Three Moves Ahead

Troy and Rob dig through their histories to recall bad games that had tiny moments of genius. What happens when a game gets one thing right? Can forgotten games still have a legacy beyond their failures? Can a good idea overshadow a bad game's legacy? Also reminders of the Question show coming up in a couple of week's time. "Noble Junk" post Epic Fails podcast Rob's Making History 2 review

Troy - suffering from a splitting headache - is joined by Rob Zacny, Tom Chick (hooray) and Idle Thumbs/Gamasutra star Chris Remo before he heads off to join Irrational Games. The topic: Starcraft 2. Why does such a competitive, sports structured game like SC2 have such wide appeal? Is the single player campaign really that different from other campaigns? And how about that writing? What are the g...

Troy, Julian and Rob are joined by Maxis Games' Soren Johnson and Fall From Heaven 2 lead Derek Paxton in a chat about modding. How do you assemble a mod team? What are the trade offs for developers and publishers in supporting mods? Scope and ambition and talent poaching and creativity. Also news on our upcoming question and answer show and the TMA/FoS meetup. Fall From Heaven 2 Strategy Station...

This week, with the rest of the TMA crew (i.e., me) off gallivanting around California or saving lives or something, Rob and Julian decided to have a real show. They dig deep into the perfect strategy gaming syllabus, and come up with some obvious and startling conclusions. At least, that's what they tell me. I haven't listened to it yet. I hope there's pie.

Ken Levine from Irrational Games drops by the show to talk about what made Freedom Force so special. Is it an RPG or a strategy game? We discuss the virtues of pausable real time play, the fine line between homage and parody and learn about what games Ken plays when he is not writing kick ass game stories. Freedom Reborn - a fan community

This week, Troy and Rob are joined by Jenn Cutter in a trip down memory lane. The topic: How did you end up the gamer you've become? When did Rob and Troy learn they were strategy gamers? How do games fit into the rest of your life? How do you deal with being the only gamer in a social circle? Which games poke which aspects of our character? Troy and Jenn also explain BBSes to Rob. Also, a date is...

This week, hardware expert and long time strategy gamer Loyd Case joins Troy, Julian and Rob in a chat about how various advances and changes in the technological environment have changed how see and approach strategy games.

Gameshark's Editor in Chief Bill Abner joins Troy, Rob and Bruce to talk about Disciples 3, Heroes of Might and Magic, Jagged Alliance, King's Bounty - strategy games with tactical components. To what extent are these RPGs? What differentiates a good one from a bad one? Bruce mentions Odium again. The good doctor also promises to write something.

With E3 2010 in the books, Troy talks about what he saw and is generally concerned about "everything fits together". Julian gives us a preview of Risk: Factions and Rob runs down what 1C has coming your way, based on what he saw in San Francisco. Also, bonus tip on how not to prepare vodka.

Promises to listeners are not kept, so Troy flies solo for an interview with Jon Shafer, the lead designer of Civilization 5. 15 minutes of Hex Based Strategy Gaming.

This week, Troy, Julian and Rob are joined by PR pros Joe Ziemer (Triple Point PR, Paradox shill) and Stephanie Schopp (Tinsley PR, Stardock water carrier) to talk about marketing strategy games in this gaming and business environment. Is strategy gaming really dead? How do you find new audiences and keep the old ones? How do PR people deal with media and developers?

Oy. Troy breaks his computer and therefore sounds like he’s calling in from a submarine. But the rest of show is a long discussion about Games Masters experimenting with RPG and miniature mechanics. Julian and Rob discuss a fascinating game session before the team digresses onto iterative learning in game design and whether games do a good job of teaching through systems at all. Promised images wi...

Good Old Games has made the classic SimTex games Master of Orion, Master of Orion 2 and Master of Magic available for low, low prices. So Troy, Tom, Bruce and Rob spend an hour talking about what made SimTex special. What do we mean by personality in strategy games? Does the UI hold up? Which of these games has aged the most poorly? When is tactical combat an impediment in a turn based 4x game? We...

