Arasmo

Thank you for this amazing episode ! I discovered Panzerblitz only four years ago and I must admit I'm very impressed : I love the artwork, from the wonderful box cover to the very elegant maps and counters. It's a great "beer-and-pretzels" wargame : simple rules, quick turns, varied units and situations, etc. As you said in the podcast, you don't have very elaborate decisions to make for each unit : move or shoot ! But there still is enough complexity to allow for some deep planning and analysis : the old General articles can attest to that. Of course, it has long been superseded as a simulation and there are quite a few wonky rules, but the simplicity of the game makes it easy to modify the design without being overwhelmed by all the moving pieces. Jim Dunnigan himself seems to encourage modifications by providing "experimental rules". I only tried the experimental rule "Impulse movement & Impulse fire" : it seems to work pretty well as an alternative to the reaction fire rules of Panzer Leader. It does change the feel of the game, as it's now harder to "panzerbush" ! There are quite a few different rulesets around the net. For example, "Panzer Warrior" is intended as a consolidation of the Panzerblitz and Panzer Leader rules, while another variant uses the Arab-Israeli Wars rules as a basis. There is also Tactical Game X, a very modern reinterpretation. It's pretty easy to try the game online : you can find the original rules at Boardgame Geek, Consimword or Imaginative Strategist (a site shock-full of Panzerblitz and Panzerleader material, but its founder sadly passed away in 2019) and download the Vassal or Tabletop Simulator module.

Excellent show ! Thanks to you guys, I watched both movies for the first time. I must admit I much prefered All The President’s Men : the Insider was way too melodramatic for my taste. Anyway, thank you very much for this episode and your insights on a fascinating subject !

If I understand well, that means that you have AAA publishers that are more risk-adverse than ever, and a increasing amount of indy developpers hoping to "make it big" in a very competitive environment. Are the middle-size developper studios (staff of 25-50 people) making "AA" games generally facing harder times ? That's a very good point : a lot of games made in 2010 do not feel antiquated compared to more recent games, which wasn't true in previous decades. For example, if you look at the Civ series, there is a big gulf between Civ1 (1991), Civ 3 (2001) and Civ 5(2010) in UI and especially graphics, while Civ5's UI and graphics are still pretty decent compared to Civ 6. It does make it harder for newer games to "break in".

It's a pity, because the game manages to be fairly simple to play (little micromanagement if you want to avoid it) while modelling command & control very well. I feel Decisive Campaigns : Barbarossa also deserved a mention for going beyond mere "counter-pushing" and allowing you to roleplay a chief-of-staff on the Eastern Front. I would rank these two among the most interesting computer wargame designs of the decade.

Thanks for the recommendation, I tried it on a friend's computer and it looks like a good game, but my current desktop won't be able to run it : its processor, an Intel j3455, is actually slower than the Core 2 Duo I use to have and only has an integrated chipset ! I traded power for silence and energy efficiency. And nowadays, I only use my older PC only for some desktop publishing tasks with Indesign (I use Linux on my other computer). For ancient-era gaming, I'm more into boardgames, like Great Battles of History, Ancient Worlds Series by Berg, Republic of Rome or Imperium Romanum II.

