Grognard Games Megathread - stop making me want this I do not have $95 bux

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Grognard Games Megathread - stop making me want this I do not have $95 bux

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EightDeer: Dec 2, 2011

Tarquinn posted:

Is there a recent (like last decade) game with the depth/mechanics of Panzer General/Panzer Corps in a near future/sci-fi/alternate history or fantasy setting? Ever since the release of Panzer Corps I have the strong urge to play something like that again, but the WW2 setting bores me to tears.

I have played Fantasy Wars and Battle Worlds: Kronos already. If there isn't anything new I've missed I might just have to dig out my old copy of Fantasy General for the nth time.

There's a game called Galactic Assault: Prisoner of Power that might be what you're looking for. Based off a Russian sci-fi novel.

# ? Jul 14, 2014 23:17

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 06:25

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Tarquinn posted:

Is there a recent (like last decade) game with the depth/mechanics of Panzer General/Panzer Corps in a near future/sci-fi/alternate history or fantasy setting? Ever since the release of Panzer Corps I have the strong urge to play something like that again, but the WW2 setting bores me to tears.

I have played Fantasy Wars and Battle Worlds: Kronos already. If there isn't anything new I've missed I might just have to dig out my old copy of Fantasy General for the nth time.

Massive Assault is even more deterministic than Panzer General, but it's pretty much exactly what you're asking for.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/34630/

Fangz posted:

I just feel like, if you want the juicy idea that there are little digital men shooting at each other, why not approach the problem from the other way round? Instead of trying to tune microscopic elements so that they coalesce into the desired results, have the game logic work on broad, simple terms, and then have a 'flavour engine' fill in the gaps.

In other words, the RNG has already popped out the answer that the Tiger has chewed up the army of Jeeps, as expected. Now a different system takes the results of the RNG and writes up a plausible and randomised set of events that retroactively and informatively *justifies* that outcome. (The XCOM remake does something like this with the 'action shots', though that isn't very randomised ultimately) From the player's viewpoint, it's basically identical.

I like this idea a lot! Never tell the player what's inside the counters because that's just going to make them go jeep-counting again, but give them the satisfaction of seeing the SS Panzer Division virtually overrun Monty's crap outside of Caen when they roll a 6.

gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Jul 15, 2014

# ? Jul 15, 2014 07:40

cool new Metroid game: Oct 7, 2009; hail satan

it's a bit dumb how the panzer corps dlcs are not on sale also but it's a loving miracle that a matrix game is on steam and on sale in the first place so I can't complain much. I really hope this sells a fair number of copies to show matrix that steam and sales really do work

# ? Jul 15, 2014 11:01

Tarquinn: Jul 3, 2007; I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you
my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal.; Hell Gem

Dirt Worshipper posted:

Slitherine is coming out with a Warhammer 40k version of Panzer general in the near future.

That's awesome, thanks!

Lichtenstein posted:

Buy a used Nintendo DS and binge through all the Advance Wars games.

Also check out the freeware Battle for Wesnoth, although bear in mind it can be irritating as gently caress sometimes.

Already played all of the Advance Wars. Sadly there seems to be no new part in development.

VendoViper posted:

It was also already done, Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War is just re-skinned Panzer General II. I remember having the disk but not being able to get it to run any more after having updated to windows XP, so no idea if it is attainable today.

Yep, played it and liked it, although it was one of the weakest "General" games.

Welp, seems I haven't missed much. But anyway, thanks guys!

# ? Jul 15, 2014 16:29

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

I've spent most of the week playing TOAW since it came up, and I wanted to throw in a bunch of tips for anyone playing it:

* Play with Advanced Rules on - it enables the Readiness marker on counters and more specific attack/defend orders that are essential for maintaining a cohesive line (thanks again to Nenonen for the limited attack tip)

* You can almost play it like a regular boardgame - don't look "inside" the units and their component parts, just make decisions based on the attack/defense values printed right on the chits and based on unit type. Infantry+Artillery attacks defenders at 2:1 odds or better to create gaps in the line, armor exploits to cut off lines of communication and/or hits units that have already retreated once before.

