Transcript
Johan: Well, hello and welcome to another episode of Fog of Warcast. And as usual, when I'm the one doing the introduction, we have kind of a special episode. It's it's another little trivia for Hearts of Iron 4.
Johan: And today it's me, Andreas, and Magnus here. But we also have a guest with us. But before we get into the guest and who he is and what he's going to contribute with on this episode of the podcast,
Johan: I'm just going to check in with the you guys. How are you and what have you been playing lately?
Magnus: I'm really fine. I've been playing kind of a lot of Warno because we talked about and that game series or the studio to that developed that game. ah So I've been trying to get into that and it's great.
Magnus: ah But the jury's still out on whether i love it or not. It's it's a cool game, ah but it takes some getting into. Yeah. yeah
Johan: really It really does, but it's a good game.
Andreas Eriksson: And...
Johan: And Andreas, how are you?
Andreas Eriksson: Yeah, i'm I'm doing quite well. I started my holiday just recently, so I have a summer break from work. It's fantastic. as So I'm studying, because that's what I do when I have a break.
Andreas Eriksson: And I have also been playing two games. First of all, I've been dipping into a little bit of They Are Billions. But I also installed the Command & Conquer remaster. So I've been playing Red Alert.
Johan: Oh. it's It's a great game, the Command & Conquer remastered.
Andreas Eriksson: Yes, it's fantastic.
Johan: But it's not only us here. And we are today going to talk a bit about how do you do grand strategy games as esports. And then we thought about we have to invite someone who actually knows about producing esports, ah doing video and all that.
Johan: And then we have we have a really good friend whose name is Lukas Persson, who works with this professionally for a living, not the eSport part, that's that's a side project, but who is really good at movies, editing, live studio broadcasts and all that. So I just want to say a warm welcome to Fog of Warcast, Lukas.
Lucas: Thank you very much, it's nice to be here.
Johan: Yeah, I have to ask, how are you and what have you been playing lately?
Lucas: Oh, I didn't know this question was going to come up. um I haven't been playing a lot of strategy games lately. um We were pre-podcasting here and I yeah accidentally told that I was a Rocket League kind of guy.
Lucas: But the best strategy game of all time is probably Command & Conquer Generals with the expansions and I'm going support that until the day I die.
Johan: Yeah, i I can respect you for that. I won't agree with you, but I know you're a Rocket League player. So there's a reason you're here with us today, because on Sunday, this episode comes out now on Friday on the On Sunday, we are having a new grand game of Hygge Hoj Hearts of Iron 4.
Johan: for and me and Me and Andreas said did an episode where I coached Andreas on how to play Poland, especially Air Poland and Spy Poland for the last grand game. But this game, we're taking it quite another turn and a notch.
Johan: out We four are actually the broadcasting studio, the presenters, the expert, and of course, Lucas as the technical guy, because without him, we wouldn't probably wouldn't get this flying.
Johan: It would become a 10-hour podcast, basically. and So that's what we're going to do on Sunday. If you want to check it out, which you should.
Johan: You can check it out on Hygge Hoj at Twitch and Hygge Gaming on YouTube, where we will live broadcast for 10 hours. But the essential question here, which I want to start with Andreas and Magnus before I put Lukas in.
Johan: is the Is it possible to make a grand strategy game to be a broadcasted e-sports game?
Andreas Eriksson: Yes. But i want to add a bunch of caveats. So if you look at what people play online or how people sort of broadcast gaming online, you see two major trends, I think. The first trend is that competitive gaming is mostly RTS and shooters.
Andreas Eriksson: And of course, the sort of weird in between with League of Legends and Dota. So these are very intense, very fast-paced, fairly short games. And then you see on the streaming side of things, they play all kinds of games, including big, massive, slow, grand strategy games.
Johan: Mm-hmm.
Lucas: Thank you.
Andreas Eriksson: But the streams tend to be very sort of single-person, personality-driven. So it's not really about the sport. It's more about watching this person you enjoy watching and listening to play a game.
