Ara: History Untold is a turn-based strategy game that I recently described as a “[production] chain management game first and a 4X second.” After finishing a practice game last week, my impressions are:
At a design level, Ara has potential: I enjoy what it tries to do and it introduces some interesting ideas.
Its execution needs more work. The game feels several user interface/quality of life and balance patches away from achieving its potential.
As a result, I have slightly mixed feelings:
On the one hand, I enjoyed myself.
At the same time, I would wait for a few updates (and probably, a few months) before I play more.
What do you do in the game?
While Ara has the trappings of a 4X game, turn-to-turn the focus is on managing cities & resources, and crafting an ever-wider range of increasingly intricate goods. If, like me, you enjoy playing quartermaster (or royal steward), then you are probably the target audience.
For example, consider food, a staple resource in 4X games:
A farm on any terrain can produce a small amount of generic food.
Alternately, a farm on a rice resource will grow rice. Combining the rice with pots from a ceramics workshop will produce a new good, “grain store”, which gives a large amount of food.
As the player gains access to resources, more goods become available. For instance, salt + fish = salted fish and salt + meat = cured meat.
Technology unlocks new and better goods. Refrigerators, available in the modern era, provide a large bonus to a city’s available food.
Refrigerators provide hefty bonuses when provided to cities as an amenity, or slotted into homes. The “amenities” panel, top left, was full of goodies by the end of the game.
Cities have many needs besides food:
Supplying cities with drinks, perfume, and festivals increases happiness (and hence production).
Supplying candles and books increases knowledge (and hence scientific research).
Supplying medicine increases health (and hence city growth).
Increasing prosperity provides a bonus to tax income.
Increasing security provides a bonus to unit strength.
And to round it off, goods and buildings can produce multiple effects, and goods can often be slotted into different buildings.
At Ara’s best, it is satisfying to pull these levers to develop happy, bustling cities.
The interface doesn’t scale as the game progresses
The most common complaint about Ara is its interface, particularly for managing resources and production. Its current city-based UI is adequate in the early game. But as the game progresses, the empire grows, and more goods become important, managing them becomes a hassle.
For example, suppose I want to produce a certain item — be it steel, gourmet meals, refrigerators, or newspapers:
Where are all the buildings that produce it?
Where are all the buildings that consume the inputs? I might want to change production in other buildings to free up raw materials.
Similarly, where are all the buildings that produce the inputs? Again, I might want to increase production upstream so I can throw more resources at the problem.
Where can I slot items that boost production?
Now multiply this across different cities and goods, and each turn can become time-consuming and fiddly. By the end of my 607-turn game, instead of optimising each city, I was hitting “end turn” so I could reach the victory screen.
Needs a balance pass
Separate to the UI, I would like to see the developers tweak aspects of Ara’s gameplay, such as game rules & variables, that don’t add up to a cohesive, satisfying whole.
To pick one example, the city cap is fine for the early game but too low as the game progresses:
The default map size is too big for the default number of players.
New government types increase the city cap, but max out early on.
Over time, the game will eliminate players at the bottom of the score chart. This frees up land for the survivors to expand… except they can’t, because their city caps are too low.
And there is no option to expand without falling foul of the cap, such as vassalising cities or other players.
The net result is that swathes of the map end up uninhabited.
Ara takes place over three acts. At the end of Act 1 and Act 2, the game culls the bottom-ranked players (in this example, Songhai and Assyria – the ones marked as “forgotten”.)
Will I play more?
Maybe, in time. Ara’s core design is interesting and its issues are fixable with patches. I hope the game will receive the attention it deserves.
This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Frostpunk 2
I’m early in Frostpunk 2’s campaign, near the end of Chapter 1. I was a bit leery going in: the series has a forbidding reputation. But the more I play, the more it grows on me:
The city-building presents an engaging challenge;
The political system has some interesting ideas; and
The difficulty is manageable (so far!).
My city towards the end of Chapter 1 in the Frostpunk campaign. Districts spread out from around the central generator. I’ll need to dismantle the district with the red icon at the bottom, which sits atop a depleted resource. The four people at the bottom represent the factions present in the city.
What do you do in the game?
Moment to moment, Frostpunk 2 is about managing resources:
Some are tangible: the city’s workforce, fuel for heat, food, materials, consumer goods, and prefab building parts.
Others are intangible: the loyalty of the city’s population, and of its political factions. These are the province of the game’s political system.
Free lunches are rare — everything costs upkeep. For example, growing food requires workers, heating, and materials, plus the one-off cost of the prefabs to set up the district. Those workers require housing, which must also be heated. The generator that provides heat runs on coal. The coal miners need food. And so on.
As such, this is a game about scarcity — there is seldom enough for everything at any given time. It is also difficult to achieve equilibrium:
Resources are finite, so as deposits deplete, it’s necessary to demolish existing districts and replace them elsewhere.
The city’s population grows automatically, supplemented by one-off events that allow players to bring in more people from outlying settlements. This is both a blessing and a curse. A larger population means a larger workforce — and also more mouths to feed and more bodies to house.
Little vignettes in Frostpunk 2 show how the city’s inhabitants respond to events.
Frostpunk 2’s political system is novel for a city-builder:
Different groups in the city subscribe to different ideologies: for example, some prefer “adaptation” to the cold, while others prefer brute-force mechanical solutions. As a result, they prefer different technologies, different buildings, and different laws. While building the city is up to the player, getting legislation through the city’s council can require horse trading.
To keep factions happy or win their support on a vote, the player can promise to research a technology of their choice or let them propose the next law. I like to kill two birds with one stone: I compare the factions’ technology wishlist to those available for research, promise a sensible choice, research it, and receive credit for being a man of my word. So far, a majority of the city supports me and the rest tolerate me, so it seems to be working…
Tonally, this reminds me of Alpha Centauri. A message of both games is that humans will always, always have different opinions about how to organise society and respond to environmental challenges, whether on an alien world (Alpha Centauri) or a ruined Earth (Frostpunk).
How’s the difficulty?
Playing on the easiest difficulty setting, the game is challenging but manageable.
I beat the tutorial/prologue on my first try and achieved the best ending. Planning ahead helped — it became clear early on that I would need to aggressively expand to grow enough food to meet the scenario objectives.
The main campaign is tougher — I never have enough. At the same time, I’ve also managed to avoid outright crises. I’m undoubtedly making rookie mistakes, so a veteran Frostpunk player might find this easier.
I earned this!
Will I keep playing?
Yes. The game has intrigued me: I want to improve on my mistakes and continue growing my city.
The campaign has just introduced a new level of complexity: setting up a daughter colony to send oil back to the main city. So, let’s see how well I can juggle two different settlements, and what comes next.
After recently playing a practice game, I have mixed feelings about Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War:
On the one hand, it’s decent to good at what it does: a blend of hex-based wargame, turn-based strategy game with base building, and the 40K setting.
On the other hand, I’m not certain that blend works as well as a dedicated wargame or 4X game; and it takes longer to play than a real-time game would.
What 40K: Gladius does: turn-based, hex-based combat
I often see Gladius described as a “4X” game, a label I wouldn’t use. Instead, it feels like a cross between a beer-and-pretzels hex-based wargame and — this will sound slightly contradictory — a turn-based version of an RTS.
Like an RTS or a 4X game, players in Gladius build cities and collect resources. But a resource called “loyalty” constrains building and expansion to an extent that felt punitive: the optimal number of cities is quite small, probably only three. Instead, the focus is squarely on recruiting an army and fighting neutrals and other players.
This is where the “hex-based wargame” part comes in. Units have multiple traits: figures per unit, armour, hit points, different weapons each with their own damage and armour penetration, switchable ammunition types, abilities such as overwatch fire, and more. Playing as the Imperial Guard felt thematic:
Basic guardsmen were weak, but useful for screening punchier units.
Heavy weapon teams were my main killing force in the early- and mid-game, especially when I could take advantage of their long range.
Later in the game, tanks and artillery took over as the stars of the show.
The base game includes four factions: the Imperial Guard, Space Marines, Necrons, and Orks. Other factions, and more units, are available via DLC1.
Imperial Guard infantry and scout walkers (blue) skirmishing with Necrons (the red units on the right). I took this screenshot shortly before I retreated to the city of Villae Alea (far left).
Like a more ponderous RTS
Putting these pieces together, my Gladius game resembled the progression of an RTS match: build up, fight off attacks, build an overwhelming force, and win the game.
I set up a four-player game with myself, a computer-controlled Space Marine ally, and two enemy players — one Necron and one Ork.
I started in a safe corner of the map, facing no threats other than neutral monsters. This let me work out how to play the game, while my ally fought off the Orks.
Amassing a horde of guardsmen, heavy weapon teams, and scout walkers let me roll over the Orks through sheer numbers — although not in time to save my ally.
But when a large Necron force showed up, it was time to run. My army staged a fighting retreat back to friendly territory, helped by a few Space Marine remnants. The survivors stood, inflicted heavy losses on their attackers, and held their ground.
Once I saved up enough to field several tanks, nothing could challenge their massed firepower. At this point, I steamrolled the rest of the map.
Now back on home turf, an Imperial Guard squad fires on a Necron hero. The fortifications of Villae Alea are just visible at the bottom of the screen.
I enjoyed this, but I’m not sure I’d play again. Next to comparable genres:
Compared to an RTS, Gladius is much longer (a single game took me over 8 hours, per Steam) and more ponderously paced.
Compared to a turn-based 4X game, building and exploration — two of my favourite parts of the genre — are lacking. In a game this focused on warfare, they are means to an end, not satisfying systems in their own right.
And compared to a wargame, the need to fiddle with city management is a distraction from what the game does well: combat.
Conclusions
Does Gladius suffer from a contradiction in its design, or am I simply not its target audience?
If you’d like to see for yourself, the base game periodically goes for free (this is how I received it), or on sale for less than A$5. At the right price, this is still probably worth a look.
I was a little disconcerted to see that the game requires DLC to unlock some of the more iconic units, such as stormtroopers and Chimera APCs for the Guard, or Land Raiders for the Space Marines ↩︎
Unless something extraordinary comes out in the next few months, I already know what my Game of the Year for 2024 will be: Eugen Systems’ WARNO.
WARNO is a real-time tactics game, set in an alternate 1989 where the Cold War escalated into World War 3. Building on Eugen’s earlier Wargame and Steel Division series (for which long-time readers will know my love), it offers:
Individual battles, with a choice of over a dozen playable divisions (rising to 20+ with DLC);
Scripted battles;
Five campaigns, each combining a turn-based strategic layer with tactical battles; and
Both single- and multiplayer modes for battles and campaigns.
The result is a game that’s deep, rich in content, and tremendously replayable.
Tactical battles are superb
WARNO’s battles and the supporting army customisation system are the culmination of lessons learned from Wargame and Steel Division. They offer a rich experience that reward combined arms, create fluid, back-and-forth battles, and encourage replayability.
In battle, the goal is to seize and control objectives, each worth a certain number of points over time1. Achieving this requires coordinating tanks, infantry, scouts, artillery, helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, ground-based air defences, supply units, and more. Over the course of a match, reversals are common and early leads can slip away, as players call in reinforcements, strengthen their defences, and identify and breach enemy weak points.
Playing well requires both attention to detail and an ability to keep an eye on the bigger picture. For example:
I carefully micromanage high-end tanks so that if I see incoming anti-tank missiles, I can quickly order the tanks to conceal themselves with smoke and retreat.
One lesson the computer taught me very, very early on was the importance of moving artillery after firing, because it’s quick (probably even quicker than humans) to respond with counterbattery fire.
At the same time, it’s important not to fixate too much on one part of the map. The maps are very large, and threats (or targets) may emerge elsewhere.
By keeping my eyes open in team games, I’ve seen plenty of opportunities to help other players capture objectives and shore up defensive lines.
It helps that WARNO has quality of life features such as a line of sight/unit range checker, eliminating “can I hit that target from here?” guesswork.
Aggressively pushing forward with light infantry at the start let me rake in points, even though the enemy rallied and pushed me back later.
How does a WARNO battle play out in practice? Imagine the following example:
The match begins with a race for the objectives, led by recon units, forward-deployed airborne troops, and heliborne air assault infantry. Soon afterwards, the first wave of tanks rumbles in.
The winners of the initial clash consolidate their positions, while the losers pull back, lick their wounds, and set up new defensive positions further back.
The lines harden, and players bring in more artillery and air defences while saving up for a big push.
Eventually, one side or the other will launch that push. Sometimes, it breaks through and wins the match. Sometimes it doesn’t. And sometimes, it breaks through, but not fast or far enough to turn the game around.
Win or lose, once the match is over, it’s time to reflect on lessons learned, tweak my army composition, or perhaps try a different division next time — on which more below.
The disclaimer I should add is that I seldom play single-player skirmish games — instead, I normally play multiplayer. By now, I can reliably trounce the AI on “Hard”, the highest difficulty setting on which it doesn’t get a resource bonus. It does particularly badly at attacking urban areas, with a tendency to blunder tanks into ambushes.
In general, I think the AI is the main limiting factor for WARNO — discussed further in the campaign section, below. The good news is that the developers read and respond to AI feedback, so over time this may improve.
Multiplayer: a test of skill (1 v 1), and a gloriously messy spectacle (10 v 10)
Multiplayer is effectively several different games in one, depending on how many players are in a match: 1 v 1 matches play very differently from my mainstay, 10 v 10.
1 v 1 games are about pure skill. Everything I said about tactics above applies; and victory & defeat are up to me. Don’t ask what my win/loss record is…
I did win this ranked 1 v 1 game. I took the lead early and while the other player eventually broke through my front line and pushed me back to the forest & complex in the bottom left, it was too little, too late to offset my advantage in points.
At the opposite extreme, 10 v 10 games offer spectacle — and plenty of chaos:
Player (and unit) density are high:
Visually, this looks cool, as convoys set out across roads, massed aircraft soar overhead, rocket barrages tear up the ground, and teams mass for their “big push”.
In terms of gameplay, this is a large change. Denser air defences make aircraft more difficult to use, and massed artillery makes it harder to keep infantry alive in fixed, exposed positions.
Players can focus on a smaller part of the map, instead of being responsible for everything.
While the public nature of 10 v 10 lobbies limits player coordination, when teams do work together by luck or design, they are impressive: I recently played against a first wave of air assault infantry that screened a second wave of tanks, while rocket artillery pounded my attempts to concentrate in a nearby treeline.
The flip side is that 10 v 10 games can be decided by silly mistakes2 or players who drop out and leave bots to take their place. I take a philosophical view and treat these matches like Mario Kart. Having fun is the most important thing!
Defending an objective in a 10 v 10 game as the US 35th Infantry Division. The 35th relies on older equipment, so I picked a sector with short sight lines to avoid being caught in the open by more modern tanks.
Customising armies adds to replayability
Interacting with skirmish mode is the army customisation system. Between battles, players build their deck — the available forces — from one of the available divisions, each of which has its own strengths, weaknesses, and play style. Different division types from the same country can play very differently to each other. For example:
Airborne divisions can quickly reach objectives thanks to their paratroopers’ ability to deploy forward at the start of a match. But they lack heavy units, which limits their ability to fight in open terrain or go head-to-head against better-armed divisions as the match goes on.
At the opposite extreme, armoured divisions typically peak later in the match, once they bring in a critical mass of tanks. They do best in open areas, where their modern tanks can take advantage of long engagement ranges, and worst in cities and forests, where infantry can ambush them at close quarters.
Air assault divisions, featuring helicopters and heliborne units.
Reservist divisions, with older kit and second-line troops.
These classifications aren’t absolute: the UK 1st Armoured Division includes forward-deployed paras, and the UK 2nd Infantry Division is a mechanised/air assault hybrid.
This contributes to both faction diversity and replayability, as there is a lot of scope to try different divisions and tactics. The same map can play very differently depending on the chosen division.
Left: An overview of my US 8th Infantry Division deck. The 8th ID is a well-rounded mechanised infantry force, often recommended for beginners. Right: Riflemen with Dragon anti-tank missiles are the 8th ID’s cheap, cheerful backbone.
Scripted operations add flavour
Besides the regular skirmish battles described above, WARNO includes eight “operations”. These are scripted single-player battles with set maps and unit rosters, comparable to the historical battles in Total War games. They’re not my favourite mode:
AI limitations make defensive operations too easy.
Like Total War, I think WARNO works better in the more freeform environment of skirmish3.
However, I enjoy their chrome (voice acting, introductory briefings, and events), and a certain operation has possibly the best twist I can remember in an RTS mission. I’ll leave you to discover which one…
Campaigns are intricate and satisfying, although tactical AI has room to improve
WARNO offers five “Army General” campaigns (one introductory and four main ones), of which I have beaten the first three. The campaigns offer an engaging strategic layer and can generate memorable tactical battles, although eventually I turned to auto-resolve.
The campaign strategic layer is a simple turn-based wargame in its own right, representing individual units down to the battalion level. Units can attack enemies next to their zone of control; nearby units (and support units such as artillery and aircraft) can join in. The player can fight the resulting battle on the tactical map, or auto-resolve. Battles progressively wear down units through fatigue and casualties; fatigue can be recovered, but men and equipment cannot.
