The Video Game Thread

[Sangeshkan_Cave]

The Video Game Thread

Video games as references for author's topic texts should be posted here.   

You Are Empty

You Are Empty is a first-person shooter video game based in a fictionalized postwar Soviet Union. The game begins with the protagonist waking up in a ruined hospital, and it soon becomes clear that the populace has been afflicted by mutation and madness. He then must battle to stay alive and unravel the mystery.
 
Story

Background

You Are Empty takes place in 1955 in alternative Russia, where Joseph Stalin still reigns. In an attempt to ensure the global victory of Communism, the Soviet Union has constructed a massive psychic antenna to broadcast a reality-altering signal designed to transform the population of the Soviet Union into supermen. However, the experiment goes horribly wrong, and most of the population is either killed or transformed into homicidal mutants.
 
The game's cutscenes flesh out the backstory by telling the life story of the master scientist responsible for the disaster. As a young boy, the scientist discovers that he has psychic powers that allow him to control other living beings. Becoming a scientific protégé, he develops plans for a massive psychic antenna that would amplify his power and broadcast it across the world, initiating a Great Transformation of humanity.

Plot summary

The protagonist of You Are Empty is a high-ranking soldier in the Communist party who is hit by a truck while crossing the street on his way home from work. Because his brain is unconscious during the Great Transformation, the protagonist remains unmutated, and awakens in a hospital to a world populated by homicidal mutants.
 
The protagonist fights his way through various Russian locales, briefly meeting with a couple other survivors, and eventually encountering surviving human members of the Red Army. These soldiers are initially hostile to the protagonist, and eventually capture him and bring him to a surviving Communist party chairman who informs the protagonist of much of the backstory behind the disaster before committing suicide.
 
In an attempt to save the world, the protagonist infiltrates the massive psychic antenna facility and fights his way to the top, where he meets the master scientist, whose torso is integrated into the main reactor's machinery.
 
The scientist tells the protagonist that he is the self-reliant New Man that the Great Transformation was supposed to create, having managed to fight his way through so many obstacles, and that he can use the antenna to alter the fate of the world. The protagonist decides to use the antenna machinery to rewind time back to before the Great Transformation. He travels to Red Square, where he finds the master scientist about to propose his plan to the Soviet leadership. The protagonist walks over and shoots the master scientist in the head, and in response is quickly beaten to death by Soviet bodyguards. The game ends with numerous clips of post-1950 20th century history, ending with the September 11th attack on the World Trade center, showing that because of foiling the Great Transformation, history happened as we know it.
 
It bears mentioning that the master scientist offers the protagonist two choices, the first being to use the machine to rule the future; however, only one choice is available - after using the machinery, the "go back and restore everything" movie starts. It is unknown whether this is due to time constraints during development or if it was always intended that the player can only make the one choice.



Official website
http://www.youareempty.com/

Source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Are_Empty

[Sangeshkan_Cave]

Stalin V Martians

Stalin vs. Martians is a parody real-time strategy video game developed by Black Wing Foundation, Dreamlore and N-Game, released on April 29, 2009. Described as "trashy and over-the-top" by its creators, the game mocks World War II strategy games and utilizes pythonesque humor. The developers state that Stalin vs. Martians is "obviously a parody, which sometimes gets close to being a satire" and is "halfway to becoming a trash icon of gaming industry for years". In some interviews the lead designer of the game compares Stalin vs. Martians to the Troma films.

Plot

Year 1942. Summer. The martians suddenly land somewhere in Siberia and attack the glorious people of Holy Mother Russia. It is a hard time for USSR as you might know from the history books if you ever attended school. The situation is really fucked up, so comrade Stalin takes the anti-ET military operation under his personal control. The operation is a top secret and virtually nobody knows about the fact of extraterrestial intervention.




Official website
http://stalinvsmartians.com/en/index.html

[Sangeshkan_Cave]

Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge

Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge is an expansion pack to Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 developed by Westwood Studios. The game was released in North America on October 10, 2001 by EA Games. The game is centered around the idea of a shadowy ex-Soviet figure named Yuri having established a secret army of his own and posing a threat to the free-will of the world.

Plot

In Command and Conquer: Yuri's Revenge, the true story starts off assuming the Allies won in Red Alert 2. The plot is based around Yuri, the former head of the Soviet Psychic Corps, coming out of hiding to take over the world by using his Psychic Dominators. These devices have the power to mind control everyone in the world.
 
The game begins with a presidential briefing in the White House concerning Yuri and how he has begun his take over of the world through mind control. Yuri interrupts the briefing to explain how he plans to take over the world, telling the American President Michael Dugan that he has a network of Psychic Dominators around the world, which he is now beginning to reveal. One of Yuri's Psychic Dominators is on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, which Yuri activates just before ending his transmission to the White House. The President immediately calls in an airstrike on the device, but all the attacking aircraft were shot down, although one crashes into the nuclear reactor on the island, causing the device to lose power and to not function. Despite this, Yuri activates his other Psychic Dominators around the world and the majority of the planet quickly succumbs to Yuri's mind-control.

Allies

The Allied story begins with the player being sent to San Francisco to protect Albert Einstein's Time Machine, which the Allies plan to use to go back in time and prevent Yuri’s Psychic Dominators from ever coming online. The player must capture power plants in the city to power up the Time machine. Once enough power plants have been captured, the player successfully goes back in time, but arrives at the time that Soviet forces are first invading San Francisco. The Soviets are caught by surprise by Allied reinforcements from the future and the Psychic Dominator under construction on Alcatraz island is destroyed.
 
The player is informed that Los Angeles has fallen under Yuri’s control, and Yuri is using his Grinders to slaughter the city's population for raw materials. The Grinders and the rest of Yuri’s forces in the city are destroyed, liberating Los Angeles. With this vital loss, Yuri is forced to look for a new source of income, and finds the chairman of the Massivesoft Corporation (parodies of Bill Gates and the Microsoft Corporation, respectively) in Seattle. After receiving a plea from the CEO, General Carville, who is still alive in this alternate timeline, orders the player to free the Massivesoft Corporation and its CEO and to destroy the nuclear missile silo that Yuri had constructed in the city. The nuclear missile silo is quickly destroyed and the Massivesoft Campus is freed. No longer being forced to fund Yuri’s war effort, the CEO of the Massivesoft Corporation makes a "healthy donation” to the Allied war effort as thanks.
 
In the midst of these great victories, Yuri has captured Professor Albert Einstein and is forcing him to work on the Psychic Dominator at a base near the Great Pyramid (called the "Large Pyramid" ingame) so it can come online sooner. The Commander quickly goes to Egypt and frees Einstein before destroying Yuri’s Psychic Dominator and base there. Now in a very desperate situation, Yuri plans to kidnap several world leaders and replace them with mindless clones loyal to Yuri. By orders from General Carville, the player goes to Sydney, Australia, where Yuri’s cloning facility is located, and promptly destroys Yuri’s cloning facility and the rest of his forces.
 
After a long war on two fronts the Soviets are defeated and Yuri's armies are now beginning to fall back. Wishing to bring the war against Yuri to a quick conclusion, the Allies and Soviets consider joining forces. The two superpowers schedule a meeting to ratify a treaty in a top secret location. While informing the player of this, Lieutenant Lee falls under Yuri’s mind-control and reveals the location, Parliament Building in London, England, to Yuri. With this critical information now known to the enemy, General Carville bluntly orders the Commander to go to London and defend the Parliament Building at all costs. With the Commander’s protection, the treaty is ratified and signed and Soviet forces soon join the battle, destroying Yuri's London base. Lieutenant Lee is about to resign because of her failure to resist Yuri's mind control, but is interrupted by Carville who reminds her that many world leaders have been controlled by Yuri as well.
 
The Allies locate Yuri's last Psychic Dominator on Antarctic Peninsula, and promptly send in forces to eliminate this threat. They begin the operation at Tierra del Fuego by taking over an abandoned Soviet base. With the radar facilities there, a small Allied force is teleported into Antarctica by Chronosphere. An Allied base is set up in Antarctica and Yuri’s base and remaining forces are destroyed.
 
With Yuri now defeated, he is locked away in a specially designed cell that Albert Einstein created, a Psychic Isolation Chamber, where he "won't be able to mind-control a fly". At that moment, the timelines of Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge begin to merge. As Professor Einstein explains, "One series of events must take precedence over the other." The alternate timeline becomes the new reality; General Carville is alive and Yuri's plans remain foiled.

Soviet

The Soviet story begins with the remnants of the Soviets discovering the Allied plan to go back in time. The opportunity to capture the Allied Time Machine, would allow the Soviet Union to regain its former power. A Soviet strike team goes into San Francisco and manages to capture the Allied Time machine, which unfortunately has insufficient power, so the player must capture four power plants in the city. Once enough power plants are under Soviet control, the player goes back in time, but due to the over efficiency of Soviet engineers the machine travels back in time too much, to the time of the dinosaurs. The player defends the Time Machine from attacking Tyrannosaurus Rexes until it recharges. Once the Time Machine is recharged, the player arrives at the time that Soviet forces are first invading San Francisco. The player quickly assumes command of the Soviet base in the city and then destroys Yuri's Psychic Dominator, while it is still under construction on Alcatraz Island.
 
With the successful time shift, the Soviet forces from the future take special papers back to Moscow to inform the Soviet leadership of how the Soviets lost the war and of the threat Yuri poses. Premier Alexander Romanov tells the Commander to go to the Black Forest in Germany and destroy Einstein’s laboratory and prototype Chronosphere, a device with that can transport troops anywhere in the world (At Red Alert 2, there is an Allied campaign that requires the player to defend the laboratory and Chronosphere from Soviet assault). The Commander promptly destroys this potential Allied threat before it can become a real problem, causing the Allies to retreat on all fronts.
 
Meanwhile, Soviet intelligence has discovered that Yuri has built a Psychic Beacon in London, England and, as a result, the Allied forces there now fight for Yuri. To stop this, the player goes to London and frees the Allies from Yuri’s mind-control. However Yuri has created a base and Psychic Dominator in London, but the player soon destroys Yuri’s forces in the area. The Soviets do not consider the Allied forces their allies, though the Allied forces do.
 
Soon after this victory, Premier Romanov’s plane is shot down over Casablanca, Morocco. The "Comrade General" is sent to the city to find and rescue Romanov before Yuri's forces do. Romanov is found and appears to be having a great time. He is transported to the only airport in the area after it is brought under Soviet control. With Romanov rescued, the Commander then proceeds to an uncharted island in the Pacific Ocean where Yuri has set up a submarine base. After landing on the island, the Commander destroys Yuri’s submarine base and all his remaining forces.
 
After the battle is over, it is revealed that Yuri also had a launch facility on the island, which still has a rocket ready for launch that is programmed to go to the Moon. The Soviets use this rocket to send forces with a limited amount of credits, led by the player, to the Moon where they destroy Yuri’s base, which he planned to go to after he was in control of the world. In this battle the forces the Commander can recruit are limited but compensated by the new Kosmonaut units.
 
Losing ground on all theatres of operation, Yuri takes refuge in a castle located in his ancestral home of Transylvania. Romanov orders the player to Yuri’s hideout and to "crush him beneath the stones". Once in Transylvania, it is discovered that Yuri has built two Psychic Beacons, used to control an Allied and a Soviet presence in the area. The player then sets up a base and launches a massive attack on Yuri’s forces. The castle is successfully destroyed and Yuri is assumed to have been defeated once and for all.
 
However, Yuri had survived the destruction of his castle in the dungeon. A special transmission from Yuri shows that he had stolen the Time Machine from San Francisco, to travel back in time so that "the world and all its history is Yuri’s to command and conquer". But this is thwarted by Lieutenant Zofia, who quickly changes the destination of the Time Machine to the early Cretaceous and depleting all the power reserves of the Time Machine. Yuri is stranded in time and is implied that he is eaten by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. With Yuri's destruction assured, the Soviets take complete control of the world and begin to expand communism into the far reaches of space.

