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ZombieLenin posted:That would be okay, but... and not to diminish the importance of the men who fought in North Africa post Operation Torch, but you are again in a scenario where you are playing against an opponent whose win conditions are “just do not lose as badly as your side did in real life.” Playing for objectives rather than to "win" is t really that different, 0 isn't special. And in many cases just winning against the immediate enemy isn't the only aim of an operation, e.g. both fronts in ww2 had elements who wanted to reach Berlin first.
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Nov 14, 2019 18:49
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Fields of Glory 2 is really good. I think the tabletop background forces the mechanics to be a lot more understandable and the units feel decently distinctive.
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Nov 18, 2019 18:00
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In my (brief) attempt at a WITP run through I found it fairly easy to send a cruiser and a couple of destroyers in to disrupt landings which didn't have any escorts. It felt like they would easily sink a fair few ships, but I had no idea if this was a "legit" tactic or just a weakness in the AI.
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Feb 9, 2020 10:17
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UoC 2 is a lot less accessible than the first and takes a while to get into, but is still very good. I think it's a bit harder too (at least on classic mode) unless I've got very rusty. Trying to preserve your troops for the next mission also makes it more complex, you can't just throw them into the meat grinder like you could in the first.
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Mar 26, 2020 17:01
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After playing UoC 2 some more I think it's really great, just the right level of depth for me and a nice fast pace to it. I have three annoyances though (which I think others have highlighted as well): 1) No restart from turn 1 - it's annoying to do the setup every time 2) It requires multiple unspent movement points to move onto a hex with a HQ. This is normally reasonable enough, but can be frustrating when the enemy HQ ends up an objective on the final turn. Obviously you can play around this but it is easy to miscalculate or forget. 3) The AI seems to be aware of both the turn limits and your objectives, and it will sometimes play very passively until it's final turn (which you can't respond to) when it will launch an all out assault on one of the objectives. Again you can play around this but the first time it happens it can be annoying.
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Mar 29, 2020 14:20
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Seconding LnL being fun but buggy. The current LoS rules are very weird, and on maps where the AI has to roll to move off set patrol routes it seems to roll one million times per unit instead of just once. I have also been finding the defensive scenarios much easier than the offensive ones, but that might just be my lack of skill.
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Apr 7, 2020 09:31
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sum posted:Speaking of Command Ops 2, has anyone tried Lock 'n Load Tactical Digital from the same developers? It apparently released into early access a few weeks ago and it seems like a PC ASL port. Base game is only $5 but it's the CO2 model where there's $20 of DLC It's ok for early access, a bit buggy but the game itself is fun. Not much harm in getting the base game (which is really just the tutorial) and seeing if you enjoy it.
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Apr 21, 2020 07:24
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gazza posted:Categorizing Unity of Command as a puzzle game is selling it extremely short. As far as relatively simple introductory wargames go, it's basically the only one that accurately reflects the historical operational limitations faced by various combatants in WW2, something that it does far better than similar games like Panzer Corps or Order of Battle. It's extremely good. It is true that some scenarios are more puzzle like than others (the one in the woods before Bulge is a good example, there are like two enemy units you can attack to breakthrough and anything else will fail miserably), but generally it feels thematic and has understable and solid mechanics. One common thing in UoC is that your tanks or something breaks through and all on their own go capture an enemy supply depo, cutting off a large part of their army (sometimes you can even chain turns out of supply like this). Presumably incidents similar to this did happen, but are there any accounts which map particularly well to "line armoured formation captures key supply depo"?
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May 13, 2020 07:46
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i can't remember uoc 1 well enough, but uoc 2 has very few scenarios where victory is dependent on die rolls, even for the bonus objectives. most swingy thing is probably bombing cities, but that's normally just a bad idea anyway.
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May 14, 2020 09:13
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I've tried the Command Ops 2 demo and it feels like it could be pretty good once you've got the hang of the interface - at the moment I find it quite hard to work out what sort of state my troops are in (beyond the intentional uncertainty of war). I also haven't got a feel for how much independence can be given to individual commanders, it's not as though they ring you up and give you their suggestions or requests, so anything beyond defend in place has to come from you.
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May 29, 2020 17:28
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I got cauldron as my first one and have been enjoying it. Scraped out a minor victory defending as the allies at Merse El Brega. I looked it up afterwards and not much is known of the actual battle so I think it is a mostly fictional scenario (also had huge numbers of casualties, 3000 on the axis side in my play through)
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May 31, 2020 10:18
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cool new Metroid game posted:I was reading about this very battle yesterday! The Tank War by Mark Urban has a chapter early on about it although it's mostly about the tankies' experiences rather than a detailed look into the tactics of the battle itself. He does quote quite extensively from several memoirs and war diaries though. I also found this thesis on the battle whilst googling https://hydra.hull.ac.uk/assets/hull:5595a/content I'm halfway through reading that thesis! It's interesting stuff, definitely seems like a major gently caress up to have not had more forces prepared for a German attack.