For players familiar with the dynamic campaigns in Wargame: AirLand Battle and Wargame: Red Dragon, the WARNO campaigns will feel like moving from the 2D to the 3D Total War games: the map and the front lines are much more detailed than the large, aggregated provinces in the old games.
Even by itself, the strategic level of the campaign offers an interesting challenge — I confirmed this by playing the “Airborne Assault” campaign using mostly auto-resolve. There is an art to:
Judging what’s needed to take or hold an objective (and allocating forces accordingly);
Positioning units for mutual support;
Cycling fatigued or depleted units off the front line;
Assessing where and when to fall back versus holding on or pushing; and
Allocating scarce supporting units to achieve the best effect.
Armoured battalions were my workhorses. I liked to use helicopter squadrons to hunt down the most threatening Soviet units, typically the ones with the newest tanks. Meanwhile, I learned to keep infantry battalions in urban tiles so they’d have favourable terrain on the tactical map.
To deal with a top-of-the-line Soviet tank battalion, I brought my heaviest hitters (left) — including a brigade of Apache attack helicopters (right).
Aiding this, WARNO’s strategic AI is surprisingly good:
It attacks objectives with overwhelming force, and tries to bypass or cut off isolated defenders along the way.
It redeploys as needed, pulling back mangled units to safety, and withdrawing vulnerable support units if I punch through the front line.
When on the defensive, it waits for me to overstretch myself and then hits back hard, taking advantage of my attacking force’s fatigue.
Its main weakness is that when I attack on my turn, the AI seems too prone to hanging the target unit out to dry instead of sending in reinforcements.
Playing out battles on the tactical map gave me some memorable moments:
My proudest victory was holding out with a handful of combat engineers and the infantry accompanying an air defence unit against a Soviet armoured assault. Fortunately the map was dominated by two cities, where I holed up in terrain that was extremely favourable to me, allowing my soldiers to ambush and rocket the Soviet tanks.
At the other extreme was a cathartic battle when I caught up with an enemy artillery unit on the strategic map, giving my rampaging tank crews the chance to take revenge for all the barrages they suffered.
And I once led a scratch force of West German light infantry and home guardsmen, supported by mortars and strafing runs by US F-16s, to victory over elite Soviet and East German special forces4.
In a modern-day battle of David and Goliath, engineers with Dragon missiles hold off Soviet T-80s. I thought of a land-based version of Taffy 3.
Along the way, I also played out many, many bread-and-butter tank battles:
Sometimes it was a clash of the titans: modern US and West German tanks against their Soviet counterparts.
Sometimes I had mechanised infantry supporting my tanks.
Sometimes I just had the mechanised infantry, supported by modern anti-tank missiles — of which I always wanted more.
Sometimes I had outdated tanks, but helicopters or airpower let me even the odds.
They were often challenging and exciting, especially when I was outmatched (such as in the opening battles of the “Fulda Gap” campaign — more below) or had to think outside the box. Over the length of several campaigns, they eventually became repetitive, which was what prompted me to auto-resolve most of “Airborne Assault”.
Bringing the might of the US Army to bear. Left: M1A1 tanks can challenge almost everything the Soviets have to offer. Note the supply trucks I positioned further back so I could rotate damaged units to repair. Right: M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and M901 missile carriers unleashing their TOW anti-tank missiles.
The campaigns’ biggest limitation is the tactical AI, which opens nearly every battle by charging a massed tank column down the highway. Their sheer mass can be dangerous, especially if I’ve spread out too thinly in my opening deployment. But this also presents several problems:
It’s predictable: I know I need to deploy to stop the opening tank rush. This leaves the computer open to counters, particularly airpower.
It’s often not the best choice: the computer relies on tanks even in terrain that would be better suited to infantry, such as the urban map on which I holed up with my engineers.
It makes the tactical battles more repetitive: there are only so many times I want to fight a T-80 rush.
West German infantry with MILAN 2 anti-tank missiles defending against a Soviet & East German tank push. Note that the computer stuck to the road and left its tanks in column formation.
What’s in each campaign?
The introductory campaign, “Bruderkrieg”, and the first main campaign, “Fulda Gap”, both begin with the opening shots of the war, as East German and Soviet forces surge across the border. The US 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment must survive the onslaught and stage a fighting retreat until West German and US reinforcements arrive to hold the line. The opening battles are epic, in the sense of “the defence of a narrow place against the odds”; the outnumbered but heavily armed 11th ACR can maul its pursuers. Once reinforcements arrive, the focus shifts to holding — and recapturing — the objectives. “Bruderkrieg” covers a smaller section of this battle, while “Fulda Gap” covers a wider area.
Left: I think I fought three battles on the first turn with this unit from the 11th ACR. They weren’t trapped with the East Germans. The East Germans were trapped with them. Right: The 11th ACR in battle.
“Airborne Assault” is also set during the outbreak of war, further to the north. After Soviet and East German commandos seize an airport behind the lines, the West German army must quickly take back the airport before Soviet reinforcements fly in, then shift its attention to the oncoming Soviet tank columns. The West Germans in this campaign have older equipment than those in “Fulda Gap” and rely more on lightly armed infantry and home guard units, offset by generous German, US, British, and Belgian air support.
A screenshot from early on in “Airborne Assault”. In the top left, the bronze-coloured unit is the remnants of the enemy landing force after I pushed them off the airport. My main force scrambled into position to hold a line between Hannoversch Munden in the north, Kassel in the centre, and Melsungen in the south, while the Soviets columns bore in.
I have yet to play the last two campaigns, “The Left Hook” and “Highway 66”. Both take place several days into the war: both sides begin depleted after the initial Soviet offensives, while NATO is preparing to counterattack once reinforcements arrive: Belgians5 and British in “The Left Hook”, and the US 1st Armoured Division in “Highway 66”.
Following the recent release of a new patch, it’s a good time to start on “The Left Hook”. After that, we’ll see how much appetite I still have — “Highway 66” is a monster of a campaign, the only one marked as “very long”.
The roadmap has plenty for both skirmish/multiplayer and campaign players
WARNO has several DLC available as of September 2024, plus a roadmap that runs out to 2025:
The Early Access Pack adds 7 new divisions for skirmish and multiplayer. These are more “exotic” than the base game divisions — for instance, NATO receives the Berlin Command, a multinational force with exclusive access to the F-117 but almost no modern fighter aircraft or (until the latest patch) long-ranged air defences.
Smaller “Nemesis” DLCs add 2 new divisions each (1 NATO and 1 Warsaw Pact). The first one is already out, adding the US 101st Airborne and the Soviet 56th Air Assault divisions.
Larger expansions will add new fronts in the war, new divisions, and more campaigns. So far, Eugen has announced two: NORTHAG and SOUTHAG.
The Gold Edition includes these two expansions and the first two Nemesis DLCs. It doesn’t include the Early Access pack.
As an Early Access customer and owner of the Gold Edition, I have all the currently released DLCs. I like them and would recommend them to any fans — the trade-off between cool, unique toys and often serious limitations makes the DLC divisions fun and interesting to play. At the same time, none are essential.
Conclusions
WARNO is a worthy heir to some of my favourite games of the last decade. It is not perfect, notably in its tactical AI. All the same, it has entertained me for over 130 hours, across both single-player and multiplayer modes, and through individual battles and campaigns, since I started playing late in its Early Access period. If you are interested in its genre (real-time tactics) and its period, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
This is the default “Conquest” mode. There is an alternate mode, “Destruction”, where the goal is destroying enemy units instead. ↩
The classic is when one player has to hold a section of the map against multiple players from the enemy team. ↩
Similarly, I prefer Eugen’s dynamic campaigns to its scripted campaigns. ↩
Taking on Soviet elites with NATO reservists seems to be my habit in Eugen campaigns — I did something similar back in Wargame: AirLand Battle↩
Currently, the Belgians are campaign-only. Belgian divisions will become playable in skirmish and multiplayer in the “NORTHAG” expansion. ↩
Humankind launched three years ago, in August 2021. Since then, I’ve played it many times (on both Game Pass and Steam), and with Civ VII now on the horizon, the time is right for me to revisit my thoughts. I still like Humankind — but I don’t think it ever reached its potential.
What I liked about Humankind…
At launch, I was glowing about Humankind. It was a very good “traditional” and warfare-focused 4X, focused on building an empire, investing in food, production & science, raising armies, and fighting other empires. It featured:
Engaging warfare and tactical combat — terrain, technology, unit types, and tactics all mattered. Armies marched as stacks, before deploying to fight. Battles took part over several turns (allowing reinforcing stacks to join the fray), and siege battles felt distinct thanks to the presence of city militia and mechanics such as fortifications and siege engines. Warfare evolved through the eras, especially once gunpowder made its debut.
Computer players that could give me a challenge — from my very first game, I had to fight for my life against early rushes.
Points-based victory conditions that rewarded doing well across multiple dimensions:
Being both tall (building plenty of districts) and wide (geographic size).
Succeeding both at peace (having a large population, being scientifically advanced, earning lots of gold and influence) and at war (destroying lots of enemies).
Doing well consistently through the game — it was often worth lingering in earlier eras to earn points.
Novel mechanics such as choosing new cultures over the course of a game, opening with a hunter-gatherer phase in the Neolithic period, building cities region by region, and attaching outposts to expand cities.
A great aesthetic, both in terms of art and music.
The computer players in Humankind really, really like rushing me in the early game. This contributes to the challenge and is one reason why I consider it a military-focused game.
… and what I didn’t
At the same time, Humankind had its flaws:
From a design perspective, anything that wasn’t part of that “traditional” 4X core was vestigial — notably religion & culture. Diplomacy was bland and different computer opponents never felt distinct.
From an execution perspective, the late game was noticeably less polished than the early game1. Cool ideas suffered in implementation, such as a pollution system that was too punitive in practice.
The problem is that the game never really evolved from there. In an ideal world, expansions would have plugged the holes in its design; but none of its DLC2 did. As for execution, I think it says a lot that later updates simply disabled pollution by default.
By now, I think it’s unlikely this situation will change. The last DLC, a culture pack, came out nearly 12 months ago (back in September 2023), and the cadence of patches has slowed — there have been none since January 2024, although the developers have said they’re working on an update.
Why Old World was, overall, better
Another comparison is Old World, the other major historical 4X besides Civ. Between the two, Old World is the better game:
Old World is better tuned, more polished, and does much better at integrating different game systems. It’s also still receiving DLCs and regular updates.
At the same time, Humankind is the better-looking of the two, and its familiarity made it easier for me to learn at first.
Conclusions
Would I still recommend Humankind? Yes, with the caveat that prospective players should understand its focus — and its limitations. I still think it’s a good 4X game with great ideas (underscored by how many of them are recurring in Civ VII). It does particularly well at warfare — better than any Civ game probably has in decades — and that makes it well-suited for those seeking military challenges in their 4X games. On sale, it’s cheap enough (90% off!) to justify taking a look. What it does not do well is anything outside that core focus.
Would I replay it? Maybe. I thought I was ready to move on, but writing this article reminded me of what I enjoyed. I’ve yet to try the mod scene, and even without mods, sometimes I just feel like 4X comfort food: something that Humankind offers.
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I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the late game never went through the rounds of open beta testing that the early game did. ↩
Humankind received several rounds of DLC that added new playable cultures, plus one expansion, “Together We Rule”, all the way back in November 2022. “Together We Rule” added new diplomacy and world congress mechanics, which I never really understood or enjoyed. ↩
Firaxis has released the first gameplay showcase video for Sid Meier’s Civilization VII. The gameplay itself begins at 5:36:
Lots of interesting ideas — many of them from Humankind
My first impression is that Civ VII is the sincerest form of flattery to Humankind. In particular, it adopts Humankind’s signature mechanic, switching civs each era — albeit with differences:
Civ VII will only have three ages (antiquity, exploration, and modern).
In Civ VII, unlocking later civs will have in-game requirements. In the video (see approx. 17:35), playing as Ancient Egypt has automatically unlocked Songhai, whereas Mongolia would require access to horses.
Settlements beginning as towns, and upgrading to cities over time, also reminded me of Humankind.
Other mechanics also seem influenced by Humankind, although it’s too early to be sure:
There seems to be some kind of army system (instead of always moving units one at a time).
This cements a tradition of cross-pollination with Amplitude games — Civ VI’s districts system seemed clearly inspired by Endless Legend.
Finally, some mechanics appear entirely new to the historical 4X genre. These include:
The concept of endgame crises from games such as Stellaris, Total War: Attila, and the Total War: Warhammers — here reworked into “end of age” crises.
The playable map expanding with each new age; and
The ability to sail ships down rivers.
My questions so far
Given how early it is, there is still plenty to learn about Civ VII. A couple of questions that occurred to me:
What is the overall design philosophy?
For example, CivsI through IV were empire builders, whereas from Civ V onward, the focus switched to specialisation: picking a path to victory before even starting, then choosing an appropriate civ.
My guess is that the ages system will shake things up — let’s wait for more detail on how this plays out.
How well can the developers execute on their vision? And how well will the computer be able to play the game?
The infamous example here is the military AI in Civs V and VI, which was never able to adapt to the “1 unit per tile” rule.
This, we won’t know until launch.
Pricing — starting at A$120/US$70/€70/£60
A separate point is the price, which is not cheap.
In Australia, Civ VII will cost (per the headline prices on Steam) A$120 for the standard edition, A$160 for the deluxe, and A$200 for the founder’s edition. SteamDB tells me that in other regions, the standard edition is US$70, €70, and £60. These are the kind of prices I associate with niche wargames and milsims, rather than mainstream 4X games, and I wonder what effect they will have on players’ willingness to buy at launch.
Speaking for myself, I will take a punt on something half or a third that price; for anything close to that, the game had better be very, very good.
Overall thoughts so far
At this stage, I feel curious and hopeful about Civ VII. I’m glad that it has plenty of new ideas on display — I think it’s what the series needs in order to keep feeling fresh. Time will tell how well the game implements those ideas — and if that implementation is good enough to justify the price.
I’m about to finish the excellent Unicorn Overlord, a fantasy strategy-RPG game available on consoles. While its writing is poor even by video-game standards, its mechanics are excellent, and nearly unique amongst modern games in the genre.
Central to those mechanics is the squad system, the focus of this article. This gives players a lot of scope to customise the squads into which the party is divided:
First, by choosing the characters who go into each squad.
Second, by setting up each character with skills, equipment, and programmable tactics.
Setting up synergies is fun…
Unicorn Overlord inherits its basic mechanics from Ogre Battle, the SNES classic:
Each stage is its own real-time battle map.
Instead of moving individual characters, the smallest controllable unit on the battle map is a squad of 3 to 5 characters. Eventually, the player can field up to 8 squads, for a total of 40 characters once fully upgraded.
Characters come in many different classes, which determine their stats, skills, and available gear.
Squads battle automatically, based on the tactics set up by the player.
Much of the fun comes from choosing, equipping, and configuring each squad’s characters so they complement each other. For example, this is my most powerful squad:
Squad 1, centred around Hilda, is my powerhouse.
The key member of this team is Hilda, the wyvern rider. Her spear enables a skill that hits every member of the enemy squad at once. Normally this would take two turns to charge, but see below.
The two other back row characters support her: a witch adds ice damage and the “freeze” status effect to Hilda’s attack, and Selvie the druid gives her a second consecutive turn. This lets her instantly charge up, attack on her first turn, wipe out most of the enemy, and freeze the survivors.
Selvie also casts the Sandstorm spell, which adds the “blind” status effect to the enemy party. Against most enemies this is overkill — Hilda rarely leaves survivors — but better safe than sorry.
The two front-row characters are mostly there for utility, soaking incoming damage, and cleanup. Alain, the game’s main character, gives a bonus to “valor”, the resource used to call in more squads or activate special abilities. I swap the fifth character as needed.
For some time, the weakness of this squad was that it had no healer. I am experimenting with swapping a healer back in before the final battles.
… and so is unleashing them
How does the system play out in practice? I have a roster of squads, mostly designed for specific purposes:
Some, like Hilda and friends above, are built for lethality. Their job is to go in, flatten the enemy squad with an all-targets attack on turn one, and then repeat with the next enemy.
For instance, I’ve set up another squad along similar lines — it enables a witch to barrage the enemy with one of the most powerful spells in the game on turn one1.
Some are meant for support, such as healing friendly squads or clearing obstacles from stage maps.
Some are meant for mobility, with lots of fast, mounted or flying characters.
Now that I’m in the endgame, most of these squads are tried and tested. Some I use largely as-is, although I change individual characters’ gear when dealing with enemies who can inflict status effects. Others I continued to tweak late into the game, as new characters joined or as inspiration struck.
Level design does matter — I try to pick the right squads for the map. For example:
On a stage centred around lifting the siege of a friendly city, I deployed my fastest squad to secure the palace and protect the NPC there.
Similarly, I like to manoeuvre flying squads around terrain to eliminate ballista and catapult crews before they can threaten my main force.
Clive and his cavalry squad move fast and hit very hard. Using a side route, I rushed them into the city to protect the palace, visible at the top.
