Three Moves Ahead 225: Brave New World
Rob, Troy, Fraser Brown, and Rowan Kaiser talk about the latest Civilization expansion.
Jul 20, 2013•1 hr 17 min
Three Moves Ahead
Three Moves Ahead is the leading strategy game themed podcast on the internet. Every week a panel of knowledgeable gamers with strong opinions meets to talk about the strategy and war games of the day, design issues and games in the wider world.
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Episodes
Three Moves Ahead 224: Stopped at the Gates of Moscow
Tom Chick joins Rob to talk about their feelings toward Company of Heroes, and why they both feel a bit disappointed. Tom thinks the game's economy is broken and it's become too armor driven, while Rob is really depressed by the faction design. And yet Rob still likes it, while Tom finds it ultimately pointless.
Jul 12, 2013•1 hr 26 min
Three Moves Ahead 223: God Help the Marines on Iwo Jima
Evan Lahti joins Rob to talk about Red Orchestra 2: Rising Storm (a totally LEGIT strategy topic). They discuss why it outstrips Heroes of Stalingrad, how it does faction design right, and the role of asymmetry.
Jul 04, 2013•1 hr 17 min
Three Moves Ahead 222: Wargame: See Deep, Think Deeper
Bruce and Tom join Rob for a late-night chat about Wargame: AirLand Battle, Cold War tactics and politics, and Rob's overwhelming awfulness at this game.
Jun 28, 2013•1 hr 6 min
Three Moves Ahead 221: Binding With Iron
Troy and Bruce team up to discuss the track record of railroad games through strategy history, from 1830 through Railroad Tycoon and Rails Across America and beyond. How do these games distinguish themselves from each other? What is the attraction? Does Ticket to Ride count?
Jun 20, 2013•1 hr 20 min
Three Moves Ahead 220: Expanding the Company of Heroes
Relic's Quinn Duffy and former Relic producer and friend of the show Shane Neville join Rob to talk about Company of Heroes past and future.
Jun 11, 2013•1 hr 10 min
Three Moves Ahead 219: Meeting of the Minds
Rob talks to the Paradox brain trust of CEO Fred Wester and VP Shams Jorjani to discuss publishing, Paradox's approach to the business, and whether reviewers are the enemy.
Jun 05, 2013•1 hr 21 min
Three Moves Ahead 218: The War in Europa
EU IV lead Thomas Johansson and freelance writer Joe Robinson join Rob to talk about their recent adventures with a massive EU IV multiplayer session.EU IV lead Thomas Johansson and freelance writer Joe Robinson join Rob to talk about their recent adventures with a massive EU IV multiplayer session.EU IV lead Thomas Johansson and freelance writer Joe Robinson join Rob to talk about their recent adventures with a massive EU IV multiplayer session.
May 30, 2013•1 hr 14 min
Three Moves Ahead 217: Victoria Day
3MA Producer Michael Hermes and GWJ editor Erik Hanson joins Rob and Tom to talk about Victoria II: Heart of Darkness. Rob is reconsidering some of his earlier, harsher views on Victoria while Tom argues that it is a towering achievement of game design that speaks to real-world politics in a way few others have ever attempted.
May 20, 2013•1 hr 6 min
Three Moves Ahead 216: Lost in Space
Paul Dean joins Rob to talk about their shared frustration with the state of strategy games among the stars.
May 14, 2013•1 hr 18 min
Three Moves Ahead 215: Early Access
Tom Chick and Rob talk about the rise of early access programs, whether it's a good thing, and what it means for their work.
May 01, 2013•1 hr 13 min
Three Moves Ahead 214: We <3 the Swarm
Andrew Groen and Sean Sands join Rob to discuss how Heart of the Swarm has changed StarCraft 2, and the evolving competitive landscape. (Cover image: Enrique Espinoza courtesy MLG)
Apr 24, 2013•1 hr 18 min
Three Moves Ahead 213: On Campaign
Tom Chick joins Rob and Troy to talk about campaigns in RTS games, particularly StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm.
Apr 17, 2013•1 hr 9 min
Three Moves Ahead 212: Set Disruptors to Acts of God
Troy, Julian, Dave Heron, and Rob talk about the role of extraordinary disruptions in strategy games. From acts of God to the acts of Khan, why don't more strategy games include disruptions? And should they?
Apr 09, 2013•1 hr 2 min
Three Moves Ahead 211: Worth a Thousand Words
PAX East 2013 was host to the second ever Three Moves Ahead panel, and this time we took on interface design. Troy and Rob were joined by Rob Daviau (IronWall), Eric Lee Smith (Shenandoah) and Nels Anderson (Klei)
Mar 27, 2013•58 min
Three Moves Ahead 210: A Silly Place
Chris and Rowan Kaiser join Rob to dissect SimCity and its many quirks.
