Les the Sarge 9-1

Just letting people know, I seem to be experiencing a total email black out. Everything else seems to be working fine, but my email has stopped, nothing coming in or going out. Driving me nuts. Been at least 2 days now. Going to phone up my service tomorrow and look into it.

JP Wagner, I had same trouble with PG1 working on my XP, but there is a Win 95 revision version that actually functions. Doesn't take much of a fiddle, but I had it going just the other day. Found it over at Hotu. Only requires a couple of minutes in Compatibility feature

Not sure if SSI and 3DO went under because they tampered with PG2 and Heroes respectively. I do know this though, I like the PGIII 3d game and I like the Heroes IV game. But I can also recognise, that PG2 and Heroes III were essentially already great games. I think the companies could have done well to just add new materials to both games, without actually remaking them. But sometimes people get annoyed when a company looks like they are just milking a game too. I have all the Heroes III Chronicles releases. They're good, but some saw them as over rated fluff for cash. Maybe they were a bit excessively same same looking. It might have been better for 3DO to take the games guts, and turn it into a scifi adventure. All new story and adventure, but the game would not have to be re invented. Not sure what could have been done with PG2 though. I have the various PG incarnations. PG, PG2, Pacific, Fantasy, Allied, People's. Didn't grab up Star General though, just not my thing. Not sure what was left to simulate. Might have been room for a Civil War or Napoleonic release. But a graphics upgrade alone, won't really fire the customer much if that's really all that is being offered. I like the new battle mode of Heroes IV, but the rest of the game really wasn't changed a great deal. Some say the AI isn't up to the calibre of that in Heroes III. Sometimes, a sequel won't cut it. Sometimes the designer has to actually do something new. Actually new. As it goes, the current crop of wargames in grand 3d real time are requiing such a massive increase in computer power, it is unlikely I will be playing them. Just can't justify a computer upgrade for 3d real time. Don't really like 3d real time much actually.

Forget bosses, a window option will allow me to chat with my girlfriends while playing

WEGO is cool I definitely like it, but it has to work for the game as well.

Precisely. Make something that is actually great, and you will be remembered. Make a slightly tweaked copy of something that someone else made great, and odds are you won't be remembered. As much as I don't like the genre, the first RTS game is the one that was "great". Everything since has just been a copy of someone else's good idea. No amount of glitz is going to make your game a defining moment, if you are just copying the other guy. I personally think HC can claim to be the guy that made Grand Strategy great. Sure there have been other that have come already. But frankly, I think HC is the one that cracked the code. So telling me SC looks like CoS will only get me yawning. So what, they both modelled WW2 Europe. Like there is a reason they should look different? I will likely be content if Gary's game is a defining global simulation. After that point, anyone else will have gotten there late.

I am positive to an exacting certitude, that neither myself, nor anyone else claiming to be capable of it, can state with any useful comment, "exactly" how large the wargaming market is Now, I happen to know, that HC and Battlefront can actually tell you how many copies of the game they have manufactured, and that is a detail they would actually know. Of course, that is their private business, and you will have to figure out how to get them to tell ya hehe. I can report personal observations, but they are statistically subjective observations, not scientific empirical analyses. I can state for instance, that game X has been reported in numerous game magazines as being considered a rating of say 4.5 out of 5 by average count. And I can state, that the predominant opinion is heavily slanted in one view points direction. I can remark that such and such game, is liked by such and such player, that I know regularly and routinely doesn't normally care for said game. Thus making you inclined to think "hmmm what would make that person like it, when it is not normally their cup of tea". Or I could state, that such and such game, even while being praised, is unable to be discussed even by it's fans, without them constantly bringing up a common failing. I can of course list off lists of games, that seem to indicate a potential market. But listing ten titles released within the last 5 years, won't reveal whether they have enjoyed decent sales figures. On size of market. Well hmm. I know how many people generally are receptive to what I call classic style wargames that live in my area. But I am in a minor town in a more or less low density population area. Might be different if I lived in a decent sized city. Still, I am inclined to think, that people predisposed to being wargamers, really isn't what I would call "a large market". If I had a company that made wargames to my own tastes, you can assume I would be selling something non wargamish to actually bring in the big dollars all the same. Unless I was specifically and particularly totally wealthy (winning 10 million in a lottery would be a nice example), I would not pretend to be capable of running a logical and finacially viable wargame producing business with any capacity to make decent profits on just classic wargames. I don't know what Hubert Cater does for a living specifically for instance. I would be quite pleased to hear his game was allowing him to make ends meet. But I would not be shocked to hear, he actually has a different more tangible line of occupation paying his house's mortgage. In the 70s, even the great wargames rarely sold sums of copies anyone would freak out over. In the 80s wargames got fancier and more expensive, but I don't think unit sales were "unusually high". I don't think computer wargames sales in the 90s for some of the earlier classics ever sold astronomical sales sums. But that is all me just musing over this, and drawing my own aggregate conclusions after seeing so much commentary from various sources all perculated down to an opinion. I could be wrong I know this much. Hasbro got groupy when their Pokemon card game didn't sell 2 billion in sales the next year. Some companies just don't measure success the same way eh. They own ASL (Advanced Squad Leader), but it is essentially managed by MMP (Multi Man Publishing). But they really likely don't really understand the dynamics of the game's sales potential. And sadly, MMP is not a large cash moving operation. Sooooo, a lot of guys are forced to fight over used copies of ASL modules on eBay. And when I see someone pay 200 bucks for a module I once pay 70 for when it first came out, it tells me something. It tells me some will pay large amounts for what they want. But it really doesn't reveal "how many ASL players there are".

