Tag Archives: 4X
The Tuesday Interview – Nikolai & George from Sovereignty
The guys from the latest Matrix Game 4x hit stop in to chat about their new release. ~
Brant Guillory, 21 February 2017
So it’s not like the world is lacking for 4X games. What made you think “the world needs this game?” and how did you get that vision from inception to the full release of Sovereignty?
Nikolai Soderstrom (Designer): To be honest, I don’t really consider this a 4x game. We certainly didn’t go into it thinking we needed to create a 4x game. I mostly consider Sovereignty an accessible turn-based strategy game. Manage your kingdom. Go to war. Fight battles on the tactical map.
Our inspiration is deeply rooted in the grand campaign worlds of Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Birthright, in Middle Earth, and in historical settings to craft a rich political and cultural landscape in which to set a strategy game. In Sovereignty, you can play any one of 34 different realms, and each one is unique. We wanted the rich cultures established in the lore to resonate in the gameplay itself. Each realm has its own playstyle, its own ambitions, fears and rivalries, its own unique units, spell repertoire, agents, economy, diplomatic position, and heroes.
The Tuesday Interview – Bob Smith of Oriental Empires
Bob Smith pays GrogHeads a visit~
Lloyd Sabin (and Boggit!), 3 January 2017
You clearly have a long, proud history in historical PC gaming, which younger readers may not know about. Games like ‘Arnhem,’ ‘Desert Rats,’ and ‘Operation Vulcan’ are remembered very fondly. What is your favorite game of yours from that era and why?
Of the wargames, probably Desert Rats, because I like big sweeping games. Of all the games I did in my first stint as an independent developer, my favorite is probably Armada 2525, because I had so much fun playing it with my friends (who usually used to beat me).
What were some of the difficulties you faced in the 1980s when producing those early games?
The machines were very limited, you had to think about every byte of RAM. I remember being up at 3am trying to find 3 bytes of memory to finish Desert Rats, with a bike coming at 7 to take the master tape to the duplicators. The development environments were very limited too. I used to write everything out on paper, because the editors were so bad, and once your program got too big to fit into RAM with the assembler, it could take as much as an hour to make a new version.
Explorers of the North Sea – First Look!
Hexes, sir! Off the starboard bow! ~
Brant Guillory, 31 August 2016
Every now and then, everyone takes the plunge on a straight-up impulse buy. Sometimes, it’s an impulse pledge on Kickstarter. I give to you Explorers of the North Sea. Haven’t played it yet, but here’s what it looks like!
That right there is a bad-ass cover
Mare Nostrum Empires (Academy Games) – First Look!
Picked up over the summer at Origins ~
Brant Guillory, 30 August 2016
Following a massively successful Kickstarter, and some shipping delays as the manufacture of components needed some tweaking, Academy’s reprint of Mare Nostrum, along with the expansions, finally started to get delivered. Folks who attended Origins were able to pick them up there. Hot damn!
This gallery includes both the base game Empires (on the right) and the Atlas expansion (left)
GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #95
Plenty of tabletop gaming goodness for you this time ~
GrogHeads Staff, 19 August 2016
Swords & Sails (VR Soft)
$3k of $42k, ends 16 September 2016
Not even close to making funding – yet – this campaign just launched and includes options for a pretty cheap print-and-play-only copy, as well as a pledge level just for the metal coins included in the game. Yep, metal coins. It’s set in 1000AD, and allows 2-7 players to tackle rewriting the history of Europe as the French, Byzantines, Germans, Russians, or others. There’s an espionage mechanic that’s rare in a game like this, as well as your usual 4x goodness that let you build armies, fleets, cities, and more. Explore your way through their campaign page and see what you think.
