Single Malt Strategy: Most Anticipated Games of 2024 | Episode 83 - Single Malt Strategy

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello, Welcome to episode eighty threeof the Single Malt Strategy Podcast. My
name is Finnish Jaeger, and todayI'm joined by Tortuga Power and no one
else. It's just him and Ihere today. Thank God. Yeah,
some peace and quiet down with therest. We're gonna be going over our
top four games of twenty twenty four. And we actually do have the historical
Gamer and wolf Pack three, fourto five here, so well, it's

(00:21):
good me and THG are getting introducedbecause the lack of charisma with just the
two of you. Without us,it'd be horrible, at least entertaining podcast.
Ever, I'm sure I highly doubtthat. Come on, Tia,
gotta say something. Tortuga and Iwould have some intellectual conversations and some jokes.

(00:41):
Remember last episode where Tortuga made ajoke and neither of you caught onto
it and I was the only onewho did. Yeah, I was probably
eating something. I mean, it'spretty bad. I don't know that I
could say it's the worst ever wolfAll right, let's get let's get started
with this thing. So we're gonnago over our top top three games of
twenty twenty four upcoming, and Iguess we'll just start with Tortuga. What's
your number three on the list.Okay, let's go with Infection free Zone.

(01:06):
Infection free Zone, though it looksvery cool. It's a zombie survival
game. And wait a second,No, it's not another open world first
person survival one. It's one whereyou actually manage a colony, and I
guess that's also been done a thousanddifferent ways. I guess the catch with
this game is that they use thismap of software, but you can play

(01:26):
in your actual city. It's almostlike a Microsoft Flight similar letter where you
can fly. You know, I'veheard of this game. Yeah, and
I watched Quill eighteen playing it,and it was it was very good for
like an alpha playthrough or so.What I've come to notice this is a
general trend is games that are likepolished and like alpha and like going to
early release. I find that theseare also the games that end up being

(01:49):
like the best, like go figurequality development that carries forward. But anyway,
Infection Free Zone is my number three. It's a I guess it's really
about a colony, like a calling, a game where you take over buildings
in real world cities and then youset up a research lab. In one
of them, you set up ammunitionfactory and another and you build barricades between

(02:10):
buildings like on streets to choke pointthe zombies. It's almost like real world
map version of their billions and Ijust came up with that. I'm not
sure that might not be a perfectfit, but it's something along those lines.
Very cool. I think you likethose zombie games cause you play We
Are Billions and then that like Cataclysm, Dark Days Ahead, right, yeah,

(02:30):
plenty of zombie games. Seven Daysto Die was the first person version
of that. I get excited aboutthe calling the aspect of this one.
It could be like anything coming afteryou. Besides zombies, zombies just end
up being a pretty good bad guy. Well, let's spill over to somebody
else. I'm gonna pick a historicalgamer. What would my number three be?

(02:52):
You already you already did a videoon this, right, so you
just pull it from your video list. So I will say from my list
that I made in my video,at least one game on that list has
come out that I would not putback on that list. But that's not
for this video. Same here,same here. Bye. By the way,
let me just say it. Mynumber three was going to be Dominion
six, and then it was releasedand I saw that it was not that

(03:15):
great, and I took it off. Okay, by the time this is
airing, and it'll be late February, so we are mid mid February or
the top list of twenty twenty fourwhen we're what one sixth of the way
through the year. Anyway, mynumber three, Field the Glory Kingdoms.
Did any of you play Field GloryEmpires? I feel like you did toward
two yah, oh yeah, Iplayed it, so. Field the Glory
Kingdoms is basically a grand strategy gamethat takes place in the medieval era.

(03:40):
It's made by a job or willbe made by a job published by Matrix
and Slytherin Games, and it issort of your prototypical or should be sort
of your prototypical grand strategy medieval game, with the exception that it is integrated
with the with the Field of Glorytwo engines, so you know, unlike
a paradox game where you like you'replaying crusader Kings and two armies collide,

(04:04):
you know, the game doesn't focuson tactical combat. Essentially Crusader Kings.
There is no technical combat armies meetand then you've kind of got a high
level resolution of the battle. Andwhat the game is really about, in
Crusader King's case, is managing yourdynasty and sort of you know, spreading
your god. I know what you'reright to say. I was like spreading
your family. That's probably the safeway to say it. Across Field Gore

(04:29):
Kingdoms is basically it is total war. It's it's almost it's like Grognard version
of total war, but it's thesame thing. You got the turn based
strategy and then you can if youhave the module. Yeah, I mean,
I'll let you continue, but butit's it's I think the best way
of describing it is it's medieval totalwar but done by like a Grognard company
with like the the battle resolution ismore like a tabletop war game resolution as

(04:50):
opposed to like a real time Arcadiekind of game, and so the battles
take a lot longer if you doit that way. But it's an optional
thing. You don't have to doit that way. To your point,
like you can just resolve everything onthe strategic map, build up your empires,
built up your kingdoms on the strategicmap. They did this previously with
Field of Glory Empires. That gamelooked at at sort of the Roman Republic,
the Rise of the Roman Empire,if you will, that era of

(05:13):
history, which frankly, you know, there haven't been that many games in
that era, but I'm bored withthat era. The medieval times, however,
that interests me, and so thefact that they're they're going to be
sort of doing the same approach andlooking at at the medieval era, I
think is really cool. You know, I think I've wanted a medieval three
total war for a good long while, along with a lot of other people.
Maybe this is the closest we're gonnaget. Closest we're going to get

(05:33):
to it for a while. ButI'm really excited about it, and it's
It's definitely on my top three listof games coming out hopefully in twenty twenty
four. They haven't announced a dateyet, but they announced this thing like
two years ago. I think it'sbeen sort of out there in the ether
for a while, and they periodicallyreleased status updates and things like that,
so I'm optimistic that it'll it'll comeout at some point this year. Yeah,

(05:57):
I'm surprised that you say, becauseI'm actually pessimistic out of being released
this year. I'm pretty pessimistic aboutall things being released on time because I
think what I mean, you didn'tthink that Ultimate General American Revolution would get
released in twenty twenty three, andit did, so yeah, I mean,
it's the exception which proves the rulethat should be on my list too.
I will say the only I meanhe said this is a Medieval Times

(06:18):
game. Medieval Times only, MedievalTimes. I'm interested in. This is
one where I can get a turkeyleg. Yeah the rest right? Hell
yeah, brother? So just downthe street from me, let's go.
Yeah, we can watch some joustingor something. Go Green Night Go.
I'm just kidding. That does soundinteresting. If I can't see violence while

(06:40):
I'm eating a turkey leg, I'mnot in so well. If I I
almost look at it, I'm gonnamake a bold statement here. I don't
think it's gonna be a game thatyou'd enjoy. It looks it looks really
I've seen Field of Glory like whatEmpires is that the one you were discussing,
And it just looks it looks kindof clunky. I just can't believe
you except it so willingly. Imean, that's that's fine. I'm not

(07:04):
going to fight that. I'm not. You probably know better than I do,
frankly. Yeah, I mentioned itonly because I think it would be
it's good for the listeners to getlike perspective. I think this will be
pretty Grognardi. I won't have allthe sexy bells and whistles of a real
total war game. I mean,I will say I as far as like
total war sque game like I lovedUltimate General Civil War, like that was

(07:25):
awesome. Yeah, I think youknow, Field the Glory is going to
be a bit more tape. Ithink it is. I would compare it
to a table top game, notjust the tactical resolution of Field Glory too,
but I also think at the strategiclevel, like in its nature it's
more of a table top game thanit is sort of a fast pace like
I literally play tabletop games in myfree time. Yeah, so maybe I
would like it. Maybe I'll lookinto it. Thank you THG for bringing

