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To elaborate a bit on Campaign Series, where Panzer Campaigns has you operating at a Regimental scale, Campaign Series has you operating at a Company/Platoon scale. Instead of a scenario to take Stalingrad, a Panzer Campaigns scenario might be just about the outskirts of the town, or an engagement in the Mamayev Kurgan. The controls are all very similar though - each unit has 100 Action Points, various actions consume them, and you're mostly dealing with movement, shooting and assault orders. The other big thing about Campaign Series is that there's a random scenario generator and it's used to let you play out an entire campaign with a single set of forces. Say, lead a regiment or a brigade or troops, starting in June 22 1941 all the way to the bitter end in Berlin. It goes all the way up to division-level engagements, but that's a shitload of troops.
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Jul 9, 2013 05:02
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Also for people who might not know it, JTCS is a repackaging/update of the older Talonsoft titles East Front, West Front, and Rising Sun into one product.
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Jul 9, 2013 05:20
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Yeah and those Talonsoft games definitely had demos back in the day, they can probably still be found somewhere.
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Jul 9, 2013 06:05
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I remember I could never get East Front the game to run on my old computer but I could get the map editor to run. I had so much fun working on fantasy OOBs. One of the many reasons why I'm a salty grognard now.
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Jul 9, 2013 06:20
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What's the difference between Tiller's Campaigns and Tiller's Squad Battles?
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Jul 9, 2013 06:47
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V for Vegas posted:What's the difference between Tiller's Campaigns and Tiller's Squad Battles? Squad battles are just that. They are focused on smaller groups of units. For example:  Sorry for the darkness, I have a dimmer on because the laptop light hurts my eyes, and JTCS is a bit bigger. Pretty much the same interface except JTCS doesn't have windowed mode 
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Jul 9, 2013 06:56
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V for Vegas posted:What's the difference between Tiller's Campaigns and Tiller's Squad Battles? Squad Battles is smaller scale, doesn't have a dynamic campaign and cool faux-3D graphics. EDIT: By the way, whoever put up that link to Sid Meier's Gettysburg! deserves a medal. For anyone still playing it, I recommend using right-click to center the camera on the mouse and use that to pan around, because the scroll speed is just too fast. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Jul 9, 2013 |
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Jul 9, 2013 07:06
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His site has a page for a series called Panzer Battles that should be the modern equivalent of the Campaign Series games. I haven't seen anything about any titles for it coming up for release though.
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Jul 9, 2013 07:15
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I still have the West Front CD and manual somewhere. Or Western Front, as the European release was called. Localization...  It wasn't really up to my tastes and after a few hours of monotonous random campaigns we were done. I think it's partly because for a platoon scale game I would expect more detailed treatment and at least individual men being counted instead of generic hitpoints, like Steel Panthers 3. Hell, even WitE has a more down to earth feel to it despite being several scales above.I guess I'm a fan of the OBC (obsessive bean counting) game design philosophy. The Campaign series does have impressive TO&E trees, though. Other than that, the AI was dumb as a rock as if that will surprise anyone. I recall there also being a LAN multiplay mode Lichtenstein posted:So apparently, a year ago, Combat Mission: Shock Force got a retail release in Russia with all three modules for a total price of about  Usually I would be extremely wary of those Russian localizations because games like these really need to be patched - and localizing companies seldom bother with localizing patches. But with all of the modules included the game should be automatically updated to one of the latest versions (v1.30), if not necessarily the final last one (v1.32).The other downside is that their copy protection schemes might be some StarForce level fuckery.
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Jul 9, 2013 12:26
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. On one hand I'm happy that studying Russian finally paid off, on the other hand, gently caress you Battlefront. We should get them on Steam or something.
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Is the other sale title worth looking at? They did Korsun Pocket and other games that I think are fairly well regarded. I tried the demo for one and it seemed fun but man I found the controls and UI counter-intuitive. Then again, I think DC is my favorite grognard game so it's not like a strange learning curve has stopped me before.
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Jul 9, 2013 21:08
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Jakse posted:Is the other sale title worth looking at? They did Korsun Pocket and other games that I think are fairly well regarded. I tried the demo for one and it seemed fun but man I found the controls and UI counter-intuitive. Then again, I think DC is my favorite grognard game so it's not like a strange learning curve has stopped me before. It looks like a more grognardy but less fun version of Unity of Command.
