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10 Mar 06
I thought today I'd update you on my Civilization IV pitboss game. If you recall, I was losing badly. I was desperately trying to get someone to come to my aid and declare war on the civ that was besieging me. That didn't work. Anyone who was interested was too far away. Everyone else had their own enemies or just didn't find it in their interest.
The weird thing was we'd reached a temporary impasse in the war. I built my city walls that gave me a defense bonus and had grown to where my city could crank out a few units. My opponent was growing his civ pretty quickly and keeping me holed up with a handful of units, but he wasn't ready to spend the resources building the army that could take my fortified city.
It probably would have held that way until he he got construction and catapults. Once they arrived I would be toast (eventually). I started trading technology once people got writing. It wasn't too hard since because of my pleas for help, everyone knew I wasn't a threat. I became the honest broker. I was able to keep up technologically, but without being able to build infrastructure, I was doomed. I launched two desperation plans to stay in the game. One involved, building my barracks, trading for resources, building some higher level units and making a desperate push to evict the invaders. The other involved a last ditch effort for peace.
The latter sort of worked out. I ended up making what I call the 'trail of tears' deal. The Americans give up their ancestral homeland in return for peace and some building blocks for starting over. It was a tough deal to swallow, but given our pending doom, it was the only reasonable choice. There's still a great chance of being annihilated, but an opportunity to stay in the game, even slight, is worth the risk.
So now I'm trekking off into the wilderness to found our new homeland. We have an agreement to keep us at peace for a while. No government would ever break an agreement with an abused and transplanted people would they? Hope springs eternal.
Jason
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9 Mar 06
After two good looks into the gaming industry like we've just had, it feels like anything I put up will be anti-climactic. Please, try not to be too disappointed. People who are hopefully not disappointed are the winners of our anniversary contest. Without any further delay they are:
7. Kestrel -- won Perimeter
6. Grundbegriff -- won Nexus
5. Ras -- won Spellforce Platinum
4. Rich Oosse -- won Silent Storm Gold
3. Tortboy -- won Rome Gold
2. Hitbyambulance -- won Civilization IV
1. Michael Grimm -- won Heroes III Complete
Congratulations to all the winner. Keep your eyes on the Games section as I post the winning entries. If any of the nonwinners would prefer not to have their stories published, please let me know.
Finally, a little piece of technical advice that may help save someone from the headache I went through. I just installed a new printer. I finally left behind the parallel interface for USB 2.0. You may recall that USB 2.0 wasn't initially supported in Windows XP. Support was added in service pack one. So many machines and motherboards made before that service pack was released came with their own USB 2.0 drivers.
What does that have to do with installing a printer. Plenty. When I got to the point of connecting the USB connection to the printer, installation failed. To make a long story short, it turns out that the original proprietary USB 2.0 driver didn't get overwritten by installing service pack one (or two). That meant I had to update the driver. It turns out that's best done in safe mode. Once in safe mode, open the device manager, open the USB stack. Right click on each device and select update driver. I think only two updated, but it solved the problem and the printer installed without further difficulty. There's your helpful tip of the day. Cheers.
Jason
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8 Mar 06
As promised, we have the Space Empires V interview for you today. Aaron Hall, President of Malfador Machinations, took some time recently to answer our twenty questions. You might want to check out our screenshot gallery for the game while you're reading the interview. Enjoy.
1. Space Empires IV Gold just came out on Steam. What's the response been like, and would you recommend working with Valve?
[Aaron] – The response has been terrific. It’s nice to reach a whole new group of gamers that haven’t seen the game before. We’re also finding that many players are ordering the game through Steam because of their ability to access the game from any machine. We would definitely recommend working with Valve. The Steam system is a unique delivery method and gives you access to a user base of over 5 million.
2. Let's say someone did just download SEIV on Steam, played it and enjoyed it. What can you tell them about Space Empires V that will make them want to purchase the new version?
[Aaron] – Space Empires V takes the space empires series to a new level. All of the graphics have been redone in glorious real-time 3D. In addition we’ve extended the game into new areas like real-time pausable space combat, real-time pausable ground combat, custom treaties, and more.
3. Civilization IV has won a bunch of Game of the Year awards (including ours). Do you think Civilization IV raised the bar for the whole 4X genre? Has it made you rethink anything?
