BlackAlpha

Battle Academy also has that before the mission starts. You pick which units you are going to use using "money". Wargame has a gamemode where you don't have to manage "resources" (the income from capturing territory). That's what I meant with one of my previous posts. Something like Battle Academy gets classed as a wargame while the Wargame series is not. Is Battle Academy only a wargame because it's turn based? Because it's quite arcade, very simplistic and fast paced. The Wargame series is a lot more complex, more realistic, but it's real time and so it doesn't qualify in your eyes? It then gets thrown on the RTS pile instead, which seems unfair. I meant queuing up different kind of movement orders (like fast move followed by assault) or go somewhere, blow up a bridge and then go somewhere else, or resupply then move somewhere else. At the moment, in a high electronic warfare environment, you can only give them a single order every 30-45 minutes or so, which is a bit lame. Especially if you need them to first move 1 hex, so they move 1 hex and then they sit there for at least 30 minutes doing nothing. It's quite ridiculous.

I agree. Playing Red Storm is like playing a more realistic version of Wargame. Really liked that game. However, I really, really hate the fact you can't queue up orders in that game. It makes a lot of the missions with high electronic warfare interference impossible to play in a realistic manner. The devs said they will add that feature early this year or so. So, I'm waiting until they add it before I'm picking that game up again. A hex in that game is 500 meters. So the maps are much larger than just 4 times a CM map. There's long range artillery on the map, that's how large they are. Oh and on topic - I also picked it up on Steam.

Wait before getting Rome 2 and see first how the new Attila game is like, it's coming out in a month or so. Most of Rome 2's bugs are fixed by now but Attila might be better because Creative Assembly always releases a crappy/buggy game using a new engine and then they re-use the engine to create a good (working) game.

I know what you mean. I mostly play with friends against AI for that reason, less pressure that way. If playing PvP, I always play with someone I know, so that we can divide the map among us, sort of like dividing the workload and we communicate a lot (call out contacts, coordinate attacks, and such) which helps a lot. The reason the graphics look fancy is because sometimes you need to zoom in to check the terrain or the line of sight. Other than that, you spend your time zoomed out because you then can see more. Pretty much like in Combat Mission. The fancy graphics also help to lure in people who otherwise would've never tried the game. When Red Dragon was released, you should've seen the amount of topics that went like: "I want a refund because when I looked at the screenshots I thought this was like Battlefield!" I'm not kidding, that actually happened frequently! There are replays after the mission is over. In singleplayer you can slow down time up to slow motion (1 in game second takes 30 real life seconds). Not sure if there's a pause button, never tried. There's no editor.

Or maybe it's a Wargame on the opposite end of the realism spectrum? As in, it's a not so super realistic wargame but still a wargame? I think that who you advertise for does not necessarily dictate what sort of game you got. Look at Arma for example. They got a pretty hardcore military FPS simulator that is excellent for communities who play coop in a realistic fashion and it's a game that doesn't follow the usual FPS game rules. Yet, the devs advertised it for the mainstream FPS crowd and were very successful (at the moment, they are still 12th on the top sellers list on Steam and have been pretty high up like that for a long time, when the game released they were in the top 5 for a long time), and they advertised the crap out of it. I guess they received a lot of new fans that way. But I still wouldn't call it a regular FPS game that appeals to the mainstream. It's not another Battlefield, many people who enjoy Battlefield hate Arma. No matter who it is advertised for, it's still very much a hardcore military simulator, with mods that make it so you have to eat MREs every few hours, which tells you something about the community that plays the game.

I'm a bit surprised that there are not more people here who have played the game. I've been thinking about whether the Wargame series qualifies as a wargame and I've been comparing it to other wargames. So, it's a military, fairly large scale tactical game, that is modeled after real life, has semi-realistic game features and is abstracted quite a bit. Isn't that what many wargames are? In fact, most wargames are abstracted much more, up to the point that they don't really resemble real life as accurately, yet we still call them wargames. So, why not call the Wargame series a wargame? Here's a video of the Red Dragon. Compared to European Escalation, its gameplay pacing has been increased a bit but it has also received quite a few new game mechanics that have made the game more complex, so maybe it's better if you take a look at that game instead. The video has commentary so that people who've never played the game can get somewhat of an understanding of what is going on. Watch it entirely and see what you think: Note that it's all about unit positioning and getting the right covering angles. The game mechanics are fairly complex and you might not notice the majority of them by watching the video, but I can assure you that a lot of real life logic applies to the gameplay in that game. It's still more arcade than Combat Mission, but it's very, very far from being a Command & Conquer clone.

