MorgTzu

Yeh...you could say, "see ya on the TW forums" I'll tell ya what I did to relieve my "grand" strat fever so everyone can have a good laugh. I don't like HOI, or Matrix' version...and I tried the demo for Battlefront's and it was ok, probably captured the ww2 "feel" the best, even in it's simplicity. But none of them did it for me. I wanted a real thinking game that involved it all. Sooooo... I pulled out my dusty copy of Civ3 (Laugghgh scoffers mit conquest expansion and fired up the ww2 Europe, SFB (small, fast, beautiful) mod and tried to survive as Spain on emperor level. Damn fine mod with all custom units and a good historical "feel" to it. As silly as it is, civ3 has so much more depth and dynamic options to it than any of the so-called ww2 grand strat games. I could write a 6 page AAR because it realy was an engrossing game that lasted months with sometimes only 1 or 2 turns played over a 2 hour stretch as I just sat and thought of my plan for the next 10 turns and investigated all the diplomatic dynamics involved. And yup, a dynamic grand campaign would be much nicer for TOW than what I see coming, but I'll still get it and probably like it

Moon, you got a link to Eric Young's post...search didn't bring up much. Would very much like to see that as I got involved with trying to support the EYSA community and had high hopes it would become something more. Oh, and your right..this game "type" has been undead and returning since CC1

Yes...a white Zinfandel would be nice about now...this is after all a hobby (forum watching, not game playing..that's oh so much more serious). But you know real life is still just a wee bit more interesting, maybe not as funny, but more...u know, life-like. And yes, I got wasted at least a dozen times trying to keep my "guys" alive on M1.

You have got to be kidding..what hole did this spam crawl out of. Beware the thought police.."all your homo-flaming are belongs to us", give me a friggin break.

"all your buildings are belong to us." - thanks, Hofbauer...i needed that one. In fact that almost made my day. It's inspiring because we as the community have the oppurtunity at the beginning of the feed back cycle to not only provide crits, suggestions, and stark raving, but to also keep the whole thing "light" enough that the devs and admins don't get burnt and fed up...moral on both sides is everyhting. Just look at the "funny" video that 1c put out..that was classic and shows that these guys can be fun to have a community with.

The devs do seem pretty familiar with the CC aproach that you are talking about and it was my first thought as well on day one when this was one of the first "hot button" topics...another dynamic though is what happens with opposing squads fighting inside a house. Since no CQB is modeled, how do they represent room to room fighting, I don't think as a quality issue that they want to abstract too much as it wouldn't mesh very well with the rest of the game. It is a bigger issue than just graphics, but I do agree that your ideas and the CC model are a darn good place to start. I also agree with some of the comments about real life, I was in operation Just Cause(Invasion of Panama as labeled by the talking heads) as an Airborne Sapper. There is no greater fear for an experienced grunt than having to go into an occupied house and clear rooms, on the other hand, there is great comfort if you know the enemy has no armor to make a strong position out of a solid building, but woods and other cover still feel more comfortable in rural or open terrain.

So...just to verify, like the action shown in the AAR, we are talking about company(-) or reinforced platoons (also known as sections) as the largest element on each side.

No on map mortars has been reported by the devs.

Excellent AAR... the mutiple waves of reinforcements should keep things very interesting, especially in larger battles. The AI seemed pretty competant except for sending tanks forward in ones and twos with no infantry support. I add my voice to the "mo' infantry" chorus to be implemented on the 1.0. As those who have ever been in the mech know, tankers get realy hestitant to advance without their grunts after they loose a few... and from much info, it's been that way since ww2. The flow of things felt realy good though, I would have probably taken well over an hour to finish that engagement, I like to probe, draw out and use extreme flanks. Overall...almost as good as having the demo ;-> for highlighting the game play.

I played almost 8 hours straight with my ol' Army buddy the other day on CC2...same thing, very tense battles, poor village changed hands a dozen times. In CC4, if I had a squad or crew that survived 2 battles and gained experience, I would rename them something cool like "Sturm Team" or "Renegades", I would take care of my heroes, almost made it like a tactical RPG.

The more posts I read from Megakill, the more I like him...you restore my confidence in 1C some, as long as that difference between TOW and FOW stays realy, realy big, I look forward to the future of what has been started here. Just to confirm, are these the options for infantry to disable a tank: Piat, Bazooka, etc. ; "heavy" grenade ; land mine ; man an anti-tank gun ?