Excellent episode! And thanks for your great post, Ilitarist. It’s interesting to read about your gaming evolution. Compared to you, I took the reverse path: from EU to Civ. To be more precise, I stopped playing the Civ series when Europa Universalis I came out and slowly came back to Civ after EU4. Civ 1 and 2 are by far my favorite of the series, followed by Civ 4. I enjoyed CK2 a lot in my first play, but it lost a lot of its lustre in subsequent sessions. I never found it really revolutionary either: the base ingredients were in CK1, the KOEI games already handled character relationship since the eighties, albeit in a very crude fashion, and games like Rise of the West or Medieval Lords in the nineties (both based on or inspired by the Empires of Middle Ages boardgame) managed to be cool medieval story generators and fun strategy games without needing complex mechanics or interface. You and video games during the decade At the start of the decade, I was a big fan of Paradox games, RPGs and soccer management games. Now I play a lot less and my tastes lean towards retrogaming (ms-dos and Win3.X games mainly) and tabletop gaming, although I enjoy some fairly recent grognardy computer wargames with low performance requirements, like the Campaign Series and The Operational Art of War. Favourite solo strategy gaming moment of the decade An epic solo game of Medieval Lords: Soldier Kings of Europe (1991) with the kingdom of Georgia, from 1028 to around 1440. The small kingdom survived the Seldjoukids and Mongol invasions, then conquered most of the Byzantine empire and of Russia before slowly falling apart due to constant wars on multiple fronts, assassination of rulers, spread of plagues and heresies, noble revolts... Despite a good recovery at the beginning of the 15th century, it was too weakened to stand the might of the timuride armies. Favourite multiplayer strategy gaming moment of the decade Some great all-nighters with a old friend on Warlords 3 random maps. Favourite strategy game made in this decade Probably The Operational Art of War IV. It’s not a big improvement on the previous episode and it does have its share of quirks and flaws (command and control is poorly modelled for example), but it's still one of the most flexible computer wargames around. I'm not fond of the WW2 monster scenarios, but I enjoy most of the others I played, especially the Balkan wars scenarios. Biggest disappointment of the decade Europa Universalis 4 (EU4). It had a lot of great improvements over EU2 (rebellion, diplomacy, colonisation or religious conversion for example), but I wasn’t convinced by other mechanics like the ‘mana’ system and got tired of the state of flux of the game and the constant addition of mechanisms that didn’t always gel well with the rest. My PC was barely able to run it, which didn’t help. Finally, as I was starting to game a lot less, I also realised that EU2 gave me as much fun, if not more, while requiring much less computing power and time commitment. I still go back to EU2 (or more precisely For the Glory) once in a while, but I gave up on other Paradox titles. Your thoughts on the evolution of the strategy games during the decade. Nothing to say there, because I’m out of the loop.

The year wasn’t that bad for wargames. True, SSI and Interactive Magic didn’t have great wargame releases : Close Combat IV and Panzer General 3D were pretty average, and ‘North vs South’ was a poor adaptation of the ‘Great Battles of History’ engine to the civil war. But since they published respectively the excellent 4X Imperialism II and the brilliant RTS Seven Kingdoms II, they are forgiven ! Meanwhile, Talonsoft had a strong lineup with East Front II, Battlegrounds : Chickamauga, The Operational Art of War II, Battle of Britain and Bombing the Reich. The last two games are very niche, but they are great if you can get used to the interface and if you enjoy micromanaging a air bombing campaign. I’m especially fond of East Front II : it corrected many flaws of the original East Front (1997) and had stronger AI, better random campaigns, two excellent linked campaigns, faster movement of units (the original game was horribly slow) and a lot of minor improvements. It’s still a great tactical WW2 wargame despite the clunky interface. The Panzer Campaign series from HPS also made its debut with Smolensk 41.

Thanks for the show! The 1994 wargames line-up is very interesting, especially if you like tactical games. Panzer General and Perfect General II are good gateway wargames with great production values and easy-to-use interface. Operation Crusader is part of the V for Victory series. It’s a great operational WW2 wargame with an innovative WEGO system. TacOps is a very realistic modern squad-level wargame. It was released on Mac in 1994 and two years later for Windows. It also uses a WEGO system but doesn’t have any grids or hexes. Tigers on the Prowl is by far the most realistic WW2 tactical wargame of its era, with detailed modelling of line of sight, armour penetration, supplies, chain of command and order delays. Definitely not for the faint of heart, though! It spawned a few sequels: Tigers on the Prowl 2, Panthers in the Shadow and Tiger Unleashed. Wargame Construction Set II: Tanks! by Norm Kroger is also a tactical game: it covers platoon-level combat from 1918 to 1991, with a focus on mechanised warfare. It is much less detailed and realistic than Tigers on the Prowl or TacOps, but the interface is much friendlier and the IA is decent. Also, the scenario editor is very good. I discovered the game quite recently and it’s now one of my go-to games on my Android tablet (thank to the wonderful Magic Dosbox emulator).