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Jul 9, 2013 21:17
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Removed, wrong series!
Philthy fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Jul 9, 2013 |
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Jul 9, 2013 21:20
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Jakse posted:Is the other sale title worth looking at? They did Korsun Pocket and other games that I think are fairly well regarded. I tried the demo for one and it seemed fun but man I found the controls and UI counter-intuitive. Then again, I think DC is my favorite grognard game so it's not like a strange learning curve has stopped me before. Yeah, Korsun Pocket and the DC system is fantastic as far as the mechanics being straightforward and understandable. It's almost like a boardgame that was just straight-up ported to the PC. Battlefront is supposed to be even better than that, with a huge addition being that there's now a defensive odds set-up assistant, as opposed to Korsun Pocket (and the other games in the series set in the West) where there was only an offensive odds assistant. The big drawback of Battlefront, as far as I can tell, is that it retains the relatively low resolution of these games, and that the iconography and map textures are still too "busy". WITE / Panzer General / Unity of Command all have better looking maps, and the counters for Korsun Pocket have always been too small to really be useful at conveying info.
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Jul 9, 2013 23:50
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Necroneocon posted:Thanks for the advice! Well hello game I'm buying as soon as I get home. Is this the Talonsoft game that had the Sealion mission pack?
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Jul 10, 2013 00:04
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gfanikf posted:Well hello game I'm buying as soon as I get home. Is this the Talonsoft game that had the Sealion mission pack? West Front had the Sealion expansion, Rising Sun had I actually bought all three + expansions, based off playing the Rising Sun demo back when I first defected to PC gaming from my Amiga. Pretty sure I still have all the CDs in my binder somewhere, as well as the manuals.
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Jul 10, 2013 00:24
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Zamboni Apocalypse posted:West Front had the Sealion expansion, Rising Sun had Sweet! I've been wanting to play that for years. I hope Matrix realises that putting games on sale will cause more people to buy them. Actually I'd love to try some of Tiller other games he sells on his site. The Iraq/Afghan one looks really cool, among others. Marshal Prolapse fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Jul 10, 2013 |
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Jul 10, 2013 00:31
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Can I get a recommendation for/against Scourge of War? I noticed that they have a "Complete" edition that has all the expansion packs included. I have and have played Take Command, but discovering Sid Meier's Gettysburg yesterday made me realize how unnecessarily difficult the interface is for TC.
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Jul 10, 2013 10:37
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gradenko_2000 posted:Can I get a recommendation for/against Scourge of War? I noticed that they have a "Complete" edition that has all the expansion packs included. I have and have played Take Command, but discovering Sid Meier's Gettysburg yesterday made me realize how unnecessarily difficult the interface is for TC. It's Take Command 2 with different textures and multiplayer. I actually really dislike the graphics changes; one of the things that Sid Meier really 'gets' about games is that unrealistic looking graphics are perfectly acceptable so long as you make them relate to something else - which is why all Firaxis games are designed to look like bright and colourful animated versions of board games. Take Command 2 was graphically simple enough to capture that board game feeling for me - Scourge of War loses it and just looks awful as a result. In terms of mechanics and UI, Scourge of War is basically a poster-child for how the wargames industry doesn't understand actual gameplay. The two things that made Gettysburg! brilliant were the minimalist UI (and in 1997 that was a big departure) and the way that fatigue, morale and general fighting effectiveness got blended together into a deep but incredibly accessible mechanic. Scourge of War throws away both of those things. I do love that style of game, but there's only so much slack you can get when you are literally copying a game that's over a decade old and come up with something that's substantially less fun when placed side-by-side.
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Jul 10, 2013 10:55
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Sid Meier's Gettysburg was still one of the best multiplayer experiences I've ever had, even if I did d/c from matches against my buddy when his mom used the phone. dial-up
Dirt Worshipper fucked around with this message at 12:12 on Jul 10, 2013 |
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Jul 10, 2013 11:49
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gradenko_2000 posted:Can I get a recommendation for/against Scourge of War? I noticed that they have a "Complete" edition that has all the expansion packs included. I have and have played Take Command, but discovering Sid Meier's Gettysburg yesterday made me realize how unnecessarily difficult the interface is for TC. Fantastic games, especially if you can dig up some multiplayer buddies.
