RPS: Would it be fair to describe HoI3 as a re-engineered HoI2? Reading the dev diaries I get the feeling you were basically happy with the scope and feel of HoI2, but felt that most aspects of it had room for improvement.

Johan: That is rather close to the truth. What we did was take our new Clausewitz engine, and then write a Hearts of Iron game on it, while taking into account all experiences we’ve had in making strategy games so far. We liked the scope of Hoi2, and feel that it was a really fine game for its time. The luxury of writing a sequel basically from scratch means that you can break down every feature in detail and even change their dependencies without major impacts on development.

RPS: That’s a feature I’m really looking forward to trying. Let’s say I hand over control of an entire theatre to an underling. How much shepherding will they need?

Johan: That depends entirely on you. You can give the AI control over units at any level from theatre down to single corps, and then just basically tell them their objectives and which stance they should take. Let’s say you’re playing Germany in 1944 and have two theatres, the west and the east. You could tell your eastern front HQ that Königsberg, Warsaw & Buchurest are the objectives, and it should be defensive. It will try to hold these objectives primarily, and maybe fall back instead of getting slaughtered.

Paradox Interactive and Kerberos Productions today announced an expansion to the critically acclaimed 4X space strategy game series Sword of the Stars.

The new expansion, Argos Naval Yard, can be combined with either the original game or any of its previous expansions and will provide players with:

• 19 new technologies, including advanced drones, over thrusters, two new satellite designs, defensive interceptor micro-missiles, and polarized plasmatics which will unlock a new weapon type

• Over 75 new ship sections to build

• 10 new weapons, including the new inertial cannons, kelvinic torpedoes, and the fearsome rail cannon

• 3 new scenarios

"With the successful release of the Sword of the Stars Ultimate Collection, the expansion Argos Naval Yard is a natural extension of the Sword of the Stars series,” said Chris Stewart, COO of Kerberos. “The new ships, weapons and technologies in Argos Naval Yard will present gamers with new challenges and capabilities.”

Argos Naval Yard is scheduled for release June 17 with an SRP of $8.99 / € 7.49 / £6.99

The original demo was for a relatively modest, two player tactical game. MicroProse asked them to base the action on Earth and to expand on the original design to deliver something more in keeping with the other epic strategy games it already had on its roster. “That prompted me to add the strategic level, with the basic idea of an alien infiltration of earth and the need to capture and research the alien technology to defeat them. It was quite a radical design in many respects, but we were trying to create a grand scale that would rival that of Civilization. In fact the research and technology tree somewhat emulates the role of advances in Civilization, but it also helped to develop the storyline.”

7.62 is a tactical action game, sequel to Brigade E5, similar to such classic titles as Jagged Alliance, X-Com, and Silent Storm. A professional mercenary seeks for a Russian “businessman”, who stole a lot of money from his “colleagues”, then hid in a small country of Latin America to avoid inevitable punishment there. Soon the assignment turns into an intense and dangerous adventure, for there are many things that must be kept in mind – intricate political situation, confrontation between governmental military and rebels, not to mention a necessity to choose friends and foes wisely.

It's a strategy/management/simulation game that does away with all the base building and delays and gets straight to the meat and potatoes of science-fiction games: The big space battles fought by huge spaceships with tons of laser beams and things going 'zap!', 'ka-boom!' and 'ka-pow!'. In GSB you put your ships together from modular components, arrange them into fleets, give your ships orders of engagement and then hope they emerge victorious from battle (or at least blow to bits in aesthetically pleasing ways).

Gratuitous Space Battles aims to bring the over-the-top explodiness back into space games. The game is for everyone who has watched big space armadas battle it out on TV and thought to themselves 'I could have done a much better job as admiral'. This is not a game of real-time arcade twitch reflexes. GSB is about what ships you design, and what you tell them to do. Your individual ship commanders have total autonomy during the chaotic battle that unfolds. This is not a tactical game, it is a strategic one. These gratuitous space battles are not won by plucky heroes with perfect teeth, but by the geeky starship builders who know exactly what ratio of plasma-cannons to engines each ship in the fleet will need.