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May 31, 2020 11:44
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Just finished the Island Prize command ops 2 scenario as both sides. Much easier as germans, you have an advantage in numbers and quality. As the allies you have two worthwhile units, the bofors AA company, which once dug in can engage and suppress normal infantry from out of their range, and the artillery which suppress other attacks and can be used as counter-battery against mortars to protect the bofors.
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Jun 1, 2020 08:33
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They should definitely add a symbol for powered armour infantry, also jetpack infantry.
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Jun 9, 2020 13:44
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Alchenar posted:Well speaking of which, it's been a week, is Shadow Empire still good or are there problems starting to come out? It's good right now imo, although I suspect it's going to be really great after a few more patches and some dlc
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Jun 12, 2020 18:00
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Between Shadow Empire and Command Ops 2 I feel like I've finally found some really well executed wargames than I enjoy. Both are a bit rough around the edges but at least they are being actively developed.
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Jun 13, 2020 15:12
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I tried witp about 6 months ago and found I could just send small fleets of a cruiser plus some destroyers into landing spots and wreck large numbers of transports. Then someone said that the ai juste gets more troops for free and I gave up
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Jun 16, 2020 21:22
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I actually found the dday mission one of the hardest ones for some reason. If you do today the first couple of turns right it can be really hard to recover
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Jul 3, 2020 12:27
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mmtt posted:UoC2 has an UI I can understand for a grog game and once mechanics got explained to me by watching some dude let's play Hobart's Funnies has to be the most busted specialist step, it's just so powerful
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Jul 3, 2020 18:42
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nessin posted:I still can't get into UoC2. It feels like it's trying hard not to be as much of a puzzle game as the first but it's still built that way from the ground up so I feel like I should have more freedom while playing it but then get frustrated that it actually boils down to finding that one right solution. outside of a couple of scenarios (the beach landings as others have said are particular offenders), I don't think that's really the case unless you're going for a flawless victory.
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Jul 3, 2020 19:35
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BBJoey posted:Bit of a shame they're going with the bog standard 39-41 campaigns - I would have liked to see an expansion of the North African campaign - but looking forward to it nonetheless. I wonder if there are any campaigns in the eastern theatre which would work well with the UoC engine.
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Sep 23, 2020 13:28
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Gort posted:Dunno if this is sorry meant far east. although the winter war might be interesting!b
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Sep 23, 2020 13:36
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but Unity of Command 1 is entirely USSR vs Germany, specifically around Stalingrad
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Are there any good wargames set in ancient or classic china? Something like Field of Glory 2 maybe.
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Nov 10, 2020 19:13
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Witp is obviously cool but I actually think that it works best on smaller scales - the Guadalcanal one is great, tbh I could go even smaller than that.
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Nov 21, 2020 21:40
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I vaguely remember reading somewhere that a very significant amount of German arms production when into Flak - does anyone know what the source might have been?
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Dec 14, 2020 12:38
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Alchenar posted:It really depends on what you want, but I would place DC:Barbarossa as the epitome of 'good UI, very easy to grasp the basics while having incredibly deep and rewarding detail'. Command Ops 2 is amazing, but even more than other grog games would really benefit from some UI improvements (also the ai is at times kind of limited for a game which relies on it so heavily). I've had some really great experiences with it.
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Mar 13, 2021 15:00
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I'm reading "Wages of Destruction", an economic history of Germany in the second world War, and it really emphasises how precarious the position of the Nazi regime was in regard to the economy in 38-39. They had run down the countries entire foreign exchange reserves, and despite claims you sometimes here to the contrary, were suppressing civilian consumption (particularly in relation to housing) in order to keep their rearmament effort going. Looting Austria of it's forex and gold was the only way they kept it up for so long. The rearmament plans they drew up were also laughably unrealistic. The stockpiles of oil alone required purchasing multiples of global production for long periods of time. They were behind schedule and dramatically revising plans down within weeks due to raw materials shortages.
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Mar 21, 2021 08:53
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ZombieLenin posted:Absolutely. The reality is the war ended in 1945 and not late 1946 or in 1947 because of American entry into the war. One thing I find really insightful about the book is how it cuts past all sorts of weird bits of accounting and policy to look at the fundamentals of raw materials, productive capacity and foreign purchasing power. When he does that, it paints a very clear picture of a nation that ran down their stocks of all 3 in order to achieve some temporary military successes, and then lost when they ran out. It was never going to work and if we only look at the military history on an event by event basis, we miss the fact that the Nazi's were never in a winning position. This was all quite clear from the outset of the war, as evidenced by a bunch of quotes from German officials which predict the overall arc of the war with prescience, and thus the war only made sense if you were already bought into the Nazi's racist ideology. (I'm not disagreeing with you, just trying to summarize what I've learnt clearly)
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Mar 22, 2021 19:46
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I got wite2 since I don't have 1. The UI is pretty lol for £55 and 2021, but that's to be expected I suppose. I'm sure there's a button somewhere to make the scaling not look like garbage.
