Future games

[PhilThib]

Exactly...who knows !!!

[Sol Invictus]

I would also love to see "The Great War" given the AGEOD treatment. So many wars to cover.

[Generalisimo]

I would also love to see "The Great War" given the AGEOD treatment. So many wars to cover.

We can always find another war "to be simulated"... there too many possibilities...

[Sol Invictus]

I guess Vainglory of Nations will fairly well cover the "Big One".

[Heldenkaiser]

[quote="Sol Invictus"]Yeah, I can remember having to erect an abatis in order to keep our cat from laying right in the middle of the map. I never could understand how that damn cat thought that stretching out on a hard, flat table with small piles of counters sticking in its belly was comfortable, but it never failed]

In my experience, cats love to be the focus of attention. That brings them right to what they perceive to be the center of attention (if it isn't them), i.e. the place in the center of what people spend time with. If it isn't a boardgame or a book it's the kitchen table or the bed or just any other place where a cat is right then least needed.

[PhilThib]

It will, for sure...but who knows, if I can find someone ready to take the daunting task of making La Grande Guerre into a PC game of the same quality, you would then have THE game on the Great War...

[calvinus]

I like to see a game designed long time ago by Philippe, "La Grande Guerre 14-18". The entire WWI with all (really all!!) aspects of this conflict. As Boardgame, it is one of the best I have ever seen. Although it is rather unrealistic to do it as PC-Game because of the lots of "chrome" rules, and programing the A.I. should be a nightmare, but.... never say never!

Are you so sure it's really impossible?

[zawk9]

I say a WW2 or WW1 game on the detail level you guys provide would be awesome. Me being a WW2 Fanatic I refer a game running from the peace years to 1947 or so, much like HOI2, except starting in 1930, or 33 so we can acomplsih the following:

For a WW2 Game:
-Starts in 33: The Reason is that this gives players who want to play Germany, Russia, or the U.S. options. What if Trotskey had returned with a vengance, What if Germany had gone Communist? What if the Gran Chaco War had widened? What if Huey Long had been elected President? A Game with real potential.

[pasternakski]

A lot of worthy sentiment on this thread. Mostly misguided, I think.

Look. The game engine underlying BoA is really good at one thing: low-density campaigns across large areas of varying terrain with limited development, involving forces that are neither sophisticated (in modern warfare terms) nor particularly diverse in type, where leadership, not technology, is the crucial element.

AACW, as far as I can see, pushes this system as far as it is capable of going without massive modification and further development. Already, a game scheduled for publication in "early 2007" is showing signs of needing to be pushed back into mid-year or even later, My guess? A train weighing 1,000 tons is trying to cross a bridge that can handle 100.

WWI? I shudder. WWII? I cringe.

Now.

Peloponnesian Wars, anyone?

[Pocus]

Its true we had some delay, because the ACW is a rather complex war, one of the first industrial one (if you decide to name the Crimean war the first), or even the first. But we did great things and 10 months of work transformed completely BOA into something different.

We will progress incrementaly, and our third game will embrass all the world, from 1850 to 1920. Does it means we will fail, because we started small with BOA? I don't think so, but there is much work ahead, true. Just wish us good luck and hard work and we will do our best to satisfy you.

[pasternakski]

Does it means we will fail, because we started small with BOA?

Au contraire, mon frere. I have the greatest faith in all you Philippes and others.

I don't see BoA as having been a small start, I see it as an excellent application of a game system that, fortuitously or otherwise, was ideal for presentation of the subject. I love it.

All I suggest is that, given the development difficulties you are having with AACW using the engine that "gave birth" to BoA, you may want to step back and take an objective look at what game elements and mechanics might work better for presenting warfare in an industrialized, technologically-intensive world before you vault into the late 19th- and early-to-mid 20th- centuries.

I think, for example, of the Imperialism I and II games, which were satisfying successes and disappointing failures at the same time, leading to a dead end of the series. They were "hide-bound" to the underlying game system, and suffered accordingly.

Besides, look at how many area-movement WWI and WWII era games there have been in recent years (and are advertised for impending publication). I know that the conventional wisdom is, "Build a WWII game and they will come," but what have been the bottom-line sales results of such games in recent times (GGWaW and its frantically developed "expansion" after nobody bought it come immediately to mind)? How much can you expect to make from the 100th rehash of the same subject?

Maybe it's time to break the mold. You did it with dynamic success in BoA. I hope AACW fares as well and far better.

Still, I wanna be Pericles, Tyrant of Athens ... Alcibiades ... somebody else mentioned by Thucydides who proved to be a better general than he was ... maybe later using the same game system, you could give me a chance to be Caesar (not in some dinky little RTS battle game) ... Alexander ... Genghis Khan ... Hannibal ...

I mean, you know ...

[Korrigan]

I think you intuitivly got the spirit of our business plan:

Our future games won't be increasingly complex. New options will only be developed if needed by the period simulated. ie: We can use an optimised version of the BoA engine after the release of AACW or even GdN.

For example, an English War game would surely ask for some peculiar developments (and historical researches of course), but it would not need 90% of the new facilities developed for AACW.

