Strategy and Wargaming

Total War: PHARAOH DYNASTIES is out now. This free expansion-sized addition provides a host of new features to the campaign experience including new map regions, cultures, units, gameplay mechanics, and sweeping quality of life improvements.

Lead New Cultures

Four of the ancient world’s most iconic cultures join the fight to hold back the cataclysmic events of the Bronze-Age Collapse: Babylon, Assyria, Mycenae and Troy. Each offers a unique campaign experience whilst featuring iconic historical leaders, diverse armies to command, gods to worship and much more. Beyond this, an additional 25 minor factions are available to play, such as the Aeolians led by the fabled Achilles, or Napata led by the warrior-king Memnon.

Expand Your Empire

Spanning much of the ancient world from the Aegean to Mesopotamia and down to Ancient Egypt, DYNASTIES almost doubles the size of PHARAOH’s original campaign map by adding 168 new settlements, new historical landmarks, new victory objectives and more. To traverse this vastly expanded sandbox new Sea Travel Lanes have been added that speed up the fleets carrying your armies, enabling you to raid and invade further and faster. ​

Establish Your Dynasty

Start a family tree to ensure your empire stands the test of time with the new Dynasty system. Reign over the tides of mortality and succession, navigating strategic marriages, heroic deaths on the battlefield, assassinations, and the looming mortality of old age to leave behind a legacy that will last the ages.

Dominate The Battlefield

Wage war with over 150 new and reworked units including cavalry, camel riders and faction specific units such as the elite Guards of Troy. Challenge yourself with new battle mechanics such as the optional Lethality modifier which makes battles more realistic by making combat much more deadly.

For more information about Total War: PHARAOH and the other Total War games in development, visit the Total War, Total War: PHARAOH website or visit the expansions Steam page.

Slitherine Games has released the Scramble: Battle of Britain – Flight School, Episode #7 video.

Flight school is back with another advanced topic today, designed to help Scramble pilots master their skills and excel in dogfighting.

Watch Flight School, Episode #7 “Energy Fighting” video HERE.

Airspeed and Aerodynamic Control

Since the middle of the First World War, fighter aircraft have employed guns fixed to their airframes, and a pilot must orient their entire aircraft to bring these guns to bear on a target. Aircraft generally orient themselves through aerodynamic control – the manipulation of the surfaces or shape of a body as air moves around it to inspire forces and moments to act on that body. We define the rate and quality of this air moving around a body as “airspeed” and, regardless of the aerodynamic design of an aircraft or the qualities of the air moving around it, the laws of physics demand that some energy be transferred between aircraft and air, that the energy differential between them be lessened, and thus that every instance of aerodynamic control and every resulting maneuver incur a cost in energy that is mostly paid through airspeed.

Read more HERE.

Strategic Command WWII: War in the Pacific is finally out now.

Watch the latest trailer HERE.

The game features a vast 36,000 hex map, covering regions from India to North America at an 80km/50mi scale. The main campaign starts with the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, leading to Japan’s rapid expansion in Asia and the Pacific.

Players command forces from seven major powers, engaging in land and sea battles with immersive 3-D graphics or NATO counters. Five mini-campaigns include historical battles like Khalkhin Gol, Guadalcanal, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.

New gameplay elements feature airfields, naval supply rules, and iconic events such as the Doolittle Raid.

Don’t miss the opportunity to take advantage of the release offer to complete your Strategic Command collection, grab your copy now with a 60% discount on our store for a few days.

Slitherine Games has released the Scramble: Battle of Britain – Flight School, Episode #6 video.

Watch Flight School, Episode #6 “Dogfighting and damage modeling” HERE.

Welcome back to Flight School, our dev diary series unveiling the most important elements of Scramble: Battle of Britain step by step. Today, we are introducing an advanced topic to help our demo pilots train their skills as the game takes its best shape.