Additions

The expansion presents two new campaigns, one for Allies and one for the Soviet Union, each 7 missions long. The missions feature some technical elements absent from Red Alert 2, for example time travel that makes certain missions take place on several different maps. A new faction introduced in Yuri's Revenge, Yuri, is present in both campaigns as the main antagonist and is playable in multiplayer mode.
 
Several new units have been added to the Allied and Soviet armies. Yuri's faction is composed of mostly new units and buildings, but also retains the former Soviet technologies of psychic technology and Cloning Vats. His units generally rely on unconventional tactical elements such as their characteristic mind-control.
 
The factions present in Red Alert 2 also receive new features. Allies gain the new anti-tank infantry Guardian GI, Robot Tanks that are immune to psychic attacks, and Battle Fortress tanks that can be used as mobile bunkers for infantry as well as crushing enemy vehicles. The Soviets receive a new defensive structure Battle Bunker that allows infantry to fortify inside, and a new commando unit, Boris, capable of defeating most ground units with his AK-47 and destroying buildings by calling airstrikes. Having lost their Cloning Vats and psychic units to Yuri, the Soviets now have access to a new building, Industrial Plant, that reduces the price and building time of land vehicles and ships. During the Moon mission, both Yuri and the Soviets can train Cosmonauts, a slightly modified version of the Allied Rocketeers.
 
Various special weapons were also added: Force fields that become available upon constructing the Battle lab make buildings on a small area temporarily invulnerable while cutting the entire power supply of the user. Soviets have access to Spy planes that can explore territory but may be intercepted. Yuri can use his Psychic radar to reveal territory, and has access to the superweapons Genetic mutator and Psychic dominator that are about as powerful as the Weather Control Device of the Allies and the Soviet Nuclear missiles.
 
The concept of "tech buildings" present in Red Alert 2 was expanded on in Yuri's Revenge. As in Red Alert 2, capturing tech buildings gives the player access to various bonuses, but new buildings were added and some of the old ones were modified to be more beneficial. New tech buildings include power plants, machine shops for automatic healing for vehicles and ships, and secret laboratories for unlocking weaponry otherwise not available to the player's faction.


Source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Yuri%27s_Revenge

[Sangeshkan_Cave]

Fleet Command

Fleet Command , previously labelled as Jane's Fleet Command, is a real-time tactics naval warfare simulation computer game released in 1999. It was developed by Sonalysts Inc. and published by Electronic Arts (EA). The game licensed parts of Jane's Information Group's military information database, which was used as an in-game "Jane's Library", reference material that the player could refer to while in-game. Jane's also licensed to EA the "Jane's" name and the "Jane's Combat Simulations" logo, and the game was marketed under the "Jane's" name, much like the previous "Jane's Fighters Anthology", also published by Electronic Arts. The game was also released in a three-game "Naval Combat Pack" along with 688(I) and F/A-18 Hornet.

Game play

In terms of game play, as a real-time tactics game it is a realistic military simulator and only involves resource management of weapons and the fuel of airborne aircraft. The scenario defines the units that a player has at the beginning of the scenario, and the player can never have more than what they started with until the scenario ends. Like other real-time tactics games, losses cannot be replaced, which emphasises the value of units and the judicious use of them (though some scenarios make it impossible to save a particular unit). The military realism is emphasised further by such means as using some authentic NTDS symbology on the 2D tactical planning map. Much of the game and mission events are presented in the form of full-motion video sequences.
 
Gameplay can be chosen from one of three different options. First is a series of preset missions that contain certain objectives. These missions contain specific goals that must be accomplished in order to be graded successfully. They vary in difficulty from one star to four with four stars being the most difficult. A second game play theme is to play one of four provided scenarios. These are generally "wars" verses "battles" that require the player to win each successive challenge before continuing. The last type of game play is using a feature called "mission editing," where a player can input their own configurations and force strength and objectives. Preset mission objectives and goals can be inputed into the editor and displayed to the player at various intervals throughout game play. Inputed objectives can be configured in such a way that they must be completed in predetermined orders for the overall mission to be successful. The programming skills necessary are quite basic and are a credit to the ingenuity of the software designers.
 
The "mission editor" feature is simple to use and relatively uncommon in other game play software. The feature enables players to interface directly with the software and provide a relatively limitless amount of possible combat scenarios.

Setting

The game is set in the late 1990s. The game focused exclusively on contemporary units. Units that were in service when the game was released were featured, and units that were out of service or not yet in service were not featured. The game reflects that some of the world's military forces are more advanced than others.

Realism

The game is basically a naval combat strategic training simulator. It covers the full spectrum of modern naval operations, including submarine warfare, surface warfare, naval aviation, and electronic warfare. Air Force, Marine Corps and Army units are also modelled in the game, although the Army units are generally static. Although the initial release focused mainly on the U.S. Military, it did include a wide variety of forces from nations around the world including the U.K., India, Russia, China, and others. The actual forces under a player's command can include units from several nations (a multi-national force), or it may be limited to a selection of forces from just the one nation's military Arsenal.
 
The game includes both aircraft carriers and land-based air bases. It maintains a level of realism in that aircraft that are limited to land-based operations in real life are similarly limited to land-based operations in the game. This prevents the player from having heavy bombers (like the B-52) taking off or landing from aircraft carriers, something that never happens in the real world. Moreover, only aircraft that are actually assigned to a particular class of aircraft carrier in real life are available on in-game carriers. This concept of realism in units carries through to the weaponry, ordinance, speed, accuracy, radar coverage, level of detection, and survivability of all of the units and weapons in the game. One feature that was deliberately kept out of the game was nuclear weapons.

Game dynamics

In a single-player game, the player starts by selecting a stand-alone scenario or a campaign scenario. Campaign scenarios are linked in that if the player successfully completes a scenario in the campaign, this unlocks the next scenario in that campaign for play. However, the game is limited in that it can only ever have the one campaign available to the player at any one time. In fact, the original version of the game only included one campaign (since then, several replacement campaigns have been made by FC and NWP-FC enthusiasts). A stand-alone scenario is not linked to other scenarios like the campaign scenarios are, although they may be related in terms of setting, theater-of-war, combatants, alliances, fictitious or historical conflicts, etc.
 
Once the player is in the scenario, a 2-D representation of the forces available is presented. This display also shows a representation of the sensor (radar, visual, sonar, etc.) ranges that any of his units have. Individual units are shown in a 3D rendering. If the player has selected the EMCOMS option, none of his units start the game with active sensors on; only passive sensors will be engaged. This can be an effective strategy for keeping the player's ships undetected, but it also blinds their GCI and leaves them "groping in the dark", so to speak. If the player has AWACS aircraft and/or fighter jets available, these are often the first units deployed; it is important to find the enemy before they find you.

Trivia

The United States Naval Academy had the game installed in computer labs and used it to introduce prospective students to the concepts of fleet level decision making during its Summer Seminar program.








Sonalysts Combat Simulations
http://www.sonalystscombatsims.com/

Source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane%27s_Fleet_Command

[Sangeshkan_Cave]

S.C.S. - Dangerous Waters

Features

S.C.S. - Dangerous Waters will be the first title of its kind, allowing you total control over multiple air, surface, and submarine platforms in a modern-day naval environment! The game allows you to focus your attention and to take direct control of individual crew stations and also plan and execute combined arms naval strategies from a top-down 'Commander's Eye' perspective.

 S.C.S. - Dangerous Waters allows you control of over 10 of the world's most potent naval units out of a total of more than 270 civilian and military surface, submarine, and air units included in the game.



Playable Surface Units (U.S. Guided Missile Frigate)
• Oliver Hazard Perry class FFG

Playable Air Units
• MH-60R Seahawk Multi-Mission Helicopter
• P-3C Orion ASW Maritime Patrol Aircraft

Playable Submarine Units (Russian Diesel Attack Subs)
•Improved Kilo class (Project 636)
•Kilo 'Paltus' class (Projects 877/877KM)

Playable Submarine Units (Chinese Diesel Attack Subs)
•Improved Kilo class (Project 636)
•Improved Kilo class (Project 636 Klub capable)
•Improved Kilo class (Project 877E)

Playable Submarine Units (Russian Nuclear Attack Subs)
•Improved Akula I class (Project 971U)
•Akula II class

Playable Submarine Units (U.S. Nuclear Attack Subs)
•Improved Los Angeles 688(I) class
• Seawolf class







INNOVATIVE 'AUTOCREW' ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
 By assigning certain crew stations to be manned by the "virtual crewmen" you can hand off various functions for the simulation to manage. This allows you to tailor the game's difficulty level to your liking and set the precise level of involvement and micro management that you desire. You can choose to man every single available crew station yourself, just a few select stations or relinquish control to the A.I. and let the 'autocrew' do the rest. Autocrew control is dynamic so you can enable or disable this feature at will for every crew station modeled in the game.

FULL VOICE COMMAND SUPPORT
 Dangerous Waters uses the Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine to allow you to order a vast array of commands using only your own voice. You can issue voice commands in every crew station and do tasks such as set course and speed, classify and designate target contacts, launch weapons and countermeasures and more.



"REAL WORLD" NAVAL UNITS
 Detailed depictions of each controllable units crew-stations and their respective arsenals provide a realistic game play experience. Over 270 meticulously researched and modeled surface, submarine and air units.



CUTTING-EDGE SENSOR MODELLING AND PHYSICS
 Authentic simulation of sensor performance both in the air and through the ocean environment challenge you to detect unknown enemies. Realistic depiction of flight characteristic, buoyancy, air resistance, weapons performance, sonar, radar, ESM, magnetic anomalies and gravity provide realistic control, maneuvering and combat in this richly detailed simulation.



SCALABLE 3D ENGINE AND EFFECTS
 Updated 3D graphics engine provides realistic depiction of ocean swells, water reflections, and environmental conditions using the latest vertex and pixel shader technologies.



WORLDWIDE DATABASE
 Extensive worldwide database provided by the U.S. Naval Institute offers detailed descriptions of platforms and weaponry to accommodate all possible global conflicts. Over 270 surface, submarine and air units comprising 17 of the world's navies can do battle for control of the open ocean.







Source
http://www.sonalystscombatsims.com/dangerous_waters/features.html

[Sangeshkan_Cave]

Hearts of Iron III

Hearts of Iron III is a grand strategy wargame developed and published by Paradox Interactive that is the sequel to the previous Hearts of Iron games. It was announced on August 20, 2008 and was released on August 7, 2009

Gameplay

Hearts of Iron III allows the player to take control of almost any nation that existed or even plausibly could have existed during the period of 1936–1948, guiding it through World War II. A variety of decisions regarding the armed forces, production, research, diplomacy, politics and espionage is the focus of the game.
 
The game centres around three factions: the Axis (Germany and its allies), the Allies (Britain and the Commonwealth, as well as France), and the Comintern (the Soviet Union and its allies). All other nations can slowly align with one of the factions. Nations are more likely to side with those with similar ideology.
 
Resources found in the game include: energy, metal, rare materials, and oil. The first three are required for industrial production, while oil is converted to fuel for vehicles, planes and ships.
 
The scope of military organisation ranges from brigades to entire theatres of operation.

Expansions

On 6 June 2010, an expansion called Hearts of Iron III: Semper Fi was released. It is only available as a download.
 
The Mac OS X version of the Semper Fi expansion pack shipped from Virtual Programming on July 23, 2010.
 
A second expansion named Hearts of Iron III: For the Motherland was announced on 27 January 2011 and released on June 28th 2011.
 
The Mac OS X version of the Hearts of Iron III: For the Motherland expansion pack shipped from Virtual Programming on September 28, 2011.
 
