The official Mastodon instance! With EU Video (a #peertube instance), it is part of an alternative social media pilot program proposed, and provided by the European Data Protection Supervisor (#EDPS). The pilot program contributes to the European Union’s #strategy for data and digital #sovereignty that aims to foster Europe’s independence in the digital world.

Press release (PDF) : https://edps.europa.eu/press-publications/press-news/press-releases/2022/edps-launches-pilot-phase-two-social-media_en

Today we've seen the first official gameplay of the upcoming Total War: WARHAMMER III from Creative Assembly, SEGA and porting studio Feral Interactive.

Before it gets into the gameplay though, it also shows off the Trial By Fire trailer that was released by itself yesterday which gets you in the mood for some action. This is the final game in the Total War Warhammer trilogy, and it's pleasing to see that we will have all three officially on Linux.

Have a look below:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Some much bigger sites than us (Hi Eurogamer , IGN and so on) also got a hands-on preview. Sounds like all the previews were played across Parsec , which is pretty intriguing to see streaming tech used more like this.

"I think what I could say is that this is the final in a series of games, a trilogy, and this one is bigger, badder, better than the rest. We’ve had time to look over Warhammer 1, 2 and the DLCs. We've taken fan feedback and we’ve really improved on this game in terms of functionality and usability", says designer James Martin.

You can pre-purchase on Steam . The release will be sometime late this year.

Realpolitiks II from Jujubee S.A. and publisher 1C Entertainment has left Early Access, and they've also released a Linux build along with it.

A modern twist on the classic grand-strategy genre, as you take control of any contemporary nation in an attempt to assert dominance among the global superpowers so it's obviously a highly political game. Develop your country’s economy, technology and army; use your diplomatic skills, build an impressive spy network and get ready to fight major global threats such as terrorism, pandemics or famine. Build powerful alliances, wage wars on your enemies and achieve greatness! It expands in the first game in a lot of ways, enhancing all the features of the previous game and adding in many more options to expand.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Features:

• Dominate the Globe - Choose from 216 contemporary nations (including Sealand & Kiribati) and conquer your opponents. Adapt your strategy accordingly whether you start as a superpower or a small independent nation.
• New Modern Warfare - A brand-new combat system enables full control of your units on the battlefield while taking into account strategic advantages such as the weather, terrain, equipment, and a whole lot more.
• Expanded Management System - Create a communist utopia, a completely free market nation, or become a tyrant overseeing your citizens’ every step. With over 1000 projects and technologies to choose from, you decide the path to greatness.
• Improved Diplomacy - Engage in advanced negotiations to establish new trade routes or military access to neighboring regions. With a completely reworked AI, and new Favor and Investment systems that allow you to influence other countries - diplomacy becomes a crucial tool once again, especially as other leaders will prove hard negotiators.
• Advanced Espionage - Conduct clandestine actions with your spies, steal breakthrough technologies to further increase your military power, and invent new ways of mass destruction. Dominate your foes from the shadows.
• New and Unpredictable Events - Over 1000 new events ranging from minor provincial issues to a world-threatening meteor strike. Be wary of the ever-changing world as each playthrough will be completely different.
• Growth By Infrastructure - Buildings are a major part of your campaign as they enable you to recruit more units, train your spies and generals faster, defend against rocket attacks, or increase the supply range to your armies.
• Modding Tool - Use a plethora of in-game tools to create your very own campaigns, scenarios, units, and nations.

You can buy it from GOG , Humble Store and Steam .

Ready for your next real-time strategy (RTS)? Siege Up! from developer Denis Zdorovtsov looks like it could be good fun.

With a cute low-poly style in a medieval setting you will be building up walls, and smashing them down with catapults and various other equipment across a story-driven campaign. There's also going to be an in-game editor, full multiplayer and even some co-op missions too. Check out their older trailer below to get an idea of it:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Asking the developer about Linux support, they confirmed: "This is not going to be a problem for me, because of using Unity3d that supports Linux. I myself was using Linux exclusively during my student times, so having more than enough experience of Linux platform for supporting it."

The release is still some time away, with their current target being early December this year. One that could easily be worth keeping an eye on.

You can follow Siege Up! on Steam .

0 A.D. Alpha 25, the very impressive free and open source RTS is closing in on the next release and it's entering a Feature Freeze soon to focus on stability. The last release back in February took a very long time, partly as some major internal upgrades were done so now they're hoping to be a bit more regular.

In June they're proposing to enter Feature Freeze, to then focus on bug fixes. So what to expect from the upcoming 0 A.D. Alpha 25? In a blog post they noted a few new features coming:

• Single Player Campaign Support:
  The ability for 0 A.D modders to create their own single player campaigns will be added. Alpha 25 will only include the base functionality for this with full campaigns scheduled to be added in later iterations.
• Improved Multiplayer Responsiveness
  A technical improvement that players may ‘feel’ rather than see, this is another progressive improvement step to smoothing out multiplayer gameplay and enhancing unit pathfinding. Before commands in multiplayer were processed twice per second, now five times like in single player.
• Ongoing Balancing Changes
  Numerous changes to balance of the game by way of micro adjustments to various civilisations, buildings, and units.

