It’s that time of the week where strategy lovers everywhere gather around the OneHexAway cozy fireplace and chug down on those delightful news snippets that might have gone under the radar this past week.

XCOM2 IS RIDICULOUSLY CHEAP RIGHT NOW

This is probably- already- the best gaming deal of 2021. If you ever wanted to get into the XCOM turn-based excellency but never had the courage to pull the trigger, now it’s the time to do it with the game being stupid cheap at 4€ or your regional equivalent.

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FIELD OF GLORY II: MEDIEVAL RELEASED

The week’s highlight is the release of newest installment of the tried and true formula of Byzantine Games FOG with their most recent iteration, Field of Glory II: Medieval. Bringing to the digital platform the High Middle Ages from 1040 to 1270 AD, during the heyday of the mounted knight. The game features more than 100 unique and animated units encompased within 24 nations. You can get it on Steam for 20 quid or your regional equivalent.

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XENONAUTS 2 DEMO RELEASED

If the first Xenonauts failed to impress you, I’m sorry to say that the second iteration won’t put too much effort into changing your mind. A single, not at all impressive mission in the demo fails to convey any meaningful change from the original. The staggering amount of options for movements and actions when paired up with unintuitive controls lead me to lose more operatives to accidental misclicks than tactical mistakes.

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WAR ON THE SEA RELEASED

Killerfish Games newest ingress in the maritime strategy genre got a mixed reception with armchair admirals praising the developers ambition to create the ultimate real-time-tactical naval combat with graphics and a campaign to match. Landlubers, on the other hand, seem eager to point out fingers to the lack of autonomy for each individual ship, unintuitive UI and constant crashing issues. Hopefully these will be addressed shortly.

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STEAM GAMES FESTIVAL IS ONGOING UNTIL MONDAY

SGF has gone live and you can check it out here. If you’re working this weekend or can’t afford the installation space of more than a couple of some demos, I wholeheartedly recommend the fantastic train wrangler game Railgrade. On the other hand, if heavy and noisy machinery is not your thing, try and give the beautiful winemaking simulator Hundred Days a go.

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NIMBY RAILS IS OUT IN EARLY ACCESS AND I FORGOT ABOUT IT

This nifty little commuter came out of nowhere with absolutely no fan-fare at all, surpringly enough, given the resurgency that management and tycoon games have been having the last couple of years. NIMBY Rails crams the ENTIRE world into a slick 20gb package for the wannabe transit policy managers. The Earth is yours to build and manage train-routes, even to the smallest of details, giving updated stats down to each passenger. If that appears daunting, it’s because it probably is, but NIMBY has the potential to become the ultimate wet dream of aspiring railway engineers.

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TOTAL WAR SAGA: TROY LATEST EXPANSION IS OUT NOW

The better than expected Troy dropped another expansion pack with the diametrically opposed characters of Ajax and Diomedes. The heavy, lumbering shield of the first holding out against insurmountable odds until the swift sword of the later arrives to the rescue. Creative Assembly is eager to point out the new tactical possibilities of these late arrivals with “new methods of battle, from holding ground with strong defensive lines to ambushing foes with quick flanking units.“.

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VICTORY AT SEA: IRONCLAD DEMO IS AVAILABLE IN THE STEAM GAMES FESTIVAL

I literally don’t know enough to write about this but if it happens to be your jam here you go.

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IMPERATOR: ROME GETTING A HUGE FREE UPDATE IN FEBRURARY

Paradox less impressive endeavour into Ancient Rome, Imperator: Rome is getting a face lift to its military systems. The 2.0 “Marius” update, in Paradox’s own words will add:

Levies: Draft levies from your provinces to fight your wars. Their size and composition is based on the cultures and population types in the province.
Legions: Advance your military technology to create standing, professional military forces to guard your empire. But beware of their cost and tendency to follow disloyal generals.
Military Histories: Legions and Mercenary units have histories that will list their accomplishments over time, earning honors or penalties based on their legacies.
Engineers: Special cohort to help with sieges, river crossings and road building.
Changes to Inventions and Military Traditions: Radically overhauled invention system - unlock new abilities alongside old inventions, and shape your civilization like never before.
Diadochi War Goal: New large scale conquests available to Hellenistic kingdoms to better model the ambitions of Successor rulers.
UI Overhaul: Completely reworked interface to make options and decisions more intuitive.
And much more: New unit models for levy and legion units, new port construction options, changes to forts and deities.

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FACTORIO TO GET AN EXPANSION

Factorio developer has announced that, after four years in early access, the 1.1 release of the game is it and I quote “the 1.1 release is the final release of the vanilla game. It will be maintained, so bugfixes, simple modding interface additions, or minor tweaks can happen, but that’s about it.“. They also set forth the news that they’re going to be releasing an expansion pack.

"One big expansion pack
This seems to fit the best. We could focus purely on extending what we have and make new content, which we want to do so dearly! It would be one well-defined product that would be significant enough to recapture peoples attention, and it would be compatible with our workflow. Technically, it would be "just" a new version of the game, so all the infrastructure of mods being updated, multiplayer etc. would just work the same as it worked until now.
So, Expansion pack it is!
This immediately creates two main questions: What will it contain and when is it coming.
What? It is way too early to show any of the plans, and since we want to keep the iterative process of expanding things that prove to be the most fun, the plan is quite loose anyway.
When? All I can say is, that we are starting work on it now, and we don't think that it will take less than a year to develop. I'm personally very curious how the theory of getting more efficient once the engine is solid will hold."

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FANATICAL LUNAR NEW YEAR SALE IS ONGOING

I’ve selected a few highlights from this year Fanatical Lunar Sale:

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HAVE YOU READ?

New details and gameplay for Starship Troopers- Terran Command

Warhammer III releasing later this year.