* The key thing is the small window in the upper-right that tells you the unit's Proficiency, Readiness and Supply. Moving and attacking will drain Readiness and Supply from your units and getting low on either will make them worse at everything, so try to rest your units once it dips below 50% or so unless you're sure that the unit you're about to attack is more beat up and tired than you are. The minimum Readiness is 33%. Supply can go to 1%, but Readiness won't rise above minimum until Supply does. If your units are tired/out of supplies, move them back and have them rest until Readiness/Supply recovers.

In the upper right corner of the screen and of the counter itself, there's also a "health" indicator that'll go from bright green to red depending on the unit's readiness. A yellow unit is probably still good to move or attack this turn, but not both, while a red unit is going to need rest.

* Killing off a unit works about the same way - successive attacks will wear down its Readiness until it has to retreat, or has to evaporate. If you mouse-over an enemy unit that you have good recon on, it'll also sometimes show that unit's health indicator as well, cluing you in on who's ripe for retreat (besides a low defense strength that you can overcome). Completely surrounding a unit and then winning an attack will also cause evaporation.

* To "flank" a unit, it needs to be attacked from two or more non-adjacent hexes, whether during the same attack or in 2 different attacks in the same turn. This is critical for inflicting disproportionately large casualties on the defender, since a flanked unit will take casualties even for its rear-guard/non-combat components like trucks and artillery and command squads.

* A quick rule of thumb I use to get my head around the phased turn timer is that if I have units way in the back that I need to move to the front lines, I don't move them until after the first combat phase. As I understand the model, if I have a unit use up 100% of its movement just by moving from the edge of the map to the front, and then I conduct combat, then I've effectively used up the entire turn because the combat and the entire turns' worth of movement happened simultaneously, so the turn is over as soon as the combat is over because of the movement.

* The penalty is on the unit that's on the river hex, so if you're defending, don't stand directly on the river hex. Place your defenders "behind" it.

* To repair rail, look for units with Engineer Squads or Construction Squads or Rail-Repair Squads, and place them on the broken rail hex. Usually scenarios will place these with the HQ units, although others might have explicit Engineer/Construction/Rail-Repair units. The unit detail screen also has a "Rail Repair: 78%" stat or whatever to tell you if the unit is capable of repairing rail hexes.

* The game has a "disengagement" mechanic, wherein a unit will either take combat losses and/or have its movement prevented if it is adjacent to an enemy and tries to move to another hex, and does not have another friendly stacked with it (to provide covering fire). As an attacker, you may want to create a 3-hex gap in the lines so your mobile units can exploit without triggering disengagement. Conversely, try to cover your units before trying to disengage them as a defender, or use the Minimize Losses setting if you can so that your unit will retreat in good order.

* Another use for HQ units is that any unit stacked with it or adjacent to it will receive 50% more supplies, essential when resting units. The disadvantage is that if the HQ is lost, any units that were under that HQ may end up "reorganizing", effectively freezing them for a turn.

* The best scenarios are the ones at the regiment/division level. Anything smaller and you might have problems with unit density and homogenous unit counters.

# ? Jul 17, 2014 16:07

Pimpmust: Oct 1, 2008

Tried out the "ditch the Schlieffen plan" strategy for Strategic Command: WW1: Breakthrough.

Pros:
*Really short front in the west, you can pretty much hold it no problem with your starting forces along that line and withdraw everything else over to the east (including most of the troops that mobilize later) while still killing 2-3 Corps per turn.
*You got an assload of dudes heading into K�nigsberg and Poland, so you can lick pretty much wipe out ~2 Russian armies from the get-go, but the infrastructure is really poo poo so it's hard to do much else before the mud comes.
*You might prefer to send a couple of corps over to Austria-Hungary's eastern front, managed to kick the crap out of the Russians there without losing any important territory*

The Cons:
You are supposed to delay Britains entry into the war by doing this, but you only buy yourself about a month of time (2-3 turns) and as pushing into France the 1870 way aint' gonna work out anyhow it's not much of a bonus compared to losing out on that sweet sweet Belgian loot.
Might have more of a positive impact on the US entry, however...

