Another free update from the fine folks at Matrix.

Matrix Games and Australian Design Group (www.a-d-g.com.au ) are proud to announce that another update is now available for the official computer adaptation of the popular turn-based Napoleonic grand strategy game, Empires in Arms. The comprehensive update brings the game up to version v1.03.14. The update addresses dozens more issues that have become evident since the major v1.02 update in addition to adding multiple AI improvements and a few other overall enhancements. 

 Read the full details here.

Kingdom Elemental: Tactics, a real-time tactical indie title, just had a mess of changes with its v1.56 update. Here's some of the changes:

-Improved interface to show when skill buttons are pressed and allow use of group skills
-Added group commands (select a group of the same type of unit and use there abilities all at once)
-Added group stop and attitude toggles
-Added destiny mode
-Added destiny mode awards
-Added statistics after each round
-Added round, world and campaign awards
-Revamped Skirmish mode to make it better balanced and more fun
-Added over twenty new challenge levels
-Added loading user created challenge levels
-Changed most images to .png reducing install and download size
-Improved overall performance, efficiency and memory usage

The game has been "unofficially" announced for a week or so, but AGEOD has now decided to make their World War One game legit with a press release sent out last night:

“World War One : La Grande Guerre 14-18” (WW1), the new AGEOD wargame will be released on November 11th, for the exact peace signature 90th anniversary of the Great War.

“World War One : La Grande Guerre 14-18” (WW1) is an historical grand strategy game, turn based, designed by Philippe Thibaut (Europa Universalis, American Civil War, Great Invasions, etc.). “WW1” will you offer to play the full conflict, leading the destiny of the seven main fighting nations (France, Great-Britain, Russia, Italy, Imperial Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire).

“WW1” will not only propose to play the war on a military strategic and operational level, but also to manage diplomatic maneuvers, technological research and domestic political stability of each nation in a period of revolutionary turmoils.

“WW1” is based on the award winning board game “La Grande Guerre 14-18™” (Azure Wish, 1999) using proved and tested game play mechanisms.

Some exclusive features:

● “WW1” will offer single and multi player gaming (up to 4 simultaneous players) through LAN or TCP/IP through 1 grand campaign, 4 campaigns and several smaller scenarios.

● Players will be able to play wild cards (Lenine, Mata Hari, Fokker, etc.) disturbing their opponents strategies in order to influence the course of the war.

● Each player will pick different war plans at the beginning of the conflict allowing strategic surprise and great replay value.

Gamers Hell has a bunch of new screenshots and 4 new trailers for RTK XI.  The trailers are each a few minutes of gameplay.  Nothing fancy or staged just someone playing the game.  I personally prefer that over 3 minutes of CGI and 15 seconds of gameplay.

If you don't feel like downloading the trailers you can watch the streaming version on Gamers Hell TV.

If you're not familiar with this game it's the sequel to People's Tactics .

More multiplayer features and random game capability for even more replayability!

Matrix Games and VR Designs (www.advancedtactics.org ) are excited to announce the release of the comprehensive v1.20 update for the popular World War II turn-based strategy game, Advanced Tactics: World War II. The update chiefly brings more multiplayer random game fun with things like new support for weather seasons, diplomacy, sharing line of site, and even nukes! The update also fixes a handful of issues and increases PBEM security.

Read the full announcement here.

What a surprise this is.

New York, USA (August 27, 2008) – Paradox Interactive today announced an expansion for Grand Strategy title Europa Universalis: Rome.

EU: Rome – Vae Victis is scheduled for a digital download release via GamersGate during the latter half of Q4, 2008 and will require EU: Rome to play. Suggested Retail Price is 9.99.

Read the full press release here.

Here's your chance to do a great service to your fellow gamers.

