Silent Hunter Online - Open Beta Launch Trailer

Parte la beta di Silent Hunter Online, tentativo di Ubisoft di fare soldi facili con un brand famoso:

Qui per iscriversi: http://www.silenthunteronline.com/en-GB/registrierung

Ageod American Civil War 2 rilasciato

E' stato dato l'annuncio del rilascio ufficiale di Ageod American Civil War 2:

http://www.ageod.co.uk/products/500/details/CivilWarII

• Setting: the game covers all of the USA, from the Eastern seaboard to the Rockies, from 1861 to 1865. Mexico and the Northern Caribbean are also in
• Game map is divided into more than 3,000 regions, with a variety of terrain, climates and development level.
• Scenarios: 2 tutorial and 5 main scenarios from Shiloh all the way up to the Grand Campaign.
• Historical leaders: Over 400 historical leaders each rated on their abilities and over 1,000 different types of units from sharpshooters to cavalry and artillery and even Ironclads!
• Production: Control your nations spending on the military without worrying about micro managing the economy.
• Regional Decision Cards: The game has an innovative card system that lets you trigger events such as Indian raids and partisans attacks, which used wisely can affect the flow of a campaign.
• Detailed game model includes features such as Weather, Attrition, Supply and Fog of War
• Historical Event are triggered throughout the game giving the player crucial decision points. These cover anything from local uprising to foreign intervention.
• Battlefield Tactics allow the player to make decisions that can turn the tide of battle.
• Sieges and Naval warfare are all covered in detail in the game.
• Chain of Command allows units to be organized in to brigades, division, corps and armies and leaders put in command of them.
• Navigable rivers which played a crucial role during the Civil War are represented.
• 
  
• Scenario list
• Two Tutorials scenarios
• 1861 First Manassas (Battle of Bull Run)
• 1862 Shiloh
• 1862 Sibley (New Mexico Campaign)
• 1861-1865 Our Hearts were Touched with Fire April 1861 scenario (THE multi-theater Grand Campaign)
• 1861-1865 The Blue and the Gray July 1861 scenario (accelerated start campaign)

Patch 2.0 per Rome 2

E' stata rilasciata la nuova patch per Rome 2, chissà se riuscirà a rialzare un po' la fama del gioco?


Technical and Performance Issues

Campaign performance optimisations.
Campaign AI round time improvements (greatest effect during early game).
A new "Limited" option has been added to the "Show AI Player Moves" settings in Single Player an Multiplayer Campaign modes, this enables the player to see all movement of enemy factions, all movement within the players regions, and all movement within sea that the player has ports in during the AI turns.
Improved AI recruitment decisions in Campaign modes. Further improvements planned for subsequent patches.
Pathfinding optimisation on the Campaign Map.
Fix for "Level of Detail" distances scaling incorrectly when the "Field of View" is changed which reduces the chance of the "Intelligent Zoom" [N] key, causing "zombie like” low quality textures on unit faces in battles.
A new warning message has been added to loading screen to inform the player when graphics memory is running low, and the game is downgrading the players graphics settings. This can be overriden, allowing the game to use system memory for graphics (VRAM) by ticking the "Unlimited video memory" option in the graphics menu.
Increased the frame rate and reduced frame stuttering in battles on certain GPUs.
Improved compatibility for graphics cards with multiple GPUs.
Added earlier Multiplayer Campaign resyncronisation detection, upon loading save games which allows resyncronisation in more cases.
More conservative out-of-the-box graphics settings and resolution for DirectX 10 and 11 on Mobile GPUs
Improved the processing speed of the default deployment placement, reducing battle loading times on some battle maps.
Fixed battle crash bug caused by the default deployment placement.
Crash fix for when the player placed the mouse over a garrison force of a region in Campaign mode.
Fix for crash loading save games that were created on the "settlement captured" screen in Campaign modes.
Fix for a crash when holding the [SHIFT] and [CTRL] keys down, and selecting a unit card, when no unit cards where previously selected in Campaign and Battle modes.
Fix for crash caused by forming a Confederation in Campaign modes.
Some desyncronisations have been fixed in multiplayer city / port assault battles.
Crash fix for when multiple AI reinforcements arrive in a single player siege battle in Campaign mode.
Fix for crash when selecting Custom Battle mode after fighting several different Multiplayer battles.
Fix for a crash in 4v4 custom or multiplayer battles caused by the battle AI.
Fix for crash when cancelling a game request for a password protected game whilst in a Multiplayer battle lobby.
Fix some crashes in multiplayer campaign mode, when one player quit the game, it would cause the other player to crash.
Fixed a Multiplayer crash which happened when a client joined a lobby and was being allocated to the wrong slot.
Fix for a very rare crash when launching a new campaign.
Fixed rare battlefield loading lockup.
Fix for a rare crash caused by animal handlers in battles.
Fix for crash that happens when AI unit triggers raise banner special ability when no human units are selected in battles.