In hindsight I would probably have moved some corps from the center in Poland over to K�nigsberg, or down to Serbia to do something there (diverted the 2nd army to the Russian front, so nothing much going on down there but Serbs dying of Typhus). By summer 1915 I pretty much got the russian armies in Poland encircled but I'm not sure it's worth wasting your time laying siege to those dinky towns.
Play it right and you might defeat Russia ~6-12 months early and maybe delay the US entry a bit too. I guess the idea is then to launch your Kaiserschlacht early through Belgium/Switzerland/Italy and win that way.

I do usually do pretty well with the Schlieffen plan and it is certainly a more exciting gamble. I hae noticed that the AI doesn't really play historical, as in the French don't really launch aggressive offensives into Germany so you can't really trick them to advance at the same time. I do recall the AI doing this earlier, but now it's a lot more conservative and better at escaping pockets so maybe it's part of a later patch? :iiam:

But perhaps I could try that one Plan from AGEODs ww1 game, going through Switerzland instead of Belgium**, horrible idea or pure genius? :getin:

*Except for one NW were some enemy cavalry just waltzed through my forward lines around the spring of 1915 to suicide onto a NW objective, which triggered a bunch of events. Sorta stupidly designed (Yes I'm sure both Italy and Romania are totally impressed with Russia losing millions of mans).

**Can't remember the name of it, the Rupprecht Plan? Does this have any historical basis? I'd assume Germany had plans for anything short of teleporting armies into Paris laying around so...

Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Jul 17, 2014

# ? Jul 17, 2014 16:26

Obfuscation: Jan 1, 2008; Good luck to you, I know you believe in hell

gradenko_2000 posted:

* The key thing is the small window in the upper-right that tells you the unit's Proficiency, Readiness and Supply. Moving and attacking will drain Readiness and Supply from your units and getting low on either will make them worse at everything, so try to rest your units once it dips below 50% or so unless you're sure that the unit you're about to attack is more beat up and tired than you are. The minimum Readiness is 33%. Supply can go to 1%, but Readiness won't rise above minimum until Supply does. If your units are tired/out of supplies, move them back and have them rest until Readiness/Supply recovers.

I disagree a little with this. If you are attacking and aren't expecting a massive counterattack any time soon, letting units rest is pretty useless. It usually takes forever for them to resupply back to green, so I'd rather have a unit that fights with slightly less efficiency than one that's just sitting around doing nothing. Units occasionally evaporate spontaneously during combat when they are fully red, so be careful if you really care about losing them.

gradenko_2000 posted:

* The game has a "disengagement" mechanic, wherein a unit will either take combat losses and/or have its movement prevented if it is adjacent to an enemy and tries to move to another hex, and does not have another friendly stacked with it (to provide covering fire). As an attacker, you may want to create a 3-hex gap in the lines so your mobile units can exploit without triggering disengagement. Conversely, try to cover your units before trying to disengage them as a defender, or use the Minimize Losses setting if you can so that your unit will retreat in good order.

Few more details: It's easier to disengage with a unit that has high reconnaissance value and it's much easier when the unit you are moving isn't the only friendly unit in the hex that you are moving it to/from. You can check the details on the unit report screen, but as a rule of thumb units with more mechanized elements have higher recon values. HQs and artillery disengage automatically if they are moving into a hex that already has a friendly unit, so if you are trying to disengage an entire stack move the other units first and then arty or HQ last.

# ? Jul 17, 2014 16:42

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Pimpmust posted:

**Can't remember the name of it, the Rupprecht Plan? Does this have any historical basis? I'd assume Germany had plans for anything short of teleporting armies into Paris laying around so...

That's what the AGEOD devs call the AI variant for the Central Powers that tries to invade through Switzerland, but as far as can tell there's no historical basis for it (insofar as even the Schlieffen Plan being a 'real' thing is debatable)

Obfuscation posted:

I disagree a little with this. If you are attacking and aren't expecting a massive counterattack any time soon, letting units rest is pretty useless. It usually takes forever for them to resupply back to green, so I'd rather have a unit that fights with slightly less efficiency than one that's just sitting around doing nothing. Units occasionally evaporate spontaneously during combat when they are fully red, so be careful if you really care about losing them.