While Unicorn Overlord’s main game is quite easy, I tweak squads more when playing the optional challenge content. This comes in two main flavours:
Scripted coliseum challenges against squads with themed builds. Some of these were diabolically hard — beating them at a low level was probably the biggest impetus I’ve had to overhaul and tailor my squads.
An “online” (really asynchronous) PvP mode where players can upload squads for others to challenge, and test their builds against other squads. Refining my tactics, practising my cheese builds, and trying to counter other people’s cheese builds has helped keep me entertained long after release. Whenever someone tries to hit me with an all-battlefield magic spell on turn one, it’s very satisfying to bring a character who can reflect magic.
That must hurt. Reflecting this squad’s magic hoist them on their own petard.
Other benefits (and how Unicorn Overlord adheres to the Covert Action rule)
Taking a step back, it’s worth thinking how the Unicorn Overlord (and by extension, the Ogre Battle) squad system addresses a couple of design issues in the genre.
First, making the basic unit the squad rather than the individual character maintains a manageable limit on the number of units the player has to move around.
Second, it addresses the “large roster problem” in RPGs that only allow the player to use a few characters at a time. While the sheer number of characters in Unicorn Overlord (there are over 60 unique characters in the main game, plus generics) means some still end up on the bench, most have a chance to shine, even if only under specific circumstances.
While replicating this would be difficult, given how it forms part of Unicorn Overlord’s overall design, a handful of games probably would benefit from the squad concept. Expeditions: Rome features a large roster, a mix of story characters & (underutilised) generics, and a rather pointless legion battles minigame that amounts to several mouse-clicks and a few resources going up or down. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to group the available characters into squads for the legion battles?
(There is even a precedent for this — Suikoden III, another game with a massive roster, featured an army battles minigame that grouped up the recruited characters into squads.)
A final question is whether the additional complexity of squad setup is only possible because the battles are automatic. I think the answer is “yes”. In other words, Unicorn Overlord respects the Law of Conservation of Complexity and Sid Meier’s Covert Action rule (“one good game is better than two great ones”). I don’t think the game would work if every stage bogged down into manually controlled battles every time two squads fought2.
Conclusions
For over five months, Unicorn Overlord has kept me entertained, in no small part thanks to the squad system. Over that time, I’ve developed a powerful set of squads — both individually capable and effective as a group. They’ve taken me through most of the game’s content, including its challenge content, and I expect them to be able to handle the finale. After all, I’ve honed my cheese in the PvP meta. What final boss could rival that?
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I wish I could claim credit for this and Hilda’s squad — I found the ideas online. ↩
A very rough analogy might be the Dominions games, where the player doesn’t control armies in combat, but instead sets them up before. ↩
Suzerain is a work of interactive fiction about leading a country, set in an imaginary world reminiscent of the early Cold War. Since its launch several years ago on Steam, it has become a cult classic, and both the base game and DLC impressed me when I played them earlier this year. They tell engaging stories that feel true to their subject, making them well worth a look for news and politics junkies.
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Text-heavy interactive fiction
So far, there are two stories available:
The base game casts the player as Anton Rayne, the newly elected president of Sordland, as the country emerges from 20 years of one-man rule.
The “Kingdom of Rizia” DLC shifts the focus to a new country and a new character, King Romus Toras.
In either case, playing Suzerain involves a lot of reading. Players read story events as they unfold, proceed through dialogue, and choose conversation responses to progress the story. Occasionally there is legislation to approve or veto. “Rizia” allows the player to be more proactive, as King Romus can issue royal decrees that might include starting work on a new dam, exploring for resources, consolidating provincial militias, or funding a new university.
Left: Active modifiers for Sordland in the base game, resulting from my diplomacy. Right: A Rizian decree.
Instead of the numerical resources and stats of a strategy game, Suzerain presents information in a qualitative way. Characters may warn in dialogue that a problem is brewing. Clicking on cities will show modifiers that currently apply to their regions. A sidebar menu keeps track of various indicators, ranging from school quality to the strength of the air force. Finally, the many newspapers of Suzerain’s world will comment on current events from their different perspectives — some more neutral than others.
Rizia lacks a free press at the start of the game. As such, its Royal Herald can be sycophantic.
Throughout, the writing is effective. The characters feel like people rather than strawmen, and events can be gripping — or downright stressful. The prose can be slightly formal, wordy, or stilted, although I can forgive it in the case of dialogue explaining policy options — that can be justified by the game’s need to explain information.
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown
Whether in Sordland or in Rizia, the player’s nemesis is “events, dear boy, events”. Plot twists come thick and fast, presenting a constant stream of crises. And on a first game, it’s necessary to work out characters’ loyalties on the fly. Who supports which cause, who can be a useful ally, who is out for themselves, and who are the idealists and the patriots?
Left: Deivid Wisci, Rayne’s mentor, is one of the good ones. Right: Duchess Lucita Azaro is one of the more memorable characters in “Kingdom of Rizia”.
Compounding this is the messy situation in which both countries begin the game:
Sordland, in particular, rests on a knife’s edge: the economy is both statist and riddled with cronyism, the recently retired strongman still commands an influential “old guard” of loyalists, there is significant tension between the majority Sords and the minority Bluds, and an expansionist neighbour is watching with hungry eyes.
Rizia is better placed, but faces its own challenges. While the Rizians may dream of regaining lost lands, the current rulers of those lands have ideas — and allies — of their own. Domestically, while King Romus is an absolute monarch in theory, in practice his power is checked by the aristocratic families who rule Rizia’s component duchies.
My base game run was a disaster. I set out to be a reforming liberal while trying to make everyone happy. I learned the hard way that this made no-one happy instead. My signature reform, updating Sordland’s authoritarian-era constitution, failed to pass. Saying yes to everyone’s policy wishlist led the country into a debt crisis. The economy cratered. Next to that, my achievements (increasing access to healthcare and education, strengthening opportunities for women, befriending a Great Power, and deterring a would-be invader) paled: I lost re-election by a landslide. The conservatives hated my economic reforms; the liberals liked me but not enough to vote for me over their own candidate; and the far left, far right, and minorities hated me, period. Looking at the list of possible endings, I was probably lucky not to be overthrown or assassinated.
The ending of my first game. Don’t ask what happened to Sordland’s GDP.
I did much better in Rizia. This time, I played more cautiously, focused on establishing strong economic foundations, and gradually and incrementally advanced my reforms. I turned the country into an energy-exporting powerhouse, then used trade and energy deals as carrots to peacefully reconcile with Rizia’s estranged neighbours. At home, I reformed Rizia into a constitutional monarchy with power held by an elected prime minister; and saw Romus’s heir, Crown Princess Vina, grow into a wise, confident, and compassionate woman. Compared to the shambles I made of Sordland, this was night and day. But perfection eluded me; I failed to recover lost Rizian land from the neighbouring dictator.
The rather better ending I secured for Rizia. Long live Romus the Reformer!
Less predictable than a strategy game — but also scripted and finite
While Suzerain is not a strategy game, it does share similar themes. In some ways, I find Suzerain more convincing:
Strategy games are mechanically-driven, so they require transparent rules and predictable outcomes.
Suzerain can be more opaque, and throw more unexpected events at the player, because it is narratively-driven. Nasty events are part and parcel of the story.
The flip side is that strategy games are unscripted and replayable: new events unfold each time. Suzerain has a wealth of content, but it is scripted and finite. Yes, there is a lot I haven’t seen. Yes, there are many paths I could take on a replay — I could follow different ideologies1, befriend different characters, or execute better on my original goal. But I still know what happens next. As someone who incessantly replays strategy games but plays narrative games once, so far I’ve yet to replay either story in Suzerain.
Maybe I can avoid this mess next time?
Conclusions
For anyone interested in their subject, and who enjoys this kind of narrative game, Suzerain and “Kingdom of Rizia” are easy recommendations. There is something authentic in how the base game and “Rizia” bring their messy, complicated countries to life — and while I’ve focused on the turmoil, my experience in “Rizia” showed how the game depicts hope as well. I’d love to see more content in this universe.
But not become a murderous authoritarian. Some of the content I’ve seen is pretty disturbing. ↩
Old World is a 4X strategy game set during classical antiquity that I have played on and off since it launched on Steam, back in May 2022. It is, hands down, the most unique and innovative historical 4X game I’ve played (the other recent ones being Humankind and the Civilization series):
First, for how it blends 4X game mechanics with other genres.
And second, for its own, novel ideas.
These ideas successfully come together to make Old World one of the best 4Xs in any genre.
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Blend of 4X strategy + narrative elements
In many ways, Old World feels like a cross between a classic 4X game, narrative games like King of Dragon Pass,and, to some extent, grand strategy games:
The basic mechanics are those of a turn-based 4X: explore the map, settle and develop cities, research new technologies, train units and march them to war, and build Wonders of the World, all in pursuit of defined victory conditions.
Other mechanics are closer to a GSG or a narrative game:
Rulers and officials are named characters with traits, lifespans, opinions, and relationships to one another.
Narrative events frequently pop up: characters scheme, fall in love or quarrel; emissaries show up to present trade deals, marriage proposals, or demands; children take after or rebel against their parents; sages appear in court to offer their services; noble houses clamour for favour; exiles and escaped captives ask for sanctuary; and many more.
Sending an ambassador to negotiate trade deals with a friendly empire can be fruitful. Imported luxuries keep cities and noble families happy.
These “layers” of mechanics tie back to one other. For instance, character traits matter beyond simple “+1” bonuses. Rulers have different abilities depending on their character class: Diplomats can form alliances, Orators can hire tribal mercenaries, Scholars can re-roll available technologies, and more.
Pericles was a powerful starting leader – his ability to hire mercenaries jump-started my early expansion.
Novel 4X mechanics
On top of these building blocks, Old World adds its own unique ideas. For example:
The ambitions system, which lets players choose and shape victory conditions on the fly.
While Old World offers traditional victory conditions such as points, the main way for human players to win the game is by completing 10 ambitions — goals that the player chooses for each ruler.
Ambitions last the life of the current leader plus a short grace period, and each leader will typically only live long enough to achieve a handful. As such, this makes it important to choose ambitions that are achievable and that align with the intended play style. I prefer playing 4X games as a peaceful builder, so I aim for ambitions like “build three universities” and “control six cities with Legendary culture”.
The orders system: the player can take a finite number of actions each turn, limited by the number of “orders” available (as the game progresses, better-developed empires with appropriate laws will have more orders).
This naturally creates “interesting decisions”, as what happens every turn will reflect the player’s priorities.
It also means that certain decisions have opportunity costs — in particular, fighting a war will absorb a lot of orders that could have been used to move workers around and develop buildings.
Orders in action: moving the nearby horseman (left) to kill the red barbarian unit will only use a single order. On the other hand, moving the distant camel archer (right) into position will use 3 orders. Multiply this by several units, and a military campaign will rapidly drain the available orders.
The role of chance: in several places, the game randomly determines the available options.
For instance, there are different choices for educating the royal heir, each of which unlocks several potential classes. When she or he grows up, I can choose between two of the available classes — but not which two. So, I can increase the odds of getting a Diplomat or Orator in the next generation by choosing a political education, but I can’t guarantee it.
Other examples include the game randomly determining which techs are available to research out of those unlocked; or which Wonders will be available in any given game.
Successfully bringing it together
The result is a fluid, dynamic game where the situation and the appropriate strategy evolve over time1. Events can open up unexpected opportunities: in my last game, when my ruler died in the midst of a long-running war against the Gauls, the Gauls sent a delegation to my new ruler offering to bury the hatchet. I took them up on it — and with my new, Diplomat ruler, I eventually negotiated an alliance that let me peacefully settle on Gaulish lands.
The ambitions system helps keep the late game interesting. Once, I came from far behind and still won by focusing on achievable ambitions (and staying away from any that required me to go to war — something that wouldn’t have been feasible against larger, more powerful empires). Instead, I triumphed as a builder and lawmaker via ambitions such as “build four Wonders, one of them Legendary” and “make all noble families friendly while enacting all laws”.
An example of emergent narrative from the ambitions system. After the death of her older daughter, the grieving Queen Polyxena set out to build the Mausoleum. Decades later, Polyxena’s younger daughter fulfilled her mother’s ambition and took me one step closer to victory.
The combination of events, characters, and gameplay also leads to memorable emergent narratives:
In my first game, my ageing ruler and his wife had a miracle child late in life after praying to the gods.
In my last game, a brother returning from distant lands brought a Gaulish wife and drama in his wake as I played out different saved games: once he went insane after his wife’s death, and another time he murdered his nephew.
In my current game, an ambitious “rising star” courtier demanded a royal marriage (I said yes) and another one demanded that I abdicate and hand over the throne (I said no … emphatically)2.
What did she think was going to happen?
Romulus & Remus hate each other, so if playing Romulus, it can make sense to follow the myth and take out Remus first3.
And more — I’ve just scratched the surface.
The sad fate of Remus, a story in three acts. His murder in prison was a random event.
Incidentally, while I’ve focused on the unique aspects of Old World’s design, it also gets the basics right. My favourite example here is that while military AI is a frequent bugbear in strategy games, Old World’s computer players are ruthless and effective at waging war. They muster large armies in safe territory and then commit them en masse, hunt down weakened units, and aren’t fazed by the “one unit per tile” (1UPT) rule.
The trade-off is that being unique comes with a learning curve. Old World has a detailed PDF manual, a good tutorial, and plenty of tooltips that explain what I can do. Knowing when to do something is trickier. Even as an experienced player, every time I come back after a break, I find myself Googling strategy questions or browsing Discord to refamiliarise myself.
Conclusions
Old World is the historical 4X game that I wish more genre fans — and especially, more strategy and 4X developers — would play. It is rich in new ideas, from specific mechanics such as orders & ambitions to the overarching concept of enriching a 4X game with characters and events. And it uses these ideas to keep the late game feeling fresh.
Other developers could learn a lot from Old World’s approach, and if you’re interested in similar games, check it out — I promise you it will be original.
Further reading
Design Director Soren Johnson’s blog, “Designer Notes”, has a wealth of content about Old World’s design, including this post on victory conditions.
Note: I received press copies of two DLC — “Wonders and Dynasties” and “The Sacred and The Profane” from Hooded Horse, the game’s publisher. I bought the base game and the other DLC myself.
Contrast the modern Civ games, which require picking a victory type and strategy before even starting. ↩
The latest DLC, “Behind the Throne”, added this mechanic. Rising stars have excellent stats but also tend to have designs on the throne. Giving them the opportunity to shine can be a calculated risk. ↩
Most of Old World’s starting leaders are historical figures; the mythical Romulus of Rome and Dido of Carthage are exceptions ↩
2023 was a “quality over quantity” year for me, dominated by a Big Three — Elden Ring (a 2022 release) in the first few months of the year; Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom after its release in May; and then Jagged Alliance 3 from July to November. All three were Game of the Year material.
Apart from the Big Three, 2023 saw:
My usual fare of PC strategy releases: Rule the Waves 3, Age of Wonders 4, and Dwarf Fortress.
Odds and ends: a deck builder (Cobalt Core), a homage to 16-bit JRPGs (Octopath Traveller II), Bayonetta Origins: Cereza & the Lost Demon, Vampire Survivors, and Venba.
Old favourites such as Shadow Empire, Humankind, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and Expeditions: Rome.
Finally, at the end of this post, I’ll touch on upcoming games in 2024 that look interesting.
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The big three: Zelda, Elden Ring, and JA3
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch, 2023)— My Game of the Year for 2023. The beautiful, ambitious successor to one of my favourite games of all time didn’t disappoint; according to Nintendo’s Year in Review, I have spent 170 hours with it. And I’m still not done! TOTK offered:
Spectacular set-pieces such as the Lightning Temple;
Moment-to-moment wonder and delight, such as exploring the Depths, peacefully resting on a sky island, outwitting would-be Yiga ambushers, or riding a dragon;
A satisfying worldbuilding follow-up to BOTW, as we got to see how Hyrule and its inhabitants had moved on and rebuilt.
Elden Ring (Xbox Series X, 2022) — 2023 saw my return to returned to Soulsborne and From Software games after taking a break since the original Dark Souls. Elden Ring took the Souls games’ traditional strengths (combat, “tough but fair” challenge, localisation, drop-in multiplayer) and added a vast, often beautiful, and occasionally horrifying open world to discover and explore. While rather stressful to play, it was worth every minute. I made it as far as Leyndell, the Royal Capital, and still have further to go.
Jagged Alliance 3 (PC, 2023)— 2023 finally saw a worthy sequel to one of the classics of the 1990s. JA3 combined great turn-based tactics, a cast of lovable rogues, and surprisingly good (and often laugh-out-loud funny) writing & worldbuilding. I picked it up on launch day and the risk paid off. Also the only one of the Big Three that I finished.
Other PC strategy games
Rule the Waves 3(PC, 2023)— A “more of a good thing” sequel. This is one of the few series that looks at defence from a policy and force structure perspective (given my country’s geography, objectives, and budget, what is the appropriate navy for my circumstances?). RTW3 extends the timeline to 1890-1970, allowing more time with pre-dreadnoughts in the early game and adding missiles to the late game. Good enough to distract me from Zelda: TOTK!
