The most interesting parts so far are missions where you're forced to make a choice. When you near the end of a major character's mission arc, you'll be asked whether you want to side with them or an opposing faction for the final mission. I won't say what happens, but will say that depending on what you choose, the mission and outcome will be drastically altered, and cut-scenes and voice over will support either decision (again, insane production value). If you're obsessive like me, you'll want to make a save before inputting a choice of who to side with just to see how things differ.

But the point is that it uses the zombie concept in the context of a day/night cycle. At night, zombies stream out of buildings and shamble towards your base en masse. You, of course, have a few choke points defended with bunkers and flamethrowers (protip: be sure to post a Medic and SCV for healing and repairs). During the day, the sun burns the zombies away, at which point you need to wipe out as many of their buildings as you can, ideally with fast moving units that shoot fire. Oh, hello there, Hellion introductory mission! As night falls, you skedaddle back to the safety of your base. And I don't want to spoil anything, but it wouldn't be a zombie siege unless something went wrong with the defensive perimeter.

In StarCraft II, however, a player must constantly jump between his or her army and base. In fact, in most cases, watching battles play out is usually less effective than letting the unit AI handle the job and instead using the mental energy to build a new barracks or queue up some reinforcements. There's a push and shove to StarCraft II and games like it; one mistake can lead to instant defeat. If a sneaky Zerg player manages to get flying Mutalisks out, while his Terran opponent focused on ground-attacking Marauders, it's probably game over. Instead of attacking the Terran's units or structures, the Zerg merely has to kill as many resource-gathering workers as possible. With the economic advantage thereby secured, victory becomes all but assured.

The state of Maryland has officially recognized local developer Firaxis' Sid Meier's Civilization V  by naming the day of its release after the game itself. As dictated by a gubernatorial proclamation, September 21, 2010 will be known as "Sid Meier's Civilization V Day."

Governor Martin O'Malley signed the proclamation today, citing the achievements of legendary designer and studio founder Sid Meier, "a longtime and celebrated Marylander who has spent his full professional life in this State."

This week, with the rest of the TMA crew (i.e., me) off gallivanting around California or saving lives or something, Rob and Julian decided to have a real show. They dig deep into the perfect strategy gaming syllabus, and come up with some obvious and startling conclusions. At least, that’s what they tell me. I haven’t listened to it yet. I hope there’s pie.

Kevin Yu:  Definitely. So far, speaking more in detail about those strategies, how do you think those strategies are meshing out in the early, mid, and late stage game for each of the different races? Especially, adding all of the new abilities and units from StarCraft II as well?

Dustin Browder: Well one of the things we learned in the beta, very early obviously, was a lot of rush strategies that we weren't quite prepared for that we thought that we had under control before it went live with the beta. And we found out pretty quickly over the course of seven or eight patches, I think, we were still fixing some of the core rush strategies. And it's always sort of a tough balance for us because we want to make sure that rush strategies are possible, that it is possible to overcome an enemy with a rush, but at the same time we don't want the rushes to be unstoppable. And our sort of core design value is a rush should be as easy to stop as it is to do, and we're still sort of working all of those kinks out. I think in many cases we've improved it quite a bit, I think most of those are under control, but we are trying to keep an open mind as to what may still be out there that we don't know about. And we come up with phase two of the beta and we will watch and see how those rush strategies are sort of continuing to evolve and we'll keep watching those going forward.

If you're wondering where the early reviews are, Ars Technica and IGN said that Blizzard stiffed everyone on the early review copies. Or StarCraft 2 is a fine bourbon that can't be guzzled. Or something.

In anticipation of its upcoming release on July 30th, Paradox Interactive has released the demo of the upcoming naval strategy game Commander: Conquest of the Americas.

Combining elements from both trading and strategy games, Commander: Conquest of the Americas appeals to a wide range of players.

The demo offers gamers a free chance to take charge of one of the many European powers and attempt to conquer the New World. Founding new colonies and then making them thrive is key to success. In order to accomplish this, players need to manage and optimize resources and production in their colonies, before transporting the goods to other colonies or back to Europe.

