Wargamer Weekly: It's Custom-ary By Joe Robinson

It’s been another oddly quiet week – probably because of GenCon, although that’s more of table-top thing. We’ve been talking a lot more with the Wargame Design Studio chaps, and we plan to re-double our efforts there in terms of coverage, and I’m on the look out for more contributors to help populate the site with content.

If you’re a:

Person

Who likes computer wargames

Can write better than a teenager

Can follow instructions and meet deadlines

Then I want to hear from you. Make sure you get in touch!

Meanwhile, in the world of wargaming…

Hearts of Iron IV

This is probably the most exciting dev diary we’ve seen for any Paradox game, let a lone Hearts of Iron IV. This is something that was hinted at when we talked to Dan Lind at PDXCon this year, but it’s now been confirmed in the recent update for the game – custom game rules.

Essentially, people play Hearts of Iron (and every grand-strategy game for that matter) in a lot of different ways, and even when you’re playing single-player, sometimes you want certain things to trigger so you can test yourself under specific conditions. Tailoring playthroughs is apparently an often request feature for the dev team and so they’re formally adding ‘rules’ to pre-game setup.

The full set of variables isn’t finalised yet, but the sky’s the limit here – anything from buffing individual nations, to forcing those same nations to stick to specific focus branches, to banning certain diplomatic or economic decisions before a certain time. These rules will be moddable as well, so all those multiplayer groups using house-rule sets can add them into the game themselves. We recommend you read the diary for the full break down, it’s fascinating stuff.

Grand Tactician

Another Twitter Teaser from the Grand Tactician guys. Yesterday they talked briefly about how player can delegate the AI to look after sections of your forces.

To avoid micromanagement, player can order his commanders to manage details when reacting to emerging threats. Player can also place commanders under AI by giving them stances - after this the commander will use his units accordingly, while following your movement orders. pic.twitter.com/LHob2mcCC8 — Grand Tactician (@Grand_Tactician) August 2, 2018

Minor Gettysburg Update

Shenandoah have published an update for Gettysburg: The Tide Turns, nearly a year since their last update. Version 1.05 fixes a USA AI freeze and two bugs/crashes related to Multiplayer.

Slitherine/Matrix Games Sale

There’s a board game themed sale happening on Steam right now, and Slitherine/Matrix have jumped in on the action by discounting a range of titles that have board game qualities, as either direct adaptations or made-for-digital experiences. The full list includes:

HexWar have also joined the sale, with titles such as Hold the Line and 1775 Rebellion also being discount at 75% off.

Speaking of HexWar…

Is Command & Colors: Ancients Out Yet?

No.

Weekend Wargaming

Going to be a light weekend for me again – on Sunday I’m going to spend time with a table-top group just outside of London and do some playtesting of megagames and other cool projects the guys there are working on. In terms of digital stuff I have a desire to jump back into Battletech and keep trying out Xenonauts, but it’s a matter of finding the time.

That's all for this week - have a great weekend!