title Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, code name K3 coming up. It's built under the same engine as Takeda 2 but with improvements on interface and adding features on RPG. The story is set on China AD189. We expect K3 to be ready by June 2006 and shall be released in summer of fall depends on the regional publishers' schedule. We are also
seeking strategic alliance with other developers and hopefully we could upgrade our games into a higher quality level for the players.

Spring Break

I finally get a week to spend on some important chores, including finishing up some reviews for some important people plus the usual house stuff. (I'll also be going to my first Nats game of the season on Wednesday night.)

The shame of the week, though, is that there is no huge new release for me to sink my teeth into. Rise of Legends is still a month off, so my gaming time will be consumed by some old stand-bys - Civ IV, GalCiv2, Battle for Middle Earth II. I've played all of these a lot, so something new would be appreciated.

I will hopefully find the time to give Birth of America a serious play through, including a PBEM game with my longtime wargaming rival. So I should have a few comments about it together by the end of the week. My impressions are still very positive at this point.

Moving too soon

The Rise of Legends demo is proof positive that sometimes a developer's enthusiasm or zeal to get their game before the public can be a PR failure. Complaints about how lacklustre this highly anticipated demo was were legion. The graphics don't look all that good leading to a lot of concern that RoL was just too similar in look and feel to Rise of Nations. In a quick response to the outcry, Tim Train has announced that a second, improved demo is on the way. Considering that the game is only a little over a month away, you would hope that any demo would be an accurate reflection of the final product. Apparently not.

Paradox has recently released screenshots of Europa Universalis III, a game still almost a year away. And the screens are hideous. Of course they are. The game has only just been announced and most of the artwork is in the placeholder or concept phase. Still, with a huge worldwide audience, Paradox is under pressure to release something to the masses.

Part of me misses the days before the Internet, before it was essential for a developer to have an almost continual buzz about their game. Screenshots were limited to magazine articles or game catalogs and most people knew very little about a game until it was released. Then came the Internet and there was more. Then came everybody owning a website and PR companies sending them everything they had to keep the game in the public eye. The sense of surprise is gone, and there is real risk of never feeling that you are discovering a game.

There is an upside, naturally. The public battering that Big Huge Games took for the first demo could only have happened on the Internet. This is a reminder to all of us that sometimes companies care about their customers. For Paradox, early screenshots allow the audience to play along with "what does this screenshot mean?", a popular forum activity where people take a tiny image and try to deduce what the entire game is going to be like. This can make for some interesting conversation.

I would be lying though if I said that my reactions to either of these "premature" releases were positive - or even neutral. The Rise of Legends demo was uninspiring for me, though I suspect a lot of that was because my hopes were sky high. The EU3 screenshots gave me Diplomacy flashbacks as I puzzled over why this game is being done in 3D.

Big Huge Lunch

The sign of a good lunch is when you've finished the food and still want to sit and talk for another two hours. So I had a very good lunch yesterday with Portico reader and Big Huge Games Design Lead Paul Stephanouk. He was present at the creation of the gaming company, and so played an important role in Rise of Nations, still the best RTS ever.

I described this meeting as a business lunch to friends and acquaintances, but it really wasn't. It was mostly two guys talking about what they liked and didn't like in games and a lot of speculation about game design and how strategy games can move in new directions.

It's always nice to meet someone who shares your interests and opinions, and it seems that Paul and I are on the same page of a lot of stuff. Similar likes and dislikes, but always for our own personal reasons.

The highlight, I think, was hearing Paul's opinions on artificial intelligence and the challenge of developing a strategy game AI that plays like a human player and/or is able to diagnose a situation instead of having build orders and precise goals.

Or maybe the highlight was hearing that Paul has hundreds of board games and that he is an old fashioned wargamer. Envy - we meet again!

Actually, the highlight was the entire conversation with another adult game geek who is really enthusiastic about his job and the hobby. There were all kinds of little details dropped here and there, but nothing earth shattering. Since the conversation was casual and, therefore, off-the-record, I couldn't tell you anyway.

Thanks, Paul, for a great afternoon. Next time, I get the check.