Flash of Steel

Dragon Age: Origins

Troy — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:33:53 +0000

It’s not a strategy game but I thought I should weigh in on what’s been consuming the time of me and my friends. I sprung for Dragon Age: Origins (both versions) and I downloaded the toolset and even bought the Warden’s Keep DLC. So I am obviously hooked into yet another Bioware game. Some observations: 1) The [...]

Histwar: Les Grognards Dropped By Battlefront

Troy — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:27:37 +0000

I can’t say I blame them. Histwar, an ambitious Napoleonic strategy/wargame, has been in development forever and it says something about the state of independent publishing that Battlefront stuck it out this long. I do hope the game gets finished, of course, and that it is good. But all it would take is one or [...]

Three Moves Ahead Episode 37 – Chris Park and AI War: Fleet Command

Troy — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:17:59 +0000

Chris Park from Arcen Games joins us this week to talk about independent game development and how his sci-fi RTS AI War: Fleet Command saw the light of day. Park talks about the design process, the challenge of modeling risk and reward and the difficult part of difficulty levels. It’s also one of our longest [...]

The Escapist Goes to War

Troy — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:44:49 +0000

This week’s issue of The Escapist is dedicated to the idea of war, and the articles are generally interesting. Greg Tito’s “history of wargaming” doesn’t really add anything new or interesting to the already large library on this topic but Shawn Williams article on the impact of video game soldiering to real war is quite [...]

Turn Based vs Real Time

Troy — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:43:27 +0000

I’ve always thought that the division of strategy games into turn based and real time categories was artificial. How a game tracks time is, in my opinion, less important than what it expects the player to do within that time. Soren Johnson seems to agree with me. He just posted his August Game Developer column on [...]

Egypt: Engineering an Empire

Troy — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:21:28 +0000

I just finished teaching about this stuff. Egypt is the first in a series a turn based grand strategy games with important economic and military aspects linked to the History TV channel series Engineering an Empire. You must engineer an empire from its roots to the height of its power. You take the role of ruler [...]

Now What?

Troy — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:47:39 +0000

With the teaching done and buried for now, it’s time to get back to the blogging thing. But I’m finding my strategy coffers a little empty at the moment. Part of that is because there are so many non-strategy games to catch up on. I still have to play Arkham’s Asylum and Brutal Legend, both of [...]

Decade Feature – 2000: Sacrifice

Troy — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:41:50 +0000

What this is about. The just shall live by faith and kill by hellmouths. Sacrifice is the very definition of a cult hit. Like so many other strategy games that have come and gone through the years, it attracted a small and devoted following but never really got the traction that the Starcrafts and Warcrafts and Total [...]

Decade Feature – 2000: Shogun Total War

Rob Zacny — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:05:38 +0000

What this is about Know the enemy, and know yourself It seems fitting that 2000 should have seen the release of Shogun: Total War, the inaugural entry in one of the decade’s defining strategy series. Combining turn based empire-building with spectacular tactical battles, Shogun was the game I had always wanted. Strategy and tactics were finally living [...]

Feature Series Authors

Troy — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:53 +0000

The decade feature series is almost ready to go, but an introduction is in order. You all know me, and you all know one of my collaborators. Bruce Geryk has been a friend of FoS since and an occasional contributor when we did those board game duels. He’s also, of course, a regular panelist on [...]