Wargamer's Corner

Well, I was reading about Kharkov on the Matrix boards, and discovered that they are giving a price cut for those who own the Winter Storm game - since I happen to own Winter Storm, I am feeling the urge to buy Kharkov rising dramatically . . .

Just installed WWII Online again - did the training grounds, have not reupped yet. I forgot just how cool and insanely detailed it was...

Looks like Strategic Command 2: Weapons and Warfare was upgraded again this week. Version 1.03 patch is here. I think I may take over the world this weekend.

In other news, Europa Universalis: Rome is dated for April 15!

Robear wrote:

In other news, Europa Universalis: Rome is dated for April 15!

Mine's preordered already, definitely looking forward to it.

So where's Kharkov? Anyone heard any news?

Has anybody tried out Armored Brigade? It is a free modern tactical game. I've only played a couple of small scenarios, but it looks promising. It is single player only currently.

Videos of Heroes of Stalingrad ripped from the LnL forums.

Keep in mind it is beta stuff and also they say it is much slower due to the way they captured the video (frapper or somesuch):

Http://www.locknloadgame.com/hos/firefight.wmv

http://www.locknloadgame.com/hos/melee.wmv

http://www.locknloadgame.com/hos/armor.wmv

I am soooo there. When is this due? It reminds me of another game, but I can't seem to think what.... (yeah, right!)

Here's Wargamer's preview of EU:Rome. I'm happy just with the demo alone, the game will be great.

Robear wrote:

I am soooo there. When is this due? It reminds me of another game, but I can't seem to think what.... (yeah, right!) :-)

"when it's done" they say. I think mid summer. OK, I hope mid-summer.

Once they have the mechanics down hopefully they can port in western theater, then the pacific theater and then North Africa & Italy, then some modern stuff!

Seems like it's always the scale changes that doom WWII tactical systems for use in modern stuff. ASL didn't transfer, for example. So hopefully they'll do WWII, maybe some other stuff in that era, like Korea, but for NATO/WP stuff, they'll need a new engine.

Still, I'm there. So far, this looks like the dream game, a computerized wargame with counters and dice and pew-pew-pew just like I used to play with my friends in high school.

Kharkov is out. I've bought and dl'd it, gotta finish the day before I fire it up.

Excellent. Post your impressions after the weekend!

Yes, please. Also on how they have implemented PBEM (WEGO?)

One thing I found out is that if you have Winter Sun installed first, it'll pick up the campaigns and convert them to the new system. You can buy it discounted if you get it with Kharkov.

I'm not ready to do a review yet, but the pbem is seemingly cumbersome. Each phase (command and reaction) creates a file and each player can do two phases at a go. This is done by emailing the two phase files back and forth. It strikes me as being like CM's system, but with two files at once.

The game is very much like a stripped-down CM, but the chrome is interesting. It has formations and enforces categories of orders over the 80 second turns, which is quite reasonable. But the unit choices are very limited even compared to the first CM. Still, a solid Koios quality game.

So.... Thoughts Robear?

Well, I've been sidelined by work, Book 13 in Lotro and a few other things. I've played enough to see that this is typical polished Koios stuff. If Combat Mission had never come out, it'd be the best thing on the block, but at this point, I'm waiting to get in the mood for WWII to get some more time in. I don't see anything obviously wrong with it.

OK, thanks.

Sorry to hear you are busy - a lot of that going around!

Put another way, I have every confidence that this will be as polished and nail-biting as their Roman games. The tutorial was well-done and I'm just waiting for the mood to hit to play more. As far as I'm concerned I'm happy with the purchase already and it'd take an absolute disaster to change that. I've not seen anyone indicate such problems.

Gotcha.

PC:Kharkov has just been updated to 1.01. Maybe this weekend will be good for firing it up again.

4 new scenarios for Battlefront (all east front, no Pacific theater) , and Matrix announces a succesor, based on the Kharkov battles of the Soviet counter attacks.

All interesting, but as with the other Kharkov title, no interested PBEM opponents around these parts.

Oh, I hear you. I've been resorting to Lotro for non-thinking game time. Hornet Leader might be your best choice (if not a good book - those are very relaxing); Armageddon Empires is a great two hour game too. But sometimes life is overwhelming and gaming is a chore. At least thinking gaming.

Any time you change a job, lose a pet or have personal problems, it's considered a major stress for the year. All at once? I'm glad you're still reading the site and talking to us! Find out what relaxes you now and do it. Can't force gaming.