Gameplay Improvements

Reduced infantry run speed, charge speed and acceleration in battles.
The low level casualty moral penalties have been significantly reduced in battles.
Improved balancing for Food and Squalor in Campaign Mode.
Campaign AI is more likely to make a stand when defending its final settlement, but may still seek out another home, if they fear losing the final battle.
Encampments battles are no longer incorrectly merged with Coastal battles, which lead to forts floating in the air when a friendly navy reinforced an army in the Fortification stance.
Improved ship movement speeds in battles.
Shock cavalry run speed and charge speed have been increased in battles.
Increased flanking morale penalties.
Added icons to indicate activity in the Technology and Faction screens during a campaign.
Fix for the boarding/ramming button which showed the incorrect state in certain circumstances in battles.
Fix for a bug that sometimes made it impossible to exchange units between a transported land force and another land force on the Campaign map.
Fix for armies on the sea getting stuck in patrol stance in Campaign modes.
Fixed splitting an embedded army from a navy which sometimes caused the player to get stuck in the Prologue Campaign.
Some missions in single player and multiplayer Campaign have been fixed and now execute correctly.
When a settlement is captured via a siege battle, with a friendly naval fleet blockading its port, the ownership of the port is now changed correctly to the friendly navy fleet on capture.
Fix for AI taking inappropriate sized siege equipment into battle when the user changed the settlement wall height, via the map selection settings, in Custom Battle mode.
Fix for defending armies under AI control grouping together at the edge of their deployment zone, during Ambush battles when the player choses to wait before attacking them.
Improved AI and scripting in the Raphia Historical Battle.
Fixed a bug preventing the player from progressing in The Invasion of Samnium prologue chapter, if they had spent all of their funds before being instructed to recruit a General (and therefore having no funds to do so).
The Attribute increases for an agent accompanying an army now activate its associated effects on the general of that army in Campaign modes.
Improved AI collision detection with Deployables in battle.
In Multiplayer Campaign mode, one player can no longer cancel recruitment during the other players turn.
The order of events leading up to the Battle of Bovianum in the prologue have been re-scripted. The player now gets multiple turns to construct siege equipment.
Fixed issues with not enough time being given for certain advisor lines to play in different languages in the prologue.
Fix for units floating in the air while climbing siege towers in battle, when the tower is placed on a slope.
Attacking siege ladders will no longer clip through the gate house in the siege on Bovianum battle during The Invasion of Samnium chapter in Prologue Campaign.
The victory screen in Multiplayer Campaign mode now shows the correct title for both players.
The Basilica of Vulcan religious building now applies the correct bonus to recruitment cost reduction in Campaign Mode.
Added level indicators to the Sanctuary of Austro & Sanctuary of Fraujaz shrines in Campaign mode and the Encyclopaedia.
Fix for settlement expansion trapping / blocking units movement on the campaign map in very rare cases.
Improved the terrain in a small Barbarian city battle map.
Minor bug fixes for Roman and Barbarian siege battle maps.
During battles, players are no longer able to un-pause the game while in the options menus.


