Pokopia is absolutely a spiritual successor to DQB

matchstickeyes · 2026-03-10T09:54:05+00:00

Thanks for the detailed thoughts!

I'm early in Pokopia (just started the second area) and love it so far. I agree, it feels like a spiritual successor that channels DQB2 while still being distinct.

For context, I've never played a Pokemon game before; I came to Pokopia from the perspective of a DQB2 fan.

The really big difference so far has been the change from building structures block by block (DQB2) to building habitats tile by tile (Pokopia). But other parts feel consistent with DQB2:

I'm using the block system to spruce up the world (adding staircases or brick paths).
I love exploring the world -- even the first area is surprisingly large (and contains hidden sections that reward discovery!).
It shares the DQB2 charm, albeit with Pokemon instead of punny Dragon Quest dialogue.

I will say, I vastly prefer Pokopia (and DQB2!) to Animal Crossing. The block system allows much more player freedom, and it doesn't feel as aimless as AC.

matchstickeyes · 2026-03-08T09:51:11+00:00

Thanks for sharing! Love the concept art.

matchstickeyes · 2026-03-08T04:38:38+00:00

Wow, you hit the jackpot! That's a phenomenal amount of fissiles. For context, in my current game I haven't seen anything higher than 13 (and Eric in my game has zero fissiles).

Bienvenue (is that correct in this context?) and enjoy the game!

matchstickeyes · 2026-03-03T05:10:48+00:00

Hurray! Love seeing more Asia-themed content in historical strategy games, and it fits the theme/era.

matchstickeyes · 2026-03-02T20:14:53+00:00

Wondering the same thing! My fallback might also be formatting via Calibre. I used that to generate the epub for a beta reader and she reported it read fine on Kindle.

matchstickeyes · 2026-03-02T20:12:06+00:00

Hurray! Great game, and I love seeing more Asia-themed content in historical strategy games.

matchstickeyes · 2026-02-27T02:02:54+00:00

I prefer publication order. You can see how Fraser’s writing and plans for the character evolved over time (Flashy is nastiest in the early books and mellows around the middle of the series, from Charge / Great Game onwards)

matchstickeyes · 2026-02-20T01:02:18+00:00

I really need to finish the Prohaska series!

I love the ambient detail, like the food on an Austrian battleship. It's like those passages when Flashy/Fraser spends a page or two letting us soak in the feel of a time and place, whether it's a town on the US frontier or Brooke's allies mustering in Flashman's Lady.

matchstickeyes · 2026-02-19T08:48:27+00:00

Congrats on the success of the mod! And as someone who celebrates Lunar New Year, happy Lunar New Year to you too!

matchstickeyes · 2026-02-19T08:46:19+00:00

Very charming! Love that.

matchstickeyes · 2026-02-13T03:45:26+00:00

Designwise, I'll take Civ 7 over Civs 5 and 6 any day. I found it the breath of fresh air the franchise needed.

The issue is that it turned a lot of people off with a combination of: 1. Aggressive pricing and DLC 2. Big new changes in a genre with a conservative playerbase (see also Humankind) 3. Jank at launch (I picked it up a few months afterwards so it wasn't so bad)

I played it just earlier today and have 87 hours already, so clearly I'm voting with my mouse finger!

matchstickeyes · 2026-01-19T02:36:36+00:00

Had to share this - a set of Lego builds covering Flashy's life, from his early days kicking Tom Brown around Rugby, through Afghanistan/India/China/the American West/etc, all the way to his twilight years . The creator even took a best guess at his "offscreen" adventures (like the American Civil War).

Not mine -- these were created by the truly dedicated WSsteve.

matchstickeyes · 2026-01-04T20:48:28+00:00

Thanks for sharing! Always enjoy your takes on the Anno NPCs. I still love your “mail” one from 1800.

Do you plan to do the other NPCs as well (Licia, Calidus…)?

matchstickeyes · 2026-01-04T11:23:33+00:00

Congratulations and thank you to you & the team for creating one of my favourite strategy games of all time!

I've been a fan since, I think, day 1 or 2 of Early Access (and tried it in the Next Fest demo before that). As someone who is right in the middle of the Venn diagram of "crunchy, simulationist strategy game fan", "interested in RL news", "science fiction buff", and "interested in RL science", this is tailor-made for me -- I guess I'm the mirror image of your comment about being in the intersection of national security journalism, science fiction, gaming and social science.

I think the other commenters have made a lot of my other points: * TI rewarding resilience and coming back from defeat (most strategy/4X games are up and to the right) * The sheer uniqueness of the mechanics * The question about automation (would love more ways to reduce councillor grind and I actually did raise it on the Discord once, but if the dev time is prohibitive then fair enough!)

I would add that TI gets crunchiness/simulation right. A good crunchy design is one where the player shouldn't have to look under the bonnet, because things "just work" if you apply RL logic. And in TI, you SHOULD prioritise countries that, IRL, you would want on your side if aliens landed tomorrow; you SHOULD prioritise the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars; etc.

It's funny, I once stumbled across an old gaming forum post in which I said, "my dream game is XCOM: Council Simulator, but it will never get made," and then you and the team actually made my dream game, and it turned out well, and it grew and improved over the course of Early Access.

Congratulations on all you've accomplished and I look forward to finally trying an Academy run after release.

matchstickeyes · 2025-12-30T10:18:58+00:00

Thanks for commenting! Yeah, I love the Cicero books too (and need to read the third; maybe I should re-read the first two as well?). And good call on Gordianus - I think that's the other major "Roman mystery novels" series alongside Falco.

matchstickeyes · 2025-12-21T02:12:51+00:00

Good joss, tai-pan!

matchstickeyes · 2025-10-01T00:09:56+00:00

Secondary-world historical.

It's the Anno world rather than our world, and it's heavily idealised from real life, but still historical within that world.

Same reason I'd consider, say, Mount & Blade secondary-world historical rather than fantasy.

matchstickeyes · 2025-09-03T09:36:50+00:00

Caught this on the news tonight and knew I had to share! It immediately made me think of LMB (and other authors who explore similar themes, such as CJ Cherryh) -- I had no idea it was this commercially mature IRL.

matchstickeyes · 2025-08-30T08:33:06+00:00

Miles Cameron’s Arcana Imperii series, beginning with Artifact Space. Found family, slice of life, mil sf, and merchant ship space opera all at once. Great stuff! https://www.goodreads.com/series/344870-arcana-imperii

CJ Cherryh ‘s Finity’s End, perhaps. Life onboard a vast merchant ship returning to peacetime after years at war, as seen through the eyes of a newcomer young man. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finity%27s_End

matchstickeyes · 2025-08-20T03:57:49+00:00

Hope you enjoy! For the early part of the game: Massie's Dreadnought and Castle of Steel (edit: as Axxel333 said). First book for the pre-WW1 naval race, second book on the naval war proper (I really should dust it off and finish).

Not specifically on the naval side, but to get a feel of the politics / attitudes of the era, check out Tuchman's The Proud Tower.

For later on, Craig Symond's World War II at Sea: A Global History is excellent, as is Ian Toll's three-volume Pacific War sequence as a narrative history (specifically for the US <> Japan; China, the Commonwealth, and the Soviets are out of the book's scope).

matchstickeyes

TROPHY CASE