The Gaming Blender

Farm Total War!

• Season 1 • Episode 58

Share episode

Fancy setting us a gaming challenge? Get in touch here!

Strap on your overalls, folks, because we're pitching a strategic farming game that's not just about planting seeds, but also planting the seeds of an empire. Picture fortifying your homestead, reviving an ancient colony, and juggling the challenges of diplomacy and defence. We dream up a steampunk Western Frontier, where every farm has its own train station for trade and tactical manoeuvres, and coin the term "Farm Total War" for our hypothetical hit. It's all aboard the hype train in this episode, so don't miss the departure!

Thanks for listening and please leave us a review and subscribe if you enjoyed it. It really helps us out. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gaming-blender/id1597738101

Also please get in touch with us at @gamingblendpod or thegamingblenderpod@gmail.com with your ideas for new games and challenges.

We have begun to update our YouTube channel with video playthroughs and we hope to put more up there soon https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZTPuScm5BTf8DdwvaCj0jQ

Keep blending!

Speaker 1:

Hello, hello everyone, and welcome back to the Gaming Blender, the podcast of hypothetical games, where every week, myself and my good colleague Matthew will put together a randomized hypothetical game. Matthew, welcome, how are you?

Speaker 2:

Hello, this is a verbal wave. A verbal wave, everybody. I'm very well, thank you, I'm very, very well. I end of a tough week but excited to jump into this podcast with you, scott, and see what we will make out of the delicious sponginess that is our minds.

Speaker 1:

Sponginess, or I mean, we're getting quite old now. Are they really sponges anymore? Are they more sort of just?

Speaker 2:

hard bricks that can't learn, anything else that can't learn anything new.

Speaker 1:

So I've noticed that I'm not bad at video games by any means, but I used to be good. And now I've noticed that my nephew, who is 12, is starting to beat me at FIFA, and this is starting to upset me because it means that I'm now old.

Speaker 2:

See, I just don't play with anyone else ever. That's my tactic. I play entirely alone and on easy mode, just so I pretend that.

Speaker 1:

I suppose you don't notice that your barometer of ability is slowly lowering.

Speaker 2:

We've talked about this with Jedi Fallen Order, where I got stuck and essentially just for hours and then I finally turned the difficulty down and then I got stuck on the final boss and I've never finished that game because I couldn't suck it up and go down all the way down to easy. I was on the second difficulty level of four and I was like I can't go down to easy. You know what? I'm never completing the game. Screw it, I win, I wash my hands of it. I'm done, I wash my hands. If you can't adapt to my failing brain and hands, then I'm sorry, I'm not finishing the game for you.

Speaker 1:

Well, speaking of gaming when we were younger, obviously we were around, for when original Xbox came out. Have you noticed I know right have you noticed what Xbox's latest decision has been?

Speaker 2:

Okay, so we're going to have to. We're going to have to. This is the bit where it's sort of the recording time paradox is going to kick in, because when we are recording, the announcement has not happened. By the time the announcement comes out, the announcement will have happened. So you might be listening to this and going what these guys are all talking about. So we're going to keep it relatively vague. By this stage, xbox will have announced what their future plan is, but we're going to.

Speaker 2:

I've been looking into the rumors and the rumors are that, essentially, that Xbox exclusives are no more and it's all going to come to PlayStation. It's all going to be wonderful and lovely. That's a rumor, or it could be different, or they might be deciding that they're going to do just streaming and they're going to keep everything locked up. But people don't know. But the assumption is something big is coming. If you look at the figures and what they're selling, they're being beaten by PlayStation gangbusters. They've bought a load of really expensive studios that need to sell loads. I don't think they can maintain it without putting all their big games on multi-platform. I think, essentially, the Microsoft has gone. Yeah, this isn't really working and we don't have the patience to wait for all these studios to pay off. So let's just whack it on PlayStation, at least for now.

Speaker 1:

This is, of course, a educated guess on our part.

Speaker 2:

If I've nailed that. I'm putting it in the show notes saying and Matt nailed it.

Speaker 1:

I think we should. I'd rather hype that up as though we were some sort of time travellers that knew exactly what was going to happen. We don't. We just think we know.