Usability improvements

In Campaign mode, exempting a province from tax will no longer incorrectly adjust the food number in the province info panel left side of the screen.
Improved multiplayer lobby discovery, reducing the chance of finding *multiplayer lobbies with the wrong battle type.
Removed the red tint from the sky in battles.
Fix for "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day" achievement failing to unlock when its requirements were met in some situations.
The "Quaestor" achievement should now unlock correctly, when completing the Prologue campaign
Fixed the inability to select the previous faction, when an army is automatically loaded due to a battle type change during battle setup.
Improved the clarity of stats displayed for Slaves Economic Effect when placing the mouse over "Slaves" in the Province Details panel on the Campaign map.
Fix for rare cases of broken save games in Campaign mode.
Fix for Campaign mode bug, where a hostile agent and the players' ship became stuck in the same position, with neither one able to move.
Fix for very rare agent pathfinding issue, which caused the game progression to become impossible in Campaign modes.
Removed the ability to loading the wrong type of units into a battle from a saved army pre-set in Custom Battle mode.
In Multiplayer battle setup, unit restrictions related to "Battle type" are no longer desynchronised between the host and client, so only the correct units can be chosen.
Defending armies in an Ambush Battle can no longer load an army containing *Fixed Artillery and other Siege Equipment.
Fixed the tooltip displayed when placing the mouse over the garrison in enemy settlements, while the settlement is under siege.
The Public Order "Change per turn" stat is now displayed as the sum of all of its "Contributing Factors" on the Province Info panel in Campaign mode.
Right-clicking on the Aggressive, Balanced and Protective stance buttons when Autoresolving a battle in campaign mode will now take the player to the Encyclopedia, where these stances are explained in more detail.
More detailed descriptions added to the tooltips for the "Occupy, Loot and Raze" buttons after successfully capturing a settlement on the Campaign map.
Improved icons for Province Effects in Campaign mode.
Fixed an error with uploading stats when a multiplayer battle was ended prematurely.
The "Force March" movement effect on the campaign map (looks like a whirlwind) are now correctly removed from the screen when the AI move their army.
Correction to the Assault Hexeres unit card in the Parthia faction during battles, which had no colour mask and appeared black.
The buttons to change pages in the Leaderboards menu have been fixed, so more players can be seen on the Leaderboards.
The Provinces list in Campaign mode can now be scrolled with the mouse wheel.
Units in a recruitment queue, in a province with its capital under siege, now have an "infinity sign" icon to indicate that the "turns to recruit" is infinite while the siege is maintained in Campaign mode.
In the "Controls" menu under the "Settings" option in the main menu, when the player modifies the keyboard controls, and saves them, the new name for these controls is now replaces the "Classic Total War" name.
Added a tooltip to say "Left-click to remove unit from recruitment queue" for units that are queued for hire in Campaign mode.
Added a tooltip to make ruined buildings more obvious in Campaign mode.
Added tooltips to "Weather" and "Time of Day" settings in the Custom Battle menu.
Fixes and corrections for text in the encyclopaedia have been made.
Minor text and grammar corrections in Campaign Modes.
Fix for some German text not fitting into the available text space in the campaign mode user interface.
Improved text formatting in the Objectives panel in Campaign mode.
Added some localisation text fixes for French, Italian, German, Spanish, Czech, Russian, Polish and Turkish.
Fixed some missing text on the Diplomacy screen in Campaign modes.
Added white outline to Armoured Legionaries unit cards in battle.

Arma 3 rilasciato

Ormai la notizia è vecchia di qualche giorno e quindi molti lo sapranno già, ma Arma 3 è finalmente stato rilasciato assieme ad un launch trailer

Il nuovo lavoro di DarthMod - Ultimate General

Giusto l'anno scorso Darthmod, il famoso modder dei TW da diversi anni, aveva dato l'addio per sempre ad ogni futuro mod sulla serie, dopo la polemica con la CA, sia per la chiusura progressiva e controllata al modding della serie, sia per non essere stato nemmeno invitato alla session dei modders organizzata dalla CA.

Ebbene, non solo Darthmod, alias di Nick Thomadis, ha confermato che non ci sarà nessuno Darthmod per Rome 2 ma sta lavorando con un piccolo studio di appassionati ad un gioco nuovo (in realtà lo studio sta lavorando su due giochi), che riflette le loro idee e si propone come la versione intellingente dei TW.

http://www.ultimategeneral.com/

(link al secondo gioco: http://www.navalaction.com/ )

Ultimate General: Gettysburg deve essere il primo titolo di una serie ad ambientazione storica; the feature principali del gioco saranno:

Take Command - Fight the Battle of Gettysburg as a Union or Confederate general and attempt to rewrite history through a chain of historical and “what if” battle scenarios.

Dynamic Progress - Your performance in battles affects future missions. Losing too many soldiers in your first encounter will drastically change the last days of your battle.

Easy controls - Deep tactical gameplay driven by simple controls. Give orders to hundreds of troops organised in brigades of infantry, cavalry and artillery.