Another great show. I played quite a bit of CIV6 Gathering Storm on a friend's laptop and it seems like a very well designed game, but I didn't enjoy the experience at all, in part due to the poor AI. The olders CIV (1-4) mecanisms are more suited to the limitations of an AI. The climate change is an excellent idea on paper, but I don't think it brings that much to the table compared to good old CIV1's pollution system (which could bring global warming). And CIV1 already had natural disaster events if your city was near certain terrain types. I must admit that CIV1 is currently my favorite CIV, despite its many flaws : it manages to give the core CIV experience with fairly simple rules and short playing time compared to its sequels (never tried Civ : Revolution though). CIV4 used to be my favorite, but I have a hard time getting back to it : I'm more of a casual CIV gamer now !

One of the best episodes I've listened to : thanks to all involved ! Annals of Rome is by far the best Rome-themed strategy computer game I played. I discovered it after EU:Rome and R: TW, which I didn't enjoy much, and I was impressed how the game manages to gives such a tense experience, with that "creeping doom" feeling you get when you are starting to lack the ressources to manage all threats at the same time, while only providing the player with very few options. I actually like the crude graphics (although I would have preferred EGA graphics) and the interface is pretty straightforward. It will probably seem too dated and simplistic for those who enjoy Paradox games, but you might be pleasantly surprised once you pass the (pretty small) learning curve.

Another great show ! Some of my favorite of that year. RTS Seven Kingdoms is a 1997 game, but it's great to have it mentionned on the show ! Brilliant and innovative RTS, with strong economy and people management components. Never thought much of Starcraft. RPG I'll have to give the edge to Baldur's Gate, even if it does have its share of flaws. I also enjoyed Return to Krondor : even if it isn't as good as Betrayal, it's a nice linear RPG with decent story and characterization. Suikoden 2 is probably the best JRPG I played along with Chrono Trigger : I midly enjoyed it, which is no mean feat for someone who doesn't like most JRPGs. The random battles aren't too grating and the story is pretty epic. Grand strategy/4X Warlords III : Darklord's Rising is the definitive version of Warlords III : new campaigns, more options for the random maps, new units and heroes, etc. Still as fun now as in 1998 ! Simulation Unfortunately, I never managed to get European Air Wars to work and Falcon 4 is out of my league, but I love Red Baron 3D, which is basically a patched Red Baron II. The dynamic campaign mode is extremely immersive and "casual flyers" can enjoy themselves without too much training. Wargame Operational Art of War is pretty much a wargamer's wet dream. I didn't play the first one much, but I enjoy the last one a lot. West Front was also released in 1998 : it's a great turn-based WW2 platoon-level wargame with a pretty simple system and a huge amount of content : dynamic and linked campaigns, random battles, plenty of scenarios of varying complexity... Semper Fi is another turn-based platoon game, but it's set in the modern era and uses a impulse system you don't see much in computer wargames.

Quite a few SimCity-likes didn't radically change the core gameplay. For example, the two first Caesar games (1992 and 1995) used the same building radius mechanics as SimCity and played a lot like it. The walker mechanics was introduced later, with Caesar III (1998). This doesn't mean that the first Caesar games were mere clones : they were mission-based and added warfare and a (very thin) province management layer. Another example : Afterlife (1996) from Lucasarts played a lot like Simcity 200, although it had a unusual theme and some added complexity.

As far as I know, Half-life (1998) is the game usually credited for the giving birth to the tactical/narrative shooter, but you had these kind of games as early as 1994 : Bungie's own Marathon or Origin's System Schock introduced elaborate plots, more tactical and more open ended gameplay compared to Doom, while the little-known Cyclones already had stealth elements. What makes you think Halo is one of the most defining video game ever released ? I must admit I wasn't impressed by it at the time, but I would be happy to give it a second try someday and to revise my jugement. I don't know if MOOII really sucked all the air out of the genre. Space 4X is an old genre that already had most of its basic elements defined in 1983 with Reach for the Stars (ROS). A lot of the space 4X games that came out in the nineties, MOO included, were variations of the the ROS formula. And after MOOII came out, you still had games with a different approach to the genre , like Stars Wars : Rebellion (1998), Emperor of the Fading Suns (1997), Fragile Allegiance (1997), or more recently Distant Worlds or Sins of a Solar Empire.

