Wargamer's Corner

Yeah, I've been close to pulling the trigger on Steel Division: Normandy 44 and Steel Division 2 having watched some on stream.

Definitely skip Normandy and go for 2. Much better game.

Seeing that picture of Wargame : Red Dragon reminded me that I have 3 (three !) of them in my library that I've never played at all.

Out of Red Dragon, AirLand Battle and European Escalation, which is the best to start with ?

And are any of the DLCs must-haves ?

Neutrino wrote:

Meanwhile, there's a very different game that Epic is offering as their next weekly freebie on Mar 4th - Wargame Red Dragon, that one may keep me busy for a while...

Enjoy! That was one of my favourite strategy series of the last decade.

I wrote a basics guide in the Wargame thread, here.

davet010 wrote:

Seeing that picture of Wargame : Red Dragon reminded me that I have 3 (three !) of them in my library that I've never played at all.

Out of Red Dragon, AirLand Battle and European Escalation, which is the best to start with ?

And are any of the DLCs must-haves ?

You can skip European Escalation - it's a good game superseded by the sequels.

I don't think you can go wrong with either AirLand Battle or Red Dragon. Red Dragon is the newest of the three. It has the most "stuff" and better QoL (it's the only one that allows you to speed up or slow down the game), but looking back at the series, I think AirLand Battle was the most tightly and coherently designed. Some of the key differences:

- ALB's timeline ran until (IIRC) 1985 or 1990. RD moves the timeline forward to an "alternate" 1990s where the Cold War never ended, which let the developers add more units but also led to power creep and, I think, watered down the flavour of each nation a bit. For instance, AMRAAMs are rare in ALB - the US having unique access to them is a big deal. In contrast, they're fairly common in RD.
- RD added amphibious units and gunboats (which fit the rest of the design), and guided-missile destroyers and pure naval maps (which didn't).
- ALB's campaign is set on NATO's northern flank in Scandinavia, while RD is set in Asia.
- RD adds East Asian nations (South/North Korea, China, and Japan), which are pretty cool.
- There were also assorted rule tweaks between the two games (e.g. the extra numbers a player received in exchange for choosing to be limited to older equipment).

For the DLCs, I would just get the free-LC to start with. The nation DLCs for Red Dragon are more of the same -- more nations and more units. You can probably safely wait to see how much you like the game before you pick up the paid DLC.

Good luck and have fun!

Robear wrote:

Definitely skip Normandy and go for 2. Much better game.

Robear, what did you prefer about 2? I played a lot of Normandy but never really spent a lot of time with 2.

SD2 removes a lot of the "rush rush" aspect in favor of a more traditional wargame timing. You have more time to deal with things, which means that each individual location fight is more interesting and thoughtful. The units are less expensive and you get more points to buy them with, which means that you don't have to min-max like in SD44; you can field weird variants if you like, to see how they do, and your unit choices are richer. And finally tanks and AT guns can shoot a few kilometers, which adds some spice and realism to the larger maps.

If you like traditional wargames and stuff like CM and Graviteam, SD2 is a move towards that side of the gaming table. If you like Company of Heroes, then perhaps SD44 is more your jam. Predictably, I had trouble getting into SD44, but a much more enjoyable time with SD2. Still have not really spent much time with it but it'll come up to the top of the pile eventually.

Mind Elemental wrote:
Neutrino wrote:

Meanwhile, there's a very different game that Epic is offering as their next weekly freebie on Mar 4th - Wargame Red Dragon, that one may keep me busy for a while...

Enjoy! That was one of my favourite strategy series of the last decade.

I wrote a basics guide in the Wargame thread, here.

Thanks Mind Elemental. Hopefully, I'll be able to deal with the learning curve (I'm not a seasoned RTS wargamer!), I'll take a look at your guide on the forum, which should help to get me started

Just got an email that War in the East 2 was released. But the Slitherine site still says "coming soon". :/

Edit: Bummer

Erik Rutins, Matrix Games wrote:

Hi everyone,

I'll be posting a more comprehensive announcement soon, but first want to apologize for any confusion this morning's events caused. I've added a few clarifications below that may help as we sort things out behind the scenes:

- The e-mails stating that WITE2 was released, sent out to customers with it on their wish list, were in error. It is however live for pre-orders and we will be manually re-sending those e-mails to clarify that.

- The check box in the store for the "boxed digital edition" is what you need to check to make sure you are ordering the full 500+ page printed hardcover manual. This should be an additional $20 + shipping.

- WITE2 will release on March 25th (downloads for all orders) and physical shipments will start shipping out on April 16th (when manuals arrive at our warehouse). Those who order the physical copies will be able to access their downloads on March 25th along with everyone else.

Regards,

- Erik

At least we know it is coming later this month.

OMGOMGOMG!!!

Played 2 games of Pavlov's house. Both major defeats. But, my score got less negative the second time. I'm really enjoying varying strategies to try to come up with a winning idea. I love that there are a lot of decisions that you can make and they all feel meaningful. I always hate not getting the thing that I decided not to pick.