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Mar 26, 2021 12:01
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Finished the Operation Mars scenario as Soviets in WitE2. Once you get used to the UI it's pretty easy to see what's going on. I sort of ignored the air system as it was snowing all the time (also according to the post game summary I lost vast numbers of aircraft on my first turn?). I did substantially better than historical outcomes despite not knowing what I was doing. The AI was not very good at keeping it's salient in the NW connected and I quickly isolated it. It was much better at doing a managed withdrawal in the main Ryzhev salient. I might do the main Stalingrad to Berlin campaign next, but it's intimidatingly big
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Mar 27, 2021 14:46
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I started the Stalingrad to Berlin campaign (starts Nov 1942) as Soviets. Presumably to keep things vaguely historical, most of your units outside the Mars/Uranus areas have no movement or combat preparation points on the first go. However, on the Axis turn, after I captured both railways leading to Stalingrad turn 1 (but didn't manage a full encirclement), the 6th Army is in fullscale retreat. Presumably someone gave hitler a shot in the back of the head. Not sure how I feel about this, it's obviously going to make any major encirclement much harder as the remaining gap is full of retreating troops. I might have another go at it, but I doubt I can get enough units into the gap to block them off completely. My airforce also appears to suck at ground support - I left the directives mostly in their default set up, and in every battle they contributed to I lost 50% of my fighter bombers, almost all combat losses:  Am I meant to be setting up escort orders or something?
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Mar 27, 2021 17:46
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ZombieLenin posted:If it uses the WiTW air system, which I am told it does, then yes. In theory it is meant to be heavily automated, and it has some nice screens that let you change doctrines globally (e.g. after horrific operational losses turn 1 I changed everything to required Fair weather instead of Poor). I'm not having any success understanding how to manage it well though, unless someone here knows I'll probably wait until some youtube tutorials come out. The ground combat and movement system seem to work well and make sense though, other than the air stuff it seems fun! I restarted and did a much better job of encircling Stalingrad:  I didn't make any significant progress near Moscow but the Germans have decided to retreat anyway:  My ground support missions are getting escorted, but they are still being massacred:   When you load up the scenario, it starts with ground support as the only mission for most air groups - am I meant to turn it off until I establish air superiority? I don't get how to establish that though, seeing as my fighters consistently lose horribly in every engagement. distortion park fucked around with this message at 11:27 on Mar 28, 2021 |
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Mar 28, 2021 11:23
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algebra testes posted:I enjoyed WITW will I be overwhelmed by the thousands of units in WITE 2? I haven't had any issues with unit count, and I found witp excessive. Individual units are pretty easy and quick to manage.
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Mar 29, 2021 06:55
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i'm extremely bad at dogfighting, except for the one time i managed to do a loop and ended up behind the enemy (i still missed)
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Apr 11, 2021 17:45
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Really enjoying wite2 now I just entirely ignore the air phase and let the AI do everything - I lost a lot of planes turn 1 but nothing happens anymore, except for the occasional sortie to intercept German transports. The AI is pretty good. It'll work hard to escape incomplete encirclements or break out of weak complete ones. It makes occasional counter attacks where my line is weak but I haven't noticed any large scale actions yet, possibly because it's the Stalingrad to Berlin campaign and there isn't much for the AI to do. It does do a rapid full-scale retreat from the Caucuses and a more measured one from Operation Mars. Only iffy thing so far is that it messed up its lines near Leningrad and let me reopen a land bridge without much attacking.
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Apr 13, 2021 11:45
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Anyone have a link to a rundown on how/if you need to manage commanders in WITE2? Some of my army's have kind of rubbish command limits and I don't really know if that matters or if there's an easy fix
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Apr 14, 2021 17:26
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There's a good chance they would manage to destroy huge amounts of German industrial equipment though in the process. It's quite a stretch to imagine them attempting it though. I haven't read much about it, but everything I have read suggested the French state as a whole was lukewarm about the war, and completely sclerotic in its organisation and approach to the conflict.
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Apr 17, 2021 20:38
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The WiTE2 AI is starting to feel a little too eager to retreat out of potential pockets. If you just poke through weak points in their line (of which there are inevitably many), it will rapidly pull back the units threatened by encirclement, even if the probe is completely insufficient to make an effective pockets and the German troops could easily fight them off or break out in the worst case. This results in it being very easy to rapidly push back German lines in 1943 - it's particularly a problem in the NW, as by pushing like this towards Pskov and later Riga, you can force much larger retreats along the Baltic coast in which you probably will win create large pockets in the resulting chaos. Why did the Soviets attack out of the Leningrad front anyway, instead of further south? It seems like it was unnecessary given that advances into Latvia would have made those positions completely untenable anyway.
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Apr 26, 2021 12:06
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The SS units in WiTE2 feel insanely robust. I got to Riga before the one sitting on Novgorod would surrender, and they can hold off multiple corps attacking a division in open terrain. Fortunately you can just go around them normally but it does seem like a huge delta between them and normal German units.
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Apr 29, 2021 18:50
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:While their skill is questionable, weren't they typically better supplied as a motorised element due to being the SS? Playing Graviteam certainly made it clear to me that they're a pain in the rear end to fight. I don't know how much is fixed stat boosts, how much is OOB differences, and how much is the AI giving them higher supply priority in this case. I'm sure it's somewhere in the rather long manual though!
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Apr 29, 2021 22:02
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