Slitherine

Here's my short list. I'd be curious to hear what others have in mind.

1) Slitherine's Ancient Egypt game - I tried the demo on my old rig but was having trouble fitting the screen on my widescreen monitor. Now that I have a new Falcon rig this one is on my short list to try again. In any event the Ancient Egyptians are always cool to play, what with chariot armies and monument building.

2) Slitherine's Commander: Great War - Although I'm not really in the mood for World War One at the moment, I have my eye on this one simply because Lordz did such a good job on Panzercorps.

3) Slitherine's WW2 Fighter Aircraft game - I've not played a flight sim I've liked since Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator One back in the day. I thought the Ubisoft flight sims, although they looked nice, were too hard. I couldn't hit a ground target to save my life. In any event when a flight sim is done well it can provide a fun, exciting, and unique gaming experience like no other. Of course I'm going to need to drag out my long-mothballed joystick.

4) Slitherine's History Channel Medieval Battles - I've had my eye on this one for a while too. Two Hundred Years War Campaigns, one with Joan of Arc and the other with John of Gaunt, how cool is that???

5) Bethesda's 'Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim' - My non-Slitherine addition to the list. The Elder Scrolls engine is the best role-playing game engine ever made. I mean, not only did it make Elder Scrolls a great series, but the use of the Elder Scrolls engine in Fallout Three and Fallout: New Vegas is why those games turned out so well.

6) Slitherine's 'Gates of Troy' - I keep meaning to revisit Spartan, which I found to be a very interesting strategy game, and getting this expansion to it would give me the excuse to do so.

In the next months i intend to purchase the following games:

- Commander: Great War. I've always wanted to have a good WWI game but haven't seen any yet that would do. CGW seems like it's what i am looking for.

- Time of Fury. I like the AARs i've read so far and have started to play the previous game...looks promising.

- Sword of the Stars II. I am a science-fiction fan and i always have a game going on of either Master of Orion (1-3), Armada 2526 Supernova or Star Trek: Birth of the Federation.

- Star Ruler. The game is not new but is about to be released in Europe and i've waited to see that release as it promises a more finished product.

Cheers

WW1 is good to watch as a documentary, but has NEVER held my interest as a game. I suppose after watching so many documentaries I can't picture it being much fun as a game.

When they gave us Battle Academy and Panzer Corps, they effectively slammed the door on a lot of other companies eh. I don't have a lot of time for 2nd best when I have 1st place already.

Let me know if anyone ever decides to buy the rights to Steel Panthers so they can rebuild re release Brigade Combat. I'd really like a Panzer Leader (the board game that is) recreation which is essentially what Steel Panthers 3 Brigade Combat was. Much as I might like Steel Panthers to be reborn, it's looking like Battle Academy already has that spot.

My next game purchase is actually going to be a tablet. Yep, I already have ALL the real great wargames, now I want a tablet that plays they in hyper convenient glory

I think it is neat that Slitherine specifically, has all the pre Nappy era titles to work with. But there are only so many hours in the day. I usually get my pre Nappy era fix with Civilization V. Yes Civ is not as ruthlessly accurate, but then Battle Academy has shown us, you get more mileage with a great FUN game, than you do a great Gary grade game

Think I am going to start calling any game that is massively detailed, yet not even remotely 'play' friendly, a 'Gary Game'. Sorry Gary, you are a victim of your own skills set. I wish you'd steal back control of Steel Panthers.

As it currently stands, there really isn't any titles I actually know of, I am waiting for.
Heroes of Might and Magic 6 is likely just going to be a new version of 5 which if you are a HOMM fan you know was a total flop. They made two expansions for it, hard to picture how they managed to get them justified considering the lack of interest I witnessed.

I do occasionally muse over whether the world will ever see Computer World in Flames hehehehehe.
Oh well, I have the board game and I have the files that were publicly locatable prior to it going into Matrix Games limbo. And I have to remember, the world finally actually saw Duke Nukem Forever, so anything is possible.
I'd much rather see a reborn computer Third Reich merging Advanced Third Reich with Rising Sun. Even if it had to end up looking like the merged version that exists as a massively too damned expensive board game.
But there is always Warplanner (which is probably the only way I will ever get to play A3R against another human ever again).

I'd much rather see a lot of our already here wargames, come to other machines as new options, instead of yet another company attempting to market the same damned battle and the same damned war, yet with THEIR supposed better idea of how to do it. Our hobby already has a lot of great wargames of the 20th century and in most cases, we don't need new companies pretending they are magically better than the last guy.