Speaker 2:

My question to you. I mean my gut instincts. I think I know the point where because Xbox old Phil Spencer, who's in charge of Xbox, xbox chief he's been coming out and saying if Game Pass isn't making money, we're happy to drop out, and it's kind of almost threatening to leave. He's a bit like a grumpy child that's not getting his way. He's like I don't get this, I will quit. But what I think has happened. I think Starfield did not make as big a splash as they wanted to. I think Starfield released as an exclusive and someone's looked at the numbers and gone. You know what? It wasn't worth it. We're going to have to shift our business plan. That's my gut feeling. I don't know what you think.

Speaker 1:

I mean it looks like that, but then not. You know, microsoft is a big place and not being, you know, not being part of the inner workings. I suppose you know we're looking at it from the outside, so we can only work with the figures that we've got. I would share your assessment, I think. I think, on the balance, probability, that's what I would suggest, but then again, you know there are very as you've already alluded to, there are various other options that could. That could happen.

Speaker 2:

I think they're going to launch again this is the bit where I put Matt is right in the capitals. I think they're going to release a streaming console like Stadia, and I think it's going to be on app and I think the app is going to be installable on your PlayStation, so they make sure the brand is everywhere, and I reckon that's how they're going to do it. And so they're going to kind of remove themselves from the console space and kind of be a specialist if you need to, if you need to stream or you haven't got the, whatever it is, but then they're going to plug themselves into Sony.

Speaker 1:

That's my, that's my bet, and just surrender the market to well, sony, I think what they could do.

Speaker 2:

You might see them re-enter the console war in 10 years time with Tedar. Here's a magical new console and everybody knows how good Xbox are because you've seen the app everywhere and they've had that brand like implemented Absolutely. Can you imagine how annoyed you'd be with PlayStation if they then decided to launch and you're like, oh God, everybody spends all the time on Xboxes. Yeah, but we shall see yeah.

Speaker 1:

So what I quite like about the console war, as it were, is that Nintendo has always very, very quietly sat off to one side and just not chosen almost chosen to not take part, because they basically just gone. Look, we know that we make a selection of very good games, okay, and Every time we bring out a console and every time we're out of game, they sell. They make not, they might not sell in the same numbers as PlayStation, but they sell and they sell enough to make us a profit and make us money and allow us to make more of our good video games. And I like they just sort of go yes, we are Nintendo, we make good stuff, but we don't sell as much as PlayStation, and that is.

Speaker 2:

Nintendo's amount of control they have over their first parties as well, in terms of you never see Mario anywhere else. You never see yeah, you, I was about to say never see a complete blank and most Else I Just this pause of the. They have complete control. They could do what they want and Zelda, and it does help that when they do release some, generally they're phenomenal games, yeah, like. So I bought my switch for two reasons Firstly, because I was psychic and realized that the entire world was going to mysteriously shut down for two and a half years and I think I needed a new console. And secondly, because I was desperate to play breath of the world. As it turns out, I start to breath the world and finished it about three years later. But even so, I went to them for a very specific experience and I don't regret buying a switch whatsoever. But for the first year and a half I definitely regretted buying my PS5 because there was nothing on there.

Speaker 1:

No, this is true, this is true. That's one thing we need to talk about on the next episode. There's a bomb plug in it. Now, I said plug in it. We need to talk about our inability, as old people, to finish video games. Oh yeah, I'm so fine with video game. I can't remember the last time I finished one.

Speaker 2:

Spider-Man. I finished Spider-Man the other day and I was very satisfied and I sort of went finished a video.

Speaker 1:

I finished. I finished the main story of Spider-Man one, but I never finished the DLCs, which I'm a bit ashamed of. Anyway, it's been seven and a half minutes, so we'll kick on. And was a good ramble. That was a good ramble, I think. You know age brings on good rambles. They have a voice.

Speaker 2:

I'm another thing. Man yells at cloud.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that that is us. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the gaming.

Speaker 2:

You can't go all the way back with seven minutes. We're too deep in to do an intro now. If someone's taken a gamble and gone seven Minutes into the recording, I'm sure they would edit here.

Speaker 1:

Go away. Hello, and welcome back to the game. Let's podcast If. For those of you who are returning, welcome back for those of you who are new. What we do every week is we roll for dice. The first dice gives us a random genre we're gonna work with. Second to dice give us two random mechanics and the last will give us a narrative. We'll get to that a little bit later, but the first three roles we're gonna put together and try and create a, the basis of a video game, and then, towards the end, we're gonna try and shoehorn in the narrative, which is the challenge for ourselves, because usually what ends up happening is we create a game that we're happy with and then we get Love story in our story, in our sort of strategy.

