The days when THC dealt with competitors using polonium-laced IPA, booby-trapped sim hardware, or bouquets sprinkled with funnel-web spiders, are long gone. Nowadays we usually employ more humane methods like distracting our rivals with time-consuming interview questions.
Back in 2022, ‘Sir Nuno’, the proprietor of the annoyingly readable, informative, and fecund Strategy and Wargaming was kind enough to interview me for his site. I thought it was about time I repaid the favour.
THC: Can you trace your interest in wargaming back to a single experience, person, or game?
Sir Nuno: My first PC game was Age of Empires II. That sparked my interest for history as a whole, but the game that really got me hooked into historical gaming was Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. From that I went on to play every World War 2 game I could find (Call of Duty, other Medal of Honor titles, Brothers in Arms, Panzers, World War II: Frontline Command, Company of Heroes, etc.).
But those aren’t wargames, I hear you say. True, because I only had access to physical titles, and wargaming isn’t popular in Portugal, so I was never exposed to games like Close Combat (no internet for me until the late 2000s). When I got online, I remember looking for games that simulated conflicts, and discovered Arma: Armed Assault, and played pretty much everyday, creating my own missions. After that I learned about the existence of Virtual Battlespace, but never played it. Eventually, I came across Combat Mission: Shock Force, the first wargame I remember playing.
THC: Of all the content you’ve produced for Strategy and Wargaming over the years, which article are you most proud of?
Sir Nuno: This is a hard one, because I’m very proud of what I’ve managed to achieve with Strategy and Wargaming, and I try and put my best effort into every article (bear in mind, this isn’t my job, and I do this a couple hours a week). With that being said, the first one that jumped to my mind was the Ultimate Guide to Portugal in Video Games (and a very, very brief History of Portugal).
In terms of sheer reach and numbers, I love what I’ve been doing with lists, because I try to keep them very personal and unique, and they reach hundreds of thousands of people.
THC: Of the digital wargames in your collection, which one recreates Portuguese battles most lovingly?
Sir Nuno: Oh boy, I love this question, so indulge me. Portugal doesn’t have a large history of great field battles, and the ones we do have, relate to the medieval period, so I would say the best game for that is Field of Glory II: Medieval, and by creating your own battles, but they do have an interesting version of the Battle of Aljubarrota. During the Age of Sail, Portugal engaged in very few battles, and they were mostly small skirmishers here and there, with nothing of massive note. Things only picked up in size during the Napoleonic invasions, and for that I must recommend Bonaparte’s Peninsular War from Wargame Design Studio.
THC: I’ve never met a game critic who isn’t a frustrated or aspiring game designer. Have you ever crossed the border and produced a game, mod, or scenario?
Sir Nuno: I must be the exception to that. I never had the intention of designing or creating games. In some titles I like to create my own scenarios, but that’s more to try some tactics out (Arma: Armed Assault, Field of Glory, Stronghold), rather than for the fun of creating the scenario itself. If the game could read my mind and present me with the kind of scenario I’m looking for, it would save me a lot of time. But I can’t deny that it is fun.
THC: If you could wave a magic wand and eliminate one of the following things from PC wargaming – pdf-reliant tutorials, microscopic GUI fonts, or AI art – which would you eliminate and why?
Sir Nuno: I can deal with small GUI fonts and AI art, but the moment a game makes me read a pdf to learn its mechanics, is the moment I say “Well, I’ll figure it out myself as I go along”. Learning something new should be fun, not boring.
THC: A Russian studio releases a well-made Close Combat-style game about the ongoing war in Ukraine. The campaign has a pronounced pro-Russian stance, and the studio has expressed support for the SMO on social media. Would you cover the game on Strategy and Wargaming?
Sir Nuno: Yes, I probably would, but that doesn’t mean I would be positive towards it. My stance on the matter is that I’m pro-Ukraine, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is one of the greatest tragedies of the 21st century. In a review I try to state facts and what I think about them, and most of all, being fair. So I might praise the game’s mechanics for what they are (if they’re solid, they’re solid, and that’s it), but I would make note that its campaign has a clear pro-Russian messaging, because I know that’s something my audience would take into consideration when buying the game, and it might be a deal breaker. If I was a consumer, I know I would have a hard time supporting a studio with those ideas. My audience is the reason why I review videogames, and if I think that would matter, I would do it. Ignoring difficult subjects is never the answer.
THC: If big games sites like RPS and PC Gamer started employing or commissioning wargame and sim specialists again, would that alter your feelings towards them?
Sir Nuno: Not at all. That article was meant to highlight why these large gaming websites have been losing relevancy. My belief, one that I have held for many years now, is that gaming has been growing exponentially for the last 20 years, so the idea of having a place that covers ‘everything’ is impossible nowadays, and when they attempt to do that, the coverage isn’t specialized enough for the people who love certain genres.
In websites like ours, one of the reasons we have some level of success, being one-man operations, is because people who read us, know that they are reading Tim and Nuno, and they know what you and I enjoy, and what we don’t, and making a decision if you’re going to spend some of your hard-earned cash on something becomes a lot more clear. It’s the reason why, for years, you were one of the people whose opinion I trusted the most, and still do. It’s the reason why YouTubers are so successful – it’s personality-driven.
THC: Name a game, either released or upcoming, that you think deserves more press attention.
Sir Nuno: Burden of Command. I think it’s such an interesting game, with a working team that loves the subject matter dearly. I hope the final product (supposed to arrive in 2025) is great, I’ve been wanting to play a truly different World War 2 experience for years.
THC: Thank you for your time.
Long live the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373!