Pokopia

Clippings / what I’ve been playing: Civ VII: Test of Time, more Terra Invicta & Anno 117, Chinatown Detective Agency, and more

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First off, a big piece of news: my novella is out! Francois He and the River of Spices is my fantasy tribute to historical adventure fiction, set in a world of gunpowder, motor cars, and magitech war machines. It currently has a 4-star rating on Goodreads and is available in paperback and eBook.

You can check out the novella on your Amazon site of choice (US, UK, Canada, Australia, and all others). For Kindle Unlimited members, you can read this included in your subscription.

Gaming update below:

A MAGITECH FANTASY NOVELLA

Francois He is a war hero who never wants to pick up a gun again. Civilian life, building marvels with the power of Fog, suits him fine.

So when the distant republic of Platinea offers him a job, Francois jumps at it. Introduce Fog technology, collect his fees, and enjoy the seafood. Easiest money he’ll make in his life.

But he’s barely digested dinner when rebels storm the capital. And the desperate Platineans draft the most seasoned commander they can find: him.

From the grimy docks of the capital to a command barge on the River of Spices, from the salons of the palace to a war camp in the highlands, Francois must turn a mob into an army, deploy Fog on a budget, and outwit a charismatic warlord who really, really loves his job.

FOR FANS OF GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER’S FLASHMAN, LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD’S VORKOSIGAN, AND DJANGO WEXLER

New releases

In non-strategy news, 007: First Light, a James Bond game from the developers of the Hitman series, is out to excellent reviews (Metacritic 87, Opencritic 88). I’ve never played a Hitman game, but I am very interested in the IP on this one…

Notable updates

The new Triumphs system in Civ VII.

Civilization VII, one of my favourite games of last year despite its rough edges, received a major update (“Test of Time”). This overhauls the UI, allows players to stay as one Civ for the entire game (with new syncretism mechanics), and reworks the victory conditions and the legacy paths (mini-goals in each era).

I’m halfway through a new game and am enjoying it quite a bit — I’ve kept switching Civs, but the more freeform era goals (“Triumphs”) are a better fit for my play style than the rigid legacy paths (for example, playing as the diplomatically-focused Himiko, I usually beeline “befriend X city-states” or “form Y alliances” – see screenshot above), and the new UI is cleaner and better suited to PC screens.

What I’ve been playing: Terra Invicta, Anno 117, board games, and more

Striking back against the alien fleet in Earth orbit.

I resumed my Terra Invicta 1.0 campaign (from back in January), in which, knock on wood, I think I’m finally turning the corner on a vicious, Sisyphean struggle. This is my fault: I am playing the game’s hardest faction, the Academy — idealists who start off hoping to coexist with the aliens, and realise that peace must be negotiated at the point of a gun instead —  on Veteran (hard) difficulty. And I am very, very rusty after not having played in nearly 18 months.

The results feel like the Dwarf Fortress “FUN” meme: digital blood and tears have flowed aplenty, I’ve been repeatedly blasted out of the Inner Planets and had to take multiple frustration-induced breaks from the game, and on several occasions I’ve been tempted to restart or reload to decades earlier. But when I finally managed to fuel my war machine with the resources of Fortress Pluto and win a heroic victory in Earth orbit against a larger alien fleet — which I hope will take some of the pressure off my beleaguered armies on Earth — there are few sweeter tastes in gaming. This would make an amazing science fiction story…

Anno 117: apocalyptic volcanic ash, and the refreshing rain afterwards.

Meanwhile, I played enough of the new Anno 117 DLC to settle the vast new island it adds to the game — and see the newly added volcano in action. It is spectacular. Following the quest line triggered the volcano’s first eruption, sparking fires across the province, increasing the risk of disease, and decreasing farm productivity (due to its ash cloud). At one point, an unscripted inferno broke out in my main city, starting a minigame where I sent in the legions to rescue citizens from their houses. After the crisis comes renewal: volcanic ash gives a bonus to soil fertility, while the eruption leaves valuable obsidian behind.

Continuing my digital board game adventures, in April I dusted off Through the Ages on Steam. This takes the theme of a historical 4X game (start at the dawn of history, gather resources, research new techs, and play until the Space Age) and compresses it into a short, engaging, but very tough Eurogame: don’t ask how long I had to play before I could beat the “Easy” computer player… I also picked up the digital adaptations of Everdell and the “Uprising” expansion for Dune: Imperium.

Some of the cases in Chinatown Detective Agency take you far afield.