Hey thanks, I'm still learning the game myself so I appreciate the input. How far do you push your units, or how low do you take their Readiness?

gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Jul 17, 2014

# ? Jul 17, 2014 16:51

Pimpmust: Oct 1, 2008

Did find a post about the historical variant of the "Rupprecht plan":

quote:

Out of curiosity, was the Rupprecht Plan a real historical plan?

quote:

With the caveat that none of the War Plans were actually war plans per se, a reasonable answer is probably "sort of".

What are generally referred to as war plans were more or less mobilization schemes in that hard objectives beyond initial contact were usually left pretty nebulous. In the case of von Moltke the Younger and his plan, generally called incorrectly the Schlieffen Plan, the seven west front armies were given tasks that largely depended on what the Entente did. That said, the invasion of Belgium was a given and extensive super-heavy artillery was provided to the right flank armies to deal with the fortified zones at Liege, Namur, Givet Mauberge and Lille.

The German's actually issued mobilization plans called Aufmarsches, generally in April and the one used in the Great War was Aufmarsche 1914/15.

However, generally every year would see staff studies and "staff rides" and kriegspiels to test different situations and the appropriate military responses. As near as I have been able to determine is that what is termed "Plan Rupprecht" was from a staff study aimed at preventing Britain joining France over Belgium and active Italian belligerence as an ally of Germany. Staff talks between Italy and Germany were very limited but using a southern German axis of advance was favoured by Cadorna, the Italian Chief of Staff. Invading Switzerland placed the German and Italian armies shoulder to shoulder and served to flank the French frontier fortifications.

Since Italian cooperation was always problematic and the Swiss Army was held in fairly high regard, there seems to have been little incentive to go so far as to creating an actual and complete mobilization scheme for a southern flanking operation. I could find nothing linking it to Crown Prince Rupprecht, Commander Sixth Army and de facto commander of the left flank of the German army in the West and so presume that the name was picked for colour.

Without Italian war entry on the side of the Central Powers and British neutrality, the Rupprecht Plan does not serve Germany at all well.

As an aside, those expansive arrows seen on map after map depicting the "Schlieffen Plan" have no counterparts in any existing contemporary German documentation and first appear in the post war US Army War Collage Atlas of the War! The German's were certain that they would be outnumbered in the West and the only forces actually anticipated to pass to the west of Paris as commonly believed, were some Ersatz corps that acted as strategic reserves and could be allocated to other areas if necessary. In the event those troops ended up at the siege of Antwerp, reinforcing Fifth Army at Verdun and to Eighth Army in the East before the right-flank armies reached the approaches to Paris.

Kinda wish that Strategic Command WW1 had some more events to decide the set-up for the war, right now it's very rail-roady who joins which side (and even when, even if you can delay some of those).

# ? Jul 17, 2014 17:25

Obfuscation: Jan 1, 2008; Good luck to you, I know you believe in hell

gradenko_2000 posted:

Hey thanks, I'm still learning the game myself so I appreciate the input. How far do you push your units, or how low do you take their Readiness?

It really depends on the scenario. In a large breakthrough type situation where you have plenty of room to maneuver and the enemy can't defend everything at once, I prefer moving my units as far as possible even if they have low supplies. Similarly, it's okay to attack with red units when it's against weak, isolated or heavily outnumbered enemy units. Against AI you can usually defeat any local defenses by cutting off their supply and surrounding them. Only situations where I would actually stop to rest are if most of my units are red and there's still a well organized defense that you need to defeat, or if I'm expecting a counterattack by fresh enemy reinforcements.

Honestly, I never really paid that much attention to the actual readiness and supply numbers, I just look at the colored indicator and the combat values on the counter. I'm definitely not a TOAW pro, I did play it a lot years ago but this was mostly against AI.