On the 22th of November 2011, Paradox Interactive released the Hearts of Iron III Collection, which include both expansions for Hearts Of Iron III and all previously released sprite packs.















Official website
http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/hearts-of-iron-iii

Source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HoI3

[Sangeshkan_Cave]

Glorious Mission 光荣使命

Chinese videogame targets US troops

It is a first-person shooter just like the famous “Call of Duty”, but “Glorious Mission” is quite different – the enemy is American troops.

The game is designed by Giant Network Technology and supported by China’s People's Liberation Army. It highly resembles other first-person shooter games. Players engage in basic training, conducts mission and carries out orders.

Unlike most games however the enemy is not Russian, Middle Eastern, South American or Asian – It’s American; clips from the videogame show players shooting down US aircraft, killing US troops and targeting all that is American military might.

Ironically, the Chinese game is modeled after the US Army developed first-person shooter game “America’s Army”.

PLA finishes developing its first military game

Recently, an office from China's Nanjing Military Region has finished developing a military game named Glorious Mission, which has China-owned property rights, jointly with Giant Interactive Group, Inc. (Wuxi).

Military games have been developed for years. They have formed a system and been put into use in education as well as training in some foreign armies. However, China's own development of military games is still in the primary steps.

Although some foreign military games have been used in some Chinese armies' daily training, they may not suit Chinese soldiers and even mislead them due to the different concepts of values and military thoughts.

The finished Glorious Mission with completely-independent China-owned property rights is not only full of Chinese characteristics but also brings China up to speed on military game development.

The Glorious Mission is set from a soldier's perspective and his barrack life. The game follows along as the soldier keeps promoting himself in training and finally qualifies to join a large-scale military exercise codenamed "Glorious Mission" and how he does in the military exercise.

The departments that invented the game are promoting the current game and looking forward to integrating more informationized and systematic concepts into it. And the promoted game software will be tried in some chosen armies.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7379712.html

Game Development: Nanjing Military Region and Giant Technology Co., Ltd.
 
Game Release: Giant Network (presumably)
 
Genre: FPS (First Person Shooter)
 
Platform: PC
 
Game Language: Simplified Chinese
 
Release Date: June 13, 2011

http://wareye.com/plas-first-online-game-glorious-mission-pictures


















http://china-defense.blogspot.com/2011/05/glorious-mission-first-pla-made-first.html

[Nonbarbari]

This thread needs Aryana..

[IronHorse110]

Metal Gear Solid 4: guns of the patriots



Best game ever made

..... and the saga continues



The reason this gaming series is the best series ever;

The game's original director, Mineshi Kimura, stated that Rising would carry on the series tradition of encouraging players to progress through the game without killing, noting that there is a moral difference between attacking cyborgs or robots and attacking human beings, and that there's a "certain virtue to simply disabling your enemies instead of killing them."[11] While it was considered important to give the players freedom to do what they want, the game's original producer Shigenobu Matsuyama, indicated that players would never be rewarded for killing human opponents, and that the game would be designed so that players would never be forced to do so.

Wikipedia

[ZamZam]

video i made of project C.A.R.S

C.A.R.S Build 154 Formula A (f1)

C.A.R.S Build 154 - Spa

[Sangeshkan_Cave]

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC) is the critically acclaimed science fiction 4X turn-based strategy video game sequel to the Civilization series. Sid Meier, designer of Civilization, and Brian Reynolds, designer of Civilization II, developed Alpha Centauri after they left MicroProse to join the newly created developer Firaxis Games. Electronic Arts released both SMAC and its expansion, Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire (SMAX), in 1999. In the following year, Aspyr Media and Loki Software ported both titles over to Mac OS and Linux.
 
Set in the 22nd century, the game begins as seven competing ideological factions land on the planet Chiron ("Planet") in the Alpha Centauri star system. As the game progresses, Planet's growing sentience becomes a formidable obstacle to the human colonists. Alpha Centauri features improvements on Civilization II's game engine, including simultaneous multiplay, social engineering, climate, customizable units, alien native life, additional diplomatic and spy options, additional ways to win, and greater mod-ability . Alien Crossfire introduces five new human and two non-human factions as well as additional technologies, facilities, secret projects, native life, unit abilities and a victory condition.
 
The game received wide critical acclaim, being compared favorably to Civilization II. Critics praised its science fiction storyline (comparing the plot to works by Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov), the in-game writing, the voice acting, the user-created custom units, and the depth of the technology tree. SMAC also won several awards for best game of the year and best strategy game of the year. However, despite the good reception, the game had the lowest sales of the Civilization series.

Synopsis

Setting

Space-race victories in the Civilization series conclude with a journey to Alpha Centauri. Beginning with that premise the SMAC narrative starts in the 22nd century, after the United Nations sends a "Unity" colonization mission to Alpha Centauri's planet Chiron ("Planet").[1] Advanced aliens had conducted an experiment in planetary-level sentience on Chiron, leaving behind monoliths and artifacts.[2] Immediately prior to the start of the game, a reactor malfunction on the Unity spacecraft wakes the crew and colonists early and irreparably severs communications with Earth.[3] After the captain is assassinated, the most powerful leaders on board build ideological factions with dedicated followers, conflicting agendas for the future of mankind, and "desperately serious" commitments.[3][4] As the ship breaks up, seven escape pods, each containing a faction, are scattered across Planet.[5] In the SMAX expansion pack, it is learned that the alien experiment had disastrous consequences, creating a hundred-million-year evolutionary cycle ending with the death of most animal life.[6] After the disaster, the aliens split into two factions: Manifold Caretakers, opposed to further experimentation, and Manifold Usurpers, favoring further experimentation. In SMAX, these factions compete along with the human factions for control over the destiny of Planet.

Characters

The game focuses on the leaders of seven factions, chosen by the player from the 14 possible leaders in SMAC and SMAX, and Planet (voiced by Alena Kanka).[7] The characters are developed from the faction leaders' portraits, the spoken monologues accompanying scientific discoveries and the "photographs in the corner of a commlink – home towns, first steps, first loves, family, graduation, spacewalk."[8] The leaders in SMAC comprise: Lady Deirdre Skye (voiced by Carolyn Dahl) of Gaia's Stepdaughters, Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang (voiced by Lu Yu) of the Human Hive, Academician Prokhor Zakharov (voice by Yuri Nesteroff) of the University of Planet, CEO Nwabudike Morgan (voiced by Regi Davis) of Morgan Industries, Colonel Corazon Santiago (voiced by Wanda Nino) of the Spartan Federation, Sister Miriam Godwinson (voiced by Gretchen Weigel) of the Lord's Believers, and Commissioner Pravin Lal (voiced by Hesh Gordon) of the Peacekeeping Forces.[7][9] The seven additional faction leaders in SMAX are Prime Function Aki Zeta-Five (voiced by Allie Rivenbark) of The Cybernetic Consciousness, Captain Ulrik Svensgaard (voiced by James Liebman) of The Nautilus Pirates, Foreman Domai (voiced by Frederick Serafin) of The Free Drones, Datajack Sinder Roze (voiced by Christine Melton) of The Data Angels, Prophet Cha Dawn (voiced by Stacy Spenser) of The Cult of Planet, Guardian Lular H'minee (voiced by Jeff Gordon) of The Manifold Caretakers, and Conqueror Judaa Maar (voiced by Jeff Gordon) of The Manifold Usurpers.[10][11][12]
 
The player controls one of the leaders and competes against the others to colonize and conquer Planet.[4] The Datalinks (voiced by Robert Levy and Katherine Ferguson) are minor characters who provide information to the player.[7][13] Each faction excels at one or two important aspects of the game and follows a distinct philosophical belief, such as technological utopianism, environmentalism, capitalism, militarism, anti-authoritarianism, piracy, classic liberalism, or the Gaia philosophy.[10][14] The game takes place on the last "character", Planet, with its "rolling red ochre plains", and "bands of lonely terraformed green".[15]

Plot

The story unfolds via the introduction video, explanations of new technologies, videos obtained for completing secret projects, interludes, and cut-scenes.[16] The native life consists primarily of simple wormlike aliens and a type of red fungus.[10] The fungus is difficult to traverse, provides invisibility for the enemy, provides few resources, and spawns "mindworms" that attack bases and units with a neural attack.[17] Mindworms can be captured or bred in captivity and used as weapons,[18] and the player eventually discovers that the fungus and mindworms can think collectively.[18] Soon the player dreams of a voice.[19] This voice later intrudes into waking moments, threatening more attacks if the pollution and corruption caused by humans goes unchecked.[17][20] The player discovers that Planet is a semi-dormant sentient hive organism that will soon experience a metamorphosis which will destroy all human life.[21][22] To counter this threat, the player or a computer faction builds "The Voice of Alpha Centauri" secret project, which delays the metamorphosis and increases the intelligence of the hive organism.[23][24][25] Finally, the player or the computer embraces the "Ascent to Transcendence" in which humans join the hive organism in "godhood".[26] Thus, Alpha Centauri closes "with a swell of hope and wonder in place of the expected triumphalism", reassuring "that the events of the game weren’t the entirety of mankind’s future, but just another step."[15]

Gameplay

SMAC, a turn-based strategy game with a science fiction setting, is played from a third-person, isometric perspective. Many game features from Civilization II are present, but renamed or slightly tweaked: players establish bases (Civilization II's cities), build facilities (buildings) and secret projects (Wonders of the World), explore territory, research technology, and conquer other factions (civilizations).[16][5][27][28] In addition to conquering all non-allied factions, players may also win by obtaining votes from three quarters of the total population (similar to Civilization IV's Dominance victory), "cornering the Global Energy Market", completing the Ascent to Transcendence secret project, or for alien factions, constructing six Subspace Generators.[16][29][30][31]
 
The main map (the upper two thirds of the screen) is divided into squares, on which players can establish bases, move units and engage in combat. Through terraforming, players may modify the effects of the individual map squares on movement, combat and resources. Resources are used to feed the population, construct units and facilities, and supply energy. Players can allocate energy between research into new technology and energy reserves. Unlike Civilization II, new technology grants access to additional unit components rather than pre-designed units, allowing players to design and re-design units as their factions' priorities shift.[8][32] Energy reserves allow the player to upgrade units, maintain facilities, and attempt to win by the Global Energy Market scenario. Bases are military strongpoints and objectives that are vital for all winning strategies. They produce military units, house the population, collect energy, and build secret projects and Subspace Generators. Facilities and secret projects improve the performance of individual bases and of the entire faction.
 
In addition to terraforming, optimizing individual base performance and building secret projects, players may also benefit their factions through social engineering, probe teams, and diplomacy. Social engineering modifies the ideologically based bonuses and penalties forced by the player's choice of faction.[5][8][10][14][33] Probe teams can sabotage and steal information, units, technology, and energy from enemy bases, while diplomacy lets the player create coalitions with other factions. It also allows the trade or transfer of units, bases, technology and energy. The Planetary Council, similar to the United Nations Security Council, takes Planet-wide actions and determines population victories.[34]
 
In addition to futuristic technological advances and secret projects, the game includes alien life, structures and machines.[16] "Xenofungus" and "sea fungus" provide movement, combat, and resource penalties, as well as concealment for "mind worms" and "spore launchers."[21] Immobile "fungal towers" spawn native life. Native life, including the seaborne "Isles of the Deep" and "Sealurks" and airborne "Locusts of Chiron", use psionic combat, an alternate form of combat which ignores weapons and armor.[21] Monoliths repair units and provide resources; artifacts yield new technology and hasten secret projects; landmarks provide resource bonuses; and random events add danger and opportunity. Excessive development leads to terraforming-destroying fungus blooms and new native life.
 