Thank you for this show ! 1993 is indeed an amazing year, although it wasn't as impressive as 1997 for strategy games. Warlords II would probably be my favorite strategy entry of the year, even I only play the Deluxe version (1995) nowadays. It's a great Empire-like game, very easy to get into : it works very well on an android tablet with Magic Dosbox. The core mechanics are quite similar to the first game, but it adds a lot of replayability, with five maps instead of one and the option to use random maps. The scenario editor that was sold separately was very easy to use and added a few more maps and unit sets. Empire Deluxe is a great version of the founding father of the 4X genre : the end game can get very tedious though. Master of Orion I is still my favorite 4X space game : it's simple to grasp, not too heavy on micromanagement, while retaining quite a lot of strategic depth. I only discovered Clash of Steel very recently and I find it an excellent streamlined WW2 strategy game. It must have been a big inspiration to the creators of the Strategic Command series. EA published three excellent tactical games. The podcast mentioned Syndicate, but there was also Space Hulk, a tactical game with a "dungeon master-like" first person view where you play a squad of Space Marines fighting against Genestealers, and my personal favorite : Seal Team, basically a proto "Operation Flashpoint" set in Vietnam. I played quite a bit of Ambush at Sorinor five years ago and had a great time with it. I actually prefer it to Siege, because it has more tactical variety, some fun units (the infamous war chicken!) and you have to manage your funds wisely to hire and replace mercenaries.The AI is unfortunately very poor. Stronghold is a pretty unique real-time kingdom simulator with some RPG elements. Like Majesty or Populous, you don't have direct control of your units. It has been released on GOG.com. SimCIty2000 is a classic and my favorite city-builder (sorry City Skylines !), but Maxis also published the excellent SimFarm : I never thought a farming simulator could be so much fun ! Shadow President is a very fun political simulator/grand strategy game where you play as the president of the United States. The first Settlers was also released : still my favorite of the series. Concerning management/trading games, I enjoyed Merchand Prince but I also liked On the Ball and Premier Manager 3, two soccer management games with a heavy focus on the business aspect of the sport (building your stadium, setting the prices of the seats, finding sponsors, etc.). 1993 was a huge year for point-and-click adventure games : Gabriel Knight, Day of the Tentacle, Return to Zork, Sam & Max : Hit the Road, Simon the Sorcerer, Companions of Xanth, Legend of Kyrandie : Hand of Fate... And Legend Entertainment released two great interactive fiction games : Eric the Unready and Gateway 2. It was also the rise of the CD-ROM adventure games, with 7th Guest and Myst. The RPG lineup was very strong : Betrayal at Krondor is a masterpiece, Dark Sun is a diamond in the rough, Lands of Lore is a beautiful and streamlined Dungeon Master like, Ultima VII : Serpent Isle is one of the best entries of the series, Might and Magic V is a fine conclusion to the classic era of the series, Shining Force II and Ogre Battle are fine tactical RPGs... Breath of Fire, Secret of Mana and Phantasy Star IV are also beloved by many (not by me though). The action lineup has of course Doom, a lesson of level design, but also two very good puzzle/platformers, The Lost Vikings and Fury of the Furies, two impressive (if not actually very good) rail shooters, Starfox and Rebel Assault, two excellent old-school amiga shooters, Uridium 2 or Disposable Hero, the manic Gunstar Heroes , and my favorite action game of the year after Doom, The Chaos Engine, a frantic gauntlet-like game by the famous Bitmap Brothers. There were some brilliant flight sims and space sims as well : X-WING and Privateer have been mentioned, but there was also Ace over Europe, Elite II, Strike Commander, Subwar 2050, Tornado or TFX. For me, Strike Commander is probably the strongest of the Commanders along with Wing Commander Prophecy and Privateer, while Tornado is a very detailed flight sim with a amazing mission planner. Understandably, the podcast focused on american sport games, but a few interesting soccer games were released, like FIFA soccer, with great graphics but mediocre gameplay ; European Champions, a neat arcade soccer game with unusual control scheme ; Goal, a game that rewards technical skills and by far Dino Dini's best effort in my opinion.