I didn't get that email, tboon. Maybe it went out by accident?

I have one game going well, and one that's going down flames, the initial bombers did really well. Still tons of fun.

Robear wrote:

I didn't get that email, tboon. Maybe it went out by accident?

It did go out by accident - from what I can tell, today's email was supposed to be that pre-orders were live *not* that the game was released. But Matrix/Slith also stopped pre-orders because the store was not correctly applying the pre-order bonus.

Bad day for them, evidently they had a bunch of stuff planned around WitE2 release date announcement/pre-orders going live, which may or may not happen today.

Well, sadly, that makes sense. Oh well.

WitE2 pre-orders are now up. Release date is March 25.

WitE2 pre-order is up. 10% off so $72 instead of $80 for download only. Would love to buy physical to get the 500+ page hard-cover manual but I believe it is $20 more + ~$25 shipping, so no-go for me.

A heads up that Wargame: Red Dragon is now free over on the Epic Store, for anyone who doesn't have it already and wants to check it out.

Lock n Load Tactical Digital had another release today. If you haven't been keeping up with it there have been three new modules released in the last three weeks.

Heroes of Defiance - 1940 French/Belgian and Dutch vs Germany - $10
Heroes of the Pacific - US vs Japan - $10
Battles to the Rhine - D-Day to Battle of the Bulge UK/US vs Germany - $8.50 new release discount

This game keeps getting better and better. I decided to dive into the tabletop version I liked it so much. Probably my #1 wargame I've played in the last year.

There are a bunch more modules on the way. They seem to have hit their stride.

It's a simplified ASL type system on computer, and LnL has solid experience with both boardgame design (which this is) and computerizing their designs. It's the Big Boi version of Battle Academy, in its systems, anyway. Great fun.

Robear wrote:

It's a simplified ASL type system on computer, and LnL has solid experience with both boardgame design (which this is) and computerizing their designs. It's the Big Boi version of Battle Academy, in its systems, anyway. Great fun.

God, I'd give anything for a computerized version of ASL. My research suggests that Paradox owns the rights. I know that there's Tigers on the Hunt which I've played a bunch, but, I feel like it's really not very good. It's developed by 1 dude and it shows. The AI is pretty terrible and there is no multi-player.

I'd love to see a studio do something with it.

Anyway, I do like L&L tactical. Conflict of Heroes digital is pretty good too.

Jeez, just checked out the Steam Store for this. They have a ton of stuff in the pipeline (under upcoming release tab) in addition to what you guys listed. I saw anything ranging from Granada battles, to space fights, to Zombies, Stalingrad and more. Lots wishlisted!

Whispa-hausered! I was just going to say, looks like the game is selling well, they've opened the floodgates. In particular, they will soon have a Battle Generator, which will work with all the DLC. Make your own battles to your heart's content!

Oh man, this game just crossed over into must-have.

Holy moly, space marines!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1...

I know, right? Better get the base game and run the tutorials...

Robear wrote:

I know, right? Better get the base game and run the tutorials...

It's in my cart RIGHT NOW.

Glad to see them releasing more content. I like what they've been able to do.

Do you find the AI with Lock 'n Load to be sufficient, or have you been doing multiplayer? Tried the scenarios in the demo and must admit that I didn't come away all that impressed.

Did you adjust the difficulty?

Robear wrote:

Did you adjust the difficulty?

Yeah, of course. It was a little while ago, but from what I recall it seemed to just pile more units in. Which is fine, not expecting anything ground breaking. Just felt like the AI was really struggling with making reasonable reaction fire decisions, which is kinda the core of the game when defending and opens up a lot of exploits once you realize it.

The core game scenarios were all pretty tiny though, so it might improve with something larger or if they added some per-scenario scripting in.

I've been playing since LNLTD launched and I've seen a vast improvement in the AI. I've been playing tactical level computer games for a very long time (I'm talking back before they even had graphics - you played on a board with counters - the pc handled the game engine) and the quality of the AI has always been an issue. The original Lock and Load computer game many years ago had atrocious AI and I couldn't play it at all. It was so bad I hesitated buying this new version, I took a chance on it because it was only a couple of $ at launch. I think the AI in this version is good in it's current state.

It is best with infantry on the defense. During a recent game of "Bloody Valley" the AI shot my French attack to shreds. On offense it can be good, I just played the "Steel Against Steel" defending against the German AI, and I managed to pull out a last turn win. It didn't look good until my last reinforcements showed up. But, it was a wild fun game!

AFV AI has been seriously improved. When I first got the game at launch I played a game of "Ap Bac" as the defending VC and the ARVN AI never fired on me once with their M-113's, they just drove around in circles. I also had a few games where Stug III's would not engage, or fire, all game. This has been fixed. "Steel Against Steel" is a heavy AFV scenario and the AI handled it well. I also recently played the "Overlord Begins" scenario as the UK paras and the AI tanks charged right in and started blasting right away.

The big thing to me is I've seen a steady improvement since launch. They are serious about this game.

Yes, judging by the amount of upcoming DLC , I am glad they are doing well and are providing additional content.