(07:47):
this to my attention. You've gotthem hooked, got him? God?
I love this podcast. All right, Well, Wolf, why don't you
go with your number? Okay,so my number three? I mean,
I had a couple of games here. That's what that's what a top three
list is. Yeah, I gotabout three games on my list. I

(08:09):
had done three games here. Yeah, gosh, really shocking concept. I
know my number three position, andI do think we'll see something from it
this year. Is the new Aisletwo project. They are going to a
new like engine. It's going tobe a new platform. And it looks
like they're going to Korea. Isthat official? Because I swear I saw
someone commenting about that it was goingto be Korea, and then I saw

(08:31):
like someone else saying like, oh, that's a myth. Nothing's been confirmed
yet, Like that's not they haven'tconfirmed it. But they've shown a Yak
three, a Beat twenty nine,and a late War coursair and you rub
a couple of brain cells together andyou're like, huh, I wonder what
theater And they showed an Aisle ten. Yeah, so you just rub like
you know, two and a halfone. If you just got it,

(08:54):
you know, you really work ithard. I've never heard of the Korean
War. I mean it could beit could be il WW three, Okay,
yeah, I mean they could dosomething like that. I think that
would be goofy and not not smart. I firmly believe it's going to be
Korea, and if it's not Korea, I'll eat my shorts. Okay,

(09:16):
he's on the record. Yeah,I'm on the record saying I'll eat my
shorts. But yeah, I thinkthe Korean War is an awesome setting for
a flight sim I think it's severelyunderrepresented in modern flight simming. And it's
that cool you know, jet agemeets you know, old World War two

(09:37):
weaponry instead of you know, shootingmissiles and stuff. It's awesome. It's
cool. Mike fifteen saber panther.Yeah, and the you got Mustang's course
airs, all that good stuff,and they could improve on it and add
carrier ops. Of course, I'mgetting carried away with all that. I
mean, just I'm excited to havethe Korean War and a flight ZIM.
Hopefully. Of course, it couldbe some made up conflict. It seems

(10:00):
unlikely. That does seem unlikely.That would be way out of left field.
And I think they did say itwas going to be historical anyway,
But did they operate ile twos inKorea? Ale tens? Yeah, it's
the ten, just a variant ofthe two. Yeah, it's a it's
a later version of it. It'sall service during World War Two, later
in the war. Who's making thatPacific flightsin I don't know if I spoil,

(10:22):
like what's on your list if butI was thinking about that. I
didn't put that on my list.But Jason Williams, the old lead producer
of the Ile two series, leftthe Isle two team and they started his
own team. He's got a teamtogether and they were working on a game
called Combat Pilot and that is setduring the Battle of Midway. They've been
showing off like assets like guns.They've been working on a Wildcat and a

(10:46):
zero. So we are getting somePacific theater stuff. DCS is expanding into
the Pacific as well with quite afew things. So yeah, it should
be an exciting year four flight simshopefully. But yeah, that's my number.
That's my number three. New Iletwo Korea project, whatever it will
be called. I'm sure we'll seesomething announced soonish. That's back to you,

(11:09):
finished, all right, my numberthree. I was kind of struggling
to think of something and I wasjust browsing, you know, Steam,
and I picked a game that Ithink I've talked with Wolf about Silent Depth
Depth to Pacific. So it's goingto be like a a subsim light kind
of game, I know, Wolf, you describe it a kind of like
Silent Hunter two kind of detail.Yeah, that's kind of what it looked

(11:31):
like to me. I think it, I mean, it has potential.
I guess it's being I think Isaw it's being listed, developed and published
by Micropos, and I guess,you know, I'm actually kind of worried
about that with the stuff that Microposeis putting out. May that's a hot
take, but I just feel underwhelmedwith Micropos's, you know, releases lately.
Well. I do know the developermade obviously Silent Depth the first one,

(11:54):
and I'm pretty sure it was alsoa mobile game kind of like what
Atlantic Fleet or whatnot did, andit seemed like a very it seems like
it was a spiritual successor to SilentService two in a way, with the
way you traveled across the map andstuff like that sort of thing. But
yeah, I'm interested to see SilentDepth two. It looks like the graphics
like look good to me, anduh, I'm just curious to see how

(12:18):
simple light it will be. Andif it'll be Moudeble, that'd be cool.
I don't want to say I don'thave like high expectations. I just
have like whatever happens happens, andI'll see how it turns out. But
it's like, it's nice to seewe have a US specific sub game in
the works by somebody, So that'skind of why I'm looking forward to it.
Yeah. Absolutely, I think we'reback to you tour too. You
get right, Okay, well thenlet's get on with it. I'm once

(12:39):
again going to put on my shillhat and embrace the inner hooded horse.
I know, I think I knowwhat you're gonna pick for number two.
It's s biocracy. This is mynumber two as well. I think it's
everyone's number two right in the world. Mm hmm. T isssues a year
number two. Yeah, second best, you know, not not great,
not terrible, but it made thelist. I mean a list of three,
though it's in the middle, soit's it's not a list of three,

(13:01):
it's a list of every game that'scoming out this year, the top
three. Yeah, unless you didn't, you only looked at three games.
I just rite the first three gamesyou looked at I just it was the
first three I saw. I justI searched war games coming in twenty twenty
four, and I just grabbed thefirst three that came up with the letter
E. It was. It wasnumber two that came up alphabetically. The

(13:22):
credibility of this thing just keep goingdownhill. Okay, here's here's just a
question. Is is Hooded Horse alsopublishing manner Lord? Yes? That's is
that your number? We'll get toOkay, we're getting to that. Okay,
sorry, I come on, butI did it? Damn it?
What's Hooded Horse or number three aswell? Did I miss that? Listen?
We do? We need to startthis episode. You know how when

(13:43):
someone is on a financial show andthat they've got a disclaimer, like,
oh, I own this company stockTortuga. Did you invest in Hooded Horse?
Because every other day it's like,oh my god, hooded Horse so
good, so good. They're basedin Dallas Wolf and I actually go visit
their their headquarters or something they likein Are you serious? I don't know,
Carrollton or something. I just wantto let you everyone know that my
number three game was not a HoodedHorse title. Okay, yeah, and

(14:07):
I think they are releasing other games. So, but do you want to
talk about it a little bit,Torto. Yeah, what's even He's not
even talking about them. We're noteven talking about the mones Geocracy. What
more do you want to see?What es Biocracy is. It's like it's
by or strategy game. It lookslike Hearts of Iron two in my opinion.

