A new course for Slitherine?

[Surtur]

A new course for Slitherine?

We all know Slitherine as a developer with some great strategy games. Games which mostly give us insights in old worlds and their history, wetter it is about the second world war, or the conflicts of ancient Italy. But we also know that Slitherine is not a major player in the gaming industry, and that therefore it does not have the supplies to do great promotion and hire over priced employees who can polish their games to a stage where they contain a beautiful level of detail. With growing rivals such as the Total War series and other games with which Slitherine cannot compete budget wise, it is vital that Slitherine keeps being original and stand out gameplay wise. We already know that Slitherines games are all about gameplay, yet I do not think it is enough for Slitherine to be giving the respect and publicity they deserve.

With the revolution of digital distribution, we can see many great games that are created by the smallest of companies. These games are often praised for their original gameplay, or great music. It shows that low budget games can get great reviews. Yet Slitherine does not succeed in scoring a high mark on Metacritic or Gamerankings anymore. It should therefore alter it's course.
Slitherine should keep focusing on ancient war games such as Spartan and Legion. The RTS/RPG mixes are not great games and do not reach out to a large audience. The problem with games as Spartan however is the scale of the game. Having over 400 regions in a map and still manage all settlement individually is just a pain, and the vast amount of resources you have to manage as a supreme ruler, to whom money would be the only concerns (since it can get everything else) makes it nothing easier.

One option would be to keep the great scale of the game, take the mediocre graphics for granted and make an easier empire management. Creating a good auto manage option or create a virtual central government from which all your empire can be governed. This is, however not as fun, nor as realistic as having individual regions and provinces have their own type of government. A game like this would become a sort of Empire : Total War, but with loads of more regions, rendering it rather boring to play, in later stages of the game.

Another thing Slitherine could do is make strategy games that are played on a much smaller skill. Imagine a game about the late fifth century, focusing on Gaul. The are around 20 different regions, and farms, forts and villages outside of the region capital. There are different factions to choose from, such as the Franks, Frisians, Romans and Saxons. with a little amount of factions, diplomacy will be even more important and the small scale of the game would insure that regulating different resources remains fun, while at the same time improving the realism. Also due to the smaller scale, the size of armies can be recreated much more authentic. No longer do you need to pretend that your army was actually 80.000 men strong, now an army of 8.000 is a lot more plausible.

Also, because the game would be on a smaller scale, time and money could maybe even be spend better. Try to either improve the battlefield graphics or make them be fought out on a huge mini map. The latter option would also at up to the feeling of strategy, without spending to much on graphics. So instead of Graphics, improve the artificial intelligence and the diplomacy, to make the Slitherine Strategy games, the most realistic out there.

So Slitherine must alter their own strategy to improve their games and their standing in the industry. Focus more on digital distribution, rather than retailing them. Stop making these RTT/RPG mixed games and focus on smaller scale Spartan like games, using the money not spend on distribution, to improve diplomacy and AI, When Slitherine follows this path, realism will improve. So we get to play realistic strategy games (at last) and Slitherine will get, with all the new history loving fans, the respect and publicity they deserve.

Surtur Houston

[Surtur]

I am dutch myself, so please bear in mind that my English is not perfect. If you do not understand something, then please ask and I shall try to elaborate.
Please leave a comment about what you think of this and what you think Slitherines course should be.

[MrsWargamer]

If Slitherine continue to put games on devices where no one is putting games, in time they will own that niche.

PC gaming is at a saturation point where I don't think anyone really needs to care what it is a producer has to offer.
Yawn, yet another military strategy title on the PC. Like that's never been done before.

Kudos to Slitherine for putting to rest the notion a Nintendo DS is just something your daughter plays games on.

Now all they need to do, is port every last friggin low tech high satisfaction rate wargame made in the last 10 years onto hand held versions and I will be happy.

If you take a look, there isn't anything in real time mode worth mentioning on the hand held yet.
And there is a lot of opportunity for non WW2 game topics too.

I would looooooove to see a reasonable squad level turn based design put on the DS.
I don't care how you arrange it guys, just go out and do it.

[Surtur]

I agree with you on (re-)releasing games on the DS, yet I do not think it should abandon the best strategy console out there, the PC. It can do new things, that handhelds cannot and if they will port them over in 10 years or so it would be even better. But how great would it be to have dual monitor support for strategy games? Or improving the voice command controls of Endwar? ANd the fact remains that the mouse and keyboard combination is the best way to control your strategy games.