Thinking Soldiers - Units can retaliate and defend themselves without player input and excessive micromanagement, giving you the freedom to focus on other more important strategic matters.

Realistic Morale - One of the most complex morale systems ever created makes your tactical decisions crucial on the battlefield – demoralised troops become irresponsive, devastating volleys cause havoc in your lines, flank attacks can rout your strongest units.

Terrain Advantage - High ground provides increased weapon ranges, accuracy and morale bonuses. He, who takes the hills, wins the battle.

Challenge - AI does not need traditional game cheats or hidden tricks to face off against humans. Innovative Ultimate General AI comes with different characters such as "Careless", "Indecisive", “Defensive”, “Cautious”, “Cunning”, “Aggressive” or “Dynamic”.

Sul blog trovate linkato un forum dove potete interfacciarvi con Darth e gli altri.

Queste le parole di Darth:

There were things that I could not deliver to players as a modder (Read about my mods). That is why I decided to develop my own strategy game and in this blog post I will write about its main aspects. Working with a group of very talented programmers I am now able to build the strategy game I always dreamed of that will satisfy the following four main principles:


Battle Realism: Rock/Papers/Scissors-style simplistic gameplay is in my opinion an obsolete way to provide battle balance and does not resemble reality. Would Alexander the Great win his battles if these examples always happened: cavalry beats archers, spearmen beats cavalry, infantry beats spearmen (the usual simple approach of an RTS game)? In our game soldiers will react using realistic physics and many important tactical aspects so that the player will feel that he commands real troops and not lifeless robots. Our current graphics technology may prohibit us from creating the perfect looking game, but from the start we will offer common sense to strategy. Factors like Morale, Fatigue, Flanking, High Ground are essential to strategic thought and must be simulated as accurately as possible.


Deep gameplay with less complexity: Striving too much for realism can make a game too complex, boring, difficult to handle and eventually a failure. On the other hand over simplicity and arcade gameplay is something I have never preferred as a gamer and I am certain many others feel the same, considering the success of smaller Indy games that outsell games with much bigger budgets. So in a few words I will try to make Ultimate General: Gettysburg as easy to handle as possible without many confusing buttons. You should not require a tutorial or a big manual to play the game but you will be able to understand progressively how the "inside" complex mechanics work. For example: terrain importance increasing unit's effectiveness or brigade's exhaustion making them rout more easily even when facing a smaller force.


Good AI: A strategy that is easy to beat offers only few gameplay hours and can be really frustrating, if AI is a complete fool. Now, I have the chance to design an AI that can make a proper firing line, that can flank, that can understand where and when to attack… in real time. That may sound trivial, but I think you will agree that very few games can offer these features in a whole working set. Most RTS games make the AI tough by providing better fighting statistics per higher difficulty rate or hide its incompetence by speeding up everything so the player cannot catch up with all simultaneous actions. This is a cheap cheat! My goal is to make the AI effective and able to win you without these tricks. And from first looks it seems we have succeeded in that (we will be able to show it to you in the near future).


Connection with players: It will be a game where strategy fans can participate very actively in its creation. As you did for DarthMod, providing valuable feedback, and requesting features, you can do it now again; using our forums where we will have active discussions with players, gather ideas and organize frequent gameplay tests. For me a game must have a strong “pre-connection” with all of its potential players during production, so that it gets as many features they want as possible.

Naval action sarà l'equivalente di Ultimate General ma sul mare

Perchè il multiplayer è meglio del singleplayer?

Ovviamente è la mia opinione personale, ma nei giochi ma soprattutto negli strategici\wargames, preferisco giocare multiplayer\PBEM anzi a volte non tocco mai la parte single se non per imparare.

I motivi principali sono due e sono semplici:

• La sfida: giocare contro un altro giocatore umano è sicuramente più appagante dal punto di vista della sfida, laddove anche la AI più complessa per essere più competitiva deve cheattare (appunto i TW ne sono un esempio).
• Si impara: giocare contro un giocatore più esperto è il modo più rapido per entrare nei segreti di un gioco; spesso è frustante essere stracciato, a tutti piace vincere, ma dai propri errori e dalle tecniche altrui si impara e si migliora ogni match.

Ovviamente non sempre (soprattutto sugli RTS\RTT, raramente con i wargames) si trovano pazzoidi fanatici infantili (comunemente detti bimbominkia) il cui unico scopo è vincere sfruttando ogni piega del gioco per vincere, ma con il tempo si scremano via perché passano ad altri lidi.