[Aaron] – Yes, Civilization IV is a tremendous game and has definitely raised the bar. Though a turn-based game, it brings the game very close to real-time. It’s almost a bridge between real-time strategy and turn-based strategy. There’s a lot there any strategy game developer could learn from. Unfortunately, we were too far along in SE5 to rethink anything, but its given us a lot of ideas for SE6!
4. Some have complained that the space 4X genre has grown too stale and spreadsheet oriented. How does SEV avoid that pitfall?
[Aaron] – The 4X genre has definitely grown stale, but I think SE5 and Galactic Civilizations II (from Stardock) will help to revive the genre. There needs to be more emphasis on real-time action and graphics, while still maintaining the deep strategy roots. Its hard to get away from spreadsheets when you have hundreds of worlds to govern efficiently.
5. To me, the most amazing thing about the Space Empires series is your relationship with your community and their sense of ownership of the game. Can you tell us a bit about that and how it's improved the games over the years?
[Aaron] – As many players of the Space Empires series know, the game wouldn’t be half as good without their contributions. We often set aside a large portion of time for our beta testing because the testers have so many comments and additions to the game. And since many of the testers are modders as well, we try to make each new release even more customizable by the players. The mods and the community heavily influence the game and we often add features that originally start out as mods. If a 4X game has even 10% of the ideas the community comes up with, it would be a juggernaut.
6. There seem to be two schools of thought on sides in 4X games. One has a small number of very unique sides while the other has many sides with minor starting differences. Why did you make the decision you did?
[Aaron] – A 4X game without a large number of enemies just wouldn’t be as fun. You need a lot of different challenges and strategies to overcome. Also, the turn-based nature of the game plays a part. In real-time you don’t have a lot of time to plan and prepare. However in turn-based, you have as much time as you need. So there needs to be a large number of enemies for you to overcome.
7. Normally 4X games start slow, have a great middle and a somewhat tedious end game. How did you address this problem?
[Aaron] – We’ve added a number of items through the series to help combat this problem. In SE4, we made it so that the AI players would band together if one of the other players was obviously about to conquer the galaxy. This made the end game quite a bit harder since you were not facing a handful of independent enemies. In SE5, we’ve made all of the tech levels based on formulas and extended them way off into the distance. This feature will make it almost impossible for a player to gain all of the tech levels during a game. So research will still play a large part in the game even near the end.
8. Master of Orion is generally considered the gold standard of the space 4X genre. Why do you think that is?
[Aaron] – Master of Orion is the gold standard because it was a perfect mix. It combined the detail, design, strategy, and combat in enough detail but not too much. It attained that perfect goal of easy to learn but hard to master.
9. Tell us a bit about the background of the universe you've created and how it will affect the gameplay and how it relates to the previous games.
[Aaron] – We continue to add to the universe in each game that we make. The universe is one in which a number of stellar empires have come to power at the same time as yours. Each empire can have unique abilities and technologies which means that they all play a little different. The solar systems of the quadrant are connected via warp points which allow a ship to travel instantaneously from one point to another between solar systems. This creates a natural lattice work of solar system throughout the quadrant.
10. Please describe the tech tree. Will there be an optimal tech build order or will it vary from game to game?
[Aaron] – The tech tree is actually a triple tree. The main tree is composed of theoretical sciences which are pure research areas. The second tree is made up of applied sciences that open up from studies in theoretical science. The third tree is composed of unique tech areas that are only accessible through racial traits. For example, one racial trait is Organic Technology. This tech tree is only available to those races with that trait. The Organic Technology tech tree offers new weapons and constructions not available outside the tree.
11. The space and ground combat seems to be getting a bunch of upgrades. From ship design to 3D battles, how will the new real time combat feel and play out?
[Aaron] – Real-time combat is new to SE5. Previously, combat was purely turn-based. But we decided to add this to make combat a bit more realistic and exciting. However, it’s not true real-time. You can pause the progression of time at any point to give orders and you can also vary the rate at which time passes to faster or slower. In this way you have control things in detail like turn-based, but you can also see the action in real-time. And we now have 3D planet and ship models to make things ultra-realistic.
