New Paradox game soon to be announced?

[Grumbold]

That was my point. they have not demonstrated the ability yet to create a strong political AI, or a military AI when it has to consider naval invasions around the globe as opposed to large land fronts which HoI is not too bad at.

Political Tycoon is a superpower game btw. I looked for modern political games since that was the loose description of what you wanted. I avoided pure wargames, of which there are many. If you want to stick strictly to narrow genres, then there are zero ancient era games to about two modern, unless one of you can name one

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Grumbold
That was my point. they have not demonstrated the ability yet to create a strong political AI, or a military AI when it has to consider naval invasions around the globe as opposed to large land fronts which HoI is not too bad at.

Before they made HoI they hadn't demonstrated the ability to replicate modern warfair. That didn't mean that theyc ouldn't do it. I am absolutel confident that if they where to make a modern era game that they would pull it off fine, with satisifactory politics.
And the naval AI has gotten extremely good, by the way. The AI in both Victoria and HoI regularily plans out effective naval invasions.

Political Tycoon is a superpower game btw.

I googled.. it's another half serious one.

I looked for modern political games since that was the loose description of what you wanted. I avoided pure wargames, of which there are many. If you want to stick strictly to narrow genres, then there are zero ancient era games to about two modern, unless one of you can name one

Oh please, there's dozens of roman era games.

I don't even pay attention to them and I can list a bunch. Legion, Ceasar, ... and there are two others that I can think of but can't remember the names of.

[pg]

i hate it when apolyton posts part of your posts twice even though you only wrote it once...

anyhow, i agree they might have trouble in a future setting especially once the game couldn't be purely driven by historic events. you could make events for a future game that'd be believable but it'd be tough as you'd have to cover to many plausible occurances.

all that said in eu2 the ai is braindead but that doesn't stop the game from being fun. in eu2 i play to accomplish goals. i imagine a modern era game would be the same even if it had bad ai. ai has never been paradox's strong suite the gameplay systems and settings have been imo.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Oh please, there's dozens of roman era games.

I don't even pay attention to them and I can list a bunch. Legion, Ceasar, ... and there are two others that I can think of but can't remember the names of.

I think you've forgotten what my original post was. A Roman RTS with little soldiers beating each other over the head isn't what I want any more than Command & Conquer is what you want.

Nikolai, what worries me is a braindead AI with a nuclear button. I can see AI America invading a dozen different countries around the globe, all inadequately, then going nuclear as soon as an opponent gets the bomb.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Grumbold


I think you've forgotten what my original post was. A Roman RTS with little soldiers beating each other over the head isn't what I want any more than Command & Conquer is what you want.

Legion and Ceasar aren't RTSs....

Nikolai, what worries me is a braindead AI with a nuclear button. I can see AI America invading a dozen different countries around the globe, all inadequately, then going nuclear as soon as an opponent gets the bomb.

Actually... that doesn't sound too unrealistic.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Legion and Ceasar aren't RTSs....

Ceasar 1-3 were city building sims with minimal RTS combat. Would simcity 1-4 be modern empire games for you then?

Legion is Rome-centric and does involve simplistic little soldier battles. It was the one Slitherine game I was stupid enough to buy.

[lord of the mark]

So we have one Superpower, a failure, versus Legion, also a failure and not really the equivalent of a Paradox game.

Seems like BOTH cold war and Roman era are ripe.


I assume by Roman era youre talking starting with rise of Rome, so that seleucids, Ptolemies, Carthage, Persian/Parthians are all powers.

Cold war, also, you need to get the period right. Id think around 1948 (more than one power with Abombs, jets dominate air war, fascism out as important political system, 3rd world nationalism on the rise, Islamism as yet unimportant) to sometime in late 80's -early '90s (precision bombing and other military apps of high tech, communism dying, aggressive 3rd world nationalism in crisis, Islamism important, regional transnational instutions like EU growing) would be the natural endpoints. Post-89 is already a different world.


An era that I think would do well with a game like this would be the "dark" ages - 400CE( AD to y'all) 1000 (or 1066 to tie in to CK) lots of big empires fluctuating - Byzantines, franks, arabs, steppe peoples, slavs, etc. Really a much more fluid map than later - lots of interesting alt history possibilities.

[pg]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I assume by Roman era youre talking starting with rise of Rome, so that seleucids, Ptolemies, Carthage, Persian/Parthians are all powers.

yeah, of course, that's the best period. a roman game would be hard to do though because what happens if the romans get conquered? that was a very real possibility many times in their early history.

it'd also be fun to play attila, not die, then go on to found an empire.