Age of Wonders 4 (PC, 2023) — My favourite AoW game. It sells the illusion of being a wizard (or in my case, a dragon lord), discovering and taming a beautiful, intriguing, and dangerous world, and fighting off rival armies. The aesthetics and production values help sell the experience. A final bonus is that the game plays very well on a Steam Deck.
Dwarf Fortress (PC, 2023 for the Steam version) — My first time with the legendary — and legendarily intricate — colony management game, which turned out to be much more approachable than its reputation suggested. I think it’s also ruined similar titles such as Rimworld for me — I prefer DF’s simulationism and greater focus on building.
Odds and ends
Octopath Traveller II (Switch, 2023) — A tribute to classic SNES JRPGs, with beautiful pixel art, good music, and some pretty decent turn-based battles. Unfortunately, in some ways it was too faithful to its inspirations — I could have done without random battles in 2023.
Cobalt Core (PC, 2023) — A charming deck-builder that became my go-to game when I need something short, or when I’m tired and I just want to relax. Love its colourful characters.
Bayonetta Origins: Cereza & the Lost Demon(Switch, 2023) — A beautiful fairy-tale experience, seemingly inspired by Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Cheshire the soft toy turned demon is an adorable co-protagonist. Slightly repetitive.
Venba (Game Pass, Xbox Series X, 2023) — A clever game with a unique premise: using cooking minigames to tell the story of an immigrant family. Unfortunately, that story being rather cliched held it back.
Vampire Survivors (Game Pass, Xbox Series X, 2022) — Another notable short-form game, an arcade palate-cleanser that went back to the roots of gaming and added a modern progression system.
Revisiting old favourites
I revisited Shadow Empire after the launch of its “Oceania” DLC and wrote up my adventures here. Still a great game, and it still receives plenty of support.
I also revisited Humankind — I still like it, but I’m a little disappointed by the lack of progress in its design since it launched a few years ago. While it still has the same strengths that endeared it to me at launch, it also has the same weaknesses, un-addressed by its DLCs. Contrast, say, Civilization V, which benefited from Gods and Kings, or the various Paradox games over the last decade.
In December, I dusted off two tactical RPGs: Fire Emblem: Three Houses on Switch and Expeditions: Rome on PC. In the case of FE:3H, I started the game in 2019, back before the COVID-19 pandemic! I am so close to the end of Edelgard’s route in FE:3H now — just a little further to go…
Finally, around the same time, I got back into Crusader Kings III via its total conversion mods. The highlight has been The Fallen Eagle, a mod that transports the game back in time to late antiquity and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Fighting for survival as the Romano-British descendants of Ambrosius Aurelianus has been an exciting challenge, albeit one that has required patience, persistence, and a tolerance for “fun” in the sense of the Dwarf Fortress meme.
Upcoming 2024 releases
The beauty of writing this in January is that I have a better sense of what’s coming up and what will interest me.
Playing Suzerain, the politics-themed interactive fiction game, this year brought the upcoming Suzerain: Kingdom of Rizia DLC onto my radar. I loved the base game and look forward to more content in the setting.
I’m intrigued by The Brew Barons, a Porco Rosso-inspired game about flying a seaplane, gathering resources, brewing beer, and fighting villainous air pirates. It will be nice to have more arcade-style games for my HOTAS.
Finally, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, a Kickstarted spiritual successor to Suikoden, remains on my watch list. Again, it will be on Game Pass.
Two games in, I really like Age of Wonders 4. It sells the illusion of being a wizard (or in my case, a dragon lord), discovering and taming a beautiful, intriguing, and dangerous world.
So far, I’ve focused on exploration and PvE gameplay — roaming the map; discovering interesting locations; fighting guardians, wandering monsters, and the odd hostile free city; and only clashing with enemy empires as an afterthought. I think this was possible because of the maps I played:
The first time, I played the suggested introductory map. I took my time, played slowly as I learned the game, and won a score victory when the turn limit ran out. The computer-controlled empires weren’t particularly tough. Instead, high-level site guardians were probably the most powerful enemy I faced.
I played my second game on a story map added by the new DLC, “Empires and Ashes”. This time, I won by following the story quests. The quests also let me mollify the computer players. There was still plenty to do, such as fighting off a marauding monster that reappeared as part of the story, or tackling a quest battle that required me to go in solo.
Chappos the Dragon, fighting a powerful recurring enemy on the new story map.
Both times I played as a dragon, another feature enabled by DLC1. This lent itself well to my play style — a dragon is very good at clearing out monster lairs or defeating quest enemies.
But more importantly, playing as a dragon is cool. With a few upgrades, the dragon can drop meteors on the battlefield, send enemies flying with a swipe of its tail, or rip them to shreds in melee. It can bide its time and then charge in, like ultra-heavy cavalry, or trade blow for blow in the front line. Defensive spells and healers can keep it in the fray. And it’s unique — other than the dragon pretenders in the Dominions series, I can think of very few fantasy strategy games that allow this.
The aesthetics and production values help sell the experience. I think this is the first time an Age of Wonders game has really looked and sounded impressive — the world is attractive and the monsters sound ferocious in battle.
A final bonus is that the game plays very well on a Steam Deck:
On a technical level, performance is good, the visuals and interface are clear and legible, and the default control scheme lends itself well to the Deck.
I also suspect that as a turn-based 4X, it’s inherently well-suited to portable gaming. I can play a few turns at a time, explore the map or build up my cities, save the game, and feel I’ve made progress.
At least for now, I plan to keep playing in the current vein — I think I prefer my current PvE play style to the more traditional, symmetrical, empires-versus-empires fantasy 4X experience in previous Age of Wonders games. While writing this post, I just fired up another story map (this time, the first map from the original launch campaign), and I’m already interested in the quests on offer.
Now after I hit “publish”, I wonder if I can squeeze in just one more turn…
Further reading
I wrote quite a bit about Age of Wonders 3, both at launch and after release.
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In this case, the game’s first DLC, “Dragon Dawn”. ↩
I greeted the announcement of Jagged Alliance 3 with some caution. In the lead-up to release, I felt a mixture of excitement and trepidation: could it bring back the old magic?
I needn’t have worried — JA3 is excellent. It builds on its predecessor’s strengths, while adding new features that reflect the last 25 years of tactical RPG design.
As with the previous games in the series, JA3 unfolds over two layers:
A strategic map containing (initially enemy-held) towns, garrisons, & diamond mines, and the country in between;
Turn-based tactical battles on hand-crafted maps — the meat of the game.
The heroes of our story. The main menu screen shows my current squad – from left to right: Buns (markswoman/medic), Tigris (custom character), Ivan (one-man army), Livewire (hacker/mechanic), Barry (sapper), and Scope (markswoman par excellence).
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The stars of the show are a roster of unique characters with whom players build a squad or squads. As in an RPG, it’s important to hire individuals with an eye to the team’s overall skills. Some are more directly combat-focused. Others are oriented towards support. Each has his or her own stats, personality, required wages, and — new to the series — a unique ability. For instance, Livewire the hacker is a valuable support character — she’s a poor shot, but will automatically reveal every enemy in battle if the player has intel for that location.
Also new is that characters gain new abilities as they level up — my current favourite is the ability to move further when wearing light or no armour. Scope the markswoman, who starts with that ability, can easily move to a new firing position each turn.
Battles place a premium on planning. If everything goes according to plan, they can be easy or anticlimactic. If the plan misfires, or if the enemy is particularly strong or alert, things become “exciting”. As of the time of writing (soon after the release of the 1.03 patch), the most popular playstyle is a combination of stealth and aimed, single-shot rifle fire, which aligns pretty well with how I play:
Plan A usually involves picking off lone sentries, navigating to high ground or good vantage points, and then opening up on the unwary enemy.
If that fails, Plan B involves explosives and a machine gun.
This was a situation that required explosives. Clockwise from top left: the enemy force in its full might; lining up a grenade throw; preparing a 40mm grenade for a group inside the building; and the aftermath.
The ebb and flow of battle lends itself to emergent narratives. Once, my idea of sneaking into a city district turned out to be impossible: I walked into the middle of a set-piece battle between a large enemy squad and a handful of friendly NPCs protecting a public building. I used my scarce handful of 40mm grenades to thin out the enemy squad, before moving in to clear out the remnants. But as I was at the cusp of victory, an enemy soldier — nearly the last survivor of his squad — ran behind a civilian, creating an unscripted human shield situation — and prompting a save-reload so I could safely get rid of him. Rather than being frustrated, I loved the resulting narrative.
In another case, I played a different battle — a counterattack on a harbour I had liberated — three times, trying to keep my NPC allies safe. Again, rather than frustrating me, each replay held my interest as I tried different tactics and watched the battle unfold different ways. One ally, a machete-wielding woman, had a habit of getting herself killed charging machine gunners. On the third try, she manoeuvred between market stalls to stay out of sight, hacked down the first gunner, climbed up a nearby roof to stay safe, climbed back down, and outflanked the second gunner. Wow!
The strategic map. Camp la Barriere will probably be my next target – it controls passage along the river. By taking it, I can speedily move upriver by boat, and protect my downstream settlements from attack.
The strategic map is where the squad prepares for future battles — repairing gear; treating wounds; training militia to defend friendly settlements; and — this is new — crafting ammunition or explosives. All this takes time, and with the need to pay wages, time is money.
Early on, when money was tight, I found there was a trade-off between an easy tactical game and a harder strategic game. I started with Ivan, one of the best, most iconic characters in the franchise — and whom JA3 prices to match. Ivan single-handedly carried the team through the tutorial area, averting multiple squad wipes. But the need to capture enough territory to pay his wages meant I had to play very aggressively on the strategic map.
Ivan is so good, people have beaten the game using him alone. He has high stats and the unique ability to recover action points after a kill.
Progression in JA3 is faster than it was in JA2. In JA3, there are multiple rifles available in the tutorial area, so the “ineffectual pistols and SMGs” phase only lasts for the first couple of battles, rather than dragging on as it did in JA2. Instead, the limiting factor in JA3 is ammunition availability. There is no more Bobby Ray’s — the online weapon store in JA2 — so reliably sourcing ammunition requires either crafting it, or visiting shopkeepers in town.
Between this and a damage penalty that applies to burst and automatic fire, I find I rarely use these weapon modes — better to fire single shots instead. This is probably my main niggle about balance — while I could easily mod out or reduce the damage penalty, I’m interested in how the developers will approach the issue 1. And to be fair, this isn’t new to the series — burst fire was too inaccurate to be useful in JA2.
The music deserves a final shout-out. I like the main theme, performed by orchestra, so much that after wrapping up the game for the night, I usually linger on the main menu to listen.
So far, JA3 is everything I’d hoped for. I’m playing slowly; nearly one month after release, I’d guess that I’m about 40% through. If it holds up just as well in the late game, it will be a genre classic.
Strengthening burst and automatic fire would probably also strengthen enemies, who have a habit of blazing away in these modes from too far away ↩
The strategic map screen at the end of my French campaign in RTW 3. The yellow column in the top-right indicates high tension (and a high risk of war) with the UK. The coloured bars in each region show the strength of each country’s fleet there.
The highest praise I can give Rule the Waves 3 is that, for two weeks, it was the one game that I played alongside Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
The second-highest praise I can give is that it’s a brilliant depiction of strategy. Like its predecessors, Rule the Waves 3 puts the player in command of a navy — designing ships, building fleets, and commanding them in battle. This involves several trade-offs:
Objectives vs resources — It’s the player’s job to design a fleet that can bridge the gap between the nation’s requirements and its available resources. These are very different for each country in the RTW series. For instance, the UK and France have to patrol large empires while fending off powerful enemies in Europe. Japan starts with a smaller industrial base but benefits from isolation. The US has a huge economy and is an ocean away from major threats. What force structure and doctrine are suitable for each?
Current vs future capabilities — There is never enough money to go around. Building new ships takes time & money. Maintaining existing ships also costs money. When is it best to upgrade old ships? And when is it best to bite the bullet, scrap old ships, and put the money into new ships that won’t be ready for a few years?
Adding to this is the player’s position. While in-game events allow us to give advice, the government makes the big decisions: war & peace, naval funding, and naval treaties. Sometimes the government will also intervene in the details, by demanding X number of new battleships or destroyers. Regardless, when a war breaks out, the player has to get the job done.
This makes the RTW series almost unique in its focus on policy and force structure — an area I’d like to see more games explore.
The ships list – the companion screen to the strategic map. I spent most of my time looking at this screen. With my battleships undergoing modernisation, the carriers and cruisers were the largest ships in service when the game ended in 1970. A larger force of destroyers and ASW corvettes supplemented them.
Whereas the previous RTW games covered shorter periods, Rule the Waves 3 extends the timeline to 1890-1970. Over this time, naval technology evolves through:
The pre-dreadnought age (1890s-1900s)
The age of dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers (1900s-1930s or 1940s)
The carrier age (roughly 1930s-1950s)
The jet & missile age (newly added, 1950s-1970)
A game-changing technology. SAMs are much, much effective than AA guns.
Over the course of a successful French campaign, I fought against, alongside, or sometimes both (at different times) the navies of Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary, the UK, and the US.
Some wars were one-sided — on two occasions, Il Duce sued for peace almost as soon as the war began. Others were less so — I lost a two-ocean war in the North Sea & Mediterranean against Germany and Italy in 1914-1915. The “final boss” of the campaign was a Franco-US war against Italy and the UK in the early 1960s — I hung on by the skin of my teeth before the diplomats managed to negotiate peace on the status quo ante bellum.
Some of my ships became legends. The four Aquitaine-class battleships entered service in the early 1930s as battlecruisers, were redesignated as fast battleships in the 1940s, and periodically received the latest radar and fire control. They were murderously effective against German heavy cruisers as late as the 1950s, before finally meeting their match in the form of modern Anglo-Italian missiles and torpedoes in the 1960s. Two survived to the end of the game in 1970.
The game ended before the final incarnation of the Aquitaines came online. This would have complemented the 16″ guns by adding surface-to-air missiles and CIWS missile defences.
Other designs were less successful. At the other extreme, the guided missile age made my last big gun cruiser, the Gloire, obsolete while under construction. I hastily refitted her to incorporate surface-to-air missiles, only for the Italians to sink her in her first battle.
The ill-fated Gloire.
Like its predecessors, RTW3 won’t be for everyone. The interface is a little fiddly, the graphics are rudimentary, and there is no music. Players need to come armed with their imagination.
The tactical battle view. I think this was the Gloire’s first and last battle.
For players who don’t mind this, RTW3 offers rich rewards. I plan to try another campaign some time. After France, perhaps Japan might be an interesting change of pace…
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was a day 1 purchase for me — its predecessor, Breath of the Wild, might be my favourite game ever. So far, I’m having a great time.
I think the running theme so far has been the balance between the familiar, the changed, and the new. Tears of the Kingdom contains many echoes of, and homages to, the original — but the details are very different, giving it a distinct identity.
A good example is the role of verticality. In both games, gliding from a height makes it possible to travel farther, faster, and more safely than travelling at ground level. But the details differ.
In Breath of the Wild, reaching those heights required a difficult, time-consuming climb.
In Tears of the Kingdom, while climbing is still needed, in many places Link can teleport upwards, launch himself from giant towers, or reverse time to ride a falling rock back up to the sky.
Using these techniques, I was able to cover a large amount of ground (and fly over difficult terrain) — although I still had a panicky moment when I had to escape a lynel. Thankfully it was unaware…
Another example is narrative. Old friends are still around, but they’re in different locations and in different stages of their lives. The story takes us to familiar places, but in a different order and different circumstances. It’s still Hyrule, but it’s changed over the intervening years.
Returning to an old home-away-from-home in Tears of the Kingdom.
Other differences, I think, come from me rather than the game. I’m dying less in TOTK than I did at this stage of BOTW. Is that because the game is easier? I’m not sure. Link is fragile — many of the early enemies can kill him in two hits — and even near the starting area, I had to run from a couple of bosses. Or is it because I’m more skilful and experienced? Coming from Elden Ring has made me confident and aggressive in combat, even when I have nothing better than a stick.
My plan is to go broad before I go deep. In other words, I want to explore, map out the early areas (either on horse or by glider), and maybe travel to the various hub towns before I attempt major quests. Hyrule is still a beautiful world, and I want to see more of it. And more experienced or not, I want better equipment and more health before I fancy my odds in tougher areas!
This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Shadow Empire
Welcome back to my Let’s Play of Shadow Empire.
This was the situation at the end of Part 1, with my army fighting the militarists of Panzerraum:
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ENEMY CAPITAL IN SIGHT!
War over by Landing Day?
As Part 2 opens, the vehicle designers bring good news. Despite only incorporating a limited amount of new technology (side skirts that increase protection against infantry anti-tank weapons), the Bedwyr II has significantly better stats than the original. Extensive use in battle has improved the Bedwyr’s design stats, benefiting subsequent iterations.
To the west (around the middle of the map, above), Panzerraum digs in around the city of Errisspring. This was originally the capital of one of the farmer city-states that began the game next to me — Panzerraum conquered them not long after declaring war on me.