Speaker 2:

This apocalyptic game into sleeplers in Seattle.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it, sometimes it ends well, but sometimes it doesn't. Um so, on this occasion, matthew, are you ready to receive I'm ready your genre and mechanics, so what you have to start.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I'm ready.

Speaker 1:

Okay, thank you, just wasted five seconds of the listeners time is it seven minutes at start, with fine. This is very true. What you have to start with as a genre is very, very, very basic Sandbox open world.

Speaker 1:

Oh, lovely have so that obviously you know it gives you a bit of a Bit of leeway. I'm pretty sure most of us will be familiar. But a sandbox, open world game you know that the world is is vast. You can choose not to follow the main story. In a sandbox Sometimes there is no main story and you can sort of move on. Do we want? In terms of mechanics, you have, first and foremost, smiling or smiling. Something's happened ball manager tactics.

Speaker 1:

Okay so, tactics, tactics, okay so it's not spreadsheets, okay, so that's that's. That's okay, that's this workable? So tactical element right, okay, and hardcore simulation no, yes, no, I need something like farming simulator or train simulator Simulator, so that's what you have so just just to there's breaking it down.

Speaker 2:

So the one thing you can't really do is we want to bring the open, the open world thing. It's the thing that kills you. For example, if you were just doing tactics and Hardcore simulation, you could combine them quite easily because you could send. You say, if you, for example, you did farming manager, for example, you'd send off Various. I forgot, I forgot what I would tractors were for a second there. I was about to send it, I got confused. I was about to say farming vehicles, you send off farming vehicles, so you send off those farming vehiculars. But no, but the bit that is the open world, how do you take something that's hardcore, sims, the open world, I mean? One thing that does pop out is you could do some sort of To be hardcore, similar than everyone. You do some sort of exploration, to say hiking or you're a natural explorer, but then how does that bring the tactics elements into it?

Speaker 1:

So I think that the tactics element to, for my, put my ten cents in.

Speaker 2:

I think the tactics element means that whatever you're doing has to be Essentially team-based is very difficult to apply tactics to an individual well, yeah, unless unless what you're doing is your, your, or Unless you've got sort of Mechanical things that you can apply the tactics to potentially. And there are two types of tactics as well, though the green ones and the orange ones. Dreadful, I really hope if there people are, this is elsewhere. I really hope that you have tic-tacs in your country.

Speaker 1:

What happens? What happens if our lovely viewers are listening from, I don't know, maybe, maybe Bolivia doesn't have tic-tacs, and now they're like what on earth? And they're gonna have to look Well, tic-tacs are.

Speaker 2:

I think the main thing to say is that joke was very funny and just take that as. Take that as gospel.

Speaker 1:

Okay, well, all agree, listeners, that Matthew is funny, then that means that you'll never say a joke again. But yeah, I get, I get why you're reticent this one, because I genuinely think this is quite Tricky and I think it's. It's not. Actually usually there is one of these three elements which is tripping. Which is tripping, you know, tripping the whole thing up. I would say, all of these Together Individually become quite hard. I have, I think I have an idea, go on so.

Speaker 1:

Post apocalypse oh, we all wake up. How many posts? No, no, no, there's a reason.

Speaker 2:

There's a reason. Near future, sci-fi, future, whatever it is you play and this is kind of building off the farming thing. You play a, the equivalent of farmer in this world. However, what you are doing is you're moving. You have this harsh terrain and stuff like that because, for the way farms are changed, now farming vehiculars are not used anymore.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so what you have instead, what you have instead, is you have you have to go to various points, way points, and each way point has this little mechanical tower which operates as in. You go to it and say, you can say, do, spread water. Amongst all these fads, that one does water, okay, great. And then you have to go and discover another one that maybe does, um, plant food and that doesn't plant food all the other way. But there's a huge array of these towers and things.

Speaker 2:

Now what you have to do is you have to make your crops grow so you can sell them and make money and expand, but the only way to do it is manually.

Speaker 2:

So you have to get to these places, getting over the harsh terrain and setting each one off one by one, and that's the tactical element, because there are better ways to treat your crops or treat your livestock or whatever it is, but you are the one that has to decide that.