Now cWif, I am not sure that will ever see the light of day. I won't mind being wrong, but I won't be shocked to see it just not work. There has to be a limit to everything. And just being based off a classic board game, is not going to give it special status where reality is concerned.

For the record (for those that don't actually know, hey might be one person ), but there are those out there that do NOT like my critism of HoI. Just so everyone is clear, I have never played HoI and if you gave me a copy for free, odds are I would use it to keep pop spill off the desk here. Yes I reeeeeeally wanted that game when it first became known to the public. But thanks to my limited finances, I am usually slow in getting new games. In this case it was a good thing. Some find it odd I can so hae something I have never played. I don't. Hmm sorry if my being a veteran wargamer annoys some, but hmm I AM a veteran wargamer. Been wargaming since about the time wargames first became a commercially identifiable product line around the early 70s. And I combine that with the fact I regularly chat on forums with a great many other veteran wargamers. Sooooo, I stand here and state rather comfortably, that HoI is better at being a coaster than a wargame. But don't let me alone sway you, let all the angry people that bought it do that. Or of course, you can just go out and buy it, you might be one of the odd fanatics for all I know.

Hmmm as a board gamer, I have to actually just sit here and laugh my ass off. PC Gaming is dying! Oh My God!!! Hmm yeah right. First a reality check. Board gaming is not dying. It was small, it stayed small, it will be small tomorrow, and guess what, it ain't dying. Ever seen what a player will pay for an ASL (Advanced Squad Leader) module on eBay? Yeah dying riiiiiiight. So now we have PC gaming. I have two guys wanting me to mail them my Super Steel Panthers cd to them. You know why, because is a frigging great game. It was released several years ago. The game is now almost a decade old. And people are STILL just playing it for the first time. Of course Steel Panthers is a free download, and it isn't making sales anymore. But, like that's not my fault. The Panzer General series is still a cool series. Some of them are a bit cantankerous about running on current high powered computers, but that's not there fault. Guys like John Tiller are still making excellent wargames. But he makes WARGAMES!, he doesn't make trendy 3d real time shooter crud. Matrix Games is doing a fine job with games all across the spectrum. I just bought HTTR Highway to the Reich. It is a shining example, of how a game can actually not have turns, and be done RIGHT. Of course, if the industry insists that games like HoI Hearts of Iron are great, and insists on repeating that junk with designs like Victoria, then the trade will get what it deserves. After all this time, all the efforts of fans, the game still has it's loyal supporters yet still descibing all its many shortcomings. So ya, I can see a large sector of the populace maybe thinking console is where its at. Because we are not giving them cause to think otherwise. I measure a game a success, when it is still being played a decade later, not a year later. I consider a game a success when it is considered a yardstick by which others are forced to live up to. Today's wargame market needs to get back to being about wargames. Eventually the 3d glitzy crowd will just bugger off to get their games from console. And the market will be restored to what it would be best left as. Wargamers wanting actual wargames. And that means hex loving turn using 2d graphics based designs about credible historical simulations. Of course it doesn't have to use hexes automatically. Garys World at War game will use regions. But it will still be a wargamer's wargame. And we need more games like Korsun Pocket which is doing well, and more games like HTTR which gives the player command in credible real time. Battlefields when it is done, will be a nice addition. And I am sure hoping to some day play Combat Leader. The market has enough PC wargaming coming out. But wargamers as a group have never been a massively large marketplace. And that is just a fact that our wargaming hobby has to just suck back on and accept.