Unfortunately, the AI has chosen the wrong place to make a stand. The Lantern Bearers advance from the north. The Sarmatians, the Swords at Sunset, and a lot of militia advance from the south and west. Between them, they trap and encircle the defenders.
The siege of Errisspring becomes a foregone conclusion:
To the east, the Companions follow the road northeast and discover the Panzerraum capital, Hirschstein. The possibility of a knock-out blow is irresistible.
SETBACK!
Editorial: Dangers of overconfidence?
I send the Companions forward. They reach the suburbs of Hirschstein, but the defenders hold. And this time, massed tank battalions emerge on my flank, poised to cut off my spearhead. As the enemy tanks advance, I retreat to safety:
This is how the Panzerraum AI should have fought from day one — machine against machine, and manoeuvre against manoeuvre. (Possibly it didn’t have the resources at the time — armoured brigades are not cheap. Or possibly it was distracted by a multi-front war — besides me, Panzerraum is at war with at least one minor faction.) And current circumstances — a much shorter front — favour the AI’s use of fewer, larger units, making it harder for me to punch through overstretched lines.
With the possibility of a coup de main gone, I settle in for a war of attrition. I look for opportunities to encircle and pick off a regiment here, or whittle down a tank battalion there. The AI returns the favour, with occasional bloody pushes.
And so the war drags on.
ISLAND GETAWAY!
Visit Avalon’s newest member city
While the war rages, life goes on across the rest of the planet.
I invest in infrastructure — with my armies far from home, I pour metal and industrial production into building railways from my capital, Albion, to nearer the front.
Across the western sea, I diplo-annex the island city-state of Belhors:
First, another city is always welcome.
Second, I can use this to practice the newly added maritime logistics in the Oceania expansion. I pay for a rather expensive shipping contract, allowing me to send materials back and forth. The idea is to get resource production off the ground in Belhors, so it becomes self-sustaining.
And third, Belhors is just across a narrow strait from Polyshelf — the empire that extorted me back in Part 1. If the time comes for payback, their territory will be useful.
I also pay for reconnaissance of the ocean — and the surrounding shores — north of my continent. Across the ocean, at least two empires are fighting a war of their own:
Finally, I meet another major empire nearby, the theocracy of Monterra. Located northeast of Panzerraum, Monterra is tenuously connected to the rest of the continent by a narrow isthmus. For the moment, we have no border in common.
Like Panzerraum, Monterra instantly takes a dislike to me. Random event pop-ups give me the chance to support the peace party within their government. So far, this hasn’t paid off — I suspect I will have to fight them eventually.
INVENTOR DEMONSTRATES FLYING MACHINE!
General Staff sends observers
Instead of the brute-force approach — raising more brigades — I decide to try other approaches against Panzerraum.
I begin fielding my first aircraft — the Merlin light helicopters:
Unfortunately, the Merlin underwhelms in practice. I suspect the issue is size — it’s too small to carry a meaningful bomb load.
Now that the war has become more static, I start fielding artillery. Taking advantage of custom military formations — a feature that wasn’t in the game at launch, and which I’d never tried before — I modify my standard light tank brigades, the Companions and the Sarmatians, to add self-propelled artillery.
The big guns devour ammunition, but gradually whittle down the enemy:
And I hit the military technology jackpot with the introduction of polymer armour. This is a step-change — for a given weight, it is far, far stronger.
In this example, I upgraded my “Cai” medium tanks from 50mm of steel armour to 100mm of polymer armour. The polymer armour had 3.5x the strength and still weighed less:
AMMUNITION PRODUCTION RAMPS UP!
Big push imminent?
Turn after turn, the artillery fires. Turn after turn, the little Merlins sortie. And turn after turn, my army creeps closer to Hirschstein, Panzerraum’s last city.
A new Bedwyr model arrives just in time:
When it comes, the final push into Hirschstein is an anticlimax.
The exhausted defenders give way:
Fighting has devastated the city — there are zero upgrades left standing. No truck depots, no farms, no government offices, no private-sector amenities, nothing. I’ll need to invest in infrastructure as a priority.
I give the ruined city a new name:
With this, the war against Panzerraum is effectively won. A large Panzerraum army remains in the field, but without a city to provide supplies, I expect them to wither away.
Here is the victory tally. I remain well in front:
After this, my priority will be to consolidate. I want to upgrade my production buildings at home, while rebuilding and integrating the new territories. The question is whether events will get in the way.
This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series Shadow Empire
With the release of Shadow Empire’s new DLC, “Oceania”, I’ve jumped back into the game — and chronicled my adventures in an LP.
In this, I aim to convey the feel of the game and why I like it so much. Every time I play, I find something new to appreciate. Sometimes it’s the science-fiction worldbuilding, which can make two games play very differently. Sometimes, it’s the strategic depth; there are many levers, and it’s important to choose the right one for the circumstances.
Let’s see how I fare.
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WELCOME TO AVALON!
Our planet’s last beacon of hope
I begin by choosing one of the new planet types — a Gaia world. The first Oceania game I played, on “Hard”, was a slog — I started on a tiny island, hemmed in by marauders, hostile alien wildlife, pirates, and an enemy empire.
This time, I set the game to “Normal” and generate a continental map. Eraliria Minor, the planet for this game, is home to nearly 6 million people, plus sentient aliens. It has a breathable atmosphere and a pleasant, Earthlike climate:
Here is my starting position — the country of Avalon. In the middle is Albion, my capital. (My previous Oceania game randomly named my capital city “Albion”, which fit the “Avalon” naming theme, so I kept the name for this game.) Following my usual playstyle, Avalon is a democracy with an emphasis on scientific research. On a post-apocalyptic world, there are far worse places to live!
I start on the lowest tech level, which requires me to research nearly everything. I also opt to start with a single infantry brigade, which I name the Lantern Bearers.
AMBASSADORS ARRIVE!
Linguists assure public that aliens are friendly
The first few turns are tranquil: no marauders and no giant, hostile wildlife. I send out explorers and — mostly — establish friendly relationships with the neighbours:
To the west are two tribes of hunters — I agree to peace with them.
To the south, east, and north-east are four separate city-states of farmers.
To the north are my most exotic neighbours, the Obaran Territory — a group of native Cephaloids, 4-metre tall sentient herbivores with rifles. I quickly agree to peace, then start investing in learning their language.
I invest early on in setting up a Foreign Affairs Council, which unlocks advanced diplomacy. Out of the four farmer neighbours, two agree to come under my protection, and a third agrees to peace.
As for the fourth…
BORDER CLASHES ESCALATE!
Army deploys new superweapon to northeast frontier
The peaceful start ends abruptly when the fourth neighbouring farmer city-state, Votherum, declares war on me. (Reloading the save to inspect the details, it looks like I provoked them by driving scouts too close to their capital. But they still fired the first shot…)
In response, the Lantern Bearers march out. Their starting equipment is little better than Votherum’s, and other events in the northeast are concerning. I receive word that the Britmountain Clan, a hunter tribe just past Votherum, is hiring mercenaries. But with my hands full, I can’t do much about it.
After a number of turns, I pull an ace from my sleeve — a single battalion of newly designed Bedwyr light tanks.
The ability to field light tanks is the first military inflection point in Shadow Empire. Early infantry can do little more than hold the line against marauders and minor factions. The arrival of tanks tips the balance.
By early-game standards, the Bedwyr is a superweapon: it has a powerful gun, enough armour to shrug off small arms fire, and a high “structural design” score that future-proofs it when the time comes to upgrade.
When the Bedwyrs arrive, the Lantern Bearers press on towards Micatown, the capital of Votherum.
Just as they’re about to take Micatown, the conquest of which knocks Votherum out of the game, a rogue cabinet official from my own government orchestrates a rebellion (magenta) back in the south — barely a few hexes away from Albion itself.
I quickly raise a second infantry brigade in the capital, the Swords at Sunset, to meet the threat. With support from a second battalion of tanks, they bring the rebellion under control.
Around this time, I diplo-annex another one of the neighbouring farmer city-states (to the east in the above screenshot). This takes me to three cities in total (Albion, the captured Micatown, and the newest city, Hessen) — a strong start.
WAR!!!
Enemy armies pour across eastern frontier
A side effect of Hessen joining Avalon is that I now have a border with the nearby empire of Panzerraum — a militarist regime that takes an instant dislike to me.
It comes as little surprise when Panzerraum eventually declares war, around the time I finish off the last rebels. Despite their powerful army, I’m not that worried. First, I have several times their population. Second, their army has several weaknesses I can exploit:
The Panzerraum infantry have better small arms, but very little in the way of anti-tank weaponry.
And while they have a handful of pre-apocalypse Romulus tanks, whose technology is far beyond anything I can build, they have only a few tanks of their own manufacture.
On the other hand, I have a good tank design — the Bedwyr — together with the industry and the metal to scale up production.
My plan, then, is to play for time and eventually, fight a war of machines against men. In the meantime, I rush the Swords at Sunset to hold the line in the east.
On the same turn that Panzerraum declares war, I receive a second declaration of war — from Britmountain. This time the shoe is on the other foot: after Britmountain grabbed land, I refused to agree to their borders.
And so, while Panzerraum occupies my main attention, the Lantern Bearers find themselves fighting an economy-of-force action against Britmountain in the northeast. As a minor faction, Britmountain is far less dangerous than Panzerraum. But their large, numerous mercenary “Shadow Regiments” come as an unpleasant surprise. Even with basic, improvised gear, Britmountain’s sheer numbers let them overwhelm two Lantern Bearer battalions.
FRIENDS IN NEED!
Neighbours receive a hero’s welcome
This is when my early investments in diplomacy pay off. I diplo-annex another minor to my south, giving me a fourth city (Ziemerfeld) and their giant army of militia. The sea of militia flows east, to join the fight against Panzerraum.
Meanwhile, the friendly Cephaloids agree to send a small contingent of mercenaries. I deploy them to reinforce the Lantern Bearers against Britmountain.
Not every neighbour is so helpful: the nearby empire of Polyshelf demands tribute. Out of all the major empires in the game, Polyshelf is the runt of the litter. Stuck on a small island, they have neither a large population nor significant territory. But, not wanting to risk a three-front war, I pay up.
Avalon will remember this.
TWIN VICTORIES!
Prime Minister announces “end of the beginning”
In the east, casualties are high as Panzerraum pushes against my militia and regular infantry. But they buy the time that my strategy needs. Equipping my infantry with newly-designed combat armour mitigates Panzerraum’s firepower advantage, while metal mines, oil wells, and paved roads let me field and supply a powerful armoured force.
If fielding tanks is the first military inflection point in Shadow Empire, then massing tanks is the second inflection point. I raise an entire armoured brigade (comprising five light tank battalions) — the “Companions”. Before, I had two tank battalions. Now, I have seven.
The Panzerraum AI has organised its army into what looks like a small number of large units. Their size makes them dangerous, but it also leaves them with too few units to hold a long front. And with an army of mostly infantry, they don’t have the mobility to manoeuvre, outflank, or do anything other than frontal assaults.
At the same time, I have a lot of militia, plus a critical mass of tanks. This lets me hold the line, probe for gaps in the Panzerraum line, and use the tanks’ speed and firepower to cut off stragglers.
Panzerraum’s anti-tank units turn out to be less dangerous than they seem — being organised into discrete units rather than sprinkled into combined-arms formations (perhaps the AI didn’t research these?) makes them easier to cut off and destroy.
In the far southeast of the front, where there are few Panzerraum troops, I score my first major victory of the war. Spearheaded by the Companions, my army captures the city of Reunionforest — from the looks of it, a formerly independent city-state that succumbed to Panzerraum.
Meanwhile, in the northeast, the Lantern Bearers, their Cephaloid allies, and a single battalion of Bedwyrs begin to see success against Britmountain.
Punching through and encircling enemy forces thins out the survivors to the point where I can advance up the road and take Britmountain proper, knocking them out of the game.
This is the current situation. The Lantern Bearers and the former territory of Britmountain are in the north. In the middle, Panzerraum (green) faces off against militia and the Swords at Sunset. The Companions are in the far south:
Victory against Britmountain has freed up the Lantern Bearers to strike south, although I need to beware unidentified enemies to the northeast (marauders?). Meanwhile, I may able to encircle and destroy several Panzerraum units, or else dart around behind them to cut off their supply lines.
To accomplish this, I have:
A lot of militia
Cephaloid auxiliaries — the original contingent, plus the rest of their tribe, who joined me later
2 infantry brigades (total 10 battalions) — the Lantern Bearers and the Swords at Sunset
12 light tank battalions — the Companions; a second, newly raised armoured brigade, the “Sarmatians”; and two independent battalions
A single battalion of medium tanks on the Panzerraum front
2 independent recon battalions
Further west, the homeland is peaceful and already bearing the fruits of development:
Longer term, the outcome of this game already looks like a foregone conclusion — I have the largest population of any empire. Panzerraum is a very distant second:
The priority is to defeat Panzerraum, then see what else is out there. Are there any other major empires on my continent? Or will it be time to look across the oceans?
This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Terra Invicta
In September 2022, in the Terra Invicta timeline, humanity made first contact with aliens.
A decade later, in the 2030s, the aliens landed ground troops on Earth. They cut a swathe of destruction through Earth’s armies before succumbing to superior human numbers. A second wave landed in 2036, attacked several world capitals, and fell prey to the computer players’ nuclear weapons — after I reloaded.
On 25 November 2047, alien fleet Victor-104 swept into its usual hunting grounds, low Earth orbit, and prepared to swat the newly built Oliver Hazard Perry Station out of the sky. Instead, they met the eleven human spacecraft of Earth Command — seven battleships and four armed troop transports. When the dust settled, Earth Command did not lose a single spacecraft. Victor-104 took nearly 100% losses.
On 25 November 2057, exactly ten years later, humanity’s larger, more technologically sophisticated Second Expeditionary Fleet destroyed the aliens’ main fleet in orbit of Makemake, in the Kuiper Belt. And several weeks later, on 1 January 2058, humanity ended the alien threat once and for all.
The Second Expeditionary Fleet closes in on Alien Station Able above Makemake. Alien stations mount a ferocious array of defences – which can be countered with long-range energy weapons and lots of armour.
I previously wrote about Terra Invicta about a week into Early Access. Now that I’ve finished my campaign, I’m very glad I took a chance on the Early Access release. I like how the game proceeds through distinct phases, and how it conveys the feel of an ebbing, flowing war, rather than a diagonal line up and to the right. At the same time, there is room to improve challenge & pacing in the late game. Overall, I think the game is very well placed to fulfill its potential once it comes out of Early Access.
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Game progression: through struggle, to the stars
My game progressed through many phases. My earlier post covered the first two:
Getting started on Earth
The early race into space, when I established bases on the Moon, Mars, and Mercury in the 2020s
Humanity resorted to drastic methods to defeat the alien armies.
Fending off the alien ground invasions in the 2030s one timeline (in another, abortive timeline, the aliens captured the Russian nuclear arsenal, making it impossible to completely clear them off Earth. Unable to find a solution, I eventually reloaded)
Until I fielded a “proper” fleet in the 2040s, defence modules – on planetary bases and space stations – were my main protection against the aliens.
The long, painful contest of endurance in the 2030s and 2040s. The aliens waged a bombardment campaign against my offworld stations and mining bases. I slowly researched the fusion drive technology that would form the backbone of my space fleet, while fighting constant wars on Earth as alien infiltrators subverted world governments
Discovered in the late 2030s, Z-pinch fusion technology took years to apply to spacecraft design. Eventually, Z-pinch reactors powered the human fleet at Oliver Hazard Perry Station, nearly a decade after the initial breakthrough.
Turning the tide in the 2040s, first tentatively committing my new fleet and then going all-in over Earth in 2047
The battle of Oliver Hazard Perry Station, the turning point in the space war.
Going on the offensive, first in the asteroid belt in 2049, and then pushing the aliens off the moons of Jupiter at the start of the 2050s
Clearing a large alien fleet from around Ganymede, where the aliens loved to bombard my mining bases. Note the large alien mothership in the top left.
Finally, fielding antimatter-powered fleets for the push into the outer Solar System in the 2050s
The assault on Able was the final space battle I fought before victory.
In-game, one of my starting characters died of old age, Earth’s political map changed as I unified swathes of the planet, humanity became a multi-planet species, and technologies such as fusion power and genetic engineering would presumably have transformed life on Earth.
Decades after alien contact, Earth’s political map would look very different to someone from 2022.
In real life, this unfolded over months since the game’s initial early access release in September. The developers released numerous updates for the game, which fixed bugs, tweaked balance, and improved quality of life. I upgraded my PC, which drastically improved performance — a previous bugbear.
What the game did well
The long game highlighted two strengths of Terra Invicta.
First, the phases of the game felt distinct and interesting. In the early game, alien fleets felt like an invincible force of nature. In the middle, they were destructive and dangerous, but I could bleed them white. By the end, they were pests to swat. The Moon went from a crucial first step into space to a backwater. Flying from Earth to Mars went from a major undertaking to a routine patrol. Resources that were in short supply become abundant once I secured the Jovian moons.
This was one of my early fleets – a handful of spacecraft loaded with nuclear torpedoes. They became obsolete very quickly.
