Armchair General was fortunate enough to literally stumble upon Philippe Thibaut’s (Europa Universalis, Pax Romana) new project Birth of America and his new company AGEOD. Lucky for us too because not only is Birth of America worth your time but Philippe was nice enough to go out of his way to make sure he answered our questions — despite being in the midst of releasing a new patch for the game. It is a real pleasure to bring this interview to our readers.

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Armchair General: Thanks for taking the time to speak to the Armchair General community about Birth of America and AGEOD.

Philippe Thibaut: It is my pleasure…

ACG: Given your extensive design background, would you mind sharing a quick summary of your previous work before creating AGEOD?

Philippe Thibaut: I worked both on PC and board games. My first boardgame (and incidentally PC as well) was Europa Universalis. I also designed a monster grand strategic boardgame on WW1 called “La Grande Guerre 14-18." Six years ago I ventured into PC games with an early Roman republic game called Pax Romana, and more recently I have released another RTS PC game on the theme of the Great Invasions (soon to be published in North America).

Birth of America

ACG: What prompted you to create your own company? Do you have plans to continue working with larger publishers or is this going to be your new full time job?

Philippe Thibaut: I already had my own development studio 4 years ago, but it went bankrupt when my publisher withdrew its financing and we ended up with another company buying me out and releasing an unfinished Pax Romana to the public…a real disaster that I could do nothing to prevent. So this time I have carefully chosen my partners in the company, and the team.. and above all it is not financially dependent on a publisher’s support. We shall work with some famous ones very soon, but on a case by case basis, when our games are already directly sold to the public and without them dictating what our games should have or not.

ACG: Your website states "AGEOD’s main goal is offering to players original cultural and gaming creations developed by small independent studios and producers that have trouble finding an outlet within the traditional organization of the market." I think the interesting word here is "cultural." Can you tell us a bit more about the importance of this cultural aspect?

Philippe Thibaut: I am a deep fan of strategy games, but also a History addict (see below). I always found a game should bring you not only fun but also something else to enrich your “culture générale” (as we say in France). So for us, any game that can give some cultural content in addition to good gameplay is worth a try.  

ACG: AGEOD has been set up to help small studios find an outlet for their games; can you tell us if you have other games from other studios which we might look forward to seeing in the near future?

Philippe Thibaut: We have already received two or three different proposals, and they are under scrutiny now. We also have a rather extensive line of our own to develop and we can only do a few each year. For the moment, priority will go to our own projects, to build on the appeal of Birth of America…

ACG: It would seem that Birth of America (French and Indian Wars especially) is a great example of areas which have not been covered in mainstream gaming. What was it which drew you to this particular period of history?

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