(14:31):
It's got that grand strategy vibe.But you know it's the it's got
this espionage side to it. It'shistorical. I don't know what do you
want from me? Okay, well, I just want to let the viewers
know. You can buy the HoodedHorse Publisher package for one hundred and forty
four dollars on Steam. Wow includesnine Noted Horse games. Okay, so

(14:52):
this game is being developed by exVivo Studios. Don't know anything about them.
It's called Espiocracy and it is anespionage, grand strategy game. So
basically, the way I'm reading this, Tortuga, you don't run a country.
You run an intelligence agency. Yes, by agency of one of seventy
four playable countries. Oh, thatactually sounds awesome. I can read the
Steam description too, like God,this the insults take charge of the intelligence

(15:18):
agency of your choice. As theCold War begins, you're taking charge of
Tortuga segment. Sorry, I meanit's all of our segment. We all
said it was number two. NoI didn't. But do you are they
historical intelligence agencies or do you makeyour own. I'll go and look it
up again. But when I lookedat this about three months ago and put
it on my list, even then, you're basically like an intelligence player during

(15:41):
the Cold War. Oh perfect,Yeah, so, I mean that was
I was already excited by the factthat if a horse put their money in
this game, I'm already in.Just sign me up. No, that
actually does sound really cool though,like running KGB or whatever. Yeah.
I like how the game looks,how they made them kind of like a
two D kind of top down view. I guess I'm just tired of the

(16:03):
three D maps that we see insome of these other games, like Paradox
Games. One hundred percent agree,one hundred percent agree. I really when
I saw the game, it alsoit just looks polished. I'm like,
I'm basically trusting my gut on this. I haven't invested a lot of time
in looking up the details of thisgame, and like I did a disservice
to our listeners by not doing that. But I just have a gut feeling

(16:25):
and I really trust my gut.I rely on it for a lot of
things in life besides video gaming.No, truly, I've been in my
workplace. I have to just makegut calls and anyway, So my gut
call is Espiocracy is gonna be agood game, and that's why I have
it at number two. I hopeyou have better explanations to your boss to
why you did something. It waslike, I don't know, my gut
just told me. So I hada good feeling. I ate a burrito

(16:47):
this more than my gut was heckingup and it told me what to do.
Yeah, I do feel that CoritoSupreme from tackle ball. Why do
you guys have it on your list? You have a number two? Yeah,
this is this is my number two? Yeah for real, So you
know, defend yourself, you quityourself accordingly if you guys are Yeah,
I think this has a game.It's a game to have a ton of

(17:07):
potential. Like I'm really excited forthis too. I'm interested to see how
much kind of all history you canget out of this game. Like what
if it's you could even go upto like the start of World War three
or something, because your spy agencyis really messed up. So I think
this game has a ton of potential. I'm really looking forward to this,
and I have faith in Hooded Horse. I guess I'm on the Tortuga bandwagon
here with his opinion, but Ithink that they're going to produce a quality

(17:30):
game. They haven't let us down. I'll play as Finland for the first
play through. I'm going East GermanEastazy. Oh, that's a good one.
You would, Yeah, you gotlike an East German hat or something,
don't you. Yeah. Yeah.I'm really excited about this because there's
not a lot of like there's somany there's not. First off, there's
not a lot of Cold War games. But like all these grand strategy games,

(17:52):
it's always sort of like you're thebig guy and you're in charge of
everything. And this game even likeat least within the description, they even
it's like military conflict not common inthis era. It's all about asymmetrics,
asymmetry. It's all about sort ofespionage and whatnot. And obviously you're running
an espionage agency. But I feellike we don't really see games like this
where it's not about invading and directlytaking over at least initially. It's about

(18:18):
sort of all the behind the scenesstuff that kind of goes into you know,
spy thrillers and all the other crapand the histories of the era,
and you know, I think it'shard for games to do espionage well.
Maybe like a story setting, youcan do it like a first person,
but I think it's hard to doit well in a grand strategy thing where
people are so conditioned to paint themap a color. I am really curious

(18:41):
to see how they approach it,because I can't think of another game that
we've had like this. There havebeen games that have been adjacent to it,
like I think Terminal Conflict from acouple of years ago kind of tried
to have espionage elements, but itwas still kind of like a paint the
map kind of game. You know. Way back in the day, you
had games like Balance of Power madein the early nineties that were about influencing

(19:03):
other countries and getting them to yourside of the Cold War, but it
was still much more direct sort ofinfluence rather than you know, what an
espionage agency would do. The descriptionsays you've got thirty four different types of
espionage operations. Seems like a prettybig amount. Spreading ideology via propaganda,
assassinations, developing your own cadre ofoperatives, like all of this just sounds

(19:30):
really good, Tom Clancy kind ofstuff before the world went crazy, the
Americans the game. I'm ready forthis and it has co op. I'm
been PvP, apparently I'm ready tojust backstab y'all. It's gonna be great.
I love just playing games and beinga little conniving goblin like when we

(19:51):
play c K. You know.It says some of some of the agents
or actors can include historically anchored individualslike celebrities, inventors, and authors.
Organizations like political parties, trade unions, and gorilla forces. Operatives within your
agency interact with one another and cancreate subgroups, potentially introducing political motivations into

(20:12):
your agency. Damn, but we'rejust reading the Steam page. No,
that's why I just look at people. If you want to learn more about
this, go and check it outon Steam, because that's all we're doing
here is just reading this team's description. One thing I want to say about
it is part of the reason whyI like the idea of espionage driven game
is because I feel like espionage hasdone very poorly in a lot of grand

(20:33):
strategy games as a supplemental or likeside element, like people shoehorned in,
So I don't I almost always dislikeespionage as like a like an additional game
component in Civilization and Hearts of Ironand all those things. Espionage is my
least favorite part. And then it'sa little weird. Why am I choosing

(20:55):
this? I don't like espionage,No, I just want to see espionage
done as the focus because I feellike the play is gonna be very different.
So yeah, I mean think aboutlike even like Total War, right,
like very different kind of a game. But like Spiona is just you've
got a little character who's a spyand they go around and they give you
a little bit of information about what'son the map, but like it's never
central to the games. It's basicallyjust maybe a little bit of fog of

(21:18):
war gets erased, maybe you cantry and assassinate someone. There's it's it's
always done poorly, and they getI agree with you entirely, but I
agree with you tow ur two.Espionage has always done poorly, and like
that's kind of what I was talkingabout with like Balance of Power and even
those other games that kind of triedto delve into this era a little bit.
It was always it was always biggovernment sort of military cent is the

(21:41):
central focus and how things are influenced, and never sort of the stuff in
the shadows at least it was neverdesigned for that. So I'm I'm excited
to see how this plays out.All right. Next, Yeah, time
to move on. Wolf Save Usprobably on my previous list, but my
number two is Modern Naval War IfBaby been talking about this game for three

(22:03):
years now, Modern subsim Virginia ClassSubmarine. Hopefully we see something from it
this year. It looks like aspiritual successor to Dangerous Waters, and they've
been they're getting published by Sletherin nowand they've been doing occasional press things,
so it looks like they're making steadyprogress. They were delayed a little bit
because they got like actual military contracts, so yeah, I'm just gonna ask

(22:26):
that if they've got something like that. Yeah, so that's kind of why
things were pushed back a bit.But yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
I think it'll be awesome to havea modern study SIM or study level
SIM in a Virginia Class submarine.How do you interpret the fact that they
got picked up with the military contracts, Because on the one hand, somebody
might say, Okay, that's agood sign because the military is interested.

(22:48):
But on the other hand, youmight see that their focus goes away from
like gameplay or like the non military. I guess I'm not too worried about
it. I think like DCS World, they have a military contract side to
their business san a list which diddangerous waters and subcommand and stuff they had
like military contracts. I believe aswell. And I guess what is a

(23:10):
command modern operations, naval operations,whatever it's called. Yeah, I'm not
too I it doesn't really worry me. I guess, if anything, I'm
I believe in them. I've talkedto the devs quite a bit. I
don't know. I have faith thisguy's connections. Hopefully it is Hopefully it's
not misplaced. Yeah, I mean, I loudly do. I played like
the very early demo. You cancheck it out on my YouTube channel.