Second, Terra Invicta made it enjoyable to play through ups and downs. This is a Solar System-wide war where losing fleets, bases, armies, and countries is inevitable — the trick is recovering afterwards.
Here, the game does better than most of the genre. Strategy games can suffer from a cascading effect where defeat tips the player into a death spiral — losing experienced characters in Firaxis’s XCOM is a good example.
In contrast, Terra Invicta is generally good at giving the player tools to deal with setbacks (the main exception being the nuclear-armed alien administration on Earth), while the sheer scale of the game provides players with strategic depth. There’s even a Steam achievement for winning as the Resistance, Terra Invicta’s XCOM equivalent, after one of the pro-alien factions has already won.
What could be better
Terra Invicta has room to improve its late game, which is lengthy and exhibits the same inverted difficulty curve as XCOM. Once I went on the offensive, the outcome became a foregone conclusion, yet I still had to go a long way before I won.
The issues are solvable — I’d put them into two major categories:
1. High threshold to win
This is easy to solve. I had a unique story objective, which was fine. However, most of the work came from a quantitative victory condition — reducing the relative strength of the alien fleet below a percentage threshold. The solution is, reduce or allow players to customise these quantitative objectives.
This would probably be even more helpful for other factions in the game, some of whom have very grindy objectives.
Clearing out the fleet defending Alien Station Able – essential so I could reduce the aliens’ fleet strength relative to mine.
2. The aliens can’t keep up in the late game
There are several sub-issues here:
2a. Do the aliens need more late-game tools?
Alien capabilities reach a plateau long before humans reach the end of the technology tree. This is tricky to solve: it’s a design issue and probably thematic. But perhaps the aliens would benefit from additional technologies or equipment tiers, unlocked once they take humans seriously. Or, since going to “total war” mode already raises the cap on the number of alien bases, perhaps the increase could be larger.
2b. AI tweaks
A stronger AI would keep the alien fleets competitive for longer. Some of these fixes, I think, would be relatively simple:
Stay in formation instead of breaking formation at the start of every battle
Increase the amount of armour on ship designs
Move away from easily-countered missile spam to plasma weapons
Mass fleets in friendly territory and commit them en masse, instead of dribbling reinforcements in piecemeal. This was the mistake the aliens made after I wrested away the Jovian moons — they wanted to counterattack but came in dribs and drabs
This alien mothership had a plasma main gun and – for the AI – relatively heavy armour. (Human players typically add much more armour.) Perhaps the AI should design more ships this way.
Conclusions
Several months ago, I wrote that Terra Invicta ”may well turn out to be one of my all-time strategy greats”. Now that I’ve finished the game, I’ll go further and say it may become one of the all-time strategy greats, up there with the pantheon of the 1990s. It is not perfect, and it remains a work in progress. But in a few months of Early Access, the game has already taken great strides, and I’m confident it will be even better by the time it reaches its 1.0 release.
Would I replay it? Given the time required, I can’t see myself playing another grand campaign. But if the developers add shorter scenarios, I might return to the fray.
2022 was an excellent year for new games. Unlike previous years, where I spent more time on older games, my favourite games of 2022 were almost entirely new releases. I had a clear #1 — Terra Invicta — followed by a string of titles that all did at least one thing well. In site news, I interviewed Vic Reijkersz, the developer of Shadow Empire.
The year’s releases fell into several major categories for me:
Vast strategy epics
Short, delightful indies
Turn-based tactics
Others
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The grandest of strategies: Terra Invicta, Old World, and Total War: Warhammer 3
2022 was a great year for new strategy games. Most notably, Terra Invicta was unique and brilliant. Old World marked a master’s return to the 4X genre. And Total War: Warhammer 3’s Immortal Empires campaign felt like a return to form for me after the disappointment of the Eye of the Vortex campaign in Warhammer 2.
Terra Invicta (PC, early access, 2022) – Sprawling, ambitious, and slow-burning, Terra Invicta is the game I’d looked forward to for years. It’s a hard science fiction strategy game that presents a more grounded take on XCOM and Stargate: SG-1 – what if humanity made first contact with a hostile alien species, mastered their technology, and clawed our way into space? The game unfolds across Earth, where different factions rally countries to their causes, wage shadow wars with agents, and eventually fight overt wars with armies; and in space, where humans progress from the Moon, to Mars, Mercury, the moons of Jupiter, and beyond.
There has never been anything like this, and I feared the developers might be unable to execute on their vision. They exceeded my wildest dreams. Even in Early Access, it is playable and extremely fun. With the necessary polish, this could become one of the greatest strategy games of all time.
This was also the game that made me break my rule about “no Early Access games for GOTY”.
The battle of Oliver Hazard Perry Station, in Earth orbit, was the pivotal moment in my Terra Invicta game. This was when my technology and ship design (zeta boron fusion drive battleships with coilguns) proved their decisive superiority over the aliens.
Old World (PC, 2022 on Steam) – Nearly 20 years after Civ 4, Soren Johnson revisited the 4X genre with Old World. Set in the ancient Mediterranean, Old World moves the historical 4X genre forward with a plethora of interesting ideas, such as limited moves per turn; using different production resources for soldiers, buildings, and city workers; and adding a character-driven touch in the form of the player’s dynasty. Its cut-throat AI is leaps and bounds ahead of the recent Civ games.
Several negatives held me back from playing more when it released on Steam: the learning curve was steep (I think exacerbated by the game’s novelty), the aesthetic and UI were somewhat dated, and the game was surprisingly system-intensive.
Since then, Old World has grown on me, and a new PC alleviated the system issues. I look forward to playing more.
Old World has a plethora of … interesting events.
I started Total War: Warhammer 3(PC, 2022) in the last few days of the year. I loved Warhammer 1 (and the historical Total Wars), and after being disappointed by Warhammer 2’s campaign, I’m enjoying the freeform Immortal Empires campaign in Warhammer 3. Cathay — WH3’s fantasy interpretation of China — is an interesting mix of human soldiers and artillerymen; immortal dragon monarchs; giant terracotta warriors; and intrepid caravaneers. I’ve hit the “short” victory conditions, but still feel like playing more. And I’d love a spin-off game about the caravans!
Cathayan soldiers fight Chaos…… aided by magic.
Short and sweet: Tinykin and Li’l Gator Game
At the opposite end of the spectrum, two short, delightful indie games stood out for me in 2022: Tinykin and Lil Gator Game.
Tinykin(Game Pass, Xbox Series X, 2022) – A charming game about solving puzzles as a miniature person in a full-sized house, with the help of the titular tiny creatures. I loved its focus on exploration, its quirky insect characters, and its whimsical world design.
Tinykin carrying corn.
Lil Gator Game (Switch, 2022) – Heavily inspired by Breath of the Wild and A Short Hike, both of which I loved, Lil Gator Game is about the joy of being a kid and the inevitability of growing up. No combat, no death, and a focus on verticality and exploration made it a great low-stress experience.
The protagonist’s relationship with Big Sis is at the heart of Lil Gator Game.
Turn-based tactics: Triangle Strategy, Expeditions: Rome, and Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope
During 2022, I played three newly released turn-based tactical RPGs. They excel at different things: Expeditions: Rome has my favourite characters, narrative, and atmosphere. I found Triangle Strategy the best at presenting information to the player (certainly better than Expeditions: Rome), and requiring the player to convince party members added a unique twist to the branching story. Finally, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is a solid evolutionary sequel.
Expeditions: Rome (PC, 2022) – Third (and, it seems, last) in a series of historically inspired tactical RPGs. It commits a couple of major sins in terms of UI and player-friendliness — it’s very hard to tell which tiles enemies can reach, and I can’t find a way to tell what enemies can do with their special abilities. But it is extremely atmospheric — great art and voice acting made this a case of “love at first sight” — and despite the UI failings, the battles became very satisfying once I got the hang of things. For bonus points, it gives a prominent role to Lucullus, my favourite under-appreciated Ancient Roman. I’ve finished (most of) the first act and I’d like to finish the rest.
A boss battle in Expeditions: Rome. This guy hit like a Carthaginian war elephant, but was susceptible to knockdowns.
Triangle Strategy (Switch, 2022) — I see this as a spiritual successor to one of my favourite games of all time, Tactics Ogre. Like TO, Triangle Strategy is a turn-based tactical RPG with a branching story, set in a grounded, low fantasy world. I don’t think the writing quite rises to the level of Tactics Ogre, but it has a great art and aesthetic, and it gave me some fantastic battles.
A unique map in Triangle Strategy involves boarding an enemy ship.
Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope (Switch, 2022) — I liked the first Mario + Rabbids (one of the first two games I bought for Switch), and Sparks of Hope refines the series formula by making the characters and their abilities more distinct, and adopting a “free movement” system. As with the first game, the setting, tone, story, and characters are so silly that there’s no narrative tension. Still, a mechanically solid game, recommended for fans of the first.
A boss battle in Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope. Rabbid Rosalina’s weapon is terrifying at close range, Luigi is long-ranged, and Rabbid Peach can ignore low cover.
The elegant tribute act: Regiments
In a category of its own is Regiments (PC, 2022) — a tightly designed, elegant “Cold War gone hot” real-time tactics game. Inspired by Eugen’s Wargame series, Regiments adds its own twist to the formula. It offers a good single-player campaign, which starts small with the East German army fighting pro-democracy mutineers, before building to a “clash of titans” between the US and Soviet armies. In December, it received a free content update, and I expect more to come.
A Bradley platoon poised to ambush the Soviets in Regiments.
Odds and ends
I thought Victoria 3 (PC, 2022) had promising foundations — and I enjoyed it more than Victoria 2 — but after a bad design decision ended my practice game, I shelved it. This will be one to revisit later; I’ve always liked the idea of the Victoria series, and I’d like to explore several countries in this era.
Two Point Campus (Game Pass, Xbox Series X, 2022) was as charming as its predecessor, Two Point Hospital, but I found it a bit easy and simple.
What older games did I first play in 2022?
Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One (Xbox Series X, 2021) – A game that was clearly developed on a budget, but with a lot of heart. I loved Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments; Chapter One moves from discrete cases to an open-world format. I’m not quite sure the change of format works, but I like the writing, the developers’ interpretation of Holmes, and the work that has gone into the setting. Another one I’d like to finish.
Cold Waters (PC, 2017) – An elegant and quick-to-learn Cold War submarine sim. I didn’t play much, but enjoyed my time. As with other milsims, I also found it educational.
Rimworld (PC, 2013) – A well-known colony management game. I enjoyed the rhythm of pre-industrial life – preparing for winter, storing a surplus, and planning the next season’s harvest. Quite engaging and challenging, even with enemies turned off.
What older games did I revisit in 2022?
I revisited Humankind (2021), as well as my two perennials, Anno 1800 (2019) and Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (2017), after they all received new DLC in 2022.
I finished the Donkey Kong DLC for the original Mario + Rabbids, in the lead-up to Sparks of Hope.
Finally, I reached the credits on Hades (Switch, 2020) — finding the “right” build for my play style made all the difference.
The Adamant Rail is hands down my favourite weapon in Hades.
Looking forward to 2023 releases
After how much I loved Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is my most anticipated game of 2023. Details are scanty, so let’s wait and see.
I also loved the Suikoden games, so am curious whether Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, a Kickstarted spiritual successor, will measure up.
Rule the Waves 3 slid from 2022, and should be a fairly safe bet given that I liked the first two games.
Finally, I’m interested in upcoming expansions and DLC for existing titles, such as Shadow Empire’s “Oceania” DLC and X4: Foundations’ next expansion, “Kingdom End”.
Tinykin is a short, delightful indie game about exploring a house and solving puzzles as a miniature person.
What I like about Tinykin is its focus on low-stress exploration. Each level is a different room of the house — such as the living room or kitchen — connected by a couple of hubs. The residents of each room are intelligent, talking insects such as ants, dragonflies, shield bugs, and mantises, usually with punny names and entertaining dialogue. Each room’s goal is to help its residents with a quest, be that activating an old CD player, or baking a cake. Achieving that requires the help of even smaller creatures — the tinykin.
Tinykin carrying corn down a ramp made by other tinykin.
Different tinykin have different abilities, such as strength (purple), conducting electricity (blue), or allowing you to climb higher (green). Achieving each room’s objective needs a certain number of tinykin — for example, assembling enough purple tinykin to carry a large object — and these can be found around the room. While Tinykin is a 3D platformer, navigating around is quite easy. The trick is usually working out what to do or where to go next, rather than how to make a jump. The cost of messing up is low — there are few hazards, and dying returns you to where you just were. Instead, I could discover the environment at my own pace.
Yes, that’s a CD.
And that environment is clever and charmingly designed. The joy is in seeing how the insects have repurposed everyday household objects for their miniature society, such as a matchbox used as a bed, thumbtacks used as restaurant seats, a river bank made out of kitchen sponges, and a castle made out of Lego bricks. Even after fulfilling each room’s objective, I enjoyed combing the environment, solving side quests, and picking up collectibles.
Insects enjoying themselves at a venue.
I think the greatest compliment I can pay Tinykin is that I wish it were longer. (Normally, I complain that games are too long!) This is a game I had to ration so that I wouldn’t finish it too quickly. I would love to see a sequel.
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This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Terra Invicta
Terra Invicta is the game I’ve wanted for years. Currently in Early Access, it is a hard science fiction exploration of first contact with aliens, humanity’s response, and our subsequent expansion into the Solar System. It will not be to everyone’s taste. I find it remarkable, and I think it’s worth a look if you, like me, are its target audience.
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At its heart, TI will appeal to players who:
Enjoy complex, simulationist strategy games, such as grand strategy games
Are interested in real-world and near-future space travel
Don’t mind ambitious, slow-burning, and occasionally rough games
I could best describe TI as two games in one — the first on Earth and the second in space. On Earth, humanity has split into seven factions, each advocating a different response to the aliens — from resistance through to an alien-worshipping doomsday cult. As the leader of one faction, you send out agents to rally countries to your cause, mobilise their resources, and build up their space programs. In space, you develop bases on other planets, moons, and asteroids, mine them for resources, and build stations and spacecraft.
What links the two layers is the economy. Lofting resources and equipment from Earth to space costs “Boost”, an abstraction of your supporting countries’ space launch capabilities. Building directly in space saves on Boost, but requires offworld mines to supply the necessary resources. Spacecraft and bases, especially large ones, need money and “Mission Control” to maintain; early on, these come from Earth.
How does this play out? Here’s an example, from early in my game. I chose France as my first country to recruit — it’s large enough to contribute to the cause, small enough to be achievable at the start, and home to the Guiana Space Centre. Countries with space programs or launch sites in real life begin with Boost in-game 1:
France became the inaugural member of the Terran Accords, my custom name for the “Resistance” faction. The Resistance is the equivalent to XCOM or Stargate Command; they defend Earth from the invading aliens. Note the “1.1” next to the rocket icon on the left (this is France’s Boost) and the “1” next to the satellite dish (Mission Control).
From there, I moved into Canada, the Czech Republic, and the US. Offworld, I began with a mining base on the moon, which supplied water and ores. I then used those resources to start mining Mars:
I chose a Fissiles-rich site to set up my first mining base on Mars. Fissiles (represented by the green radioactivity icon) are important for running nuclear reactors in space.
Now, the year is 2031. I’m ahead on Earth. In space, I plan to use Mercury’s abundant solar energy to fuel command centres and nano-factories2, while mines on Mars and Ceres feed the eventual shipyards.
I used my very first spacecraft to set up bases at Mercury. Ion drives gave it the delta-v (a terrestrial equivalent would be “range”) to get there, although it took a while.
The missing part is space technology. My early spacecraft are good enough to putter around Earth or Mars orbit and bully the other human factions. They are nowhere near good enough to challenge the aliens.
The Protectorate advocates surrender to the aliens. I didn’t want to leave them in control of a valuable Martian outpost, so I took it over using a spacecraft loaded with marines.
As this suggests, TI is a slow burn:
In-game, long lead times make it necessary to plan ahead. Just starting a Mars base, for example, takes about a year of in-game travel time with early tech.
Out of game, it’s taken me about a week to reach this point — and I suspect I’m only in the midgame. I could probably have finished a shorter 4X game in that time.
It’s also large and complex. There are hundreds of individual locations in the game — regions on Earth and celestial bodies in space. There are many sub-systems: the Earth and space economies, cloak-and-dagger conflict and outright wars on Earth, spacecraft design, research, and more. The tech tree is really a forest. At a design level, this will appeal to some players more than others.
Moving from design to execution, some of TI’s issues are what I’d expect from an Early Access game, such as buggy tooltips and values that need to be tweaked. I’m not worried about these. The developers have already started fine-tuning the game based on player experience; for example, it’s now tougher to subvert space stations.
I think the biggest area for improvement is the way the game presents information. The worst culprit is research. Here is an example:
Terra Invicta’s tech tree. This isn’t even the most detailed view!
In this case, I can see that researching “Nuclear Fusion in Space” will allow me to develop muon spikers and fusion piles. But is that a good idea, or not? What are their advantages? What do they even do? Will it help me reach my goal of developing better spacecraft drives? I have to look up out-of-game information — for example, this guide on Steam — to get a better idea. It would be much easier if I could check the details in advance.