# ? Jul 17, 2014 17:44

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Just wanted to show what I've been up to, I finished the Cherbourg 44 scenario, going from this:

to this:

In 14 turns, June 19 to 25.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 04:55

Obstacle2: Dec 21, 2004; feels good man

Has anyone tried Time of Fury? It just came out on steam and was done by the same people that did Time of Wrath and Storm over the Pacific.

# ? Jul 19, 2014 19:57

Alchenar: Apr 9, 2008

Obstacle2 posted:

Has anyone tried Time of Fury? It just came out on steam and was done by the same people that did Time of Wrath and Storm over the Pacific.

It is ironically half the price on Matrix. (and no, not tried)

# ? Jul 19, 2014 20:02

TonySnow: Mar 24, 2008

Are there recommendations for good games out there that simulate the tactical/operational side of the Pacific Theater, specifically aimed at the naval aspect of things? Not looking for War in the Pacific where it simulates the whole war, but more like the old DOS game Great Naval Battles where it's a specific campaign or operation. It can be groggy or simple, simulator or an old style hex game, makes not a difference to me. Shoot, I'll settle for an actual tabletop board game if it's not out of print or costs $100 on ebay. It's just hard to find a good naval game that covers that era. I know John Tiller has a Midway game, and Matrix has Carriers at War, but I'm curious what people think of those games or if there are any hidden gems out there.

TonySnow fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Jul 20, 2014

# ? Jul 20, 2014 00:54

uPen: Jan 25, 2010; Zu Rodina!

John Tiller's Midway is pretty awful, don't get it.

# ? Jul 20, 2014 01:29

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

A new patch for Commander the Great War just dropped, and it adds Steam compatibility, so that's probably coming to Steam soon.

# ? Jul 20, 2014 05:46

Alikchi: Aug 18, 2010; Thumbs up I agree

gradenko_2000 posted:

A new patch for Commander the Great War just dropped, and it adds Steam compatibility, so that's probably coming to Steam soon.

This is great! It's a good fit.

# ? Jul 20, 2014 05:59

uPen: Jan 25, 2010; Zu Rodina!

Speaking of C:TGW I notice you did a turn Alikchi, I'm beginning to fell like I have absolutely no idea on how to play the Central Powers. France just feels like this black hole where you pour endless streams of men and industry and get nothing in return.

# ? Jul 20, 2014 06:14

blackmongoose: Mar 31, 2011; DARK INFERNO ROOK!

uPen posted:

Speaking of C:TGW I notice you did a turn Alikchi, I'm beginning to fell like I have absolutely no idea on how to play the Central Powers. France just feels like this black hole where you pour endless streams of men and industry and get nothing in return.

Welcome to World War I, hope you enjoy your stay!

Seriously though, handling France in CTGW I think mostly depends on how well your Schlieffen went - if you got close to Paris in the first few turns, you can usually put enough pressure on to eventually take it. If you got stopped or had to retreat a decent distance away then it's just best to consolidate what you have, set up some artillery to grind down a unit that you can attack from multiple directions to keep the casualties going, and keep your front line units up to strength rotating them if necessary. Russia is where you can win, the Western Front just kills your men and the goal is to lose as few as possible while still holding a line well outside of Germany (taking out Belgium if you can is also a pretty nice bonus).

# ? Jul 20, 2014 06:29

Lord Windy: Mar 26, 2010

uPen posted:

Speaking of C:TGW I notice you did a turn Alikchi, I'm beginning to fell like I have absolutely no idea on how to play the Central Powers. France just feels like this black hole where you pour endless streams of men and industry and get nothing in return.

I was under the impression that is how the war actually went.

My opinion is normally to avoid wasting resources in France and instead help the Ottomans and the Austrians until the Italian Front opens up. France doesn't really have the ability to fight a two front war.

# ? Jul 20, 2014 06:30

uPen: Jan 25, 2010; Zu Rodina!

Just a change of mindset I suppose. I'm used to playing the allies where losing countless dudes is fantastic as long as the Germans are keeping pace.

e: As in the Germans need to actually accomplish something but for the Entente killing Germans is enough.