I do agree that quality control wasn't great in the nineties, but even for the time, the original released version of Emperor of the Fading Suns(EoFS) was incredibly buggy and unfinished : I never played a game released in a worst state apart from Descent to Undermountain and Pool of Radiance : Ruins of Myth Drannor. Not every game in the nineties suffered from savegame corruption ! Fortunately, it's definitely in much better shape now, thanks to the hard work by fans of the game, and those who had a bad experience the first time around should definitely revisit it. I had a bit of a retro space 4X craving recently and replayed EoFS along with MoO1 and MoO2 : of the three, I must admit I enjoyed MoO1 the most, because it is so tightly designed and a good singleplayer challenge, and I enjoyed MoO2 the least, because I thought it was a bloated sequel with too much pointless micromanagement. EoFS has some extremely strong points that you summarized very well, but the amount of micromanagement and the dumbness of the AI makes it an inferior singleplayer experience to MoO1 in my opinion. It's still an impressive game, and I'm sure it would be a brilliant multiplayer experience with very commited players.

It would be great if posters gave their own personal strategy gaming highlights of 2017 : there are so many games around that it's easy to miss a good one ! Favorite strategy game released in 2017 The Operational Art of War IV. I only dabbled a bit in the first one when I was a kid. The fourth one isn't a huge leap forward, but it does have an amazing amount of scenarios, more refined rules and an improved interface. I didn't dare dip in the big scenarios yet, but I enjoyed all the small ones I've tried. I found the game fairly easy to pick up and play : you don't need to know every nook and cranny of the ruleset to have fun. The game is quite detailed in some areas, like the combat mechanics, and surprisingly simplistic in others : there is no real chain of command for example. Still, it's a great traditional wargame with a very flexible engine. It doesn't require too much computing power either, which is a huge plus in my book. Favorite strategy game discovered in 2017 John Tiller's Campaign Series. It's a compilation of WW2 platoon-based wargames that came out in the late nineties : East Front, West Front and Rising Sun. The rules are inspired by tabletop wargames of the seventies and are quite simplistic, with no modelling of suppression fire for example. The amount of content is mind-boggling : randomized and linked campaigns, hundreds of scenarios of all level of complexity, huge database of units and OOBs... Depending on the scenario or the campaign, you can control a battalion, a regiment or even a corp. I don't really enjoy the higher levels of command, because I think the amount of units gets out of control, especially with all those HQ and transport units, but I'm having a blast with the battalion level scenarios and campaigns. Favorite strategy game rediscovered in 2017 VGA Civil War is a old shareware game of the nineties : I enjoyed it a lot as a kid and I revisited it this year. It's a beer-and-pretzel WEGO grand strategy game that manages to be simple while taking into account a lot of factors : rail movement, blockades, supply, leadership, fortifications, recruitment, etc. The whole war can be finished in 30 minutes, and they are a lot of options to add replayability. The graphics are simple but very clear and the keyboard interface is pretty convenient. Last but not least, the game is legally available for free at http://www.hutsellgames.com/civil-war-strategy/

Thanks for the show ! I found the section on Paradox very interesting. Paradox continuous DLC policy seems like a good way to improve the game and keep it fresh for hardcore gamers while paying the bills, but it does have a few potential problems : - The "content" DLCs increase the risks of feature bloat and of messy game design (with new mechanics that don't mix very well with the old ones), since they have to add features significant enough to attract buyers without making them mandatory so that base game can still be playable. - It makes the game harder to document : it's a bit like having to document a bleeding edge linux distribution, with features changing all the time. Fortunately for Paradox, the community is dedicated enough to do that job ! - Patches created with specific DLCs in mind can mess up the balance of the game for people who don't have these DLCs and lead to player fragmentation, with players staying on older patches. Paradox did a excellent job if the "DLC fatigue" for CK2 is only getting serious now and if EUIV is still going strong. I wouldn't know myself, since I haven't played them since 2015 : I actually prefer Paradox older games, especially For the Glory and Darkest Hour, the enhanced versions of EU2 and HoI2.

Thaquoth, thank you very much for bringing up PCem. My PC isn't powerful enough to achieve Pentium level speed with it, but it seems brilliant for those Win 95 games that don't work properly with Wine or VMware/Virtualbox/VirtualPC : great recommendation !

