Transcript
Speaker: Music
Speaker: Hello and welcome to a new episode of our podcast where we talk strategy games. So in this episode you're gonna have to listen to us a lot talking about very very very widespread of different games. We're gonna talk about our best games, our worst games, are the weirdest games we played, the most innovative strategy game we have played.
Speaker: But first off, what kind of podcast is it that you have stumbled into? Magnus, would you like to describe this podcast? Well, it's very simple. I mean, we're three friends. We play strategy games and we want to talk about strategy games.
Speaker: ah We're going to talk about i mean elements of strategy games, for amazon but how does resource management work in getting games. We're going to talk about specific games. ah We're very excited about that one.
Speaker: We're going to talk about game series, game studios, do's and don'ts, ah successful strategies for making strategy games. But It will always be about strategy games and strategy games only.
Speaker: Exactly. Very specific genre, as you know. So I think we're going to just do this one right off the bat. um Best strategy game. Which is it?
Speaker: going to determine it right now so you know what to go home and play. We're going to decide on the top strategy game, right? So Magnus, which is the best <unk> strategy game? I will go right out of the gates as a proud Paradox enjoyer and lover and say Europa Universalis IV.
Speaker: And you guys are smiling right now as we're recording this podcast because it is probably my most played game ever. It's my most played game right now, or top three at least. It's my most played game ever.
Speaker: And it just, it combines pretty much everything I love about a strategy game. Not always well. And as with all games from Paradox Studios, it is frustrating at times.
Speaker: ah But we talked about last week about what makes a good strategy game, and I think we'll come back to that. But for me, I love a ground strategy game, historically grounded with a large scope that also lets you play around, ah change history, ah try out very different strategies.
Speaker: And I think that EU4 really does all this. And ah as a history nerd, I mean, I started out my historical interest way before gaming. um And it just lets me get into, you know,
Speaker: Nations that you know from history, weird nations that you probably never, heard almost never heard of, and just play around with them. And I love that. I love that. It's also one of these games that scale really well, because this is a problem with strategy games, that a lot of time they have a problem with scaling up from when you start the game to where you finish.
Speaker: And I would say that this one of the the most common features where strategy games fail is that you can't scale properly. I can return to examples about that even in this podcast episode.
Speaker: um But I do think that you for it it manages that well. And it's not just you know one mechanic. For me, it's a lot about painting the map. I love that element of a strategy game. As you know, i love painting map.
Speaker: but It does that quite well. And you can do it a few different ways. You can conquer, you can become a very strong nation through trade or managing your economy and then conquer. You can colonize the new world.
Speaker: ah You can just become strong and then conquer everyone else's colony. I love it. and I saw a review of this game once, which I think sums it up.
Speaker: ah Paradox overall, but EU4 specifically, where it was just this guy in like a stream review comment. He just said that, well, I lost my job.
Speaker: ah lost my wife. ah She took the dog. i never see the kids, but I restored the Byzantine Empire to its former glory. i think that sums it up. but You can just lose yourselves, literally, ah if not for days, then at least for a day in this game and kind of not notice time.
Speaker: And you're just so immersed. And I love that. this is that's my That's my best game. I want to challenge you on this, right? Almost immediately. um so Let me have it. when i was When I was trying to figure out which is the worst strategy games, Europa Universalis 4 was actually on the my list.
Speaker: It didn't really reach the worst of the worst, but it was on my list. And for some very specific reasons, which I think you're sort of painting a little bit too brightly here.
Speaker: So first of all, It's not a game that ends.
Speaker: It's not good from beginning to end because it doesn't really have an end. It's literally just bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and then it falls apart and then it's bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and then it falls apart.
Speaker: It's one of those really annoying games. No, I don't really think... I think it's one of the main weaknesses of that game. It's not as bad as the Crusader Kings games. They tend to fall apart even worse.
Speaker: But they are also better games in general. Second... it's so battle mechanics annoys me incredibly because you essentially walk a miniature on a map towards another miniature on a map and then dice rolls happen It is almost not... I mean, it it is definitely a strategy game, but it doesn't have battle strategy almost at all.
Speaker: This is why I love it when Crusader Kings got the Crusader Blade mod so you could actually fight the battles on the battlefield, because the Crusader Kings game have sort of the same systems for for battles as Europa Universalis.
Speaker: I actually think that the very old game Sverreke, Swedish Empire, ah which is essentially the same game creators, was better because it modeled the battlefield.
Speaker: so shots ah fired. Yeah, you won. Come at me, bro. No, I'm not coming at you. First of all, I didn't know we could challenge things. This puts a whole new dimension to this.
Speaker: But I won't challenge you for with this. What I wouldn't want to challenge is we have a game here, a grand strategy game, that kind of simulates empires and how they build up and all that.
Speaker: And the thing Andreas doesn't like is And then it falls apart. Yes, the Roman Empire fell apart. The British Empire fell apart. Exactly. That's how history works, Andreas. Yeah, and i I mean, I think that's just a fun mechanic. But it wouldn't have fallen apart if I was managing them.
Speaker: No, no, no, of course, because then you would have your mountain blade moold and then go in and fight the battles yourself. So, I mean, yes, we we know that the Roman Empire would live if Andreas would have been immortal and an emperor.
Speaker: But... and It's a great game. i love I love that kind of game series. And no Paradox game made it on my list. But I love to see it a relatively new game on the best list.
Speaker: Because it is, compared to my list, a relatively new game. I mean, it's lovely to see. I like that game. well I just want to say two more things before we move on. First, just to challenge Andreas right back.
Speaker: Andreas, no one cares how the battle mechanics works. I mean, if the game is good enough, you don't need to know. Sometimes you you you have a bigger arm, you move in, you lose, you're not really sure why.