Speaker 2:

So you say, right, okay, the water is going to go off at one in the morning because that it doesn't scare the animals that way, or whatever it is, and then it also makes the plants grow better. And then, and also, you can do the near future stuff where you can have okay, great, we've got those reflective solar panels that come in and they reflect it and they're like intense heat. Well, I'm going to turn that on at three because that's the strongest. So that's the tactical element, where you literally have a day running tactic but you have to operate it manually. I mean, a game that comes to mind is death stranding, where obviously it's essentially a souped up walking simulator you manually have to just deliver things for going backwards and forwards and you have to set up your way of getting there. Now, this is very similar, but you're looking after a huge array of land and you're setting it up to be the most profitable you can be.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I think, if you're, I think I think it's a good idea and I think you can, with the whole tactic side of it, you could make it, because obviously it could get very laborious if you as one individual, in first person or however you're going to do it, is potentially managing everything, as in what I say, managing everything, I mean physically going each time to go and do this. So maybe the tactics element of that is that once you get to a point where you know where everything is so you've been to everything, you unlocked everything that's on your land, so you know everything is that you can then implement the tactics side of things, which means that you can, basically you can use your staff or however you're going to do it, to run certain bits or say you can delegate certain bits, and then you can manage.

Speaker 2:

If you want to say you can manage some bits yourself, so you can bring in some elements of satisfactory as well, like what you could do is each sort of that post you managed to reach, you then have to lay a wire back to your mainframe and once it's hooked up to your mainframe you can then operate that remotely. But then that encourages expiration because you go, okay, great, I've got that one hooked up, I've got a feeling there's one in that direction. If I can get there and get something back in time, then you can. Then you can do it. And I think you add a survival game element to this as well, to make sure you're eating, because otherwise you just sort of start walking in a direction and don't stop. You want to make it tough.

Speaker 1:

So I think what you could do as well in addition is that if you're setting it in a future where things maybe not post apocalyptic, but, let's say, a future in which society has broken down slightly, there's been no apocalypse or anything, but let's just say we no longer live in a world where there are nation states or whatever it is, and actually it's a bit more, it's a bit more wild west than it used to be, and so what you could say is actually, you know this open world is massive and there are other. You know, there are other settlements and other farms and that. So you could make the choice that you could be the bloke that actually expands aggressively, and you could say that actually, if you wanted to, you don't have to play it this way, but you could. You know, basically, you could.

Speaker 1:

You know your staff isn't just staff that run the farm, they're also like almost like a militia, almost a bit like, and you almost have like, a bit like a, or you can have like a gang or something, and you could go and basically seize other people's bits of land if you wanted to. Or alternatively, you know, if you're like, no, no, this is my land, I'm going to keep holding my land. You know the outlying farms could come and raid you and that makes that means that you have to maybe defend your land. Sometimes you could do it like that.

Speaker 1:

It adds another element into it.

Speaker 2:

I think what you do is you wouldn't put like a full what. The one thing I would be quite excited about because I'm sort of thinking about it and I don't want to make it too satisfactory which has these loads of these elements in the way I'd switch, is I'd make the getting to reach point the difficult thing. So I would, I would really explore the sort of mechanics of traversal and going up things and you arrive at somewhere and you go right. How am I going to get up there? I know that points up there and I'm going to need that and I'm going to need to lay cables back and I'm going to need to. So that's the bit I'd make. Tactical. I don't mind the idea of sort of having militia and trading and it being live environment, but I think it should possibly be a less. You are directly involved more. Oh, you didn't put trap. You didn't put traps down there, for militias came and they they knocked down some bits, so they were just encouraging you to add different bits to your land.

Speaker 1:

So I think maybe you could do. It is like a absolutely right. I don't think it should be something that you should go and see to yourself. It's something that you you can choose at the start. Do you know what? I think I'm surrounded by a lot of dangerous people, so I'm going to put more, more of my money and more of my resources into having like a really strong security force that then, if someone does come and raid me, my security force can be dispatched to go and deal with them. Yeah, you can act on it as well, whatever it is.

Speaker 2:

And you can act on it with having people. Yeah, exactly, you're patrolling and you choose the patrol routes and you go. I'd like you to patrol up in that corner, because that's had ministeries recently.

Speaker 1:

Or you risk it, you do the opposite thing, and you risk it and you go actually I'd rather make more money and take more risk on someone, and then you have, like you know, maybe, maybe do it different way. I think that'd be quite an interesting thing, because then you put a bit of strategy into it. That's not just business. That makes sense.