For a full list of download links to the demo please visit: www.cota-game.com/?page=demo

Professional StarCraft is much like chess. Grandmaster chess players memorise the starting moves and save their formidable brain power for the true contest – the middle game. It’s the same in StarCraft. “For the first half of the game, all of the players know the timing – of building a base and units – and how to play,” Mind says. “So you try to optimise it for the second half, when you cannot predict how the game will go on.” Just as in chess, the centre of the map is critical – he who controls the centre controls the flow of the game. It is quickest to go from the centre to anywhere else in the map, and speed is of the essence. “I play by dominating the map,” he says, blinking slowly. “If you dominate the centre, you will win. I am proud of that.”

After a 3-1 victory over Woongjin, the players are allowed outside, where their personal fans swamp them in droves. Nearly all of the fans are female, teenage or in their 20s, and they praise their favourite player while offering him a gift of a tasty snack. There’s a definite flirtatiousness about the whole affair, and it’s not uncommon for a player to date a fan. One of the followers says that she organises fan meetings when a player wins. What do they do there? “We usually ask him some questions, but usually about fun stuff,” she laughs. “We ask what he did to win, and then we ask him to dance for us.” Dance? Do they really dance? “Yes. They dance,” she says, giggling.

Aside from the major bug fixes listed below, I made skill increases a little faster during training.  Part of the problem is with how classes work -- the teacher and student skills are important, and they can heavily amplify the effects, so the gains for people without those skills were small.  Now it'll be even more extreme that the base rate has increased, so we'll have to see how that plays out in forts that get good teachers.

If your old fort has a dead liaison, your replacement liaison will be named after one of the standard professions most likely, but they should still perform their job.  New worlds should have dead liaisons kicked out completely and get new liaisons.

Rules Changes (Important) :

Infernal Juggernaut can now only be performed once on a specific friendly legion and therefore cannot be stacked

When framing a player for a ritual targeting Pandemonium the framed player now gets his resistance to deceit bonus added to the Pandemonium modifier of +10 (was +8 previously). Additionally if the framed player has Demonic Premonitions active then his Prophecy level is also added to the challenge modifier.

Planar Lock can no longer be stacked on the same target player. i.e. You may only have one Planar Lock active at any time on any given target player

Planar Locks performed using ritual masking when a diplomatic stance of Vendetta, Blood Feud or Excommunication does NOT exist between the two players cannot be continued automatically from turn to turn i.e. the ritual must be performed again with the accompanying normal chance of success or failure.

Planar Locks can no longer be continued more than ONE turn past the expiration of a Vendetta. You will receive a turn log message to this effect when a Planar Lock continues over into a turn but the Vendetta has ended. Planar Locks may still be continued indefinitely if the target is excommunicated or in a blood feud with you.

• Fixed bug that could cause a loaded game to crash during the first end turn after load
• Fixed bug that caused initial sound and music levels to be set to zero
• Fixed spelling of research project "Mining"
• Fixed MPU requirement for Deep Shaft Coal Mines
• Removed "(Max 9)" text from exploration project descriptions
• Fixed the spelling of "Sabotage" in the UI

• added some new remade graphics (muton)
• added reserve tus button functionality
• added summary of number of soldiers in base on the purchase screen
• added info on quantity of stored elerium and alloys in ufo construction window
• added after killing an enemy some (small) increase of morale
• added double click movement with path and cost showing.
• when you go back to main menu you disconnect the game
• added sounds for throwing items and putting itemst to slots
• added saving protection mechanism for multiplayer games.
• added autosave options
• added sp_rules.cfg - you can turn off some of the features for single player game
• added one more number below the ufo icon on the geoscape. It shows mission effect
• added research bonus info on tactical combat summary
• added ufo loads cost display

• Fixed immovable BVP-1s in scenario Danube By Night
• Changed the map (only) for US Scenario 1
• Increased HE lethality for larger caliber guns
• Reduced armor value of Leopard 1
• Added BMP-1/2 that carries external riders only – denoted by (+)
• Vehicle smoke grenades are now single use weapons
• Replaced unit map counter and info backgrounds
• Replaced Normal tileset so that higher elevations are lighter
• Updated unit information markers and map objects a la World At War
• Improved sound file management
• Revised sounds for some effects and weapons
• Added sound effects for new French weapons and some vehicles

Matrix Games and Henderson Field Designs are proud to release a significant new update for their award winning WWII Pacific Theatre mega game, War in the Pacific – Admiral’s Edition! The new comprehensive 1.01.06g update comes with 80 fixes and improvement, including the ability to show all patrol zones and gameplay balance and realism improvements to naval bombardments and flak.