Speaker: ah You curse and then you move on. You come back with an even bigger arm. If you if your army can lose, Your army isn't big enough. And that's how EU4 works. Just throw more things i guess I have the radical opinion. In a game that wants me to build armies and conquer territory, I sort of actually want to run the army as well.
Speaker: Actually, for a strategy game, I love this because... ah tactics matter so little and it's actually fun paradox that the developers have kind of like they they put out videos on how the battle mechanics works and try to get people to like think about how they fight battles i don't think anyone cares if you want them the minutiae how what depends what determines the battle's outcome play a different game i mean e4 does so many things just right at that is what i thought you were going to challenge me on is the fact that it's
Speaker: it's I mean, Paradox games have a rep reputation for being buggy and EU4 has been buggy. ah But I think it's it's a bit overblown. I mean, it's not. It it works just fine.
Speaker: that The thing is, is the best and the worst thing about this game, as with all Paradox games, is that it develops over time. The game I started playing, what, six, seven years ago.
Speaker: it isn't there anymore because you had so many dlcs so many new releases so many patches uh that is just a completely different game uh to compare this with hearts of iron which we all play uh i tried to introduce a friend of mine to hearts of iron he saw community and wanted to be a part of it and wanted start playing with us and was like yeah i can play a game with you just help you get into it and i realized that this game has become so much more complex since they first released it.
Speaker: is And I think that's a tip for anyone looking at Paradox games and wanting to get in. Do, but try to get in when they're new. ah Because I had this problem with Crusader Kings 2.
Speaker: i I got into Paradox games when and that was about 10 years old. I still have no idea how that game works. So that was my best game.
Speaker: let's, well, maybe won, because I think you have, you saw flag that you have a much older game, so now I'm very curious. Yeah.
Speaker: ah I have a much, much older game. and ah think a lot of you up there, maybe you've played it, maybe you haven't, but I'm going to take you back to 1998, which is when I'm years old.
Speaker: just received this game. I bought the box. And you you know, for you younger audience viewers here, you bought games at a physical store with a box that came with a little manual and ah a little CD that you put in. You needed the manual.
Speaker: that You needed the manual. That's how explain how the game is even played. Oh, God, yes. Because if you didn't have the manual, you could just, you would never finish a game. OK, boomers. Get to it. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to get to it. I'm setting the mood here.
Speaker: No, but the it's from the developer Bungie Studios, which I think are more famous for the younger audience for the ha Halo series.
Speaker: But this is a series they did beforehand, and it's a sequel. It's Myth 2 Soulblighter, which is probably the best strategy game. It's more of an RTS game than a grand strategy game, which EU4, Europa Universalis 4 is.
Speaker: But that is my best game ever. I still have a copy. You can't really get it up and running. You have to put out take out an old computer to play it. and that' That's how old it is. But it's it is a really, really good... It's real-time strategy tactics game. So, I mean, it yes, you do not yeah engage in resource micromanagement. You have a resource management, but you don't have the
Speaker: mini micromanagement and you get a set of soldiers, you fight around a map, you do different missions. And the thing is in this, and I know Andreas wouldn't like this kind of gameplay, you are always outnumbered every map because it's a resistance thing because the forces of darkness have come, the forces of light have to fight back and and you're always outnumbered. You cannot kill everything on the map.
Speaker: You have to use terrain, stealth, tactics, a real strategy game impact. And sometimes you have to sacrifice soldiers. that That's just how it is. And it's such a little timeless piece of classic.
Speaker: And I actually did some research for the game ah when before we started doing this. They shut down their online multiplayer service in 2002, but they released the source code in 2003.
Speaker: It's still an active community, modding this game, still playing it to this day, and was released in 1998. And it's such a lovely little gem of time kind of saved in a capsule. I love that game. If you have a chance to play it, play it because it is one of the most frustrating, challenging scream at your computer and just bash the keyboards game I've ever played. And I I've enjoyed every second of it.
Speaker: It is so lovely little game and the artwork is just, it's outstanding.
Speaker: Yeah, Johan, it looks like a fantastic, I really love that they you dropped source code. I love that I love the 80s metal feel to the cover.
Speaker: ah It's just broad, and bare-chested, broad. It's heavy metal meets CoWen meets Hero Quest. It's everything like that. Everyone a bit of a metalhead, so it works. But you and Andreas kind of bashed tactics games last time around.
Speaker: ah And to quote, I read up on this game. To quote Wikipedia, Myth 2 Soulbider is a real-time tactics game. Unlike real-time strategy games, the player does not have to engage in resource micromanagement or economic macromanagement.
Speaker: yeah Please respond. Have you brought a tactics game as the best strategy game ever? No, I haven't, because ah you should never trust everything that stands on Wikipedia. And I would say, play the game.
Speaker: Play the game and you will see. ah It is a lovely game. But then again, i also it ju it just edged out another game, which I was kind of torn and split.
Speaker: Second on my list would have been ah Warcraft 2 Tides of Darkness, which is also a lovely game, more in the sense of a real-time strategy game. But for me, it's not the same feeling.
Speaker: Yes, Warcraft 2 is probably a better strategy game, But for me personally, this is the best game. I think you can actually control more units in Soulblight or in Myth at the same time than you can in Walk of Duty. Yeah, you can.
Speaker: It's wonky. It's not the... it's not When we go into looking at the the details or controls and that, yeah, it will never win Game of the Year award for that.
Speaker: No, never. But it's the best for me. Yeah, but that's the thing. I mean, the the best game you've ever played, it it won't be the best developed game you've ever seen. No, no. I'm quite sure that, i mean, you you can develop a fantastic game that runs just fine, that's thought through, that just doesn't have that soul to it.
