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 1. Home
 2. An Englishman plays American Revolution sim Liberty or Death


AN ENGLISHMAN PLAYS AMERICAN REVOLUTION SIM LIBERTY OR DEATH

6 May 2023

From 2010 to 2014 Richard Cobbett wrote Crapshoot, a column about rolling the
dice to bring random games back into the light. This week, give me liberty or...
wait, hang on. Being British, that would be most unpatriotic. Dispense
Oppression AND Death, and give me a nice cup of tea and a biscuit!


THE GLORIOUS CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE TRAITOR COLONIES, DAY 1

So far, I don't think anyone has noticed that I have no idea what I'm doing.
Splendid. How does one win a war against an entrenched force like this, anyway?
I'm assuming that simply building a lot of tanks and rushing them will not work,
partly because of the scale of the battlefield and difficulty of establishing
the necessary supply chains, but mostly because they haven't been invented yet.



Are you unschooled, sir?! Britannia rules the waves! All the waves!

I hope that expedition I sent to the Tiber River pans out. An ion cannon would
be extremely useful, as well as really setting the appropriate tone for future
Independence Days. But I digress. And should probably give some orders beyond
"Try to win this." 

But it's not easy. Normally at this point I would have lots of advisors and
strategies and data to play off. Here, all I have is the Earl of Sandwich on
speed-dial, and he's not taking my calls any more. "Sir," I said to him, "I
require you to—"

"You're going to ask me to make you a ham baguette, aren't you?"

I was of course most offended by this insinuation. "I am going to ask you you
make England proud."

"So, with salt and vinegar crisps, and a four-finger Kit-Kat?"

"Please."

"Don't call me again."

So, that could definitely have gone better. But, I have to assume that His
Majesty, Great and True, Protector of Justice and Light of the Empire would
never have sent me if he did not, for some reason, have faith. Or syphilis. But
since saying such would be treason, I shall not.



Tsk. If you can't trust an invading army bent on subjugation, who CAN you trust?

Primarily, it appears that my task is to allocate budgets, because war is
thrilling like that. I have a budget of "4195" for the next few months, and can
only hope that this is pounds rather than pence or little beads of glass like
the ones we purchased half of the Empire with, or this is going to be a
distinctly underwhelming counter-Revolution. 

I am instructed to use it Wisely, and to begin by deciding how much to pay my
officers. I am informed the dishonourable curs usually receive a salary of
906—an insult! Surely they should serve for the pleasure of one day knowing that
their commander has basked in his Majesty's presence and been told "Yes, well,
job done," in the proudest traditions of loyalty.

They ask for 906. I give them 10. If I am tested, tomorrow I shall not be so
generous.



AMERICA! TOTAL WAR!

Safe? Was this Empire of ours built on safety? I think not, good sir, most
definitely not! Were we all of your yellow stripe, why, we would never have
ventured from our septic isle and the sun would set upon the British Empire on a
nightly basis; in winter, really bloody early. That would be—

Sceptred! I meant sceptred! Phew. How easily does the corruption of treason and
ingratitude work its way into the soul.



What? Sorry, missed that. But I've just worked out where in the world Carmen
Sandiego is!


THE GLORIOUS CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE TRAITOR COLONIES, DAY 2

And the questions keep coming! How much to supply soldiers! Money for ships!
Should we hire mercenaries? I do not know, sirs. Do they have the ability to
show the slightest initiative? Then I shall have a whole cabinet of them!



No, no, no, if we start negotiating with people we've wronged, we'll never get
anything else done.

Boston? Wait. Were they not the bounders and cads responsible for the waste of
so much good tea? Fie, then fetch them torches instead of financial stability!
Hoodlums! Bounders! Cads! TurboCADs! Someone use them to design and construct a
warning to others.

But my power does not, it appears, stretch quite this far. Indeed, my righteous
vengeance is limited to simply producing an illuminating pamphlet on how much
their leaders, to use the common parlance of the locals, "suck". It slightly
raises my support, and only costs 100 whatever units of currency I'm spending.
100! You could run 10 armies on that!

Anyway. I have the men given some emergency training, and instruct them to begin
construction to keep them busy. What feels like five hours later, I am finally
done giving the Bostonians their orders, and finally, it is time to move on. To
doing the same thing to the people of Three Rivers. And then Quebec and
Montreal. Oh, Canada. However did you get mixed up in this treasonous folly? You
always seemed so sensible, except for the French thing. But we were willing to
overlook that! Well, I'm afraid that there's no way we can use you for those
penal services we were talking about now. Australia, throw a dingo on the
barbie, because you just made it to the big leagues! Just promise to never, ever
beat us at cricket. Or export soap operas. Promise those two things, and it'll
all be just grand.



Why is Boston surrounded by Zerg Creep? Is this part of some alliance I'm
unaware of?


THE GLORIOUS CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE TRAITOR COLONIES, DAY 3

So, that happened. And I thought I'd been very generous to the people of Boston,
not wiping them off the face of the Earth with the force of an angel flapping
its mighty wings. Will I negotiate? Sure. What does he want? Bounty? Sir, you
may have all the coconut chocolate bars that you wish. I will even throw in a
Crunchie if you like.

