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Malka Older’s Infomocracy and Null State back in February — fascinating novels set in a world where nation-states have been replaced by 100,000-person “micro-democracies”), the movie adaptation of Project Hail Mary is well worth a look as a science fiction adventure with a sense of humour and a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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