Speaker: And I think that every gamer out there and can agree that the best game you've ever played, it probably isn't a perfect game. It's just not the best. How about you, Andreas? Oh, so I have gone for a very, very, very popular and conventional game. It's slightly later ah in time than MIF.
Speaker: And i think it's almost concurrent with Europa Universalis, actually. I have gone for Total War Medieval 2. Oh, lovely game. There are actually a number of reasons for it, but like my thinking was essentially that I wanted the best put together a game where the parts fit best, which is actually still playable.
Speaker: Because there are a bunch of old strategy games, which I love, but you can't really play them because the pathing is insane. The AI is remarkably stupid. um This game actually sort of it still stands on its own two feet.
Speaker: um But what does it do that's really good? Well, first of all, there is the sort of macro level total war managing things on the map. I think this is not the best map game in in the Total War series, but it's one of them. Because you have, a sort of first of all, a a very beautiful map. You have um enough interesting things on it, including resources and including like points of interest that you...
Speaker: benefit from gaining, taking over. You can figure out how rich a settlement is, essentially from looking at the map around it. ah Those kinds of things, which means that a map matters. And that is something that I guess Rome is better at, but the medieval still goes for it.
Speaker: Where you start the battle, actually, or an encounter in the game actually determines how the battlefield looks. All those kind of things, which are just beautiful nice. Second, um the game has a ah good scope.
Speaker: yeah The thing Magnus talked about earlier, like, from beginning to end, is there interesting things happening all the time? Yes. um You scale in technology and in building quality and things like that in a fairly good, even pace, so you can't just boom if you want to, and you...
Speaker: can hardly not be left behind just for having bad eco-management. It scales ah fairly evenly, which works really well when you play against the AI, which is an idiot. So you you scale properly with the AI as still.
Speaker: And it also introduces in the 1400s, it sort of just introduces um and what is it called, like deep sea ships you can go over to sea and they discover America.
Speaker: And you can have gunpowder all of a sudden. And you can't before a certain date. It has the the Black Plague. It has the um Mongol invasions. Like, scripted event in the games.
Speaker: Which ah sort of forces the pace of it to go along and remain interesting. And, of course, most important is probably the battle map. ah When you play a battle in the Medieval 2, it has great sort of rock scissor paper.
Speaker: sister paper Rocksacer! All hail Rocksacer. know but The Rocksacer paper mechanics of like getting the right unit to counter other units and stuff like that. It works really well. It still has the old Total War um idea where every single unit on the battlefield is modeled.
Speaker: and we're like, battles offield ah Battles are actually determined by what happens to that unit. So when you have two formation clashing, it's actually the animation when you zoom into it, the people poking each other, which actually is sort of what's happening in the battle, ah which is hilarious.
Speaker: um But it also, it's probably... I don't think the Total War series has gotten that much better on the battlefield since Medieval 2.
Speaker: They've been doing more or less the same thing since but since then, and they did it really well at the start. Of course, the AI is kind of stupid, so if you hold up in a corner or just to hide behind the bowmen and catapults and set fire to all your ammunition...
Speaker: Yeah, the AI is not going to be able to beat you. It's going to flee. But if you play it multiplayer, that's sort of not a problem anymore. so just a beautiful game. So smash that one. I'm so surprised that you picked a Total War game for your best game.
Speaker: Total War was fantastic until they stopped. Full disclosure, I love the Total War series. We will definitely have an episode on the Total War series year series. I will be mentioning more Total War games as we move along today.
Speaker: ah But I just... I just love that you that you picked Medieval Total War because I think you're you're right in so many things that this is a fantastic game series.
Speaker: And arguably, this is where it peaked. I think you haven't picked the best Total War game. and That will come up again in the Total War episode. ah But... I also think that it's interesting that this is a game that and that does things that other games' struggles do.
Speaker: have The Mongol invasion. Because I was thinking that we might have an entire episode just talking about how do you handle the Mongols. That's such a hard thing for historical games too.
Speaker: And think you're right. do you think medieval... they They came close to handling it as well as you can. But I'm really surprised. Good on you. Yeah. i'm umm right very so I'm very surprised you picked a Total War game. I'm surprised you picked that Total War game.
Speaker: It is a lovely gem. I remember when it came out, it was a beautiful game. ah Loved it ah intensely. And it it is still a good game. and Still a very good game. It's not my favorite in series, but we will have an episode about Total War gaming. But good on you. I mean, and things are The things I want to fault you for here, are you kind of already ah described with bad AI, bad pathfinding. I mean, it mean those things which Total War kind of struggles with the bad AI, especially in low grades.
Speaker: but The pathfinding isn't that bad. You can at least get people onto the walls. so I remember early versions Rome where you're in a city so they can essentially not move. Yeah, yeah basically that. I kind of mean the the bad path finding when they should get in or out of a city or fight in that.
Speaker: But I mean, there's a reason why Total War kind of abandoned that kind of supply thing. But I mean, it's a lovely gem and it's a lovely game. And yeah, I was just sitting there smiling when when you talked about it and then when Magnus signed in, no, lovely games, all around lovely games, actually.
Speaker: Yes, and let's stop with that and go or go straight on to the worst games. And I think we do it in reverse or order. So I start with my worst game, which is a very bad idea because I can't so i can't decide on which one.
Speaker: It's not going to be Europa Universalis anymore. um I think my worst game is going to be a Total War game as well. Here is the tricky thing. I know we have probably answered this question differently, but i am there are a lot of shitty strategy games, and I don't include them.