Tom Chick returns after a month away from the podcast to join Troy and Rob in a discussion about designing tutorials for strategy games. Is the failure of tutorial design a root of the decline in strategy gaming? Can you really integrate a tutorial into a story based campaign? What are the responsibilities of the gamer to learn what he/she is doing on a battlefield? Dave Perkins’s tutorials for So...

Just Troy, Julian and Rob again as they ad hoc a podcast about types of games and settings that they would like to see in the strategy arena. Is there a really good Tolkien strategy game? Where is our fort game? Can we fill in our history a little more? Pack the comment section with your own suggestions.

Tom and Bruce are absent again while Troy, Julian and Rob dissect the still in beta Frozen Synapse , a small team tactics game from Mode 7. Troy finds it too difficult, Rob loves the potential for story telling, and Julian digs the puzzles. Listen as we talk about tactical games, the union of art and design, indie game marketing, a digression on Ancient Trader and an apology from Troy on his terri...

Another wargame show! Troy, Julian and Rob are joined by NorbSoft’s Norb Timpko and Jim Weaver to talk about Gettysburg: Scourge of War. Learn more than you ever wanted to know about how to make a civil war game. Why is the AI so recalcitrant? What are the lessons of leadership here? How do you make a map like this? And where do history and gameplay collide when the AI hasn’t read the books you ha...

Troy, Tom and Bruce look at the classic Frog City/SSI games Imperialism and Imperialism 2 . What makes this series one of the greatest grand strategy experiences of all time? Can a game this difficult and time intensive be made again? Bruce has a theory, Tom keeps calling Colonization the wrong name, and Troy is focused on diplomacy. Bruce’s Revisionist History on Imperialism Troy’s essay on Imper...

Troy, Rob and Bruce participate in the wonkiest Three Moves Ahead ever, as Dr. Geryk makes up for weeks of absences with another tour de force rant. How does Achtung Panzer compare to Combat Mission? What do we expect from a WW2 tactical game, and how do these expectations mesh with reality? Turn based, real time and replay – how do they fit together? Bruce also recommends a bunch of books. Achtun...

Troy, Tom and Rob talk about Code Force’s Distant Worlds , a 4x Space RTS that tries to tackle the challenge of ceding control. How can a game get past player paranoia about letting the AI handle things? When does a player choose to intervene? How can the AI failure at basic tasks undermine your confidence in everything else? Why and when does Distant Worlds work? Also, last chance to win one of t...

With the post con exhaustion, panelists running around like crazy and Julian Murdoch fighting some sort of bug, it’s sort of a wonder we got a show together at all this week. Rob, Julian and I talk about why we loved PAX East. What makes a fan con different from a trade show? Is Microsoft Surface the future of board games? What strategy game was my surprise of the show? Probably one of our shortes...

Troy, Tom and Julian devote the hour to dissecting the surprisingly good Supreme Commander 2 and the disappointing Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight . Why does SupCom 2’s deviation from the franchise formula make the game better? Why is it like Sins of a Solar Empire and Demigod? Do we want to gain experience points in our RTSes? When good design meets bad design in the same package, what win...

We throw together a show on some of the strategy gaming news and ideas coming out of this year’s GDC. What do we know and not know about Civilization 5 ? Is Sid Meier coddling players in his psychological approach? And why is Julian on the side of evil in the Facebook wars? We announce the winner of the King Arthur steam code and begin planning for PAX East. Fear and Loathing in Farmville Gamasutr...

Two games this week. First, Tom Chick and Troy Goodfellow report on their experiences in the Starcraft II beta. It’s an old school RTS that eschews fifteen years of evolution in favor of keeping things as they were in 1998. What do we like so far? What do we not like? Meanwhile, Rob Zacny asks questions about Blizzard’s continued relevance in the genre. Then, Rob leaps to the defense of Napoleon:...

Troy, Julian and Rob wax rhapsodical about the glories of indie strategy game developer Introversion . What makes Darwinia a “different” RTS? Is Defcon the best multiplayer game ever made? And can you make a game about terrorism? Listen to the end and learn how you can win a prize. Seriously. I have one for you. Gamers With Jobs talks to Chris Delay Introversion’s Tough 2008