Megakill: "Hope you guys won't be disapppointed. I was inspired by CC when making the initial design of ToW. ;)" It shows and it makes this ol' fogey very happy...and I second what was said above about the strategic (campaign) map, makes any game of this type twice as marketable

Yep...as much as some hated CC4, I spent many fun hours on the campaign, in fact, some times I longed for an autoresolve that worked because I enjoyed the campaign but didn't care for having to fight on the same maps over and over. But, to your point...there are very few Real time strats that utilize non-linear campaign. I think of RTW and all the total war series campaigns and how much they added and boosted the game. Realy for replayability, there is no single better way than dynamic campaign or as you mentioned, a wide assortment of mutiplayer options.

From Graf York: "Recon by air?" A very good idea, I mentioned it in another post and I think I saw it one other place. This would add a cool dynamic not included in any other game like this that I know of...hint, hint. It seems there was quite a bit of this done, especially by the allies later in the war.

Yep...I'm a CC fan, and as much as I liked CM, nothing will ever replace the multi and single player tactical feel of CC. That said, I will buy TOW, even if it was released today, because it's clearly the next step in what I and evidently a lot of more serious gamers have benn waiting for. I'm not going to be fanboy..but as a long time lurker above I will say that there are extremely few places where devs and company reps get this ivolved with their community, and I for one support them and their record of trying hard to put wanted features in their games given enough time. Me, I'm looking forward to Christmas with TOW this year.

I mentioned it in another thread, but it would not be that hard to enable name change from in game...(you could rename teams in cc4,cc5) then you could name anyone anything you like, which would just add another "little thing" to help set TOW apart.

Thanks Martin, you guys are realy working overtime staying on top of the forum...depending on how things shake out over the weekend, maybe I will try to summarize some of the other forum "wishlist" items on page 1...kinda premature to call it suggestions :->

Thanks Matt, look forward to it...I was trying to think of things not so much in a question format as some of them have already been asked..but you know as forums evolve, people can skim a wishlist first and see if their suggestion / idea has already been discused without starting topic no.425 on "omg...givve me the builingzzz now, lolzers"

Thanks Michael, people that know me from some of the other 'grog' type forums know I don't post much...but now that Battlefront is in on ww2rts.. I admit, i'm a wee bit excited and judging from new topics being started every few minutes, others are as well. The RPG elements in TOW being subtle yet apparently well implemented might even allow close combat to scoot over on the hard drive for a while.

Long-time lurker, first-time poster, and late 30 something Grog. I have spent a lot of time posting and reading especially "indie" level gaming forums over the last several years and it is a great testament to the future of TOW that it's not only getting the traffic level but quick and active responses from devs, admins, and mods...I am finally beginning to have hope again for an enjoyable non-kiddie game. 1. Maybe someone else could sticky a new topic in the near future "Things we do know" - things that aren't covered on the features page. It could serve as an unofficial faq for newcomers so that there isn't quite the spam level 2. I and many others have been waiting since close combat for the torch to be picked up. After the half-hearted attempt that was EYSA (and I like Eric), there are several lessons learned from that experience that I would like to add to a wishlist for TOW: 3. It is a fairly simple thing, so I'll list this first, allow units to be renamed. CC4 did it and although your strucure is different i'm sure, not that hard to do. It's just that one little thing that makes it more personable and immersive. That tank team that has been with you through several battles and held the line with near heroic moral now becomes "Sturm Team" or some such. 4. I love the large maps and have already seen comments on other forums about them. But there is something missing that makes them feel a little "park" like. Little foilage. This is based only on the older screenshots, but even static grass or a few more bushes in the woods for infantry concealment would be great. And I won't mention infantry in buildings (even in an abstract way) because other folks have and will again and again. 5. Combat mission and a few other almost cult followed games have developed avid modders. Please, in the name of schwerpunkt, make this game as moddable as you possibly can, even if it is done after bugs are quashed..an editor and lol, even a map editor would sweeten your pot, because this is what the niche market you have here (and the devs know this better than anybody) gobble up , want, and neeeeed. 6. One more and I'm done for now, I have read almost every biography available on Rommel and one thing that stood out when I was looking at your camera-follow-aircraft shots was how great it would be to utilize aircraft for real time recon in the way that the Desert Fox and others were able to. Nuff for now. :cool: