Wargamer's Corner

Oh, by the way: Guns of August game we have talked about really stinks. Not much to add.

ShotgunPhil, who is a Civil War re-enactor, and I started playing Tiller's Battlegrounds (The Matrix Re-Release). Appropriately enough we are starting with the First Bull Run Scenario.

I'm playing the Confederate AotP. I'm very excited to be playing some ACW games by email again.

Right now I'm digging in on some approaches I expect he'll take. My cavalry has an eye on his lead elements. As historically he outnumbers me. But I have good ground and am digging in!

I do War of 1812 stuff, so this is pretty exciting for me.

Robear wrote:

Birth of America 2 is out! Here's the website.

What a surprise, they haven't exactly informed about it beforehand. All the better, then, I liked the first one.

Also, has anyone tried their older game Great Invasions? I like the setting and timeframe, it looks Europa-Universalis-like, but I don't know if it's any good. Reviews are not exactly glowing, but if it's solid strategy, I'd go for it anyway.

I bought GI and could not get it to play correctly. A bug in the tutorial (after all the patches) prevented me from moving on. Something about not being able to load units on ships. I gave up on it after a while (I'd bought it cheap at EB). I find that from BoA on, they have a fantastic system. BTW, the original game is cheap now, and it's been patched extensively to add features developed for later games.

BOA2 was sort of announced a few months ago, if you follow The Wargamer and it's forums. I'm looking forward to it but I can't afford it right now. Vacations can be expensive.

Thanks Robear, I was hearing complaints about GI, I just didn't know how game-stopping they are.

Don't bother, they're awash in later games that are teh awesome.

Anyone know if another WW1 game other than "guns of August"? I tried that one out and frankly I never could get into it.

Anyone ever play PTO or PTO 2? (Pacific Theater of Operations)

I dunno. The problem with WWI is that it started in a very mechanical way based on German and other military timetables and diplomatic agreements. Not a lot of 'what ifs' to be had. Then the tactical and operational choices pretty much guaranteed either quick victory on the part of the aggressor, or a long slug-fest. Finally, it was broken by the addition of fresh troops, new technology and new tactics.

It's not like WWII where there were tons of interesting decision points that can be portrayed in a game.

I never played PTO but I played Uncommon Valor and War in the Pacific. The former is really good, covers actions in the Coral Sea during WWII. The latter is the same system expanded to the whole war, which I found too large for me to handle. There's a variant of that system called Plan Orange, which covers 1922-1936 or so, and features big fleets with no carriers, kind of a "what if" for various possible Dreadnaught fleet actions. All three of these are very detailed, with UV the most accessible of them all. For me, it's the right scale.

There's a guy working on a WWI campaign for Strategic Command 2: Weapons and Warfare.

I liked uncommon valor. but some of the design decisions were weird. You could not designate targets but you had to assign altitudes and such.

Where's that "Colonization is horribly offensive" blogger when you need him?

mcdonis wrote:

Anyone know if another WW1 game other than "guns of August"? I tried that one out and frankly I never could get into it.

AFAIK, widely popular new Operational Art of War has WW1 scenarios. I haven't checked it out, but I've just saw screenshot from Polish-Bolshevik 1920 scenario (in Wikipedia link) and I'm completely mad about that period so I'll give it a shot this summer.

Robear wrote:

I dunno. The problem with WWI is that it started in a very mechanical way based on German and other military timetables and diplomatic agreements. Not a lot of 'what ifs' to be had. Then the tactical and operational choices pretty much guaranteed either quick victory on the part of the aggressor, or a long slug-fest. Finally, it was broken by the addition of fresh troops, new technology and new tactics.

It's not like WWII where there were tons of interesting decision points that can be portrayed in a game.

Like I wrote in this topic before: I was studying 1900-1922 military for last year, so I can't agree with that. I'm more interested in Eastern front, and there you have plenty of 'what ifs' and interesting choices on operational and strategical level. At last that's one thousand kilometres of front. You're right, that this period is hard to emulate in game, but I think that it's mostly because of all political/economical factors that you can't translate into wargame. But it's still fascinating on pure military level, with complexity of operations much greater even than WWII's. On the other hand I think that it's still question of preferences, so I understand why so little people are interested in that period,

I agree, UCRC, I was talking about strategic/political/diplomatic stuff, which is pretty much locked into a fixed timetable after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, as I recall. I think the Eastern front is neglected from the American/British side, because our involvement there was limited (until 1918, when the US sent 15,000 soldiers to fight against the Bolsheviks - lost cause.) But that's where you get into the interesting stuff.

