Three Moves Ahead

Rob turtles up for a free-for-all discussion of RTS multiplayer gaming with Tom Chick and Chris Remo . What really powers the Starcraft II community, and why can't other RTS games match it? It looks unstoppable, but does a challenger arise with League of Legends ? 3MA favorites Supreme Commander II and RUSE depress the panel with their multiplayer front-end, but Chris cheers himself up by building...

Game Table Online's Robert Eng joins Bruce, Julian, and Rob for a discussion about online board gaming. Topics include business models, what goes into a successful conversion, and what these services mean for the board gaming hobby. Game Table Online

Rob and returning guest Jenn Cutter discuss what they saw at the Paradox convention in New York. The Escapist's Greg Tito helps out with some good questions and pro-tips on how to make a game presentation awkward for journalists. Troy Goodfellow just can't quit you, and refuses to leave until you understand how great Crusader Kings 2 looks. Games discussed: Naval War , Magicka , Pride of Nations ,...

Troy makes a shocking announcement that leaves the podcast in shambles.

Scott Jennings (Lum the Mad) fills in for an ailing Rob as he and Bruce and Troy welcome Joel Billings (2by3 Games) and Erik Rutins (Matrix Games) to talk about what Gary Grigsby's War in the East means for wargame design, scale, realism and detail and marketing of wargames. Pardon some of the sound issues from time to time.

PCGamer's Dan Stapleton returns to help Troy and Rob make sense of 2010. Why Starcraft 2 matters, why Troy resents DLC, the magic of Achtung Panzer and why Rob has no idea what is coming out this year.

If you chat with me about strategy or board games, I have mentioned Bronze to you. Alex Kutsenok is the lead designer of Bronze and he sits down with me and Julian to talk about the development and inspirations for this deep but easy to learn computer/board/strategy game. Prepare for a love fest. I also give shout outs to all the people who helped make Three Moves Ahead in the past year.

On the night before the day before Christmas, Troy and Rob and Julian sit down to talk about Jon Shafer leaving Firaxis, mega patches for turn based games Civ 5 and Elemental and then we wrap up with seasonal reflections including New Year's resolutions for the podcast.

In response to a listener/reader question, Troy and Rob talk about end games that work and end games that don't. What do we mean by the "end game"? What role do strictly defined victory conditions play in making an end game appealing? Can you avoid the late game drag? Apologies for the duet show. That time of the year.

We were on a good run and it couldn't last forever. A pleasant light little seasonal chat about how to cope with the gaming constraints of visiting our families went off the rails when we realized that that topic would only last us about forty minutes. I made the mistake of pushing us forward and then things got a little weird and stupid. I cut that bit - saving it for an outtakes show where it be...

GWJ's Lara Crigger and JTS's Todd Brakke join Troy and special guest Soren Johnson in a wide ranging talk about how how theme and mechanics work together or fight each other. What is Left for Dead really about? Why are themes so important to Lara? How do mechanics translate meaning? Why is Civilization so ahistorical? Do only game designers care about this stuff? Lara loses her train of thought fo...

PCGamer's Dan Stapleton joins Troy, Rob and Bruce to talk about what made 1994's X-Com one of the best strategy/tactics games ever made. Tension, atmosphere, UI, level blending, real time v turn baed and indie efforts to bring the magic back. Hideous UK Box Art Xenonauts UFO: The Two Sides Dan vs Evan in The Two Sides Tom Chick on X-Com

Troy almost fires Rob and Julian on this episode as a conversation about licensed strategy games. Bruce Geryk holds forth on why War of the Rings is like Stratomatic Baseball, Julian sings of Starfleet Battles and Rob talks about his experiences in another board game. What makes a license succeed or fail? Can either Star Wars or Star Trek really work as a licensed strategy game? Martin vs Erikson...

News that a genetic algorithm has cracked the Starcraft code prompts Troy to ask the panel about the place of build orders and in-stone strategies in the genre. Julian talks about chess and Hoard , Rob talks about the beauty of a game that opens up and Troy sucks at everything. Also news on the upcoming DC area fall meetup. November 20th, btw.

No one was in much of a mood to talk about anything this week, but we did it anyway and it was almost topical. Gameshark's Bill Abner joins Troy and Rob for a rambling chat about election games they've played, election games they haven't played and whether the dream election game they imagine is even possible. Bill also gets mysterious messages from a lost soldier.

Bruce Geryk returns to the show to give special guest Michael Abbot a hard time in a discussion that is intended to focus on the ethical and moral dimension of wargames and wargaming, but ranges all over the place, including a sidetrack into why people get into wargames to begin with. Rob Zacny tries to keep things on topic and Julian Murdoch explains why Defcon makes him cry and his daughter says...

Hellmode 's Ashelia (aka Rhea Monique) joins Rob and Julian for a discussion of how strategy games can learn from other genres. Rob also coins the Old Country Buffet approach to strategy game design.

Troy and Rob start the show with a talk about what Derek Paxton's move to Stardock means for Elemental and the future of Stardock. They then segue into a discussion about logistics and supply rules constrain the player in interesting ways. Rob tells another wargame anecdote, we debate whether an AI really understands supply rules and again talk about the best RTS ever made. This is the October ple...

Julian and Rob are joined by Rob Daviau (Hasbro) and Chris Remo (Irrational) to talk about how games let us give in to our worst impulses and betray our friends. Neptune's Pride, Risk, Weinhandler, Starcraft and a dozen other games come up.

One guest cancels, but his shoes are ably filled by Gameshark's Todd Brakke as Troy, Julian and Rob hold forth on the game that has already eaten Troy's life - and he has to keep writing about it for at least another month. Listen as the team talks about their favorite innovations in Civ 5, how the map brings the game to life, why the AI's failures are so disappointing, social policy vs civics and...

This week, Rob takes the lead and sings the praises of RUSE, the new WW2 RTS from Ubisoft and Eugen Systems. Troy and Julian push him on the differences between the single and multiplayer components, whether it uses real deception and some rambling bits about World War 2 games in general. Rob's review at Gameshark Rock Paper Shotgun RUSE discussion

Unavailable when we needed him, but still game for a show, Victoria 2's lead designer Chris King joins Troy and Rob for a discussion of Marxist economic models, why they are so many rebels and why he bothered redesigning Vicky in the first place.

A terrible launch of a game I wanted to love turns what should have been a "WOW" show into another opportunity for Brad Wardell to explain how Stardock screwed up. Listen how imperfect QA practices, overconfidence, groupthink and not taking every beta crash report seriously turned one of the years most anticipated new IPs into a lesson for developers And also, how Stardock commits to make things r...

This week, the sound is terrible again mostly because my wireless refuses to cooperate. Big promise to fix this next week - I thought I had the problem solved. But if you bear with us, you will hear Troy and Rob answer some questions from listeners about logistics, making losing fun, why games are released unfinished and a dozen other topics.

Rob Zacny's sound goes in and out, but when it works you can hear him, Troy and Julian talk about the latest grand strategy game from Paradox. Why does it make Julian angry? Do you have to force the politics to make them interesting? What does the game get right and wrong about the nineteenth century? A reminder about the upcoming question show and a preview of coming attractions. Rob's review at...