Wargamer's Corner

Yeah, I need to test whether you can move your mounts independent of dismounts. If not, I guess they are automatic fire support? An area of the game that is not explained well in the tutorial. But it's early days yet.

What I mean by "the scale of units" is that the 3D models are big enough to easily differentiate while you're sailing around above the map. This means that they are *not* 1-1 scale with map objects. I'm not stressed. I've played games with this abstraction before. If you want different, then I think Armored Brigade will be your jam. Or Combat Mission, or Graviteam's games. Plenty of options out there.

Regiments seems to be trying to fill a middle ground between games like Steel Divisions and Wargame, and games like CM. Hopefully I can still manage the battles with more units. It's more like the former type of game than the latter, though.

You definitely cannot move your mounts independent of dismounts. I remember this being a big point of contention during the open beta (or whatever they called it). I don't really like that, but, I'll deal with it.

I totally agree with you about Regiments fitting between twitchy clicker RTT games like Wargame and CM. I feel like it'll fit nicely there. I like that they give you some flexibility in tuning the game to your preferences at the setup screen (weapon lethality, game speed, AOE radius, etc.) I think that's pretty cool.

Honestly, I think they triangulated on "fun", between "hectic" and "detailed".

Wow, MicroProse. That is a blast from the past!!! I thought that they were long gone.

tboon wrote:
Robear wrote:

I'm old, yes.

Ain't we all brother.

It took me 62 years to look this good

Goonch wrote:

Wow, Micro Prose. That is a blast from the past!!! I thought that they were long gone.

They got resurrected by a long-time fan and so far it's looking pretty great!

Well, the brand did. Luckily it was by someone who had an aspiration to produce games with the same sort of "fun factor" that MP used to. It could have been purchase by a Freemium company lol.

Robear wrote:

Well, the brand did. Luckily it was by someone who had an aspiration to produce games with the same sort of "fun factor" that MP used to. It could have been purchase by a Freemium company lol.

Well it's more than that, they did bring on Wild Bill as a consultant.

Oh cool, I didn't know that!

Was Wild Bill involved with the Falcon 4 sim?

No I believe he moved into Interactive Magic by then, who did several flight sims on their own.

I have a question for the brain trust!

I was just asked a question that I realized I don't know the answer to, and I was thinking the cognescenti here might have some ideas...

What would be a digital wargame suggestion for someone who is interested in playing a PC hex and counters wargame, but has never played one before?

Computer based? Battle Academy 1. No question at all. Designed for people who have never played a hex wargame before. Fun, simple mechanics but lots of unit variety, interesting scenarios and challenging enough to feel like you've done something when you win.

Physical board game would be Memoir '44 or the Civil War game in the same series. Those have nice plastic minifigs too.

Robear wrote:

Computer based? Battle Academy 1. No question at all. Designed for people who have never played a hex wargame before. Fun, simple mechanics but lots of unit variety, interesting scenarios and challenging enough to feel like you've done something when you win.

Thanks!

For Battle Academy 1, that sounds like a perfect suggestion, but... there's no counters, right?

He mentions wanting to "learn how to read counters". I was thinking the original PanzerCorps as another example, but that doesn't have counters, either.

And yes, pretty sure he's dialed in exclusively to the PC/computer side of things.

Zilla Blitz wrote:

What would be a digital wargame suggestion for someone who is interested in playing a PC hex and counters wargame, but has never played one before?

What do they mean by "counters"? Like digital representations of chits? Because Panzer Corps 1/2 has those, just simplified (I think they have strength and maybe supply on them - been a while for those) with a picture of the unit as the "counter".

Battle Academy 1 is a great suggestion for getting into wargaming generally, like Robear said (he turned me on to it actually), but is lacking on the "counter" side of things.

Or we talking specifically chits with NATO symbols or similar? That's a little harder, let me think on it some.

Zilla Blitz wrote:

I have a question for the brain trust!

I was just asked a question that I realized I don't know the answer to, and I was thinking the cognescenti here might have some ideas...

What would be a digital wargame suggestion for someone who is interested in playing a PC hex and counters wargame, but has never played one before?