Another example is simpler — it would be really helpful if in-game lists had some of the same features as real-life spreadsheets. Here is a list of all the space habitats (stations and planetary bases) I control. I can filter by location and faction control (in this case, me), but I’d love a way to sort it by resource production:
The Habs screen. Hermes Base is close to the Sun, which grants a giant bonus to solar energy production. I plan to use it for energy-intensive modules such as command centres and nanofactories.
TI does let me sort the “Prospecting” screen. But I can’t filter it:
The Prospecting screen, which lets me view celestial bodies in terms of potential resource production. I control two of the top three Fissiles-producing sites.
A final example is the events log — the vertical list of icons on the left-hand side of the screen. As is, it’s not very useful. The icons are cryptic and I have to mouse-over each one to bring up a tooltip in tiny font. As such, I think the developers have scope to improve the clarity of the game’s interface before a full release.
Ultimately, I think a decent litmus test of whether you’d enjoy Terra Invicta is whether you like similarly complex, ambitious games such as Shadow Empire, Dominions 5, or even X4: Foundations. I love its premise, I admire its uniqueness, and, even as is, I enjoy its execution. While it won’t be for everyone, it may well turn out to be one of my all-time strategy greats.
Regiments is a Cold War real-time tactics game that I could best sum up as an indie spiritual successor to Eugen’s Wargame series, and in particular, the first game in the series — Wargame: European Escalation. Overall, it stands as a testament to the “tight, focused” school of strategy game design.
An incoming East German force (red, top) drives into a crossfire from my defending West Germans (blue). I usually play zoomed out, but it’s possible to zoom in to watch individual vehicles.
Regiments’ overall philosophy is elegance1. Like Wargame, Battle Academy, and Panzer General, it operates at the beer-and-pretzels end of the wargaming spectrum — instead of detailed simulation, it aims to capture the “feel” of its subject. And compared to its most obvious forebear, Wargame, there is less “stuff”: fewer units, less micro-management, and a tighter focus2. The smallest controllable unit is now a platoon of several vehicles, which means units die less quickly, and introduces an interesting trade-off — when should a depleted platoon hang on, and when should it retreat to be replenished? Infantry have been abstracted; they and their transports move and fight together as a single unit. Press a button, and the infantry disembark. Press it again, and they remount.
Regiments is single-player only, with the focus being on the campaign3. This comprises seven individual campaigns, played in order: East German, two West German, Soviet, Belgian, Soviet again, and finally the US.
Between battles in the US campaign. I augmented my core force (top) with a mechanised infantry unit, an artillery unit equipped with powerful DPICM ammunition, and an aviation unit equipped with Cobra gunships. Given the size of the later maps, the mobility of Apache and Cobras made them invaluable as my reserve.
Campaigns are linear, each comprising 1-4 maps, and several battles (20 minutes each) per map. Between maps, players juggle scarce resources to call in reinforcements, replenish depleted units, top up supplies, or increase the deployment limit in battle. I liked the campaign progression:
On Normal, I found the difficulty about right. After the easy opening campaign, the difficulty ramped up quickly, without becoming frustrating4.
The difficulty culminates with the last two campaigns. The US campaign gives players the most powerful equipment in the game, and then after a couple of relatively easy maps, pits us against a vast Soviet offensive. It was a fittingly climactic clash of the titans.
There is an “anti-frustration” feature: you can skip a campaign and move onto the next one if you’re stuck!
Calling in an off-map MLRS barrage using Tactical Aid points. One of the available campaign upgrades allows TA points to recharge faster.
Battles usually involve capturing or defending objective zones. A few introduce a wrinkle, such as defending a friendly convoy, stopping an enemy convoy, or hunting down special enemies (HQ or artillery units). Generally, I like the fluid way in which they play out:
“Take and hold” missions alternate between pushing forward and holding ground against counterattacks. Sometimes, I had to scramble when an enemy counterattack threatened to roll up my exposed lines of communication and cut off my spearhead.
On the defence, there’s a balance between holding entrenched positions and waging a mobile defence. Part of the skill of playing Regiments is knowing when to stand and fight; when to hold on and buy time; and when to bug out.
The exception was several “raid” missions, which I found too gamey compared to set-piece battles.
The power of an ambush: I hid an M3A2 recon Bradley platoon in the woods and set it to ‘hold fire’ (top right). From behind, it devastated the Soviet vehicles passing by.
Part of Regiments’ appeal is brevity5. Individual campaign battles are 20 minutes each, which allows several to be played in one sitting. According to Steam, I finished the entire campaign in 25 hours (probably less, after taking AFK time into account). I prefer shorter, finishable games, so this was a plus for me.
Now that I’ve finished the campaign, what’s next? More armies, features, and campaigns are planned for the game, and I’d be interested in any DLC. There’s a strong foundation here — I’d like to see where the game goes next. And I’m sure it will be on my year-end list of 2022’s highlights.
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Perhaps not coincidentally, it is the work of a solo developer ↩
Regiments does offer one feature missing from Wargame — night battles. These generally favour NATO, given their superior night vision equipment. ↩
There is also a skirmish mode, which I haven’t tried yet. ↩
Eugen could learn from this — I never finished the European Escalation and Steel Division: Normandy 1944 campaigns, both of which thought it was fun to beat the player’s head against the wall. ↩
With a price tag to match — it’s pretty cheap at US$30. It was even cheaper at launch. ↩
This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Anno Series
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Anno 1800 is one of my favourite perennial games. It’s the ultimate toy — an open-ended delight where I can build beautiful cities, set up intricate production chains, and pamper my residents with coffee, chocolate, cars, and champagne from the four corners of the earth.
Building a town while preserving the environment in Eden Burning – a free scenario added to Anno 1800.
Anno 1800’s scenarios are a different experience. They are games — self-contained, win-lose experiences with defined rules. So far, there are two:
Seasons of Silver, just released (April 2022) as part of the Season 4 DLC.
Building a hydroelectric dam – the win condition in Eden Burning.
Eden Burning is a unique take on the city-builder that charges players with rebuilding an island ravaged by a fire cult, while preserving the local environment. The trick is playing slowly and conservatively: rotating fishing grounds to avoid overfishing, building gradually to avoid degrading the soil, water, and air beyond their capacity to recover, and replanting trees along the way. (The scenario’s writing is also surprisingly dark, especially for an Anno game. The occupying cultists were not good or kind people.) In the end, I won on my first try, island intact.
The desolate start of Seasons of Silver. The ruins are an appropriate touch, given I’m on my second try…
Seasons of Silver is the opposite — a race against time. Playing an exiled nobleman, now the challenge is to build a city in the barren wilderness, mine silver, and process it to meet increasingly punishing deadlines from the king. The mines and processing plants need workers. The workers need food. The crops need irrigation, as the land lurches between drought and monsoon. All this infrastructure needs vast quantities of timber & bricks — fast! My first attempt fell flat on its face. Oh well, at least now I know what’s coming up.
This scenario deserves special mention for its background music and voice acting — the main character sarcastically reading out the mission briefing is hilarious.
For Anno 1800 owners, I highly recommend the scenarios. They’re short — much shorter than the main game — well-designed, and challenging. Eden Burning is free, so why not try it out?
This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series Shadow Empire
Shadow Empire is one of the most interesting & unique strategy games I’ve played in the last few years. It’s the brainchild of one designer, Victor Reijkersz. Below, I am very pleased to present my interview with Vic. Read on for his thoughts on indie game development, simulation, and what he’s working on:
Hi, Vic, and welcome to the site.
Shadow Empire is a science fiction 4X game, whereas your previous titles were historical wargames. Can you tell us more about the origins of this project? What were some of your inspirations?
In fact that is not completely true. My first game was People’s Tactics and it was followed by two Advanced Tactics game. These games were all procedural hex&counter wargames. In many ways Shadow Empire is a mix between the things I learned (to be fun) in my recent historical Decisive Campaigns series and my earlier Advanced Tactics games. So though not sure on the inspiration question, my aim from the start was really to make a game that feels historical, but is in fact largely procedural in nature.
I took this screenshot in my first ever Shadow Empire game. Rochoyes had a mild climate and plenty of rainfall, so it exported food and water to the rest of my territory.
Shadow Empire is one of the most unique games I’ve ever played. It combines empire building, a wargame logistics system (which is also used to transport resources in the civilian economy), internal politics & personnel management, “hard science fiction” world generation, and more.
I’m really curious about this mix of features. What made you decide to include them, and what were some of the challenges behind getting them in the game?
What made me include all those? A little bit of hubris and a lot of bad planning and way more imagination than time. Yes… I was way too ambitious designing Shadow Empire. In the end I have to say it is a small miracle I managed to finish so much of my original plans. It took years longer to finish the game than planned, almost gave me a burn-out, but in the end I managed to properly interconnect and fine tune the dozens of features and launch a truly unique game.
Scenes from a Shadow Empire succession game. When a gang of slavers made their demands, there was only one reply worth making. They were no match for trained soldiers and rovers bristling with machine guns.
Can you tell us anything about your design process, as the solo developer behind a large, ambitious game?
See Q above.
Congratulations on pulling it together – I really liked the final product.
What would be your advice for other indie developers?
Be very aware of the enormity of the competition! You are not only competing with the other 300 games released each week, but also with the back catalogue of over a 100.000 games already released in the recent past. You must be a good judge of your own strengths and weaknesses. As I see it you have only three options… (1) make sure you’ll be lucky… or (2) be a total genius with design and/or graphics… or (3) find a niche where there is demand but less competition. Option 3 is where I put my money (time). Keep in mind that niche’s are not static things and you can create new niche’s as well.
Shadow Empire goes to a lot of scientific detail, and this affects the player’s strategy — e.g. needing to secure fresh water in drier climates, or not having access to fossil fuels on worlds without a biosphere. Can you tell us more about your approach to science & simulation?
I have always wanted Shadow Empire to at least feel as a simulation. Partly because that way the game world will feel more real to the player (and thus be more immersive) and partly because I just love modelling interesting things as planetary genesis, evolution, history, warfare, etc… I have always felt it is okay if in the end Shadow Empire is of course not really a scientific simulation… The important thing has always been making enough of an effort to move it in that direction.
The start of planetary generation – there are many planet types to choose from.
Yes, I thought Shadow Empire was an example of how to do simulationism “right” – if something makes sense in real life it’s probably a good idea in the game, and vice versa. That helped my learning curve as I could apply real-world logic to game situations (e.g. don’t order infantry to charge machine guns).
One thing that impressed me was how differently the game plays based on different map settings & game options. My first game (on a high-population Siwa world) saw huge armies of tanks and infantry clashing across an entire continent. It was completely different playing a co-op game on a Medusa world with 600,000 people, where the main challenges were the alien wildlife and trying to build an industrial base with a limited population.
Do you have a favourite or recommended set of game options (e.g. best for beginners, most interesting simulation, or just one you like to play)?
My favourite it is the “Unclassified Planet”. Mostly because it is the only method of Planet creation that doesn’t push or force the algorithm in any particular direction. So using this class gives the most realistic results imho. Playing it with full fog of war on it also really drops you in the complete unknown.
The culmination of planetary generation in Shadow Empire.
Do you have a favourite feature of the game, or favourite in-game story you’d like to share with us?
I think the feature I have really enjoyed the most is the “Alien Critter” one. The sheer scope of different Planets you could find yourself on is already large, but the procedural created on-map animal life really brought it further to life imho. There are over 120 different critter graphics used, each in different colorations and sizes. Some lifeforms can even reach a level of civilisation and “minor Regime” status and thus be bargained with.
The border in that succession game. Note the computer’s troops (yellow) holding the line against the wildlife to their north. Those were 5-metre predators – no joke!
Yes, the alien critters are one of the most memorable features of the game. I’ve seen some that needed tanks and anti-tank weaponry to defeat!
Another feature that stood out to me was logistics (and the way it’s used for civilian resource management as well). It’s critical for both the military and the civilian parts of the game. Early on, the need to build infrastructure limits development, and as the player expands, the road/rail network needs to be extended to connect new territory to the rest of the empire.
It also makes frontier wars against minors & alien critters feel very different from wars against another major empire. On the frontier, where infrastructure was limited, I fielded small forces of buggies and motorised infantry, unlike the large conventional armies I deployed along my borders with other empires.
Finally, it’s one of the features that made Shadow Empire feel so unique – I can only think of a handful of other 4X games with comparable civilian logistics (Frog City & SSI’s Imperialism games in the 1990s).
I’m really interested in your thinking behind logistics. What was your design intent, and what gave you the idea to use it in the civilian economy as well? Did it grow out of your previous games? And did you originally intend all the cool ways in which it affects the player’s strategy, or did they emerge during development?
There has been quite some iterative design, especially with the logistics. The Private Economy has been something I planned from the beginning. Primarily it’s there for the same reason as the Militia’s… It allows the player’s empire to grow without doing a thing. The philosophy here was that it would help learning the game if some parts (economy, recruitment) could be optionally neglected by the player.
Buildings in a city in Shadow Empire. The two grey-background ones on the left were public-sector, while the brown ones were built and operated by the NPC private sector.
How have you found the reception of Shadow Empire after it released?
I’ve seen the game spread through word of mouth, reviews, streamers & Youtubers – it looks to have found a fan base amongst the 4X community.
In many ways Shadow Empire is a wargame-turned-4X and I am happy that I have managed to reach a wider audience with it than with my Decisive Campaigns series. That being said it’s also a hell of a lot of work compared to ww2 simulations :)
What are your future plans for Shadow Empire? You’ve previously mentioned oceans being the next major feature planned for the game.
I still have a lot of plans for Shadow Empire and am still slowly coding and designing away on a number of topics. Not at the initial breakneck speed as I have some other titles to develop as well, but I am not planning to stop development. I feel Shadow Empire deserves more polish and even more immersion where possible.
A lot of people have criticised Shadow Empire’s graphics, saying they look like they come straight from the 1990s. Well if this is so the advantage for me is that Shadow Empire will age quite well… because lets be honest does it really matter if the graphics look 25 years old or 30 years old?
At the moment I am indeed working on opening up Ocean Planets to the player. I love these Ocean Planets I am currently seeing generated on my development build. Islands, large seas, more wet climates… it all brings something vibrant to me. Hope I will have something to share on the open beta in at most a few months.
That sounds great – I’m looking forward to playing on an ocean planet.
Do you have any final thoughts for the readers?
Thank you for your time! And have a nice day today!
Shadow Empire is available for PC on Steam, GoG, direct from the publisher, and on other storefronts.
Over a decade ago, Tactics Ogre for the PSP combined a branching story, a serious, low fantasy setting, beautiful art, and engaging battles to become one of my favourite games.
Triangle Strategy, I think it’s fair to say, aspires to succeed Tactics Ogre and the genre’s other classic, Final Fantasy Tactics. It takes many of the same elements and adds its own twists, such as a morality system and more intricate rules for positioning, while simplifying others, such as character classes. So far, it’s very good; after 12-13 hours, I’m up to chapter 7, the sequence featured in the game’s first demo, last year. Whether it achieves greatness will depend on how the story plays out.
Here’s what I like, and here’s where I see room to improve:
The pros:
Art, aesthetic, atmosphere — The beautiful, moody art of Triangle Strategy is integral to the experience. Character portraits are striking and evocative. The sprites and the overall “look and feel” call to mind Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre, and make the implicit promise that this will tell a similar story.
The backgrounds are sumptuous and even the little sprites are detailed enough to convey mood and personality.
Tactics matter — This includes positioning and using character abilities to support one another. For instance, one fairly tight map channelled combatants down three paths, with a group of enemies along each path. I held one flank using an ice mage and a durable melee fighter: I ran the melee fighter at them, used his special ability to draw the enemies’ ire, and had the mage retreat while lobbing ice at enemy soldiers who had bunched up to attack his friend.
The pathways broke this map into several sections. Two characters held down the left oath, but I found myself bottlenecked in the middle, and an archer shooting from the platform on the right was a royal pain.
Difficulty feels about right — Playing on Normal, I’ve never been stuck. I did lose a couple of battles as a result of becoming careless; afterwards, it was obvious what I did wrong (rushing a mission-critical character into positions where he could be swarmed). I may even turn up the difficulty to Hard, and see what happens…
Frederica’s fire magic is devastating against bunched-up groups.
Not grindy! — There is hardly any grinding in Triangle Strategy — a big change from the very grindy Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre. Enemies’ levels are fixed, under-levelled characters are very quick to gain experience, and conversely, over-levelled characters gain very little experience. Thus, there’s no need to spend too much time in practice battles.
The intriguing:
How will the story develop? — One of Triangle Strategy’s headline features is the branching story, with decisions settled by a vote among the party members. The player can try to persuade other characters to change their minds, but may not succeed. It’s even possible for persuasion attempts to backfire — I once saw a previously “undecided” party member do the opposite of what I wanted, after my dialogue choices fell flat. I’m interested in what the game will do with this system — can its narrative live up to the classics?
This unanimous vote came early in the story. A later one was much closer.
The mixed:
Voice acting — This isn’t a blanket case of English vs Japanese voices (I’ve listened to both):
In both languages, the heroes sound pretty good.