No stacking was an abstraction nightmare for me initially. It took me a long time to get willing to live with it. Hexes as you mention enjoy continuity and consistency. That is likely the only argument needed in their favour. Squares allowing more movement options sounds good on the surface, but when you force a person to accept the fact, that only 4 choices enjoy a decent sum of common terrain contact. The arguent in their favour falls through. 4 of the movement choices are forcibly funneled through tiny points of contact, that require additional movement rules, and additional effort. Hexes stay true to the KISS principle. Squares don't. The more work you make for a project, the more work you have to do.

If they can let Germany have anything they can build, then the precendent is set. We should be able to build anyone anything if they can get the cash to do it. I don't mind starting a Minor with what they historically had, but it rubs me the wrong way knowing each of their units is a one shot.

I am personally looking forward to a double whammy. I PLAN to get SC2, and I am really hoping Gary's game arrives timely too. It doesn't have hexes or squares, but it looks like it will do the job. I was so pumped for HoI, and, well, the fanatic fans can sit on this and rotate. Latest mod/patch, and the loyal nuts are still combining praise with describing how it can't do this that or the other thing. I don't know about you guys, but Steel Panthers was a great game day one. That it has been modified so often is not indicative of it needing fixing, but indicative of it being fun to fiddle with. I will be happy if SC2 does what it does, and does it European. Gary will likely ace the global scene for us, and life will be complete. I am not planning on beating up SC2 just to get a Pacific fix forcibly, when it probably won't be necessary. It's not the end of the world, if HC doesn't design a global game. The man doesn't have to be perfect at everything. I will settle for him having the must have game for Europe. Also hoping to possible add NeppaGames ETO board game to my collection in 2005. Once upon a time I played a lot of Axis and Allies. But my board game appears to have been efficiently "loaned out" to a random unknown person hehe. I will likely enjoy replacing it though. The board game Attack! also looks like a nice add on to my lightweight wargaming. With luck, 2005 will be the year of great grand strategy games.

I will be veeeeeeeery happy to see being able to replace units from nations not of the big players. Reeeeeeeeally steams me when if I lose the Canadian army unit, it ain't coming back. That is just plain stupid.

What has me the most excited? Hmmm Probably that the next version of the game will be better. And as the current version s already quite good, then it stands to reason I am going to be very impressed no matter what HC does.

Scorpion, I think it's a moot point, that some elements of SC managed to get past Hubert But all things considered, what he gave us was plenty good all the same. It's a fine line the designers walk the closer they get to grand strategy, because it gets harder and harder to keep it all under control. One of SCs most notorious hassles, is the power of Airpower. If the German player just pumps out a large airforce paid for by initial conquests which are often not to difficult, it give them a hefty edge. But it tends to make things complex when you want to enforce specific force pool limitations. Then there is my pet peeve the sub counter. I think it should have never been made the way it was made. They would have been better designed in as an abstraction. If SC was truely perfect, there simply wouldn't be an SC2 up for consideration. But a refined SC, will not automatically lend itself to extension into the Pacific. The Pacific might have been an integral part of what we called the Second World War, but it rarely lends itself to being an integral part of a wargame that simulates the war in Europe. That is the conondrum facing any serious wargame designer.

Nope NOT kidding. Hasborg is a name they earned eh hehe.

What is sad dudes, is that anyone connected with the ASL universe (Advanced Squad Leader for you heathen that don't know what ASL means), is that something as innocent as the hex center dot, has actually been attempted at being copywrite protected by Hasborg. Yep, insane ain't it. Most of us love our hexes etc etc, but there truely are people out there that defy logic.

A common request is to add the Pacific. But as pzgndr mentioned, the game was made for Europe and the systems had Europe in mind. The game will not easily breach the needs of naval air battles, and island hoping marine assaults. Some modders will no doubt make the effort, but it will remain to be seen if the accuracy will be there.

The LRDG were a super cool unit, but I would be greatly surprised to see them appear in the game. There is simply no way to represent a handful of guys running around in a few light vehicles, no matter how annoying they were in real life. It is basically the same for any unit or type of unit that operated as small groups of men, regardless of how brutal was their impact. Otherwise, you would need to include the 1st Special Service Force as well as Skorzeny's mob. The SS for all their publicity, don't deserve any better than one or two Corps counters from about 42 onward. Before that, they were merely "enthusiastic" and inexperienced smaller scale units. I personally, am not in a hurry to have any unit that can't be represented by a corp present in the game. If I want micromanagement, I will just go with one of my good operational scale games.

JJ that tid bit (the Prince Princess thing) was really interesting.

