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Just an update on Second Front patch notes, we have a new record:Version 1.164 posted:
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Mar 5, 2023 05:53
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Squiggle posted:Just an update on Second Front patch notes, we have a new record: Still only the second best patch notes I have ever seen. 
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Mar 5, 2023 08:57
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Squiggle posted:Just an update on Second Front patch notes, we have a new record: I'd been wondering what the polar opposite of CMO's usual release notes would be.
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Mar 5, 2023 16:41
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Sorry to dredge up an old discussion, but I've been thinking a bit about the criticism of the first Unity of Command as being a puzzle game. I've played a lot, and I really love the game. It's one of my favorite games. Every year or so I go back and try to improve my performance in the scenarios. I've gotten brilliant victories in most of the base campaign scenarios, and I've found it very rewarding. Given all that context, I definitely agree with the description of the game as being a sort of puzzle game. For me that's not really a criticism. More than anything else, it's taught me how to approach playing operational-scale hex-and-counter wargames, in terms of understanding the mechanics. If I had come to a more complex game straight away, I think I would have found the climb MUCH steeper. Coming from, say, panzer-general-/advance-wars-likes, or console-style tactics games, or stuff like Civ, a player's natural impulse is to bash units into each other in an attempt to kill as much stuff directly as possible. That intuition is just plain wrong here. I've spent a bit of time over the past few years improving my chess skills, and a lot of that has been working puzzles. In a way, UoC worked in a similar way for me as a set of "operational puzzles" where you need to understand the general situation, and figure out how to execute an effective plan that is timely and sufficiently protects logistics. Really, it showed me how to approach "reading" the board-states in that sort of wargame. I'm amazed at how they managed to land on what feels like the minimum level of mechanical complexity to convey the core ideas in such an evocative way. I can definitely see how a lot of more experienced players would find it to be an acquired taste, though. You have to be in a specific mindset to accept it for what it is. DrankSinatra fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Mar 6, 2023 |
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Mar 6, 2023 01:34
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 Rolling another CMO LP, this one for the new USS Ford Showcase scenario. Check it out here : https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4026585
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Mar 9, 2023 02:30
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Enjoying Second Front quite a lot. I hope it keeps getting support because with some small improvements (e.g. speed of ai turn mortar fire) and additional content it could be a standout in the genre. I still haven't worked out how to take out dug in high power units (eg flak guns) effectively. There doesn't really seem to be a way to approach them without taking reaction fire. Even mortars, which you'd think would be an effective counter or at least let you pin them, have to get into LoS and therefore often get beaten up
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Mar 14, 2023 12:39
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distortion park posted:Enjoying Second Front quite a lot. I hope it keeps getting support because with some small improvements (e.g. speed of ai turn mortar fire) and additional content it could be a standout in the genre. Smoke
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Mar 14, 2023 18:25
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"Mortars need line of sight" doesn't sound right to me
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Mar 15, 2023 10:45
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Gort posted:"Mortars need line of sight" doesn't sound right to me The manual says "LOF" but I'm fairly certain they need LoS. Might be wrong about that.  I'll try smoke, either I missed it as an option on my mortars or they didn't have it in the missions I've tried so far.
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Mar 15, 2023 11:55
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Does anyone remember the name of that one fantasy game wherein you played as an agent for an Eldritch Being, whom you're trying to summon -- using manipulation/misdirection etc? I don't remember much about it beyond the fact that it was a cool concept and that its UI was quite questionable.
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Mar 19, 2023 19:26
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Is Shadows of Forbidden Gods the one you're looking for?
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Mar 19, 2023 19:45
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cranky corvid posted:Is Shadows of Forbidden Gods the one you're looking for? Yes it is, thank you!
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Mar 19, 2023 19:54
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That looks right up my alley and it's got a demo!
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Mar 19, 2023 20:55
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Its real good and Goon-made. The backstory is actually hilarious. Some guy came up with the idea and made a forums thread/kickstarter etc then hosed around for ages without delivering anything so one of the Goons just straight up and made their own version which was wildly superior to anything the original guy had come up with.
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Mar 19, 2023 22:05
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And then this version is not only wildly superior to that prototype, it actually implements some of the more pie in the sky stuff. Like you can see what the Chosen One plans to do so you can plan on distracting them or just leave them alone. Protip: plague their homeland and keep fueling those plagues.