SMAC provides a single player mode and supports customization and multiplayer. Players may customize the game by choosing options at the beginning of the game, using the built-in scenario and map editors, and modifying SMAC's game files. In addition to a choice of seven (or 14 in SMAX) factions, pre-game options include scenario game, customized random map, difficulty level, and game rules that include victory conditions, research control, and initial map knowledge. The scenario and map editors allow players to create customized scenarios and maps.[35] The game's basic rules, diplomatic dialog, and the factions' starting abilities are in text files, which "the designers have done their best to make it reasonably easy to modify..., even for non-programmers."[36][37] SMAC supports play by email ("PBEM") and TCP/IP mode featuring simultaneous movement, and introduces direct player-to-player negotiation, allowing the unconstrained trade of technology, energy, maps, and other elements.[38]

Development history

Inspirations

In 1996, MicroProse released the lauded Civilization II, designed by Brian Reynolds.[39][40] However, the firm's management had changed and moved to California by the time the game shipped,[41] and disagreements between the new management and its employees prompted Reynolds, Jeff Briggs, and Sid Meier (designer of the original Civilization) to leave MicroProse and found Firaxis.[39][41][42] Although unable to utilize the same IP as Civilization II, the new company felt that players wanted "a new sweeping epic of a turn-based game". Having just completed a game of human history up to the present, they wanted a fresh topic and chose science fiction.[43] With no previous experience in science fiction games, the developers believed future history was a fitting first foray.[44] For the elements of exploring and terraforming an alien world, they chose a plausible near future situation of a human mission to colonize the solar system's nearest neighbor and human factions.[45] Reynolds researched science fiction for the game's writing.[41] His inspiration included "classic works of science fiction", including Frank Herbert's The Jesus Incident, A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge, and The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle for alien races; Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, Slant by Greg Bear, and Stephen R. Donaldson's The Real Story for future technology and science; and Dune by Herbert and Bear's Anvil of Stars for negative interactions between humans.[46][47]
 
SMAC set out to capture the whole sweep of humanity's future, including technology, futuristic warfare, social and economic development, the future of the human condition, spirituality, and philosophy.[43] Reynolds also said that "getting philosophy into the game" was one of the attractions of the game.[41] Believing good science fiction thrives on constraint, the developers began with near-future technologies. As they proceeded into the future, they tried to present a coherent, logical, and detailed picture of future developments in physics, biology, information technology, economics, society, government, and philosophy.[44] Alien ecologies and mysterious intelligences were incorporated into SMAC as external "natural forces" intended to serve as flywheels for the backstory and a catalyst for many player intelligences.[45] Chris Pine, creator of the in-game map of Planet, strove to make Planet look like a real planet, which resulted in evidence of tectonic action. Another concern was that Planet matched the story, which resulted in the fungus being connected across continents, as it is supposed to be a gigantic neural network.[48]
 
Terraforming is a natural outgrowth of colonizing an alien world.[49] The first playable prototype was just a map generator that tested climate changes during the game.[41] This required the designers to create a world builder program and climatic model far more powerful than anything they'd done before. Temperature, wind, and rainfall patterns were modeled in ways that allow players to make changes: for example, creating a ridge-line and then watching the effects. In addition to raising terrain, the player can also divert rivers, dig huge boreholes into the planet's mantle, and melt ice caps.[49]
 
In addition to scientific advances, the designers speculated on the future development of human society.[50] The designers allow the player to decide on a whole series of value choices and choose a "ruthless," "moderate," or "idealistic" stance. Reynolds said the designers don't promote a single "right" answer, instead giving each value choice positive and negative consequences. This design was intended to force the player to "think" and make the game "addictive."[50] He also commented that Alpha Centauri's fictional nature allowed them to draw their characters "a lot more sharply and distinctly than the natural blurring and greyness of history."[41]

Alpha Centauri

In July 1996, Firaxis began work on SMAC,[51][52] with Reynolds heading the project.[41] Meier and Reynolds wrote playable prototype code and Jason Coleman wrote the first lines of the development libraries.[41][52][53] Because the development of Gettysburg took up most of Firaxis' time, the designers spent the first year prototyping the basic ideas.[45] By late 1996, the developers were playing games on the prototype, and by the middle of the next year, they were working on a multiplayer engine.[45] Reynolds' previous games omitted internet support because he believe that complex turn-based games with many player options and opportunities for player input are difficult to facilitate online.[54] Although Firaxis intended to include multiplayer support in its games, an important goal was to create games with depth and longevity in single-player mode because they believed that the majority of players spend most of their time playing this way. Reynolds felt that smart computer opponents are an integral part of a classic computer game, and considered it a challenge to make them so.[55] He also said that the most important principle of game design is for the designer to play the game as it is developed;[41] Reynolds claimed that this was how a good artificial intelligence (AI) was built. To this end, he would track the decisions he made and why he made them as he played the game.[55] The designer also watched what the computer players did, noting "dumb" actions and trying to discover why the computer made them.[55][56] Reynolds then taught the computer his reasoning process so the AI could find the right choice when presented several attractive possibilities.[55][56] He said the AI for diplomatic personalities was the best he had done up to that point.[41]
 
Doug Kaufman, a co-designer of Civilization II, was invited to join development as a game balancer.[41][45] Reynolds cited the SMAC's balance for the greater sense of urgency and the more pressing pacing than in his earlier game, Sid Meier's Colonization.[41] According to producer Timothy Train, in designing the strengths and weaknesses of the factions, the goal was to suggest, without requiring, certain strategies and give the player interesting and fun things to do without unbalancing the game.[33] He didn't want a faction to be dependent on its strength or a faction's power to be dominant over the rest.[14] Train felt that fun meant the factions always have something fun to do with their attributes.[57] Around the summer of 1997, the staff began research on the scientific realities involved in interstellar travel.[45] In late 1997, Bing Gordon—then Chief Creative Officer of Electronic Arts—joined the team, and was responsible for the Planetary Council, extensive diplomacy, and landmarks.[41][58] A few months before the 1998 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the team incorporated the Explore/Discover/Build/Conquer marketing campaign into the game.[58] The game was announced in May 1998 at E3.
 
In the latter half of 1998, the team produced a polished and integrated interface, wrote the game manual and foreign language translations, painted the faction leader portraits and terrain, built the 3D vehicles and vehicle parts, and created the music.[59] Michael Ely directed the Secret Project movies and casted the faction leaders.[60] 25 volunteers participated in Firaxis' first public beta test.[61] The beta testers suggested the Diplomatic and Economic victories and the Random Events.[61]

The design team started with a very simple playable game.[62] They strengthen the "fun" aspects and fixed or removed the unenjoyable ones, a process Sid Meier called "surrounding the fun."[62] After the revision, they played it again, repeating the cycle of revision and play.[62] Playing the game repeatedly and in-depth was a rule at Firaxis.[57] In the single-player mode, the team tried extreme strategies to find any sure-fire paths to victory and to see how often a particular computer faction ends up at the bottom.[57] The goal was a product of unprecedented depth, scope, longevity, and addictiveness, where the player is always challenged by the game to come up with new strategies with no all-powerful factions or unstoppable tactics.[57] According to Reynolds, the process has been around since Sid Meier's early days at Microprose.[62] At Firaxis, as iterations continue, they expand the group giving feedback, bringing in outside gamers with fresh perspectives.[63] Alpha Centauri was the first game with public beta testers.[63]
 
Finally, Brian Reynolds discussed the use of the demo in the development process.[63] Originally a marketing tool released prior to the game, they started getting feedback.[64] They were able to incorporate many suggestions into the retail version.[64] According to Brian Reynolds, they made improvement in the game's interface, added a couple of new features and fixed a few glitches.[64] They also improved some rules, fine-tuned the game balance and improved the AI.[64] Finally, he adds that they continued to add patches to enhance the game after the game was released.[64] In the months leading to the release of SMAC, multimedia producer Michael Ely wrote the 35 weekly episodes of Journey to Centauri detailing the splintering of the U.N. mission to Alpha Centauri.[65]

Alien Crossfire

A month after SMAC's February 1999 release, the Firaxis team began work on the expansion pack, Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire (SMAX).[51][66][67] Alien Crossfire features seven new factions (two that are non-human), new technologies, new facilities, new secret projects, new alien life forms, new unit special abilities, new victory conditions (including the new "Progenitor Victory") and several additional concepts and strategies.[51] The development team included Train as producer and designer, Chris Pine as programmer, Jerome Atherholt and Greg Foertsch as artists, and Doug Kaufman as co-designer and game balancer.[41][68] The team considered several ideas, including a return to a post-apocalyptic earth and the conquest of another planet in the Alpha Centauri system, before deciding to keep the new title on Planet. The premise allowed them to mix and match old and new characters and delve into the mysteries of the monoliths and alien artifacts.[67] The backstory evolved quickly, and the main conflict centered on the return of the original alien inhabitants.[68] The idea of humans inadvertently caught up in an off-world civil war focused the story.[68]
 
Train wanted to improve the "build" aspects, feeling that the god-game genre had always been heavily slanted towards the "Conquer" end of the spectrum.[68] He wanted to provide "builders" with the tools to construct an empire in the face of heated competition.[68] The internet community provided "invaluable" feedback.[68] The first "call for features" was posted around April 1999 and produced the Fletchette Defense System, Algorithmic Enhancement, and The Nethack Terminus.[68] The team had several goals: factions should not be "locked-in" to certain strategies; players should have interesting things to do without unbalancing the game, and the factions must be fun to play.[69] The team believed the "coolness" of the Progenitor aliens would determine the success or failure of SMAX.[70] They strove to make them feel significantly different to play, but still compatible with the existing game mechanics.[70] The developers eventually provided the aliens with Battle Ogres, a Planetary survey, non-blind research, and other powers to produce "a nasty and potent race that would take the combined might of humanity to bring them down."[70] Chris Pine modified the AI to account for the additions.[41] The team also used artwork, sound effects, music, and diplomatic text to set the aliens apart.[70] Other than the aliens, the Pirates proved to be the toughest faction to balance because their ocean start gave them huge advantages.[71]
 
Upon completion, the team felt that SMAX was somewhere between an expansion and a full-blown sequel.[71] In the months leading to the release of SMAX, multimedia producer Michael Ely wrote the 9 episodes of Centauri: Arrival, introducing the SMAX factions.[65] The game initially had a single production run. Electronic Arts bundled Alpha Centauri and Alien Crossfire in the Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack in 2000 and included both games in The Laptop Collection in 2003.[72][73] In 2000, both SMAC and SMAX were ported to Mac OS by Aspyr Media and to Linux by Loki Software.[16][74][75]

Legacy

After the release of the expansion, multimedia producer Michael Ely wrote a trilogy of novels based on the game. Illustrator Rafael Kayanan also wrote a graphic novel entitled Alpha Centauri: Power of the Mindworms.[65]
 
While not a direct sequel of Civilization II, Alpha Centauri is considered a spiritual successor because it shares the same general principles and was made by many of the original developers. There have been no sequels beyond SMAX, something that writer Greg Tito attributed to Reynolds leaving Firaxis in 2000 to form Big Huge Games.[17] SMAX producer and lead designer Timothy Train also left Firaxis with Reynolds.[97]
 
Many of the features introduced in SMAC were carried over into subsequent Civilization titles.[17] For example, each civilization's characteristics in Civilization III are reminiscent of faction bonuses and penalties,[17] the government system in Civilization IV closely resembles Alpha Centauri's,[17] and Civilization V includes a new win condition: the completion of the Utopia project, which is reminiscent of the Ascent to Transcendence secret project.[98]
 
Upon its release, Civilization III was compared negatively to Alpha Centauri,[99] while Edge magazine noted that Alpha Centauri remained "highly regarded" in 2006.[15] Steve Jackson Games published GURPS Alpha Centauri, a sourcebook for the GURPS role-playing game set in the Alpha Centauri universe.[100] On May 7, 2010, Brendan Casey released an unofficial patch, which fixes bugs in Alpha Centauri.[101] His project began in February 2009 at Apolyton's Alpha Centauri site[102] and moved in June 2009 to the Civilization Gaming Network,[103] where he plans to continue developing further patch versions.[104] Sold-Out Software also re-released the game.[105]





Source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_Centauri

[Sangeshkan_Cave]

Europa Universalis III

Europa Universalis III is a grand strategy computer game by Paradox Interactive. The main game was released for Windows on January 2007, and was later ported to Mac OS X by Virtual Programming on 2 November 2007.[1]
 
The player controls a nation and handles matters concerning war, diplomacy, trade, and economy. The original game without expansions starts in 1453, right after the Fall of Constantinople, and continues to 1789, just past the beginning of the French Revolution. The expansion Napoleon's Ambition extends the end game year forward to 1821, whereas the expansion In Nomine moves the starting year back to 1399.
 