I hear the FN FiveSeven is a great stress reducer.

Well, for the EU3 fans, the expansion "In Nomine" has been released. It's focussed on AI changes, and some interesting additions to the game. It also appears to bring back some of the national differences that some people thought were lost from EU2, as flavor. It requires the "Napoleon's Ambition" add-on.

The game now starts in 1399 with the coronation of Henry IV, and they've added 8 new tech levels to accomodate the 53 year addition. Also - this is cool - the tech groups (related countries are grouped for initial tech) start out at different tech levels. So European countries really will be the tech leaders even at the start.

Over 30 provinces added from Spain to Russia. 11 new countries from various times were added.

A number of changes to Religion make variable tolerance much less likely, missionaries are completely revamped, and the Papal Controller gets more power and responsibility for it's use.

Rebels now have causes and will behave according to their agenda.

Decisions have been added. These are like events, but have preconditions you have to meet before they fire. So for big changes (building a united Germany, for example) you'll know what you have to do to trigger (or avoid) the event. There are national, provincial, religious, country creation and other decisions.

Prestige more strongly affects what you can and can't do as a country.

Optionally, you can choose to try "missions". Completely optional, intended to fill peaceful downtime. Some are historical achievements for major countries, but most are randomly triggered.

One new idea in each of the five categories, and many existing ideas retooled.

Colonialism mechanics are very much changed. Colony growth starts at founding and takes only 10-20 years to grow to a city, but now colonists are much harder to get; you can't see province production until you set up a colony; colonies produce tariffs, not taxes, and tariffs depend on a large fleet to be efficiently collected. You can also more easily assimilate the culture of provinces captured from another country.

Policy sliders have been revamped. No more stability hit for changes, but time between changes depends on things like nation size and government type.

Navies are now generally smaller overall and max size depends on a country's geography. Pirates are more common and need to be suppressed by patrolling (you set patrol areas.) Naval ideas are more powerful now. Strong navies are essential for the colonial style game strategy.

Lots of changes to warfare. Mostly, it's more bloody and harder to reinforce outside friendly territory.

Diplomacy is changed to have more options and be more useful in things like peace negotiations (now you see if the country will accept the terms before spending on them). Annexation is now a bit harder. Diplomatic trust, rivals and threat now help guide the AI (and you).

Many new adviser types added, and advisers are not as "cookie cutter" predictable.

HRE mechanics expanded to make it more interesting to play.

The economy of trade goods is now market driven and will react to wars and new production buildings appropriately. Supply and demand added.

Trade has been revamped.

Elections are now in place for Republics, with different candidates to pick from. (You are the Kingmaker, after all).

Two new AIs - Strategic, and Big Army. Plus enhancements to the others. Much attention paid to Naval and Peace-making AIs in particular.

And finally, interface changes, including the ability to dump mp3s into the Music file so they'll be played. Oh, and few multiplayer tweaks as well.

Bonne Chance!

That's right, my usual table will be fine. Place seems to be empty tonight, eh? Heh heh...

Yeah.

Well...

What? Oh, just a bunch of us who meet sometimes, shoot the breeze about games... No, *strategy* games.

*Not* like C&C, no. Sorry. Never, ah, never heard of it except the name.

...I'm sure it's good. You haven't seen some other guys in here lately? I mean the crickets are loud...

No, I... can't say the cutscenes in our games are as good as in C&C, no. No Zerg rushes either, though.

Oh, you do? Well, I'm sure that works. Rushing. Probably it... Oh, look, just get me a double and I'll wait for the guys. They'll be here sooner or later. I'll, uh, read my manual. Yeah, everyone thinks it's a text book, but War in the Pacific doesn't fight itself, ha ha! Little light reading, eine kleine Leitmotif in my life, one could say...

No, that's German, never mind.

...Got any peanuts there?

Hehe nice.

It is a thin crowd, isn't it?

Do you ever go to that place near the docks, the one in the old ammunition factory? They call it "The Wargamer". More like-minded folks around those parts, but it lasck the social environment that GWJ has.

You could say the same for Matrix Games. Great place to learn about games, not so great for interraction.

**sigh**

You wait - when Heroes of Stalingrad releases, things will pick up around here. This month they say... We'll get a full table of guys chattering about that one.

Yeah, I hit the Wargamer frequently. I've been posting a lot this week, in fact. But it's no substitute, frankly. I'm looking forward to Heroes, I have to say.

Hope you are well Swampy.