Remember when the Wall Street Journal revealed that StarCraft II cost $100 million to develop? Turns out they were thinking of some other game.

Activision Blizzard Inc. hasn't disclosed development costs for its "Starcraft II" videogame. A July 16 Technology article about the "Starcraft" sequel incorrectly said the company spent more than $100 million to develop the game; that figure referred to its "World of Warcraft" game.

Earlier this week, Famitsu revealed that Square Enix has formed a team of top talent to remake Super Famicom/PS1 classic SRPG Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, with Hiroshi Minagawa as director, Yasumi Matsuno as game designer, Akihiki Yoshida as character designer Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata handling the music -- names that Final Fantasy Tactics/Vagrant Story fans will recognize.

The Tactics Ogre PSP remake, now with the subtitle Wheel of Fate, is meant to update the title for the current generation of gamers and will include new characters, skills, classes, story elements, battle systems, music, and more. The game's already impressive battle size is also increasing, going from a max of 10vs10 skirmishes to now displaying clashes with up to 30 combatants on screen.

Ken Levine from Irrational Games drops by the show to talk about what made Freedom Force so special. Is it an RPG or a strategy game? We discuss the virtues of pausable real time play, the fine line between homage and parody and learn about what games Ken plays when he is not writing kick ass game stories.

At the Fry’s in Fountain Valley, California, Blizzard Entertainment developers will be on hand to celebrate the midnight launch of the game with players and sign newly released copies. Lines begin forming the evening of July 26, and doors open at midnight on July 27. Quantities are limited and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, so be sure to arrive early!

In addition to the game itself, there will be special prize giveaways, on-stage multiplayer matches, live music, and more. So don’t miss out on the excitement -- head over to Fry’s in Fountain Valley during the evening of the 26th and be among the first to celebrate the arrival of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty with Blizzard Entertainment. In the words of Tychus Findlay, “Hell, it’s about time....”

GS:  One of the things that really has me excited about Star Ruler is the mention that ships will be comprised of systems and sub-systems that can be targeted, damaged, destroyed…and even repaired by the crew!  Could you elaborate a bit more on this?  And how does the player handle this level of detail? I mean, when I click on a ship, will I get some sort of damage control report?  Or will the player be able to tell what’s going on with a ship just by visual cues?

Clayton Woodall:  I'm not sure I indicated that systems and sub-systems could be targeted, but damaged, destroyed, repaired, and renovated: yep.  Crewed ships will have repair rates proportional to the amount of crew aboard.  Particle systems light up when subsystems are destroyed, ships become disabled, and so forth to keep user-feedback.  We'd like to do some sort of damage control report but performance concerns have pushed that to a 'future addition' status.

Paradox Interactive announced today that development on its upcoming naval strategy title, Commander: Conquest of the Americas, has completed and the pre-order has started on leading digital distribution outlets. As an exclusive bonus, pre-orders for the game will receive three extra ships, three new resources, seven new historical Commanders (one for each nation) and three new historical naval battles.

Developed by Nitro Games, Commander: Conquest of the Americas features elements from both trading and strategy games. Choosing from 7 different European factions, take charge of a European power aiming to conquer the New World. Found new colonies and manage their resources, production, military, and much more as they develop into a full blown empire. Choose to command ships in RTS fashion or take direct control as your fleet engages ships of an enemy nation or blood thirsty pirates.

Commander: Conquest of the Americas will be available for purchase through retail stores on July 30, 2010 and is now available as pre-order via digital distribution channels.