MG TOW

Sure I'll pick this game up. Had lots of fun with TOW. Heck I can see me upgrading just to accomodate this game. But plan to make TOW 3 in the Medriatic. Every one does West front, East front and Africa. The Medriatic battles of Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Sicily, Crete never get coverage.

I think you have a problem with the way the missions are cooked up moreso than the tactical side of things. Some missions are scripted tight and don't leave much positioning for the player. The units are very well balanced. Yes AT guns are like glass but they can kill with a high rate of fire just as easily if put in the right place. Infantry are given AT grenades that work a little better in the game than real life, for game balance I spose. True it does take too many clicks to pick up weapons and ammo.

Not really. Maybe medics don't fit into this kind of game (even so I think they could in some way) but afaik they were in use during development until they decided to changed ToW from a more arcade like game into a tactical simulatin. So it's no eye candy to recognize the HQ squad but remains from development they didn't remove (removing would've been better). </font>

Not really. The game is supposed to be a tactical simulation. Taking care of casualties on the battlefield would not affect the outcome anyways. The medic skin is a bit of eye candy that helps ppl recognize the HQ squad. He operates a weapon like anyone else.

Once you get that script to work you have to think of things that may go wrong with it and perhaps another short trigger for just in case. For example if the car towing the pak suddenly gets disabled before it reaches the target rect by some stray 20mm you might want to run the Reserv trigger right then. If other ppl play your scenario they might not lead into your scripting. So have a dynamic rect drawn around the car, and do a loop GetNunitsinArea again and if the number of functioning cars (or armored_Car) is Less Than 1 then runtrigger reserve. </font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Label checktruck CreateRectByObject ( RECT , "Towtruck" , 100 , UNIT , 419 , Car , 2 ) Delay ( 2000 ) Set @Truck = GetNUnitsInArea ( ARMY , 1 , Car , "Towtruck" , Not_Empty , OK_Engine ) If @Truck < 1 Then RunTrigger ( "Reserv" ) ELSE GOTO checktruck ENDIF HALT </pre>

Try a GetNunitsInArea loop in your Rect_1. Since you know the pak is your unit to act on have it count paks in the rect. When the number of paks are greater than 0 or 1 etc then goto your unlimbering routine. This will work unless there is already an "artillery" in rect_1, but you could also count for the amored car with both a set @nuGECar = etc. then it would be an IF pak and/or car is greater than 0 etc etc.... oh, and never forget ENDIF, at the end. use the compile button. </font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Label Gunforce Set @numGEGuns = GetNUnitsInArea ( ARMY , 1 , Artillery , "Rect_1" ) IF @numGEGuns > 0 THEN Delay ( 2000 ) Runtrigger ( Reserv ) ELSE GOTO Gunforce ENDIF HALT </pre>

If the AI is defending you are going to know where you positioned the units. Thats a problem. 2 other shortfalls in the game as mentioned are non-enterable buildings,and No unbuttoning of tanks. Incidently I never found micro managing too much problem in the game. Your squads can be controlled as one unit for movement and formation as you liklely noticed in the demo.

I played panzer Command and its a fine game also in its own right. But my preferrence is TOW. I find the turn phases in PC a little disjointed for my taste. And I don't like the abstract infantry. But in PC infantry can occupy buildings. In Tow everything is in motion. No abstraction. They are actually really different Games and not comparable. They only look the same in a picture and there the similarity ends. below is a screenie of the battle generator. You have to step through a handful of screens. First you select the map, map size, deploy area, who attacks/defends NEXT, then you select the players and the units, NEXT then select the offmap support, weather etc. Its NOT clunky at all, quite logical, but it is utility-like. The homemade battles come out pretty good. [ March 16, 2008, 11:35 AM: Message edited by: gundolf ]

Very true. Butt shots in the fuel tanks give a very satisying effect.

I always always said the Soldiers Heroes of ww2 or Faces of war engine (same engine) would have worked for TOW. And the graphics are beauty thats why I played those games amazing terrain detail. But if its anything like its 2 predecessors it will focus on individual soldiers that are enourmously outnumbered performing scripted commando missions in RT. Even though squads and formations can be controlled it is still too scripted I bet.

