Three Moves Ahead 59: Distant Worlds – Space is Big

Three Moves Ahead

Idle Thumbs

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

4.8 • 532 Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2010

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Troy, Tom and Rob talk about Code Force’s Distant Worlds, a 4x Space RTS that tries to tackle the challenge of ceding control. How can a game get past player paranoia about letting the AI handle things? When does a player choose to intervene? How can the AI failure at basic tasks undermine your confidence in everything else? Why and when does Distant Worlds work? Also, last chance to win one of two copies of Making History. My first crack at the virtual viceroy problem Distant Worlds at Matrix Games

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to Three Moves Ahead, the official podcast of flash of steel.com.
0:06.0	I am your host, Troy Goodfowl, and with me today is freelance writer Tom Chick.
0:10.0	Hello, if I can get anyone a coffee, let me know, and I will actually include in that coffee some Korobian spice.
0:20.0	Because I've found some in my empire
0:22.3	just so people know.
0:24.7	And freelance writer Rob Zakni.
0:28.0	I don't even know what that is in reference to.
0:30.9	Oh, a little game called Distant Worlds.
0:33.0	I'm not sure if you're familiar with it.
0:35.0	I am, but I haven't memorized the trade tables.
0:38.7	Well, Carabian Spice is very rare, and you can play mini-games without finding it,
0:43.8	and when you do find it, the game lets you know that it's very, very special.
0:49.6	This week we are talking about distant worlds.
0:52.4	Hey, Troy, real quick, before we talk about distant worlds, let me try real quick before we uh talk about
0:55.1	distant worlds yeah nice something really obnoxious too late yeah yeah oh let's something else
1:02.0	that's an obnoxious if you say yes then i can blame you for letting me do it but in addition to coffee
1:07.9	with caravian spice if anybody needs any bags of grain, grilled meat, stone, science projects, conjurations, or gowns, especially gowns, because I have a lot of tailors in my little kingdom, friend me in We Rule on the iPhone.
1:25.3	Yeah, yeah, there you go. I'm plugging a Farmville clone. How about that? Please tell me it's for work. It was at first, but I kind of love the stupid little thing. I mean, I hate it, and I love it. It's just a really dumb little Farmville clone. I love the stupid little thing. Now you know how we feel about you every week.
1:44.8	Thank you.
2:02.0	But it's one of those things that's perfect for the iPhone because it is just a throwaway little thing where you go in and you plant your strawberries and then you come back, you know, in a couple hours. It's like smoking. It's like stepping outside to smoke a cigarette. There's nothing edifying from it. It's just a way to sort of kill little slices of time for no good reason.
2:01.6	So it's Harvest Moon for Idiots. anything edifying from it. It's just a way to sort of kill little slices of time for no good reason.
2:02.6	So it's Harvest Moon for idiots.
	...

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