Battle Academy is mainly special because they married to concepts together better than anyone has before.
1. keep the damned game managable ie force pool size and map size do NOT need to be massive.
2. provide a multi player experience so efficient the user couldn't care less if the AI is any good at all.

As I see it, Battle Academy is the new standard. Match it or take your game and get lost.
Panzer Corps was nice as it shows Slitherine is publishing games that demonstrate Slitherine isn't a one trick pony.

Just about every time I think of wargames lately, I think of just uninstalling most of everything BUT Battle Academy and Panzer Corps, and just I forgetting I even own the rest I think if someone offered me 60% of the cost of the rest of my collection, they'd be lucky to survive the day.

anguille:

Yes, I'm almost as big a scifi fan as I am a history buff, but IMHO there's not been a really good space strategy game since the original Homeworld. I've shied away from Sword of the Stars as I've heard it's over-the-top difficult. I sort of liked Sins of the Solar Empire, but got tired of it after about 6-7 plays. I also kind of liked Star Wars: Empires at War, but I got tired of having to "pay for the same real estate twice." That is, you fight a tough battle for a planet, lose it, then have to fight for it all over again. There is a recent Star Trek strategy game that looks cool, but I believe it is only for consoles. I wish someone would do another Dune strategy game. Loved Dune2000 and Emperor: Battle for Dune. Bi la kaifa!

And then there is Starcraft. Although I think Starcraft and the Brood Wars expansion are among the best games of all time, my initial enthusiasm for SC2 quickly wore off and I now think it is bloated and pretentious. Blizzard used to be so cool, but as always big money creates big overinflated egos. On a plus note though, I think the Starcraft board game is fantastic! Not only it is great fun and is very faithful to the Starcraft universe, but it is actually a more strategic game than the RTS's. Highly recommended.

DS:

I tend to agree with you about the First World War. A lot of carnage and little gain. There were some exceptions however. Would love to see operational level games covering The Brusilov Offensive and Operation Michael. Again though, will probably give Commander: The Great War the benefit of a doubt because developer Lordz did such a good job on Panzercorps.

I gather you are not a fan of Gary Grigsby, but I still say that Uncommon Valor is an incredible piece of work that is just the right scope and scale and is very playable. There's no gaming sensation quite like a carrier battle. I especially liked trying my hand as Admiral Yamamoto the last time I played it. Again though, I would not even consider War in the Pacific these days. Just too, too big.

Speaking of Battlefield Academy, I'm nearly finished with 'Chapter Two' in the Deus Ex trilogy, so shortly will be having a go at 'Monty's Folly' (Market Garden).

Anyway, I think I have my next purchases narrowed down to Elder Scrolls V and Slitherine's Hundred Years War game.

No I would not say I am not a fan of Gary, but rather, I think Gary is not using his genius efficiently.

He gave us Steel Panthers one of the best games ever made.

But sometimes I think he tries to make a game too perfect, too total. I have Uncommon Valour too.

My main beef with his World at War a World Divided, was the game's sprites/icons were categorically horrible

MarsRobert wrote:anguille:

Yes, I'm almost as big a scifi fan as I am a history buff, but IMHO there's not been a really good space strategy game since the original Homeworld. I've shied away from Sword of the Stars as I've heard it's over-the-top difficult. I sort of liked Sins of the Solar Empire, but got tired of it after about 6-7 plays. I also kind of liked Star Wars: Empires at War, but I got tired of having to "pay for the same real estate twice." That is, you fight a tough battle for a planet, lose it, then have to fight for it all over again. There is a recent Star Trek strategy game that looks cool, but I believe it is only for consoles. I wish someone would do another Dune strategy game. Loved Dune2000 and Emperor: Battle for Dune. Bi la kaifa!

Sword of the Stars isn't a very good 4x game imho. It has great battles and it's the main reason to have it. The strategy map isn't very interesting. I wouldn't say the game is very difficult but you have to know how to build you ships and the logic behind space combats. Sins is also mostly about battles.

As a good 4x game, i can recommand Armada 2526 with the addon Supernova....think of it as Spartan/Gates of Troy in space.

As far a replacing Homeworld, the great RTS in space, there's isn't much on the market to equal it. Nexus, the jupiter incident was great and can still be bought. There are always some Space RTS games around. Did you try Star Wolves (it's on GOG) or O.R.B.?



