Slitherine/Matrix Games

“Fortune favors the brave, but victory favors the prepared.” – Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus

by Patrick S. Baker

After two hits with Shogun: Total War and Medieval: Total War, the Creative Assembly (CA) Company determined to continue the Total War Series with Rome: Total War (Rome). The team at CA selected the Roman Era for many reasons. It is one of the most popular and well-documented periods in history and offered depth of events, characters, and battles that could be translated into an appealing game.

There was strong interest among gamers for a strategy game set in Roman times. Also, CA’s development team was deeply interested in the time period and thought it would provide a great setting for innovative game-play and a strong strategic narrative.

During the development of both Shogun and Medieval the CA team consulted with notable historians to maintain historical accuracy. While working on Rome, the CA team did a similar level of consultation.

“The decline and fall of Rome was a slow and agonizing process, marked by internal strife, foreign invasions, and the erosion of moral values.” – Edward Gibbon

By Patrick S. Baker 

Rome: Total War – Barbarian Invasion (Barbarian) is the first expansion pack for the critically acclaimed strategy game, Rome: Total War. Released just a year and five days after the release of the Rome: Total War, critics and players have a split opinion about expansion pack.

Some critics felt there was barely enough new material to justify an expansion pack. Others felt that Barbarian could have been released as an entirely new game.

The Imperial Campaign in Rome: Total War starts in 270 BC, when the Roman Republic completed the conquest of Italy and ends in 14 AD, with the death of Augustus. The campaign in Barbarian starts in 363 AD, with the death of the Emperor Julian, concluding the efforts to restore paganism in the Empire and ends in 476 AD with the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

‘There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.” – Michel de Montaigne

By Patrick S. Baker

The second installment of the Total War series started out as Crusader: Total War but was quickly renamed to Medieval: Total War (Medieval) to better describe the actual scope of the game. Development of Medieval started shortly after the successful launch of Shogun: Total War (Shogun). The game was developed by The Creative Assembly (CA) and published by Activision. It was released in August 2002, just two years and one month after the release of Shogun.

Throughout the development of the game, the team at CA sought to build on the foundation laid by Shogun, while also aiming to create a more expansive and historically rich experience. The selection of a medieval setting allowed for a diverse range of factions, units, and technologies. The new setting also provided a vast arena for the developers and the players.

The CA team placed a strong emphasis on historical accuracy and authenticity in Medieval.  To achieve this, they recruited the help of several distinguished Medieval and Military historians. Most notably Dr. David Nicolle and Dr. Richard Holmes. Drs. Nicolle and Holmes expertise in medieval politics and warfare ensured that the game’s units, factions, and events were historically accurate.

The art of coalition command … in Afghanistan … is to take the resources you are provided with, understand what the strengths and weaknesses are and to employ them to the best overall effect. – David Petraeus

By Patrick S. Baker

In 2015 Vietnam ’65, developed by Johan Nagel and his company, Every Single Soldier, was published by Matrix/Slitherine on the Steam platform and Apple’s App Store. Vietnam’ 65 was an operational-level game that focused on the American and South Vietnamese counter-insurgency (COIN) campaign in the jungles of Southeast Asia. The game received critical praise and sold well.

In March, 2017, Afghanistan ’11 (A’11), published by Matrix/Slitherine, was released on Steam and the App Store. A’11 was developed by Every Single Soldier and Retro Epic and is an operational level game focused on the counter-insurgency in the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom.

A’11 is not a simple re-skinning of Vietnam ‘65, replacing jungles with mountains, the Viet Cong with the Taliban, and Hueys with Blackhawks, instead the game had been markedly improved, and expanded, with much deeper game play. This new depth included multiple historical scenarios as well as the familiar skirmish mode.

“We are fighting a war with no front lines, since the enemy hides among the people, in the jungles and mountains, and uses covertly border areas of neutral countries. One cannot measure [our] progress by lines on a map.”—General William C. Westmoreland

By Patrick S. Baker

1965 was the year that, as one source puts it, “Vietnam Becomes an American War”. The massive bombing campaign, Operation Rolling Thunder, started. The first American ground combat units arrived “in country”. The Battle of the Ia Drang, the first major set-piece battle of the war (so well detailed in We Were Soldiers Once… and Young by Lieutenant General (Ret.) Hal Moore and Joseph L. Galloway) was fought in November that year.

It was also in 1965 that the bifurcated nature of the Vietnam War became clear. Part of the war was a conventional ground war with regular American military and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) units fighting conventional battles against the communists’ guerrillas, called the Viet Cong, (VC or Charlie) Main Force units and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) units.

The other part was a counter-insurgency (COIN) campaign with America and her South Vietnamese allies trying to win the  “hearts and minds” of the largely rural population with generous foreign aid, civic construction projects, and Special Forces (SF) deployed to train the local defense forces to battle the VC guerrillas.

By David Garvin

Order of Battle: World War II is a computer game that harkens back to the old Panzer General series of games. The similarities are superficial but close enough that any seasoned grognard who played the old game will feel at home.

At least I know I did.

This is available now via Steam from Slitherine and if someone is looking for a quick and fun game to play this is it.

by Mitch Reed

Last month wargamers of every ilk converged at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) facility in Alexandria, for the annual Connections Wargaming Conference. This was the first live event since 2019 due to COVID19 and many people, including myself, were excited to have an in-person event.

By Mitch Reed

I have been a fan of the Strategic Command series since a company called Battlefront came out with two games that covered World War II and the Great War. Now that Slitherine Games has become involved with this series they have released a new version of the first two games and have released Strategic Command: American Civil War, which like its predecessors is an addictive time suck that makes you wonder where the day went.

“Come on, you apes, do you want to live forever?”

—Attributed to an unnamed US Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, 6 June 1918

By Patrick S. Baker

Starship Troopers: Terran Command is a fun and engrossing real-time tactics (RTT) game.  The developers, The Aristocrats, are clearly fans of the 1997 Paul Verhoeven movie and have integrated that film’s “look and feel” without distracting from the actual game play.

Just like in the 1959 Robert A. Heinlein book and the film, humankind is fighting a genocidal war against the Bugs (called the Pseudo-Arachnids in the book), an alien race of giant insect-like creatures.  As the player, you are put in charge of the campaign of 19 scenarios to secure the desert mining planet of Kwalasha from the Bugs.

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.