Andreas Eriksson: So the thing we are doing is weirdly in between because it's a big game, it's a slow game, it's it's not fast paced in any sense and it is also a game which is kind of hard to follow through the lens of just one streamer, one caster whatever because you you just don't get a good view what's happening in the entirety of the game that way.
Andreas Eriksson: So we are trying to Essentially, I likened it a little bit to how people in sport have to comment on or cast, for example. um Oh, I forgot my example, actually. But like yeah it's not football. It's not like a sort of in frame. You can see whatever is happening all over the place at at the entire time. It's more like people casting a marathon where like...
Andreas Eriksson: You skip between different runners, you have commentary, you have like go from analyzing a specific person back to the meta big picture stuff.
Andreas Eriksson: It's more like that rather than casting a specific game or following the the intense action all the time. And that introduces a lot of difficulties.
Magnus: Yeah, and i would say it's it's hard to cast it as eSport, but it's a fun cast. but I mean, the first thing is it's just it's kind of weird to be playing such a ah relatively massive multiplayer game.
Magnus: And i actually, we we played with a guy from Paradox Studios that developed this game, and he made you told us that the vast majority of players at played single player.
Magnus: They played on low difficulty.
Johan: Yep.
Magnus: Basically, these are paint the map players. That's kind of like the generic ah paradox Hearts of Iron player.
Johan: yeah
Magnus: It's like, yeah, i just want to paint the map here.
Lucas: Thank
Magnus: ah Which kind of far off from what we're doing when we're 30, 35 people playing on two teams. They've been getting ready for a couple of weeks. They've been discussing strategy. And then we sit down in a studio and try to kind of make sense of this for an audience on YouTube and Twitch.
Magnus: Um, it it's, it's a weird thing to play. It's a weird thing to cast and it's a weird thing to be the one trying to like communicate.
Johan: Mm-hmm.
Magnus: Okay. So what are we doing? And also it's, it's kind of a broad audience because it's not just the nerds we have people who are really into the game are probably better than most of the people playing our, on our cast.
Johan: Mm-hmm.
Magnus: and But we also have people who are new to the game. So it's it's also about kind of explaining the game, making things understandable and trying to kind of put forward what do we think is interesting during the game, during these 10 hours. Okay, this is an exciting new take. This is interesting. This is a really crucial part of the game.
Magnus: This is not a crucial part of the game. This is just Romania building factories probably won't have a huge impact on the work, but it might be, you know, a fun take, a fun build. um So...
Magnus: I'm not sure we should say that we're making this like a cool e-sport cast. But if you're into computer gaming or if you're into kind of like more community-based games yeah or if you're interested in getting into these kind of games, I really recommend kind of like just letting the the cast, yeah, just watch the cast.
Magnus: I usually do that after the game. and So I play the game. And then I watch the cast or like listen to it in background while I'm at work driving a tractor. Very enjoyable.
Andreas Eriksson: And I think the listening to it in the background is sort of key here.
Johan: It is very enjoyable.
Andreas Eriksson: We are definitely second monitor content.
Johan: Yeah, yeah, we are. And we heard a little bit about.
Magnus: but Wait, what? No, we're first monitor content. Watch us.
Andreas Eriksson: Intensely for 10 hours.
Magnus: Yes.
Johan: Yeah, but but you're great.
Magnus: We're joining the chat on Twitch.
Johan: Yeah, join the chat on Twitch and you can talk to us directly. But and but we talked a bit about what we as casters and or presenters feel is the challenge with this. But Lucas, you who are from the more technical side, the more producing side, how do you make this kind of content interesting from a broadcast point of view?
Johan: I mean, we we can sit and talk a lot about this is happening here. We can try and make Romaina Building Factories interesting and try to force our way into a build. But from someone who's behind the action, behind the scenes, and not behind the action, but behind the scenes, how how do you go about it to make it interesting to watch?
Johan: Because it's not 10 hours of just cameras on us three. Things are happening. Okay.
Lucas: Yeah, I think Andreas touched on something when it comes to being more of a marathon other sports. And you need to get that kind of overview as a viewer, especially since it's a 10-hour stream, you might join four hours in.