Speaker: The worst strategy game has to actually have had the potential to be good and then fucked up. And in that case, it's Total War Sagas. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that is bad. That is rotten. And it's like not really doing anything wrong. It's just not doing anything right. Anything right?
Speaker: No. um so So here we have done this one. it day It was a while, a long time ago since I played it. So I'm probably going to get some of the detailers wrong.
Speaker: um But essentially, you are playing in an era. where the historical evidence points to there being sort of lack of interesting... so this is a Troy game, essentially.
Speaker: so there is say it's the Trojan War. So historical evidence points to there being that much interesting, cool military technology. And that is what they decide to do.
Speaker: Essentially, they just make, it gives you less of a selection of different unit types and different um sort of battle mechanics and stuff like that. Because everyone wants to be, is supposed to be a half naked guy with ah with a hammer or a very short bad sword or something like that.
Speaker: It's a weird choice and that a game that is known for its like, massive scope of different unit types, the different sort of rock, scissor, paper thing is essentially just cuts down on it.
Speaker: And then it has the worst thing ever, hero units. So you also have this sort of super magical, uber, Trojan War heroes. And then you don't have very much poem beyond that.
Speaker: It's just very little game.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, i mean it it is a crap fest of a Total of War game, ah honestly. And they do they do the really, really bad thing. They looked at, okay, Total War Warhammer.
Speaker: You have hero units because that's essential to Warhammer. Let's try and put that into this kind of Total War game. It doesn't work. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of money. If you want to the Trojan War experience...
Speaker: What's the movie with Eric Bana and Brad Pitt instead? Save yourself the time. It takes two and a half hours. You're still going to be disappointed, but not as disappointed as you are with this game. And I want to add, because I said Total War Saga. Technically, Saga is like the ongoing name for a bunch of Total War games, especially Troy that I hate.
Speaker: Thrones of Britannia is a Saga game as well, but it's actually one of the first good games from um from Total War in a long time. but But yeah, I agree with what you're saying. I can i can see your face wrong... You can't keep dropping these... You're trolling me. You're baiting me. that i I'm not. I'm just correct.
Speaker: I'm just not going to respond. We're taking that in the Total War episode, but we we are getting back to this discussion. Yeah, and what what I want to say now is so probably something we should dig deeper into in the Total War episode, but they essentially...
Speaker: trying to make is so such a narrow, small game as Troy with the mechanics designed for ah Warhammer, which is, by its very definition, definition massive and has massive variety.
Speaker: ah like Most of the different sides in Warhammer are ah different entire species. species So like trying to do that, but only with sword of Mediterranean, sword of primitive... them grouping tribes, so whatever they want to call it.
Speaker: That's just such a bad idea. I mean, do they at least have gay Achilles so that the classicists have something to be happy about? I
Speaker: and but don't think things they have that mechanism in the Hollywood movie.
Speaker: And let me tell you, that has bothered a lot of people.
Speaker: If that's the only thing that bothered people about that movie, yeah, well, good on that. No, it's you know it's not.
Speaker: No, but I mean, I have nothing else to say to that. I can just agree that that's a crap fest of a game. Then maybe you want to continue with your worst game. Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, God, yes. In Crap Fest, I'm not going to spend that Is it also Total War game? No, it's not a Total War game. and This is an EA game, EA Studios game.
Speaker: and which also serves as kind of the conclusion, unwittingly the conclusion to a great game series. ah This is Command & Conquer Tiberian Twilight, Command & Conquer 4.
Speaker: I'm just going to, I'm going to be very brief on this. What made the Command & Conquer games so great, it was the base building, the resource management, the pace of the game and the yeah GDI having the good guys or good guys, having heavier armored units, the Nod faction having more units, faster units, stealth mechanics. And this has been concurrent through the games from when it was Westwood up until EA bought them and kind of took it over.
Speaker: But this game abolishes base building. There's no base building in this game. What the hell, EA? What the actual hell? You take away one of the biggest things in the Command & Conquer series. And no, we have mobile bases you can use and show notes units.
Speaker: It also takes away the resource management. You have no resources. you You go around the map, capture notes to tick up points to win the game. Again, what the hell, EA?
Speaker: What are you doing with this? And the thing that bugs me the most is you have to be connected to the internet at all times. Otherwise, your achievements and your points from the game aren't saved so you can't progress and get better units for the next mission what the hell are yeah this is just a clusterfuck of a game and i hate it it made me rage quit after playing for 45 minutes lost my internet connection somewhere in between that and no achievement in for the next level rage quitted refunded it
Speaker: Such a bad game. I do hate had to check it out. I haven't looked at this game since its release. and was yeah and You know, this is the first game on Steam I see which yeah has overwhelmingly negative as all reviews.
Speaker: yeah It's the most hated Steam game I have ever seen. Yeah, and people were so excited for it. That's also something. We had a great hype for this game and we got this crap fest.
Speaker: ah it No, it's just bad. i i want well more on it It's just bad. Don't play it. Don't. I wasn't planning to. No, great. Great.
Speaker: Any takes on that, I can't say much there. I haven't played the game series, but I'm just starting to think about games where you know yeah they switch studios or they try and they they kind of feel that, okay,
Speaker: We've we had something here that used to work and it's not going to work anymore. We'll have to transition. We'll have to do something new, but we don't want to lose the feel of the game and how it's so, it's just so rare that that works kind of like a rebranding or a remodeling of a game where you want to kind of carry it into the next decade or ah where you realize, okay, we're hitting a dead end.
Speaker: How can we avoid that dead end? ah They should have. I'm just laughing because they should have realized that EA are not the guys to do this. No. No, they're not.
