Strategy

The folks at Paradox Interactive continue to stay busy. Last week they announced plans to release Hearts of Iron 3, the latest game in their WWII strategy series. Today the publisher announced plans for yet another downloadable expansion pack to a previous historical strategy game, Europa Universalis: Rome.

The expansion is titled Vae Victis and will be available for download via Gamersgate for $9.99 in late 2008. The expansion concentrates on the Roman Senate where you will have to deal with the many members and parties in order to have your goals as leader of the Roman Empire accomplished. You have to make sure the ruling party votes for issues in your favor and have them pass laws that you want to see past. The expansion will also have things like updated military AI and an overhauled interface.

The latest Multiwinia Monday reveals the Capture the Statue mode. This variation on capture the flag requires many multiwinians to pick up a large, heavy, statue and move it back to their base. Obstacles like steep hills and aggressive opponents stand in the way of progress.

Download the Multiwinia "Capture the Statue" HD Video (39 MB)

It's been a long while since Heroes of Might & Magic V: Tribes of the East released, but the developers at Nival Interactive have been hard at work on a huge patch to fix nagging bugs and improve the overall game experience. it looks like they haven't been wasting their time, since the patch comes in at 120 MB. The developers will continue to support the game and come out with more patches in the future. Let's hope that it won't take years to see v3.02.

Download the Heroes of Might & Magic: Tribes of the East v3.01 Patch (120 MB)

Click Continue to read the release notes.

Independent game developer Introversion is preparing to release their multiplayer strategy game Multiwinia (itself based on their earlier game Darwinia) and today the developer announced plans for pre-orders for the game that will be released on September 18.

Available at the developer's online store, people can just pre-order the downloadable version and pre-load and get their game key for the game on September 18. You can also get a regular boxed copy of the game along with a digital download. However, Introversion is also offering a Multiwinia limited edition box. The tin package will contain CD copies of both Darwinia and Multiwinia, a coffee book-style art book containing art concepts for the games, eight Multiwinia vs Darwinia postcards and two foam Darwinians to take to bed with you.

Sometimes you just have to match your wits against a human opponent. They are so unpredictable and capricious that matching yourself against one is much more difficult than taking on a computer player. Solar Chiefs is very much along these lines. A multiplayer browser game, you must control the firing arcs and movement path of a floating space island. The only thing is that there are other human players doing the exact same thing. With an easy-to-learn interface, the aforementioned multiplayer focus, and some very fun gameplay, it's a great browser game to waste some time on.

For those that must get their high fantasy strategy fix, there's Battle for Middle-earth. For those that can't play that, either because of system requirements, setting, or they just plain don't like it, there's another option. Epic War is a new browser strategy game. It's more of an arcade strategy game, not a traditional one, and that's fine by us. Send out your units, upgrade them, use spells, and wield a gigantic crossbow try and take down the Dark Lord's tower. Simple but fun strategy stuff. Winning is very much dependent on using all of these in conjunction.

Although the first trailer for Hearts of Iron III doesn't reveal much actual gameplay footage, it provides a glimpse of what the graphics will look like and lists its features. World War II strategists should be looking forward to this one. Hearts of Iron III is scheduled to release sometime in Q3 2008.

Download the Hearts of Iron 3 HD Trailer (61 MB)

Cyberlore's fantasy-sim game Majesty became a cult hit among PC gamers when it was released in 2000. The developer had plans for a full fledged sequel but the company was forced to lay off the majority of its staff in 2005 (it now makes so called "serious games" under the name Minerva Software). So many were happy to hear several months ago that Paradox Interactive had bought the game's rights and would publish Majesty 2.

For Games Convention this week, Paradox released some new screenshots of the game showing ome apparent action sequenes of men battling skeleton creatures. Developed by 1C:Ino-Co, Paradox states that the game should have the same kind of humor and charm the original game did. Majesty 2 is due for release in 2009.

Although MMO trailers might be grabbing all the attention today, it's worth taking some time out to check out the trailer for Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim. Even though the trailer doesn't go into much detail about what makes it more of a fantasy kingdom sim than any other real-time strategy game, it's provides a nice and relaxing break from war and destruction.

Download the Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim HD Trailer (24 MB)

The American pro football season is about to begin in a couple of weeks but the NFL has nothing on the Blood Bowl, the fantasy sports-strategy game based on the Games Workshop war game. Cyanide Studios is working on the PC game adaptation and for Games Convention they sent out some new screenshots showing off the athletes in action.

Blood Bowl is basically a turn based strategy game where an American football-like game has been turned into a battlefield with orcs, dwarves and other fantasy creatures put on helmets, get their pads together and use spells, extra buffs and more to get to the goal line. Cyanide plans to release the game in the first quarter of 2009.

Ubisoft recently announced that it would be publishing Anno 1404, but no announcement should be without a nice trailer to back it up. Fans of history themed strategy games should take notice, since the game focuses on establishing trade and diplomatic relations between Europe, the Middle East and the Far East.

Download the Anno 1404 HD Trailer (137 MB)

It's one of the longest running historical strategy-building game series and now yet another new title is in the works. Ubisoft announced today that Anno 1404 is under development for release in March 2009. Several months ago Ubisoft announced that it was buying the Anno brand as well as a stake in its long time developer Related Designs.

The new Anno game in the series will break away from the Western world and check out the Orient for the first time. The title will have new customizable elements, along with bigger islands and worlds and a full sandbox gameplay mode. The Anno game series is highly popular in Europe but not as popular in the US. The series has had a variety of publishers in the States over the years and have ditched the "Anno" title in favor of the "A.D." name after the year of the game. There's no word yet if Ubisoft will do the same for Anno 1404.

Paradox Interactive used the opening of the Games Convention to announce yet another new strategy title. This time its for Hearts of Iron 3, the third game in their WWII themed strategy game series. According to the press release, the game will have a huge map with more than 10,000 provinces to check out.

Not much info on the game has been revealed (including no screenshots) but that maybe because Hearts of Iron 3 has a release date in the third quarter of 2008. The press release does say that fans of Paradox's games have been waiting for a third Hearts of Iron title for some time so this quick announcement might please them.

The latest video to come out of Multiwinia Monday introduces the King of the Hill mode. All players have to do is amass an army of Darwinians to take and hold as many control points as possible, for as long as possible. Sounds simple until your opponents make a carpet out of your soldiers.

Download the Multiwinia "King of the Hill" HD Trailer (67 MB)

Some people might be getting a little tired of World War II strategy games that don't have the words "Company of Heroes" in the title, but the latest Men of War trailer defies that mentality by offering lessons in war time strategy and combat. What's the latest lesson? Aim the artillery shell for the top of the tank, not the heavily armored front. Failure to do so may result in injury, death and loss of expensive equipment. Got that? Class dismissed.

Download the Men of War Lesson 1 Trailer (43 MB)
Download the Men of War Lesson 2 Trailer (24 MB)