Dogfighting and Damage Modeling
Aerial gunnery is a challenging skill to master in real-time, even with a pilot’s ability to constantly adjust their orientation to maintain a target within their gunsight. The turn-based design of Scramble further complicates this problem by locking aircraft controls for seconds at a time, limiting player authority to minimize targeting errors. Consequently, the Scramble Engine makes some simplifying assumptions to abstract gunnery in a way that rewards traditional dogfighting tactics while still leveraging the analog simulation pillar of Scramble’s design.

Projectiles & Damage
Scramble represents projectiles as clusters: each cluster simulates along a ballistic trajectory and has a base damage value that adjusts according to impact velocity and distance traveled. While aircraft guns in the real world are tuned to converge at a point in space in front of the airplane, yielding a very narrow 3D hit box hundreds of meters along their trajectories, Scramble simulates a more generous damage region that universally expands as projectiles fly farther along their ballistic paths. This expanded hit region allows Scramble to both maintain its simulation foundation while rewarding tactical foresight.

Every projectile in Scramble carries a structure of data representing the active pilot traits at its time of firing, so upon impact the base bullet damage can be increased or reduced according to the pilot traits.

Scramble aircraft are modeled down to the subsystem level, with the entire body of an aircraft split into small hit spheres that are assigned to the subsystem who most closely shares their position. Subsystems can be marked as dense or penetrable, so the skin of a wing or fuselage will allow a projectile to continue its trajectory, possibly impacting a more dense subsystem in an ensuing simulation frame.

Subsystem Damage & Failure
Every subsystem on a Scramble aircraft has a total health value, critical damage threshold, performance impact while critically damaged and while failed, and a potential list of other subsystem components that either feed it or rely on its functioning for their own performance.

As an example of coupled subsystems, engines require fuel to run and radiators to remain healthy. A failed radiator will immediately move engine damage status to critical. A critically damaged engine has reduced thrust output and can only continue to survive at a reduced throttle state.

Control surfaces and structural subsystems will degrade aerodynamic stability and performance when critically damaged or failed. Damaged ailerons impact aircraft roll performance, and damaged elevators will limit pitch authority and may induce roll and yaw biases. Critically damaged control surfaces may fail completely when commanded during high-G maneuvers, so players should be careful to minimize maneuvering along damaged control axes while at high speeds.

Leaks, Fires & Explosions
Most aircraft in Scramble have both oil and coolant radiators. Damaged oil and coolant systems will leak black and white smoke, respectively, at a rate proportional to the damage they have accrued. Fully failed radiator systems will damage the engines they feed, so subsystem failures tend to cascade into engine failures as dogfights drag on.

Fuel tanks are positioned and sized according to historical references, and punctured fuel tanks will leak for the duration of a dogfight. Fuel leaks can catch on fire, and empty fuel tanks receiving additional damage will result in a catastrophic explosion.

Debris
Every component that falls off an airplane in Scramble contains unique aerodynamics and damage definitions, and will continue simulating until impacting the sea. Aircraft can collide with visual debris and will receive damage proportional to the debris size and closing velocity.

An aircraft that loses its right wing will begin to roll aggressively to the right side while its heavy wing flutters behind on its own simulated trajectory. If this same aircraft then loses its left wing, the rightward roll will dampen, and the body will continue on a mostly ballistic trajectory until impact.

Close-range shots are the most sure method of inflicting damage in Scramble, but heavily damaged aircraft tend to leave a wake littered with dangerous debris. Pilots attacking at close-range should plan ahead to ensure they exit the engagement clear of any resulting debris field.

Live to Fight Again
Scramble aircraft degrade and fail bit by bit, with coupled subcomponents and plenty of feedback to help players manage the risk of keeping their pilots in the fight for additional turns. The most valuable resource in Scramble is a pool of healthy, experienced pilots, and players will find that leaving combat to fight another day is a far higher rewarded strategy than maximizing kills. Our goal in developing this richly simulated combat engine is to facilitate player stories that mirror the emotional and tactical richness of pilot memoirs from the Battle of Britain.

Click here for more game information.

