Bay 12 Games Forum

Something tells me we have a Manly Guys Doing Manly Things reader in our midst.

No such luck - I learned of the game via a random Twitter post, which itself linked to an old crunchyroll post, which then inspired a bit of googling and a look on pixiv... of course none of this is important in the grand scheme of things

It might be neat to have different pre-set scenarios with very different situations, for example:
- Yitzhak Rabin has died, Netanyahu must pick up the pieces - this scenario would be the most similar to the original CMEPS
- Golda Meir deals with troubled times - can she maintain Israel's standing amidst all the events?
- Ariel Sharon tries to make peace - can he avoid being poisoned with stroke-causing drugs by his opponents? And, how will he deal with the fact that the infiltration of the CIA has gone too well and now the USA is invading Iraq?
- David Ben-Gurion tries to keep a brand-new country alive - this would be the most war-oriented scenario of them all
- Benjamin Netanyahu part 2 - for those who want to change current events. Will Bibi be able to handle the Arab Spring and the possible UN recognition of Palestine?

Also, it might be nice to have the game mechanic of infiltrating the KGB/FSB and the CIA, so that you can direct the superpowers to support various kinds of movements or perhaps even attack nations for you. For example, if you get near-total control of the CIA, you could make the USA do a full invasion of Iran or Iraq. Or, if you get near-total control of the KGB/FSB, you could make them slow the progress of a country's nuclear weapons program through something like Stuxnet.

Palestine definitely needs to be developed more as a game mechanic, especially because of all the changes it's gone through. For example, it should be possible to (for the stock Benjamin Netanyahu scenario) cause the PLO to split into Hamas and Fatah. The player should also be able to make crazy decisions like whether to completely take over Jerusalem, build a big wall to contain the West Bank or Gaza, try to withdraw settlers, etc.

If nations go Jihadist, there should be much bigger consequences than simply getting the USA angry, such as Hamas suddenly getting their hands on better weapons. Likewise with nations going democratic, for example, if Egypt goes democratic then it might suddenly be more hostile to Israel.

Support from America should be more complex - American Jews who donate lots of cash, American lobbyists with different goals (such as AIPAC), conservatives who just really want to kill Muslims, etc.

Newt's dad happens to be the crazy guy with all the explosives and flamethrowers (It explains why we're acting nice to him )

And when he's red-faced out of his skull, he lets the kids play with them. Jacob's little brother once found a "magic book" in the stash which he then showed to Ritz. Ever since then, Ritz's attitude towards Jacob changed in ways that Jacob's innocent brain can't comprehend.

Also: Montblanc may be short, but he knows how to work it. He's always trying to teach Jacob something about "the game" or "the business"

Does your Oliver Hazard Perry-class mount any serious surface-to-surface weapons? If not, this is going to be a very short mission.

Hmm, does this game let you recruit the retainers of destroyed families like in Nobunaga's Ambition?

The faction where everyone is named after people from Final Fantasy Tactics (their name escapes me at the moment)

MSI Afterburner works wonders for Windows and is free, unlike Fraps. It requires a bit of setup for video capture, though. It's how I did this whole LP - just hit the "start video recording" key, play a bit, then hit that key again, then use VLC to view the video and hit the "take screenshot" button in VLC.

Haven't tried it with whatever you're using to play Gemfire, though.

The perfect KOEI game would have:
- Food trading, taxes, tribute, population loyalty, military loyalty, random merchants and other special characters
- Body / Governance Points (which the AI is also constrained by), all kinds of retainer skills, retainer loyalty, tea ceremonies, jousting / tournaments, hostages, marriage, ronin / mercenary retainers
- Floods, droughts, irrigation levels, flood defense levels, farm development levels, castle levels, market levels
- Skill, maybe even multiple skills for firearms / ironclads / magic / whatever
- Battles with more-interesting ranged combat (archers / siege weapons / musketeers who can shoot farther than 1 square), and maybe with cavalry who can charge against multiple squares in a line
- Mass popular movements who threaten you with the power of God. Playable, too. Seriously, even Shogun 2 Total War doesn't let you play the Ikko-Ikki without a mod.
- The same artist who did the art for all these early-era games. The character portraits were the best I've ever seen from any strategy game that bothers to have character portraits.
- Music by Yoko Kanno

Alas, getting all these things in a single game will be nearly-impossible today. And, it looks like Gemfire only has a skeleton of KOEI gameplay with the seasonal grain trade thrown in.