(23:33):
It's still up there. If youwant to see a very early like this
concept of what the sim was supposedto be. You know, their vision
was when they were trying to getfunding. This podcast is deeply compromised.
We got Tortugo over there on theHooded Horse payroll. We got Wolf over
here on the Modern Warfare and Navalbest Friends list. Okay, you said
the name wrong, Modern Naval Warfare. Please get it right in my presence,

(23:56):
thank you. What did they say? I don't know you had a
stroke. I think Warfare Naval ModernSummary game in the summeringe game. Well
correct me if I'm wrong. PHG. But didn't you bring up Modern Naval
Warfare and your top ten most anticipatedgames of twenty twenty four video? Yeah?
I don't keep saying the same gamesover and over though. Okay,

(24:18):
got it? Well, yeah,I'm looking forward to that one. That's
my number two. Man, thisis a fun podcast to be a part
of. I'm sorry. I'm nottrying to be an asshole. I love
our I love our tea. Ilove this wark environment so much. Okay,
let's move on to number one.Then no, wait, finish.

(24:40):
I just want to confirm yours numbertwo was also Aspiocracy. Yeah, yep,
it is number one for me?Is manor Lord? It was number
one last year, but there isa very official release quickly approaching, so
it's it's definitely gonna be out thisyear by Hooded Horse. Yeah, you
know, there was a time,there was a the day and age when

(25:00):
everything Blizzard published was just gold,and I feel like that's that's kind of
how I mean they were. Theywere development. Yeah, the recent stuff
Man Jablo four, the Diablo IoryMaster was a bagan. I will say
that that was probably that was allright, but I don't think that their
other stuff has been very good.Well anyway, the Man of Lords,

(25:22):
it's is a colony building game predominantly, but it does have military elements.
You can raise forces and defend yourI never know whether it's a colony builder
or a city builder. I don'treally know how to distinguish too, but
it's one of those. It's midand well it's medieval era. You have
your manner and you get the baillord god roll credit. Where's my Steam

(25:49):
page? The Steam page does saycity builder for what it's worth. Yeah,
I know, but okay, finecity built. But my website says
released on April twenty sixth. Remindsme a little bit like I didn't play
the demo, but but I thinkwhat's interesting is that it's a city builder
that also has tactical battles as abig thing that they're calling out and putting.

(26:11):
It seems like a decent amount ofeffort into it. Kind of reminds
me of I don't, did anyof you guys play Caesar three back in
the day. Oh heck, yes, so like that. That was obviously
it was a Roman city builder,but then you'd have like Barbarian tribes come
around, and you'd have to havelike your own cohorts and legions to defend
your city. I'm curious what thislooks like because the battles were always sort
of a second, you know,like an afterthought in Caesar three, even

(26:34):
though they were sort of the thing. I was like, oh, this
is awesome. I went up.The battles in Caesar and Pharaoh were just
straight up broken. They were awful. And that's kind of why the Pharaoh
remaster, the recent one. Theyjust rip that out. They were like,
this combat's crap, which I don'tknow if I like that either,
but yeah, I agree, itis always an afterthought. I do think

(26:57):
it makes sense for manner Lord's give, and that presumably you're leading kind of
a feudal medieval town like kingdoms aren'tthe same in most of medieval Europe,
right, Like it's it's much morelocalized and provincial, and so you would
have an element of you guys haveto defend yourself in a way that wouldn't
you know, you didn't have abig empire standing army in most of Europe,

(27:19):
and there would be brigands and bandsand things like that, especially if
you're talking like between France and Germany, where you know, you need to
defend yourself against roaming heathens or whatever. So like, I think it makes
sense to have the military aspect bea part of it. I hope it's
well done. It looks good.I guess we'll see. But I'm definitely
it wasn't on my list, itcould have been. I am excited about
it as well. The city buildingaspect, even in the demo, was

(27:41):
really enjoyable. Yeah, it looksreally in depth. Yeah, It's another
one of those things where when Isee a game that this is like the
demo, the pre alpha, Imean they're not they're not anywhere near release,
and that it's something that I findpretty polished. I always take that
as a very good sign. Andnow in this day and age, you
a lot of games that are releasedlike their early access released is very raw

(28:04):
and not all games are equal,right, so they all release it a
different actual state. Again, it'sthe same thing I said the very beginning.
I find the trend is when agame releases at a better state that
their final product also ends up beingmuch better. It looks like, yes,
it looks like astriv but with conflictwith the combat. You know,
have you played the ostriv at all? Both? No, I have it,

(28:26):
I've seen friends play it and stuff. It's kind of a tough game.
I think that's the one where theyactually make the path based on where
they travel, and that does notyou actually build the roads in manner lord,
but the road building is very organic. I mean organic was the word
I was looking for. When youbuild a village and you see like the
routes and all that, it's veryeasy to imagine, Yeah, this is

(28:48):
what I mean. Not that Iknow, but this is what I can
pretend a real medieval village would havelooked like. That's always satisfying when you
see something that matches. I mean, it's I don't know one is more
believable. It were satisfying to constructabsolutely number one for Finish Go. Well,
speaking of CIEV games, my numberone is going to be our h

(29:08):
history untold ooh good one. Yeah. So some of this dev team is
from I guess SIV five or sixor whatever number that they're on. It's
being published by Microsoft the Xbox GameStudios, which you know, kind of
worries me because they just like recentlylaid off like two thousand people or whatever,
and I think they're still trying tolike reorganize their game studios because like

(29:32):
they bought Bethesda or whatever. Idon't know what's going on over there.
Yeah, there's some pretty big Yeah, Microsoft's like kind of shifting gears from
the whole game pass thing too.It seems like they're doing a lot of
restructuring. Yeah, so you know, I'm confident this game will get released.
I'm just you know, kind ofworried about when these these big mega
corporations, you know, by gamestudios and stuff like that, and I

(29:53):
don't know kind of like their overallvision for Xbox Game Studios is. But
anyway, it's gonna be a civilizationtype game. It's gonna be interesting because
it has like simultaneous turn systems,so you're gonna be playing your turn at
the same time. I don't knowif it's a WeGo system like you think
of War the Pacific, but it'sgonna be I guess you're gonna be like

(30:15):
moving your units around at the sametime, and then once it's done,
the turn ends. Is it turnbased? It's not like plausible real time.
It's turn based. Turn based.Yeah, everyone plays their turn at
the same time. Have you haveyou played the Latest Civilization five or six
with other people finish? Yeah?Is it the same thing. Yeah,
where everyone can just move at thesame time. It just speeds up.

(30:37):
It's simultaneous turn processing. And theonly bad thing about it is that if
you're playing with an AI and theymove all their units immediately, that you
play at a disadvantage. M mmhmm. But I think that they actually
built in some delay to AI.But basically it is a little bit twitch
e. I don't know if they'veaddressed this in this aura because I haven't
looked a gameplay of it, butbasically, the first person to move to
that mountain gets to claim it fortheir city. If you have like two

(31:00):
settlers in a race. Sorry,I watched their like dev videos and I
actually felt like I didn't learn awhole lot about their game from their like
dev diary videos. I don't know. I'm just looking forward to what they'll
create. Yeah, I'm just lookingfor something that's like more detailed than when
you get from Civilization, the Civilizationseries. I want like more management,
like more country management, more realistic, like historically accurate, like civilization development

(31:26):
and human development, which I don'tthink we get from Civilization. And I
guess at the moment, I don'tknow if Aura will be like that,
but based on what I know sofar, I mean, it's the closest
thing to my desires for a detailedCIEV type game. So that's it.
That's my number one ARA History.I'mtold who's next to the wolf? I