FREE EXPANSION-SIZED ADDITION WELCOMES NEW MAP REGIONS, CULTURES, UNITS AND MORE

SEGA® Europe, Ltd. and The Creative Assembly™ Limited. have today announced that Total War: PHARAOH’s DYNASTIES will release on July 25th. This free expansion-sized addition provides a host of new features to the campaign experience including new map regions, cultures, units, gameplay mechanics, and sweeping quality of life improvements.

Watch the new gameplay overview trailer HERE.

Lead New Cultures

Four of the ancient world’s most iconic cultures join the fight to hold back the cataclysmic events of the Bronze-Age Collapse: Babylon, Assyria, Mycenae and Troy. Each offers a unique campaign experience whilst featuring iconic historical leaders, diverse armies to command, gods to worship and much more. Beyond this, an additional 25 minor factions are available to play, such as the Aeolians led by the fabled Achilles, or Napata led by the warrior-king Memnon.

Expand Your Empire

Spanning much of the ancient world from the Aegean to Mesopotamia and down to Ancient Egypt, DYNASTIES almost doubles the size of PHARAOH’s original campaign map by adding 168 new settlements, new historical landmarks, new victory objectives and more. To traverse this vastly expanded sandbox new Sea Travel Lanes have been added that speed up the fleets carrying your armies, enabling you to raid and invade further and faster. ​

Establish Your Dynasty

Start a family tree to ensure your empire stands the test of time with the new Dynasty system. Reign over the tides of mortality and succession, navigating strategic marriages, heroic deaths on the battlefield, assassinations, and the looming mortality of old age to leave behind a legacy that will last the ages.

Dominate The Battlefield

Wage war with over 150 new and reworked units including cavalry, camel riders and faction specific units such as the elite Guards of Troy. Challenge yourself with new battle mechanics such as the optional Lethality modifier which makes battles more realistic by making combat much more deadly.

A Message From The Developers

“From the outset of our design journey on Total War: PHARAOH, our vision has always been to deliver a grand-scale recreation of the turbulent Bronze Age Collapse; one brimming with historical intrigue, authentic representations of iconic civilisation, and a sandbox theatre that allows you to rewrite the course of human history,” said Game Director, Todor Nikolov. “We’re very proud of what we’ve achieved and whilst this will be our final content addition, we hope it serves as a love letter that encapsulates our continued passion for this wonderful age. Thanks for your support.”

For more information about Total War: PHARAOH and the other Total War games in development, visit the Total War or Total War: PHARAOH website.

Evil Twin Artworks is thrilled to announce the latest major update for Victory At Sea Atlantic, introducing the highly anticipated Axis Campaign. Starting from July 3rd, 2024, players can now take on the role of the Axis powers, striving to halt the vital resource convoys heading towards Great Britain. Victory At Sea Atlantic, is currently in Early Access, and is available on both Steam, Epic and GOG platforms.

Victory At Sea Atlantic has captivated players with its historically authentic naval warfare, and the Axis Campaign adds a whole new dimension of strategy and excitement. This campaign challenges players to master the tactics of the Axis forces, using submarines, aircraft, and surface vessels to intercept and disrupt Allied supply lines across the perilous Atlantic Ocean.

Watch the Trailer HERE.

Key Features of the Axis Campaign:

Find out more about Victory At Sea Atlantic on Steam.

The third DLC for Absolutely Games’ strategic epic launches today with a new map, weapon and weapon variant, clothing set, and two new special ops missions.

Absolutely Games and Team17 Digital have today launched the Talon Pack for WWII-based strategy epic Classified: France ‘44. Available for PC, PlayStation®5, and Xbox Series X|S, the Talon Pack grants players new gear to aid them in their fight for victory, including a new map, ‘Manor’; two new Special Ops missions, ‘Foul Manors’ and ‘Hostage Negotiation’; new weapon ‘Mosin-Nagant M1891’; new weapon variant, ‘Trench Gun ‘Bear’’; and a new clothing set, ‘US Airborne ‘Talon’ Set’.