Lucas: And the first question is, what is happening here? Who's winning? Why are they winning? What have I missed? And that's something we really try to get better at. We've done a stream with everyone in person once a year and trying to get a recollection of what happened hours before all the time because people join, people leave.
Johan: Mm.
Lucas: Someone might view the four first hours and then go away for two hours and then, what have I missed? Do you want to know? And it's a great way to have that direct contact with the viewers in chat.
Lucas: But it comes with also doing as much as we can when it comes to visuals, different kind of content. When we are in person, there will be later this fall.
Lucas: ah We try to get interviews with players live when they're playing. but try to get expert views on different decisions that people make. The kind of stuff that even if you're not one of the greatest players of the game, you can still get, oh, that was the wrong decision, that was the right decision.
Lucas: And now I need to feel that it's exciting. Because as in a marathon, most of it, it's just people running. But the last 100 miles are very interesting. But how do you keep people viewing watching for a couple of hours?
Johan: yeah Yeah, and I think you touched on something really important here, and that's something I feel like you're doing a really good job to to to deliver on that. Because, I mean, i've I've seen you have live broadcasts ah driving a car from Stockholm to the ferry in Nynäshamn to get to to Visby, to to a political meetup that is Almendalen, and you made that interesting without fancy effects and so forth and so forth.
Johan: ah But here it's it's not League of Legends or it's not Robot League or and anything like that. So how how do you have do you have any and a way of having a feel for it?
Johan: Now I need to spice it up. Now I need to do... Because there is essentially there's a pre-war game setup that's not that interesting. And then Second World War...
Johan: happens and kind of everything happens in the same time and there's a lot of action. And I imagine there's different ways of looking at those two parts.
Lucas: Yeah, you have we had the great pleasure of having that downtime in the beginning.
Johan: Hmm.
Lucas: So I think we have done it pretty well and there are things we can do better, but trying to explain what's gonna happen and why it's important is the biggest part of that. So when you watch that later, even if you go away a few hours or if you just join in the last couple of hours, you can get a feel for, okay, I need to look out for this. When China has this event or America does this or whatever, I know that, ah, I heard someone say that this is important.
Lucas: And you also build a relationship. I think if we were broadcasting StarCraft II or whatever, the more modern strategy game in that kind of esports sense is, We could maybe more focus on what exactly is happening in the moment, but now it's about building the relationship also, which I feel you guys and other broadcasters we use are very good at making the conversation in tw Twitch and YouTube chat being a big part of how the broadcast turns out.
Lucas: So we don't have a set script that we need to say this and then this happens. we can We can adjust by what's happening chat and make that experience in itself. So...
Lucas: There's a reason to join life.
Johan: Yeah. Yeah, I think there really is a reason to join live. Magnus.
Magnus: yeah and i think just on your last point lucas that's something that's really improved over the years because we've been doing this for a couple of years uh i mean the chat just makes the stream so much better uh because there are people ah in the chat and on twitch kind of reacting to the game asking questions uh just joking around And that makes the whole, the whole stream a lot better.
Magnus: Uh, so it's not just, it is not just us in the studio is the people watching and commenting as well. That kind of, they integrate very smoothly into life. And I think that that's made it more interesting watch, but it's also, i mean, one of the, one of the perks of this being a 10 hour or like seven to 10 hour feed because we don't know how long this will be. It depends on how the game goes. They're playing an historical game of hearts are on the basically,
Magnus: They are trying to reenact the Second World War. ah But you have a couple of good things that come about because of that. We know that the most kind of intense periods will be in 1940, 41 and in 43, 44 where the war is decided.
Magnus: But because we have this, the game starts in 1936, we have this buildup. You can kind of tee these things up because you wouldn't have time to explain everything that happens in 1943.
Johan: Mm-hmm.
Magnus: if we just did if you just if the game was just 943 we wouldn't we wouldn't have a chance of explaining what 30 35 players are doing what all the what's happening in all the different countries but you can kind of team that up tee that up and go into depth beforehand and then just come back to it yeah and i think that's one of the perks of this being ah a very long stream is that you can of
Lucas: Thank
Magnus: You have the time to go in depth. You have the time to tee things up. And that's one of the fun things about doing it. It's also, it it i think this would be so much harder if we didn't play a historical game.