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Mar 20, 2023 04:13
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BTW looks like the new Shadow Empires Oceania DLC will be dropping at the end of the month:Vic posted:Oceania DLC will release the 30th of march Steam posted:About This Content
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Mar 20, 2023 23:01
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thousands of hours of Master of Orion 2 back in the 90s still has me getting a tiny endorphin hit when I see the words Gaia Planet
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Mar 20, 2023 23:32
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In Field of Glory Empires, is the battle export functionality capable of taking advantage of the FOG II DLC? I've heard that the units in the strategic view don't match up one-to-one necessarily w/ FOG 2, so I was wondering if the DLC could refine that a bit. Like, if there were checks in FOG II's battle import code that go "oh, you have this DLC, so we can use THESE units here, instead."
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Mar 22, 2023 20:23
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Terrifying Effigies posted:BTW looks like the new Shadow Empires Oceania DLC will be dropping at the end of the month: oh cool, maybe i'll actually get around to playing some of it now
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Mar 22, 2023 20:50
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Foo Diddley posted:oh cool, maybe i'll actually get around to playing some of it now There still won't be any military ships though, but better than nothing.
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Mar 23, 2023 00:42
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it wasn't that i felt anything was lacking, really; just that i never got around to playing. a big update's always a good excuse to dust off a game though
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Mar 23, 2023 06:14
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Vic mentioned he was wanting to abstract the naval part of the game, that it was hard to get the same kind of combat dynamism in the same way as on land. This was a discussion he had with the eXplorminate podcast before he even started developing it. So it’s clear the lack of explicit naval military was a conscious design decision. So I’m very interested to see how his implementation shakes out. It’s such a great game as it is. So I’m super excited.
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Mar 23, 2023 12:01
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At that sort of timescale SE works on navies should probably function similarly to airforces
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Mar 23, 2023 21:32
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I hear that Combat Mission Normandy is coming to steam soon. Are they still doing the thing where you can redeem a key from the battlefront store on steam? I bought all the WWII titles from BF years ago. I'd play them if I could get them for free on steam (probably).
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Mar 27, 2023 13:40
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Yep, if by 'soon' you mean 'tomorrow' but you have to wait until the launch for the steam key generator to work. Also I will fight you at pixel soldiers in Normandy.
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Mar 27, 2023 14:41
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I swear the combat mission devs have figured out advanced surveillance techniques. Me and my buddy were randomly discussing the series and suddenly shock force 2 is on sale. I would buy it but.. as much as I can tolerate jank, last time I tried the demo it was very cumbersome to play. But maybe you get used to it? Edit: Trying the Shock Force 2 demo again and I just can't get over the camera. It is awful. All three options are. There are so few simultaneous turn based games that I really want to try this properly at some point but the general flow of playing is putting me off every time. Boar It fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Mar 27, 2023 |
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Mar 27, 2023 20:19
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The Great War: Western Front has effectively released (3-day pre-order early access). I went through the tutorial and did a "I have no loving clue what I'm doing" run as the Entente in 1914 for a few hours. Here are my initial thoughts: 1) The game is in a solid place but needs balancing. 2) No bugs encountered so far 3) The AI is a dirty, dirty cheater. It doesn't follow the same rules as the player for spotting and artillery. It sees everything at all times, including stuff that it shouldn't have sight on and is able to call down arty anywhere on the map regardless of whether it's guns are in range are not. Its guns also don't respect firing arcs. 4) The tech tree seems to be half "must have" techs and half garbage, speedbump techs that only seem to be there to stop you from getting to the good stuff. 5) Ironically, it feels like assaulting trenches is easier than defending them due to how easily artillery suppresses infantry and MGs. That being said, all the pieces for a really good trench warfare game are there, they just need to be moved around a bit and have their values tweaked. Who knows if Petroglyph is up to the task of regular patching though.
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Mar 27, 2023 23:09
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Boar It posted:Trying the Shock Force 2 demo again and I just can't get over the camera. It is awful. All three options are. There are so few simultaneous turn based games that I really want to try this properly at some point but the general flow of playing is putting me off every time. It's weird how the newer CM games are more infuriating, camera-wise. They have the nice, modern TW-ish thing going on with the WASD keys, which paradoxically makes it worse? Somehow, the dumb early '00s/late 90s on-screen button/arrow key thing in the classic CM games makes me less angry, like it makes the clunkiness more forgivable?