"Theatre of War 2, covers the events of 1943 during the operations in Tunisia. Players have the option to lead the German Afrika Korps of Rommel in their last full-scale attack or be at the head of the opposing English and American armies, led by Montgomery and Eisenhower, during 15 missions in three campaigns."

“We here at Kerberos are excited to land the Sword of the Stars dreadnought with the fine crew at Paradox. Their excellent record of support combined with their love of games makes them the perfect home for the SotS franchise”

Little info on the current version:

1. new weapons and items.
2. new descriptions and models (exept some mines, original missile launchers and barret rifle).
3. new sound effects.
4. new techs. All research regarding various weapons/items handling was removed.
5. tech prerequisites for firearms, drones and some other techs were modified a bit.
6. adjusted almost all weapons. Launchers, grenades and mines deal a lot of damage. Melee weapons all deal increased damage. Throwing grenades require less time to prime, aim and throw.
7. re-equiped all factions with new weapons.
8. removed scout drone and all drone scanning equipment and autodestructor. Drones are now heavy weapons support systems.

GS: There's this nasty rumor going around that you've been working on the successor to X-Com, the classic sci-fi tactical game from Microprose. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?

KL: I personally own four copies of X-Com. I just bought the whole series again on Steam. I even spent a few hours last month playing (God forgive me) X- Com: Enforcer! Now that's love.

On a completely unprofessional side note, I'm going to name-drop and say I met Sid Meier at E3--one of the perks of working for Take-Two. He had this kind of Zen-master serenity thing going on about him, but I think I creeped him out with my nerdy, 1,000-yard fanboy stare.

Back to X-Com. I will say that I'm probably the world's biggest X-Com [fan]. I won't say I'm working on an X-Com game.

SC: We have a whole lot of X-COM fans at StrategyCore and we were all wondering how similar the combat system will be to that of X-COM. Will we see anything analog to time units, stamina and the likes?

MC: X-Com's action point system goes a lot further back than X-Com itself, in fact all the way back to 70's fig combat rules and really, we see no reason to stray far from that. We have a set of stats that serve our exact Nstar needs but certainly the faster, smarter and more agile you are, the more things you will be able to get done in a turn.

Light of Altair is a sci-fi colony building game with a deep plot. Grow colonies from landing pod to metropolis, while sending off new spaceships to expand your territory to other worlds. You are not alone in space, 8 factions from different parts of the world are all following their own agendas in the solar system; diplomacy and orbital-combat are essential to learn.
Light of Altair is based on a custom built 3D engine that enables easy zooming from galaxies all the way down to individual moons and asteroids covered in the colonies with their glass domes, mines and launch pads. Advanced shader technology is used to add rich details and lighting to surfaces.

# Fixes and performance improvements to the new pathfinding.
# Keybinding improvements, notably battlescape keybinding separation.
# Fixes to maps, including outdated data cleanup.
# Compilation fixes and improvements, including 7z support for pk3 archives.
# Geoscape fixes (destroyed UFOs now are removed properly, UFOs now also estimate location of the aircraft they are trying to intercept, fixes to incorrect UFO tracking lines, a hack for long distance estimation problems, radar overlay handling fixes, fixed occasional crash when aircraft meet, shortcut fixes and fixed automatic initial ammo addition.
# Updated textures.
# Campaign improvements (more gradual tech introduction, fixes to alien equipment assignment, ammo dependence fixes, more ammo added to the market, crashed UFO missions are now limited in time.

The German Army Headquarter orders the last big offensive: Watch on the Rhine. Thousands of soldiers supported by tanks, air fighters and bombardiers fought for three dramatics weeks around the Ardennes forest, now you can play it. Feel like a General Commander, leading tens of divisions to stop the German offensive or breaking the Allied defenses.

In our preview build this gameplay was mostly fleshed out already. I was able to build a number of guilds for various types of heroes to be hired such as warriors, elves, mages and more. I was also able to buy a number of other buildings that provide items and upgrades to the warring kingdom saviors once they've earned enough money. Some things were still missing, but I did have a number of intense situations where several strong monsters were simultaneously attacking important buildings of my cozy kingdom and my hirelings were dying left and right, leaving sad little graves. So all in all, I am very confident that they will succeed in recreating the essence of the original Majesty.