Ive read a few threads where people mention tank crews did not carry on combat. I came across accounts where they did. A documentry on kursk recently, the tanker stated they carried satchel charges in the tank for such a thing. Which seemed a little odd but. This guy actually abandoned his disabled tank with his crew and then crippled a russian tank. And dont forget adding marders [ March 13, 2008, 04:53 PM: Message edited by: gundolf ]

I think there are different algorithms for different tanks. For some reasons panthers always flame out slowly. I had a panther showing a damaged engine compartment and a minute later poof a little flame came out while the tank was still operating. Then it built in intensity and the crew bailed one at a time. Pretty cool but only on the panther from what I seen.

New Maps for the battle generator. The game lives on!!!

is there a table or spreadsheet listing units. Can this be added to? I would like to add reskinned French tanks to the German OOB if possible.

Oops wrong thread [ March 04, 2008, 08:24 PM: Message edited by: gundolf ]

This is gonna take a whole other layer of AI. A Strategic AI moving Kampf gruppen around a chess board. Then resolving the battle zoomed in the 3D battlefield. I think this should be developed. Was not CM about to go this route? In the mean time Gnashers linked battlefield might be the quick ticket.

In response. We are only complaining because we give a damn. There are more efficient ways of doing things. Nothing to do with laziness moreso with tedium. Overcomplaining will kill a game and we don't want to see that happen. But good ideas should be gleamed from these posts.

Scrounging should be automatic. When it comes to the add-on or TOW-TWO .less micro managing.

sheesh, skinning these 256 tga files. Only so much one can do. I think I'll leave it to those willing to devote alot of time to it. Really it takes alot of mapping to mark the stretching of the skins. Below is a Gebirgs I was working on. Trying to turn boots to putties. I suppose at a distance not so bad, and after a few beers, well hey I'm a Van Gough in a bar at closing time. Not.

Agree with above -dont get me wrong i really like this game but there are better engines and graphics out there. This was a flight sim engine. Faces of War yes a role playing game could be adapted into this scale of strategy war game much better. absolutlely Beauty graphics, handles large number of troops in the hundreds, tanks and squads, enterable buildings - and its 1C company as well? Never understood why 1C didnt use the Faces engine and modify it for TOW.

Disagree about awards and names. I like following tank crews or soldiers through a campaign. Its a great way of tracking attrition. Reminds me of close combat III when my ace panzer IIIj made it all the way to Berlin. I cried when it got popped by an su-76. A very sad day. Yeah trees are over the top, not realistic, funny watching a bren carrier knock over an oak. Likely to compensate for weak pathing perhaps. Be great if they had a realistic tank behaviour option, tanks go around trees, get stuck off road etc. But be able to switch that off in a menu as it may pee people off.

Interesting comments. I would like to add my 2 centabos. Speaking as somebody who plays alot of squadie games such as jagged alliance, Xcom etc I felt at home with the management system of the infantry, BUT to micro manage a whole platoon or company this way is like herding cats. Some things need to happen automatically to help the play managing: Squad weapons ie LMG, bazooka, Boyz ATrifle, all have an assistant carrying ammo, this guy should automatically transfer ammo, stayclose to the weapon, and automatically take the weapon up if the primary is killed. Soldiers should scrounge weapons automatically as well. I hate the system for exchanging ammo and weapons, its great to be able to do this, but its implemented like a role playing game. Time consuming. Lastly be careful what you wish for. Remember Squad Assault? It prided itself on a squad morale factor, then everyone complained they could not control their soldiers when they were pinned down or wounded. Also soldiers were never going to where the player wanted them to as they looked for the best cover instead. Atleast we have control here. Maybe a little too much control. And do NOT abstractly represent infantry that is wrong. That is biggest thing I hate about the CM series or Panzer command.

This game has a lot of potential for dealing with infantry. Better than any other game. The old CM was crap in comparison for infantry. Abstract representaion of 3 fisher price stickmen representing a squad of 12? Garbage, anybody can avoid the issues by using that approach. TOW is a step forward from the OLD CM for infantry. It just needs to go further in terms of individual unit AI and customization.

Yawn...

If you stuck around long enough for the 1.83 patch for SquadAsault, the buildings took an abstract approach. The coded void sections obviously did not work as correctly stated, one could never get the MG guy in the right void. So in 1.83 everyone in the building had LOS, but also had the defensive value of a building. So buildings became fox holes or same as trenches in a way. This would work well too in TOW, single level buldings could be impassable trenches. That would work for me.