(31:47):
guess, yeah, it can be. Wait. I didn't get to go,
oh, yeah, I guess yougo first. I'm sorry, we're
going out of order. I don'teven know what the order was was I
last I was just I'm gonna guessI know what your system well, And
I didn't want to get preempted becauseI was gonna say it would be mine,
but it's not because what is yours? Seapower Okay, yeah, that
is my number one, But Ihave two honorable mentions that I would just

(32:08):
want to quickly throw out there.I don't I don't know I've said it
before, but like, Seapower isdefinitely the game that I'm most excited about,
kind of like a modern version ofFleet Command. But I think,
well, if you probably have moreinteresting things to say about it, I
mean not really. It's been onmy list number one or two for the
past three years ago, but thisyear, this is the year. This

(32:32):
is our year. I'm I'm readingbetween those lines in the micropros discord and
I feel it, you know,I feel it, like in my gut.
If it does not launch this year, I'm gonna need to come back
to that line in our episode nextyear and be like, so this is

(32:53):
the year. Yeah about that.If this game is not released this year,
I will eat my shorts. Okay, he's got two pairs of shorts
on the line, you know.Yeah, Okay, look at I didn't
stop you before. Yeah, butthis is dangerous. I'm excited for like

(33:16):
Task Forces Admiral as well. ButI do think Seapower is the closest to
a release, Like, I mean, everything they're showing off it looks really
polished. They're play testing it andsuch. It has me optimistic for a
twenty twenty four release date. Anduh yeah, I am quite excited to
have a modern, you know,naval or fair game. Lots of ships,

(33:37):
looks fun, looks pretty in depthtoo, a lot more in depth
than I was expecting with all theyou know, electric systems and stuff.
So yeah, I think that'll bea good one. What's your number one?
Tachy? It was really realistically it'sSeapower like it's it's a game I've
been you know, I think itwas number one on my list like three
years ago. But this is theyear. Well, and you know,

(34:00):
those devs, those devs have likeI believe that game is going to release
and be pretty polished too. Idon't know, I maybe I'm they certainly
I'm not saying this in a negativesense, but they certainly have taken their
time. Like if they were gonnarush it out half assed, like it
feels like they would have done italready. Well, they've taken their time.
They've expanded their team, hiring moderswho worked on Cold Waters mods like

(34:24):
dot mod and such. It seemslike they have a pretty like sizeable team
behind them taking their time polishing itand making sure they get it right.
And you know what, if thattakes longer, that's fine. I'm okay
with that. Did they hire themod who copied everybody else's mods and then
made it? No, no,no, no no no no, uh
no, we don't want to getin the Cold Waters modern drama. All

(34:45):
right, that's a that's a separateepisode. I'll listen to that one.
Yeah. I think I just cansay Seatpower is kind of just like it's
gonna be like the micropros, likeFlagship game, you know, pun intended
because it's a ship pun. Butit's like that needs to succeed because I
think like they're they're they're kind oflike publishing a lot of like random games,
and I think this is like they'rebig thing. They're the big one

(35:07):
that's gonna set them apart. Ithink that's what they're gambling on. I'd
agree. I think it's that onein Task Force Admiral. Task Force Admiral
feels further away, So yeah,I would agree with that, And that's
why it's not on my list.If I did think Task Force Admiral was
coming this year, I would putit on my list because I mean,

(35:27):
and even the videos they're putting out, Like they put out a video showing
off new sound effects and stuff likeduring a torpedo attack, and it's like,
dude, this is so immersive andawesome, Like I can't wait to
actually play that. We're getting littlecrumbs, you know, and we want
the full thing. Yeah, Like, and I get it. I'm glad
they're taking their time to get itright instead of rushing it out where we

(35:50):
get something kind of buggy, likea particular other naval game which we've all
played, Like, I just wantto remind us though I did have.
We did have a discussion back intwenty twenty two about whether Task Force Admiral
would be released by Christmas, Likelook at us now, and no,
we don't even think we'll be releasedby the end Christmas. Two years later.

(36:15):
You know what they thing? Youknow, they take time. You
know, you can't you can't rushperfection. You know, it's got to
marinate. You know. It doesfeel like more and more games are announced,
Like maybe this hasn't always been thecase, but it didn't feel like
it to me, Like I feellike war games used to be, oh,
yeah, this is coming out nextmonth, like you wouldn't hear about

(36:35):
it, and maybe that was badmarketing. I don't know. Oh my
gosh, I have a whole thing. I wrote a whole monologue about this.
Yeah. I mean, well,I think it caught us. Like
the case in point is like whatdidn't was it? War on the Seat
came like out of nowhere? Itwas like, what like this, Oh
okay, but like this used tobe a thing. I feel like we're
war games just you didn't. Theykind of just came out of nowhere or

(36:58):
you got a little bit of anotice, but it wasn't like six years
before they're promoting something. Maybe youknew something was being worked on, but
they weren't actively marketing. But itsure feels like the last couple of years,
everybody's jumping to announce their new gameswell way too early, like by
the time that like someone someone whohears about it is excited and they completely

(37:20):
forget it exists before it comes out. Well, I just think that we've
seen that happen for a handful ofgames. But I don't think it's the
norm. I just think that we'rejust singling out, you know, like
the ones we're the most excited.Of course, Admiral, Yeah, I
don't. I don't think this isthe norm. Well, and my counterpoint
is Task Force Admiral specifically started offreally small without Microproces as their publisher,

(37:44):
that were picked up later and becameone of these Micropros flagships. I mean,
they were promoting ship model, likeshowing off their ship models and stuff,
and that's that's fine as if,like they're artists or developers like showing
off their work. I'm sure thatkeeps them motivated. And I don't know,
it's kind of exciting to show offyour stuff. I don't. I

(38:06):
don't really mind that as much.I don't know whether it's a good thing
or bad thing. But I actuallydid reflect on this for some time when
thinking about the games that we gethyped about them and what motivated this whole
line of thought was. I noticedI created different sections of notes for this.
I actually did take notes wolf,but and two of them I put
already mentioned in previous podcasts, taskForce Admiral and Seapower, so I decided
not to include them, and itmade me think, like, Okay,

(38:29):
I remember, I'm not even excitedfor those releases at this point because they've
sucked all the hype out of me. I still want them, I like,
I'm looking forward to them, butI don't. I can't. I
couldn't be bothered to get up mychair and look at another video of those
because I just they've rung all ofevery every drop of like anticipation that I
have has already been wrung out ofme. And it made me think like,

(38:52):
I don't remember that ever happening whenI was younger, Baby, I'm
still hyped. I had my mainreleases, Like there'd be like Civilization or
Blizzard games and that you'd be reallyhyped about, but the way you would
discover them was like I just readmonthly pcgamer magazine. That's how I knew
when new titles were be coming out. And I feel like sometimes in this

(39:12):
day and age, we have somuch access to information and there's so much
marketing and all that that I justfeel overexposed and over hyped about everything because
every game wants to be the thingthat you're waiting for, that you have
on your wish list. But Idon't think that's good marketing, Like I
don't think And Okay, that's thepunchline is that I think marketing sucks and
as evil and sendra hatmail to thehistorical adgamer dot com. Okay, I

(39:35):
work in marketing, so that's mypoint is more, I don't think it's
good marketing to start marketing so farin advance of having a finished product that
you have. Essentially, you getpeople excited, you create a critical mass,
and then people forget about it,so you have to redo all the
work that you did on the frontend. Except now you're not new and
you're not like a brand new announcement, so you don't get the same buzz

(39:58):
and the same coverage that you youwould have gotten if you hadn't announced it
as early. I think I thinkthat is a problem from a marketing strategy
point of view. That's my twocents. There's obviously different fields of thought,
obviously micropros fields differently. Maybe it'sbecause they need to get a certain
amount of wish lists and then theycan drive like investors, Like that's the
only thing that kind of in myhead is like, are they using wishless

