Three Moves Ahead 118: This Fully Operational Art of War

Three Moves Ahead

Idle Thumbs

Strategy, Strategy Games, War, Games & Hobbies, War Games, Games, Video Games

4.8 • 532 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2011

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ralph Trickey takes a break from updating and improving The Operational Art of War III to talk about the series with Rob, Troy, and Bruce. They discuss how the game is changing through patches, and then debate whether TOAW is a game so much as it is a set of tools. They also talk about how scenario designers have put those tools to use, and what shortcomings afflict the system. Everyone shares his favorite scenario, but Rob cannot contain himself and names three. Ralph mentions plans for The Operational Art of War IV, but it'll be hard to sell that if he keeps making TOAW III better and better.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Good evening. You are listening to Three Moves Ahead, and I'm your host, Rob Zakney.
0:03.4	With me tonight, in danger of losing his irregular status and moving up to a line regiment is Bruce Garrick.
0:08.7	Bruce, thanks for being here.
0:10.2	Yeah, hello gamers.
0:13.4	And taking a break from his E3 preparations is Troy Goodfellow.
0:17.0	Troy, glad you could find the time for the show this week.
0:19.4	I'm always happy to be here.
0:21.5	Our guest tonight is designer Ralph Tricky from the Toad Team, and he's here to help us discuss our topic tonight, the Operational Art of War series, and how it continues to evolve after more than a decade since the series' debut. Ralph, thanks for coming. Glad to be on. Thanks for inviting me. I'll just get this other way. I confess myself a huge fan of the Operational Art of War series.
0:41.9	It's come up a little bit on the show before.
0:44.1	I assume we all have a lengthy history with it.
0:47.3	What's the general attitude here on the Operational Art of War?
0:50.2	What do you guys think of the series?
0:52.1	OI. It's a game that does a few things very, very well and interestingly, and a game that, still,
1:00.0	the patches and improvements and updates have helped some,
1:04.0	really struggles with some concepts, and I think a lot of it comes down to
1:09.0	a lot of the core design decisions that Koger put in the initial design,
1:13.0	which I'm sure we'll talk about in some detail.
1:15.0	So it's a game that I admire a lot, but I can only play certain types of scenarios and really feel like I'm having fun.
1:22.0	Yeah, that's actually a really good summary of how I feel too,
1:27.8	and I think Troy touches on a couple of things
1:30.5	that we'll be coming back to in the podcast.
1:32.9	I think that, I mean, I really,
	...

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