It's basically a faster paced version of Combat Mission. So, if that's the sort of thing you think you would enjoy, it's worth checking it out (I'd recommend the latest version, Red Dragon). Personally, I had a lot of fun playing it with friends in multiplayer (against AI and other people). I wouldn't recommend it for singleplayer. Comparing the Wargame series to C&C, ouch... That's below the belt. No, I wouldn't say that. Imagine speeding up Combat Mission by times 5, making infantry more abstract, and playing on much larger maps. That's what the Wargame series is like.

It's called RTS to appeal to a wider audience, but it's too complex for the majority of people - it's not a mainstream RTS. I'd still fit it in the wargame category. At the very least, it has as much right to be called a Wargame as the majority of beer and pretzel wargames, but it's still more complex than said wargames.

That's your loss. It has over a thousand reviews on Steam with a rating over 80%, that makes it a pretty big success. No Call of Duty level of success, obviously, but still it used to be pretty popular. No idea how many copies they sold, but since then they created 2 more games in the series and I'm fairly sure they got a lot more people on the payroll than Battlefront does. To be fair, though. The second and third game in that series were a lot more arcade (but not less complex) and hence even more successful. So that number is not entirely accurate if we are talking strictly about the more hardcore European Escalation.

With "more" I didn't mean you have to make more money with Steam than you currently do. I meant, you have to make some sort of profit, and then you can still decide to cancel the Steam project. It's not like you have to abandon everything you currently have and go exclusively for Steam. And it's also not like you have to forever use Steam. Steam is not some kind of high risk project since you already have a way to get income that will work just fine in tandem with Steam for at least a few years if you do decide to try out Steam. In everything you said (including from a few other threads), I don't see how a Steam release will compromise the infrastructure and it's income on Battlefront.com. Edit: One of the many things you can do is for example, you can up the price on Steam, link to your own website and tell people they can get it there cheaper.

You don't have to go mainstream. You just have to make more money out of it.

Steam can't be compared to Apple, Google or Amazon. Apples and oranges. It's a very bad comparison. That's 22 years without any Steam experience. What about the people who do have Steam experience? Many game developers said that, on the PC, they can't become successful without being on Steam. Quite a few niche game publishers went to Steam and have been quite active there for quite a while now. Why do you think that is? Because these days, that's where virtually the entire PC game market is at - from casual gamers to hardcore wargamers who play niche games. Doing what you are doing now also hurts your chances to stay in business. You are now that guy who is telling others to stay retail and not innovate. The difference is, 15 or so years ago, you were the innovator, but now, you are the laggard, who is still clinging to the old, supposedly safe ways, and being so sure that he made the right choice to stay retail.

Snarky comments can still contribute to something productive in a discussion (it's a valid way of doing an argument and some people only know how to argue in that manner, so you need to excuse them). On the other hand, trying to shut down a discussion (for everyone) is counter productive. To clarify, with the rude comments remark I made to your reply, I really meant other people who went a bit overboard, not you. It's not just that, though. People can have different kind of goals. For example, they might be trying to change not the opinion of the person they are arguing with, but instead, trying to change the opinion of an outsider (somebody who is listening), like other people on this forum who are reading this discussion or the developers, which then can lead to a variety of different things happening.

No, you are allowed to say that you don't want this game to end up on Steam, like you did. The thing that you shouldn't do, is tell people to stop discussing it because you grew tired of the discussion. That is just very rude. Or like some other people did, blatantly insult people who share a different opinion than yours. That is extremely rude.