(40:20):
numbers from these announcements to you know, influence external funding or something like.
Maybe in that scenario it helps makethe game. I also got to say,
I think we're forgetting massive world changingevents that have probably set back these
smaller developer teams more than like Bethesda, which even had to push their game
back due to the pandemic and such, and then like Stalker Too, which

(40:44):
is one of my honorable mentions,there are Ukrainian devs and their country gets
invaded. Wait, are you sayingthat that's an excuse? Yeah, I
can't say. I'm too upset thatthey have pushed back their game multiple times.
I mean, things come up.Hey, listen, Tortuga hasn't given
ultimate admiral any of it. Ofthe doubt they got Ukrainian devs. Don't
they have starlink? Can't they codefrom the trenches? Oh my gosh,

(41:07):
I I do know. Stalker twodevs have like I don't know, pasted
fighting and fighting in Ukraine, Sothat is oh, got it? Respect
for them, But yeah, thatthat is one of my honorable mentions.
By the way, is Stalker two. I am very excited for that game.
That's good. Yeah, let's dosome honorable mentions. Would you just

(41:28):
go in a circle. Yeah,sure, I'm gonna go with mine.
I'm just gonna get them out ofthe way. Stalker two post apocalyptic set
in the Chernobyl area. You guysall know Stalker cult classic, i'd say
I've heard. Yeah. Yeah,that's a an area. It's an upstanding
nuclear power plant. Yeah, neverfailed, never had any issues. It
is physically standing up, so thatis true. But yeah, I'm looking

(41:51):
forward to that story driven, openworld, depressed, slavic fallout, that's
a good way to describe it.I have a question about Soccer two.
Do you think it'll be as likeso the original was a cult classic,
partly because it just had this Idon't know how to say it. This.
I think the atmosphere is really whatkind of sold that game. Yeah,
but also like the clunky UI andall that, it had its own

(42:14):
charm in a way. Do youthink this is gonna be like a polished
like Metro twenty thirty three type gamein the end. I don't know.
I'm I'm still expecting jenk. Iwant to be honest, I actually almost
think that's a good thing. It'spart of the Stalker like legacy. Yeah,
I'm thinking more like flawed Masterpiece isprobably what stalk Or two is gonna

(42:34):
be. You know. I willsay the gunplay looks pretty good, and
if they allow mods, I wantto mod it into a hardcore, like
gritty survival game. I mean,that's the kind of stuff I like.
So I'm looking forward to that oneand then the second one. Another survival
game I just have too, Anothersurvival game set on the border. It's
like an exclusion zone set between Finlandand Russia, and it's called Roade de

(42:55):
Vostok and it's made by one Dev. They were You're working on Unity and
all that Unity drama went down andthey switched to GOODO I believe is what
it's called. Yeah, they hada demo not too long ago. Like
everything they've been doing looks really impressive. The gunplay looks good single player as
well. Another survival game, MySummer Car Meets Meets Dais in Russia.

(43:19):
Sure, yeah, no, they'redepressed Slavic. Hey, hey, don't
group Finland then with the Slavs.Okay, you're noticing a trend Wolf,
I yeah, I love my He'sa Slavi at heart in his ile two.
Oh, I just I love theatmosphere. I think the trend was
your every game you're looking for isdepressing. Hey, I like games that
are difficult. I like games thatare not necessarily like type be fun.

(43:44):
I guess to me, that's what'ssatisfying. Yeah, looking forward to those.
Those are my top those are myhonorable mentions. Tortuga, You're like
kind of next in line on theAll right, cool, I will do
it. Kaiserpunk looks like a veryinteresting game. It's all history, grand
strategy city builder. It's like WorldWar One city builder. I don't know.

(44:07):
I like the look of the artstyle to it. I've seen them
driving tanks around and the fact thatit's got that plus city building. I
don't know what the game is,but it's an honorable mention for me.
It's definitely one I'm going to keepmy eye. It's from the Maker's a
patron by the way. Sorry,I was going to ask if it was
by this the frost Punk people.No. Yeah, it's different than frost

(44:28):
Punk, and I think this hasa grand strategy element to it, and
that you actually have like a grandstrategy like parts firing type map and then
you click into different areas and docity building. So maybe from that perspective.
It's a little bit like what's thatfantasy game that I was kind of
on about last time, Against theStorm. It's like groguelike in a way
that I mean Against the Storm wasroguelike in a way where you start multiple

(44:50):
different bases, different places. Thismight be almost like that, where you
have the strategic map where you're advancingyour cities. Maybe there's combat where you
have tanks fighting. Honestly, Ican't say, because I don't know that
much about the game, but theart style and the fact you do city
building and have tanks and the samething piqued my interest. Yeah, this
looks interesting. Thank you for bringingit to my attention. You are welcome

(45:13):
Thrive Heavy Lies the Crown that's inthe next game on my honorable mention.
I think this one's going to becoming out pretty soon, at least I've
seen some people playing it at thisNext Best demo on Steam right now or
is it from that or anyways,it'll be launched as an early access game.
It's another city builder. What theheck yo? City builders? I
don't know why. Maybe these arethe ones that just came up on when

(45:34):
I was, you know, lookingaround, but yeah, the demo is
available, probably it won't be bythe time this goes out this podcast.
But I like when I can builddefenses to my city. That always makes
me happy when I have things attackingme. That's one of the things I
did like about Caesar three. Iactually wasn't a big fan of that because
I, you know, the OCDlike how you have to get everything perfect
to make that city will function.But like any anything where you can build

(45:57):
walls and build towers to defense likethey are billions, it's like the perfect
game build wall kind of guy.Hmm, must really love Stronghold. Yeah,
dude, I really like Stronghold.And I guess another honorable mention for
me. I'm not really sure this. There's one called The Crust kind of
looks like Surviving Mars meets like Factorio, but it's in like a future off

(46:19):
planet thing. If I wrote thisdown correctly, the game is just called
The Crust Automated Lunar Base. Hey, it's another city builder. Oh my
god, I'm okay, somebody else, please welcome the single Malt city Builder.
Hey, I love city builders.I mentioned this Dominion six was gonna
be my number three, but itgot yanked. I think it's basically Dominions
five plus. So to me,it's kind of like what we were talking

(46:39):
about with Rule the Waves. Notenough was done between five and six to
make it a good release. Ifyou haven't played five, is six worth?
Like would you pick up six ifyou haven't played five? It depends
on who you are. Dominions isextremely Grognardi in the sense that it is
like it probably takes twenty hours tolearn the game. It's insane, and

(47:00):
it's not graphically appealing at all.It's got a lot of like Rule the
Waves type jank to it. It'sbetter than Rule Waves as far as like
gratifying graphics. It doesn't make youwant to puck your eyes out, But
yeah, you have to really appreciatehuge depth in a spell tree. That's
mainly what the game is about.I mean, it's a strategy game,
turn based anyway. Dominions God,the depth in Dominions is like an ocean

(47:24):
Distant Worlds with wizards. No,I would say it's deeper than Distant Worlds.
It's probably more comparable to Aurora fourX. I used to hear on
Three Moves Ahead. Bruce Gerrick usedto talk about it a lot, because
I guess he wrote one of themanuals on one of the earlier ones,
but never played any of the gamesin the series. For anybody who's thinking
about picking it up, if youend up getting it and you feel like