We are now accepting new applications for the Tilted Mill Insider program! Insiders get access to our games while still in development, reporting any bugs and providing feedback directly to the developers. If you'd like to help test our games, simply fill out this application . We will be accepting a new batch of Insiders very soon as we ramp up for the Hinterland beta test! If you don't make it in this round, fear not, as we will be accepting new folks over time and you could be called upon at a later date. 

 

Wonder if they're keeping the voiceover descriptions of everything?

Empire Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of Silverstar Holdings (NASDAQ: SSTR), today announced that Jagged Alliance for Nintendo DS™ is currently under development by Strategy First Inc. and Cypron Studios.

Jagged Alliance is an explosive fusion of role-playing game and turn-based tactical combat, allowing players to become fully immersed in their characters. A new generation of gamers will be charged with liberating the Island of Metavira through the nonlinear gameplay that made the 1994 original so popular amongst gamers. 

Read the full press release on Gamers Hell.

Thanks Mr. Teatime

This weeks entry is combat mechanics.

One of the buttons can be a “view results” icon… shaped like an eye. This lets you get more detail on an event like a single combat. This week I worked on presenting the results of legion combats… either legion vs. legion or legion vs. the garrison of a Place of Power. So what is the combat system like? Here is a brief overview:

When a legion enters the hex of a valid enemy target, either another enemy Legion or Place of Power, then a combat ensues. It’s important to note that in order to even move into an enemy hex you either have to have a Vendetta or Blood Feud diplomatic status with the owner of the hex (which are called Infernal Cantons in the game). Each Legion or Place of Power has 5 key stats for combat: Level, Ranged strength, Melee strength, Infernal Power strength and finally Hit Points. These stats are all public knowledge and can easily be ascertained by rolling your mouse over the icon on the map.

Here is the flow of combat:

Read about the flow of combat and the rest here.

Totem Games has released their second demo for Ironclads: ACW. This time it's a fleet engagement so things will hopefully be a little more interesting.

Check out the 18 Mb demo out for yourself.

In celebration of the all new ShrapnelGames.com, all game titles are on sale as listed below through September 7, 2008.

For the sake of comparison.

Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim

It may look like an RTS, but Majesty 2 doesn't actually let you directly control any units. As it's full title of The Fantasy Kingdom Sim implies, this is more of a simulation. You build your town, amass an army, attempt to expand your kingdom across the map, and deal with threats along the way.

Read the 4 paragraph preview here.

Empire: Total War

For the demo, which was controlled entirely by Creative Assembly, we saw the Prussians trying to wrest Leipzig from British control. They'd brought along riflemen and artillery to pound the town from afar, but the British had cavalry which, if it managed to close range, could wipe out the artillery pretty easily. Fortunately the Prussians had laid down a type of land mine in an arc surrounding their artillery, so that while the cavalry could easily skirt around the range of the bullets to find an easy avenue to assault the guns, they couldn't escape the mines. In the demo we watched as Creative Assembly instructed the Prussians to trigger the mines just as the British horses charged forward and crossed into the active zone, which killed a majority of their numbers and sent the survivors fleeing in terror. We're told this kind of mine defense is a high level technology, so it wouldn't be available until much later on in the game.

Read the twelve paragraph preview here.

Hearts of Iron 3

Paradox is trying to make the third in the series a little more accessible to players, as there's quite a bit to do. As tends to be the case with sequels, Paradox is also adding in more things of what series fans like: more units, more details on the map, more gameplay options, and more provinces. There'll be additional types of leaders and diplomacy options as well.

This time around, infantry divisions in the game will be able to be customized with competencies, building units to be better at attacking in harsh terrain or defense, and customizing components of the infantry for additional functionality. After you've set up how you want your infantry to be comprised, you can save the settings as templates to allow you to set up the same type later on.

Read the seven paragraph preview here.

The development branch of Battle for Wesnoth has been updated to 1.5.3.  For the Mac anyway, Windows version not yet available. Players changelog here.   Full changelog here.

Download any version here.

Stable version remains at 1.4.4.  I know some of you have issues with their art style but it's actually a pretty good game.