Robear wrote:

I agree, UCRC, I was talking about strategic/political/diplomatic stuff, which is pretty much locked into a fixed timetable after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, as I recall. I think the Eastern front is neglected from the American/British side, because our involvement there was limited (until 1918, when the US sent 15,000 soldiers to fight against the Bolsheviks - lost cause.) But that's where you get into the interesting stuff.

It looks like I've misunderstood your previous post a bit ;]
btw: Are there any scenarios/games from Bolshevik revolution period? With "White" generals/Polish since 1919/US-UK-French-Japanese expeditions you've mentioned you get really interesting scenario, with many turning points and strategical decisions.

UCRC wrote:

Are there any scenarios/games from Bolshevik revolution period? With "White" generals/Polish since 1919/US-UK-French-Japanese expeditions you've mentioned you get really interesting scenario, with many turning points and strategical decisions.

This is so interesting! I do like that part of history, but I never even thought about finding a game that is set in it. Here's the only result of searching. It's an open source engine that also contains Russian revolution scenario. Other than that only board games showed up. Just the thought that you could defeat communists, turning the tide of the whole 20th century, makes the game interesting for me. I haven't tried it yet, so sorry if it sucks. There probably is a mod for Civ IV as well.

wanderingtaoist wrote:

Just the thought that you could defeat communists, turning the tide of the whole 20th century, makes the game interesting for me.


Well, last evening I saw this, so there's Polish-Bolshevik war scenario for Operational Art of War for sure.

More than I'd found, anyway.

A potentially tasty update of past glory... Looks like Koei will actually release Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI for the PC. I think the last version they did on pc was IV or so.

I remember calling them for support years ago and finding out that the guys who adapted Koei games for the US market also answered the phones. Their LA office only lasted a few years, that I know of, but boy, talk about customer service...

Comments on Commander: Europe at War? I downloaded the demo and it was remarkably similar to GGWaW which totally rubbed me the wrong way (WaW not CEaW). I'm debating getting the newest SSG Kharkov game or rolling backwards to Battles In Normandy which I never picked up having sunk all my mental energy into Korsun Pocket.

I really liked Battles in Normandy. The newest SSG game is Company / Battalion level, like Battlefront was. The earlier games are regiment / brigade level as you know.

Robear wrote:

A potentially tasty update of past glory... Looks like Koei will actually release Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI for the PC. I think the last version they did on pc was IV or so.

I just played through the demo. Definitely looking forward to picking it up. I like fiddly and deep strategies. The talking bothers me, but I am used to Advance Wars, so no biggie.

Okay, what's going on in the small wargaming company website arena? Battlefront and Matrix Games seem to have hired the same firm to redesign their websites. The Wargamer is now a graphically oriented site with an article crawl at the time, and Shrapnel has some pastel color scheme with pseudo-Victorian oval pictures of their games on the front screen.

Is there some company pitching all these guys? Are they all somehow related and I just missed it? What's the deal with all the website changes?

If you've been thinking about Combat Mission: Shock Force, it's selling for $6 at Half-Price Books (at least in the Berkeley store). I don't have the time for it now but the price was too good to pass up.

Definitely worth it for that price.

Just to brag: This weekend, thanks to Rabbit and GenCon, I taught the designer of Axis and Allies to play Memoir '44.

TheWanderer wrote:

Is this really happening?

Edit: I picked up a copy of Conlict of Heroes at the convention. $75 is a little steep, but it seems like a really solid game that will play quickly (2-3 hours) and incorporate a deeper strategic element than the most chance-heavy Memoir mechanics.

CoH is out? Awesome. Here's the link. Looks really fun.

hey, when is Heroes of Stalingrad coming out?

Robear wrote:

CoH is out? Awesome. Here's the link. Looks really fun.

It may not be on shelves yet, but I had a good time on the playthrough, and it seemed a better fit for filling out time when our miniatures battles end early.

georob wrote:

If you've been thinking about Combat Mission: Shock Force, it's selling for $6 at Half-Price Books (at least in the Berkeley store). I don't have the time for it now but the price was too good to pass up.

Anyone know if the DRM has been removed?

EDIT: never mind.

Aetius wrote:

Anyone know if the DRM has been removed?

EDIT: never mind.

The CD-ROM version of the game doesn't use eLicensing, only the direct download versions. It does require the disc to be in the tray though.