(47:45):
you're drowning in the ocean, justplay as middle age OHM. They are
like the one nation that you don'treally have to learn the whole spell tree.
You can get away with just theyhave pretty powerful basic army units,
so you can just you can actuallywin the game just by the hoilding basic
army units, which is great.So they're kind of a nice way of
starting to dip your toe into thewater. Okay, I'm just going to

(48:06):
flash the other titles on this listbecause it's too long already. War Hospital
I've seen some Yeah, I've seensome videos about that. That was kind
of did you talk about that?Yeah, I played it a little bit.
It's interesting. You're basically you run, you know, think think the
Move the TV show mash right,like you're running a hospital behind the front
line. Soldiers get sent to You'vegot to try and patch them up and
send them back. You've got tosort of manage your your camp if you

(48:30):
will the how soldiers. You haveto triage them as they come in,
which means you're going to pick somefolks to die because you've got too many
to actually take care of everybody.You've got to manage your doctors, stamina
on fatigue level, you got tomanage resources. When people die, you
got to have them buried. Youcan send them back to the front lines.
It does have this like weird elementof when you send them back to

(48:52):
the front you can choose where tosend them, which seems a little off
for a hospital. But then youalso like have to send a certain number
back to the front lines directly infront of your hospital to make sure that
a breakthrough doesn't happen. Like,I don't love that mechanic that feels a
little goofy where they're just like,oh, well, we need to have
a combat element so here. Butoverall, I think it's an interesting looking

(49:14):
game and I definitely want to playmore of it. It's a during like
World War one or something, right, yes, world War not like the
Civil War, World War one,Civil War hospital just amputations. Yeah,
it'd be metal. It's just weirdbecause like I was not that far too
the game and then they're like,if you don't send at least five back
to these trench lines, like theGermans will break through and take the hospital.
I'm like, oh, okay,okay, five guys are gonna stop

(49:36):
them. Yeah, send them amachine gun. Those kind of games,
scale is always really kind of off, but I think the gameplay loop for
that is like they had to addsomething beyond just okay, triage, operate,
bury this dead body. So theyadded that kind of like tactical element
almost I don't know if tactical strategy, but I agree with you that it
seems a little it doesn't really meshwith the rest of the gameplay. I'm

(49:59):
just gonna also throughout there that Frostpunktwo and Home World three are being released
this year. Those are both gamesthat keep an eye on. Was it
home World three pushed back? Thedemo is available right now as well on
the Next Fest for Steam, andpeople are complaining about it, So maybe
they got negative feedback and decide topush it back. I thought it was
supposed to launch last year, butyeah, it's right now. It's targeting

(50:21):
May thirteenth for the release. Imean, I love the original Home World.
It's one of the games with likethe biggest emotional impact that I've ever
played. I'm excited about frost Punktwo personally. I was going to mention
that on my list. I knowyou mentioned it just I never played Frostpunk
one, except I heard everybody talkingabout how great it was. I figured,
since I missed out on Frostpunk one, with two coming out, that'll

(50:43):
be, you know, the perfecttime to jump in and give it a
look. I guess it takes placethirty years after the previous one. Basically,
you're like in a frozen wasteland andyou've got to manage your city.
It's another city builder kind of whereyou've got to like manage your city and
civilization to survive incredibly harsh elements.I think the thing that appeals the most
to me is like the element ofhow moral are you going to be right?

(51:06):
Are you gonna stick to your gunson what's right and wrong? Or
are you gonna do what you needto do to survive right? And then
the impact on your people based onthe decisions you make, can cause problems
or whatnot. It looks really excitingand I hope it. I hope it
play pans out because the first onewas really a hit, like it was
huge. It was everywhere in termsof like folks talking about it within the
strategy space. Always a little nervouswhen a studio tries to follow that up,

(51:29):
but I guess we'll see. Yeah, I think it sports at least
keeping an eye on. As faras titles look forward to, I don't
have any other so that's what depletesmy list finish. Would you like to,
Oh, sure, I just haveone game on my honorable mentions.
It's called Birth of Cultures. It'sgoing to be like another civilization type game.
I think there's been a lot lessinformation released on it. I guess

(51:50):
I would say, just looking atthe Steam page and the information available.
I don't know if this will bea twenty twenty four release, so we'll
just kind of see. It lookslike the game's kind of set going to
be doing like human developments, likethe Birth of Cultures from kind of I
guess the Neolithic period up till Idon't know, like the Roman the Roman
period or something like that, orzero year zero. So it's not going

(52:13):
to be like a full expansive civilizationgame. You go into the future,
you just go to the peak ofhuman civilization makes sense, that's right.
Yeah, looking at the screenshots andstuff on Steam, the scope looks extremely
large, and that kind of hasme worried for a release of this year.
So I don't I guess you alwaysworry about, you know, like
some sort of mission creeper mission scopegetting going off the rails or something.

(52:36):
But I think it's something that's keepingan eye on. It's kind of like
a wild card. If it's releasedthis year, great, I'll check it
out. If it's released in twentytwenty five or twenty twenty six or before,
Task Force Admiral, then we'll seewhat happens. I didn't know about
this, but I just like openedit on the Steam page and it does
look very interesting. So thanks thanksfor mentioning this one. That's it.

(52:57):
And then GG you're the you're bringingup the rear, bring us home with
some something good quality. Okay,I got a couple. The first I
would say is ICBM two. I'massuming that'll come out this year. I
think it says it's going to ohis it, We're all gonna get nuked
by Wolf. Now you're gonna getnuked by all of us after we all
promise to not nuke you. I'mmostly just going to gaslight THHD again.

(53:19):
Yeah. So ICBM two or ICBMEscalation. It says coming soon, but
I swear the trailer says ooops.I think the trailer says twenty twenty four.
Yes, it does. Well,the trailer says it. Well,
I'm just saying, you know,anyway, it does say twenty twenty four,
and it's just you know, it'sthe sequel to ICBM, which is
I personally think really fun to playas a co op game. Not really

(53:40):
super interested in playing it single player, but you know, just getting a
group together and sort of build upyour nuclear arsenals and then you decide when
to nuke each other. It doesseem like there's also an expanded sort of
tactical or conventional combat model, andthey're adding more single player options for like
a campaign and stuff. So I'mjust curious to see how it'll play out,
just expanded tech trees and conventional optionsto kind of give you a bit

(54:04):
more depth than just the simple likeI built up a nerv and now I'm
gonna go ahead and use it.I'm interested to see how that'll play out.
Not in my top three, butcertainly a game. I've got my
eyes on another one before we moveon, can we just I just look
at it, and it does looklike there's an expanded amount of tactical compat
Do you feel like that's going tohelp the game, because I almost feel
like that's works against the game's kindof beer and pretzels like sit and shoot

(54:25):
the shit and then all of asudden there's news going off type gameplay.
So what it says is that thatis another mode. There's still going to
have the classic mode that we playedplayed in with ICBM one, So I
don't I don't think you can hurtif you still have the beer and pretzels
options if you want to add okay, yeah, if it's not a neither
or but an and both, okay, right, exactly, well, and

(54:47):
I can see it making escalation likeeven more organic. Like say you and
your buddy are fighting and then oneof you uses a tactical nuke and then
the game's over, right, Likebasically they kind of snowball that way.
Hate when your buddy uses a tacticalnuke. Yeah, okay, good point.
Well, like you use a tacticalnuke and then everyone's like okay,
let's calm down. Well, becausethe button goes right like the second the

(55:08):
first nuke goes, then like thegame's countdown time res on it. Well,
we don't know if that's how thisgame is going to handle it.
No, no, well that's whatI'm saying. It's like in the first
one, it was kind of like, well, I guess it's the end
game. Yeah, we have tonuke. Yeah. I did not like
that aspect. So it'll it'll beinteresting to see, Like it would be
cool if you could play that lineof well, someone dropped a bomb,