Well again it's ole mr ideology that interferes. The Japanese had this Co Prosperity Sphere thing happening, while the Germans had the supermen thing working. What most seem to forget, is the Japanese weren't fighting WW2 for the Germans, any more than the Germans were fighting it for the Japanese. Its a curious notion that we just automatically assume they were buddy buddy. But that's easy I suppose. After all, the US and Britain were buddy buddy. And France was sort of on our side (even though you had to sit them away from the British). Russia was not really our buddy, but we got stuck with them on our side. We so often call them the Axis as if they planned it that way. Heck, Italy was in it for prestige, and until the new guy Hitler upstaged Benito, it was actually the other way around. Italy was the one that had designs of empire at first. Wargames give what I think our misleading representations of "us" vs "them" depictitions. It just happened that the Japanese ambitions and the Italian ambitions just happened to occur at approximately the same time period. Remember, it's not known as WW2 in Russia, it was the Great Patriotic War. It lasted from 41 to 45. Or it was 31 to 45 if you ask someone that saw action in the Pacific. Or it was 39 to 45 if you asked a European. Or it was 41 to 45 if you think it strictly US terms of direct involvement. "Imagine the Japanese with modern tanks/divisions" Actually earlof white22, the problem with that remark, was the Japanese heavy industry was not suited for it. Not to mention they ambitions were not geared for it. They might have desired tanks in Manchuria, but I think it is a bit of a given, they would never have had a chance gaining even a remote chance of gaining par with Russian armour production potentials. There is more to producing tanks, than just a decent design (although it doesn't hurt). As wargamers we forget, we have no ideology to mess up our otherwise mathematically precise textbook perfect plannings. We don't have to fret over politics between our various allied forces. We can produce what we want when we want it. We can attack whomever we please, whenever we please. We can make a treaty, just to break it the second it becomes well timed to do so. We don't have to worry about our plans being leaked. Public opinion means nothing to our strategies. And that is what separates our games, from the messier aspects of the real world. Which is why, when simulating WW2, the more you edit out the people that made it the way it was, the less you are simulating WW2. Grand Strategy without the annoying human element, is really a lot of work, for no real gain.

Most of the reasons Hitler lost the war, in spite of what seems like the oft cited obvious ones, was mostly as a result of the oft not cited little reasons that actually counted. Ok he had to attack Russia, might as well just accept it guys. it was inevitable. Communism was not going to be a buddy to Facism any more than it was after the war to capitalism eh. But when Hitler attacked Russia, his ideology shot him in the foot. All those Ukyranians that might have let him in as a liberator, even if it would have been a short lived scam, sure would have made a difference. Not everyone inside Russia's borders, were there willingly eh. And remember, there were a lot of Baltic peoples that didn't join Russia, they were "absorbed" by Russia. Then there is the war in the Mediteranean. If it had been the last use of German and Italian Paratroops taking out Malta, would it have mattered? Malta was likely the last straw in the Axis attampt to take North Africa. Of course, it would have helped if Hitler had at least really given a damn about North Africa. That Rommel got famous in North Africa was Rommel's doing, not Hitler's eh. If the man had not been a genuis, the war in North Africa likely would have fizzled 2 years earlier than it did. So just not really caring about North Africa doomed the whole Mediteranean theatre in time. Then there was the notion it would not last. Hitler went into the war with the idea it would soon be over. If he had geared his nation for total war in 39, it is likely he would not have been constantly over matched by 42. He made some awesome tanks, but then took them too far. He made the jet fighter, but couldn't accept it was a lousy bomber. He never did make a heavy bomber. His navy was never intended to do anything better than harrass, it was never set up to actually fight. He could have done more with just subs, than subs and pointless surface weapons. So in the end, I don't think it was the big flashy looking decisions, it was the minor ones that really did him in.

Yeah that's basically them. There are more of course, but the game used those, and I think it really added something to the game.

The best example of a modded game I have ever seen was Civilization II Test of Time. On one game, you got original, extended, scifi, and fantasy versions. In all cases, it was the exact same units, they merely had different shirts on hehe. Now that is fine for whimsical, but it won't accomplish anything for exporting the game to a totally specific sub setting. Which is why SC2 will likely be just fine for making a scifi/fantasy variant, as it won't matter what your units are called, or any of all that, if they never really existed. But I am skeptical that a game carefully crafted for a specific period of time, for a specific region, can just have new icons and map, and presto hey its now the Pacific, or Presto its now a scaled up version of the desert. But I have seen a few games out there, where it was plenty clear even the original designer hadn't a single clue what he was doing, let alone any of his games rabid fanboy modders So keep in mind you modders, HC was intent on making a game of WW2 era European warfare when he started, and not surprisingly, he wasn't particularly worried if it wasn't perfect for virtually anything eh.