But that appears to be a mistake. No sooner have I acquiesced to his request
than all my Generals begin doing the same. Luckily, I am able to quieten them
all with little effort, though I soon realise I shouldn't have bothered. Low
morale or not, what kind of officer permits his men to become mutinous? One who
does not deserve the chocolate in his gob! But that is fine. I have an easy
solution—if any garrison complains, that garrison will be sent straight to the
front line, with no food, provisions or money!

Unrelated, I really need to find where the Yanks keep getting all those
reinforcements from.



Quick! Begin researching a Wonder of the World! Like that turducken they had on
Epic Meal Time!


THE GLORIOUS CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE TRAITOR COLONIES, DAY 4

Finally, some action! The town of Springfield attacks Boston, though sadly the
Simpsons are nowhere to be seen, and nor are the rest of their troops as
yellow-bellied as we had been left to believe. D'oh. On the other hand, whoever
called war an uncivilised pursuit clearly knew little of which they spoke. It
looks almost exactly like Civilization! Only with the ability to move units
around in the tactical map instead of merely the strategic one, and a distinct
lack of spearmen being able to somehow take out futuristic battletanks. Again,
note to self, futuristic battletanks would help. I'd even settle for a really
big Tesla Coil.

For now though, I merely have my soldiers, armed with bayonets and enough
Command Points to engage in a damn good scrap. Glancing at the opposition, I do
somewhat unfortunately seem to be outnumbered, some 10 times over, in fact, but
there is nothing that the domineering English spirit cannot withstand. Except
slight cold snaps in winter, too much heat in summer, and being outnumbered 10
to one. I'll be honest, I just added that one on the list, after experience in
the field of battle proved its worthiness. Poo. On the plus side, nothing
important was lost. Just Boston, and from a certain point of view, it did rather
bring this on itself, did it not? Those tea-spoiling terrorists. No sympathy at
all.

I'm sure the King will see it my way.



Denounce all you want, we're not taking it seriously after the pigeon sat on
your hand.


THE GLORIOUS CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE TRAITOR COLONIES, DAY 5

So, anyway, I was just fired. Turns out that His Majesty, in his infinite
wisdom, has decided that fresh blood and new ideas are required; specifically,
the revolutionaries' and someone more qualified's. It would seem to be foolish
to argue with the corpulent old windbag, so I generously and under orders step
down to permit someone else to continue the campaign in my stead. 

It is not as though I do not have hobbies, not least of them writing letters to
the many generals who ended up arrested and imprisoned while following my
orders. Apparently many of them were displeased to hear my response "Well, at
least they're paid for." I may need to avoid the military bars for a while. And
indeed, possibly the rest of England.

But. I feel it important to point out that it is not only King and Country who
should feel left out.

I never even got my bloody baguette. And does anyone care? No, sir. No, they do
not.



Well, that's lucky. Winter IS coming. He could be useful.

Ahem. Liberty or Death has always been one of the more popular games about the
American Revolution, and not without cause. It was made by Koei, meticulously
designed and researched, and most surprisingly, not restricted to PC. 

Versions were available for both the SNES and the Mega Drive—yes, I'm calling it
that, because that is its name—though I can think of little more compelling than
playing it on those platforms. It's just not really a "sofa" or "kicking back in
bed" kind of game, despite the attempts to jazz it up with some bouncy music and
cheery character portraits. (The PC version benefits from a much higher
resolution, and so doesn't have to separate things like its maps and menus, as
well as just feeling more at home.)



Among the more interesting elements of Liberty or Death was the idea that the
battles should stem naturally from the situations—simply playing it leads, in
some form, to the major battles of the American Revolution, with factions both
on land and around it playing their parts in the whole. (In the actual
historical battles for instance, the French played a massive part in stymying
the English at sea.) You don't take much control over the navy, but you do get
to have a say in it, with the strategic layer bleeding extremely well into the
tactical side and turning the conflict into grand strategy rather than a
collection of skirmishes linked by a map screen.

Is it a good game? Well, if you can get into it, so I'm told. Trying to approach
it cold is like running head-first into a brick wall and wondering why it hurts
so much, and that's certainly not its fault. It doesn't do a very good job of
showing why you should want to keep doing it though, unless you've already
brought your special grognard hat to help deflect the blow, and there's not a
vast amount of reward for the phenomenal amount of time that it takes to get
anything done. 

While more trivial to the point of parody, I've gotta say that my favourite take
on the American Revolution is still the end of Colonization, when you pull the
trigger to declare independence and then have to weather the fury long enough to
be taken seriously. It's not exactly a tactical experience, but it was a really
cool and very fitting endgame of the kind I'm sorry the Civ games haven't really
explored since in their singleplayer modes.

Even if you did have to play as the baddies. Harrumph.



"Back again, Lockjaw? I'm sure it's just a coincidence rather than an agenda."
"Woof!"

And just for the record, the offer to return home still stands. Just as long as
you bring the real Netflix catalogue, we get to send Michael Bay to the Tower,
John Oliver agrees to do the British version of The Daily Show he was literally
born to do, and everyone agrees that the words "could care less" are to be
punished by vicious horsewhipping and a good roll in the salt.




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