(55:29):
but do we really want to likecan we wait? Like can we convince
them? Maybe we can tamp itdown and they'll realize they're not ready yet
and I'll get more time, rightLike, So it'd be cool if there
was some element of that. Yeah, there's like the nuke threshold. Once
you hit that threshold, everyone justgoes crazy. That's fine, but you
know, and there's just a they'readding several other game modes. It looks

(55:51):
like they're also adding kind of amore quick play game mode. Maybe if
you don't have two hours to playthrough and you don't want to be the
jerk who nukes drops a nuke inthe first minutes like it does sound like.
There's also sort of a click aquicker play mode too, which could
be nice for picking up and playing, you know, faster if you're playing
with friends, you don't have asmuch time. But another game I'm really
interested to see how it plays outis Armored Brigade two. I don't know

(56:15):
if any of you guys played thefirst Armored Brigade what you don't know if
I did. That's the one setin set in Finland, isn't it.
Yeah, well, some of it. I mean I thought it was a
lot in the NATO Gap or whateverit's called old a Gap. Yeah,
thank you. It is full togap. But they also have a finished
campaign. But yeah, they're makingArmored Brigade two. What's the best way
to describe it? Kind of likecommand and or not commanded concker, Oh

(56:36):
my god, a close combat isha little with you know. It's basically
sort of a top downlooking game whereyou play through World War three type scenarios
with a wide array of equipment.Not super The first one wasn't very high
fidelity. It was kind of liketwo D images moving across the map.
They did have a little bit ofvehicle stuff modeled, but generally speaking just

(56:57):
kind of a real detailed, tacticalcombat game that you played through. But
it wasn't It wasn't the prettiest lookingtype of a game. Maybe more accurate
from a representation of what combat lookedlike than something like Warland, the air
Land Battle and mcgana having a strokeagain, the Eugen Games war game board

(57:17):
game. Yeah, yeah, wargame okay, but I think probably less
visually appealing. Armored Brigade two lookslike they're definitely going to try and be
like, hey, this game hasthree D tanks, and they're also really
buffing up infantry so that it's notjust a speed bump in these games,
and that like it plays more ofa role. All the screenshots they're releasing
on this, like, I'm impressed. I hope they lean more into the

(57:37):
campaigns being a little less sandboxy likethey did on some of the later DLCs
for Armored Brigade one. But I'mI'm really excited to see what comes with
this. It looks like they're alsoexpanding air the way that aircraft work and
provides support, So I think thisis definitely on my list of games could
have made my top three. Didyou play the original? Yeah, but
I didn't find the campaigns super interesting. Again, there were two Sandboxy prog

(58:00):
Spring. One was much more like, here's a story that's going on,
and I liked that. Yeah,I agree. I think that this is
actually a game which fits well witha campaign. You said close combat.
I mean I almost find this.I think it's trying to be pretty intense,
maybe almost like combat mission. Yeah, but they have like bullet counting
and everything. I guess. Imean Close Combat had bullet counting too,

(58:21):
it was a smaller scale. Ithink the scale on this is definitely bigger
than Close Combat. Yeah, butI mean it has the top down feel
of Oh, I remember that theproblem with the original was the terrain man.
It was impossible to tell like lineof sight. And if you look
at like the topographical stuff, itlooks pretty nice too on some of these
screen shops. Okay, that's goodbecause that was a problem. So I'm
excited. You know, we'll see, we'll see how it plays out.

(58:43):
Again. I hope the campaigns theyhad originally were almost like Field to Glory,
where it was like, hey,it's a campaign, a historical campaign
or fiction whatever. But then itwas just like build your army with a
certain number of points and go andfight like it was just not interesting to
me. I want like a giveme a real order of battle, give
me, give me a store,give me an objective. Don't make me
invent all that crap. Yeah,one hundred percent agree. It always felt

(59:05):
like to me that they had builtlike a skirmish type mode and then they
just were like, Oh, whatare we going to do for the main
game. We'll just make it skirmishmode connected over multiple missions. So definitely
on the list Armored Brigade two.And then I would also say, like
this kind of came out of nowhere. I've got two DLCs I just want
to quickly talk about. First off, is the K three Chapter three DLC.

(59:28):
Did any of you guys see whatthey're what they're doing with that?
Oh nope. So they're actually doinga Byzantine focused DLC, which, thank
god, like it's going to bea major expansion, adds a whole new
like government type, administrative government,really delving into the Byzantine Empire, because
I think part of the major problemwith the original game is just like that
thing's too big and with the gamemechanics that they have that think snowballs out

(59:50):
of control and so like actually addingempire type mechanics into the game I think
will be a big win. Theyalso are having a bunch of other stuff,
but like apparently like they're going tohave a Wandering Nobles DLC, so
like different families can kind of passthrough like the different you know, the
different parts of the map, whichsounds interesting. I don't know. The

(01:00:13):
main one to me was the ByzantineExpansion. That's the thing that really interests
me the most. And uh,and then they've kind of got some just
sort of adding on to some ofthe sort of role playing elements of it
with like Legends of the Dead andwhatnot. But really, to me,
it's the it's the Byzantine Expansion hasbeen the thing like that should that should
have been like the first DLC theyhad, because Empires felt broken. So

(01:00:34):
I'm excited to see how how tweakingByzantium and perhaps making other empires sort of
core enhancements will maybe will maybe makeme want to return to this game and
play it again. And then theother one is uh is Rizzia is suser
and Rizzia which is another DLC,but that is an expansion to the Susan
and universe, which we've talked abouton this channel multiple times in the past,
where you are going to be sortof the leader of a of another

(01:00:58):
country within the city, within theSuzeran universe, and you will be ruling
basically kind of like a Saudi Arabiatype country, an oil rich country.
It's a monarchy, it's not ademocracy, but with like all the same
storytelling elements, and they're also reallybuffing up the military side of things.
So that should be a really interestinggame. I think that comes out in
March. That'll be a good one. I think it's going to be shorter

(01:01:20):
than the base game, but it'llbe. But again, I'm still really
excited about it. I never playedthe original, so maybe that'll be the
kick I need to get both thebase game and that DLC. Yeah,
March twenty fifth is is when Rizzyis coming out us coming up real Quick'll
that be before or after this episodeis released? Better be? Better be
before after, better be after.Welcome to our June episode of our Top

(01:01:43):
Games of twenty twenty whatever, whateveryear it is, twenty twenty six.
Oh god, you gotta release thisin June of twenty twenty five. Then
it is twenty twenty six and theSea Power is still not out. I
mean it's our number one game again. I was gonna say, see Power
and Task Force Admiral might still bethere. Oh no, but yeah,
that's that's all I got. Anybodyelse, have anything else you guys want

(01:02:06):
to talk about? Yeah, yourlive's doing? Anybody depressed? Anybody need
a friend? All right, WellI'll see you guys late. Okay,
Well, anyway, so that'll doit for that'll do it for our episode

(01:02:30):
eighty three are look at the yeartwenty twenty four and the games that we
are excited about that are coming outthis year. I hope you guys did
enjoy yet another episode of the singleOld Strategy podcast on behalf of my co
hosts, Finish Wolf and Tortuga.Thank you all for coming on and until

(01:02:52):
next time, we're out

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Single Malt Strategy: Most Anticipated Games of 2024 | Episode 83

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Single Malt Strategy: Most Anticipated Games of 2024 | Episode 83