Three Moves Ahead Idle Thumbs

This is a free preview of this month's Patreon episode. Check out the extended version at Patreon.com/3ma!

Len, Lambert, and Lorris are back to discuss the next four Europa Universalis V dev diaries and The Johan Files, an edited compilation of all of Johan's relevant forum posts that has more than doubled in size since we last talked. We decided to call it at four hours, but still had plenty more to talk about, so it seems like the Megacast format isn't going anywhere any time soon...

It's a full house this week, as Len is joined by Ian Boudreau, Luke Plunkett, Mike Williams, and Ruth Cassidy to perform a bit of an autopsy on Millennia, C Prompt and Paradox's take at a Civ-like historical 4X. We all came away with a bit of a bad taste in our mouths about it, to varying degrees, and we spend a fair bit of time trying to explain why – and set aside some time to talk about what we did like.

This is a preview of this month's Patreon episode. Check out the extended version at Patreon.com/3ma!

Join Len, FatherLorris, and Lord Lambert as we get the NoCB Cast band back together to talk for 3.5 hours about Paradox Tinto's "Project Caesar," which is probably Europa Universalis 5. Okay, let's be real: it's definitely Europa Universalis 5. We break down the first four dev diaries, everything Johan has ever said about the project on the forums, and talk a bit about the year 1337 – which was not confirmed as the new start date when we recorded this, but has been at this point. So we nailed it. We're very smart. Please clap.

Len, Jon, and Mike Williams deal out a hand or two of Balatro. It's poker? Sort of? Not really? Poker with boss battles. Poker with booster packs. Poker with tarot cards? We don't hold our opinions close to our chest as we try to apply some kind of taxonomy to this indie surprise hit.

Len, Jon, and Mike Williams sit down to discuss the strategy and strategy-adjacent demos that caught our eyes in Steam Next Fest. Jon played 50 (!) of them, and several were actually good! Also like, where are all the aliens, for real though?

Len, Mike Williams, and Nerium Strom take a look at the strategy and strategy-adjacent games coming in 2024, discuss which ones we're most interested in, make some predictions, and discuss the awful state of the industry for workers this year so far.