Europa Universalis III has a 3D engine that requires the system to meet the Pixel Shader 2.0 specification. The map has 1,700 land and sea provinces encompassing most of the world, with 250 playable historical nations. The game also uses elements of other Paradox games such as Crusader Kings, Victoria, and Hearts of Iron II.

Gameplay

Players begin the game by choosing what date they would like to start their campaign and what country they would like to play as. Once in game, players can shape their countries in many different ways. Forms of government include various kingdoms, republics, theocracies, and tribal governments. Players can influence a nation's society and values by adjusting "sliders" such as free trade/mercantilism, and may hire court advisors such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As the game advances, players can pick "national ideas" such as Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, which give specialized bonuses.
 
The game has over 300 playable countries, including giants like Ming China, regional powers like Bohemia and Kazan, and tiny nations like the Maldives. Without formal victory conditions, players sometimes set goals for themselves like raising a minor city-state to world prominence. The world map includes some 1,700 provinces and sea zones. Many provinces in the Americas, Africa, and Oceania are not owned by any country, allowing for colonization.
 
Economics in the early modern era is simulated by taxes and production income from provinces, as well as trade. National merchants compete in "centers of trade" such as Venice and Lübeck, and nations focused on trading income (e.g., Holland) enjoy significant advantages. Nations which mint too much currency, or are over-reliant on gold mining, are penalized by inflation. Technology investment is important in the long run; the game does not use a Civ-style tech tree, but instead has several different technology categories, which unlock new military units and buildings.
 
Diplomacy is rather detailed: royal marriages, insults, alliances, trade embargoes, and so on all affect relations between countries. Players are able to gain control over other countries peacefully through personal unions and vassalage. Early international institutions such as the Holy Roman Empire, the Papal Curia and with the Divine Wind expansion the Shogunate are simulated in some depth. Every country has its own culture and religion, a frequent source of diplomatic unity or friction.
 
Rulers have control over armies, navies, and mercenaries they recruit. Combat is abstract, with no direct control over battles (contrast the Total War games). Military tradition is necessary for recruiting good generals and admirals. Aggression (seizing provinces without a rightful claim) is checked by the "badboy" system of international infamy common to Paradox's games.
 
The game is historically detailed; one can play the "grand campaign" starting in 1453 or 1399, but any date before the French Revolution (1821 with the Napoleon's Ambition expansion) is a valid starting point as well, with historical leaders and countries appropriately updated. Major events such as the War of the League of Cambrai are playable this way. Often the game diverges from reality after some time in-game, with unhistorical events such as Portugal colonizing North America, or Poland-Lithuania surviving to bully its neighbors.
 
The game may be played single-player or multiplayer, with players controlling different countries; every non-human country is controlled by its own AI.
 
Most of the game's settings are in plain text files that are easily changed to modify the map, historical events, etc. Some popular mods extensively change the game, adding historical flavor, fantasy scenarios, or new game mechanics. One such mod, Magna Mundi is now in development as a full game published by Paradox Interactive. [2]

Expansion packs

Paradox has released 4 expansion packs for EU3; each one requires all the previous expansions. One version of the game, Europa Universalis III Complete, includes the original game and the first two expansions. Another version, Europa Universalis III Chronicles, includes the original game and all four expansions.

Napoleon's Ambition

On 3 May 2007, an expansion named Napoleon's Ambition was announced by Paradox. It was officially released on 22 August 2007 via GamersGate, a digital distribution platform. The Windows version of the expansion is available as a download from GamersGate or as part of the Europa Universalis III Complete retail package, and aims to expand on EUIII with an improved interface, an enhanced trade system, expanded options, and the inclusion of more content to cover the extended time period.[3] Virtual Programming published the Napoleon's Ambition expansion pack for Mac OS X on 7 December 2007.[4]
 
Some of the features of Napoleon's Ambition include:
• The timeline has been expanded by 29 years from 1793 to 1822, encompassing the French Revolution and Napoleon.
• New leaders, rulers, advisors, countries, government types, and national ideas have been added as well as dozens of new units to give more tactical choices.
• In addition to hundreds of new events, players will now be able to see their rulers, leaders, and advisors appear on historically accurate dates.
• A ledger has been added displaying information on colonies and leaders, and a detailed trade map for each province has been added.
• The new option to move capitals enables the player to focus more on certain areas of his nation. Also, centres of trade can now be added or removed.
• Players are now able to automatically send merchants to centres of trade. Also, players must now engage in diplomacy or war to send merchants to certain overseas markets.
• More options have been added, enabling customisation of gameplay. Players now have options for "No Inflation", "Free Colonization", "AI Aggressiveness" and many more.

In Nomine

On 5 March 2008, a second expansion titled In Nomine was announced. It was officially released on 28 May that same year. Features include: a further extension of the game's time frame, the addition of the Byzantine Empire, a revised AI which focuses on strategic top-level goals, and completely reworked rebels with their own goals and abilities. Virtual Programming published the In Nomine expansion for Mac OS X on 18 August 2008.[5] The game now starts earlier, beginning in October 1399 after the coronation of Henry IV of England. Because the game's time frame has been extended by 54 years, it now includes nations such as the Byzantine Empire and the Jalayirids, leaders like Tamerlane, and events such as the end of the Hundred Years' War.
 
A key variation of the expansion is the ability for the player to make important decisions that will shape the future of their country. For instance, a player can choose to create the United Kingdom, make Paris "worth a Mass", or institute an East Indian Trade Company. They can now implement decisions on both country and province level with the new decision system, including hundreds of different decisions depending on situation (for example, the current state religion) and country.
 
There is a new mission system, where the player and AI will both be given goals to achieve, such as conquering Ireland (for England), vassalising Lorraine (for France), liberating your countrymen, or reclaiming stolen territory.
 
In Nomine also features 'rebels with a cause'. There are countless types of rebels (Religious, Patriotic, Peasant...), with different goals and different abilities. For example, if patriotic rebels take control of a province, that province will suffer from 10 more years of nationalism and is more likely to defect. Other rebels include colonial rebels in your colonies determined to get representation or independence and reactionary nobles rising up to put the serfs back in their place. You can now choose between crushing rebels using military force, negotiating with them, or leaving them and watching them enforce their demands on your country.
 
Religious tolerance now depends on the ideas and decisions you take rather than slider positions, creating a new layer of strategy despite the low number of choices. Cardinals now stay loyal longer and the power of the Papal Controller has grown. The Papal Controller can now excommunicate rulers and call crusades against infidels, giving bonuses for any Catholic nation fighting them.
 
In Nomine also features a colonial system that utilizes the distance between where you want to colonize and your nearest core port. Elections in Republics, the option of scorched earth, and new spy missions are also featured.
 
Both Napoleon's Ambition and In Nomine are included in Europa Universalis III Complete.

Heir to the Throne

On 19 August 2009, a third expansion titled Heir to the Throne was announced. It was released for Windows on 15 December 2009 and includes many features requested by members of the forum. As the title suggests, it is focused mostly on royal family dynamics. Virtual Programming published the Mac OS X expansion on 24 May 2010.[6]
 
Some of the features of Heir to the Throne include:
• New Casus Belli system, where wars have specific aims from start to finish.
• Monarchs now belong to dynasties, with far-reaching effects on the diplomatic model.
• More involving and powerful Holy Roman Empire and Papacy options.
• Special diplomatic options for Merchant Republics.
• Set your National Focus in a province to enhance growth and strengthen your hold in the region.
• Permanent Terra Incognita removed and replaced with impassable regions.
• Cultural Tradition allows better advisors in the same way that Military Tradition allows better generals and admirals.
• Place a weaker nation under your Sphere of Influence to get a Casus Belli on any nation that interacts with it.
• Use Magistrates to enable certain decisions and Imperial Reforms.

Divine Wind

On May 27, 2010, a poll was created on the Paradox forums by a developer in which users could vote for a new expansion. Options included expansions to Europa Universalis III, Europa Universalis: Rome, Hearts of Iron 3 and Victoria. With 46% of the votes, the poll was won in favour of a Europa Universalis III expansion which is to focus on the rest of the world. On 9 September, Divine Wind expansion was announced. It requires Europa Universalis III Complete and the expansion Heir to the Throne in order to play.[7] On November 30, the expansion became available for pre-order and was released on December 14, 2010.[8]
 
Divine Wind was published for Mac OS X by Virtual Programming on March 16, 2011.[9]
 
Some of the features in Divine Wind include:
• New detailed map with more provinces and enhanced graphics.
• The ability to play as any one of the four major daimyos in Japan for influence over the Emperor and control over the Shogunate.
• The ability to manage the internal factions in China to keep the Mandate of Heaven.
• Enhanced diplomacy, with more options for alliances and peace negotiations.
• New features for Spheres of Influences, vassals, and the Holy Roman Empire.
• New culture-specific building types that allow greater control over the development of provinces.
• Enhanced trading system.
• New horde system for nomadic factions.
• 50 achievements for the player to unlock.





Source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Universalis_III

[Sangeshkan_Cave]

Civilization V

Sid Meier's Civilization V (also known as Civilization 5 or Civ 5) is a turn-based strategy, 4X computer game developed by Firaxis, released on Microsoft Windows in September 2010[4] and on Mac OS X on November 23, 2010.[5] It is the latest game in the Civilization series.
 
In Civilization V, the player leads a civilization from prehistoric times into the future on a procedurally-generated map, achieving one of a number of different victory conditions through research, diplomacy, expansion, economic development, government and military conquest. The game is based on an entirely new game engine with hexagonal tiles instead of the square tiles of earlier games in the series.[9] Many elements from Civilization IV and its expansion packs have been removed or changed, such as religion and espionage. The combat system has been overhauled, removing stacking of military units and enabling cities to defend themselves by firing directly on nearby enemies.[10] In addition, the maps contain computer-controlled city-states as non-player characters that are available for trade, diplomacy and conquest. A civilization's borders also expand one tile at a time, favoring more productive tiles,[11] and roads now have a maintenance cost, making them much less common.[12]
 
The game features community, modding, and multiplayer elements.[9]
 
An expansion pack, Civilization V: Gods & Kings, has been announced for a late Spring 2012 release and will include such past features as religions and espionage as well as 9 new civilizations.[13]

Gameplay

Civilization V is a turn-based strategy game, where each player represents the leader of a certain nation or ethnic group ("civilization") and must guide its growth over the course of thousands of years. It starts with the founding of a small primitive settlement and ends after achieving one of the victory conditions—or surviving until the number of game turns end, at which point the highest-scoring civilization, based on several factors, is declared the winner. During their turn, the player must manage units representing civilian and military forces: directing units to explore the world, found new cities, go into battle to take over other civilizations, control production in their cities to produce new units and buildings, improve land, handle diplomacy with other civilizations in the game, and finally direct the civilization's growth in technology, culture, food supply, and economics. Victory conditions can include taking over the entire world by force, convincing the other civilizations through diplomacy to acknowledge you as a leader, building the "Utopia Project" wonder by adopting social policies or winning the space race to build a colony ship to reach a nearby planet.