Speaker 2:

No, no, I get that and I like the idea. I think I really like the ideas of having a sort of farming system where you've got to unlock various things and then, but they're locked in the ground like you've got places to aim for, rather than it's not a building game, it's a game about activating these points and these posts because essentially, maybe you narratively I mean, we'll see what narrative we get but maybe it's the narrative is, you were building sorry, you've found an old set of events and old colonies, so you're essentially reactivating their stuff, but you're not the first to do this or something along those lines.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I think that would. I think I would overall work. I think so would you. Would you make this because they are two different things Would you make this a sandbox game or an open world game, ie, a sandbox game that doesn't really have a story and is very much you drive essentially the narrative or do you make it open world, where there is a narrative that goes through the background?

Speaker 2:

I think. I think this is more. We're going to have to add a narrative on whether it's law or whatever, but I think this is more sandbox. I see this more as a game where you're like, okay, right, I've put together this sort of empire, but, as you're right, there will be a certain law that we're going to tack on in a second.

Speaker 1:

Hmm, Okay, are we at that time now, or do you want to flesh this out a bit more?

Speaker 2:

No, I feel like I'm comfortable with where we're at and I feel like this narrative might, this law might add to the gameplay anyway, because if it's a sandbox, we need to base it around it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so what you have for your narrative oh, don't be love, don't be love To shoehorn in it's forbidden no, it's not forbidden love, oh.

Speaker 2:

God. Thank God, Forbidden love why? Don't we get forbidden love when we had dating sin.

Speaker 1:

I know that would be brilliant. You have underdog, okay. Okay, that's where the underprivileged triumph over in the face of overwhelming odds.

Speaker 2:

So what you can do is you could really work this in as a live narrative in terms of your turn up and load your at the back. Essentially, what you are is you are somebody who has discovered that they have inherited or they've purchased this sort of rocky outcrop of what used to be an incredible mining, mining, such farming area. It used to be great, but it's run down. Now in this area there are loads of other of these farms and they're successful. You're the little dog. You're coming in, you're coming in on that land.

Speaker 2:

Now what you do is it's a sort of live narrative in the sense of the start they don't even acknowledge you. Then perhaps, as it develops, they sort of act more. They can act more aggressive to you, depending on how you act. But then there might be like a moment where, oh, these ones are starting to trade with me. Okay, I'll start trading with these ones and start trading and activate. As you get bigger, the way that they treat you gets differently as well. So maybe the big one will completely ignore you until you're large enough and then, if you've been a very aggressive person, they might try and be aggressive back to you or something along the way, or the game will react to how you've played it.

Speaker 1:

So it's like Total War Farms.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it's Total War Farms. It's Total War Farms. Maybe that's how you trade. Maybe that's how you trade.

Speaker 1:

You send your little man walking up around to the send a little trade that you send out, like original Rome Total War, you make your own, I guess, when you send a diplomat and he got killed and he disappeared.

Speaker 2:

You'd be like what happened to Kevin.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it turns out that someone else had made an assassin and just gone and killed him.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it was always very funny when the assassin failed and he was just like he did a little stab emotion and then the person he stabbed just stood and looked back at it. Oh, that must be the most embarrassing, wasn't it? If you're an assassin, you treasure it and all of a sudden you can't kill someone. It's a really awkward moment.

Speaker 1:

after Trained for 20 years to be the most deadly assassin in the world and then, as you're crawling along the beam to, like you know, jump down and stab them, you fall off and like, fall in a bath or something, just like that.

Speaker 2:

That's got to be a game, isn't it? It's all failure assassin, where it's really encourages you to fail in the funny ways.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that would be quite interesting, maybe, maybe for next time. Next time If the dice roll, our way.

Speaker 2:

I like that, though, because you want the world so big that Maybe you could meet yeah, you could meet emberseries and also you could walk there. You could walk all the way. But that would be also say, if you walked all the way and you got into someone's other land by mistake. Say, if you say there's a cliff and at the top you know there's a water spy, you know like fantastic, I need to get to the top of that cliff, I'll just walk around this slightly longer way, and you get round it and you go onto someone else's land and it like sets off an alarm or something, or you get charged, you go, oh God.