Speaker: I'm so glad this is not an RPG podcast because i think that's how we met you, Juan. Essentially arguing over ah Fallout. oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we did. We did. I can see the good parts in the new games, but I do also love the old games. But I mean, EA...
Speaker: we I think we're going to have an episode with studios ruining good ruining good game series and EA. yes Oh, yes. You're up there. I'm looking at you. You're up there. ah But Magnus, what's your worst game after this kind of... I have a hard time hating on games because ah usually with if I ah get a feeling for a game.
Speaker: And if I don't feel it at all, I'm i'm kind of restricted about buying games. I'm restricted in getting into games. That's why I play the games I really do like. I play a lot. and But I thought it was going to be edgy because I talked last episode about my love for Roan Total War, how that kind of got me into the series.
Speaker: And was going to pitch that as the worst strategy game ever. ah but We've already had two Total War games. So I'm going to take my number two instead. And we'll we'll save my kind of love-hate relationship with Roman Total War for the Total War episodes.
Speaker: and And I also wanted to talk about kind of something similar yours, you want. One of my greatest disappointments. as strategy gamer because as all those are and I don't think with this is specifically a Swedish thing i don't think it is but Age of Empires has been such a huge part of my life and a lot of guys on life but I kind of like played it down at the community hall um it was an old game even then age of Empires 1 Age Empires 2 specifically fantastic game I'm so sad that I feel old now I think Age of Empires 2 is concurrent with Myth yep
Speaker: It is. it it is it's It's the same year. yeah
Speaker: I actually thought it was a bit younger, but of course it is. Yeah, 98. ah That held up, though. um But I loved Age of Empires 2, as I think all of us three did.
Speaker: and And then they go and release Age of Empires 3. And I don't think it's as much of a clusterfuck as what you have described, Yohan.
Speaker: But it is just a clusterfuck. And you expect, oh, yeah, it's like of Empires 2, but it's bigger. We've gotten rid of the annoying unit restriction. We've gotten bigger, but the things that kind of forcibly scaled down the game.
Speaker: And they've managed to call it, that was my what ah what ah what I expected. Kind of. Age of Empires 2, but bigger and better. And basically that's what they did between Age of Empires 1 and Age of Empires 2.
Speaker: A very similar game, just bigger and better. And you get into it, it's like, I don't understand this game. it's just It's just so bad. And I think they kind of wanted to focus more on the leaders and its just it's just a horrible game and nothing works in it. And I mean, it didn't flop.
Speaker: that bad? they They still released a couple of DLCs and expansion packs for it, but i mean, you want I think you know the history about this more better than I do, but that gun kind of killed the series.
Speaker: Yeah, it kind of killed it. I mean, now now they play Age of Empires 2 Remastered instead. So, I mean, yes, and it kind of comes back also a lot to what Andreas hated about Turtle Wars sagas.
Speaker: It got too much of a focus on the hero units in a sense. that wasn't Age of Empires 2 or Age of Empires 1. And just this grand scale you wanted,
Speaker: no Yeah, i can agree with you. It's it's not a good game. It's not. Especially compared to Age of Empires and Age of Empires 2. And i think I'm not sure it's the worst game ever, but it's it is my, far and away, my worst disappointment.
Speaker: I was like, okay, why did I buy this game? What I think is incredibly fascinating, because I was excited about it, and then I didn't buy it for one simple reason, which turned out to be a very good reason afterwards.
Speaker: It's essentially just want to be a slightly more cartoony, messy version of ah Cossacks. So at the time Age of Empires III was made and released, there was this, um I think it's Ukrainian, ah strategy game called Cossacks.
Speaker: It had a bunch of updates, ah really massive patches, Art of War and Cossack Back to War updates, really big. It was essentially... What happened if you gave of Empires a lot more scale, set it in the um Renaissance and in the up to the, I think, 18th century?
Speaker: And if you started to add sort of small, like increase the the importance of having like the higher ground and things like that. And when you look at Age of Empire 3, it looks like essentially a more cartoony version of the same game, but it's just smaller and less well thought through.
Speaker: And it came fairly shortly after Cossacks had had its breakthrough. Yeah. And i can't I can't help but think that maybe they were trying to like make Cossacks, but with like the Microsoft Studios budget and just hope to beat it out of the water.
Speaker: And instead, they just failed. Yeah, I think there can be something in that. and I mean, more money and more manpower doesn't always equal a good game. The problem is... Yes, it does. so No, it doesn't. and The problem with Age of Empires 3 and also my game, Command & Conquer 4, is that it kind of rode on the hype of the previous games and didn't deliver on what you expected from those games.
Speaker: And that makes it, I mean, yes, I've played worse games than Command and Conquer 4, but I was so psyched and I was so disappointed and it was just a bad game. And I feel it's the same for Age of Empires 3 for you, Magnus, that you were excited for something and it didn't deliver on it.
Speaker: And then also, I think the CDV software that does Cossacks, I think they're German, actually. Yeah, they might be mixing them up with another studio.
Speaker: Yeah, because there is a Ukrainian studio, but I think Cossacks is German, at least the first one. ah But but yeahp yeah, Age of Empires 3 wasn't a great game, especially compared to the first ones.
Speaker: Yeah. um So, let's move on. And I have a thought. i think we should move on take the most innovative games first, because I think that's going to be a sort of a short round, and then we're going to finish off on the really fun one, the weirdest strategy games.
Speaker: But like for this category, I guess we don't really have a rule of what makes a game more or less innovative. It's ah up to us to to sort of decide and argue. um And I guess if we keep going back and forth, I think it's Magnus again.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm always in the middle, which suits me fine. down Someone else start this one. i don't have I don't have a very good game on this one, to be honest. You're Yeah, but I can start. and You remember what I said about Command & Conquerors 4 being the crap fest it was?