12. Tell us about the AI (strategic and tactical) and describe a time when it surprised you.
[Aaron] – The AI for SE5 is still being worked on so I can’t tell you too much. But its best new feature is that it’s scripted, so players can edit the AI to their heart’s content.
13. How is the strategy/tactical balance? In other words, if a player excels at combat can they make up for being behind strategically? Vice-versa?
[Aaron] – The balance between strategic and tactical is good, but I’d recommend being better strategically. No matter how good you are in combat, it won’t help if the other player brings twice as many ships. Also the design of your ships plays a large part in combat. A good balance of weapons and defenses is almost an art form.
14. Take us through the beginning of a sandbox game. Let's say you're playing the humans. What do you start off with? What's your first concern? How do you get your empire started?
[Aaron] – What you start the game with is completely dependent on what starting options you choose. But in a quick start, you begin the game with one planet that is full industrialized. Your first concern is to design a few starships for exploration and colonization. If you don’t feel like designing them, you have the AI do it for you. Then you construct the ships at your planet. Your first order of business is always exploration. You need to venture into the nearby solar systems to see what they contain. You then being colonizing the planets you find in earnest.
15. Describe a recent 'epic' game or struggle.
[Aaron] – A recent epic battle was between a small fleet and a starbase. The fleet attempted to pound the base at a distance with capital ship missiles. But this proved ineffective as the base was well stocked with point-defense and batted away their missiles with ease. The ships decided to close to beam weapon range, but that was their mistake. The area around the base had been seeded with invisible mines. The battleships of the fleet were crippled clearing a path, then the starbase opened up with its weapons and decimated the fleet.
16. How is colonization/colony management handled? Espionage? Random events?
[Aaron] – That’s a big question. Colonization is handled through colony ships. Colony management is handled through list screens and colony reports. Espionage is handled through the Intelligence window where you can decide what spending to put towards intelligence and what projects to pursue. Random events are handled through scripted events that the modders can change if they wish.
17. You seem to have increased the depth of the political/diplomatic options for this version. What do you hope this will bring to gameplay?
[Aaron] – One of the big requests from SE4 was to not have the treaties be so “canned”. The elements of each treaty were hard coded into the game. For SE5, we made it so that for each treaty, the players can set what elements they want. For example, they can choose the level of trade, whether they can move through each other’s territory, and whether they share research. These custom options add a real-world element to the game and put you in different situations with different players.
18. Let's go over fleet construction. How much control does a player have when designing their fleet? Sticking with the humans, what's an early assault fleet going to look like?
[Aaron] – Fleets are merely groups of ships. You can create a fleet from any group of ships and designate them in individual task forces. Each fleet has a formation and strategy, and each task force has a formation and strategy. In this way you can give a fleet an overall goal, but give each task force its own individual goal. Early assault fleets will most likely compose a few heavy starships like Cruisers or Battleships, some escorts such as Destroyers or Frigates, and then some freighters to carry munitions and supplies.
19. While TS readers will think of GalCivII or Sword of the Stars as competition to Space Empires V, less strategy focused gamers might compare it more to Star Wars: Empire at War. Do you see any similarities there? Any concerns?
[Aaron] – Star Wars: Empire at War is more of a strategy framework placed over a real-time strategy combat engine. The fun is in the individual battles, not in the overall strategy and empire control. 4X games try to give equal consideration to both areas – combat and strategic control.
20. How's development going and when should we look for SEV? Will there be a simultaneous retail and Steam release? Any closing comments?
[Aaron] – Development on SE5 is going well and we’re shooting for a release later this year. We definitely hope to release it in all distribution channels – retail, direct download, Steam, etc. This will be our biggest game yet and we’re very excited! For the latest details and screenshots, visit our web page at www.malfador.com.
Thanks for the interview!
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And thanks to Aaron for taking the time to talk with us. It truly is a great time to be a strategy gamer. I hope you all enjoyed that. As always, your comments and feedback are appreciated.
Jason
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7 Mar 06
Well, it should be a good week. It looks like tomorrow we'll have the Space Empires V interview. That should be a good read. There was a bunch of news today plus I haven't had a chance to do a full proof read so you'll just have to wait until tomorrow. While you're waiting, did you read yesterday's developer interview?