Mar 21, 2013•1 hr 19 min
Three Moves Ahead 209: Desktop to Tabletop
Bruce and Troy welcome Paul Rohrbaugh from High Flying Dice Games to the show to talk about what it means to be a desktop wargame publisher? Why do desktop games support greater variety in conflicts? Is there a limit on what can and cannot be done? What does a desktop consumer look like? And stay tuned to the end for a pretty cool wargame story.
Mar 12, 2013•1 hr 6 min
Three Moves Ahead 208: Social Gaming
Rob Daviau joins Julian, Rob, and Troy to talk about games that are more about social interaction than mechanics. Traitor games, party games, and negotiation games.
Mar 07, 2013•52 min
Three Moves Ahead 207: Eagles Marching
Awesome Out of Ten's Fraser Brown and PC Gamer's T.J. Hafer join Rob to talk about Paradox's March of the Eagles.
Feb 27, 2013•1 hr 10 min
Three Moves Ahead 206: Cold Warriors
It's just Troy and Rob this week as they reflect on Cold War strategy games and the unique challenges and temptations of that setting.
Feb 19, 2013•1 hr 4 min
Three Moves Ahead 205: A Final Unity
2x2's Tomislav Uzelac joins Bruce and Rob to talk about designing Unity of Command, scenario design versus systems design, and where the series goes from here.
Feb 12, 2013•1 hr 2 min
Three Moves Ahead 204: Gate-Crashing the Roman Empire
Jon Shafer joins Rob and Troy to talk about his new project, At the Gates , and the role of map evolution.
Feb 06, 2013•1 hr 4 min
Three Moves Ahead 203: Classic Career Analysis with Chris Taylor
Gas Powered Games' Chris Taylor joins Rob, Troy, and Julian to talk about Total Annihilation and the Supreme Commander series, as well the problems currently facing Gas Powered and their Wildman Kickstarter ..
Jan 29, 2013•1 hr 32 min
Three Moves Ahead 202: Best of the Best 2012
It's old home week on Three Moves Ahead as the full panel assembles to talk about their favorite games and trends of 2012, and Tom Chick crashes the party to bury the hexagon, not to praise it.
Jan 22, 2013•1 hr 1 min
Three Moves Ahead 201: Best of the Guests 2012
Our most frequent guests in 2012, designers Soren Johnson, Jon Shafer, and Dave Heron return to 3MA to talk to Rob about their favorite experiences of the year.
Jan 15, 2013•1 hr 34 min
Three Moves Ahead 200: Tapping Past Bastogne
2013 opens with a look at Shenandoah Studios' Battle of the Bulge for iPad. Everyone agrees that it is shiny and beautiful, but does it work as it should? Is it even a Bulge game at all? Listen as Troy, Bruce and Julian work out what makes Battle of the Bulge a near perfect match of design and platform. Gameographies of major players at Shenandoah John H Butterfield Joe Miranda Eric Lee Smith Bruce's review...
Jan 07, 2013•58 min
Three Moves Ahead 199: Some Assembly Required
Troy and Julian welcome freelance writer and co-proprietor of the Shut Up, Sit Down Show, Paul Dean , to talk about house rules and modding in board games. Why do we do it? What counts as a mod of a board game? And how do you get other people to play them? Creativity, design, drinking - Troy is good at one of these things, but a fine chat is had.
Dec 18, 2012•57 min
Three Moves Ahead 198: The Kessel Run
Rowan Kaiser rejoins Rob and Bruce to talk about War in the East, while Bruce has been busy with the Don to the Danube expansion. Rowan has thoughts about approaching the hardest of the hardcore wargames from a newcomer's perspective, while Rob is laboring under the most epic misconception in 3MA history. Bruce is a little bit disappointed in the new scenarios, and he and Rob discuss their ideal Eastern front scenarios. Then the panel talk about Matrix prices, and what they mean for the genre....
Dec 11, 2012•1 hr 36 min
Three Moves Ahead 197: All By Myself
Troy and Bruce welcome original panelist Tom Chick back to the show to talk about solitaire boardgames, starting with the new Phantom Leader for iPad and then roaming through 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, Levee En Masse, some Lovecraftian thing and Ambush. What makes a solitaire board game distinct from a computer game played against an AI? When do theme and production values matter? Plus the return of the Geryk outro tunes.
Dec 04, 2012•1 hr 4 min
Three Moves Ahead 196: Grunt's Eye View
Rob is joined by Shawn Andrich, Evan Lahti, and Phill Cameron to talk about Planetside 2 and the past and future of the large-scale shooter. At what point does the scale start to turn a shooter into a strategy game, and does Planetside hit that level? Everyone suspects that Planetside would be more strategic if only there were a commander role, and Rob and Shawn are reminded of the old Battlezone games. Evan is impressed by how diverse the experiences and battlefields are in Planetside 2, but ev...
Nov 29, 2012•1 hr 20 min
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