I poked at Chinatown Detective Agency, a cyberpunk game that piqued my interest as one of the very few titles set in Southeast Asia. The pixel art is gorgeous; unfortunately, the gameplay is mixed. The central conceit is interesting: a puzzle/adventure game where you have to Google for clues, or take out a pen and paper to solve memory puzzles. The execution is often aggravating: did it really add anything to make the player book flights in-game? Or to be unable to save anywhere during the first few cases? (And the beta patch that added save-anywhere was never finished, leaving debug logs all over my screen.)

Finally, I completed Pokopia — a worthy and very charming successor to Dragon Quest Builders 2 — and my first run of the “Empires of the Indus” Old World DLC. For now I have parked Machiavelli the Prince, as I found it less interesting once I reached the far edges of the map (China and Japan) and started repeating the same trade routes.

Clippings: Old World DLC, 1990s strategy re-release, roguelite deckbuilders, science fiction

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Hi, everyone.

The upcoming release of Old World’s new DLC, “Empires of the Indus”, has crept up on me (30 March!). This is a fully-fledged expansion to what I still consider the best, most original, and most tightly designed historical 4X game there is. It adds three new nations (the Maurya, Yuezhi aka Kushans, and Tamilakam), new religions, a new tribe (the Huns), new wonders, and more. I think once it’s out, that will be my opportunity to start a new Old World game, although I might just have to turn down the difficulty while I get back into practice…

Also due out soon (April) is the Steam re-release of a 1990s strategy game, Machiavelli: the Prince (from the same developers as Emperor of the Fading Suns). This is a merchant/trading strategy game set in the Italian Renaissance with a unique mechanic: instead of the world map being totally blank when you begin the game, it’s rough and inaccurate. I enjoyed the 15-turn demo and look forward to picking up the full game.

I’m still slowly playing the excellent Pokopia, where I alternate between progressing the story and taking time to improve the towns where my Pokemon live: roads, stairs, street lights, houses, hot springs, and more. Between this, my recent Anno 117 playthrough, and my annual revisits of Anno 1800, I have the germ of an idea for an article about the balance between free-form vs structured goals for the player in builder games…

I’ve also picked up two roguelite deckbuilders: the Early Access Slay the Spire 2 (I game over… a lot) and Monster Train 2, both sequels to earlier games that I really enjoyed. I find the Monster Train games notable for being less punishing to new players than others in the genre — it’s encouraging to be able to win on the basic difficulty!

A final note is that while my fantasy and science fiction reading has been a little dry of late (the most recent books in the genre I read being Malka Older’s Infomocracy and Null State back in February — fascinating novels set in a world where nation-states have been replaced by 100,000-person “micro-democracies”), the movie adaptation of Project Hail Mary is well worth a look as a science fiction adventure with a sense of humour and a big heart.

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Clippings: Pokopia, digital board games, what else I’ve been playing

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Hi, everyone. It’s been a busy few months in real life, but I will try to write more here!

My newest find is Pokopia, a Pokemon-themed block-building game for Switch 2. Longtime readers will recall my love for Dragon Quest Builders 2, which fused block-building mechanics with the overarching structure of an RPG (go to new zones, complete quests to unlock the next zone) and an endearing cast of sidekicks. Pokopia is a spiritual successor, in which the player builds towns, habitats (and houses!) for Pokemon. I love the combination of exploration and freeform building, and vastly prefer it to the aimlessness of Animal Crossing. It is very well regarded (Metacritic/Opencritic scores of 89) and as I write this, is currently at the top of the Switch 2 charts.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time with digital board games on Steam lately. Special shout-out to Dune: Imperium, which combines strategy with brevity: a game against the computer takes less than an hour. I’ve also been playing zookeeping game Ark Nova (don’t be fooled by the cosy theme; it is deeper, crunchier, and against the computer, a lot harder than the cute animals would make you think) and Tokaido (themed around travel in Edo Japan, it’s not the world’s deepest game, but is possibly the most wholesome).

Other than that, I’ve been playing a mix of:

  •  2025 releases such as Mario Kart World and the — I would argue — underrated Civ VII. The excellent (if evolutionary) Anno 117 is currently on break, pending the release of the season 1 DLC. Hades II is also on break; one of these days I’ll clear that pesky surface route…
  • Older releases. Starting last year I spent a lot of time with Rimworld, a game I had previously bounced off a few years ago. This time the trick was explicitly playing it as a story simulator rather than a survival experience: beginning with a much more generous custom start and using a character editor to customise every single starting and newly recruited character. Following Terra Invicta’s 1.0 launch I also began a third playthrough… although an alien offensive has put me on the back foot.

A final note is that I’ve been spending a lot of my writing time on fiction. I expect to release a novella in the next couple of months, so watch this space…