Speaker: The most innovative game I've played, and which, since I'm being that old, and I see elements of it in every other, especially real-time strategy game,
Speaker: ever since that game, it is the first Command & Conquer by Westwood Studios. it It is the, it it took in the resource management, the base building, the quick pace of games then that we then saw in Warcraft 2. We saw it in Age of Empires. We've seen it ever since. It kind of builds into that.
Speaker: When it came, yes, it's based on Dune 2 that Westwood did, which wasn't ah real success because it was clunky, it was older. But Command & Conquer really kind of set the stage and got us, if Dune kind of started to glint on the door for a real-time strategy, Command & Conquer just kicked up that door and gave us the, I know Magnus hates this, but the golden age of strategy gaming.
Speaker: It kind of started that whole show. So for me, that's the most innovative game.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a good pick. Thank you. That's a really good pick. um I just checked up on the um GSC Game World studio. They're from Ukraine, apparently.
Speaker: okay. And it seems to be a very small studio, so they made a really massive game on tiny team, apparently. It's pretty cool. cool Cool. I stand corrected. Slava Ukrania.
Speaker: love I can't really argue against how um how innovative Command & Conquer was because it's sort of it was one of those games that built the genre. um It's not my favorite, but it's massive.
Speaker: yeah I had a hard time with the most innovative game because I tend to think about it or try to think about it like games that introduced mechanisms in that weren't commonly in the strategy games before, then just sort of became something kind of mainstream or mainstay in the in the genre.
Speaker: So I have one game. It's also one of my favorite games, so tread carefully. It's Total Annihilation. Oh, that's a gem.
Speaker: It's also one of those games that's very hard to play, not because you can't get it running. You can get it running fine, but the pathing in that game is just a mess. It's essentially of robots getting stuck in other robots.
Speaker: ah Fortunately, there is the first of all, there is a decent mod for it that fixes a lot of that. I can't remember the name for it just now. And then there is also a very new game released ah called Beyond All Reason, which is essentially a modern clone.
Speaker: But what Tuttle Nation did, which I love and which I think yeah merits it to be considered one of the most innovative games, was that it just introduced a lot more battlefields. It got you nukes, which are intercontinental ballistic missiles, and also missile shields.
Speaker: And also like ridiculous levels of economy upgrades. And you could have these massive titanic units. um So you could go from like swarming small go-kart units with guns in the early part of the game to essentially humongous titans which cost more to build than essentially maintaining the rest of your entire army.
Speaker: Just added scale. It did air really good. Like airplanes in that game really matters. Yeah. But it's also in all these also the ship game is really good.
Speaker: But in all these fields, they also introduced a lot of counterbalances. ah So it was always very balanced. It's a really good game that way. But after that, I think we started to see a lot more a lot more strategy games introducing like airplanes are actually their own mechanic. It's not just ground units.
Speaker: who can cross over other ground units. um And they they started to introduce things like these massive artillery pieces who can fire across the maps and things like that. They just added weird new depths to games, which had previously have been essentially as to get your armies close to each other and smash them together. Now the sort of war game of it was played across the entire map all the time.
Speaker: And I think that merits quite a lot. It did it did a lot. I think it's the same studio that made planet the Planetary Annihilation later on, which is even more insane.
Speaker: But the the ideas from that game never really stuck around. You still don't see many strategy games where you play on different worlds and essentially have to keep there an eye upwards on the sky to see if you're getting invaded. yeah um But Total Annihilation, a brilliant game. very Very innovative, I would say.
Speaker: It was really innovative.
Speaker: Yeah. Now I want need to check up how old it is. I thought about ah this question ah in a bit of a different way, and I'm not going to have the most innovative answer for this, perhaps the least innovative answer of all of today's podcast. But I just wanted to drop because we talked very little about the whole game series. I want to drop the first civilization game, and basically released before I was born. But such such like a formative game and a formative game series. so I mean, bringing really bring strategy gaming helping bring strategy gaming into uh into the pc world into computer gaming yeah and and i think it's i mean it is fantastic that they're still running this series and that must be kind of unique uh for me i got into civ 3 uh love that game i'd like love that you know it has a lot of good mechanics uh but i also love that they kind of
Speaker: tried to keep the quirkiness. I think they've gone a bit too quirky later on. For me, Civ IV was kind of the high point of the series. They perfected the format, and great expansions to it.
Speaker: ah You could just spend hour upon hour on that. And I haven't really gotten that same magic with the later games in the series. ah But I just wanted to drop Civilization in because we can't talk about strategy games and almost having done two episodes and barely mentioned Sid Meier and Civ.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I mean, i can't kind to argue with that. I can't fault it in any way. it's It's a great game series. And it was it was on my list together also with Settlers. I also had that on my list. and And I mean, amazing games that kind of redefined the genre.
Speaker: But I went for for Command & Conquer. Or even more defined the genre. yeah I mean, you you have games that redefined the genre. Yeah. yeah And I think this was the game that defined it.
Speaker: yeah yeah Yeah, I have to agree with that. and i mean But it's nice to see this. I mean, we have three, in my point of view, three classic games that that has impacted the genre. and Defined it, redefined it, and made good tweaks to it, which which is, it's so nice to see yeah where we are. But I mean, here here we talk about a bit older games in it.
Speaker: It's always nice to reminisce a bit.
Speaker: Yeah, of course it is. I mean, I've downloaded two games since we've been talking for Medieval 2, just because you just start talking about it. that's ah That's a great game. I want to play that again.
