The Books and Games of NESing

[Swissempire]

I figured a thread like this would be good, especially after the holiday season.

This thread is for the reccomending of good books and reading materials and games and such. As a community, albeit a strange one, we would probably all like similar stuff. And if not, this gives a laundry list of ideas.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that anyone who enjoys NESing would like the Paradox Interactive games.

 

[Luckymoose]

Well. I wouldn't know I don't own any. But they all look fun. I do own Super Power 1 and its kinda fun.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

The entirety of the Civilization series for a start. Then any book of general world history or geography. I like using the National Geographic Atlas for references in finding terrain and city names.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Crosspost.

 

[Insane_Panda]

I just read "A Moveable Feast" by Hemingway. It is, of course, about his early years in Paris

Beyond that, I am currently reading For "Whom The Bell Tolls" by Hemingway. Before both, I read "Magical Thinking" by Augusten Burroughs. He is truly a hilarious writer.

I don't play much games (I used to though), but SMAC is clearly awesome.

 

[das]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that anyone who enjoys NESing would like the Paradox Interactive games.

Indeed, though I enjoy them for completely different reasons (let's see... NESing is free of many of the more ridicilous rules and AI stupidity seen in Paradox games, but in Paradox games you don't have to wait for updates ). Same for Civilization, though I didn't play it for quite a while. Less typically I like Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War. And Starcraft, ofcourse.

As for reading, I read all sorts of things at the same time, from various modern Russian writers that you wouldn't know (Boris Akunin, Oleg Divov) to Roger Zelazny (well, mostly rereading there), and most recently Thomas Hobbes. So yes, it would mostly seem quite random. As for NESing, there is another fairly obscure, yet Polish fantasy writer that I have quite enjoyed, namely Andrzej Sapkowski. The later parts of his Witcher series include not just the various character-driven adventures, but also episodes from a great war and various political maneuverings, which quite remind me of NESing as well (I believe I already mentioned a while ago that I found a character disturbingly similar to silver2039's leaders there). He hasn't been translated to English at all, but they're making a game based on his books, and that probably means that they'll translate the books as well one day.

 

[Symphony D.]

If it's not listed, that means I either haven't read it (Dune prequels) or think it's trash (books other than the first one in the "Ender Quartet"), possibly both. The following are more command books off the top of my head; which I find inspiring to thought processes, analysis, interplay, so on:

Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse: Dune - Frank Herbert
Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation - Issac Asimov
Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
Moonrise, Moonwar - Ben Bova
Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets - Orson Scott Card
Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein
Shogun - James Clavell

I don't read much historical fiction; if I want history I'll get a non-fiction book instead, most of the time they just muck it up anyway (like Mr. Turtledove) and I can't stand their literary decisions. The games are generally more inspiring to my sense of presentation, atmosphere, and scale in a NES; generally more epic orrientated, also pretty much entirely RTS or TBS games.

Civilization
Empire Earth
Alpha Centauri
Master of Orion
Age of Empires (I / II)
Command and Conquer: Red Alert
Command and Conquer: Tiberian Dawn
Earth 2150
Ground Control
Starcraft
Homeworld
Armored Core
Einhänder

Strong sci-fi emphasis in most of this stuff probably explains a lot about my preferences for game types.

 

[Oruc]

what type of stuff are we supposed to be recommending here? just any book? or a specific kind.

 

[Kal'thzar]

RTW, MTWII good games both. (although MTW stands out as the only one with glorious acheivements, rather than conquest to win).
The Dawn of War stuff, just for a differenet feel to an RTS (much more movement, tanking generally a bad idea).
KKND just fun.

David Eddings, I found his early books good, hes now become rubbish. RIP Eddings. Then again I read his early books about 10 years ago.
Dune 'see sympth

 

[Sheep]

Anything written by Harry Turtledove is good for alt-history/ fantasy.

A Want for Nails is also a good alt-history book.

 

[~Darkening~]

Pretty much keep to Steven King- I can't read historical fiction and it depends on the subject for non-fiction.

I'm pretty much out of the game-playing scene these days, through I did play alot of AOE when I did.

 

[tossi]

Books:

Reading some tragedies for school which are quite moving :

Maria Stuart
Romeo&Juliet

And I'm rereading Tolkien (finally) in English
Terry Pratchett is allways dandy, too.
Original Dune series

Good for stories and to improve your English.

Games

Ain't gaming much anymore, though I had some fun with Dawn of War, Abandonware and rougelikes recently. Strategy, Games were you reign an Empire and Historical Games are always good for NESing.

Starcraft
Tie Fighter
Age of Empires 2 (historical custom campaigns)
Aces of the Deep
Dawn of War
Monkey Island 1+2
Natural Selection (a Half-Life mod)
Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters
Dwarf Fortress (rougelike)

 

[andis-1]

Some good books I've read, and somewhat related to NEsing:

In the Name of Rome - Adrian Goldsworthy
A History of Warfare - John Keegan
The Classical World - Robin Lane Fox

Also I loved all of the tolkien's creations, have them all and I've read them all for couple times.

 

[Thlayli]

I just read "A Moveable Feast" by Hemingway. It is, of course, about his early years in Paris

Beyond that, I am currently reading For "Whom The Bell Tolls" by Hemingway.

I liked For Whom the Bell Tolls. Didn't care for Moveable Feast, though.

For NESing, I consult my World History Atlas, (a must have,) as well as The Punic Wars for ancient age scenarios.

For humor value, I'm currently reading Divine Comedies by Tom Holt. Hilarious.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Current games - Settlers 2, Shandalar, X-COM, Jagged Alliance, [deleted], [deleted], D2X, W3X, Civ 3, ToME (an Angband branch), KBounce (the Free version of JezzBall), Master of Orion, Heli Attack 2. Money was paid only for the underlined ones, all of which were acquired as gifts.

Books - too many to list. Shortlist of authors: Tolkien, Friedman, Eddings, Brooks, LeGuin, Pratchett, Gaiman, Feist, Niven, Jacques (Brian), Jordan, Green (Simon).

 

[Warman17]

I'm pretty sure anyone who NESes would also enjoy Harry Turtledove books.

 

[das]

I don't. Used to, but his althists are simply terrible and contain pretty much every feature I DON'T like in althist (historical characters born after the PoD, ridicilously close parallels, oversimplification, etc).

 

[Reno]

Some book authors I recommend: Le Guin, Tolkien (although his style of writing wasn't too good for my taste), Trudi Canavan, Dianna Wynne Jones and Jules Verne*.

*Taken into account the time period when he wrote his books and the technology available then, his writings are very good, especially with regards to submarines and their development.

 

[Warman17]

I don't. Used to, but his althists are simply terrible and contain pretty much every feature I DON'T like in althist (historical characters born after the PoD, ridicilously close parallels, oversimplification, etc).

His books are meant to be allegories or explorations of ideas, not a strict althist.

For example In The Presence of Mine Enemy is an allegory of the fall of the USSR(with key differences being Nazi Germany - such as flagrant racism) while the Worldwar Series is an exploration into the nature of humanity itself by looking at a society of non-humans interacting with humanity (which he tries to come across as being an effect of our biology)

 

[jeps]

Lots of Sci-fi and Alt-Hists (Orson Scott Card, Harry Turtledove, Eric Flint, Douglas Adams, Michael Stackpole) and MANY more. That's just the very short list.

Also, some characters born after the POD is fine, but not if their ancestry/nation is affected. If there is some POD in Mesoamerica and Jesus is born, and a few millenia later that affects America thats fine, but if it is "what if the romans didn't conquer Judea' and Jesus is born, that is complainable.