Magnus: Because now we know that, okay, in 1939, the war's going to start.
Johan: Mm-hmm.
Magnus: In 1940, we're going to have the Battle of Britain. In 1941, we're going to have Barbarossa and Pearl Harbor and so on and so forth. So we know that gay these these kind of big things are coming up.
Magnus: And if someone joins four hours in, we can say, yeah ah the Germans just invaded Poland or ah yeah, we just started Operation Barbarossa.
Magnus: So you you can get a feel if you have a basic historical knowledge of the Second World War, you can kind of get a feel for where are we in the game.
Andreas Eriksson: I would love if we had a game sooner or later, which was essentially a piece in our time game. We just know one declares war. Everybody just sits and builds up.
Magnus: ah
Andreas Eriksson: Everyone is just building civilian factories.
Magnus: ah
Johan: sit until 9 sit to 9 yeah sit to 9 to 47 no worse whatsoever 12 hour stream
Magnus: Worldwide wealth has gone up.
Andreas Eriksson: Yeah, but...
Magnus: Starvation is now eradicated.
Magnus: And on the other hand, if we had a free-for-all game where it's like, yeah, it's Naomi 36 and the world is at war.
Andreas Eriksson: Yeah. Yeah.
Johan: yeah yeah I mean those those would be fun I'm actually going to touch into this. now I know what I would like to see from from a but broadcast like this, but you guys, what do you want to see gameplay wise? and Is there some moment that you are looking forward to or something you hope will happen during the stream, during the gameplay?
Andreas Eriksson: Yes. um So one of my gripes with how we play this game is that it often gets a little bit too formulaic. Like you can almost predict what is going to happen.
Andreas Eriksson: And one of the things where I think there is a large or a good chance for especially the allies to mix things up a bit is Africa.
Andreas Eriksson: I really want to see a very early, very harsh allied offensive into Northern Africans trying to lock it down early on.
Johan: okay Good point in there. Africa can always be bit difficult. It can be a free for all or it's an easiest is often an easy access victory or an allied victory, depending on how it goes in France.
Johan: Magnus, do you have anything you're looking forward to in this game?
Magnus: Well, one of the things I'm looking forward to is see the people who usually cast this game actually playing, because I think that's a bit fun.
Johan: Or you something you want to see?
Johan: Mm-hmm.
Andreas Eriksson: Thank you.
Magnus: We we have gotten a couple of guys that ah I've streamed with them before, and I've done the studio with them, but they've gone over over the last two years to usually doing the studio, and it's good for them to get into the game.
Johan: Yeah.
Magnus: And it's also... These are... two two kind of fun guys, because we have a mix between, mean, very good players that play a lot, that have a good grasp on the meta. We have ah basically ah dads that just study the game and then play it every six weeks when we play it, that are very into game.
Johan: Hmm.
Magnus: And then we have casual gamers ah that show up and they're like, yeah, so I'm playing this country. ah What does Romania do? And I love that mix. So I think there there can be a very...
Andreas Eriksson: Where is Canada?
Johan: Hmm.
Magnus: ah They're going to be a very fresh addition to the teams. But I think that what I would like to see, we had a couple of things that have happened over the last game. So you guys talked on the podcast about Spy Poland, where Andreas kind of changed the meta for our community.
Magnus: So spies have been nerfed. Yeah. I think, fairly. i know Andreas is pissed off at this, but it's really weird to have a function with it and game where you can like, yes, I sent a spy to your country and now your soldiers don't know how to dig trenches.
Andreas Eriksson: Yeah, I'm very pissed off.
Andreas Eriksson: I disagree. I talked to Johan about this earlier today. I mean, this is how war works. If you know your enemy enemy's attack plans, they're shit. Like, it's better to not have a plan than have a plan that is known by your enemy.
Andreas Eriksson: And in at least the Second World War, if you know where they have dug their trenches, that's just a perfect target for artillery fire. Like, if you have the exact coordinates of their, like... um for example command station and stuff like that, they're screwed.