Computer controlled states

The artificial intelligence (AI) in Civilization V is designed to operate on four levels: the tactical AI controls individual units; the operational AI oversees the entire war front; the strategic AI manages the entire empire; and the grand strategic AI sets long-term goals and determines how to win the game. The four levels of AI complement each other to allow for complex and flexible AI behaviors.[10]
 
Each of the AI-controlled leaders has a unique personality, determined by a combination of 'flavors' on a ten-point scale; however, the values may differ slightly in each game.[10] There are 26 flavors, grouped into categories including growth, expansion, wide strategy, military preferences, recon, naval recon, naval growth, and development preferences.[14]

Cities

As in previous versions, cities remain the central pillar of Civilization gameplay. A city can be founded on a desired location by a settler unit, and the city will grow in population, produce units and buildings, and generate research and wealth.[15] The city will also develop culturally and expand its borders one tile at a time, which is critical in claiming territory and resources. The expansion process is automated and directed towards the city's needs, but it can be accelerated with gold.[10] Cities can use up to three tiles outwards, instead of two.[16]
 
City warfare has been revamped. Whereas cities in previous versions of Civ relied entirely on garrisoned units for defense, cities in Civ 5 now defend themselves, and can attack invading units with a ranged attack expanding two tiles outward. Cities have hit points that, if taken down to zero, will signal the city's defeat to invading forces; surviving an attack allows a city to recover a fraction of its hit points automatically each turn. In addition, any melee unit loses hit points upon attacking a city. Hit points can be increased by garrisoning a unit in the city or building defensive structures.[16] Captured cities can be annexed, razed, or transformed into puppet states, each option having distinct advantages and disadvantages; for example, puppet states will provide resources and have lower unhappiness, but cannot be directly controlled.[17]

Units and combat

In this iteration of the series, tactical gameplay will be encouraged over numbers, with the introduction of new gameplay mechanisms. Most significantly, the square grid of the world map has been removed in favor of a hexagonal grid, a feature inspired by the 1994 game Panzer General, according to lead designer Jon Shafer.[18] In addition, each hexagonal tile, including city tiles, can accommodate only one military unit at a time, forcing armies to spread out over large areas instead of piling onto a single tile. This has the effect of moving most large battles outside of the cities, and forces increased realism on sieges, which are now most effective when surrounding the city tile.[10][17] Also, increased movement points, simpler transportation over water, ranged attacks, and swapping of adjacent units allows for more versatile maneuvering of units.[10][17][19] There is also a balance between ranged and melee units. Early ranged units can attack melee units without retribution, but melee units will outright destroy ranged units.
 
Units take longer to produce than in previous games from the series, making them more valuable. As they defeat enemy units, units may be either promoted for bonuses or forgo their promotion to be completely healed. Another departure from previous games is that units are no longer always destroyed if defeated in combat.[20]
 
Special "Great Person" units are still present in the game, providing special bonuses to the civilization that births them, with each named after a historic figure such as Albert Einstein or Leonardo da Vinci. Great people come in several varieties, and can be consumed to produce one of 3 effects: start a golden age, build a unique terrain improvement, or perform a unique special ability. For example, a Great General can create a 'Citadel' (an improved fort with the ability to inflict damage on nearby enemy units), or increase the combat strength of nearby friendly units (this is the only ability that does not require the consumption of the unit). Capturing a Great Person destroys it.

Research

Compared to previous titles in the series, technology trading has been removed in favor of joint technological ventures. Two civilizations at peace can form a research agreement, which for an initial investment of gold provides both a certain amount of science so long as they remain at peace.[21] Prior to the 1.0.1.332 PC version of the game, research agreements provided both parties with a random unknown technology after a set number of turns of uninterrupted peaceful relations. It is possible for a civilization to sign a research agreement for the sole purpose of getting an enemy to spend money which could be used for other purposes; AI civilizations are programmed to sometimes use this tactic before declaring war.[22] After the player discovers a new technology, a quote related to the technology is read by British actor Morgan Sheppard.[23]

City-states

City-states, a new feature to the series, are minor civilizations that can be interacted with. Unlike major powers, however, while they may expand in territory they never establish new cities. In addition to outright conquest, major civilizations have the option to befriend city-states, via bribery or services, for bonuses such as resources and units; these bonuses increase as players advance to new eras. There are three types of city-states, each with different personalities and bonuses: maritime, cultured, and militaristic. A city-state has the potential to play a prominent role in diplomacy among larger civilizations, as well as make specific requests and grant rewards.[24]

Social policies

In a change to the culture system, in Civilization V players have the ability to "purchase" social policies at the expense of earned culture.[25] These social policies are made up of ten separate trees (some trees are mutually exclusive), and filling out five of the ten trees is a requirement to win a cultural victory. These policies replace the "Civics" government system of Civilization IV; the main difference is that the player had to switch out of old civics to adopt a new one, while social policies are cumulative bonuses. According to Jon Shafer, "With the policies system, we wanted to keep the feel of mixing and matching to construct one's government that was part of Civ IV, but we also wanted to instill a sense of forward momentum. Rather than having to switch out of one policy to adopt another, you build upon the policies already unlocked. The thought process we want to promote is 'What cool new effect do I want?' rather than the feeling of needing to perform detailed analysis to determine if switching is a good idea."[26]

Victory conditions

As in previous games, there are multiple ways to achieve victory in addition to military conquest. The player may focus on scientific research and become the first to assemble and launch a spaceship, winning a space race victory. Diplomatic victory requires support from other civilizations and city-states in the United Nations. In the revamped culture system of Civilization V that consists of social policy "trees", the cultural victory involves filling out five of the ten "trees" and completing the Utopia project (reminiscent of the Ascent to Transcendence secret project in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri).[17] World domination is of course an option, but the victory condition has been simplified compared to previous games in the series. Rather than completely destroying the other civilizations, the last player who controls their original capital wins by conquest.[27] You can also win by having the highest score at the year 2050 AD.

Civilizations and leaders

There are 18 civilizations available in the standard retail version of Civilization V. The player chooses a civilization and assumes the role of its leader, based on prominent historical figures. Each leader of a civilization has a unique unit, another unique unit, building, or improvement and a special ability.[28] The player is able to interact with the leaders of other civilizations via the diplomacy screen, which features — for the first time in the series — fully animated leaders that speak their native languages.[9][10] For instance, Augustus Caesar speaks in his native Latin and Montezuma speaks in his native Nahuatl. According to Émile Khordoc, who voiced Augustus Caesar, the voices for the leaders were recorded in early 2009, approximately one and a half years before the release of the game.[29]

Downloadable content

Besides the 18 civilizations available in the standard retail version, additional civilizations are available as downloadable content (DLC).[30][31] Babylonia under Nebuchadnezzar II was announced as a bonus civilization included in the Steam and Direct2Drive Digital Deluxe Editions,[30][32] and later offered for all on October 25, 2010.[33] Mongolia under Genghis Khan as well as a Mongolian themed scenario was offered as a free update on October 25, 2010.[33] Spain, under Isabella, and the Inca Empire, under Pachacuti, as well as a similarly themed scenario were offered as the first "Double Civilization and Scenario Pack" on December 16, 2010.[34] The "Civilization and Scenario Pack: Polynesia" was released on March 3, 2011 and adds the Polynesian Empire under Kamehameha I.[35] The "Civilization and Scenario Pack: Denmark" was released on May 3, 2011 and features the Danish civilization under Harald Bluetooth.[36] On August 11, 2011 the "Civilization and Scenario Pack: Korea" was released featuring the Korean civilization under Sejong the Great.[37]
 
On August 11, 2011 a "Wonders of the Ancient World Scenario Pack" was released adding three new ancient wonders – The Temple of Artemis, The Statue of Zeus, and The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus – as well as a scenario based around the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. This was the first time that new wonders were added as DLC.[37]
 
Additionally, several DLC map packs were offered as a pre-order bonus from various retailers: Steam, "Cradle of Civilization: Mesopotamia"; Amazon.com, "Cradle of Civilization: Asia"; Gamestop and Play.com, "Cradle of Civilization: The Mediterranean"; and "Cradle of Civilization: The Americas." All four maps were later made available for purchase through Steam. Coinciding with the release of the "Civilization and Scenario Pack: Denmark" on May 3, 2011, an "Explorers: Map Pack" was released featuring map types inspired by real-world locations like the Amazon and Bering Strait.[36]

Expansion Pack

On February 16, 2012, an expansion pack called Civilization V: Gods & Kings was announced. The expansion is set to add new features to the base game, such as religion and espionage, three new scenarios, an expanded tech tree, several new units, nine new playable civilizations including Byzantium, Celtica, the Netherlands, Carthage, the Maya, and the Huns; as well as new religious and mercantile city states.[38]

Release

2K Games released Civilization V on 21 September 2010,[4] through retail and the Steam content delivery system. The Mac OS X version saw release on November 23, 2010.[5] In conjunction with its release, the State of Maryland, where Meier and Firaxis are based, named September 21, 2010 as "Sid Meier's Civilization V Day", in part due to Meier's success and for him "continuing a tradition of developing the talent and creativity of future generations".[39]
 
A special edition of Civilization V was also set for worldwide release on the same day as the standard edition. The package consists of a 176-page artbook, a "behind-the-scenes" DVD at Firaxis, 2-CD game soundtrack selections, and 5 metal figurines of in-game units, as well as the game itself.[40]
 
A demo became available on September 21, the same day as the North American full game release.[41] It is distributed via Steam.[7]
 
Just over a year after the original release of the game, a Game of the Year edition was released on September 27. The new edition includes all four of the Cradle of Civilization map packs, the Explorer's map pack, as well as most of the new civilizations (Babylon, Spain, Inca, Polynesia, and Denmark) and their respective scenarios. The Game of the Year edition also features the official digital soundtrack. However, Korea, the Korean scenario, and the new wonders of the world are not included in the GOTY edition.[42]





Source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civ_v

[Sangeshkan_Cave]

Total War: Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai Expansion

Total War: Shogun 2 is a strategy video game developed by The Creative Assembly and published by Sega. It is the latest installment in the Total War series and returns to the 16th-century Japan setting of the first Total War game, Shogun: Total War, after a series of games set mainly in Europe. The game was released on 15 March 2011.
 
Shogun 2 received critical praise from reviewers. Facets praised include the simplification and refinement of the series by returning to its roots.

Setting

Shogun 2 is set in 16th-century feudal Japan, in the aftermath of the Ōnin War. The country is fractured into rival clans led by local warlords, each fighting for control. The player takes on the management of one of these clans, with the goal of dominating other factions and claiming his rule over Japan. The standard edition of the game features a total of eight factions (plus a ninth faction for the tutorial), each with a unique starting position and different political and military strengths. The limited edition includes an exclusive ninja clan, the Hattori, and a DLC unlocks a tenth clan, the Ikko-Ikki.[2][3]
 
The game moves away from the European setting of previous Total War games and returns to the first setting in the Total War series, but making significant changes to core gameplay elements of Shogun 2. For example, to reflect the characteristics of East Asian warfare, the game's AI is designed on the principles of Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Also, compared to Empire which spanned almost the entire globe, the new installment focuses only on the islands of Japan (excluding Hokkaido) and on a reduced number of unit types.[2]

Gameplay

Shogun 2 has a combination of turn-based strategy and real-time tactics gameplay, a staple of the Total War series.[4] The player plays the role of both the clan leader and general, alternating between the campaign, where the player manages his land and armies turn by turn, and the battles, where the player takes control of the army on the battlefield in real-time.[5]
 
In the campaign, the player needs to oversee the development of settlements, military production, economic growth, and technological advancement. The armies and units are organized and moved around the stylised campaign map by the player to carry out battles with other factions. In addition to fighting, the player is able to engage in diplomacy, political maneuvering, and special agents to gain the upper hand. Ninja and geisha are also present in the game as assassins and spies.[5] While religion isn't as relevant as it was in Medieval II, it can't be neglected by the player. Greater interaction with the European foreigners (Nanban traders), for example, to enhance trade and acquire firearms, exposes the clan to Christianity, which will seriously increase religious unrest in the provinces. Religious agents, such as monks and priests can be used to convert the enemy population.
 
