The pine desk and the people behind it

Nordicpineplay began with a shared frustration. Reviews of long-running strategy games tend to be written after an afternoon, yet these are games that only show their character after weeks. A first impression of Travian or Tribal Wars 2 tells you almost nothing about what month three feels like, and month three is when most players decide whether to stay.

So we play the long way. Every game on this site is played on a live public world by at least two editors for a month or more, with logs kept, alliances joined and the occasional city lost. We write only after that, and we come back to the scores whenever a game changes enough to matter.

We keep the list short on purpose. Six games is enough to cover the main styles of ancient-world and island empire strategy, from naval politics to calm city-building, and few enough that each gets the attention it deserves. Ingrid, who hosts the game finder, has founded more cities across these worlds than she can easily count.

Our desk spans several time zones across Canada, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which has proved surprisingly useful. Between us, someone is usually awake when an attack lands, and we have learned first-hand what these games demand of players who live far from the European servers where many worlds are busiest.