I would have a hard time picking my favorite between Warlords 2 Deluxe (W2D) and Warlords 3 : Darklord Rising (W3DR). W3DR is definitely deeper : the combat system is more intricate thanks to the new unit abilities and your heroes are more detailed. It also provides a lot of multiplayer options and it's the one I play the most with friends. But I do play more W2D overall : it works perfectly on my android tablet (thanks to magic dosbox) and it's simplicity means you can fire it up every now and then without having forgotten most of the rules.

Well, they only talked about games they have actually played, which can explain why they left out a few worthy games. I'm sure Bruce Geryk would have mentioned TAO if he was in the episode : he seems to be a big fan of the series.

As far as I know, Harvest Moon was released in 1996 for the SNES. I didn't enjoy it myself (I'm more of a SimFarm guy), but it's a very original game that is regarded as a classic by many : definitely worthy of a Three Moves Ahead episode. I'm not that surprised they left Emperor of the Fading Suns out : it is a 1996 game according to Mobygames, which was probably their primary source along with Wikipedia for checking the dates. It's hard to know when it was actually released. The game manual is copyright 1996, but the original webpage is copyrighted 1997 and it wasn't reviewed until 1997, so it was maybe finished at the tail end of 1996, but not actually released until 1997. Emperor of the Fading Suns was actually one of my biggest gaming disappointments. At first, I thought my hard-earned summer money was well spent : the lore was superb (it made me buy the tabletop RPG a few years later), the amount of depth seemed amazing and the political dimension was mouth-watering. But I soon became disillusioned by the huge bugs (random freeze, disappearing cursor, save game corruption, etc.), unfinished features (church) and terrible AI. Even unpatched Birthright gave me much less trouble. Apparently, there are quite a few community-made patchs that improve the game a lot : you definitely made me want to give it another try ! When you revisit an old game thanks to GOG or community websites, you pretty much have the best version of the game, and you don't have to put up with the sometimes poor state of the original release : it can change a lot the way you feel about a game ! In 1997 France, very few people had Internet, so I relied on the CDs bundled with computer magazines to find a patch for a game. This means that you could stay with an unpatched game for quite a while, especially if it wasn't a mainstream game, or even never experience the fully patched game. That doesn't matter too much when the game is pretty polished on day one, like Age of Empires, Gettysburg or Warlords III, but it is a different story with a game like Fallout, which was very buggy at release (the infamous character duplication bug !), or East Front, which improved a lot through patches. I love the Matrix release version of East Front, but if I only had unpatched East Front, I probably would have got bored of the game very quickly !

Definitely a very special game ! The closest modern equivalent would probably be Sovereignty : Crown of Kings. Unfortunately, I doubt a modern gamer would enjoy Birthright, especially if he isn't familiar with AD&D : the interface isn't the easiest to use, the micromanagement can be quite heavy and, even with the latest patches, the game is pretty buggy !

Playing these games Some of the games are available on gog.com or steam : they should work on the latest versions of Windows, sometimes with a little tweaking, especially if you use Windows 10. Other games have modern remakes and updates, like Seven Kingdoms, Close Combat or East Front. Some of those games (demo or complete game) and their manuals can be downloaded from the internet archive, and patches can be found at the patches scrolls website. Most of these games are made for Windows 95, but some of them still use DOS or windows 3.1 : Steel Panthers III runs fine in Dosbox and you can also play History of the World by installing WIndows 3.1 in Dosbox. If you are a linux user, wine can run some games : in my experience, Imperialism and Warlords III run fine without any tweaking. I managed to get Birthright and Gettysburg running too. A dedicated "retrostation" can be a fun way to use an old computer : you can go full retro with a Windows 95/98 computer, but a Windows XP machine can run most games listed here without any problem. Windows 7 can be a bit more fiddly. Short of building a dedicated "retrostation" , the most reliable solution is to set up a Windows 98 or Windows XP virtual machine with Virtual PC, Vmware Player or Virtual Box. You'll need to find a CD or an ISO of these operating systems though and check if you need to install extra drivers. In my experience, Windows 98 is much easier to set up with Wmware than with Virtual Box. You might be able to find fullly setup virtual machines made by fans if you look hard enough !