# ? Jul 20, 2014 06:31

Alikchi: Aug 18, 2010; Thumbs up I agree

uPen posted:

Speaking of C:TGW I notice you did a turn Alikchi, I'm beginning to fell like I have absolutely no idea on how to play the Central Powers. France just feels like this black hole where you pour endless streams of men and industry and get nothing in return.

Yeah, the lines are pretty historical though, which is better than I usually do as CP. As Germany, I like to keep France static except for big Verdun-style offensives - there are just too many other fronts to deal with.

# ? Jul 20, 2014 17:08

MrOnBicycle: Jan 18, 2008; Wait wat?

I should play it again. I remembered that I bought it and went looking for the email. Jeez, I paid 50 bucks for a game? I must've been mad. Anway, how long do they take in getting back to you with a new download link?

# ? Jul 20, 2014 17:27

Obstacle2: Dec 21, 2004; feels good man

I had the same idea. I requested another download link from them a little after midnight last night and I already received a link.

# ? Jul 20, 2014 19:24

uPen: Jan 25, 2010; Zu Rodina!

MrOnBicycle posted:

I should play it again. I remembered that I bought it and went looking for the email. Jeez, I paid 50 bucks for a game? I must've been mad. Anway, how long do they take in getting back to you with a new download link?

gradenko_2000 posted:

uPen! I may have found a solution to your installer download problem:

1. Log-in to your Matrix Games account

2. Click on "My Products" on the top bar highlighted in red, to bring you to a page which has the account info sidebar

3. Click on "My Orders" on the sidebar highlighted in green, to bring you to this next page:

4. Click on download for the appropriate game

If you bought it on Matrix you may be able to download it without requesting a new link.

# ? Jul 20, 2014 19:27

Obstacle2: Dec 21, 2004; feels good man

For me, the only file available to download was the beta patch from that page.

# ? Jul 20, 2014 21:06

Dandywalken: Feb 11, 2014

So I got Command: Modern Air Naval Operations.

This game. It is hard

Should I be micromanaging my aircraft in A2A combat, to get them to beam missiles/evade their "Cone" before they go active etc?

And for ships, should I just "Blink" my radars to scan things rather than leave them on? It seems doing the latter gets me force-fed a train of AShm's

# ? Jul 20, 2014 22:04

Koesj: Aug 3, 2003

Dandywalken posted:

And for ships, should I just "Blink" my radars to scan things rather than leave them on? It seems doing the latter gets me force-fed a train of AShm's

quote:

Put two football teams in a stadium at night each on their defended goal line. Each team will provide the backfield players with rifles and the linemen all have a pistol. Each weapon is equipped with a flashlight fastened to the barrel. The quarterback is equipped with a flashing signal light.

Now turn out all the lights so it is absolutely dark.

Who wants to turn on their light first? (how to hide a task force)

# ? Jul 20, 2014 22:16

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

Almost never turn your radars on your ships. They will turn their radars/jammers on automatically if they think they are under attack.

Your aircraft are your eyes (radars) and ears (ELINT).

If you don't have any cool aircraft use a ~~sacrificial~~ scout ship, and take it out of your formation (go into unit mode with 9 on the keypad, press D to detach them from the formation) have this ship take a different course, at a different speed. Turn on its radars, and ideally it should have powerful jammers too.

An LCS is a good candidate for a ~~sacrifice~~ scout. Can make 45 kts, relatively good radar.

Not only do you give away your position if you turn on your radars, but you also give away your fleet's composition, the different ships in your fleet can now be identified. All it takes is 2 hostile helos a bit away from each other to triangulate your location if you turn on your radar.

Don't 'blink' your radars either. As the USN you want helos to provide surface search radar and hawkeyes to do air search. A large part of Command is managing your ship's emissions.

One important exception is if you are expecting a ballistic missile attack you should turn your ballistic missile defense ships space search radars on. Nothing else can even spot a ballistic missile at altitude.

Modern naval warfare is a game of smoke and mirrors. :v:

Aircraft in Air to Air warfare should automatically beam missiles, if they have the doctrine to evade defensively enabled. Stealth is really hard to employ currently; its not just the technology but its a whole doctrine of needing standoff jammers and needing to attack when visibility is low: on nights with bad weather. If you fly a B2 at 12kft over north korea at noon on a clear day you will be spotted.