Unity of Command? It has counters but not traditional "NATO-style" ones. I also find it more of a puzzle game than a wargame.

tboon wrote:
Zilla Blitz wrote:

What would be a digital wargame suggestion for someone who is interested in playing a PC hex and counters wargame, but has never played one before?

What do they mean by "counters"? Like digital representations of chits? Because Panzer Corps 1/2 has those, just simplified (I think they have strength and maybe supply on them - been a while for those) with a picture of the unit as the "counter".

Or we talking specifically chits with NATO symbols or similar? That's a little harder, let me think on it some.

I guess I assumed he was talking about square, flat chit-like things with some combination of Attack-Defense-Movement on them?

It might be that he's interested in the NATO symbols, though, when he was talking about "learning to read them". That's a good point and would make a lot more sense, as he was asking if the Attack at Dawn North Africa game would be a good place to start. (Which might not be bad, but I was thinking of something a bit less intermediate level).

PanzerCorps has the model representations, with just attack strength under them, and Unity of Command 2 has models as well.

How beginner friendly are the Decisive Campaigns games? Looks like they have a NATO symbol option.

Maybe War in the East 2? (JOKING!)

Yeah, the problem is that he doesn't understand that there is no "counter standard". Every game's counters are different. So really, counters, minis, whatever doesn't matter. He'll be relearning them for each game.

The games that *do* use counters tend to me complicated. But you could suggest the core game for Lock 'n' Load Tactical Digital. That uses counters in the canonical way, it's easy to pick up, and the AI is quite good.

Robear wrote:

Yeah, the problem is that he doesn't understand that there is no "counter standard". Every game's counters are different. So really, counters, minis, whatever doesn't matter. He'll be relearning them for each game.

Yeah, the more we've discussed it, I can see how that's the case. And NATO symbols aren't very often used on "beginning" wargames, especially digital ones.

I think I've got enough to answer him better now, thanks everyone! This was helpful.

Lock and load is a great suggestion. Also, if it didn’t have To be turn bad or hex based, I think regiments is a really good tactical starter. It’s not as difficult or complex as combat mission but it is quite fun and quite accessible. Plus, real time with pause that gives the player ask the time in the world to figure out what they want to do. Also, NATO symbology.

PWAlessi wrote:

Lock and load is a great suggestion. Also, if it didn’t have To be turn bad or hex based, I think regiments is a really good tactical starter. It’s not as difficult or complex as combat mission but it is quite fun and quite accessible. Plus, real time with pause that gives the player ask the time in the world to figure out what they want to do. Also, NATO symbology.

Thanks! Turns out he just didn't know what the numbers meant, but he's actually played a lot of Hearts of Iron 4 and understands the NATO symbols. Odd that someone would be in that sort of a place, but I suppose everyone's path through gaming is unique.

Thanks everyone!

Learning the numbers is easy, for any given game. Just takes some play to remember them. If he even processed the tutorial in HoI4, he's good to go for whatever level of difficulty he wants to try, frankly.

Zilla Blitz wrote:
PWAlessi wrote:

Lock and load is a great suggestion. Also, if it didn’t have To be turn bad or hex based, I think regiments is a really good tactical starter. It’s not as difficult or complex as combat mission but it is quite fun and quite accessible. Plus, real time with pause that gives the player ask the time in the world to figure out what they want to do. Also, NATO symbology.

Thanks! Turns out he just didn't know what the numbers meant, but he's actually played a lot of Hearts of Iron 4 and understands the NATO symbols. Odd that someone would be in that sort of a place, but I suppose everyone's path through gaming is unique.

Thanks everyone!

I know that you got your answers Zilla, but, I want to add one more thing.

Somebody mentioned the DC series above. I think that DC:Ardennes is a terrific entry point for a new grognard. It has some supply mechanics that some more hardcore (I'm looking at you WitE) wargames have but, without all of the complexity right out of the gate. So, a new grognard can play the Small scenarios basically without worrying about the supply mechanics at all because the scenarios are so small and short that supply doesn't really come into play. Then. as they get comfortable with all of the mechanics, DC:A makes it easy to graduate to bigger and bigger scenarios and then, finally, the campaigns. I find that each area of any small scenarios is a small tactical puzzle to solve. The scenario progression kind of acts like a tutorial into the common concepts of almost all wargames. Plus, there are a lot of good let's plays online to help ease entry.

