Unreal has recently announced the port of the Unreal Engine 3 on Mac OS X! => http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MacPlatformHome.html
And Virtual Programming is supporting this initiative behind the scenes, if to believe their recent blog post. They have undertaken the actual port for Epic: Congratulations guys! We just can’t wait to see which new RTS, FPS, MMOGs and simply wargames are going to be created on our preferred platform and OS 🙂
Muzzy Lane has announced that its grand strategy game Making History II: The War of the World is now available for Mac OSX.
Making History II: The War of the World (MHII) gives players the power to take full control of any world nation during the time leading up to and during the Second World War. Armchair generals and fans of grand strategy can take their turns building great empires or protecting the world from tyranny during these pivotal moments in world history. Players can control International trade, military campaigns, diplomatic negotiations, and more.
Economic historian and policy icon Niall Ferguson, who collaborated on the game, is a leading proponent of the concept that economic and ethnic instability play key roles in creating and sustaining major conflicts. The grand strategist must consider those elements in addition to military planning, and so Making History II incorporates these ideas into its gameplay to offer players a more complete grand strategy experience.
The game can be downloaded immediately from Muzzy Lane’s own Gaming Headquarters website,http://making-history.com, and from premier online locations such as Steam, Direct2Drive, and GamersGate, among others. A free 50 turn demo is also available.
Hearts of Iron III is a grand strategy wargame developed and published by Paradox Interactive that is the sequel to the previous Hearts of Iron games. It’s now available for MAC too, from Virtual Programming, through Steam and Deliver2Mac, and you bet I’ve got it now. I was lucky to get it lately for just $4 (75% discount) during a 5 days Paradox sale on Steam. Couple of days ago, Deliver2Mac has even released the great russian extension “For the Motherland“.
It’s a rainy and cold Sunday in Sydney, perfect day to give this game a first go, starting with the tutorials. Hearts of Iron 3 allows the player to take control of almost any nation that existed or even plausibly could have existed during the period of 1936–1948, guiding it through World War II. A variety of decisions regarding the armed forces, production, research, diplomacy, politics and espionage is the focus of the game.
The game centres around three factions: the Axis (Germany and its allies), the Allies (Britain and the Commonwealth, as well as the French empire), and the Comintern (the Soviet Union and its allies). All other nations can slowly align with one of the factions. Nations are more likely to side with those with similar ideology. Resources found in the game include: energy, metal, rare materials, and oil. The first three are required for industrial production, while oil is converted to fuel for vehicles, planes and ships. The scope of military organisation ranges from brigades to entire theatres of operation.
I’m now starting the tutorials, and will tell you more soon!
Other online tutorials:
Mac Grognards rejoice! Slitherine has finally just released one of his flagship title for the Apple platform: Battle Academy renamed for the occasion “BBC Battlefield Academy” to address and solve the lawsuit initiated by Electronic Arts in 2010. It’s a significant move from the top publisher of digital wargames to recognise the significance of the Mac Wargaming Community.
Originally launched in August 2010, the game was immediately proclaimed by both critics and players as one of the most innovative and enjoyable strategy games of the year for novices and grognards alike. This Mac version has a completely renewed and intuitive UI to make it more accessible for the different control systems available on Apple devices, but it keeps fully compatible with the PC version, making it possible not only to play with PC saved games, but also to play multi-player over the network.
Inspired by an original online game concept devised by the BBC, the game has more than 30 battles in a range of theatres of war from the North African desert through D-Day to the to the snowy Ardennes mountains where the Allies battled to repel the final German offensive. The game engine is also completely script-driven, allowing players to create their own missions and scenario in a simple and effective way. The server-based PBEM++ Slitherine system completes the package, for a gaming experience that will certainly please both hard core wargamers and newcomers.
“We are very proud to bring this franchise to Mac”, said Philip Veale, Technical Director of Slitherine. “There is an increased demand for our genre of games on the Mac and we are sure BATTLE ACADEMY can easily challenge to become the most played strategy game on the Apple system. Players find it so easy to get into the game and start head-to-head battles, through our PBEM system. We have taken the decision to make the game fully integrated with other platforms and we will continue to do this in future iterations as well!”.
Links:
New high score on Ancient Empire Lux, playing UMMA at KING level: 12840 points. That’s a tough one!
Blue in UMMA is extremely isolated in the beginning. Primary goal would be to acquire northern provinces and Sippar at the North-West. Consolidate both cities with 10, 12 or even 15 armies. Then run to the South-East towards Susa. Once this secured, securing the eastern provinces and besieging Lagash should be rather easy. The nasty one in this game is RED.
In this particular game, victory was acquired in 18 turns. A cautious one I’d say, maybe one can make it in 15?
Get Ancient Empires Lux at Sillysoft, for Mac, Windows and Linux!
The Australian Wargamer 