There are nine different clans that inhabit the provinces of Japan which the player chooses from[6] (plus one more included in the Limited Edition of the game, and one added through DLC).[7] All Clans have particular advantages in certain areas, in order to give a variety of play style with each.

In total war Shogun 2, leaders and generals are given personality and depth in gameplay, with emphasis on role-playing. Generals and agents are portrayed as "larger-than-life" heroes with unique characteristics and powerful abilities. The player is able to improve and unlock traits and special abilities for the characters as they gain experience. However, the player may also be inclined to engage in family politics within the clan to keep its members loyal.[5]
 
The battles of Shogun 2 involve large-scale engagements between armies that meet on the campaign map and can take place on land or on water. The developers proclaim they are paying particular attention to re-designing the naval and siege battles appropriate to the new setting. In contrast to European castles and forts, the castles in feudal Japan had multiple tiers, and thus the siege battles in the game will put less focus on wall defences but more on courtyard brawls and tactical manoeuvring. Also, the players will fight naval battles with unique Japanese ships resembling "floating castles", and take into consideration melees on ships, arrow fire, coastal terrain, and other factors.[3] Like the recent installments, Empire and Napoleon, the weather and climatic conditions have effect on battles. For example, fog greatly reduces visibility, while heavy rain diminishes the effectiveness of missile troops, such as archers or gunners, thus requiring the players to adapt their strategies. Also, as in Napoleon Total War, armies standing on enemy provinces during winter season or fleets far from the coast suffer atrittion.
 
Shogun 2 features multiplayer battles with up to 8 players as well as multiplayer campaigns involving competitive or cooperative play with 2 players.[8] In a multiplayer campaign, players can be grouped into different clans, so that for each clan, one player assumes the role of clan leader and others take command of armies. The clan leader has the ability to direct other players and assign rewards based on loyalty and performance, introducing clan politics into multiplayer. As a player's army invades an enemy territory or is attacked by enemy armies, the online matchmaker finds a suitable opponent and initiates a multiplayer battle. When a player defeats enemy armies and conquers territories, the player will gain points and other bonuses for the clan. In addition, an achievement system is designed to provide adhering players with unique abilities and cosmetic upgrades.[9]

Fall of the Samurai Expansion

The standalone expansion to Total War: Shogun 2 titled Fall of the Samurai was released on March 23, 2012. It will be set during the events leading up to and including the Meiji Restoration, when the threat of Western powers forced Japan's government to modernize and eventually abolish its traditional Samurai-based feudal system.
 
Since the Fall of the Samurai expansion is in a period later than previous Total War games, there are new features not seen in previous games. For the first time, railroads will make an appearance in the game, allowing much faster troop movement on the campaign map. The Gatling gun, one of the first machine-guns developed, also appears in the game.
 
Artillery units and ships can now bombard enemy units directly on campaign map. Likewise, coastal guns can now be built to counter such bombardment. Since ships in the expansion are now steam-powered, there will be significant changes in naval warfare and tactics from previous games.
 
Fall of the Samurai includes the following features:

• Based on the backdrop of the Boshin War period in 19th century Japan, the new campaign starts in 1864 during a time of growing resentment against Western colonial power and influence. As Japan begins to modernise and industrialise, social and economic changes lead to increasingly militant nationalism and antipathy towards the Shogunate.
• 6 new playable clans. Players can play as clan supporting the Imperial throne or the last Shogunate including: Shogunate clans: Aizu, Nagaoka, Jozai
• Imperial clans: Choshu, Satsuma, Tosa
 
• New foreign powers in the form of the British, American and French nations play an important part in the story of the Boshin war and player relations with these foreign powers will be integral to unit recruitment and to advancing technology trees.
• New 19th century Japan campaign map
• The new island of Ezo extends the SHOGUN 2 campaign map northwards.
• A new soundtrack by Jeff van Dyck
• Fully refreshed towns and other campaign map features reflect the 19th century time period.
• Campaign map railways with the ability for players to develop their own railway network to move armies and agents between regions.
• Railways can be sabotaged and transport can be blocked by enemy armies who take control of parts of the line or stations.
• 39 new land units
• Modern ranged units - such as the Gatling gun and Armstrong gun - controllable in a new third-person mode.
• New units can also be recruited from foreign powers, including the British Royal Marines, US Marine Corps and French Marines.
• 10 new naval unit types with a total of 21 ships
• New steam-powered warships, heavily armed with modern artillery.
• Foreign ironclad ships can also be purchased, including the Warrior-class ironclad.
• New port siege battle type. This new battle type triggers when attempting a naval assault on an occupied enemy port. The attacking fleet must sail into the harbour and capture the port, running the gauntlet of coastal gun defences.
• New land and sea unit interactions
• During a land battle, armies can call in offshore artillery support barrages. Conversely, coastal gun emplacements can target enemy ships during port siege battles, when ending their turn within the range of upgraded coastal defences.
• Campaign map bombardments: offshore naval units can bombard armies and cities in adjacent coastal areas on the campaign map itself.
• 3 new agent types: The Foreign Veteran, the Ishin Shishi and the Shinsengumi. Each new agent has its own skill tree, and Ninja and Geisha agents have had their skill trees updated with new abilities.
• Improved siege battle mechanics
• New upgradable tower defences can be built with a specific defence specialty: archery, matchlock or Gatling gun.
• Multiplayer 2.0
• New Conquest map reflecting the 19th century setting
• New Fall of the Samurai avatar, including: Over 40 new retainers
• Over 30 new armour pieces
• New 19th century avatar skill tree
• Multiple avatars: players can enjoy multiple careers and progression across Shogun 2 and Fall of The Samurai







Source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogun_2

[Sangeshkan_Cave]

Supreme Ruler 2020

Supreme Ruler 2020 is a grand strategy computer wargame developed by BattleGoat Studios and published by Paradox Interactive. The game was released on June 17, 2008 and is a sequel to Supreme Ruler 2010. In the game, the player controls all aspects of a region's government attempts to unite a world of fragmented states.[1] On December 23, 2008 BattleGoat Studios released an Expansion pack for the game titled Global Crisis. A Gold Edition of the game containing both the core game and the expansion pack was released on September 18, 2009.

Gameplay

The game allows players to choose either Scenarios with a defined scope and objective, or a Campaign "Sandbox" mode where there are no pre-determined victory conditions. There are over 250 playable regions simulated in the game. The player controls the economies, the militaries, research, government spending, spy operations (including the launching of satellites), and diplomacy. The player decides what military units to build, what facilities to build, how much or how little of a resource to produce, and also sets government policies in areas such as finance and social services. Diplomatic options include alliances, treaties, and trades of resources and technologies. The player can lead his people in technological advances and social reforms including globalization, free trade, renewable resources, biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, cyborg engineering and neural interface.
 
Supreme Ruler 2020 generally operates as a real time strategy game, though players are able to pause the game or change the game speed. The military element of the game is played through battalion-sized units represented on the game map, that can be controlled and given orders using the mouse individually or through groupings. Optionally players may leave unit initiative turned on, which will allow the AI to control military units for the player.
 
The player may also use Cabinet Ministers to assist with the operation of their regions, through the use of a Minister-priorities system and an in-game email system.
 
Multiplayer is available in LAN or Internet play for up to 16 players. Matchmaking is available through GameRanger.

Global Crisis Expansion

In December 2008 BattleGoat and Paradox released the Global Crisis Expansion Pack for Supreme Ruler 2020. This expansion featured additional content and improvements to the core game engine.[14]

Economic instability, the battle for natural resources, military alliances and international relations creates a world filled with tension where the next Cold War could turn hot at any time.
There’s always something going on in the world that, thanks to human nature, can easily escalate into a conflict.  We are not talking about the situation today. We are talking about a very close future depicted in the new expansion for the Geo-Political, Military Strategy game Supreme Ruler 2020 – Global crisis. At the core of the expansion pack a whole new sandbox style campaign paints a new and far more intricate portrayal of the world of 2020 based on many of the ominous events from recent real-world headlines. The possibilities to change the underlying storyline for new play experiences are limitless.

• 20 new scenarios which more than doubles the number of scenarios that originally shipped with the game
• Additional new multiplayer scenarios
• New campaign/sandbox map along a new storyline leading players towards World War III
• New scenario features including scripted and random events
• Improved unit control and grouping
• Expanded tech tree
• New units and unit meshes
• Additional game lobby options
• Graphic improvements
• AI enhancements
• More tutorials and in-game tips
• User interface improvement





Source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Ruler_2020

[Sangeshkan_Cave]

Age of Empires

Age of Empires (often abbreviated to AoE), is a history-based real-time strategy computer game released in 1997. Developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft, the game uses the Genie, a 2D sprite based game engine. The game allows the user to act as the leader of an ancient civilization by advancing it through four ages, (Stone Age, Tool Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age) gaining access to new and improved units with each advance.
 
Originally touted as Civilization meets Warcraft, some reviewers felt that the game failed to live up to these expectations when it was released.[5] Despite this, it received generally good reviews, and an expansion pack, Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome Expansion was released in 1998. Both the original Age of Empires and the expansion pack were later released as "the Gold Edition".

Gameplay

Age of Empires requires the player to develop a civilization from a handful of hunter-gatherers to an expansive Iron Age empire. To assure victory, the player must gather resources in order to pay for new units, buildings and more advanced technology. Resources must also be preserved, as no new resources become available as the game progresses, for example, trees that are cut down will not grow back.[6][7]
 
Twelve civilizations are available. Each with individual sets of attributes, including a varying number of available technologies and units. Each civilization has technologies unique to them, so that no civilization possesses all the technologies possible within the game.[8]
 
A major component of the game is the advancement through four ages. These are the Stone Age (Mesolithic/Nomad/Paleolithic), the Tool Age (Neolithic/Chalcolithic), the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Advancement between ages is researched at the Town Center, and each advancement brings the player new technologies, weapons, and units.

Modes

The game features four single-player campaigns in which the player is required to complete specific objectives. Campaigns are a collection of scenarios which are completed in a linear fashion. The campaigns follow the history of the Egyptian, Greek, Babylonian and Yamato civilizations; there's also a complete campaign specially made for the demo version that takes place in the Hittite empire.[10] Aside from the campaigns, there is a game mode called "random map", in which a different map is generated for each new game. Variations of random map, such as the resource-heavy "death match", are also available.[7][11][12]
 
Age of Empires also facilitated online and network play with up to 8 people simultaneously. Because the network play is less sophisticated than that of modern games, lag and disconnections often occur.[13] Until 19 June 2006, multiplayer gameplay was supported by Microsoft Gaming Zone. At that point, the Zone abandoned support of most CD-ROM games, including Age of Empires and Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings.[14]
 
The creation of user-made scenarios or series of scenarios (campaigns) for the game was made possible using the Scenario Builder. This tool is simpler and easier to learn than comparable editors used in more modern games, but it has fewer capabilities as a result. Ensemble Studios used the Scenario Builder to make the single-player campaigns which shipped with the retail game. Various unofficial sites exist where custom scenarios can be submitted and downloaded. In late 2005, it was discovered that by modifying various data files, units present in the beta versions of the game could be made available in the editor. Some obscure units include a spaceship and a hero that changes ownership when units move near it. Through data editing, the rules of unit placement can also be modified. This allows units to be placed on any terrain and on top of other units, which creates new possibilities for design. Other significant discoveries include new terrain templates, a mode to treble each unit's hitpoints, and a tool to edit map sizes.