Andreas Eriksson: Spies do ruin defenses and they do ruin planned attacks. I think it's entirely realistic.
Magnus: they the It doesn't negate the trench on the S.
Andreas Eriksson: ah When you can drop a tank across it, it sort of does.
Johan: Turn in on Sunday.
Magnus: Yeah, but but that means we have we're going to have a bit of new mechanics and and maybe a new meta.
Johan: Turn in on Sunday and you can hear the conclusion of this because this is going to come up again.
Magnus: I'm actually, I know it's worth for me to say this. I hate fleet gameplay. I'm scared of boats. Not in real life, but in this game. and But I think that we might see an interesting Navy play.
Magnus: And I think that might, from what I can gather, we have, for those of you who haven't played Hardest of Iron, you have to kind of like balance, especially as a major nation, how much you sink, how many resources sink into your army or Navy or Air Force.
Johan: Mm-hmm.
Magnus: And I think that we're going to have at least a couple of players that are going to sink quite a lot into Navy. ah So I think we'll we'll try and pick that up from the studio.
Johan: Mm.
Magnus: ah
Johan: Yep.
Magnus: So that's what I'm hoping to see.
Johan: Mm. Mm.
Andreas Eriksson: um I want to bring up something we mentioned briefly now, and I want to ask a question to Lukas. So one thing Magnus mentioned was that we have a bunch of different casters. So this time it's going to be us, ah but it has been like different crews throughout most of the games. And Magnus also mentioned, and as ah we touched upon Part of what makes this sort of really long stream work is the personality of the casters.
Andreas Eriksson: But compared to other other streamers and other online ah content producers of gaming content, like since we swap around with the casters all the time, you can't really get a relationship build up a relationship with a specific caster the same way you do with a streamer.
Andreas Eriksson: And is this something that so complicates the the broadcast as well, Lukas? luhouse
Lucas: Yeah, I would say partly it does. um Even in the sense that if you have the same broadcaster every single time, you know how they're going to react. I know some of you guys better and than others.
Lucas: And I know when Johan sends... He looks over to me. he He means this. Okay, I get it.
Johan: Mm-hmm.
Lucas: If an another person does it, I'm like, are you looking at me? I don't even know what's the point. ah So you can have those small... Like helping yeah helping things, just knowing the person and knowing how they react in that exact situation. Yes, because you have done it before.
Lucas: So that partly makes it harder. and I would say we have been pretty good at choosing the same kind of broadcasters, even if it's different people. It's people with humor, people that have worked with all other people in some sense. We know each other besides the streaming and the gaming.
Lucas: And that has to really helped at least the times when I've been broadcasting. And we've been very open to experimenting, which is the other part of We were very professional and we had the same streamer every single time.
Magnus: Thank you.
Lucas: We wouldn't be as flexible as we have been.
Johan: Hmm.
Lucas: remember one of the last streams we all did together. We all of a sudden had a person reporting live from yeah outside of the Capitol in Washington.
Lucas: ah Just because we had a friend of ours that was in Washington and usually played the games and thought it would be funny. What if we do a like live broadcast from there with fake and news conference and say, this is happening in game.
Lucas: How are the the American people going to react? And that kind of stuff has in some way been compensating for the difference in people. we Because you know you're going to get something new every single time.
Andreas Eriksson: like United States just trade embargoed Germany.
Johan: Yeah.
Andreas Eriksson: How do you feel about it?
Lucas: Yeah, we sadly didn't get any interviews out on the street because of technical issues, but that was the the idea to have very confused regular Americans. But we had done different stuff like that. We have been running up with cameras when we're playing in person and just saying, how do you feel right now if someone who just crosses the border all of a sudden?
Andreas Eriksson: Yeah.
Johan: yeah
Lucas: And then the broadcaster doesn't have to do all the work.
Andreas Eriksson: Actually,
Lucas: And I think part of my belief in what we're trying to do is just compensating for the lack of experience in broadcasters.
Johan: We're getting there.