Wargames It really was an extraordinary year for wargames, with a lot of diversity ! 20th century Close Combat 2 is definitely a classic, although I actually didn't play it that much : I should revisit it someday. As a tactical simulation, it has been surpassed by Combat Mission or Graviteam ; as a game, I'm not so sure. Matrix updated the game, but made some changes to the campaign structure. East Front from Talonsoft is a platoon scale WW2 tactical wargame, that owes more to the old boardgame Panzeblitz than to Steel Panthers. I discovered it this year : the turn sequence is much less rigid than in the Batteground series and, after getting used to the interface quirks and the absence of suppression fire, I'm having a blast. The interface makes the game look complicated that it really is ; the system is actually pretty easy to grasp. The random campaigns aren’t great, because of poor AI and haphazard placement of units, but most of the scenarios are very well designed and pretty nail-bitting. Now, to be honest, the original version of East Front is obsolete nowadays : I only tried out of « historical interest ». You’ll be better off getting the updated version that’s available with the John Tiller Campaign Series compilation from Matrix : the interface has been slightly updated, game has been patched, AI has been improved, new features have been added, there are a lot more scenarios along with great linked campaigns, and you also get the games West Front and Rising Sun. If you are not adverse to old-school wargame design, it’s a brilliant bargain that will keep you entertained for a very long time ! SSI published not only Pacific General and Panzer General II (both on GOG), but also Steel Panthers III (SPIIII). SPIII puts you in the role of a brigade commander, while you were a mere company commander in the previous games, and adds a very interesting command system that gives a more realistic feel to the battle. I prefer the low unit counts and the simplicity of the first Steel Panther ; however I haven't tried SPIII long enough to form a solid opinion on it. Atchung Spitfire ! from Avalon Hill is the sequel of Over the Reich. Basically the ancestor of the Ace Patrol series, it's a turn-based WW2 air combat and crew management game. I played it in the early 2000 and found it really addictive, if quite repetitive. Last but not least, the first episode of the Decisive Battles of WW2 series from SSG came out in 1997. I haven’t played it, but the series has a great reputation among « grognards ». 19th century I fully agree with all the praise given to Sid Meier’s Gettysburg. I’ve replayed it this year and the battles are as tense as ever ! Let's not forget Civil War Generals 2 (CWG2) though. CW2 is a very streamlined wargame that is sometimes described as a panzer general knock-off. Personally, I find it a deeper and much more satisfying experience than Panzer General ; you have to take care of the moral, cohesion and fatigue of your troups and the battles aren’t designed as time-limited puzzles. And the campaign are pretty great : like Panzer General, your performance influence the next battles and you have to manage your army carefully, but I find it much easier to recover from a defeat than in Panzer General, where you very quickly fall into a« death spiral» if you don’t have decisive victories. I only tried the Battleground games this year. They certainly aren’t very innovative : their design seem to be based on old SPI/Avalon Hill wargames from the seventies. I’m not overly fond of their turn sequence and the interface is definitely not up to the SSI games of the era, but I do enjoy them : they feel like playing a miniatures tabletop game on the computer, thanks to their wonderful isometric view. The AI seems very limited, but there is a interesting option, "Commander Control", that changes the feel of the game and makes it much more realistic (and also much more frustrating) : you give general orders to your commanders instead of moving all your units one by one. Matrix sells slightly updated versions of these games that are compatible with modern systems. Ancients The crew mentioned the Great Battles of History by Interactive Magic, available on GOG.com nowadays. Other strategy games Capitalism Plus is a great update of the 1995 business sim : I even prefer it to the sequel ! Definitely a classic of the genre in my book, even if it can be a little bit dry and heavy on micromanagement at times.Available on GOG.com. Honorable mention to Entrepreneur from Stardock. I’m also very fond of the Microprose adaptation of Magic the Gathering. It has a pretty elaborate single-player campaign, where your character wanders around the land of Shannara : he fights monsters, trades spells or explores dungeons, slowly building his deck along the way. The amount of random encounters can be a bit grating and the AI is not the best, but the RPG element gives a unique flavor to the game. Still by far my favorite « card-based » computer strategy game, even if I'm not that fond of Magic (I much prefer the old Middle-Earth Collectible Card Game from I.C.E). Final Liberation: Warhammer Epic 40 000 from SSI is based on Games Workshop's universe and tabletop miniature ruleset : it's an entry-level tactical game where pure luck matter as much as skill. While the game itself isn't brilliant, the over the top FMV and great music make for a pleasant experience. Available from gog.com. Avalon Hill released a nice adaptation of the board game History of the World. I still play this one the odd time ! There were quite a few soccer management games this year. The final version of Championship Manager 2 : Championship Manager 97/98 (CM 97/98). Contrary to most soccer management games of the era, CM 97/98 focused more on the tactics than on the business aspects and had a very detailed database of players for the time. Even if the match engine is very simplistic compared to the new Football Managers, I find the game more enjoyable, because I can experience the ebb and flow of a soccer coach career in a few hours ! I do slightly prefer CM 01/02, which has a similar but more refined engine and a even more extensive database. Premier Manager 97. The game had great production values and its 3D match engine was impressive for the time. The game wasn't very realistic and very easy due to overpowered training, but it was a nice introduction to soccer management games. I'd rate it higher than Fia soccer manager that came out the same year. On the Ball/Anstoss 2. I discovered that one fairly recently. I think it's a classic ! It covers the whole range of club management, from sponsoring to stadium construction to training. The psychological aspect is much more refined than CM : you actually have to take care of your players morale and manage their occasional tantrums. The tactical system is simple but much more transparent than CM.