I think the female characters generally sound better in English — a couple of the Japanese VAs sound a bit too girlish. Conversely, some of the male characters sound too hammy in English and better in Japanese.
I am not a fan of the exaggerated voice acting for the villains, who range from “cartoon supervillain” to “oleaginous, obvious traitor”.
The gripes:
Save game slots — Triangle Strategy has 10 save game slots. I’d like more, especially so I can explore different dialogue choices while preserving old saves.
Did the otherwise good English localisation have to owe such an obvious debt to ASOIAF? — I am heartily sick of “sers”.
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After recently finishing Sable, I still like it. The game follows through on its initial promise: it has good writing, a striking & unique art style, and a lot of heart. In one particularly relaxing session, I decided to fill in the remaining corners of the map, and that objective led me to spend a few hours immersed in the world, exploring, solving quests, and earning a flurry of masks (the objective of the game being for Sable to choose the mask she will wear in adulthood). Looking back, that was a wonderful example of flow.
Sable’s travels take her to scenic locations.
Conversely, the game’s rough edges became clearer as I spent more time with it. Traversing its world is simply not as pleasurable as in Breath of the Wild, the obvious comparison. On the one hand, frequent hills limit one of the central mechanics, puttering around on a bike. On the other hand, climbing can be a hassle — especially when trying to follow a specific route to reach an objective or a NPC. Summoning the bike itself is hit-and-miss, which added a little bit of hassle every time I fast-travelled to a location, called the bike, and waited for it to arrive so I could set off on my next expedition. I suspect a lot of this reflects the resource constraints of an indie team; if the developers ever create a follow-up, the mechanics are the biggest area I see for improvement.
I do appreciate Sable’s brevity: I clocked in just under 20 hours, having completed almost every side quest and earned almost every mask.
Overall, I like Sable and appreciate what the developers set out to create: a peaceful, imaginative exploration game with a positive theme. If that premise appeals, I recommend it.
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I’ve been thinking about this after playing games such as Shadow Empire and Highfleet – what makes them feel like throwbacks to the 1990s?
For me, three interlinked factors stand out about classic 1990s games: originality, difficulty, and their attitude to game balance.
Originality: The 1990s classics tended to either pioneer their genres, or blend genres in a way that’s rare in newer titles.
Difficulty: They demanded skill from their players, and were unforgiving on learners.
Balance: The flip side is that they also let skilled players break or exploit the game, in ways that would be rapidly patched away in the modern era of multiplayer, GameFAQs, discussion boards, and digital distribution.
So for instance:
The Master of… games pioneered the space and fantasy 4X genre — and half the fun was coming up with overpowered custom races, and creative uses for magic spells (casting “flight” on warships to produce heavily armed galleys that could fly over land).
The Gollop brothers’ original X-COM (UFO: Enemy Unknown) defined the combination of squad-based strategy and strategic-level management; it was extremely tough for a beginner, but experienced players could trivialise the difficulty by using psionic operatives: make the first alien spotted drop its weapons, turn around, and scout for the second alien; mind control the second alien; and repeat. (That’s even before getting into outright exploits, such as generating infinite money by manufacturing items for sale.)
The Spartacus-class – my workhorse in Highfleet. I customised the Gladiator-class frigate to add extra armour, fuel, engines, and anti-missile defences.
Looking at the games I mentioned earlier, Highfleet perhaps comes closest. It mixes arcade, sim, strategy, and roguelite elements, and while difficult, it becomes much easier once players master the rules or learn the intricacies of custom ship design. Its community is marked by an thriving exchange of custom ships — from min-maxed flying cubes of armour to themed collections with their own backstory.
Shadow Empire stands out for its originality: it blends a 4X game, a wargame, and a logistics or resource management game. It also can be challenging, especially at first — I remember how quickly my first game went from “how do logistics work?” to a desperate struggle against a gigantic empire.
An interesting question would be how many of these elements it takes before a game feels like a throwback to the 1990s. Are some more important than others? In the early 2010s, the Souls games, Firaxis’ XCOM reboot, and roguelites such as FTL made difficulty fashionable again. They are all great, they have influenced design to the present, and FTL’s retro pixel-art graphics wouldn’t have been out of place in the ‘90s. Do they feel like 1990s games? Would I say they felt like ‘90s games, if I were playing them now? One to consider, next time a difficult, genre-blurring game comes along…
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My gaming resolutions for 2021 were to try new things, and write more for this site. I wrote about several games — notably Humankind, Highfleet, Sable, Stars in Shadow, Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia, and assortedflight sims — and interviewed the developers of Stars in Shadow. I delved into deck-builders, sampled various indie games (mostly on Game Pass), and tried unique experiences such as Highfleet and Subnautica. I also kept playing one of my mainstay genres, the 4X strategy game, and revisited a genre from which I’ve lapsed, the narrative RPG.
Build deck, fail, try again
In 2021, I played three deck-building, card-battling roguelites: Slay the Spire, Nowhere Prophet, and Fights in Tight Spaces.
Going into battle in Nowhere Prophet. Combat takes place on a grid, and placement is important – units in front block line-of-sight for those behind.
At the time I would have called Nowhere Prophet my pick of the three, based on its emphasis on worldbuilding and (emergent) narrative. You lead your tribe across a post-apocalyptic colony planet in search of a promised land, managing supplies and battling rival factions along the way. Managing a desperate turnaround to win the final battle was one of my coolest gaming moments all year; and I loved that the ending reflected my choices along the way.
Right now, my favourite would be the more replayable Slay the Spire — I liked it enough to pick up the Switch version after first beating it on Game Pass for PC. It’s quick, satisfying, and never leaves me frustrated — even when I frequently die. And the game’s art style and quirky charm have grown on me.
I love Slay the Spire’s sense of whimsy. Where else would you fight a final boss shaped like a giant, dancing doughnut?
An honourable mention goes to Fights in Tight Spaces, a stylish Bond/Bourne/action movie-themed game where, with full visibility over the enemy’s upcoming turn, you use cards to manoeuvre your agent around the battlefield and strike back.
Discovering new worlds
Subnautica is one of the best science-fiction experiences in game form. It captures what it must be like to explore a new world: marvel, mixed with terror. Over time, as I build bases, upgrade my equipment, and learn more about the surrounding seas, the terror abates — but it never quite goes away, not for voyages into the unknown. If I have a complaint, it would be the “needle in a haystack” progression. I estimate I’m in the late midgame, so there should be plenty left to discover.
Subnautica is a beautiful game, with a meaningful sense of progression. Better equipment and becoming able to grow your own food make a big difference.
Challenging myself
Highfleet deserves special mention for its approach to difficulty. This is a game that demands the player learn how it works, understand systems such as detection, and learn the tools available, such as how to strike from long range. Then it throws the player in the deep end against superior enemy fleets, and early on, before I learnt, those fleets pounded me to bits. That made it all the sweeter when I turned the tables.
Flight simulators — and in particular DCS World, the modern military flight sim — might also belong here. I don’t think I will ever master the intricacies of a modern fighter in DCS. At the same time, DCS at its best is a flow experience: flying, working the radar, manoeuvring and shooting, and once, seeing a glorious sunrise as my reward.
Revisiting the 4X genre
In 2021, I played two 4X games that shine at the clash of empires: Humankind and Stars in Shadow. Humankind is at its best when I’m fighting for my life against army after enemy army, desperately buying breathing space, and then grimly preparing for the next war. Meanwhile, Stars in Shadow strips away the bloat from the 4X formula with a focused design, an emphasis on ship design & tactical combat, an AI that knows how to challenge the human, and an overall sense of charm.
Defending my capital against an early predator in Humankind.
Replaying Civ VI (this time on Switch) shortly before the release of Humankind let me compare them side-by-side. I think they’re very different, with Civ VI being better for tile and city optimisation, enlivened by great music, whereas Humankind is better with conflict and the threat of conflict. Overall, I like both, with a preference for Humankind.
I’m proud of building the Opera House in its correct city in Civ VI!
Last but not least, I had a great time replaying Shadow Empire, via a co-op succession game with a friend.
Returning to narrative RPGs
I used to be a big fan of RPGs, both Japanese and Western, before drifting away over the last decade. In 2021, I powered through Dragon Quest XI and finished the main game, after playing on and off for several years. At its best, it tells a story about character growth and resilience, wrapped up in a charming, whimsical world.
I love the localisation in the Dragon Quest games.
I also started on the Yakuza series with Like a Dragon, and replayed a decent chunk of Final Fantasy XII.
What were my favourite new games of 2021?
Out of the few new releases I played in 2021, Humankind is my pick for Game of the Year. Other notable releases included:
Highfleet, with its combination of imagination and uncompromising difficulty.
The cheerful, charming Sable.
Unpacking, a satisfying puzzle game that traces a person’s life over the decades by unpacking her belongings after each move.
I love the details in Unpacking, such as the boxy beige CRT monitor in the early years, and the faithful pink toy pig.
I’d like to spend more time with two games whose fluid combat and striking graphics made a good first impression on me:
Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth — a retro Metroidvania.
Death’s Door — an isometric action game.
What were my favourite discoveries from previous years?
During 2021, I discovered a lot of games that had originally released in previous years, from a wide array of genres. The highlights included:
Subnautica — survival and exploration
The digital version of Wingspan — a relaxing, delightful board game about attracting birds to a sanctuary.
Stars in Shadow — space 4X
DCS World — military flight sim
Slay the Spire — deck-building roguelite
Nowhere Prophet — deck-building roguelite
Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia — console strategy-RPG
Good Job — an often hilarious physics puzzler
Northgard — a clever variation on the RTS, with a greater focus on building and manning a settlement. If only the font on the Switch version were larger…
Carto — a puzzle game with a unique mechanic: rearranging pieces of a map to change the world around you
Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children — an indie squad-based tactics game with some interesting twists on the XCOM formula, such as a greater focus on melee combat
PGA Tour 2K21 — my first ever “realistic” sports game, after I previously enjoyed Golf Story
Honourable indie mentions include:
River City Girls — a beat-em-up
Silence: The Whispered World 2 — an adventure game, short on narrative coherence but with some striking “scary fairy-tale” moments
The perennials
I revisited some games due to new DLC (Anno 1800, X4: Foundations, Total War: Three Kingdoms), updates (Shadow Empire), or buying on a new platform (Civ VI). Majesty was a childhood favourite whose HD version I replayed on Steam — after two decades, I finally beat the campaign. And Mario Kart 8: Deluxe is an evergreen favourite.
Looking forward to 2022
2022 should be exciting for 4X lovers: Distant Worlds 2 is scheduled for March, while Soren Johnson’s Old World will come to Steam in Q2.
Two of Old World’s stablemates from Hooded Horse Games, Terra Invicta and Falling Frontiers, are also scheduled to release in 2022. Both are space combat strategy games, with Terra Invicta also adding an element of “XCOM: Council Simulator” as players compete for influence and resources on Earth.
Two upcoming Early Access titles look interesting: Eugen’s WARNO, a spiritual successor to the Wargame franchise; and Nebulous: Fleet Command, another space combat strategy game. Both are due to enter Early Access in early 2022 (January and February, respectively).
And finally, Slime Rancher 2 was the highlight of E3 for me. The original game was colourful, cheerful, and by virtue of being first-person and 3D, satisfyingly tactile to explore. I look forward to the sequel bouncing onto my screen in 2022!
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I am very pleased to present an email interview with Jim “Arioch” Francis and Sven Olsen. Sven and Arioch are the creators of Stars in Shadow — a clever, elegant indie space 4X game. Readon to learn about their design philosophy, what makes good AI, a final tip about the game’s difficulty, and much more.
I’d like to begin by asking you about the origins of Stars in Shadow. What was the genesis of the project, and how long did you work on it?
Arioch: Sven first contacted me around 2008 about doing some concepts for a space game that he had in mind. Over the course of several years, the project continued and became gradually more and more serious. As a former programmer myself, I was dubious about the ability of a single programmer to tackle a project of this scope, but Sven proved my concerns wrong. The project progressed to a point where we got a Steam greenlight, and a publisher showed interest, and we released the game in 2017.
Sven: I played a lot of moo2 back in the 90’s and early 2000’s, and I always knew there were things I really liked about that gameplay experience, but also big areas I thought could be improved. I also started reading Arioch’s Outsider comic around the start of its run in 2002. As a fan of the comic, I quickly concluded that Arioch’s art style would be a perfect fit for the reworked moo2-like experience I wanted to create. I found myself with the time and money to start working seriously on the project in 2010, and fortunately Arioch was willing to help out.
Tactical battle – raining missiles on a luckless marauder base.
I particularly liked three aspects of the game: its design philosophy, AI, and charm. The design’s simplicity and elegance stood out for me — a throwback to Sid Meier’s rule about “a game being a series of interesting decisions”. Can you tell us more about your philosophy?
Arioch: We started working before the recent glut of 4X space strategy games, and I think both Sven and I thought that the releases up to that point didn’t really scratch the same itch that our favorite games in the genre did — Master of Orion and Sword of the Stars. It seemed clear to us where the “fun” factor existed, and it was not in an expanding list of features, but rather in a focus on tactical combat. Once we were far enough into the project that the possibility of release became serious, there was suddenly a glut of new 3X space games. But they all had one thing in common: they completely ignored the tactical combat that we thought was so vital to the genre. Even our own publisher recommended that we discard our focus on tactical combat. Apparently this was the consensus at the time.
Sven: I think Civilization-style strategy games all suffer from an escalating micro-management problem. Choices that are fun and significant in the early game become tedious and needlessly time consuming by the late game. I wanted to try to design the game in such a way that that would be less true — and stripping the planet management component back to something more moo1-like, while keeping the tactical battle component relatively complex, seemed like a sensible route to doing that. Part of the design challenge for me was that I knew I didn’t want to go all the way to a moo1/SotS style highly abstract planet management system. In particular, I really enjoyed the species-specific population management element from moo2, and knew I wanted to build on and expand that idea. Getting a blend of all these elements that felt right took a long time. The initial drafts of the game that beta-testers had access to didn’t even include mines or farms or markets — planets just had factories and labs. Metal and food were relatively late additions to the game, but I felt like they were important ones. And I think we managed to implement them in a way that made planet management more interesting, without triggering as much of a late-game slog as you’d see in a more typical Civilization-style strategy experience.
Today, I finished my on-and-off project in Microsoft Flight Simulator: flying from one end of Japan to the other, one hop at a time. It has taken me nearly a year, since last Christmas; my flights began a few days apart, then became a few weeks apart, and eventually a few months apart. Now, I’ve done it!
I took this picture of the Japan Alps on a flight between Toyama and Matsumoto, before I began my tour.
My journey took me across all four of Japan’s major islands, starting from the far south of Kyushu and culminating in today’s flight across Hokkaido, from Sapporo to Kushiro. Along the way I stopped in cities such as Kobe, Tokyo, and Sendai, saw sights such as Itsukushima Shrine, and enjoyed the countryside from above.
A dramatic sky as I departed Sapporo.
There has been the odd mishap — flying from Sendai to Sapporo, I crashed because I didn’t realise I had to manually toggle from an empty fuel tank to a full one. (As I made it most of the way, I skipped to the landing on my second try!) That was the exception — mostly I took off and landed in one piece.
What struck me was the diversity of the Japanese landscape. Flying over major cities such as Tokyo, it was urban sprawl as far as the eye could see:
Tokyo sprawled out as I approached Haneda airport.
Soon afterwards, I flew over remote mountain forests, seemingly devoid of human beings; and marvelled at the difference. Following the coast north from Sendai, I saw what I think were fishing towns — how important must the sea be to those communities?
This morning, I flew in opaque fog over mountains (wondering if my little plane could safely make it across), before the skies cleared to reveal lowland fields. Panning the camera around rewarded me with a view of my plane emerging from the fog, with the mountains behind:
It was a great feeling when I emerged from the mountains and reached the safety of the lowlands.
I’ve seen beautiful sunsets:
The Japanese coast at sunset.
… flew through snow during the last northern winter (how time flies!), and felt the thrill when the runway came into view at the end of today’s flight. At last, I was at journey’s end.
Taxiing to park at Kushiro airport.
While my tour might be over, this won’t be my final flight, over Japan or in Flight Simulator. I’m sure I’ll have more scenes to see.
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In most games, a giant alien queen living in an abandoned building would spell trouble. Not in Sable, where there is nothing menacing about the Chum queen: a large, luminous pink creature with two large eyes, two winglike antennae, no visible mouth, and the manner of a gracious fairy godmother.
Nice to see you too!
Bring the queen Chum eggs, so her brood can grow up at home, and she will improve Sable’s stamina. The eggs themselves are Sable’s equivalent to Breath of the Wild’s korok seeds — collectible items scattered around the world to reward exploration, often on rooftops and ledges. When I see one, I pick it up; by now I’ve upgraded stamina twice.
For me, the queen’s real importance is thematic. She’s another example of the game’s worldview — this is a world where exploring a curious-looking building can reveal a giant, friendly, telepathic alien; where that alien wants nothing more sinister than to look after her species’ young; and where kindness is met with gratitude. As with last year’s A Short Hike, it’s nice to play a positive game!
Aw, that’s great to hear!
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