Civilizations

Players choose to play as one of 12 civilizations. The civilizations are sorted into four distinct architectural styles, based on East Asian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Greek architecture, which determine their in-game appearance.[16] The 12 civilizations are:

•Greeks
•Minoans
•Phoenicians
 
•Egyptians
•Assyrians
•Sumerians
 
•Babylonians
•Persians
•Hittites
 
•Shang
•Choson
•Yamato
 
Technology

Technology is researched at specific buildings, to which they are generally related; for example, religious research is done in temples and improved armor is researched in the storage pit.[7] Technological advances come in many categories, such as military upgrades (better arms and armor for units), economic upgrades (increasing the efficiency of resource gathering), religious upgrades (faster conversion rates and more abilities for priests) and infrastructure upgrades (stronger fortifications and more resilient buildings). As basic technology research is completed, more advanced technologies may become available. Some technologies are not available to certain civilizations.[7]
 
Technology plays a very important role in the strategy of the game.[17] As a civilization progresses through the ages, technology becomes more and more expensive, which makes collecting the necessary resources to research them difficult.[17] As a consequence, balancing the workforce of villagers across the various resources can make the difference between victory and defeat.[17]

Units

Players control a variety of civilian and military units.[17] Most units can be upgraded through research (e.g. faster gathering for villagers, stronger armor for military units, and longer range for archers).[17]
 
Land-based units are the most prevalent in gameplay. Villagers are the most basic units in Age of Empires. Their primary function is to collect resources; cutting down trees for wood, mining for stone and gold, and hunting, foraging, farming, or fishing to acquire food.[17] Villagers can also construct buildings and repair both buildings and naval vessels, and are capable of engaging in hand-to-hand combat when necessary. Priests are non-combat units which can heal allied units or "convert" enemy units (in which case the target unit changes allegiance). Infantry units, such as clubmen, swordsmen, and hoplites use melee combat to attack at short range. Mounted units include chariots, cavalry, and war elephants. Archers, mounted or on foot, attack at range. Siege units are of two types: catapults and ballista. Catapults hurl stones which generate blast damage, affecting all units in a small area, and are especially effective against buildings and groups of units. The ballista is less damaging against buildings and units, but it fires faster and is cheaper than the catapult.
 
Nautical units often play a secondary role, but can be essential to victory. Fishing boats are similar to villagers in that they can gather fish. Merchant ships trade resources from the stockpile and exchange it for gold at another player's dock, with the amount of gold earned being relative to the distance between both docks. Transport ships carry land units from one area of land to another. As well as attacking enemy ships, warships can be very effective in attacking land-based units close to the shoreline (because melee units cannot fight back). Warships come either as galleys which fire arrows or triremes which launch bolts or boulders (very effective against buildings near the shoreline).
 
Unit types are identical, regardless of civilization (though certain civilizations may have improved variations of these units). So, for example, a Korean Choson broad swordsman is identical to a Persian or Phoenician one, as are bowmen, axemen, short swordsmen, cavalry, and so forth. Some armors and clothes are historically inaccurate, with the long swordsman bearing more resemblance to a Roman praetorian. Some units were also available in the game to civilizations that never, historically, had them; hoplites can be trained by every civilization except Persia, and some middle-Asian civilizations can train legions and centurions, while Japanese Yamato can build triremes.

Buildings

The Town Center is one of the most important buildings in the game. Here villagers are created, and age advancement is researched.[17] Most scenarios have each player begin with a single Town Center; the ability to build multiple Town Centers is unlocked by the construction of the Government Center during the Bronze Age.[17] The Town Center provides population support for four units. In order to build more units, houses must be constructed. Each house supports four units, and although any number of houses can be built (a concept which was not maintained in later games like Age of Mythology), they can only support a maximum of fifty units.[17]
 
Military units are produced at specific buildings relevant to their area. All sea units are created at the docks. Walls and towers are defensive fortifications (Age of Empires was one of the first real-time strategy games to include walls strong enough to form a feasible means of defense). Farms are used to produce food. Granaries, storage pits, and the Town Center are used to store resources deposited by the villagers.
 
Wonders are enormous monuments representing the architectural achievements of the time, such as the Egyptian Pyramids. They require huge amounts of resources to build and are constructed very slowly. Wonders can neither produce units nor conduct research. In scenarios with Standard Victory conditions, a player can win by constructing a wonder and keeping it from being destroyed for 2,000 years (about 10 minutes in the real world). Building a wonder also greatly increases a player's score, which is beneficial in "score" games. Players typically make it their top priority to destroy enemy wonders, especially under Standard Victory conditions. For this reason and because a wonder is relatively easy to destroy, a wonder must be well-guarded at all times.[16]

Reception

Although not as acclaimed as the later games in the series, the first Age of Empires was generally well-received by critics, and scored highly on review aggregator websites [38] including an 8.3 out of 10 on Metacritic,[27] an 87% on Game Rankings,[26] an 85 out of 100 on MobyGames,[39] and an 8.4 out of 10 on GameStats.[40]
 
Game Revolution categorized the game as "a cross between Civilization 2 and Warcraft II",[6] while GameSpot lamented that it was "a simple combat game rather than a glorious empire-builder", describing it as "Warcraft with a hint of Civilization."[5] While Computer Gaming World's Elliott Chin compared the game extensively to WarCraft II, he said that it has "great depth, and when compared to its real-time brethren, it has to be the most sophisticated of the bunch".[37] GameVortex wanted less of a combat-oriented gameplay, but praised the modes of play, commenting that "the random map generation [...] really keeps the game spiced up."[41] GameSpot decried the level of micromanagement necessary to control the game (which was due to absence of production queues and low AI of the player's units) calling it "a poor idea", which "seriously diminishes AOE's enjoyability."[5] GameVortex echoed this criticism,[41] while PC Gameworld pointed out the subsequently released patches improving some of the faulty AI programming.[42] Elliott Chin criticized the game's population limit, which he thought to be its "most serious grievance".[37]
 
While noting the similarities with Warcraft II, PC Gameworld praised the uniqueness of each playable civilization, and noted that the "graphics are extremely detailed and have a hand-painted feel to them. It's rare to see a game this beautiful with such detailed unit movements."[42] Game Revolution was impressed by the amount of different units of the game, and noted that the developers "obviously did [their] research here, and the result is a well rounded, historically accurate product (at least for a game)".[6] The soundscape of the game was also criticized, with GameVortex stating that "the oral clues just aren't enough to let you differentiate just what's going on."[41] With a view to the future of the game, Game-Revolution emphasized the scenario editor, which "allows you total control in the design of scenarios and campaigns", a "tool at your disposal to create a scenario exactly to your liking."[6]
 
The game won numerous awards, including Gamecenter's 1997 Game of the Year[43] and the 1998 AIAS Computer Strategy Game of the Year award.[44]









Source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Empires_(video_game)

[Sangeshkan_Cave]

T-72: Balkans on Fire!

Game Overview

T-72: Balkans on Fire! is a groundbreaking new tank simulation by Russian game developers IDDK/Crazy House and published by Battlefront.com.

Set in the violent period of Yugoslavian civil wars from 1991 to 1995, the player, as a fictional Russian volunteer tank commander, is put right into the turret of three of the best tanks the Russians ever built – the T-72B, the T-55A and the T-34/85.

The focus of the game is the control of the your own tank, but the ability to command a number of attached units (armor, vehicles and infantry up to platoon strength) is given through the use of a command and navigation map. Artificial Intelligence (AI) controlled tank crewmen can man any station and be ordered by the player via hotkey's, or you can take the seat as tank commander, gunner, or driver yourself at any time. Internal and external free motion camera views provide an exciting and dynamic overview of the battlefield.

The game provides scalable realism settings, giving you a lot of flexibility to adjust the game to your own liking and system capabilities. Newbies can set the realism to lower levels to allow them to get the hang of modern armored combat while the armor grognards will want to tweak weapons performance to their realistic, and lethal, levels and enable all the nitty-gritty details like barrel wear, engine stalls, restricted internal viewing angles, full collision damage and even engine and transmission management and starter battery failures! More details on many of the these features can be be found in the Features section of this website.

The simulation’s main focus is on tank combat tactics on the modern battlefield. The inside of the playable tanks is simplified in an easy to use game user interface (GUI) for playability reasons, but it has no impact on realism - all aspects of the tasks of a tank crew are simulated in extreme detail from hand cranking a broken turret to manually shifting gears and applying the parking brakes.

All environmental factors are simulated in mind blowing detail with the advent of a powerful and flexible 3D world engine. The powerful physics modeling provides deformable terrain which leaves realistic shell-holes after impacts of high explosive rounds and allows buildings and other structures to be partially or fully destroyed. You can even watch as trenches are dug out of the terrain in real time with the BTM-3 engineering vehicle. Vehicles damage is detailed and various internal and external components can be damaged and destroyed even including tracks getting sheared off.

A full ballistics and armor penetration physics engine produces realistic combat results – including after-armor effects based on precise hit locations, ricochets and glances, damaged and destroyed combat systems and crew, realistic weapons effects, wide assortment of available ammunition types, accurate laser and manual range finding procedures and much more. After each mission, players can explore the battlefield and even review every shell impact with a handy vector overlay display which shows the precise shell hit angle, penetration amount and effect!

Other graphics features include a powerful particle engine, ultra-realistic shadow and optical flare effects, intricate simulation of weather (cloud shadow effects, fog, haze, snow, rain drops obscuring optics, even rainbows), detailed simulation of water surfaces and amphibious vehicles and much more round out the simulation.

The core of the game is a fictionalized 18 mission campaign following the combat experiences of a Russian tank volunteer unit fighting on the Serbian side. View the Background section of the website for more details. The game ships with a fully featured mission editor as used by the game developers. Although the editor was not originally intended for the public, the developer has included it with some introductory documentation and for those willing to dive into it, it provides an insane amount of options to create your own maps and scenarios.

Three tanks are playable – the T-72B, the T-55A and the T-34/85. Other vehicles and units include: “Leopard” 1A4 MBT, M50 “Super Sherman”, SU-100 tank hunter, MTLB Prime Mover, BRDM-2 Armored Personnel Carrier, Mi-8 Helicopter, BTM-3 Entrenching Vehicle, BZO B-11 and PTO 2A45M “Sprut-B” Anti-tank Guns, 9K113 “Shturm-S” Anti-tank Guided Missile Vehicle and the KrAZ 265 Fuel Truck.

Additionally, a number of other military units and weaponry are modeled including infantry squads and anti-tank teams. See the Vehicle List section of the website for more details. Some of the equipment included was not historically employed but is included purely for the sake of gameplay.

Disclaimer: While set during a real-world conflict, this game is not intended as a political statement or to imply any support of the various factions involved. The Yugoslavian civil war has been, typically for civil wars, a bloody and violent struggle which left no side innocent, cost civilian lives on both sides, and in which there rarely was a “right” or “wrong” side.





Source
http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=81&Itemid=126

[Gottfrid]

After playing MASS EFFECT 1, 2 and 3, which has a truly immersive story and world, I just can't play anything else.

There is no story as engaging or impressive.

[Hopeinen]

Its sad that most games these days are focused on multiplayer instead of a single player story.
I really liked the first three of the Halo games, after that they went downhill story wise IMO.


Moved this from Iranian Video games thread to here.

Is any Threat about ''World Of Tanks'' Game ?

World of Tanks is quite fun, especially if you like tanks & armored warfare.
Although it can be very frustrating at times.

[@anti#boz@]

do we have any game in "hawx 2" level for MBTs?

[WITTMANN]

World of Tanks Update 8.3 Teaser Trailer