Speaker: And I think that's one of the lovely things about strategy games is that you can kind of come back to them. ah It doesn't work with all games. And that was one of my gripes with Roman Total War, which I was, which I almost talked about today as the worst game ever is that not all of them hold up over time, but ah ah the great strategy games really hold up over time.
Speaker: ah they do Can I do my weirdest one? Yeah. yeah sure was i I'm 100% sure that at least Andreas will have a weirder game. And maybe it's not much the game that's weird, although it is weird. it is,
Speaker: weird that studios did this and i don't think they do this anymore uh because i wanted to talk about halo wars oh halo of course not a strategy game uh famously not a strategy game uh but when they finished i think it was about the time they finished the original trilogy uh maybe even before halo 3 uh i'll check that up before we end off um The studio, I think they they thought about, okay, we have this massive success on our hands.
Speaker: What do we do with it? Because it's going to get a bit stale. Can we kind of cash in on something else? And they tried developing ah strategy game within the Halo universe. And it's not that it's that weird. it's It's weird, but they just mashed kind of the same characters units and try to make a strategy game out of it.
Speaker: The problem is that the units are in no way developed to kind of be on par or link with each other. It's it's supposed to be like one hero surrounded by ah bunch of space Marines that have next to no impact fighting against this alien invasion.
Speaker: And then you try to make a strategy game out of that. And the problem is there are like two sides. They have not that many units. They had to just draw an eco, you know an econ system out of nothing.
Speaker: And shockingly, It does not work that well. But I think it's fun that I think that students did this kind of thing ah ah more in the old days. but Okay, we have ah we have a good game here. We have a popular game here. Can we spin off on that? Can we try to do some different kind of genre on this?
Speaker: um Total War have done it for a bit, but it's just stuck with me that I was really excited about it when I was like 12. And it just didn't hold up.
Speaker: But that was my weirdest game. Yeah, that is... yeah I still think it's a good game, and it's quite... No, it's not your one. i'm Well, I kind of liked it. But the only thing with it is just that I think it would have been better if they would have let Bungie, who did all of the Halo series, do this game.
Speaker: Because it's another studio, it's Ensemble Studios that does this. Because since both Ensemble and Bungie are owned by Microsoft, Microsoft kind went and said, Let's milk this some more. Can you do a strategy game?
Speaker: Completely disregarding and ignoring the fact that Bungie did Myth 1 and 2. and Imagine what it could have been. It could have been Myth in Space, but It could have been but have been. As long as it's not the Age of Empire in space, because that's one. i Oh, shit. Now now that I have a two weird games. Fuck. yeah I just want to put in the weirdest thing they did about this, because it was like the studio went, okay, I guess we're doing a strategy game.
Speaker: What strategy games have? And then they took the hero thing and just stuck it in there. So this random professor is like, yeah, he's ah the faction hero now or the faction leader now.
Speaker: ah And he has to have special abilities. And I guess this prophet can summon laser beams from space, which he at no point does he summon laser beams from space in any other games.
Speaker: But all a sudden, this is something he could just do. and it' just it's it's It's so weird because it feels like, and that explains it because they basically handed it to another studio. And I'm not sure about their history, but I'm guessing they kind of they kind of Googled strategy game.
Speaker: No, Ensemble Studios have done some games. They've done h of Empires, Age of Empires 2, Age of Empires 3. Ensemble Studios. And then they did have Halo Wars. so Well, don't I look like an idiot now.
Speaker: I googled it. I did not know this. So I actually googled it here. yeah but When did they drop Age Empires 3? Age of Empires 3 is 2007. Halo Wars is 2009.
Speaker: ah nine Ah, so this is what they got to do after Age of Empires 3, because they must have done something really wrong in the early noughties. but yeah Because they went from Age of Empires 2 to Halo Wars and Age of Empires 3.
Speaker: I hate but later the later history of this, Judo. that This is also the latest game they did, ah Halo Wars. So this this makes things harder for me because I had the really good weird game and it's lovely.
Speaker: But now I also have another one which I'm going to try to shoehorn in in the end as a runner up as you're aware. But I wanted to talk about Divinity Dragon Commander. which is a steampunk strategy game. This strategy is essentially like sort of a simple RTS, build your base, build units. You have a very small variation of units. It's ah it's very simple.
Speaker: But the game is also an RPG. And the game is also a first or a third person. I don't really know what to describe it. Flight simulator?
Speaker: At the same time, because someone thought it was a good idea just mash all genres together. ah so so you have an a part which is essentially between all the battle maps you fight on. You have a sort of an RPG element in your airship where you, the dragon commander, who is a person who is also a dragon.
Speaker: have to navigate court politics between different factions who hang out on your air yeah on your airship. And sort of weird, but you do it. It's not unheard of to have some kind of similar social mechanics to move you between different parts of your mission.
Speaker: But then, you also control the battlefield in the most common RTS way. when you play battles, you can also just click a button and then onto the battlefields enters you, the dragon, with a jetpack.
Speaker: And you can shoot fire. So you can just join the forces on the battlefield as you, the dragon. where you do i think you can still control the forces, it just gets a lot harder.
Speaker: you try to fly around this weird dragon, shooting with this sort of a sort of a fight controller aim in in the middle the screen, whilst controlling your army. And the dragon is kind of bad.
Speaker: So you kind of don't want to do this. But you added it anyway. and The game is insane. It looks pretty good. It's from 2013. um it's um It seems very cool. Sorry, I had a fit of cough.
Speaker: It seems kind of cool. It it is really cool. But it's also so stupid. So incredibly stupid. It's so stupid. I love it. Yeah. you have to If you haven't seen this, you need to look it up you're something on the Steam store.