Now that I've finally contacted all the contest winners, I hope to get all the prizes mailed tomorrow. Maybe our winners can be playing this weekend (except for the one going to Denmark). I'll probably post the winners list and start putting up stories on Thursday.
I have a couple of news blurbs for you today. There's a new GalCiv II update available on Stardock Central or through the updater. It adds some new graphics, maps and scenarios as well as the expected bug fixes. Stardock wanted us to remind everyone that that's why they don't have copy protection on their games. They give you so much post release content, that you'll want to be sure you have a legitimate copy of the game to get it.
Speaking of Stardock, they sent me a nice copy of the collectors edition of GalCiv II to review. But I already had a copy from my Total Gaming.net subscription. Though it's tempting to just rip it open and grab the hard copy of the manual, I could be convinced to have another contest. Go ahead and give me your reasons on why I should give it away. Ideas for how to run such a contest are also good.
Did you see the next Rockstar game is going to be Ping Pong? It's from the makers of Red Dead Revolver. Let's hope there are no exploding clowns in Ping Pong.
Groove Games sends word that they've released a multiplayer demo for their upcoming shooter Warpath. It has a bot practice mode and limited multiplayer modes and weapons, but should give you a feel for the game. You can find it at the Usual Suspects.
Finally, we have this week's game of the week. It's The Outfit (official site) from Relic Entertainment for the Xbox 360. If you just can't wait for Company of Heroes, perhaps you have the itchy trigger finger needed for The Outfit. Set in World War II, you lead a small team of soldiers to go behind enemy lines and destroy everything. Yes, it's a fully destructible environment where you can have the building you're hiding behind demolished just to get a better shot. Given enough resource points you can call in anything from a machine gun nest to a tank to heavy artillery. It appears the heart of the game will be the tactical online mode. The more objectives you secure the more modes of destruction you have at hand. You get to start blowing things up this month, and there's a new multiplayer demo available on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
Jason
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6 Mar 06
I had a bunch of things planned for today, but my allergies had other ideas. Today was one of those days when it feels like someone hit me with a baseball bat only they were doing inside of my head. It one of those days where you wish you had an emergency article ready to go so you don't have to worry about the website. Unfortunately, emergency article is still on the to do list.
Fortunately, I had some help today. Two weeks ago our game of the week was Horizon from L30. A little later on in the year we're going to have an interview covering that game, but right now, Raffi Parsekhian (aka Raf aka Zaimat) the Lead designer of Horizon has come here to give us some insight on making an independent game today. Before we jump into the interview, Raf wanted to invite everyone to stop by their forums to converse with the team, get information and provide input on Horizon.
TS: Tell us about the L3O team and how you got together and decided to make a game.
I first got the idea that I wanted to make a 4x space strategy game back in 1994. Several things had happened from 1992-1994, Master of Orion (the
original) and Star Control 2 were released and then Babylon 5 the TV series came along. This was an amazing time for sci-fi fans/gamers and what influenced me to embark on this journey.
Fast forward to 1999, I had taught myself game programming on Windows (before that I was a Commodore/Amiga fanatic) and had a rough draft of what I wanted to do. I had the good fortune of meeting a talented and creative artist (Andy Nastase) with a decade of experience in 3d and graphic design in TV broadcasting. With his commitment to the project we could build the rest of the team. It took two years but at the end of 2001 we had three artists, two programmers and some financial backing to begin development.
The project has so far involved roughly ten people with most of the work done by our core team of five people.
TS: Please describe your development schedule. Did you use traditional milestones and methods?
An excellent and very important question. As an independent developer one of the few advantages we have had is that we were not constrained by funding as-you-go or other milestones set by a publisher. Often what happens is tough decisions are made to meet those deadlines which affect how people work and the product ultimately suffers.
Of course you still have to set deadlines and make tough decisions to finish the product but you have much more flexibility and balance between what is good financially as well as making the game you want.
Big publishers are publicly traded companies and they are usually more concerned about their quarterly earnings and getting products out one way or another. I was just talking to a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago who happens to have worked for two such publishers and the things you hear you wouldn't believe on how they run internal development teams. It's no wonder why the majority of games released feel like re-packaged goods with a graphic re-vamp because often they are!
TS: In general, how would you describe L3O's design philosophy?
