Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sowelu]

No, I DON'T mean "games you can play by email".

I'm looking for games where you play as the ruler of a kingdom, sending out scouts and armies and stuff, but you don't know the results of your orders instantly.

Think of it this way:  Lewis & Clark's expedition took a very long time.  People were waiting with bated breath for them to return with all their glorious, misspelled knowledge!  But until they ACTUALLY RETURNED, nobody knew ANYTHING about what fog-of-war they had uncovered, or even whether or not they'd been killed by unspeakably violent pacific-northwestern tribes (er...).

Romeo and Juliet sure wasn't a strategy game, but it does contain wonderful examples of what might happen if your communications get disrupted.

So presumably, a game like this would be roughly medieval; have largely-automated commanders and stuff, but you would give them tons of specific instructions before they left, as many as you wanted.  (Like, explore this way, if you find a weak barbarian city, capture it; if the enemy captures your communication lines, go native, settle in defensively and wait for reinforcements when we stop getting scouting parties, etc).  Normally, it's assumed that any party out in the field would send a horse back home every day or so, but small scouting parties would just be a 'go out, come home after a week or if you see something important first', and if they don't come home on time then you know something's up.  Forward scouting posts to watch for enemy troops, garrisoned not to STOP an enemy army, but just to spot enemy troops and make it hard for them to cut off your messengers that say "Enemy troops are here".

I've never heard of any games like this, but are any of them out there?

[Zerobe]

Panther Games' Conquest of the Aegean and Highway to the Reich (while obviously not medieval) both feature a very realistic and well implemented command system similar to what you've described.

You can find more information and demos of both @ www.matrixgames.com

[Davion]

Conquest of the Aegean and it's predecessors from Panther Games are about the closest thing to what you are describing.

There's a wargame in development titled Les Grognards, set during the Napoleonic era, that is apparently simulating messengers/scouts in that you have to send them out in order to relay information and various orders for battle before any action is taken by units, which I am sure will lead to interesting scenarios since I believe they are actual physical units that can be intercepted.

As far as kingdom management games that have something similar I think you are out of luck.

[Tilla]

I recall a story of a Civil War soldier setting off in a boat to do a surprise attack on San Fransisco. He got there alright...months if not years after the South surrendered. 

[Cthulhu]

Just one soldier?

[LordBucket]

don't know the results of your orders instantly.

Not quite what you're asking for, but in the X-com games, requisitions have a delay. For example, if you submit a request for 20 rifles and 20 soldiers, it may be a few days for the rifles and a week or two for the soldiers to arrive.

[Cthulhu]

Panther Games' Conquest of the Aegean and Highway to the Reich (while obviously not medieval) both feature a very realistic and well implemented command system similar to what you've described.

You can find more information and demos of both @ www.matrixgames.com

I'm giggling immaturely at the box-art for World in Flames right now, and considering trying to play Titans of Steel again.  It was pretty cool, and I liked the roleplaying aspects, but the music was uninspired and I couldn't get into the game itself.

[Sowelu]

Panther Games' Conquest of the Aegean and Highway to the Reich (while obviously not medieval) both feature a very realistic and well implemented command system similar to what you've described.

You can find more information and demos of both @ www.matrixgames.com

Those sound pretty neat--but the demos don't exist as far as I can find them, poking all over the internet.

There's a wargame in development titled Les Grognards, set during the Napoleonic era, that is apparently simulating messengers/scouts in that you have to send them out in order to relay information and various orders for battle before any action is taken by units, which I am sure will lead to interesting scenarios since I believe they are actual physical units that can be intercepted.

That looks awesome!  Except apparently it got dropped by its publisher last Thursday for repeated failures to meet its deadlines.

And honestly when I was saying "medieval" I was thinking "well if it was any more recent than that, well of course you'd have radio, right? hurr".  So this era is totally good for what I was looking for. 

[Mechanoid]

Mount and blade has this, to the extent that the Ai conducts battles outside of the players' view, and if something important happens to an Ai ally of the player, the player will be notified. I'm not sure if there is an actual NPC letter carrier, but presumably the game delays the notification based on the distance between the player and the event location.

Some MMOs also have in-game methods of writting something onto a paper item and then delivering the item to the appropriate player; but considering the metagaming aspects of using third-party programs, it doesn't happen much.

[Zorgn]

And honestly when I was saying "medieval" I was thinking "well if it was any more recent than that, well of course you'd have radio, right?

You might want to look for a space conquest game that simulates the time delay of radio transmissions across great distances. I don't know of any that exist, but that shouldn't stop you.

[Croquantes]

Try any of the Paradox games. They all have communication delays, plus you get a limited amount of agents depending on your government type.

The more modern games, like the Hearts of Iron series, have instantaneous diplomacy so it's not what you're looking for (armies have movement delays though) . The Europa Universalis games are the ones you should try, as they all have delays. Victoria is one of the best Paradox games, and the one I recommend. You can play any country during the 19th century.

You can buy it here .

[Neonivek]

Broken Telephone!

[sonerohi]

Mount & Blade, mentioned earlier, is a good one. If someone needs your presence or is sending you a message, a courier will actually spawn and track you properly. Instead of homing missle, it'll travel to the town you were closest to when the message spawned, then track you village to village. It moves kind of fast though, since it is just one guy on a horse.