Anglo-Saxons . . . that reminds me of something. It occurs to me that although these sorts of games are trying to portray warfare of the period, organizationally they almost always treat the situation like that of a modern nation-state or maybe Rome: You have basically professional, permanent armies which you march around and station in barracks-type things and so on.

The Saxons in particular and a whole lot of older civilizations in general didn't actually have that. They had a small permanent "warband" of upper class more-or-less-professional warriors, and then they had a whole lot of temporary troops, the "fyrd", a mass of fairly prosperous well-armed farmers and their farmhands, who could be called on for a certain amount of military service every year and don't even think about calling them up during harvest. A major key to effective Saxon warfare was to be really careful when you called up the fyrd--too early and they'd go home before the main event, too late and they wouldn't get to the battle in time. But they were plenty tough when they showed up. And they were pretty much free--the king didn't pay them or arm them and they supported themselves all the time except maybe when they were actually fighting.

Medieval warfare had something similar in that the backbone of the army tended to be knights and their entourages, but a lot of the bulk was peasant levies who were grabbed for a particular campaign and would go home afterward (and would probably scarper off home the moment they got the chance even before the campaign was over). And then there's the whole decentralization problem, where the king mounts an effective war effort by persuading and bullying various nobles into bringing their gangs to his war.

I wonder if it would ever be workable for a game to reflect some of that stuff.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: skinnyraf

Quoting: Purple Library GuyFor a while it seemed like cyberpunk went away, but it really seems to be making a comeback lately--particularly today though.
This looks pretty interesting.

Yes, it is interesting. Consider recent advances of gene splicing, bionics/prosthetics, VR, robotics and AI. Consider corporations becoming more and more powerful, all-knowing about our life and filtering how we perceive the world. Consider ever increasing inequality between the rich (who become more and more like Tessier-Ashpools) and the poor - especially the working poor, trying to survive from one gig to another in the emerging "gig economy". Finally, almost everyone has always-on access to the internet and we can follow lives of celebrities 24/7.

Functionally, cyberpunk today would be just a realistic genre, think GTA with more accents on technology. Instead, cyberpunk is all about aesthetics: neon lights, chrome, bright colours, over-sized guns, body modifications, whining antique prosthetics and music. And it's this aesthetics that sees a revival, more than the underlying social themes of cyberpunk.

Well, I do think that the underlying social themes are being referred to more as well. And the aesthetics are less irrelevant than one might think. I think they often operate as a sort of shorthand for attitudes associated with them. For instance, for a while it seemed like every bloody game had a military theme, and it went with a time where there was a distinct "Rah Rah!" attitude. So now, even if someone makes a game that has no social content as such, the choice of cyberpunk aesthetics invokes the whole cyberpunk schtick in people's minds, like a certain cynicism about corporate rule and the establishment, and I think that attitude has become more common. And from the developers' side, I expect that the choice of that aesthetic reflects a feeling that those themes are somehow relevant.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

For a while it seemed like cyberpunk went away, but it really seems to be making a comeback lately--particularly today though.
This looks pretty interesting.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Mountain ManWow, that trailer gives you absolutely no idea what the game will actually be like.

True enough. I guess strategy titles tend that way--a trailer that shows you clicking on a piece of terrain to build a road or an aqueduct just wouldn't pack a lot of punch drama-wise.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Guest(damn I gotta stop blabbing on, it's just an area that I'm passionate about)

Blab away, old bean. Interesting stuff.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: eldaking

Quoting: GuestWe sure aren't lacking strategy games on linux

Yeah, as a strategy gamer I feel like I am particularly privileged within Linux gaming. Most of the biggest titles - Civ, XCOM, Total War, Paradox - have native support, and a respectable number of indies.

It is not perfect - Stardock and Slitherine publish many titles, rarely if ever with Linux support, for example - but I feel like it is so much better than for the fans of action games, shooters, action rpgs and other AAA games in general.

I think only fans of programming games have better luck playing on Linux. :D

Even Stardock seem to be shifting more Linuxward lately, dunno why. They might have decided to go Vulkan or something. Mind you, they must have been fairly aware of Linux all along, they have a sideline in "Stuff to pimp out your Windows desktop so it does things that Linux DEs do".

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: drlamb

Quoting: Purple Library GuySomeday I'll see an age of sail combat setup that involves tacking, wind, trying to cross the enemy's T, using the long nines from longer range to try to shoot away a spar and hamper the enemy's speed and maneuverability, and all that other cool tactical pirate-era stuff. I might even want to time my broadsides carefully with the roll of the ship, to get more distance if I fire as the cannon are angled up, or hole the enemy below the waterline if I fire at close up angled a bit down, although that could get a bit fiddly.

The closest native game we have to what you describe is tempest [External Link] but I'll admit it's not as in depth as you wish.

I was about to pop that on the wishlist, but it's not looking very native on the store. I mean, I guess that's not such an issue as it used to be (maybe) what with Proton, but I thought I'd mention. Is this one of those weird ones where they have a Linux build but don't mention it, or something?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: GuestI love point and click adventures

That game stretching across 2 monitors issue is yet another reason I use i3.

What's i3? I ask because usually stuff with little short acronym-y names like that gets a lot of unrelated stuff when you search.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: riusma

Quoting: Purple Library GuySort of moot given that I seem to remember NVidia doesn't work with Wayland.

I'm not a technical guy and I don't follow this subject closely, but I think it works via EGLStreams at least in last iterations of GNOME/Mutter and the code is currently under review for Plasma/KWin (source for Plasma/KWin [External Link]. :)

Good to hear.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Ehvis

Quoting: TheRiddickDo you think the problem will be resolved in Xserver? how does gsync work under wayland? better?

That's the trillion dollar question. Will Free/G-Sync work better in Wayland in theory? Will it even work at all? It currently doesn't work though.

Sort of moot given that I seem to remember NVidia doesn't work with Wayland.

View this comment - View article - View full comments