Lucas: Now you're getting experience. After a couple of years, now we're we're not pro, but we're not amateur anymore.
Johan: butre getting there
Andreas Eriksson: Yeah.
Lucas: But in the first couple of streams, it was, and okay, what bottom will I push when someone screws up? I don't feel that way anymore, but that was a thought I need to have.
Andreas Eriksson: We just wait until this weekend. i have no idea what any of the like console commands does in this game.
Johan: Don't use console commands. Please don't.
Andreas Eriksson: um i'm going to be I'm going to be dangerous. I have two points, two things. so First of all, if you're listening and you want to watch any other games, I strongly advise you to go to Hygge Gaming on YouTube and watch the game The Reach of Wrong Direction.
Andreas Eriksson: It's where we have the d Washington correspondence, but it's also the game where we managed to borrow an entire sort of like a real studio studio. Not a big one, but still, we managed to borrow an entire studio and we could do so many cool things just with the the massive green screen, the equipment, the lighting, everything.
Andreas Eriksson: um And the the second thing, so anyone who's played Hearts of Iron knows that this is a game built with essentially bugs and duct tape.
Andreas Eriksson: this is This is not a stable game. And this is something that, of course, brings us a lot of difficulties when casting because there's going to be a lot of time spent in the lobby trying to get the game to work again and that it's up to the casters to keep viewers entertained whilst no one is playing and everyone is just trying to reconnect what do we do how do we do it what's your best ah tips on how to fix that problem Lukas
Lucas: I would say lean into it. This is something we can really improve upon. um But in in game, within our community, it's known as the great lobby simulator at many points.
Lucas: And there's something fun about that too, to see the behind the scenes when it goes wrong. We never lost viewers when we had the Great Lobby Simulator, which is surprising. ah But I think that that's where the broadcast is coming, because we joke about it being a Great Lobby Simulator, and then we do something else. We have we had quizzes, we had stuff like that.
Lucas: ah So partly it's like feeling the situation.
Magnus: it and It also says something about how interesting it is to look at a world map ah for 10 hours later. Yeah, we're going into lobby.
Magnus: No one locks off.
Lucas: But I think that's the the great part about ah the games being so long because it's a hard sell to someone that doesn't really know the game or doesn't usually watch a lot of streaming.
Lucas: But if you watch just an hour and then the great lobby of simulator joins us, ah it's very easy to stay on if you have a something funny happening or you just feel that, okay, it's Magnus this time, but it was this other a guy last time.
Lucas: That doesn't really matter because you're you're not going to leave for a couple of minutes.
Johan: Hmm.
Lucas: So if you can keep it interesting, and I feel that's where you guys have done a really great job and even the guys that are going to be playing this time. And we can still ah improve upon it. when When we're in a physical space, everyone playing together, it's easier. Then we can just, so oh, Johan, run up with a camera and we're going to do an interview with someone.
Lucas: When we're long distance, it's it's tougher, but this is something I think we should really build upon in the future.
Johan: yeah Just to touch back on something that I asked the other guys, I'm going to ask you two Do you have something that you hope you will see during and Sunday's stream or and some technical thing that you hope that this will run smoothly?
Johan: What are you looking forward to on Sunday?
Lucas: I think the most the biggest thing this time is not having to go on a mobile network for the streaming. ah So the audio lag behind, that was a big shame in my life from the last term we guys did together.
Johan: yeah
Magnus: Because you're fine. we We streamed last time when we had firewall connections and had to go mobile. well that was in That was in the capital. That was in the big city. Now we've moved to a bunker in the countryside.
Johan: yeah and Yeah, in the borrowed studio, mind you also.
Lucas: Yeah, so you you can have all the equipment in the world, but if you don't check it beforehand, that's a tip for all of you guys who want to go into streaming. It's better to not have the best camera, but do it a dry run before you go live.
Andreas Eriksson: I found out asking an IT technician after the game. There is one, like, on that entire floor where we board the studio, there is one ethernet port which bypasses the firewall.
Andreas Eriksson: The problem is there are like 50 ethernet ports spread out across the entire room and one of them should have a saved us. Yep.
