Good question.

Has to be two powers to really work - I don't think it can be expanded much without extending the playtime beyond reason. Each power should have distinct strengths.

The Peloponnesian War would obviously work quite well. Athens and Sparta with Persia as a wild card that can add funds to either side given certain victory conditions. Strong leaders, one side needs to force battle and the other has to be more cautious. It is a nice parallel.

Moving later, and with more adaptation, I'd vote for French and Indian War and American Revolution - the system itself needs a little tweaking, but I think the core mechanics are there. Questions of loyalty, territorial control, movement, etc.

Really depends on the goal of the game. Sometimes a series of scenarios is the best way to do it. I even liked how Sid Meier's Gettysburg divided the battle into scenarios, though I admit it would have been nice to be able to play the whole thing.

There is no general rule for me. Just like I can enjoy story heavy RPGs and roguelikes - their polar opposite.

Depends if you want to work with the dreary mood (Leonard Cohen) or against it (Beatles).

I have a lot of posts that are half written that will never be finished - 6 to 1 is probably right for ideas, but for stopping something midstream, 3 to 1 is more accurate.

Lately, I just have found it hard to find the time to play a lot of new things and write anything at all.

As for what makes the grade, it really depends on my mood and situation. Back when the blog was mostly a support for my freelancing, I would just write about what I had written elsewhere. And that would lead to more posts, etc.

Now the podcast does a lot of the heavy lifting.

Really, at this point, it comes down to whether it is something that I think needs to be said that isn't being said somewhere else. This kind of sucks, because I will retweet stuff I agree with on Twitter and if you are not on Twitter then you won't notice, but my time is limited. I play fewer games in the day, and my nights are my own.

I need to write more, period, if only for my sanity. I love it more than anything, and more than maybe a handful of non-family members in my life. But even my thought exercise posts have to be well organized.

I do not blog much about my personal life.

I do not blog just to complain.

I do not blog about politics.

My blog has a focus - one dearly lacking in most of my life.

But aside from that, a good post is one that I hope provokes discussion, that doesn't have all the answers, and that has many entry points for others to chip in.

Too few games made to say what has been overlooked. I liked the Renaissance/Early Modern stuff, and I think that the Revolution might work better than I thought, though moving it to America makes me think more Hawkeye and Last of the Mohicans than eternal assassin cult.

As for where I would like to see an AC game...Russian Revolution in the future of the series, the French Revolutionary era seems a natural, and going backwards in time, the court of Granada or Cordoba.

Why? What have you heard?

Yeah, that game looks kind of crazy. I want it though.

I am very cool with realistic sims, but there has to be clarity and a payoff worth the learning curve. Some HPS games just give you a huge map, some soldiers and an interface designed by Satan. Wargame designers need to learn that there are good ways to present information, even in a simulation; it doesn't have to look like a real radar screen to be useful to the gamer.

I've not followed it at all. Action RPGs are something I play, but usually only after they've been recommended to me. Will check up on it though.

Most action RPGs are roguelikes after a fashion. No, there's no permadeath in Diablo or Titan Quest, but you kill bunches of monsters and collect loot and the loot keeps getting better. There is no real story - just kill bigger and badder things.

Didn't see it, to be honest. Not in my inbox.

I have not played FE and probably won't until I am sure it is in a finished state. I don't want to play it, get the old Elemental disappointment again and then never pick it up. I've also avoided reading much about it - I have friends at Stardock working on the game and I want it to be good; though I have really low expectations at this point.

Naval War is specifically one of my clients. I can say that it is realistic enough - the hardware, the importance of sensors, even how the campaign unfolds makes sense.

Take the fact they are a client to heart when I say that, as well as the simple fact that I'm not sure what a realistic modern naval simulation would look like. There are very few and I am not a sailor.

My series are all centered on multiple games and I cover the topic in depth, so that's the clear distinguishing thing. Though some of my longer essays raise larger questions, they are usually written with a single game foremost in mind.

The series topics are almost always something really big too - maps/space, Roman history, national character, science - something you can approach from a number of perspectives and keep saying something interesting. I couldn't, for example, write a series about how the Battle of Bulge is dealt with in wargames - that would work for an essay, but is too narrow for anything over 2000 words.

Series topics are also spurred by something ongoing in my life at the moment they are started, usually an anticipated game but not always.

Man, this is a tough question.

This industry, like many entertainment industries, is pretty inbred. You might fall in love with someone that isn't in a position you cover as media, but then they move into such a position because it is a very small world. You can't just cut off one partner's career path because the other partner is progressing in a related field.

A lot depends on what you mean by 'cover' and how extensive her duties as community manager are. If she's just one of many community managers that doesn't make a lot of decisions, and he doesn't review the MMO or similar ones than I don't think it's necessarily an issue.

As for the extent of the disclosure, I am in favour of disclosure of any potential conflict so long as that potential conflict is in operation. Whether this counts as a conflict is not necessarily an easy call.

One book I really like is Frank McLynn's Richard and John. It has Crusaders, ransoms, disputes over vassals, meddling priests and duplicitious relatives.

Wow. What a great idea. Hadn't even thought of that.

I wish I knew, I suck too. But a couple of sites might help. MOBAfire.com has some great guides. RTSGuru has a pretty healthy community. I long ago gave up the idea that I would not embarrass myself.

Caesar 4 is still the best of them, I think. Interesting challenges, good maps. Grand Ages: Rome would be my second choice.

Eventually

I have heard nothing about a Sengoku expansion at all.

I wish, but not very likely. Too many other teams between them and 8th place. If they had a good goalie and a stronger blueline corps, I think they could do it next year.

I have had coffee with Tom. I can't remember if he ever fetched it for me. We need to work on this, obviously.