Tag: PC Games

10/8/15

Birth of the Federation, an AAR, Part 16

CHAPTER XVI: MAKING FRIENDS AND INFLUENCING ALIENS

BOTF-16-001

Well, I offered a Friendship Treaty to both the Edo and the Xindi. I didn’t expect the Xindi to offer me their own Friendship Treaty, which I accept heartily. I can now establish trade routes with them, and make even more money! Woo-hoo!

The Edo, unsurprisingly, rejected my Friendship Treaty. It’s going to take a little while before they’ll warm up. Usually, bribing a minor alien race is best done when you put about five turns between bribes, to ensure their effectiveness. So it’ll be about 20 turns or so before they warm up. Meanwhile, the bug-faces find themselves inundated by human trade ships, in something very akin to a California Gold Rush, or the Great Beanie Baby Scam of 1995.

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10/3/15

GrogHeads (Exclusive) First Look at Victory and Glory: Napoleon

What’s Glenn Drover been up to since he stopped by The GrogCast last Spring?  Apparently he’s making more games ~

Jim Zabek, 3 October 2015

A new Napoleonic game for the PC is about to hit the shelves like a blast from the Grande Batterie.

Designed to allow the player to command at both a strategic and tactical level, the objective of Victory and Glory: Napoleon is simple – build the French Empire of Napoleon. Six full campaign scenarios will be included with Victory and Glory: Napoleon. They will each have a unique starting date and conditions. The first will be the 1800 campaign made famous by Napoleon’s brilliant victories in Northern Italy. The second is called 1805, The Dash for the Danube and starts with French troops poised on the English Channel but ready to drive toward Austria and glory at Austerlitz. Next is the 1806 campaign that starts after the Austrian defeat with the Prussians taking up the bayonet. Followed by the 1809 campaign where Austria re-enters the war while Napoleon is embroiled in Spain. The 1812 starting point campaign begins as Napoleon’s vast army prepares to invade Russia. And the last and most challenging campaign begins in 1813 immediately after Napoleon’s wrecked Grande Armee has struggled out of Russia.

VG-Zoomed Map

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09/26/15

First Impressions of NWS’s Rule the Waves

Developed and published by NWS

Reviewed by Boggit, 26 September 2015

“They [the Sea Lords] must cease to say ‘This is the ideal plan; How can we get enough money to carry it out?’ They must say instead ‘Here is a sovereign; How much can we squeeze out of it that will really count for victory in a naval war?’” Lord Selborne, First Lord of the Admiralty. (Selborne to the Admiralty Permanent Secretary (16th February 1903) in “Distribution of Business 1904”, Adm. 1/7737 P.R.O.). (The quote refers to Selborne’s concern of impending financial crisis arising from the continued construction of modern warships in the numbers and varieties required to protect all of Britain’s maritime interests.)

The British Grand Fleet in WW1 (Courtesy: British Library)
The British Grand Fleet in WW1 (Courtesy: British Library)

Rule the Waves is the latest game presentation from NWS covering the naval arms race period of 1900-1925. The campaign map covers the entire world, portrayed as areas representing the spheres of influence of the Great Powers of the time. The scale of the game is in monthly turns, and your units range from little minesweepers to massive dreadnoughts. Working with a limited budget you face Lord Selborne’s dilemma of creating and maintaining a navy that will win a naval war.

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09/17/15

Birth of the Federation, an AAR, Part 15

CHAPTER XV: CONTACT!  (FINALLY!)

BOTF-15-001

A breakthrough in Construction! Phase Transition Bonding. Whatever that is. Oh wait, let’s read the description:

“Phase transition bonding merges two pieces of material by temporarily changing the phase of one item., When the phase distortion is reversed, the two pieces are inextricably merged, and the density of their intersecting volume is doubled.”

This allows for both Industrial Replicators and Type 4 Mass Replicators. Upgrading to newer versions of Mass Replicators can be a very expensive proposition. Well, expensive, in that it takes for-freakin’-ever to do it. This is why having a good, solid agricultural base is so important: you can drag people off of their farms, sometimes kicking and screaming, to working in a factory somewhere. Ah, the choices of an autocracy.

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09/12/15

Screenshot Feature: Thirty Years War

Screenshots by Boggit, 12 September 2015

Developed by Headquarter and Published by AGEOD/Slitherine

Many a crown shines spotless now
That yet was deeply sullied in the winning.”
Friedrich Schiller (Act II, sc. ii. – Wallenstein)

The Thirty Years War was one of the defining periods of the Seventeenth Century, and has been of interest to me for years, so I was delighted when AGEOD/Slitherine published Thirty Years War. Here are a few screenshots from the first few turns of the Grand Campaign from the perspective of the Imperialists to give you a flavour of what is being offered.

Thirty Years War comes with 8 scenarios. Three are tutorials, four deal with key phases of the war and one is the Grand Campaign.
Thirty Years War comes with 8 scenarios. Three are tutorials, four deal with key phases of the war and one is the Grand Campaign.

 

Turn one of the Grand Campaign starring General Bucquoy with a small force of some 6,500 men preparing to put down the Bohemian revolt. He needs more troops, but must act soon to squash the revolt before it gets out of hand.
Turn one of the Grand Campaign starring General Bucquoy with a small force of some 6,500 men preparing to put down the Bohemian revolt. He needs more troops, but must act soon to squash the revolt before it gets out of hand.

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