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Mar 28, 2023 00:07
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DrankSinatra posted:It's weird how the newer CM games are more infuriating, camera-wise. They have the nice, modern TW-ish thing going on with the WASD keys, which paradoxically makes it worse? Somehow, the dumb early '00s/late 90s on-screen button/arrow key thing in the classic CM games makes me less angry, like it makes the clunkiness more forgivable? I haven't tried those but I honestly can't imagine it being worse. It is a shame since I love seeing the little mans running around and shooting at each other. I don't know if it is "grognard" per se but I enjoy the Dominions games (https://store.steampowered.com/app/722060/Dominions_5__Warriors_of_the_Faith/) and those have a lot of quirks too. But the difference is, panning the camera around and clicking on stuff is still responsive all things considered. I managed to piss off some Scourge of War: Waterloo fans by pointing out that it isn't great to interact with the game, the UI lagging along with the game itself due to being single threaded. I was told to go back to Call of Duty or something. I don't think it is too much to ask for responsive controls, even if UX is a bit jank. But alas, maybe some day I'll get over that hurdle and be able to enjoy the CM games.
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Mar 28, 2023 08:39
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Dramicus posted:The Great War: Western Front has effectively released (3-day pre-order early access). My understanding is that this is correct, should the artillery be properly timed. Winning the race to the parapets was to win the battle. It seems to get very very finicky with multiple trench layers though, and getting troops to move between them internally rather than charging out like idiots.
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Mar 28, 2023 08:57
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:My understanding is that this is correct, should the artillery be properly timed. Winning the race to the parapets was to win the battle. It seems to get very very finicky with multiple trench layers though, and getting troops to move between them internally rather than charging out like idiots. Yeah, I guess the real issue here is that artillery is called in by the player on like, a three-second delay with pinpoint accuracy, so it's a million times as useful as the real stuff was. A WW1 general would sell his soul for that kind of power.
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Mar 28, 2023 09:08
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Gort posted:Yeah, I guess the real issue here is that artillery is called in by the player on like, a three-second delay with pinpoint accuracy, so it's a million times as useful as the real stuff was. A WW1 general would sell his soul for that kind of power. What I would give for a mode where I placed my artillery at the start of a round and suffered communications delays based on logistics levels and the development of my comms trenches, with messenger pigeon techs necessary to shift or cancel scheduled strikes rapidly
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Mar 28, 2023 13:12
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My friend have you heard of Grand Tactician: The Civil War?
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Mar 28, 2023 13:40
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I have yet to get deep into a campaign. I wonder if the dynamic changes with fully-upgraded trenches that are spaced out properly. So far my early to mid 1915 tactics have amounted to concentrating on one point in the line, pounding it to dust with heavy arty and keeping the majority of the area suppressed with light arty as the infantry attack. Sure you generally take 5-10k losses per attack, but it seems to consistently work. I imagine getting tanks will change the dynamic further.
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Mar 28, 2023 13:41
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Dramicus posted:Sure you generally take 5-10k losses per attack, but it seems to consistently work. I imagine getting tanks will change the dynamic further. Now you're thinking like a ww1 general!
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Mar 28, 2023 19:44
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Wonder if tanks are as vulnerable as in demo? They were in a weird place there
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Mar 28, 2023 19:55
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Ending a German campaign in 1917 soon. The German ones seem less vulnerable to rifles and mgs than the entante ones in the demo Overall tanks change the dynamic a little, but mainly because they allow you to circumvent the defenders local advantage in pushing reserves into melee which is basically a numbers game. Siege artillery breaking up trenches allows you to isolate objectives and in conjunction with tanks existing as mobile machine guns to stop counter attacks since they can't just filter through trenches and overwhelm your attacking force.
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Mar 29, 2023 06:31
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I played CM: Normandy again yesterday after it came out on Steam and oh my god it WW2 combat makes for such a much better game than the modern titles. C2 is more fragile, troops can break and come back, tanks can't see anything if they are buttoned up, and there's no ATGM ambushes that make vehicles/squads suddenly disappear. Does anyone want to play any versus game? If we gather enough people we can see about running a goon tournament.
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Mar 29, 2023 09:32
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That is ambitious pricing for a 12 year old game with a new coat of paint. Edit: Lol, missed the DLC. £102 for the whole game. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 11:04 on Mar 29, 2023 |
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Mar 29, 2023 11:01
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CDN$158.32 for the whole thing. On sale.
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Mar 29, 2023 11:24
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