Head over to their wiki and you will see there's quite a bit more including better animal AI behaviour, domestic animals will flee when attacked, structures can be toggled to auto-produce units, improvements to tutorial and random maps text and more.

I actually played a bunch of it recently and wow - it sure has come a very long way. Reminds me of the early days of Age of Empires but free and open source.

Check it out on the official site .

The Invisible Hand is a first-person stockbroker experience where you try and get rich quick, while you work for the trading firm FERIOS. Your only job is to make money and as much as possible.

Just like the real thing you will buy when they're going up, sell before you make a big loss and make as much commission as possible. Of course, it's not that simple. This is, after all, a game. You can find ways to make things easier, like lobbying an influential group to affect the market or even drive down an entire currency to boost your margins. It's a cut-throat world out there.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Developed by Power Struggle Games, a French game development collective cheekily intent on dismantling Capitalism from the inside, through games and they say they're "unabashedly political".

On Steam, the developer mentioned a Linux build has now been provided and they're looking for feedback on it.

Check it out on Steam .

Do you enjoy setting up elaborate production chains and resource management tycoon style gameplay? Mini Countries offers up a very curious take on it all. Note : key provided by the developer.

Each level offers up, as the name suggests, a mini country. Over time new cities pop up all over the map, and it's your job to satisfy their resource demands. Functionally, it feels quite a bit like Train Valley 2 in the way you're drawing up networks across the map. Here it gets just as complicated with you needing to setup the production, then transport the goods to a city and then deal with the cities that don't have direct connections to resources as you then begin to ferry resources between cities.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Getting to grips with the transport system takes a little time, as each city and production building have limits on the amount of transport connections they can have so it all takes a bit of planning. That's the puzzling part and what makes it quite interesting to play through. It has some nice replay value too thanks to the randomization of cities. Each time you replay a level, the position of cities will be different so it forces you to think anew each time. The levels aren't particularly long either, so each level gives a tasty bite-size puzzling strategy experience.

Like most puzzle games it starts off seriously tame and then gradually sprinkles in the difficulty. Don't be fooled by the first few levels, the design really comes through once you learn the basics and it starts getting you to do a whole lot more. Lots of moving pieces and it looks wonderful while doing so too thanks to the soft colours and sweet visuals.

Features:

• Build trade buildings to produce resources in your country
• Make sufficient storage buildings available
• Transport resources from storage buildings to demanding cities
• Choose new items each month to bring your country forward
• Plan your resource production according to different seasons
• Upgrade resources by constructing industry buildings
• Import resources which are not produced in your country
• Export resources to generate knowledge
• Integrate famous landmarks into your country
• Decide on one branch for the development of your cities: Workers' cities allow trade and industry buildings to produce resources faster and science cities improve the growth rate and thus the generation of further knowledge points

You can buy Mini Countries on itch.io and Steam .

Always on the look out for the next fun strategy game to sink some time into, I came across DEFLECTION and it looks pretty much like a game of Chess with a whole lot of lasers.

Inspired directly by the classic laser chess game Khet, the idea is to move around the board and annihilate enemy pieces with your lasers. There's a number of different pieces that have their own advantages, abilities and weaknesses you need to utilize to take them down. At the end of each turn, you have to shoot and so placement is key to victory.

Watch video on YouTube.com

It actually sounds like it could be very amusing to play through, with a lot of very careful thinking needed. The majority of pieces can move in all directions and rotate 90 degrees for ideal positioning, plus you can use enemy pieces against them and there's special objects in the levels too like portals and mirrors. There's even special green pieces, which both players on the board can control. Lots of ways to win by the sound of it and it could be a good one to watch.

Planned Features:

• Local and Online Multiplayer.
• Tutorial mode against the AI which goes through rules and tactics.
• Play against the AI!
• A lot of scenarios/maps designed to challenge you, some having unique pieces only available in them.
• Many different pieces with advantages, downsides, abilities and more.
• 3D Camera with full control.
• Steam Achievements and stats.

You can wishlist / follow on Steam . The developer mentioned they planned to have a demo available during the upcoming Steam Game Festival in the Summer.

Ready for one more attempt? Paradox Interactive and Paradox Tinto have announced he newest expansion to Paradox's flagship grand strategy game about the early modern world with Europa Universalis IV: Leviathan.

Leviathan offers new tools that allow you to play “tall” with smaller and more focused realms with a few centres of power. Paradox aren't yet giving away everything that's in it but they did say it also has a host of other changes to well-established game features like Regencies and Colonies. Additionally you will get new ways to quickly develop your capital, drawing resources and power from vassals or newly conquered territories, and allows you to build beyond your province's construction limit if you are willing to pay the price.

Watch video on YouTube.com

As per usual, a big free update for everyone will be dropping at the same time as we've come to expect from anything Paradox do. This free update will rework  the Southeast Asian and Australasian maps, with new nations, new cultures and new religions offering up plenty of new ways to play through.

You can wishlist / follow Leviathan on Steam .