Lucas: And we should play a but better game of whack-a-mole before going live.
Andreas Eriksson: and
Andreas Eriksson: Yep.
Johan: yeah
Magnus: Yeah.
Andreas Eriksson: yeah
Lucas: But I also hope if I'm going to go about something in-game, as a pretty much new player that you guys got me into this game before the first physical LAN we did, ah I always cheer for a successful Brazil.
Lucas: Yes.
Johan: Yeah. and that That's a country you you've played a lot and when you've been playing and we're so happy that we have you in here. Magnus.
Magnus: Yeah, well, to turn your, I mean, to elaborate on your question on what, I've told you what I wanted to see kind of gameplay-wise. What I really hope from the stream is that we we managed to make it like,
Magnus: understandable what's happened the decisions that's happening in the game because that's one of the things that i think it's it's the biggest challenge when you're doing this it's not just showing a map and okay we can see here that the map has moved but try and make it believe understandable like okay so we can see here that japan is doing poorly in the pacific and
Johan: Mm-hmm.
Magnus: We think this is because of the Navy build that we showed you two hours ago and that we've been talking about. And we can see that. Okay, so they they tried to build a Navy with super heavy battleships, but the U.S. carriers canceled that out and tried to make that understandable for people that might not be, maybe have never played the game, and maybe have couple of hundred hours in the game, maybe have a couple of thousand and hours in the game, but want to get better.
Magnus: to try like show those examples. And also just my dream for these casts is that we will never miss a big fleet battle.
Johan: Yeah, here's to hoping.
Lucas: Good luck
Magnus: And it's hard. It's so hard. Even when we're like we we're we're three casters, we have two screens on it at all times. where We try just to catch all the action when it happens.
Magnus: It is really a challenge.
Andreas Eriksson: Nice phone.
Magnus: Which also speaks to... I mean, how... what an interesting game this really is and why it's worth streaming it for eight or 10 hours, because it all of a sudden you have this explosions of activity, these really interesting battles and to try and capture that action as it happens.
Johan: Yeah.
Andreas Eriksson: This is so actually something interesting. I've been looking a little bit about yeah on on stats for this game. So first of all, there is currently pretty big streamer for Heart of Iron Online on Twitch, Bokoen.
Andreas Eriksson: And he has actually risen a bunch today, so has almost 900 viewers. And it's half of the people watching this game streamed right now at all. But 900 viewers, that's not a big number, right?
Andreas Eriksson: And then you look at his YouTube channel where he summarizes the games, breaks them down to 20-minute videos and stuff like that, and he has 100,000 viewers or or more. And this is something really really interesting about this game, is that like the the amount of really exciting content can be broken down and summarized in like half an hour.
Andreas Eriksson: And the rest of it is a build-up and stuff around it.
Johan: Yeah.
Andreas Eriksson: And that is, say I mean, it's a challenge when we cast it, but it's also, it's really good slow TV. It's really like good second monitor content and then everything exciting happens all at once.
Johan: Yeah.
Andreas Eriksson: The allies land, stuff happens intensely and the the players get really annoyed if you pause because you don't want to give your enemy but the time to plan and think. you just want to do everything fast.
Andreas Eriksson: And then you can still have another hour of essentially everyone just sitting, watching each other, building up, thinking of where do I invade? What do I do? How do I unlock a front?
Johan: How do I...
Andreas Eriksson: And then super action again.
Johan: Yeah. and Something like that with how do I counter these panzers that comes in. I think this has been a really interesting and chat. I've ah been very happy to have you guys here, but also and you, Lukas. Really nice that you can join us on this short notice.
Johan: and So on Sunday... And check out Hygge Gaming on YouTube or Hygge Hof Gaming on Twitch. And you can you can see us cast a game and join us in chat for 10 hours. Maybe have a beer or a drink or water whatever you like.
Johan: But thank you so much for these these minutes, guys. And thank you so much for turning in and listening wherever you are in the world and whatever time it is where you are.
Johan: And we'll catch you on the next one. Don't forget, watch on Sunday and take care. um Until the next time, guys. so Bye.