Robear wrote:

Learning the numbers is easy, for any given game. Just takes some play to remember them. If he even processed the tutorial in HoI4, he's good to go for whatever level of difficulty he wants to try, frankly.

Totally agree, that's pretty much how I replied to him.

PWAlessi wrote:

I know that you got your answers Zilla, but, I want to add one more thing.

Somebody mentioned the DC series above. I think that DC:Ardennes is a terrific entry point for a new grognard. It has some supply mechanics that some more hardcore (I'm looking at you WitE) wargames have but, without all of the complexity right out of the gate. So, a new grognard can play the Small scenarios basically without worrying about the supply mechanics at all because the scenarios are so small and short that supply doesn't really come into play. Then. as they get comfortable with all of the mechanics, DC:A makes it easy to graduate to bigger and bigger scenarios and then, finally, the campaigns. I find that each area of any small scenarios is a small tactical puzzle to solve. The scenario progression kind of acts like a tutorial into the common concepts of almost all wargames. Plus, there are a lot of good let's plays online to help ease entry.

That's really helpful to know, thanks, PWAlessi! I'm really going to have to pick that one up next time it goes on sale.

Victoria 3 is announced for October 25th, and pre-orders are now open!

Robear wrote:

Victoria 3 is announced for October 25th, and pre-orders are now open!

Much excite!

reposting from deals thread:
Both Cauldrons of War games, Stalingrad and Barbarossa, are free/PWYW on itch right now:
https://maestro-cinetik.itch.io/caul...

They're unique-looking smaller wargames with good reviews. I installed them last night but haven't tried either one yet.

Just finished the first campaign in Regiments on medium difficulty.

The good stuff:

I like the flow of battle - scout, suppress, attack, defend, refit/resupply, repeat. The sound is great, and the the game alerts you effectively when important things happen. The unit interactions make sense and I've yet to have a huh? moment when it comes to what is happening on the battlefield.

Helicopters are terrifying on the defense, but less effective on the offense where they can easily get exposed to AA and killed. Very well done.

The not-so-good stuff:

The AI apparently has only two tools: defenders sitting on the objectives and units moving in to counterattack from their reinforcement points. It's possible this first campaign is simpler, but it really feels like the AI doesn't understand how to use terrain or how to run defense in depth. It ignores strong positions that could control the objective without sitting on top of it. It deploys AA, support, and recon units too far forward and out of cover, and doesn't withdraw them when they are in danger. It also places obstacles that are not covered by fire, and thus are just a waste of time.

I felt like the objectives were essentially TRPs, because that's where almost all of your artillery goes and you can start shelling them for suppression and damage long before your troops are in view or in range. Also, why would some of these arbitrary objectives be locked behind other objectives? It doesn't make a lot of sense in context.

The phase/stage system feels a little odd - not the system itself, but how it plays out. You can eliminate the second phase by taking all the objectives in the first phase. It's unclear to me whether this is a good idea or a bad idea. Does that mean you've gotten all the available Operational Authority? Or would it better to farm units as they try to counter-attack? Would the AI even have anything left for that?

The game appears to be more arcade than combat sim - my units were scoring roughly around an 8-to-1 kill ratio (38 losses to 241 kills including aircraft), which is kind of absurd, and I can only imagine this gets worse as you go up in difficulty.

The allied AI units in the last couple of stages were insanely aggressive and took huge numbers of losses, but at the same time pretty much carried the offensive - I felt like I was along for the ride. Again, possibly an issue with it being the first campaign and thus relatively easy. I tried to support some allied AI units with artillery, and they overran the enemy so quickly that I actually took some friendlies out.

I've finished 5/7 of the operations in the campaign so far (on hard) and have been quite enjoying it. As you said, Aetius, the AI definitely has some major deficiencies and I've been wracking up similar kill ratios. Despite that, the scenario design is well done and each operation has done a nice job ramping up the difficulty and presenting interesting and varied situations. I've particularly appreciated how each operation has you using a different faction and how much that shakes up the feel of the game.

So, definitely encourage you to stick with it if you're so inclined!