Nobody is forcing you to post in this thread. People don't go around other topics, yelling at others, insulting them, just because they don't feel like discussing the topic at hand. These sort of topics are good feedback for developers/publishers, so just let people post their comments in peace. Communication between the seller and consumer is very important. Besides, these sort of topics are not aimed at you, so whether you got bored of discussing the topic at hand is irrelevant. Even if the developer got bored of discussing it is irrelevant too because people will still give their feedback on what they want (or don't want) to see. tldr; don't post if you have no interest in the topic at hand.

Maybe that says two things: 1. People keep posting about it over and over because they might be on to something. 2. Or more importantly, people want a Steam release and are letting the developers know what their wishes are. You have to keep up with the times and the developers are not doing it, and so people keep reminding the developers what they want the developers to do. This isn't just about what Battlefront wants. This is also about what we and other potential customers want. Our wishes are just as important.

I think there are loads of scenarios that don't go nuclear. Use your imagination, man! Also, plenty of games have thought up plausible non-nuclear cold war scenarios.

Well, the topic is still about tanks, not IFVs. If you think IFVs will disappear, then that's a whole different discussion (and much harder to argue for).

That's not a tank, though.

My feedback. I don't have any real problems with the white background, but I think it just looks boring.

I don't think tanks will be used to take out drones. I imagine something like this will be used instead: Except, they'll probably use a laser instead, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StC9nRB_AVY And eventually (probably once the fusion reactors take off in 20 or so years), we'll get self propelled anti drone lasers. They could also put a bunch of missiles on top of it to make it a universal anti air platform (think Tunguska but with lasers!). Maybe, and that's a big maybe, in about 50 years the (small) reactors (for front line duty self propelled platforms) will be powerful enough to take out something like a jet or light vehicles. This is all hypothetical of course, we'll see... But the laser to take out drones already exists (that second video). I imagine you could deploy it to the front line if you really need it to. By the way, China said they also have a similar laser but I haven't actually seen it, so I'm not sure if it's something as small as in that video or if it's mounted on a ship. I imagine Russia has one probably as well. Just remember that by the time we get to self propelled combat lasers, there will have been technologies (protection systems) deployed to counter it (somewhat), think special coating on armors and such. So, there's also the question of how useful combat lasers really will be. But I guess for drones lasers should work just fine because drones will either be small and vulnerable to lasers or big and vulnerable to traditional anti air weaponry. Also, I guess it's a pretty horrible way to die, slowly getting burned alive but not completely dying (if the enemy does it right). So, maybe the UN will try to limit the use of combat lasers, which might mean it might not be allowed to use lasers against things other than aircraft, and then maybe drones only. But that's just another wild guess, we'll see how people will react to lasers once we actually start using them a lot.

You misunderstood. The point is that the agreement is rather vague and it's up for debate when it applies and to what. So don't be surprised when people/countries question Afghanistan and Iraq, they are within their rights to do so.

Well, The Netherlands went to Afghanistan and Iraq, right? But why did we go to Iraq? "...if such an armed attack occurs, each of them...will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith...such action as it deems necessary...to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area." NATO Article 5 - http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm It's pretty vague and can be debated on what it means and what it should apply to.

Yes, I agree. HOWEVER. We are now talking about fiction, speculating about what may or may not happen. We can then also speculate in favor of the tank. We could say, for instance, that APS systems will evolve into a perfect system that can take out any number of missiles fired at it. Or if we go into the sci-fi territory of lasers being used against tanks, which would require a tremendously advanced power source, then we can argue that same sort of technology can be used to create a power shield around the tank that can block all incoming projectiles, making the tank completely invulnerable. More realistically, something that is actually based on what is currently happening in real life, we could argue that in the future infantry won't be used for front line fighting anymore because people hate to die. They'll use humanoid robots instead. And in that world, the tank will still exist because you'll still need a highly mobile, heavily armored vehicle that is armed to the teeth. Even if the heavy tanks die off due to their protection being unable to keep up with the anti tank weapons, the lighter tanks will continue to exist (similar to what happened during the cold war at some point) because a tank is just very convenient and can do things that nothing else can.

I think we can. To put it bluntly, Steam can't be any worse than hoping people will stumble upon your obscure website and will hopefully buy overpriced games. No disrespect intended to them. I think there's a good reason why Slitherine is now pushing to release their games on Steam.