I really want that feeling of commanding a squad with my actions having consequences for an overarching campaign, so hopefully we’ll be able to create something suitably immersive.

We've made the formerly 200+ page printed manual an improved interactive PDF. This PDF manual allows you to click on screenshots to see them clearer than thumbnails, navigate much easier with clickable links, and most importantly, look forward to manual updates as we make changes to the game.

Slitherine have walked a fine line while making Battlefield, charting the borders of Fun, Depth, and Tedium. They've attempted to maximise the first, and include as much of the second as possible without including any of the last.

The Civilization V playable demo release date is September 21st; the same day as the North American release date of the full game.

+ 4 new multiplayer maps with unique objectives
+ 6 new units

Road to Caen
Canadians attack a German position. 5 Victory points. Canadians must capture enough to win before 16 turns.
D-Day + 3
British forces attack a German held town. British must capture VP's before the 20 turn time limit expires.
Race for the Town
The Ardennes, US and German forces . The side with the most VP's by the end of the 20 turn time limit wins.
Desert Rats
German & Italian forces attack a British position. The Axis must capture VP's before the 20 turn time limit expires.

New Units
British Paras
Wespe
Greyhound (created by Tim Catherall)
FlammPanzer
Sdkfz251/2
37mm Stielgranate

Cities in Motion sees players develop and operate their own public transport company building a travel network across Vienna, Helsinki, Berlin, and Amsterdam using more than 30 different modes of transport including buses, trams, subway trains and water buses.

The player takes control of a group of soldiers, commanding them from an isometric perspective to complete tasks in order to earn cash as well as renown. If a player wants to stay on top, mercenaries will need to be trained and equipped with better weapons. If that's not quite enough, then mercenaries can be borrowed from friends or alliances can be formed with other players.

Personally, I would have gone with a turn-based game system - but no one asked me. Actually, I was developing an X-Com style game called Dreamland back in 1999 - turn-based but 3D (actually very similar to Valkyria Chronicles in the way it worked). Sadly, it didn't see the light of day.

Publishers run a mile from anything with turn-based mechanics - it is regarded as too niche. RTS games pretty much killed off turn-based strategy games in the mid-90s - but now even RTS games are regarded as niche. So all my experience working turn-based games from 1983-1997 is now somewhat obsolete, despite the success of X-Com. However, I am now working on a turn-based tactical RPG which will be a 3DS launch title. Thanks to 'Advance Wars', 'Fire Emblem' and 'Final Fantasy Tactics' it seems turn-based games are not totally dead - at least for Nintendo handhelds. I would also argue that Pokemon has a lot of parallels with X-Com in its game system, despite being classified as an 'RPG'. The core of Pokemon is a turn-based tactical battle enriched by a sophisticated higher level meta-game that allows players to experiment with many game elements and combinations of forces - and Pokemon is the second most successful game franchise in the world. If done right, would an X-Com game with a turn-based combat system be successful? Absolutely!

The update comes with a pack of new maps, two single player survival maps and two multiplayer maps, in addition to plenty of new tweaks and improvements. Battlefield Academy now sports two new features: hotseat multiplayer, and unlimited zoom capabilities on the battle map!