An original take on the turn-based tactics genre, Classified: France ’44 authentically captures the challenges of World War II firefights, shining a light on a lesser-known story. Players will take charge of the Jedburghs: a group of special forces dropped deep in the heart of Nazi-occupied France, working with the Resistance to disrupt and sabotage enemy forces in the lead up to D-Day.

James Brooksby, CEO, Absolutely Games, said: “Today, on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings we want to remember these momentous events which inspired the creation of Classified: France ’44. We pay tribute to the heroic men and women who took part in the run-up to and during Operation Overlord – the largest amphibious invasion in history. We will not forget the many lives lost in the campaign to liberate Europe.”

The season pass for Classified: France ’44 can be purchased for £19.99/$19.99/€19.99, granting access to all four DLC packs, with the individual DLC packs 1-4 available for £5.99/$5.99/€5.99 each.

For more information on Classified: France ’44, visit the official website. PC users can purchase the game via Steam.

Attention, pilots and flight captains!

Prepare for takeoff with Scramble: Battle of Britain.

We’re thrilled to announce that a demo of our exhilarating aerial combat game will be available during the Steam Next Fest from June 10th to17th. This is your chance to experience intense dogfights and intricate mechanics firsthand.

Here’s what you can look forward to in the demo:

Missions

Simulation

Control

Cinematic Tools

Don’t miss out on this thrilling opportunity to immerse yourself in the skies of WWII. Get ready to Scramble! Click here for more game information.

Slitherine Software has announced the release of Field of Glory: Kingdoms.

Field of Glory: Kingdoms is the new game from award-winning studio AGEOD, makers of some of the best grand strategy games of all times. It is set in 1054, just after the Great Schism, and it encompasses more than two centuries of epic European, African, and Middle Eastern history.

Navigate the complexities of politics, religion, and warfare to build a legacy that stands the test of time. The game has a detailed map and a variety of units, including knights, sergeants, spearmen, and crossbowmen, offering countless strategic possibilities.

In Field of Glory: Kingdoms, you can export your battles into Field of Glory II: Medieval. This integration allows you to immerse yourself even further into the strategic and tactical elements of medieval warfare.

Watch the Field of Glory: Kingdoms release trailer HERE.

Find out more about Field of Glory: Kingdoms HERE.

Roads to Power Major Expansion Offers New Ways to Play Popular Strategy Game

Learn new ways to unlock power and prestige in Roads to Power, the new Major Expansion from Crusader Kings III. Be a wandering mercenary, building a reputation as a fixer or outlaw, or lead a noble family in an ancient empire, using influence and intrigue to secure your place. New events, government systems, schemes and lifestyles are yours to explore.

Coming on September 24, Roads to Power is a major expansion to Crusader Kings III, Paradox Interactive’s award-winning strategy/role-playing experience about high politics and relationship building in a dynamic medieval world. It is a part of the game’s Chapter III, the Expansion Pass for 2024 that includes a free clothing pack, the Core Expansion Legends of the Dead, and an upcoming event pack emphasizing character travel.

Roads to Power introduces two new ways to engage with this world, with never-before-seen game styles. You can roam the world as a Landless Adventurer, fulfilling contracts and building up your own base of power, until you feel strong enough to claim a new kingdom for yourself and your band of followers. Or, play as a noble in the Byzantine Empire in a non-feudal system, scheming your way to the top, as you compete against other powerful families at the imperial court, using your influence to manipulate the political system in your favor, placing strong and friendly candidates in seats of power – even the throne itself.

Watch the release date announcement trailer for Crusader Kings III: Roads to Power HERE.

Features of Crusader Kings III: Road to Power include:

Crusader Kings III: Roads to Power will be available on 24 September 2024 as part of Crusader Kings III: Chapter III – which includes the Core Expansion Legends of the Dead, the Major Expansion Roads to Power and the Event Pack Wandering Nobles. More game information is available on the official Crusader Kings III website.