Cheers

DS - Again I hear you about Gary. I get the feeling he's been concentrating on the monster games these days and what I would think would be a very niche audience. Sorry to say that I never played Steel Panthers back in the day. I was probably too occupied at that time with Civ2, Age of Empires, Norm Koger's OPART, and Starcraft. Also, funny you should mention the sprites. Although I suspect his American Civil War game is very good, to me it looks rather visually unappealing.

Anguille - Isn't Armada one of the Activision Star Trek games? I played the first one, although I generally enjoyed it I didn't think it was anything special. Yes, Homeworld was an amazing game. Everything about it was first rate - the gameplay, the story, the visuals, and the music. Speaking of the music, I'm a big Yes fan, and thought it was so cool that Yes did the 'Homeworld' song. Anyway, I think it was really cool how the Homeworld team took the very ordinary RTS engine, and with a little thinking outside the box turned it in to something really special. Never heard of Star Wolves (though I like the name). Yes, I think I may have played ORB. If I'm thinking of the same game, I really liked it but for some reason never finished it. Also, I agree that SINS was rather one-dimensional, which is probably why I grew tired of it quickly. I agree though that the battles were cool. I also liked that one Matriarchal faction in the game. Do you recommend the Gates of Troy expansion? I have Spartan. Does it add signficant content? Are the Amazons in it? lol

BTW guys (and I know this is getting a bit off topic , just finished my revisit after ten years of the original Deus Ex, and I can see why PC Gamer calls it the best game of all time. I was amazed how well it holds up, notwithstanding the dated graphics. Gameplay is great, and the story is incredibly rich and deep and satisfies my latent rebel anti-establishment tendencies. lol Indeed, the game embodies all of the great conspiracy theories: The Illuminati, The Knights Templar, the Roswell Coverup, Area 51/Hanger 18, The FEMA surprise, Majestic 12, and the rise of the global socialistic 'New World Order'. The truth is out there man! But seriously, every gamer out there needs to play the original Deus Ex at least once.

MarsRobert wrote: Anguille - Isn't Armada one of the Activision Star Trek games? I played the first one, although I generally enjoyed it I didn't think it was anything special. Yes, Homeworld was an amazing game. Everything about it was first rate - the gameplay, the story, the visuals, and the music. Speaking of the music, I'm a big Yes fan, and thought it was so cool that Yes did the 'Homeworld' song. Anyway, I think it was really cool how the Homeworld team took the very ordinary RTS engine, and with a little thinking outside the box turned it in to something really special. Never heard of Star Wolves (though I like the name). Yes, I think I may have played ORB. If I'm thinking of the same game, I really liked it but for some reason never finished it. Also, I agree that SINS was rather one-dimensional, which is probably why I grew tired of it quickly. I agree though that the battles were cool. I also liked that one Matriarchal faction in the game. Do you recommend the Gates of Troy expansion? I have Spartan. Does it add signficant content? Are the Amazons in it?

Star Trek Armada I & II are Activision games (RTS).

Armada 2526 is a turn-based strategy game similar to Master of Orion done by Ntronium games (the guy has worked on all the early total war games).

I can't recall seing any Amazons in Gates of Troy. There are some new units, scenarios. You can zoom out and there are Hero units who can be decisive in battles. I am not sure, but i think the battle of Thermopylae is in Gates of Troy. It really depends on how much you play Spartan i.

Out of deference to our excellent hosts here at Slitherine I don't want to get too carried away about games from other publishers, but I definitely have my eye on these two upcoming releases:

Unity of Command: The Stalingrad Campaign: http://unityofcommand.net/
This one may give Panzercorps a run for its money. It looks like it has the same general idea in that it seems to be a simpler wargame geared towards a more general audience rather than the hard-core grognards. Like Panzercorps, you can play scenarios or an entire campaign with hypothetical branching battles. Also, I like how it seems to cover everything from the 1942 Izyium/Kharkov battle to Manstein's 1943 Backhand Blow. Speaking of Panzercorps, as I write this I'm trying to download the recently released patch but it seems like it's taking forever???

Wargame: European Escalation http://www.wargame-ee.com/
This looks like a very cool RTS covering a hypothetical Nato/Warsaw Pact conflict in the 70's/80's. Gosh, I've been playing so many turn-based games these days that I'd almost forgotten what an RTS was like. But seriously, although of course there's no telling how good the gameplay will be, graphically it certainly looks impressive.

Anyway, Slitherine's Hundred Years War game is still on my short list as soon as I get through the increasingly difficult Battle Academy Market Garden expansion. I have to backtrack to the first Arnhem mission because I took too many casualties to be able to complete the second Arnhem fight.