Speaker: Just to see the cutscenes, see the screenshots. It's insane. I've actually, since you've been talking a lot of this when we talked about creating this podcast and even before that as one of your favorite games to play, but also one of the weirdest games, I've looked it over at steam a couple of times i still haven't bought it i'm going to buy it i'm going to try it out because it just sounds so weirdly insane it gets good it sort of gets good it's also really expensive i think it's currently for like 40 euro yeah which is more expensive than when i got it and i got it when it was new
Speaker: Yeah, and that's kind of the thing with me that, no, it's too expensive. If it comes down to a sale for around 10 euros or something like that, yeah, sure, i can try it. But otherwise, no. But since I haven't played it, but I've heard the stories, I've seen the artwork, it just looks hilariously weird.
Speaker: Yep. OK, what's your weirdest game? and My weirdest game doesn't really go into the weirdness of being a jet-packed dragon or something like that. It kind of goes into weirdness because it tried to redefine the genre again.
Speaker: and it is a good game. It's from 2001. It's Kohen Immortal Sovereigns and which TimeGate Studios did and for some people out there you might know TimeGate Studios as the ones who did Alien Colonial Marines which is a shit show of a game and they went bankrupt after that game serves them right.
Speaker: But they started off with Kohen Immortal Sovereigns and The thing is, it's a high fantasy setting and the game, do you follow kind of these immortal beings named Koan.
Speaker: And they have resources in the game and this is kind of what makes it a bit weird. and Gold is the re the only resource that you can stockpile. but That's the only stockpileable resource.
Speaker: So it's the most important. Then you have four other resources, stone, wood, iron, and mana, which you use to buy troops. But you don't buy troops in the sense of, oh, look, I have one warrior, I have one warrior, two warriors, three warriors, four warriors. Now I have four warriors and an archery.
Speaker: You buy companies that are attached to your captain. So you kind of buy mercenaries. And then you get them up, you fight small battles between yourself.
Speaker: Everything happens in real-time strategy, but the focus is on getting more cities, more good resources, so you can get better mercenaries, better troops.
Speaker: It was kind of innovated for its time in 2001. They did a follow-up game, which is Kohen 2. I don't remember the name at the top of my head, but which has kind of the same features in it, but Yes, 2001, 2002, 2003, they kind of got outmaneuvered by and StarCraft II and the other kind of real-time strategy games. But it's it's not weird in the sense this is weird. It's weird in the sense you try to be innovative in a weird way. Do you get what I'm saying here with...
Speaker: ah doing the strategy game with it's not really exactly Europa Universalis but it's not really exactly Age of Empires 2 it's something in between in a high fantasy setting it was a valiant effort I love the game it's still a good little gem that I can take out and play from time to time but it suffers from wonky ai it suffers from and The AI always trying to rush for the highest resource point, which is the mana. So you can easily just grab everything else and then have more armies.
Speaker: yeah But it's it's still a weird little game in its setting. And and I love it. It's not as weird as the dragon with a jetpack and a joystick and kind of a fight maneuver.
Speaker: No. But is it weird in the sense of what we are used to? Yes, it's kind of weird and slash innovative in the way Total Annihilation was when that came out.
Speaker: So it's a little gem. i kind of like all of you to try it because it's a lovely, lovely little gameplay, but it's not like anything else you've played from that era.
Speaker: So that's my weirdest game. ah That gives me ah some ideas of what I want to play. Before we round off, I just want to say something about a game which I don't want anyone else to actually try.
Speaker: it is a game. And it's Magnus Folt who got me thinking of it. Because it's from Ensembles. Ensembles Studio. Oh, oh um so i I think which game. They made of Empires in Space. Yeah, they did.
Speaker: That's a horrible game. Because for some reason they got a branded deal. I think it was around the time when Star Wars Episode I was released. They got a branded to make essentially...
Speaker: a Star Wars strategy game. it's called galactic sorry It's called Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds Saga. Because a longer name is a better game, ah right? That's how it works.
Speaker: yeah And it is essentially just a re-skin of Age of Empires II with Star Wars units. yep And this is dumb in many ways. But it gets slightly worse.
Speaker: Because in Star Wars there are airships. Age of Empire 2 does not have airships. No. So so and it doesn't really have verticality. like There is one bottom floor level tile. like the The entirety of Age of Empire 1 takes place on the same pane.
Speaker: yeah So what do they do? Essentially they build... The the airplanes essentially are just cavalry units but above the other units. so they can face... Yeah, it's essentially designed to look as if they are slightly higher up and they can face through the other units.
Speaker: And they do this... I can't remember if you can hit them. I think yeah yeah don't think the Jedi warriors can hit them with lightsaber. I think you need to shoot them. You need to shoot that They're entirely pointless.
Speaker: Yeah, they're entirely pointless. And also the fun thing with those spacecraft, they have the same range as a stormtrooper with a blaster. So you still have to get them pretty up close and then just... And then they stop mid-air hovering and shooting. Yeah.
Speaker: The bomber essentially just drives closer and then shoots out bombs. Yeah. Yeah. Worst air raid ever. Yeah. Basically that. Basically that. Bomber Harris would have been furious.
Speaker: ah But yeah, no. That risk in it, it's not a good game. It's not. It's really a subprime. ah Apart from just dropping fantastically weird old games, and good job, YouTube, we also have some top tips.
Speaker: Never buy any game with the word Saga in the title. yeah Yes. Friends of Britannia is kind of good. Yeah, but we can end on that. Never buy a game with Saga in the name.
Speaker: yeah Okay, i can I can agree on that one. And that the finishes today's episode. Thanks for attending. Thanks for listening. And, that well, have a good one.
Speaker: See you next time. See you next time.
