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About PatientPylon

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  2. Episode 468: Same Thing, Different Place

    Zacny: " I have had it with these motherfucking tanks on this motherfucking plain!!!!"
  3. Episode 413: Myth

    Hey guys, great podcast! You brought back so many memories about a game series that I loved, loved, loved. I'd like to third or fourth the connection between the Myth series and the Black Company books. When Myth II came out I was deep into the Black Company books, and there are sooo many things that Myth draws from the Black Company books. The narration style (e.g. written journal entries by an amateur historian/warrior), the city names (Tandem, Madrigal, etc.), the usage of True Names, the usage of an arrow tipped with the bone of its target, a chopped off head that keeps making trouble long after it should have died, calling the allied wizards "The Nine", the nature and names of the enemy wizards, how the enemy wizards are focused on fighting their own centuries old rivalries at least as much as on crushing human resistance, the way the enemy wizards are not just a threat because of their physical strength and magic but because they are the survivors of hundreds of years of warfare with all the trickery and cunning that implies, and how the ancient wizards are also all batshit insane due to the accumulated stress and trauma of years of brutal fighting and using abstruse magics. Ok, and now this is where it gets interesting (in my opinion)! Years later I found out that the author of the Black Company books, Glen Cook, had served in Vietnam, and in retrospect it makes sense of so many thing in the books. In particular it explains why the author got magic so right; in his world magic is for the most part this alien, terrifying, and shockingly violent force. Magic is basically what American air power would have been to a Vietnamese peasant. I don't have the exact quote with me, but there are a few sentences in the Black Company where they are describing the aftermath of a battle that the Rebel fought against one of the Empire's undead-wizards. The battlefield is dotted with these 10 meter wide circles of blackened turf, where everything inside the circle had just been utterly burned and melted. Then like 30 years later, you have this reporter who writes a book (The Forever War by Dexter Filkins) about the war in Afghanistan, and he is describing the aftermath of a B-52 strike on a Taliban trench line. And the reporter's description of the aftermath is an almost word for word match for Cook's description. The only difference is that targeting technology has improved since Cook's time, and the circles of immolation on the Afghan battlefield are in a perfectly straight line rather than being speckled around the battlefield. Anyway! I thought it was neat how these experiences were connected: Vietnam -> Black Company -> Myth. In some ways in Myth you are actually playing as the Viet Cong!
  4. Great podcast guys! I always enjoy 3MA, but I feel like you really knocked it out of the park this time. Very witty and funny and insightful.
  5. Episode 264: Building vs Battle

    This was a great episode; wonderful jobs guys! And as usual just about everything that Soren says is brilliant. And pithy too! It's amazing how much he's grown and evolved during his internship. Soren: have you ever considered writing a book about game design? I think you could teach so much to budding game designers. I know that every time you are on the show I learn something. Failing that, have you ever considered opening a consulting game design agency? You could be called in for really intractable game design problems that are stumping the cops. Davio: It sounds like you have a great game that people enjoy playing, it's just that the victory point conditions don't line up with what they enjoy. Why not just change the VP conditions and ship it?
  6. Episode 254: Putin on the Ritz

    Nice episode, I never would have heard about this interesting game otherwise. For Scourge of War, you guys should totally recruit podcast fans to be your sub-commanders. We have plenty of free time.
  7. Episode 184: Best-Case Scenario

    This is so exciting! As someone who grew up playing Panzer General, and wasted uncounted hours on the game, my knowledge is finally coming in use! Rob, here are some of the things you need to know in order to get a decisive victory on your first play through of most scenarios: Scouting - You shouldn't be running into ambushes on the road. What you want to do is take the units at the back of your formation, and move them first (when possible). The units should end their move at the front of your formation, safely extending your LOS by another hex or two. In this way you can move your entire formation at its full speed, without exposing yourself to ambushes. This tactic won't supply 100% of your scouting needs, since often the move that is best for scouting won't be the move that is best for attacking. However, you can supplement this tactic with a scouting car, or by pulling one of your fighters off and using it to scout the road ahead of you. All together this should prevent ambushes and let you get an idea of the forces laying in wait at the next city. Unit Composition: You want a force of fighters, tac bombers, infantry, tanks, and artillery, in approximately equal numbers. Buy more fighters and tanks when you can afford it, and when you can't fill up on the relatively cheap infantry. Leaven with one or two scout cars. Avoid the strategic bombers, naval bombers, and paratroopers, also avoid the anti-air and anti-tank guns. Scenario design: I believe the enemy units lying in wait for you aren't generally hardcoded into the scenario. Rather, it looks like the AI has a pool of points to spend (just like you), and will use that pool to buy units where it sees a threat. For instance, in one play through you might see a very strong initial line of defense. However, once you destroy that line the rest of the map will be essentially clear of opposition. Playing through the scenario a second time, you can set it up so that you sneak fast cars or paratroopers adjacent to the first line of enemy cities. If you do this before the AI realizes that the cities are threatened, the AI won't be able to purchase units there and the first line of cities will be relatively weak. However, the missing units will show up at the next line of cities, unless you can repeat the trick again. There are some units that are always in the same place in a scenario, but it looks like the majority of enemy ground forces are placed dynamically. Air units and naval units I think are mostly hardcoded. Scenarios as Puzzles: Because of the above, I think of most of the scenarios as tactical challenges rather than puzzles. The one exception might be Norway. In that scenario there are a few northern landing spots where you should be able land a few elite units to quickly take the difficult to reach northern cities. However, these landings are actually deathtraps, since the entire British navy will show up there the turn after you land. What you have to realize in this scenario though is that you need to consider the internal political element as well as the external military struggle. After your early string of victories, the Kreigsmarine admirals are feeling threatened by your rising star, hence the trap in the north. In this scenario and the later ones, you have to be very conservative on the landings in order to avoid the pitfalls of inter-service rivalry. Ok, hope this helps! These same tactics seem to work equally well in Panzer General, Panzer Corp, or any of the other X General games.
  8. Episode 175: Gods and Kings

    Great podcast; this is really the first time that I've wanted to try out Civ 5! And now for the story. This was back in Civ4, and I was playing as the Dutch since they get an improvement that lets them harvest more from water tiles. I was also using one of the mods from Beyond the Sword, which adds some basic religious powers to the game. Once cities have a religion, they can build temples to that religion which give small bonuses. The bonuses are things like more XP on unit creation, a 10% production bonus, or in my case, an extra hammer produced from water tiles. So, the game rolls along, with my Civ taking out the 2 competitors on my continent, and 2 other civs more or less taking over their continents. We get to the nuclear age, at which point my Dutch really begin to shine. Or maybe glow. We launch massive ICBM strikes on the other continents; they retaliate in kind. The land is radioactive and ruined, and sea waters rise and cover the coasts. As the nukes continue to fly, more and more tiles are turned into ocean, and my Dutch cities become ever more productive. One by one, the opposing nations are forced to capitulate as their cities are bombed back into the stone age and they can no longer keep their fields clear of radioactive orange goo. Their emissaries arrive to see the massive Dutch aqua-fortresses, gleaming cities fed by aqua culture (and aqua mining?) and pumping out an endless stream of missiles to subdue the remaining nations. In conclusion, the Netherlands is a land of contrast. Thank you.