Il massimo si raggiunge in giochi dove è possibile giocare non solo 1vs1 ma in più giocatori, perché i motivi di cui sopra risultano amplificati, soprattutto se il gioco è organizzato come campagna multiplayer\PBEM. A dire il vero il sistema PBEM risulta molto più pratico in questi casi, dato che organizzare online partite ricorrenti non è sempre facile anzi con il tempo diventa più difficile.

Che ne pensate?

Armchair General Total War Rome 2 review

La review è molto positiva, ma se vedete i commenti sotto dei lettori, tendono a non essere per nulla d'accordo. In effetti c'è da chiedersi come'è possibile che i recensori non vedano quello che i giocatori hanno visto finora.

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/total-war-rome-ii-pc-game-review.htm

La patch 2.0 è stata rimandata, ma una beta è uscita per provare le prime modifiche.

Penso che questo sarà l'ultimo Total War, non tanto per la figura di merda fatta dalla CA (la gente ha la memoria corta, perchè alla fine in un modo o nell'altro risolveranno i bugs più vistosi anche se dubito riusciranno a rendere il gameplay più avvincente), ma perchè ormai con il marchio Warhammer tra le mani, e i due remakes più richiesti (Shogun e Rome) già fatti, c'è ben poco marketing appeal da sfruttare. Il motore del gioco ormai è al limite e può solo crescere lo spazio richiesto ogni gioco che passa, e non investiranno mai in un nuovo motore per una serie vecchia anche se famosa.

Intervista con Philippe Thibaut e Philippe Malacher

Su La Gazette du Wargamer trovate un'intervista con Philippe Thibaut e Philippe Malacher di Ageod che parlano dei loro giochi e del futuro:

http://www.wargamer.fr/entrevue-avec-philippe-thibaut-et-philippe-malacher-dageod/

War in the East PBEM aggiornamento

Negli ultimi turni ho sofferto molto la sua offensiva e il Caucaso è quasi perso. Sono al 17 settembre e mancano due turni al fango, ma questo turno rappresenta anche il mio ritorno offensivo in grande stile. Dato che gli attacchi al centro non si sono rilevati favorevoli, in parte perchè la sua linea difensiva è troppo forte in parte perchè le mie forze mobili erano troppo sparse, ho spostato massicce forze al fronte sud, creando una linea difensiva, che va da Stalingrado alla linea del Volga. Contestualmente sto ricreando riserve per l'offensiva invernale.

Ma non volevo limitarmi ad aspettare supinamente le sue mosse: il mio avversario troppo confidente per le recenti vittorie, non si è accorto che cumulavo forze a nord e lungo il suo fianco destro, mentre lui spostava le sue riserve corazzate ad ovest tra Stalingrado e Rostov. In effetti qui ha colpito duro ma l'avevo previsto e avevo preparato una linea arretrata ed infatti non è riuscito ad accerchiare nulla, e ora le sue riserve sono ingaggiate mentre io ad est con la semplice manovra di molti corpi corazzati e di cavalleria supportati da fanteria, ho accerchiato quattro sue divisioni e paralizzato sul post le altre nella ZOC delle mie forze, mentre a nord minaccio di accerchiare il suo cuneo che si è spinto troppo oltre. Il mio piano è cercare di tagliare il saliente a sud di Stalingrado e spingerlo più indietro possibile prima del fango. Di riserva a solo poche divisioni di fanteria, tra cui alcune romene, ma non sono abbastanza per salvare le truppe accerchiate e nel frattempo creare un fronte continuo. Può buttare indietro qualche mia divisione ma rischia solo di lasciare falle se non torna indietro e raggruppa le forze, ma non ho intenzione di farlo arretrare tranquillamente.

Sono curioso di vedere la sua prossima mossa

Qualche immagine di Histwar Napoleon

Histwar II adesso è stato rinominato Histwar Napoleon e JMM ha messo qualche immagine online. Graficamente non c'è male, ma diventerò vecchio prima di vederlo realizzato, anche perchè sono più ansioso sul miglioramento del gameplay concept. Se gioco a massimo realismo, voglio che tutti gli ordini sia in ritardo, voglio l'AI di brigata e divisione, voglio una visuale 3d usabile e non solo di bellezza.