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Jul 10, 2013 13:43
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Scourge of War is more realistic when it comes to depicting Civil War combat then Gettysburg. If you enjoy studying the time period then you will appreciate the game. It also has fantastic multiplayer. Multiple players can be on the same side, at different levels of command. For example, you can have a player as a corps commander, and the divisions under him are also commanded by players. It adds a great level to the wargames experience. And then you can fight in a special mode where your camera is tied to the horse of your commander, leaving you basically to command from your saddle. It really makes you appreciate the difficulty of being a battlefield commander and is a great historical taste. It's a great game with some flaws but from a historical perspective, my interest in the Civil War, and my preference for realistic wargames, I prefer it to Gettysburg. Yes it could be more polished but the gameplays scratches my Civil War itch in a way Gettysburg doesn't.
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Jul 10, 2013 22:34
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There's something really cool about being marooned on the flank, spotting some approaching enemies in the distance, and hurriedly typing a message for your commander and sending it off by courier.
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Jul 10, 2013 22:38
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Best thing about Scourge of War is the multiplayer. Had some fun co-op sessions with a buddy.
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Jul 10, 2013 23:39
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Is it possible to have fun playing Eagle Day to Bombing of the Reich? I'm interested in burning England to the ground but from everything I've seen this game looks impossible to play. e: Does it really simulate minute by minute? 
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Jul 11, 2013 06:01
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Gary "Impossible to play. Does it really simulate ___?" Grigsby
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Jul 11, 2013 06:32
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uPen posted:Is it possible to have fun playing Eagle Day to Bombing of the Reich? I'm interested in burning England to the ground but from everything I've seen this game looks impossible to play. TonySnow taught me how to play BTR, and it is possible to extract fun out of it, but the problem I run into, in much the same way as I do with WITP and WITE, is that the game is just too large. Eagle Day is manageable, and so are the Italian campaigns, but the Grand Campaign has you managing the goddamn 9th, 12th and 15th Air Forces, AND Bomber Command, AND Fighter Command. Anyway, the key to this game is killing pilots, and you generally do that by using your bomber streams to make the Luftwaffe come out and play, figuring out where the fighters are launching from, and then setting up fighter patrols over those bases to either destroy the fighters sitting on the ground (since the game assumes pilots are always sitting in the cockpits) or setting up patrols near the bases to nail the returning fighters as they come in to land. On a tangential note, it's a lot harder to do this as the Germans in Eagle Day because your Me-109s have poo poo for endurance. A decent example of realism making for interesting gameplay. Also, "sending the bombers up as bait and hunting down the Luftwaffe" was an actual war-winning formula as pursued by Jimmy Doolittle. The tedious part of this (in a game that's FILLED WITH TEDIUM) is watching the minute-by-minute playthrough of the action phase so you can manually note down where those fighters are launching from. Fortunately, necessity is the mother of the invention. Some enterprising soul created an application that reads your saved game so you can browse through all of the combat reports generated during the action phase. That still makes the game take about a billion more clicks than it should, but it removed a huge hang-up I had with the game as far as not really telling you anything about HOW to pursue a strategic bombing campaign, or how to tell if you're doing well because this goddamn game needs for you to run recon missions over targets just to find out if you did any bomb damage. If you'd like more info, I can go a little something like a run-through of what happens in 2-3 turns. === If I could wax philosophical for just a second, this is a perennial problem with grognard games (or maybe just Gary Grigsby's designs): The scope is constantly being expanded, but the design doesn't want any additional abstraction. If the purpose of modeling the entire European Air War is so that I can explore strategic-level questions like "what if H2X-equipped B-17s were used to join British night bombing" or "what if the better part of the 8th Air Force was kept in England instead of getting shipped off to Italy in 1942" or "what if Ira Eaker didn't dick around with bombing U-boat pens for the better part of a year", then I shouldn't have to futz around with the morale levels and airbase assignments of individual squadrons. Give me a target list, a slider that ranges from "Mosquito distraction raid" to "MAXIMUM EFFORT", some Fighter Command doctrine settings and call it good. It really stung when I was reading through Masters of the Air and there's a passage about how one single man cannot possibly plan a strategic bombing campaign on his own, and then you go to BTR and that's exactly what's being asked of you. VVVVV It's kind of a love-hate relationship because despite all of the flaws of this (and his other) game, at the end of the day he's the only one tackling these subjects. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Jul 11, 2013 |
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Jul 11, 2013 08:22
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Don't play a Gary Grisby game if you are looking for something other than a Gary GRisby game. His brand name certainly has a style.