Speaker 1:

So I think I think one way that you could adapt this game to suit how individual people, as in gamers, think and play and work, is that you could make it the obviously, as we say, you start from nothing. You start from this very, very basic, you know. So it's very basic farmhouse with a very basic land. I think what you could do is you could make, you could make it so that there are various different play styles that you can follow. They're not like arbitrary, you're not fixed to them or anything. But if you want to be the diplomat and if you want to, you know, focus on right here I'm going to use my relations with the other farmers to build myself up then you can.

Speaker 1:

If you want to be a bit of an S word house and you know, and basically by that I assume you mean Shave House, correct, and you know basically like steal stuff, you know, intimidate people and be a bit of a be a bit of a bastard, then you know you can. You can do that If you want to, if actually your mind works, actually you're quite a good business person, say in real life, or you understand economics, then you can do that. You could just, you could just figure out the most efficient way to do stuff and the game allows you to progress very, very well, like just because you're clever, and I think that I think people would respond quite well to that, because then people can then go. Actually, I actually really enjoy committing violence on others in video game and therefore-.

Speaker 2:

I think there is an element of I like the way that the AI would possibly react and if you were nasty to others, then they'd be nasty to you, or if you didn't have any defences, they'd just try and pick on you. So I think I think that reactionary AI is quite important to you making your own story with this, Because I like there's also an element. I like the idea of, sort of say, another farm comes into tax union. You go, well, I'll be nice to everyone else, but I'm not going to be nice to that guy. I'm never going to trade with that guy. I'm not going to starve that guy out, I'm going to deny him resources.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so alternatively, I just actually thought what we're kind of describing is actually the frontier West, or actually describing is what happened when you know people oh sorry, I thought you meant there was a game called Frontier West.

Speaker 2:

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I know, do that real life.

Speaker 1:

As in like real life. So what we're kind of discussing is like a game where you basically go and settle Montana and you claim a bit of land but there are other people. There's someone over the hill over there, there's someone over the mountains over there and actually, and obviously you know well, you know, and maybe, like you know, the local Native Americans would come and come and raid you from time to time and all that sort of stuff, and actually you know. So you could transpose the whole thing we've just discussed in terms of being sci-fi and all that sort of stuff and put it all you know, not post-apocalypse.

Speaker 2:

I think you need elements of. What you need is element. You need that sci-fi element to activate those areas to make the crops grow and then control the all-front pad. I think you need to keep that.

Speaker 1:

It gives you a bit more to work with. If you do it, if you set it later.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you could do it steampunk. You could do it steampunk Because?

Speaker 2:

what you could do is you could have steampunk, because what you could do is then just have a big lever control session because you can just about get away with steampunk. So maybe if you did a steampunk version of that the Western Frontier but then you had this big lever area and it would set off big dramatic, that'd be quite fun and cool Because you could kind of. The thing I love about steampunk is you push the technology to a position it definitely was never.

Speaker 1:

Well, never would have been in I know, but it's really fun steampunk. It looks so cool. I've never met anyone who doesn't like steampunk. It's just a cool idea, the idea that you use steampunk.

Speaker 2:

People who don't like steampunk are the people that don't know what steampunk is and stare back at you going no, I said ticket please. No, sorry.

Speaker 1:

It's like the idea that technology advances but it sticks with the aesthetic of steam power and it looks ridiculous, but it also looks amazing. Can I throw in a little thing just for me?

Speaker 2:

Go on. Is it new trains? Yes, can each farm have its own train station?

Speaker 1:

Yes, yay. For what reason, I don't know, but there we are. Trade Over trade. I see.

Speaker 2:

Can you imagine, with this appointment, though, if you've got a trade train came and like stopped off and you're like great, and you've opened the thing, and they're just militia there.

Speaker 1:

Yes, but yeah, that's the thing. Actually, you could sneak your militia onto the train. They just they barrel up to the next farm and then they'll get off and just start being s houses.

Speaker 2:

Okay, you're in that kind of mood today.

Speaker 1:

I am. I like that word as well, but you keep telling me off when I swear. I tell you off when I swear because I've got to edit it. I know exactly. Okay, I think. I think. I mean, is there anything else you want to add, or do you think we're gonna keep with her?

Speaker 2:

I think we're there. I like it. I'm now desperately trying to think of a name because I moved it from, because I had Future Farmer lined up and unfortunately, with steampunk, it's now no longer in the future.

Speaker 1:

Now I've got the round out there. You're calling it Rome Total Farms Rome Total Farms Farm.