# ? Jul 20, 2014 23:02

Hob_Gadling: Jul 6, 2007; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS; Grimey Drawer

Tekopo posted:

The problem with wargames is that since it is impossible or nearly impossible to accurately model the soft factors of war, all you are left is the hard factors, like tanks, number of guns and fuel reserves and then you fill in the void of the soft factors through random results. The human element of wars is lost because the human elements are hard to model beyond just a general 'group level of experience'.

This is the greatest failing of modern wargames. Not that it hasn't been done perfectly, but that no one has even given it a serious attempt. I can come up with maybe a handful of games where the human element is made central to the experience, most of them experimental. The new resurgence of indie games gives me hope, though. Maybe someone will do it this time?

# ? Jul 21, 2014 00:00

Dandywalken: Feb 11, 2014

Baloogan posted:

Almost never turn your radars on your ships. They will turn their radars/jammers on automatically if they think they are under attack.

Your aircraft are your eyes (radars) and ears (ELINT).

If you don't have any cool aircraft use a ~~sacrificial~~ scout ship, and take it out of your formation (go into unit mode with 9 on the keypad, press D to detach them from the formation) have this ship take a different course, at a different speed. Turn on its radars, and ideally it should have powerful jammers too.

An LCS is a good candidate for a ~~sacrifice~~ scout. Can make 45 kts, relatively good radar.

Not only do you give away your position if you turn on your radars, but you also give away your fleet's composition, the different ships in your fleet can now be identified. All it takes is 2 hostile helos a bit away from each other to triangulate your location if you turn on your radar.

Don't 'blink' your radars either. As the USN you want helos to provide surface search radar and hawkeyes to do air search. A large part of Command is managing your ship's emissions.

One important exception is if you are expecting a ballistic missile attack you should turn your ballistic missile defense ships space search radars on. Nothing else can even spot a ballistic missile at altitude.

Modern naval warfare is a game of smoke and mirrors.

Aircraft in Air to Air warfare should automatically beam missiles, if they have the doctrine to evade defensively enabled. Stealth is really hard to employ currently; its not just the technology but its a whole doctrine of needing standoff jammers and needing to attack when visibility is low: on nights with bad weather. If you fly a B2 at 12kft over north korea at noon on a clear day you will be spotted.

Is there anything I can do about the enemy jamming my missiles and radars? I'm having a ton of trouble in the Duelists scenario because when my 24 Sea Eagles go in for a target, they're all jammed!

# ? Jul 21, 2014 06:56

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

Dandywalken posted:

Is there anything I can do about the enemy jamming my missiles and radars? I'm having a ton of trouble in the Duelists scenario because when my 24 Sea Eagles go in for a target, they're all jammed!

Sea Eagles have the capability to home on jammer. That means if they can't find a target with their radar they will seek on a jammer, usually the strongest one from its perspective. Then as it closes the radar eventually gets close enough to see the ship and it then locks on and engages.

There is nothing you can really do about jammers, aside from destroying them. Any modern naval surface engagement with modern platforms engaging modern platforms will involve extensive jamming.

Airborne jammers are really quite effective in this regard, you can jam ASM but the ASM can't hit your aircraft jammers. Should fly your jammers low to exploit this.
Also manage your jammers, if you spot a long range ASM strike you can arrange your formation tactically to steer anti ship missiles away from high value targets.

If the jamming is preventing you from achieving a solid solution for an ASM strike you can exploit other sensor technologies than radar to develop a solution. Localize with radar, track with passive sonar, and if you are really desperate send someone in to take a look by air, or get a sub to periscope depth to get a visual identification on important high value targets you want to sink.

Increase your 'baseline', try to always triangulate targets by having two aircraft with RWR or ELINT sensors fly on very different tracks, even if you can't ever directly 'see' your targets having two RWR sensors far away from each other will allow your staff to develop a shooting solution based on the two bearings provided by the RWR.

