Miscellanea: Victoria III Confirmed! (First Impressions)

This week's post is coming to you all a bit early, as the folks at Paradox Interactive were kind enough to send me a review code for Victoria III - Paradox Interactive's long awaited historical grand strategy game set during 19th and early 20th centuries - so I could have something to say about it … Continue reading Miscellanea: Victoria III Confirmed! (First Impressions)

Collections: Total Generalship: Commanding Pre-Modern Armies, Part I: Reports

This week we're going to start a three-part (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IIIc) look at the role of the pre-modern general or army commander, particularly in the context of a pitched battle. This is of course a vast topic, but we are going to focus not on tactical or strategic questions but on a lot … Continue reading Collections: Total Generalship: Commanding Pre-Modern Armies, Part I: Reports

Collections: Expeditions: Rome and the Perils of Verisimilitude

This week we're going to take a long look at Expeditions: Rome, a turn-based tactics RPG by developer Logic Artists, set in the first century BC Late Roman Republic. In particular, we're going to look at how the game both constructs and uses its historical setting. This is a particularly important topic to discuss because … Continue reading Collections: Expeditions: Rome and the Perils of Verisimilitude

Collection: Total War’s Missing Infantry-Type

This week, we're going to take a break from the more serious topics to look at infantry tactics and compositions in the Total War series, particularly in the light of the recent Total War: Warhammer III, a real-time strategy game set in a late-medieval/early-modern high fantasy setting (the Warhammer setting) and how well (or poorly) … Continue reading Collection: Total War’s Missing Infantry-Type

Miscellanea: Thoughts on CKIII: Royal Court

This week, we're going to be a bit silly and talk about the recently released Royal Court, a DLC expansion for Paradox's medieval grand strategy game Crusader Kings III, because I think it is attempting something fairly interesting that relatively few strategy games do. This isn't going to be a review - there are a … Continue reading Miscellanea: Thoughts on CKIII: Royal Court

Collections: Teaching Paradox, Victoria II, Part I: Mechanics and Gears

This is the first post in a three-part series that will be examining the historical assumption of Paradox Interactive's grand strategy computer game set in the 19th and early 20th century, Victoria II. Readers will find a number of references here to our previous discussion of one of Paradox's other games, Europa Universalis IV, but … Continue reading Collections: Teaching Paradox, Victoria II, Part I: Mechanics and Gears

Collections: Teaching Paradox, Europa Universalis IV, Part I: State of Play

This is the first post in a series (I, II, III, IV) that will be examining the historical assumptions of Paradox Interactive's grand strategy computer game set in the early modern period, Europa Universalis IV. And this series will in turn be part of a larger series looking at several of Paradox's games and how … Continue reading Collections: Teaching Paradox, Europa Universalis IV, Part I: State of Play

Collections: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

We're going to be a bit silly this week (in part because the ending of this compressed semester has left me with little time) and talk about the recently released historical action-RPG computer (and console) game, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, set in 9th century Norway and England. And, as with the last time we did this, … Continue reading Collections: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

Miscellanea: My Thoughts on Crusader Kings III

This week, we're going to be a bit silly and talk about the recently released grand strategy computer game Crusader Kings III, because quite a few of you asked for it. Now from the beginning I should note that this isn't a game review. As a game, Crusader Kings III is clearly a tremendous success … Continue reading Miscellanea: My Thoughts on Crusader Kings III