Speaker 2:

Total War, farm Total War. Sorry, I think Farm Total War's better.

Speaker 1:

Farm Total War. Okay, in that case, what I'll do is I will start to summarize while you furiously and frantically think of a name, which is what I usually end up doing.

Speaker 2:

You usually panic and, as I said, we make this joke every time. It's called Scott Breaver. Okay, thank you, scott.

Speaker 1:

No more. I don't know. I don't know, I panicked. So, ladies and gentlemen, what we have there is a sandbox game with manager tactics and hardcore simulation set in a fictionalized steampunk version of the sort of the front-of-west or the settling of the front-of-west in the United States.

Speaker 1:

What will happen is you will, through various circumstances, find yourself procuring or inheriting perhaps a large plot of land in a vast, open world, potentially uncivilized, or perhaps the farm is run down and as you arrive, you have this very, very small batch of land that you are able, through various systems, to begin to expand, to expand your crops and your herds and your war sources and perhaps your mining Around your particular plot of land.

Speaker 1:

There will be neighbors, other farmers that are actually much more established in yourself, and your choice as the player is whether you interact with these in a diplomatic way or in a very belligerent way, or perhaps you go your own way and you actually just make a very successful business out of what you've got. The choice is yours, and Matthew has stipulated that every single farm will be connected by a train, because he's obsessed and needs help. The general narrative of the story, although it's sandboxed, is that you are the underdog. You take control of this farm when it is the least of all the farms and you bring it, hopefully, forward to be the most prominent. And the name of this great enterprise, matthew, is what so.

Speaker 2:

I've got two. I've got two. I've got one which is nice and simple. It's called the Settlers. There's already again called the Settlers, is that right?

Speaker 1:

Okay, the next one unfortunately for me was it's been an entire series that's been going for about 30 years.

Speaker 2:

Oh, oh, yes, yeah, you can't call it that Settlers. Settlers two.

Speaker 1:

The show notes.

Speaker 2:

So the next game, unfortunately for me, was a joke name, which was who Gives a Crop? Who gives a crop? Who gives a crop? However, I'm sorry, but I have control of the show notes and I will be the one typing the name. It's going to be Farm Total War. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1:

That is a lot for the end.

Speaker 2:

It's going to be Farm Total. War Can we do that Because two of us You've got Lloyd to come for me. You know what. Get on a train, arrive at my farm lawyers, get out, pretend you're militia and I will take you on with Farm Total War.

Speaker 1:

Actually, but what Creative Assembly have done now is actually all the games now are not, because it used to be Rome Total War, medieval Total War, shogun Total War. It's now Total War, something else. So perhaps if we call it Farm Total War, they won't bother, because actually we've named it wrong. We've done the wrong naming convention.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, that's a Farm, total Traitor Farm, Total War is a coming for us regardless. No, they are coming and you know what, bring it on, because I need something to do at the weekend.

Speaker 1:

Well, there we are, ladies and gentlemen. That wasn't democracy, that was Totalitarianism from Matthew, because he edits the show.

Speaker 2:

So I knew it was going to fail sometime. I was just waiting for the time to say what are you going to say for this 100th episode? It's just going to be a loaded clips of you going. What a lovely idea, matthew.

Speaker 1:

Yes, well, there you are, ladies and gentlemen. That was Farm Total War. Farm Total War, farm Total War. This is definitely a PC game, I think coming to you to PC in the very near future. Well, we hope you have enjoyed that and we hope you come back and listen to more. If you are new to the show, please come back and listen to more episodes. Please also go back and listen to our back catalogue. There are. This was episode 58. 58.

Speaker 2:

So there are 57 other episodes of Joy and an Apology episode.

Speaker 1:

I got it right. I got it right.

Speaker 2:

That was it, isn't it? You do realise it says on the recording what number episode it is.

Speaker 1:

No, it doesn't. Anyway, we're going to get into this now. I shall have an argument with Matthew in the background. But there you are. Please do enjoy the episode and please do write to us if you want us to create any episodes for you. If you have any games Details are in the notes. Details are in the notes. Details are in the notes. Yes, we look forward to speaking to you next time. In the meantime, I have been Scott Farm Total War and that was Farm Total War who was apparently my co-host and we will speak to you soon. Have a very good rest of your weekend and speak to you next time. Bye-bye screams.