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Jul 11, 2013 08:43
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Baloogan posted:Don't play a Gary Grisby game if you are looking for something other than a Gary GRisby game. His brand name certainly has a style. Norm Koger was kind of the same way too...just that AOR and TOAW is a lot more manageable. I wish he was still making games...granted his two juggernaut titles have aged very well.
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Jul 11, 2013 20:43
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I just want more Decisive Campaigns games with team multiplayer. The Poland game we're currently playing has been pretty intense. e: for those of you not playing, I'm currently pulling off a Polish Backhand Blow. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Jul 11, 2013 |
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Jul 11, 2013 20:56
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Alchenar posted:I just want more Decisive Campaigns games with team multiplayer. The Poland game we're currently playing has been pretty intense. Are you referring to the encirclement of almost 3 divisions worth of 14th Army or is there another surprise in store?
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Jul 11, 2013 21:12
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Jakse posted:Are you referring to the encirclement of almost 3 divisions worth of 14th Army or is there another surprise in store? Oh crap. I'm at work so I can't open the save file. I have a feeling those were my favorite divisions.
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Jul 11, 2013 21:14
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One thing that is balancing this terrible news out for me is that I got into the Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations closed beta!!! http://www.warfaresims.com/?page_id=1101
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Jul 11, 2013 21:17
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Jakse posted:Are you referring to the encirclement of almost 3 divisions worth of 14th Army or is there another surprise in store? Well it won't hurt to tell you that on the turn you 'cut-off' Lodz I spent a card to turn it into a supply source. I also have one last surprise for you guys: That forested mountain that you've had two light divisions and a panzer brigade sitting under all game? It's never going to stop being a worthless mountain. Gloating aside, I'm actually surprised that I've been able to dictate the tempo of the game thus far. We're late enough in that I'll talk about my plan - the area south of Warsaw was one big obvious salient with threats at both ends that need to be hedged against that I wanted to draw you guys into and at the end of it I had an Operational Group waiting to punch into the German line at the point of maximum extension. The counter-attack there isn't going to roll you guys up, but I'm expecting it to cause enough difficulty to slow down the push on Warsaw for another few turns. Then right in the very south there's been a Panzer Corps sitting stationary for several turns and I have no idea why because my line ends in air there. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Jul 11, 2013 |
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Jul 11, 2013 21:44
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Okay work be dammed I'm taking my turn. The 14th Army will rise again!
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Jul 11, 2013 21:47
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Baloogan posted:Okay work be dammed I'm taking my turn. The 14th Army will rise again! I'm actually grinning at this turn. I'm afraid I might accidentally capture the entire 14th.
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Jul 12, 2013 00:26
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I'm pretty sure Hitler just executed me.
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Jul 12, 2013 00:45
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Maybe he'll promote you to Field Marshal so that you don't surrender!
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Jul 12, 2013 01:01
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I honestly tried to follow the plan outlined in this image. Where the 14th pushes east for the most part. That panzer corps was placed to try to cut off any attempt at what you are doing now. I think they might have failed.
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Jul 12, 2013 01:09
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Shenandoah Studios, the team that made the kickass Bulge game on the ipad are kickstarting a Gettysburg game. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ericleesmith/gettysburg-the-tide-turns-ipad-and-iphone-wargamin
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Jul 14, 2013 23:35
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You should listen to this podcast with the designer of said ipad game. http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2013/07/11/qt3-games-podcast-wargames-arent-dead-yet/
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Jul 15, 2013 07:28
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