Therefore, if we were to publish a game about the English Civil War, we would be using the BoA engine as a base and will begin to customise it for this given period.

Think to the AGE engine as a tool box. Pocus can add some tools or remove some according to the game design.

(English is not my native language. Am I clear enough?)

[PhilThib]

The spirit of our development program has been faithfully translated here

[zawk9]

1850-1920? Really? Awesome.

[pasternakski]

(English is not my native language. Am I clear enough?)

Ha! English IS my native language, and I am often not clear enough. You, monsieur, are a model of clarity.

I want more of what BoA delivered.

I don't want the game system to be pulled and twisted like taffy into something that suits the desires of those who want nothing but WWII and more WWII.

As the photographer says to the nude model, "I see that you are beautiful, but give me something for the lens to BELIEVE in..."

[zawk9]

Ha! English IS my native language, and I am often not clear enough. You, monsieur, are a model of clarity.

I want more of what BoA delivered.

I don't want the game system to be pulled and twisted like taffy into something that suits the desires of those who want nothing but WWII and more WWII.

As the photographer says to the nude model, "I see that you are beautiful, but give me something for the lens to BELIEVE in..."

To end my noobish crappy spelling/capitalization would be impossible. Yet here I must say something. The Game Engine of anything may begin as something, but that doesn't mean the original can't still be used. For instance, the EU1 Paradox Engine was used on almost every paradox game until EU3.

Sure the basic system was still there, but the games were different in most respects, except for the crappy province system. The Game Engine can be changed into almost anything these people said. Yes WW2 operated on a Campaign/Operation Basis mainly, but that doesn't mean this engine couldn't be used. I think your being a little ignorant of what people can do with Game Engines.

Yet hey, in the end, just be glad you even get the chance to speak to Devs here!

P.S. Not trying to offend you in anyway, apologize if I do.

[color="Blue"]EDIT by Korrigan: Yes please, be carefull in the way you make your point [/color]

[Sol Invictus]

Doh!

[Sol Invictus]

I agree that WWI might be a stretch, but a Grand Strategic WWI game seems doable. I also agree that earlier conflicts would be a better fit for the engine, though I am eagerly awaiting Vainglory of Nations. I think Ancients, particularly The Punic Wars and The Seven Years War, for a more "modern" conflict, would be fabulous.

[pasternakski]

I was anxiously awaiting more "stuff" about Vainglory of Nations until the news about AACW hit. I can't wait to get my nasty little paws on that one.

VoN will likely be superb - just look at who's designing and developing it.

Still, I daydream about...

[Hell Patrol]

The BoA engine would be PERFECT for the Vietnam theater...but i still want to see Frederick The Great .

[daidojisan]

I would certainly like to see the Napoleonic wars get the BoA treatment.

[arsan]

I was anxiously awaiting more "stuff" about Vainglory of Nations until the news about AACW hit. I can't wait to get my nasty little paws on that one.

VoN will likely be superb - just look at who's designing and developing it.

Still, I daydream about...

Mmmmmmmmm!!!
Nice map!!
Yes pleeease!!!!! make an ancient game!!!
Anything you like but from at least 1000 years ago!
Well... if the game features Bonaparte i can make and exception...
But if you make anything from the XX century i will hate you forever!!!

[pasternakski]

I really like that game. Just to clarify, though, I wouldn't recommend it as a direct "port" to a computer version. There are a lot of things about it that are idiosyncratic to solitaire-design cardboard-and-paper games that just wouldnt be suitable in a computer game (it is strictly turn-based, for example, and one of its innovative features to compensate for how poorly the game "plays" against you is that you are forced by conditions to change sides and try to defeat your own success from previous turns!).

I guess as a lifelong student of history, I just love the period and the entire setup from ancient Greek culture.

Would it be popular enough to sell a profitable number of copies? I dunno, but some people recently made a godawful mess of a movie from a godawful mess of a comic book about Thermopylae and made a hundred million or so from it ... Brad Pitt proved decently marketable as Achilles in a movie that was so astonishingly bad, I actually laughed out loud when I saw him crawling around on the floor with that huge arrow through his ankle ... a version of Alexander the Great made by people who apparently didn't have the slightest idea of who he, his enemies, his friends and supporters, or his cultural background were raked in a few million ...

So, it seems you can dabble in ancient Greek and come out ahead in the financial books ... I'm not so sure about subjects like the Seven Years' War, the Punic Wars (unless you are careful to feature Hannibal), or some others, although I agree with the posters here that I would, myself, love to see games from AGEOD on every theme that has been suggested (though maybe not using strictly the same game engine that has been employed so far)

Hey - how about the English Wars of the Roses (someone has probably already suggested it, I suppose, but I don't remember right off the top of my head).

Ah, to be Richard of Gloucester just once in a simulation game, not just on stage ... "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this (sneers and spits) sun of York ..."

[Duckman]

i think a 30years war simulation would have a good marketing opportunity. including most of europe and the fact that there hasnt been a SINGLE computer game covering it could make it quite financially profitable