Grand strategy and 4X Imperium Galactica is an interesting story-driven space 4X with great productions values for the time. Low replay value, but the campaign is quite nice. Imperialism definitely has some great ideas : its avoids the end-game micromanagement nightmare of most games of the genre and the economic model forces the player to make tough decisions. But I must admit that I never became as addicted to it as I still am to Civilization I, Europa Universalis II or Medieval Lords (SSI). Civ's complexity is very progressive, which eases you into the game, and it constantly gives you feedback ("your population reaches 1 000 000 !" ) to show how much you have accomplished : a real "feel-good" game, which I find typical of Sid Meier's designs. Imperialism isn't as beginner friendly and it's not as easy to know if you made a bad start or not, which can make it more frustrating to play. And I feel much more immersed in Europa Universalis II or Medieval Lords because of the historical flavor, although I don't think they are as well designed as Imperialism. Birthright is an extremely ambitious game based on the AD&D 2nd edition Birthright campaign setting : not only does it have diplomacy and a fairly detailed economic system, but it also includes a tactical module and even an rpg subgame (using the Doom 2 engine) where you complete quests in order to get magical items or advantages that could help your kingdom. It’s pretty buggy and flawed, but I love it ! Conquest of Elysium II is a nice little 4X (or maybe more accurately 3X ?) : it isn’t a huge step forward from the first game but adds a bit more of everything, in typical Illwinter fashion. It has been surpassed by its sequels. Lords of Magic was released in a poor state, but it turned out to be a good Master of Magic-like with great atmosphere. Despite the pretty dire RTS tactical module, the very limited AI and often tedious beginnings, I actually preferred it to Heroes of Might and Magic, because it felt more like a proper strategy game and less like a « killer stack puzzle game ». It's available on gog.com and steam : I don't know if it holds up well Warlords III. What a game ! It doesn’t stray very far from its predecessors but adds just enough to keep the formula fresh : each faction has now unique units, the units have more varied abilities, the heroes are much more developed, you have more options to play with when creating custom games, a campaign has been added… The interface is top notch, with some very convenient features that aren’t commonly seen even today, like the vectoring of armies that eases the management of huge armies. Of course, the game isn't perfect : does have quite a few balance issues, killer stacks can be a problem (although even powerful heroes can be assassinated), the army vectoring does make the concentration of your forces too easy, the AI doesn’t deal with the fog of war very well, etc. Despite all this, I love this game ! In fact, the first three Warlords are my favorite beer-and-pretzel strategy games and I still play them solitaire and multiplayer. I do recommend the sequel/expansion, Darklords Rising, over Reign of Heroes : it adds a lot of content for single and multi-player. The real-time offsprings are also excellent : my favorite RTS along with Kohan and Seven Kingdoms. Warlords IV isn't bad either and probably has the best AI of all the turn-based games, thanks to some community patching (check the Warlorders site).