In two words I would say 'balanced' yet 'ambitious'. We wanted to strike a fine balance in making Horizon a game that would appeal to both new and veteran players. That meant keeping it simple and easy on the surface while giving enough options and detail underneath it all to keep veteran players satisfied. We have tried to stick to proven and popular things from past games and adding to that what we wanted and thought players would want to see in a new space strategy game.
TS: How have you financed the game thus far? What do you expect to change once you pick up a publisher?
Financed the game? Why by delivering newspapers every morning. Okay maybe not to finance the game but hey it's a great way to meet your neighbors while keeping fit!
We've used every possible means short of taking major loans. We've used our past experience and contacts to continue doing consulting and other work to pay for most of our personal expenses. Our core team has made huge sacrifices, we all work 60-70 hour weeks, sometimes more.
It is almost impossible to make a commercial level game as an independent in this day and age without the dedication and sacrifice of people (and their families) both in time and financially.
Once we sign on with a publisher the best thing we could hope for and expect would be for them to do a good job at marketing and bringing the game to retail. The strategy gamers and sci-fi fans are out there but they need to hear and find out about the game in order to purchase it.
TS: Probably when you started Horizon, digital distribution was mostly a pipe dream, but now there are options out there including Steam and Stardock. Even EA has launched their digital download service. How does that change things for the independent developer? Do you see a bigger effect on the industry?
It is certainly very encouraging for small developers like us. The game industry is constantly changing and for a while it looked bleak for independents. But as computers, the internet and high-bandwidth become more main stream globally, along with people becoming accustomed to buying online, it is having and going to have a major impact on how software and other products are distributed in the future.
This will make it easier for independents to distribute/sell their games directly to consumers. This gives a steadier source of income that in turn helps run their business day to day while they continue making games.
Publishers will still be there of course. Not everyone will want to handle sales and there is still marketing and customer support that many developers will want publishers to handle. There will still be partnerships but independents will be able to better control their business and not be so reliant on the publisher for success.
TS: Do you have any interest in console development? How about Xbox Live Arcade?
While I prefer pc gaming if there was a market for our product and it made sense, I would be interested. It would certainly be fun to try. But I don't currently see it happening for Horizon or turn based strategy games which are better suited for PCs. And our focus right now is only on Horizon.
TS: Fan support is often key to the success of independent games. Tell us a bit about your fans and how they've affected your thoughts on the game.
We have had a small but steady following ever since going online with our site. Many of them I would describe as veteran turn based strategy players with lots of excellent ideas and input.
I've always believed in being accessible to our fans and directly answering their questions as best I can. Hence my presence on our forums from day one and it's been as pleasant an experience as I had hoped.
Our fans have had a great and positive impact both encouraging and sharing their thoughts with us. They would be surprised how many little (and a few big) changes we've made based on their suggestions and comments in our forums. And their impact will certainly increase as we get closer to release and thereafter.
TS: What can you tell us about L3O that might be a surprise?
We are really alien scientists from another planet and are making this game to analyze
'advanced' earthling brain thought patterns to better control, err.. I mean understand you! You really didn't think you were alone in this galaxy did you?
L3O is a play on LEO for those who didn't pick up on it.
I can't think of anything else at the moment but we hope Horizon will be a pleasant surprise to strategy gamers.
TS: What advice do you have for any aspiring game makers out there?
My advice would be to get in the industry any way you can and learn as much as you can before attempting a full-fledged commercial game. It is harder than you think and more time consuming than people realize.
I would also advise to start with small games. It's smarter to work on and finish multiple mini games before attempting larger more complex games that take years to develop.
TS: Finally, what's up with Canada? It seems like there's a ton of game development going on up north.
You've noticed. Canadians seem to be good at games. we just won 24 medals at the Turin Olympics, although we lost the Hockey medal, what's up with that?
Canada has always had a strong game development industry. From original classics like Boulderdash, Wizardry and Jagged Alliance to more recent games like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Homeworld and Splinter Cell games are just some of the games made up here.
In closing I want to thank you for the interview and I must say it's nice to see a well run site dedicated to strategy games.
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Thanks to Raf for the interview and for bailing me out on a rough day. As always, I appreciate your thoughts on this feature.
Jason
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