Cold war, also, you need to get the period right. Id think around 1948 (more than one power with Abombs, jets dominate air war, fascism out as important political system, 3rd world nationalism on the rise, Islamism as yet unimportant) to sometime in late 80's -early '90s (precision bombing and other military apps of high tech, communism dying, aggressive 3rd world nationalism in crisis, Islamism important, regional transnational instutions like EU growing) would be the natural endpoints. Post-89 is already a different world.

if they did a modern game i'd like to see after wwii to today. ending it in 89 or whatever just because the ussr is gone would be a turn off to me. personally i'd be most interested in a simulation of today's world.

An era that I think would do well with a game like this would be the "dark" ages - 400CE( AD to y'all) 1000 (or 1066 to tie in to CK) lots of big empires fluctuating - Byzantines, franks, arabs, steppe peoples, slavs, etc. Really a much more fluid map than later - lots of interesting alt history possibilities.

this doesn't appeal to me as much because everything was fluid like you said. really probably too fluid.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I assume by Roman era youre talking starting with rise of Rome, so that seleucids, Ptolemies, Carthage, Persian/Parthians are all powers.

Personally I would prefer to start considerably earlier but have the Roman era as the late scenarios. All the ancient games we get are Roman ones. If you go for starting it as an game very light on events (like CK) then you can concentrate on generic game mechanisms for the rise and fall of empires.

For a more flowing game where the country (or tribe) you play waxes and wanes I'd be interested in seeing something that started even as early as 2,000 BCE. That doesn't mean that the grand campaign must run for 2600 years. Each game could have a capped end date.

If the game could capture some of the magic of the boardgame Barbarian, Kingdom, Empire it would be great. There you try to maximise your power at all times but you know that you are fighting entropy all the time. Your score will be an aggregate of your success over time because the natural tendency is to rise, flourish for a time then crash, hopefully to rise again.

[strategy]

Never heard of Barbarian, Kingdom, Empire before - can you give us a little more info about it?

I would comment on the stuff about Roman games, but what would be the point? My opinions on the matter are well documented elsewhere.

Regards,

Michael A.

[Grumbold]

BKE is/was produced by Icarus Games. You start as a barbarian tribe that grows tribal units like you do in the civ boardgame by expanding and doubling. You create basic military units by merging tribals. They can move and fight but draw no income from captured cities.

Once the tribe gets to a certain size it becomes a kingdom which draws tax money from owned towns and cities, has a full gamut of military units to choose from and a leader. Each turn they roll on an event table and get modifiers depending on the number of turns they have been a kingdom and money paid into administration. The longer they have been a kingdom the more likely they will become an empire.

In empire mode it becomes very hard to maintain a mobile military and most forces convert to strong but immobile garrisons, ready for the next wave of barbarians to come sweeping down upon. Whenever you choose you can abandon your failing empire and become a new fledgeling barbarian tribe.

The game is essentially limitless. Your score is your total income throughout the game. In a computer version you probably would not restart as a new tribe but rank your score on your achievements from birth to collapse. It would be fun to play a game where collapse - or at least major rises and falls in fortunes - is almost inevitable, unlike the EU style where players can ride out almost anything.

[strategy]

Sounds like an interesting game despite the (no doubt) heavy abstraction.

On the computer, the only thing close to it that I recall is the old classic Annals of Rome, where you started out as Rome in 273 BC, and had to build up the Empire first as a Republic and later in the Principate, eventually to become the target of wave after wave of invasions from the Goths, Vandals, etc. while at the same time fighting civil wars. Surprisingly, this usually led to the eventual demise of one's Empire (if one even got as far as to establish one). The goal of the game was to survive as long as possible, and I think a game could last until 1200 AD or so (with each game turn between 1-25 years). Very simple (text based, IIRC), but very good game, IMO.

The trick with such a game, I guess, would be to hold people's attraction to it. Most games don't scale very well as the player's empires grow, and combined with the traditional "steam-roller" effect, most such games get dreadfully boring after the first expansion period.

[Grumbold]

I remember playing Annals of Rome - on the Spectrum I think. As you say, a game with that scope would need to be simple or scale up to allow the micro game to manage itself if it is to successfully scale from owning a province or two to a full empire. Something that games like HoI could badly do with imho...I hate babysitting the airforce in particular.

[strategy]

Actually, Antik Games/Galilea's Great Invasions sounded like something that would have had this kind of scope - as I recall, the idea was to have the player taking over successive waves of the barbarians invasions against Imperial Rome.

Difficult to say whether it will ever be done though, given Galilea's rumored collapse.

[Grumbold]

It sounded intriguing (despite blasted Rome being the centerpiece again) but the sorry fiasco of Pax Romana looks like it has sunk it before it began.