Misc Games

By Patrick S. Baker

Master of Orion III

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

During the six years between the release of Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares and the release of Master of Orion III, the PC gaming world proved to be something of a Hobbesian trap for game developers and publishers, that is to say: “…. poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

In 1993, MicroProse Software had merged with Spectrum HoloByte, to form MicroProse, Inc.. This merger was called “a great marriage” because “Spectrum Holobyte had a lot of cash and very few products, while Microprose had a lot of products and no cash.”

By Patrick S. Baker

Part one here

In 1993, MicroProse published two huge hits: Civilization and Master of Orion. The company soon pushed forward on sequels for both. Simtex, after developing the first Master of Orion, produced a port of the Avalon Hill railroad and robber baron game board game, 1830, which was published by Avalon Hill.

Then they developed Master of Magic, a 4X fantasy game that was published by MicroProse. Shortly after the release of Master of Magic, MicroProse procured Simtex, renamed it MicroProse Texas, and made it an internal develop division. This made the sequel technically an in-house MicroProse production, although the Simtex logo still appeared briefly at the start of the game.

Originally titled Master of Antares the game was quickly retitled Master of Orion 2: Battle at Antares (sometimes MoO2:BaT, or MoO2 or BaT). Steve Barcia and Ken Burd, still at Simtex, returned as part of the development team for the sequel. Meanwhile, MicroProse was still the publisher and partnered with MacSoft for the Macintosh version.

By Patrick S. Baker

The early 1990s saw the release of many of the seminal games of what would soon be called the 4X (for eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) PC game genre. Games like Armada 2525, Civilization, and the subject of this article, Master of Orion (MoO) were published some 30 years ago and still influence the genre today.

In fact, reviewer Alan Emrich named the game type “XXXX” in a 1993 preview of Master of Orion for Computer Gaming World (CGW). A year later Martin E. Cirulis in the same magazine shortened the term to “the four Xs” this later became “4X”. While MoO was not the first 4X game, that honor goes to Reach of the Stars released in 1983.

Still, it was Master of Orion  that “would define 4X gaming for years.”

By Patrick S. Baker

 Part Four, 

War of the Chosen

War of the Chosen was a Downloadable Content (DLC) expansion pack for XCOM 2 released August 2017 for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Chosen follows the same narrative as XCOM 2, but introduces a number of new elements to the game.

Chosen introduced three new enemy aliens called The Chosen, which were elite alien-human hybrid warriors: the Assassin, the Hunter and the Warlock. The Chosen had the mission to defeat XCOM and recapture the Commander.

The Chosen gained new abilities over time, and eventually work up to launching a direct attack on the Avenger. The Chosen would sporadically reappear during missions even after being defeated. They were only permanently killed when their base was destroyed.

By Patrick S. Baker

The Personal Computer version of Harpoon was released for the DOS operating system in 1989 by Three-Sixty Pacific and it took the gaming world by (Red) Storm (Rising).  The naval simulation received raved reviews and I, like many other military officers and others interested in modern naval warfare, rushed out to buy the game. I even invested in an upgraded computer to play it.

At that point, I had no idea that the marvelous game I spent literally days playing was based on a tabletop and miniatures game. But everything comes from something else and Harpoon was no exception. Indeed, the game did not spring Athena-like from Larry Bond’s head.

According to , the then twenty-four-year-old Naval Lieutenant Junior Grade Larry Bond, encountered the US Navy’s official computer wargame, NAVal TActical Game (NAVTAG) in 1976.  NAVTAG was the digitized successor to the manual pen and paper SEA control Tactical Analysis Game (SEATAG). NAVTAG only came in a classified version and took three computers to play, limiting its utility.

By Tom Gall

Looking for a 15mm-25mm ruleset for 18th Century warfare? has recently published their new rules Red Coats in the Wilderness. In this article, we’re going to have a look at the rules and what they have to offer.

If you are like me and enjoy horse and musket or have a deep curiosity about gaming out actions especially on the North American continent dating roughly between the Seven Years War to the War of 1812 this is a ruleset to look into. As written the rules cater to the French and Indian War, however as played Revolutionary War, and War of 1812 actions work very well with the system.

This time period and location demand a set of rules which models company and battalion level games which are different in scale as compared to the large-scale battles that were happening in Europe at the time.  These smaller battles are what Red Coats in the Wilderness is tuned for.

Scale

The rules include charts for both 15mm and 25/28mm, and movement in inches or centimeters. A single figure represents 10 men and an artillery casting is representing one or two guns.

Each inch on the battlefield is approximately 15 yards and each turn roughly equals 10 minutes of modeled action.

By Patrick S. Baker

Steel Panthers World War II

From the first, Steel Panthers had an active fan-base which developed new scenarios and posted them online to share with other fans.  One of these super-fans was David Heath.

After founding The Gamers Network, an online game review site, in 1998, Heath went on to play-test some games for SSI as well. He also made friends with Joel Billings, the founder of SSI, and Gary Grigsby. Wanting to do more in the gaming world and “loving Steal Panthers”. Heath had several conversations with Billings and Grigsby, finally convinced them to give him the source code for Steel Panthers to develop “a fan base edition of the Steel Panthers Series”.

By Patrick S. Baker

Steel Panthers II: Modern Battles

Steel Panthers II: Modern Battles (SPII:MB) was released in November 1996, just one year and two months after the release of the original Steel Panthers (now referred to as Steel Panthers I or SPI).  Grigsby had two main goals while developing the new game; one was to improve the animation and the other was to let the players simulate most of the armed conflicts, both major and minor, historical or hypothetical, throughout the world, from 1950 to 1999.

SPII:MB was more than just a reskin of the first game. Grigsby retained the game engine of the original, but the database was completely overhauled with a thousand modern units from 40 different countries, and non-state actors, all modeled in great detail and having characteristics unique to each time period and nationality. For example, helicopters, both scout and attack were added to the weapons inventory and were placed under the players’ direct control.

Airplanes were still in a support mode, but were now equipped with ordinance like precision-guided weapons, napalm, and/or cluster-bombs. Ground forces were kitted out with an assortment of heat-seeking and radar-guided Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs) to counter the air threat, and so on.

X-COM Franchise Retrospective (Part Four)

By Patrick S. Baker

Intellectual property (IP), licensing and copyright laws are complex and confusing, especially when it comes to properties that were created under contract, or created by one party for a second party, or developed by multiple entities. Further, the video game industry was like the Wild West in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with companies starting up, closing, buying and selling other companies, and also trading, assigning and purchasing IPs at a furious rate. All of which begs the question of how did the IP that was X-COM get from MicroProse in 2001 to Firaxis Games?

By Mitch Reed

The gaming community is full of games that re-fight the American Civil War and new games are hitting the market all the time, American Civil War is just the latest game to enter the fray and I think it is worth a look for many reasons. Based out of Holland, Peter Van Dop, the man behind BelloLudi’s games has a fresh outlook on what gaming can do and how to grow the hobby which is meshed into the DNA of his games.