Another option is to time your attack for a optical/IR satellite overpass. Optical sats can't really spot ships out in the middle of the sea without any support, but if they have a general idea of the location of the ship they can pinpoint that sucker. Radar sats are just as susceptible to jamming as earthbound radars.

# ? Jul 21, 2014 07:31

Dandywalken: Feb 11, 2014

Gotcha

My final question for the night... why the gently caress do my planes suddenly take 6 hours to rearm, while others are extremely speedy? F-14's rearm fast as hell it seems, while my Sea Harriers and Buccaneers take a full 6 hours it seems!

# ? Jul 21, 2014 07:44

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

Dandywalken posted:

Gotcha

My final question for the night... why the gently caress do my planes suddenly take 6 hours to rearm, while others are extremely speedy? F-14's rearm fast as hell it seems, while my Sea Harriers and Buccaneers take a full 6 hours it seems!

Long answer: http://www.harpoonhq.com/waypoint/articles/Article_056.pdf
Short answer: For strike aircraft they took the number of sorties generated per day from war records and exercises and used that as the basis of the ready time. 6 hour ready time ~= 2 sorties per day per aircraft.

# ? Jul 21, 2014 07:55

Dandywalken: Feb 11, 2014

Jesus, it was 30 minutes in Harpoon? Thats loving nuts! :eyepop:

# ? Jul 21, 2014 07:58

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

Its 20hrs for things like B-52, B-2. :v:

# ? Jul 21, 2014 08:01

Dandywalken: Feb 11, 2014

Is that changeable in the scenario editor, or is it pre-determined via the database? i'm just curious, all the scenarios give plenty of time to rearm after all :P

# ? Jul 21, 2014 08:04

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

Its right now pre-determined. I know that they are working on a better system as its something worth modeling in detail.

# ? Jul 21, 2014 08:06

Pimpmust: Oct 1, 2008

Have been playing a slightly custom scenario in Strategic Command: The Great War: Breakthrough, basically "What if the Germans didn't go quite so nuts on battleships", trading a few starting battleships for some subs, infantry corps, a few extra "elite reinforcements to start with and a piece of (unupgraded) artillery.

Still couldn't pull off a Schlieffen, but did manage to (in late autumn) wipe out Belgium and take Calais.
Then I started some unrestricted submarine warfare which has done wonders for my national morale, but pulled the US into the war in late 1915.
Funnily enough it's my Austria that's best off in National Morale, at like 103 (been dropping some after Rumania joined the Entente).
Things have gone pretty historical, except I've managed to slowly inch my way towards Paris.
Then just as I was about to launch my offensive against Paris I managed to get Switzerland into the Central Powers and blew the central front wide open.
Now in 1917 I've finally taken Paris and knocked the French down to 0 national morale (still holding on somehow) and the Kerensky government in Russia aint' looking too hot either.
Lots of Americans and Brits around, and the Italians a bit of a pain, but I pretty much got this in the bag (especially as I got to Armored Corps first, 2 for Germany and 1 for Austria).
Only problem-child is the Ottomans, who are down to 55 national Morale (still more than the British!), losing Baghdad hurt like hell (12 national morale).
Now if the French could just admit defeat and be sensible about this...

The Entente is, as they say in France,

"Le hosed"

e: And in the next turn they Surrendered, leading Russia to drop to 0 national morale and surrender as well. Major Central Power Victory (only took a couple of million losses to accomplish!).
I've noticed the AI likes to dogpile of the Ottomans, which might be a fine plan, but deploying so many planes, artillery and *their only armor* there seems a bit much. Those troops could have stopped me cold or even rolled me back on the western front (well until Switzerland joined in on the fun).

Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 11:23 on Jul 21, 2014

# ? Jul 21, 2014 10:59

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 06:25

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

So the Matrix weekly deal is Combat Command for 9.99 USD. It's a company-level WW2 game. The graphics look dire, but I was wondering if anyone here has any impressions of it to share.

Pimpmust posted:

The Entente is, as they say in France,

"Le hosed"

That looks beautiful! Breakthrough is right

# ? Jul 21, 2014 14:31

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Grognard Games Megathread - stop making me want this I do not have $95 bux

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